Is It Okay If I Eat Meat?
This has happened to every vegan on the planet: you make plans to eat with a nonvegan friend who loves you and cares about you, and in an effort to be considerate of you s/he asks, "is it okay if I eat meat [in your presence]?"
Today I had to explain to a friend I love and admire why asking this question is worse than not asking at all, and later posted something about this on Facebook. I had an interesting discussion/argument with several meat-eating friends, which helped me solidify and shape my thinking about this. Here's an effort at an explanation.
First, the actual answer: No, it is not okay to eat meat. Whether the meat is eaten in my presence or not is beside the point. Animals are exploited, tortured, and slaughtered regardless of the outcome of this horrific process is made explicit in my presence. The whole question is misguided: it is not that it is wrong for you to eat meat when you are with me. It is wrong for everyone to eat meat, no matter who they are with.
When a friend asks my permission to eat meat in my presence, the question belies an assumption that my issue with meat is aesthetic: that somehow it is fine to eat meat when I'm not around, and if meat is not consumed it is out of consideration for my feelings. My feelings are not the point. The right of animals to live free of suffering, torture, and fear, is the point. Asking this question makes it about me and my fee-fees, not about the animals, and dresses up my refusal to participate in a moral atrocity as a personal taste or fad.
When a friend asks my permission to eat meat in my presence, they essentially want my tacit approval for behavior that I find morally problematic: not only do I want to engage in behavior that you think is wrong, I want you to be okay with that. Acceding to this request makes me complicit in your choice to eat meat; my approval kosherizes it.
When a friend asks my permission to eat meat in my presence, they are polluting our loving and respectful friendship with the prospect of hypocrisy and lies. When I'm asked I sometimes reply (with a smile), "do you want me to tell you the truth, or to lie for the sake of social nicety?" Friends who think that it is judgmental to have an opinion about their food misunderstand my objections to eating animal products. There are very few things in the world in which there really is right and wrong, rather than room to disagree. Slavery, torture, and exploitation are some of these things, and the issue of animal consumption goes to the heart of them.
A friend who wants me to say "sure, do whatever you like," is asking me to degrade our friendship by treating him/her like a child; to behave in an untruthful way implies that our friendship is so fragile that my friend can't risk my disapproval of his or her choices. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of veganism is being in daily contact with many people who are kind, loving, considerate, gracious, and helpful elsewhere in their life, and yet on this fundamental horror they are morally asleep. It is frustrating because I know from experience that it's hard to wake people up to the horrifying realities of the animal industry. I know because I was similarly asleep for a long time, and one of my big life regrets is that it took me so long to put my diet and my values in complete sync with each other. I can't force a friend to come around. But I can accept and love another human while fundamentally disagreeing with his or her choices.
Imagine, if you will, that the year is 1849 and we both live in the South. I am a slave owner and you are an abolitionist. I invite you over to dinner and, because I know you are opposed to slavery and care about you, I say: "I know you'd rather not be served by slaves. Would you be okay with my slaves serving me at the table?" What are you supposed to reply to that? Try these responses on for size:
"Sure, it's your home. I don't tell you what to do at your home and you don't tell me what to do in mine."
"Of course it's fine. Thank you for being so considerate of my feelings."
"To each their own."
None of these quite fit the bill, right? I am still owning other people and forcing them to work for me without pay, whether or not they serve your mint julep on the porch. It is still not okay that I am doing that, even though it's at my home. You are degrading our friendship and treating me as a child by not sharing your truth with me. You are placed in a situation in which you have to express approval of an atrocity you abhor for the sake of maintaining a shell of a friendship.
What is one to do, then?
The right thing is to educate oneself on the miseries of the animal industry: start here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And then come around to the right side of this issue, which might be out of the mainstream American cultural norm but is growing.
If you want to remain morally asleep, at least own that decision, rather than dumping it on your vegan friends by soliciting their tacit approval for your behavior.
And most importantly, let's stay in conversation. It's the only way tikkun olam is made.
Today I had to explain to a friend I love and admire why asking this question is worse than not asking at all, and later posted something about this on Facebook. I had an interesting discussion/argument with several meat-eating friends, which helped me solidify and shape my thinking about this. Here's an effort at an explanation.
First, the actual answer: No, it is not okay to eat meat. Whether the meat is eaten in my presence or not is beside the point. Animals are exploited, tortured, and slaughtered regardless of the outcome of this horrific process is made explicit in my presence. The whole question is misguided: it is not that it is wrong for you to eat meat when you are with me. It is wrong for everyone to eat meat, no matter who they are with.
When a friend asks my permission to eat meat in my presence, the question belies an assumption that my issue with meat is aesthetic: that somehow it is fine to eat meat when I'm not around, and if meat is not consumed it is out of consideration for my feelings. My feelings are not the point. The right of animals to live free of suffering, torture, and fear, is the point. Asking this question makes it about me and my fee-fees, not about the animals, and dresses up my refusal to participate in a moral atrocity as a personal taste or fad.
When a friend asks my permission to eat meat in my presence, they essentially want my tacit approval for behavior that I find morally problematic: not only do I want to engage in behavior that you think is wrong, I want you to be okay with that. Acceding to this request makes me complicit in your choice to eat meat; my approval kosherizes it.
When a friend asks my permission to eat meat in my presence, they are polluting our loving and respectful friendship with the prospect of hypocrisy and lies. When I'm asked I sometimes reply (with a smile), "do you want me to tell you the truth, or to lie for the sake of social nicety?" Friends who think that it is judgmental to have an opinion about their food misunderstand my objections to eating animal products. There are very few things in the world in which there really is right and wrong, rather than room to disagree. Slavery, torture, and exploitation are some of these things, and the issue of animal consumption goes to the heart of them.
A friend who wants me to say "sure, do whatever you like," is asking me to degrade our friendship by treating him/her like a child; to behave in an untruthful way implies that our friendship is so fragile that my friend can't risk my disapproval of his or her choices. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of veganism is being in daily contact with many people who are kind, loving, considerate, gracious, and helpful elsewhere in their life, and yet on this fundamental horror they are morally asleep. It is frustrating because I know from experience that it's hard to wake people up to the horrifying realities of the animal industry. I know because I was similarly asleep for a long time, and one of my big life regrets is that it took me so long to put my diet and my values in complete sync with each other. I can't force a friend to come around. But I can accept and love another human while fundamentally disagreeing with his or her choices.
Imagine, if you will, that the year is 1849 and we both live in the South. I am a slave owner and you are an abolitionist. I invite you over to dinner and, because I know you are opposed to slavery and care about you, I say: "I know you'd rather not be served by slaves. Would you be okay with my slaves serving me at the table?" What are you supposed to reply to that? Try these responses on for size:
"Sure, it's your home. I don't tell you what to do at your home and you don't tell me what to do in mine."
"Of course it's fine. Thank you for being so considerate of my feelings."
"To each their own."
None of these quite fit the bill, right? I am still owning other people and forcing them to work for me without pay, whether or not they serve your mint julep on the porch. It is still not okay that I am doing that, even though it's at my home. You are degrading our friendship and treating me as a child by not sharing your truth with me. You are placed in a situation in which you have to express approval of an atrocity you abhor for the sake of maintaining a shell of a friendship.
What is one to do, then?
The right thing is to educate oneself on the miseries of the animal industry: start here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And then come around to the right side of this issue, which might be out of the mainstream American cultural norm but is growing.
If you want to remain morally asleep, at least own that decision, rather than dumping it on your vegan friends by soliciting their tacit approval for your behavior.
And most importantly, let's stay in conversation. It's the only way tikkun olam is made.
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