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TechnographVegetarianism: Making the case against waste
By Jon Monteith
Posted: 3/12/07 Section: Opinion Columns
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Last week, fellow columnist Lally Gartel explained why she doesn't lose any sleep over her consumption of meat - and why you needn't, either. According to her, humans have no moral obligation to avoid the slaughter of animals, provided that we do it in what she calls a humane fashion.
I may not be personally convinced by Lally's chest-thumping on behalf of the human race - this chicken isn't advanced enough to discuss Rousseau with me over a cup of coffee, so I clearly have a right to eat it - but I do respect her freedom to deny the existence of an ethical dilemma when it comes to her status as a meat-eater. I'm not particularly surprised to see her arguing this position, just as I wasn't exactly shocked when Lally the smoker managed to find a very persuasive health-based objection to bans on indoor smoking in public places. The ability to rationalize one's habits is an incredibly useful skill.
No matter how definitively she tries to state it, Lally's position on the ethical significance of killing and consuming animals is highly debatable. According to Dr. Joan Sabate, chairman of the Loma Linda Nutrition Conference, "For the average sedentary adult living in a Western society, a vegetarian diet meets dietary needs and prevents chronic diseases better than an omnivore diet."
In a developed nation such as the United States, we are now fully capable of living healthy - and as Dr. Sabate points out, healthier - lives without meat in our diet. I don't think it is all that unreasonable to have a moral objection to the clearly unnecessary slaughter of billions of animals in America, especially when these animals do in fact possess nervous systems that cause them to feel great pain.
If I can do just fine without live chickens getting their beaks ripped off or terrified farm animals being sliced into pieces on an assembly as they fight for their lives because they were not rendered unconscious, then I feel a moral urge not to eat meat. You may not share that ethical discomfort, but surely it is possible to see how it could exist.
I may not be personally convinced by Lally's chest-thumping on behalf of the human race - this chicken isn't advanced enough to discuss Rousseau with me over a cup of coffee, so I clearly have a right to eat it - but I do respect her freedom to deny the existence of an ethical dilemma when it comes to her status as a meat-eater. I'm not particularly surprised to see her arguing this position, just as I wasn't exactly shocked when Lally the smoker managed to find a very persuasive health-based objection to bans on indoor smoking in public places. The ability to rationalize one's habits is an incredibly useful skill.
No matter how definitively she tries to state it, Lally's position on the ethical significance of killing and consuming animals is highly debatable. According to Dr. Joan Sabate, chairman of the Loma Linda Nutrition Conference, "For the average sedentary adult living in a Western society, a vegetarian diet meets dietary needs and prevents chronic diseases better than an omnivore diet."
In a developed nation such as the United States, we are now fully capable of living healthy - and as Dr. Sabate points out, healthier - lives without meat in our diet. I don't think it is all that unreasonable to have a moral objection to the clearly unnecessary slaughter of billions of animals in America, especially when these animals do in fact possess nervous systems that cause them to feel great pain.
If I can do just fine without live chickens getting their beaks ripped off or terrified farm animals being sliced into pieces on an assembly as they fight for their lives because they were not rendered unconscious, then I feel a moral urge not to eat meat. You may not share that ethical discomfort, but surely it is possible to see how it could exist.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 6 of 6
Amused Observer
posted 3/12/07 @ 10:08 AM CST
Typical Monteith article. Picking and choosing before the mountains of contradictory data, not even skilfully, only things that serve his argument, then declaring his fallacious, specious conclusions ethical, responsible etc. (Continued…)
Jon Monteith
posted 3/12/07 @ 11:56 AM CST
Care to elaborate, AO? Crazy me for citing a United Nations report and the American Heart Association!
Why don't you explain what is specious or fallacious about this column? I can't wait to hear it. (Continued…)
Amused Observer
posted 3/12/07 @ 3:06 PM CST
"an ineffective nutjob who whines every time a progressive argument is made" (sic)
Oh. . . that abominable vast right-wing (=nutjob, in Jon Monteith lingo) conspiracy. (Continued…)
Jon Monteith
posted 3/12/07 @ 6:27 PM CST
I never assumed you were a right-winger, just that you are a nutjob. As in, nutty. A lot of crazies of various political persuasions frequent all kinds of online forums. (Continued…)
Linda
posted 3/12/07 @ 8:32 PM CST
Pathetic comeback, Jon. If "coming after you" seemed somewhat nutty to you, your ad hominem response (as from a journalist, not some anonymous forum-poster) seems nutty as hell. (Continued…)
EM
posted 3/12/07 @ 10:39 PM CST
Jon wrote: "....Ten billion animals ARE slaughtered annually in American, and it actually IS unnecessary in a country like the United States...."
It's completely unnecessary, and thus correct that meat-eaters in countries like the U. (Continued…)
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