I think most people who are in this predicament consciously choose not to think about it in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance. Destroying your philosophical model of reality and remaking it is not exactly a pleasant process. Something you find out when you go vegetarian or vegan is that if that gets brought up, which usually happens in the context of rejecting an offer of food or being questioned about why your plate only has crackers at a potluck, many meat eaters will suddenly feel the need to explain why they think it is ok to eat meat. Perhaps that's just preemptive and a result of encountering more militant vegetarians in the past, but I think it is more likely to be a result of being reminded of their cognitive dissonance. Who are they trying to convince? I didn't ask for an explanation of their dietary choices and don't feel any particular need to explain mine.
They're being jerks, but why is an interesting question.
I don't think it's a cognitive dissonance thing, at least where I've seen that picture. I think it's an us/them thing. Specifically, the kind where one group gets the idea that another is out to get them. (That "militant vegetarian" you mention is someone I have heard about my whole life yet never met.) If they don't have a lot of vegetarian friends, you may be their first chance to have a conversation about it, and that's probably the only one they rehearsed.
It may not be as crystallized as other areas, yet, but I think this is also one more field for cultural proxy wars, as we all get drafted into us/them camps. Again, at the individual level, you might notice the person doing the attacking always thinks they're defending. Complicated big picture stuff at play.
> encountering more militant vegetarians in the past, but I think it is more likely to be a result of being reminded of their cognitive dissonance.
Don't project onto people you clearly don't understand. Creating mental models of people you disagree with that involves making them stupid or living in dissonance does a disservice to yourself (by making you ignorant), to them (by you spreading your ignorance), and to wider political debates in general (it's very difficult to come to an understanding when people are incapable of understanding the other side).
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stating a rational fact about someone's cognitive dissonance "makes them stupid" or "spreads your ignorance"?
I carry that cognitive dissonance (I know animals feel; I believe they have souls; and yet I continue to eat meat); the difference is that I (through tons of introspection) have made peace with my (very few) dissonances and therefore, calling me out on it (as someone did further up the comment chain here) will result simply in me acknowledging their observation (without any emotional/anger element).
I bet the number of vegetarians would go up quite a bit if people had to slaughter animals themselves if they wanted meat. Our society is pretty good at hiding the dirty work from people.
My parents both grew up on farms where they slaughtered their own animals. They ate meat maybe once a week or less. So at a minimum meat consumption would go down.
I suspect the reason why they ate meat rarely was because it was expensive (even when it's your animal, it still has a cost), not because they were squeamish about it.
I've worked in a slaughterhouse, doing the night shift cleaning up the mess before a new day begins, I know what's it's like. Overcrowded boxes full of chicken shitting themselves, getting hanged by their legs on a factory line before getting their throat sliced by a fast spinning blade. Not a pretty sight for sure and a sad way to go.
It's very unfortunate how the mass consumption of meat creates terrible living conditions for the various animals we breed for that purpose.
But if we measure the scale of suffering, I think we're doing a bit better than nature.
And yes, by going vegan you do not contribute to that, I get it. I have huge amount of respect for people that live by their moral standards and stick to it.
Yet this doesn't mean that the wilderness is some Disney fantasy and yes, for all intent and purpose, most animals out there in the wild are bound to have a gruesome end.
I'm not implying that we're doing animals a favour by sending them to a slaughterhouse, simply that this is the natural order of things.
If you feel strongly about that and choose to not consume meat and such, great.
As for me, despite what I've seen, there's nothing wrong with eating meat. The only thing I wish is a more humane breeding, and I'm happy to pay more for that.
I'm aware that it's slightly hypocritical because would there be an alien specie doing the same to us, I'd probably would have a different perspective on that. As it stands, I enjoy being an apex predator. May it last forever.
There's nothing natural about factory farms, you can pretend that they are no different to a lion eating a gazelle, but they are. We eat way more meat than we naturally should. Ever seen a fat lion dying from heart disease? And what about responsibility that comes with the power humans have over other animals. Lions are just being Lions, they don't understand what death really means, it's just a meal. They also are carnivores, humans are not. They also don't have grocery stores.
What if someone else is doing the killing and I'm doing the eating? Not being facetious, I struggle with this and I don't fully buy into the "guilt by association" angle. If I stopped eating meat today, animals would still be killed at exactly the same scale as before. So what would have I accomplished besides depriving myself of nutrients? If we could all do it together I'd be on board. Maybe we can start with "meat credits" or some other kind of demand reduction? That really helped curb climate change....
I think portion control would be a more effective approach. A little meat goes a long way. I think you'll get further convincing the public with a moderation message than a black and while moral argument.
If you stopped eating meat and replaced it with a balanced vegan diet you wouldn't be depriving yourself of anything other than heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes etc. You'd be the winner. Also, you'd be doing your part in reducing the demand for all those animals to be raised and slaughtered. If everyone had the opinion of "well what's the point unless everyone does it" no good change would ever happen.
But it is pointless unless everyone does it, at least until a large percentage of the population does it. You're ignoring opportunity cost, this isn't like recycling where I have nothing to lose by doing it. Until we reach critical mass, the early adopters would have essentially "subsidized" everyone else.
A few ounces of meat/fish a day aren't going to cause any of those diseases and are packed with nutrients that a vegan diet has a very hard time providing at a similar cost, especially in poor countries. The Gates foundation isn't betting on chicken on a whim. I still think moderation is the way to go. If everyone cut their intake by 50% we'd have a healthier population, animal slaughter would be cut in half, and we wouldn't have to reinvent meat.
Apart from B12, what nutrients are in meat that I cannot get from a vegan diet? Why is it acceptable to be slaughtering hundreds of millions instead of billions of animals a year, if we don't need to? And we don't have to reinvent meat; most vegans don't eat fake meat products. We could move away from the concept of eating meat all together.
Creatine, Carnosine, D3, DHA, Heme-iron, Taurine. But it's not just about the nutrients, it's about the supply and the cost. Most people don't have access to the balanced assortment of grains, vegetables, and legumes you seem to enjoy. Without meat and dairy they would risk malnourishment.
We probably could move away from meat, if everyone was well off (and took supplements). But that's not the case. And I never said 100s of millions were acceptable, merely that a 50% portion reduction is a LOT better than nothing, and probably a lot more than a morality strategy will achieve.
I do agree that there are a lot of people eating too much meat, but the diseases you mention are all caused by overeating in general, and are just as easy to get on a vegan diet.
No. I said a balanced vegan diet. Even over eating whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds and legumes whilst not eating foods that have cholesterol (meat, eggs, dairy - literally any animal products) plus the evidence of red meat and processed meat causing cancer, means I do have much less chance of having any of those diseases I mentioned.