This was a discussion between Cody and I on Facebook a few months ago. I
know you don't understand why I don't eat meat, and perhaps you never
will. You're a smart guy, and for the same reason that I spoke to Cody
about this, I feel like I must speak to you about it. Smart people doing
dumb things or things without reason is frustrating to me.

Cody and I had had a discussion with another friend of ours, Ethan, about
the value of life, and it eventually turned into a conversation about the
morality of eating meat.

When I speak of vegetarianism to people, the most common argument is
focused around the belief that humans are "better" than animals. Cody, on
the other hand, had an interesting take on the matter and argued that
neither humans nor animals had any worth, so he might as well eat them.

If you like to read it, here it is. You might be tempted to skim through
it, but don't bother reading it at all if you don't read it fully. I'm not
expecting you to change your mind, as I'm sure you'll read this, think
about it for a bit, and then remember that I'm just a kid who lives in his
mom's basement and continue on with your meat-eating life like everybody
else does.

Surprises are a good thing, though. I wish they happened more often.

Me:

What you were saying earlier was bugging me, so now here's my argument
that I couldn't think of on the spot concerning the value of life:

If you try to beat a dog to death, or try to slowly squash it with a large
machine or something, the dog will do EVERYTHING in it's power to get out
of that situation. So, for that dog, life DOES have value, else he would
just sit back and accept his fate. Why do starving people fight, steal,
and even kill for food? Yes, some of it has to do with fulfilling the
biological urge to eat, but there is definitely a reason beyond that. That
person had goals, dreams and aspirations that they wanted to fulfill, but
now cannot.

The bottom line is: whether you personally believe that your life or the
lives of others have value or not is completely and totally irrelevant,
because it's their life and only THEY can decide the worth of it. When you
kill something, you steal another individual's future and choice in the
matter. You take away their option to choose whether life is worth living
or not. When you're alive you can CHOOSE to end your life or continue on
living it, and because of that fact alone, life has value over death. Dead
things aren't really able to make any choices.

Also, you said that you're "down with Jesus". Does Jesus not do everything
in his power to be moral? So, either you completely misunderstand just
about EVERYTHING that Jesus stood for, or you don't agree with what he was
about. Because, according to what you were saying before, essentially
everything that Jesus did would be completely and utterly pointless,
because everyone is going to die anyways.

P.S. I'm not having a go or anything, I'm just trying to understand your
reasoning.

Cody:

I get what you are saying and to be honest, I don't completely understand
my own point of view. I realize that sounds dumb, but a lot of it is
filled rationalizations. Perhaps I do feel bad about eating animals, but I
also feel powerless to bring about change. Me not eating meat would change
nothing. It would have zero effect on the industry, and I am not commited
enough to try and convince others. Also, I could be a bit nervous about
the social stigma that comes from avoiding meat, especially in circles
that I normally associate with, aka my family and such. Or I could really
just not care.

I don't honestly know how I feel about the subject, because it never
weighs on my mind, either because it really doesn't matter to me, or
because I have suppressed it. Perhaps I am also afraid to explore it in my
own mind, because if I do actually care, then it is one more bit of
sadness in the world that my eyes are open to. Sometimes ignorance is
bliss. Another problem with me is my lack of commitment to any ideals. I
wake up every morning with different positions on subjects. Sometimes
there are days where I don't eat any meat because I don't want to, and
others I just don't care.

So it either comes down to I don't care, or I do care, but I don't feel
strong enough to deal with it, so I suppress it. I can already imagine
that you don't really understand this statement, and I can try to explain
it if you want.

Don't worry about pissing me off. I completely understand how what I am
saying is absolutly wrong and foreign to you, and you want to understand
it, but I really can't seperate the rationalizations from the truth in my
own my, and when I do, they can change from day to day.

At this point, that is the best answer I can give you.

One last point about the jesus thing. I admire jesus as a guide to live
your life, and to a degree I do try to match it. I have to take it in
steps though, and I am trying to work on my relationships with people
before I work on other facets of my life. Often times I am a complete
dick, and I am trying to work on it. I do find it difficult sometimes.

(Sorry about any shit spelling)

Me:

(sorry for the wall of text, but I can't really put forth a proper
argument in a paragraph. You don't have to read it if you don't want to.)

Well, I have an argument for your first paragraph (it's not my argument,
but one of the arguments by my philosophy teacher up in Boulder).

"Clearly, if only one of those chicken eaters gave up eating chicken, the
industry would not respond. Equally clearly, if they all gave up eating
chicken, billions of chickens (approximately 6.25 billion per year) would
not be bred, tortured, and killed. But there must also be some number of
consumers, far short of 250 million, whose renunciation of chicken would
cause the industry to reduce the number of chickens bred in factory farms.
The industry may not be able to respond to each individual’s behavior, but
it must respond to the behavior of fairly large numbers. Suppose that the
industry is sensitive to a reduction in demand for chicken equivalent to
10,000 people becoming vegetarians. (This seems like a reasonable guess,
but I have no idea what the actual numbers are, nor is it important.) For
each group of 10,000 who give up chicken, a quarter of a million fewer
chickens are bred per year. It appears, then, that if you give up eating
chicken, you have a one in ten thousand chance of making a difference to
the lives of chickens."

He goes on to say that a one in ten-thousand chance of saving 250,000
chickens per year (25 chickens per person per year are eaten) is
mathematically equivalent to a 100% chance of saving 25 chickens per year.
Also, if a one in ten-thousand chance seems too small to matter, consider
the many numerous things that we look down upon morally that have equally
or even a smaller likelihood of occurring. People who don't put their kids
in seat belts and women smoking and drinking heavily during pregnancy both
have very small chances of anything bad coming out of them, but we still
take the precautions. If airlines flew without safety belts, oxygen masks,
or emergency exits then the public would be enraged, but these precautions
are almost NEVER used.

I don't run around trying to convince people to stop eating meat all time,
because I know that most people are like Ethan and don't have the 'virtue'
that Socrates describes (no offense to Ethan). But I think that you do
have it, and that's why it bugs me. See, most people don't HAVE to
suppress it or avoid thinking about things like this, because they're so
focused on 'who's dating who' and what's on the TV that night that it
doesn't even cross their minds. So, because of that fact that you suppress
it, that means that you understand it well enough to know that it's
probably the right thing to do. I can let most people off the hook for
eating meat because they're so centered on themselves that they can't
understand that other things might exist beyond them, however, I can't
give you the same luxury. You, unlike Zahler and most everybody else in
the world, know that "I don't care" isn't a justification or argument for
anything. You say ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is not a choice.

Also, I don't do it because I think that I'm going to change the industry
or change other people's minds or anything like that; I do it because I
know what's right and wrong and I won't knowingly participate in something
that is wrong, regardless of what other people think, do, or say. As for
the social stigma, since when have you given a fuck about what other
people think of you or what you do?

Anyways, I wasn't really talking about eating meat, I was mostly arguing
the value of life, human and animal alike. My point of the Jesus thing
wasn't to say that you're a bad person, but that if you respect Jesus,
then you must not actually believe that life has no value, else all his
actions would be for nothing and there would be nothing respectable about
him (or anyone else in the entirety of history, for that matter).

Cody:

I get all that you are saying. There is definatly a chance that I will go
vegetarian someday, but right now, it isn't happening. I am having a
seriously hard time controlling my diet as it is, and to remove an entire
section of my diet would kinda fuck me a bit further. Right now if I am
hungry and want something that isn't shit, I can make a sandwhich. While
it isn't great, it beats having half a bag of oreos. Also, to quote Ethan,
"it tastes pretty good." I want to have those easy foods to eat that are
good, but aren't candy and microwavable pizzas, and lunch meat is about as
easy as it gets.

Beyond the vegetarian stuff, I might have been exaggerating when I say
that I don't value life. It is just one of the rationalizations I created
to be used as a quick response. I don't honestly feel that way.

	I didn't respond to his message, because I didn't have anything to
say. Cody has a lot of emotional problems; he took a miter saw and sliced
open his face a few years ago. I understand that he has more important
things to focus on, as you do. But, morality is morality, and if we don't
try our hardest, then I think we're missing the purpose of humanity. A lot
of people say that they're "just human" and that they make mistakes
sometimes. We all do, but I don't think we're allowed to pull the "just
human" card unless, despite trying our hardest, we still fail.

	If you want to know why I'm "mad" at you, it's because I believe that you
didn't try your hardest. God knows I don't try my hardest at many things,
but none of those half-assed endeavors have hurt anyone else.

	Socrates' definition of 'virtue' was profound to me. He basically said
that virtue (which he defines as the ability to determine and understand
the consequences of actions you have taken or will take) is a trait, like
strength, sociability, kindness, and others. He said that, like strength,
some people have it and some people don't.

	The question you need to ask yourself is, "do I have it?". If the answer
is "no", then feel free to do whatever you wish in life. However, if you
think you've got it, then I believe you have an OBLIGATION to try your
HARDEST.

Next time you open that meat container, ask yourself if something that
values its own life as much as you value yours needed to die for your
taste buds. There's some ravioli in the freezer.