Rethinking Vegetarianism

While digging through some old backup discs, I stumbled across this essay I wrote as a student. I think it was meant for eventual publication in the student paper, but it looks like I never finished the body of the argument. Regardless, I’m happy with the content and I think it manages to articulate well my views on a subject that remains a source of great concern to me.

Here is the essay, which, according to the file properties, was originally completed on 21 February 2000 at 2:37AM.

Rethinking Vegetarianism
By Matt Forsythe

One ought not discuss sex, politics, and religion in polite company. I suggest we add vegetarianism to the list. It’s just too sensitive a topic for most. And what further frustrates the issue is that it is ritually discussed during a meal. Ironically, the same vegetarianism that was meant to bring peace to someone’s table soon elevates the simple act of eating to the most political and contentious act in the vegetarian’s day.

But let’s get it straight. Let’s think it through. Let’s get it all out now and return to the elusive but sweet quietude that once accompanied the consumption of our daily bread.

Myth: All vegetarians eschew meat for the same reason. Perhaps this is the most pervasive of misconceptions, but it begs to be addressed. There are probably as many reasons for not eating meat as there are vegetarians: health, religion, personal ethics, economics, social status, boyfriend, girlfriend, culinary taste, cultural tradition, and the list continues, ad nauseum.

For me, ovo-lacto vegetarianism was very much an ethical endeavour. It was an attempt to remove my support from agribusiness and animal suffering. I wanted not only to exercise my negative freedoms by boycotting an inherently exploitative and abusive system, but also to exercise my positive freedoms by contributing to a shift in the way we think about our relationship with nature. A successful vegetarianism in my mind would have to satisfy both of these conditions.

As a starting point, like many other vegetarians, I read the bible of the animal protectionist movement, Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation. In supplement, I read countless other essays, treatises, and philosophical explorations of the movement (and, yes, the counter-movement); all the while, trying to find an over-arching philosophy that was personally consistent and authentic. I was neither Jain nor Hindu; I was not suffering from high-cholesterol; I did not dislike the taste of meat (on the contrary, I like my steaks m/r); I simply needed to know if vegetarianism was an effective means to ending our penchant for animal cruelty.

As it turned out, reading Animal Liberation was a good start. What should be known about Singer’s book is that it is not a treatise on animal rights as is the common view. As a utilitarian (see John Stuart Mill, the greatest good for the greatest number, etc.), Singer doesn’t believe in rights for any species - humans included. If an animal can feed a starving community, or if a species of fish carries an enzyme that cures cancer in humans, then get out the axe. He is not a moral absolutist, in this sense. His book makes a strong case for relativism within vegetarianism.

One night last year I received a call from a friend, who had converted to vegetarianism at about the same time as I. “This is ridiculous,” she said, “broiler chickens are suffering a great deal more in their cramped cages than beef-cattle are on their ranches - and yet I eat eggs regularly but I don’t eat beef.” I had to concede her point. The prevailing moral vegetarianism was backwards and, in fact, immoral. Dairy cattle are also a highly abused species; they are pumped full of hormones that increase their milk production and forced into isolated dormancy while the milk is mechanically extracted for 2/3 of their day. So how did my two years of ovo-lacto vegetarianism contribute to a revolution in agribusiness?

It didn’t.

I’ve recently dropped the vegetarian label. And I must say it feels good. I admire and respect the philosophy and it yet informs many of my personal decisions. I eat less meat but I know I am better off without the tag.

Mealtime has again become blissfully apolitical.

Matthew Forsythe is a fourth-year political science student who cooks with tofu, prefers free-range eggs, eats the occasional Wendy’s Jr. Burger, and drinks way too much milk.