Saturday, June 3, 2017

"But I Like It!"

Most frequent reasons given for continuing to eat meat:

"But I like it!
"It just tastes so good!"
"Mmm, bacon!"

I just want to be clear, when you say things like this, that what you're really saying, in essence, is that all your other arguments have no merit whatsoever. You know it's cruel. You know it's unnecessary. You know it's environmentally unsustainable. Yet you persist in a cruel, unnecessary, destructive habit out of simple selfishness. You are saying, more or less directly, that your desire for sensory gratification outweighs the life of a conscious being and the continued health of our planet. You are saying that you are perfectly willing to murder for pleasure. What's cruelty, if not that?

And when confronted with reasoned arguments concerning this habit, you relinquish all pretense of reason and revert back to a child's reply: "But I like it!" It's a cheap deflection, and that's all.

Look. We all make choices about diet, and we are all caught in a destructive capitalist system of food production. But whether or not you continue to eat meat, you do have an obligation to consider the real consequences of your actions. An animal's life is more than a fatty meal you bought for three dollars at a fast-food joint. It deserves, indeed it demands, our deepest respect. And no one, and I mean no one, needs to eat meat at three meals a day.

So go ahead, write "More bacon for me, then!" in the comments. But know that with those words, you're declaring yourself to have the moral cognizance of a five-year-old.

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