I disagree with most of this, surprising me not at all 🙂 Here are my own thoughts.
Hahaha well, we know each other by now, don't we?
I find that we are not that much in disagreement, though
If you actually kill the meat you consume, I don't see anything objectionable about that. My issue is with the mass production of animals and the inhumane treatment that comes with it. If you hunt, fish, or raise your own meat animals, then kill and eat them, that to me is very different.
We agree on this. I had edited my post to clarify that but you quoted me before I finished typing
😀
To your second point, I personally know several vegans, and they're insanely healthy and high energy people. Maybe your friends are just doing it wrong, or have other problems.
Well I don't mean to say "my" vegans are more representative than "yours", of course. It's entirely possible mine are have some other issues that
necessitate eating meat in the first place. Just from my own admittedly limited observation, I think it's awfully unhealthy. I read an article a few months ago that was telling of a vegan who got menopause at the tender age of 24. Another one, a blogger, was busted secretly eating meat to maintain her health while advocating online for a meatless lifestyle. Lastly, all my friends who started this lost a concerning amount of weight and energy. They've become borderline husks and it's kinda sad, IMO. Of course, once again, they all might be doing something wrong, but the whole thing looks very risky to me.
Worse, it's starting to look like a cult. Some of vegans are very violent, attacking butchers shop (honest workers doing an honest job, wtf?), slaughterhouses (ditto), laboratories, and whatnot.
And to the best of my knowledge plants do not have the capacity for suffering in any way. I think I know what you mean by that, in that they can respond to stimuli, which is a requirement to be considered alive - but they don't have a central nervous system for conveying sensations, and they don't have a brain for processing experiences. Both of those are necessary component for feeling pain and experiencing suffering.
But even if you consider the fact that they chemically react to being killed a form of suffering, which I (along with most if not all biologists,) do not it's hardly the same thing as the suffering experienced by animals in the farm system, because those have a brain and emotional spectrum, in addition to a nervous system that conveys discomfort and pain which they remember and process and emotionally respond to for years before finally being slaughtered.
Fair enough, I have completely lost the sense of proportions on that one
😛 I meant to say that it's impossible to sustain your life without killing, but of course you are right, it's incomparable.
I'm not going to go into the details of how farm animals are treated, because frankly it's too disturbing, but there's nothing in the growing and processing of fruits and vegetables that even comes close. Animals are tortured for years before being slaughtered.
That's where I really disagree. First, farms are populated by domesticated animals, who could not survive on their own in nature. Second, my grandparents owned a farm and so do my parents in law. I have seen how animals are raised and killed, and it is way more humane than what happens in nature. Yes it gets messy and bloody too, but not unnecessarily so. Because life is thus. The comforts of urban life (where most if not all vegans have been raised) has made us forget the animal side of life, and has perverted our relationship to our beasts. They have been a part of our life for centuries, and I think that if we stop consuming them we'll lose an essential component of our identity. I could be wrong or overtly pessimistic, of course. I am merely raising the question, not preaching.
And finally, I don't know what Nietzsche and Socrates have to do with anything, but Neitzshe died in his 40s and Socrates lived to be executed in his 70s 🙂 It's debatable what the state of Nietzsche's soul was - he suffered a mental breakdown relatively young, but you could hardly claim he was in a healthy body - certainly not for long. Socrates died with his wits intact and his body still ready to sustain him.
I like this quote because it is better than the good old "mens sana in corpore sano". Essentially what Nietzsche meant in his trademark iconoclastic style is that you cannot
think properly if you are not healthy. You cannot take care of your soul (if you have one, like Bohemianne hilariously says
) or spirit. So he would, as I, warn against lifestyles that weaken the body and therefore endanger your soul.
