In the Gaps
My wife is a huge fan of the comic strip Mutts, so for Christmas this year I signed her up for the Mutts fan club. Along with the t-shirt and bookmark and other assorted crap that came with the membership kit was a Guide to Vegetarian Eating produced by the Humane Society (the creator of Mutts is vegan and very active in animal rights).
Now, I know a lot of vegetarians and vegans, very few of whom try to actively evangelize. And, they seem to have a wide variety of reasons, from health to social conscience. Most I respect, some not so much. The girlfriend of a friend in college explained that she was a vegetarian that ate fish because, and I quote, “fish aren’t cute and furry and go moo” (guess which group she fell into). My favorite reason for vegetarianism ever was simple – an old co-worker told me he just didn’t like meat, and couldn’t really understand why so many other vegetarians ate fake-meat products if they claimed not to like meat.
I don’t eat much meat, and rarely cook it at home, but will probably never be a vegetarian and certainly never a vegan (because I’ll be fucked if I’m giving up cheese). I like a good steak, tend to avoid chicken, and would eat a lot more fish if chronic overfishing didn’t scare me so much. Generally, I agree with what a friend once said, that we probably ought to avoid eating meat when we can, but that there isn’t an essential problem with it.
This Human Society booklet has ticked me off, though, because it falls into the trap that so many people earnestly pushing agendas do. It ignores it’s own logical gaps, which makes for a weak and easy to dissemble argument.
As the booklet moves from beef to chicken to pork, it describes the unsanitary and often cruel conditions that animals are forced to live in. It points out, correctly, that the conditions breed disease, which demands prophylactic antibiotic treatments for the animals, and that meat producers, in the quest for better yield, pump animals full of hormones, meaning consumers of the meat are getting dosed with these chemicals to our general detriment. I agree totally up to those points – factory farms are cruel, the conditions unsanitary, the effects on individuals and society dire. But, then they make the jump – the only way to combat the situation is to lead a vegan lifestyle.
Ho, ho, ho, wait, hold up. No, I say, you have not provided sufficient warrant for the claim that the vegan lifestyles is the answer, and any time you claim more than you have warranted, you not only undercut your argument but the arguments of all those that use similar grounds. That pisses me off, or maybe just angrily disappoints me, because it is sloppy.
See, the booklet actually constructs an argument against factory farms (an argument with which I whole-heartedly agree). The mass-production of meat has indeed led to practices that are cruel to the animals and unsafe to consumers and environment alike. But, how does it follow that one should be vegan? Would not a low-animal-product diet, with organic dairy, free-range vegetarian-fed poultry and locally-produced grass-fed beef address all the issues that the booklet raises? They have given me reason to choose meat and eggs and dairy more carefully, but somehow believe that the move from there to veganism is self-evident.
It seems in our nature to gloss over such logical gaps. Vegan evangelists can feel good because they have provided reasons that support their decisions – I’m a vegan and here is why that is good. But, they fail to try and look at it from the other direction – are these reasons sufficient explanation for why all other courses of action should NOT be followed. Bruno and the Professor posted a link this week about research into this phenomenon in the political world, which noted that conservatives and progressives alike are adept at, and perhaps even wired for, ignoring evidence that does not support their claims.
People like to feel satisfied with themselves, which is fine. They have internal rationale for their actions. But, when they try and craft those internal rationale into an external argument, especially one with a specific agenda, and fail to consider the whole world of possible rationale for all possible agendas, its just sloppy and lazy. They create poorly crafted messages.
We all do it, all the time, and I think that fact is the best argument for better critical analysis and composition curricula in schools.
Sure, maybe it doesn’t seem that harmful when talking about vegetarianism, and maybe it is hard to believe that such curricula would really improve political discourse. But, the potential harm became clear for me reading student papers in college, where one student, and again I quote, noted “Looking around me here at Western Washington University, it is obvious that minorities don’t care about college.”
Right. And, were you a student at Grambling, I asked, would you also say that white folks don’t care about college?
The devil ain’t so much in the details as in the gaps, and leaving the gaps open is like building condos for evil.
Now, I know a lot of vegetarians and vegans, very few of whom try to actively evangelize. And, they seem to have a wide variety of reasons, from health to social conscience. Most I respect, some not so much. The girlfriend of a friend in college explained that she was a vegetarian that ate fish because, and I quote, “fish aren’t cute and furry and go moo” (guess which group she fell into). My favorite reason for vegetarianism ever was simple – an old co-worker told me he just didn’t like meat, and couldn’t really understand why so many other vegetarians ate fake-meat products if they claimed not to like meat.
I don’t eat much meat, and rarely cook it at home, but will probably never be a vegetarian and certainly never a vegan (because I’ll be fucked if I’m giving up cheese). I like a good steak, tend to avoid chicken, and would eat a lot more fish if chronic overfishing didn’t scare me so much. Generally, I agree with what a friend once said, that we probably ought to avoid eating meat when we can, but that there isn’t an essential problem with it.
This Human Society booklet has ticked me off, though, because it falls into the trap that so many people earnestly pushing agendas do. It ignores it’s own logical gaps, which makes for a weak and easy to dissemble argument.
As the booklet moves from beef to chicken to pork, it describes the unsanitary and often cruel conditions that animals are forced to live in. It points out, correctly, that the conditions breed disease, which demands prophylactic antibiotic treatments for the animals, and that meat producers, in the quest for better yield, pump animals full of hormones, meaning consumers of the meat are getting dosed with these chemicals to our general detriment. I agree totally up to those points – factory farms are cruel, the conditions unsanitary, the effects on individuals and society dire. But, then they make the jump – the only way to combat the situation is to lead a vegan lifestyle.
Ho, ho, ho, wait, hold up. No, I say, you have not provided sufficient warrant for the claim that the vegan lifestyles is the answer, and any time you claim more than you have warranted, you not only undercut your argument but the arguments of all those that use similar grounds. That pisses me off, or maybe just angrily disappoints me, because it is sloppy.
See, the booklet actually constructs an argument against factory farms (an argument with which I whole-heartedly agree). The mass-production of meat has indeed led to practices that are cruel to the animals and unsafe to consumers and environment alike. But, how does it follow that one should be vegan? Would not a low-animal-product diet, with organic dairy, free-range vegetarian-fed poultry and locally-produced grass-fed beef address all the issues that the booklet raises? They have given me reason to choose meat and eggs and dairy more carefully, but somehow believe that the move from there to veganism is self-evident.
It seems in our nature to gloss over such logical gaps. Vegan evangelists can feel good because they have provided reasons that support their decisions – I’m a vegan and here is why that is good. But, they fail to try and look at it from the other direction – are these reasons sufficient explanation for why all other courses of action should NOT be followed. Bruno and the Professor posted a link this week about research into this phenomenon in the political world, which noted that conservatives and progressives alike are adept at, and perhaps even wired for, ignoring evidence that does not support their claims.
People like to feel satisfied with themselves, which is fine. They have internal rationale for their actions. But, when they try and craft those internal rationale into an external argument, especially one with a specific agenda, and fail to consider the whole world of possible rationale for all possible agendas, its just sloppy and lazy. They create poorly crafted messages.
We all do it, all the time, and I think that fact is the best argument for better critical analysis and composition curricula in schools.
Sure, maybe it doesn’t seem that harmful when talking about vegetarianism, and maybe it is hard to believe that such curricula would really improve political discourse. But, the potential harm became clear for me reading student papers in college, where one student, and again I quote, noted “Looking around me here at Western Washington University, it is obvious that minorities don’t care about college.”
Right. And, were you a student at Grambling, I asked, would you also say that white folks don’t care about college?
The devil ain’t so much in the details as in the gaps, and leaving the gaps open is like building condos for evil.
posted by JJisafool at 6:28 PM
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