Blogosaurus Vex

May 29th, 2008

I apologize in advance for the length of this post. (Poop reference excised for Husband’s comfort.) I make a gagillion points (you decide if they’re valid or not), and I can’t promise anything about their organization. All I will say is please, when you comment, make sure you aren’t commenting about something that is already addressed in the post. I get that some times and it really bugs me. I put in the time to write this, please make sure you read it before taking me to task. Of course, if you don’t want to comment or want to just say something like “Lollipops!” then I totally don’t care if you read or skim or light your laptop on fire. Just please don’t make me point you from your comment back to the original text, that’s rude.

On to business. How on earth can I say I’m not judgmental of meat eaters, that pack of jackasses? Juuuuuust kidding! I’d like to take this moment to remind you all that I was raised on the traditional western diet, ate meat and potatoes for dinner for most of my almost thirty years, and still swoon at the smell of bacon. If anyone should be characterized as jackasses it’s the militant vegetarians/vegans. They even piss me off. Also: to shorten things, I’m going to call meat eaters “meaties.” It sounds cute and kind of funny, no? And since I get a label (vegan), you should get one too.

Here is the cheater answer, which is nonetheless true: I say I’m not judgmental because, simply put, I’m not. I’m the one in this skin and this brain and you’re just going to have to take my word for it when I say I simply do not feel anything approaching contempt, superiority, or other synonyms for judgmentalism. The feeling is just absent, end of story.

But that’s not very satisfactory I suppose. It’s entirely lacking in explanation; there’s a what but no why. To be honest, I don’t know how much value there is in coming up with whys – they are by definition presented post hoc and in my opinion are usually rationalizations rather than true explanations of causality. We just don’t have that kind of insight into our mental processes – cognitive psychology has shown us how bad we are at thinking, and explaining our thinking. We are laughably easy to trick and we do it to ourselves constantly. And one of our talents is coming up with reasons for things which are totally rationalizations – many experiments prove this. But having said all that, I still consider it good mental work to explore one’s reasons for choices, because even if they’re post hoc, it helps to have a story. And it can be useful to people thinking about the problem from a logical point of view, which can be how we change our minds.

So why am I not judgmental? I think the biggest and probably truest reason is empathy. I remember very well what it was like to be a meat eater. I had no malice towards my dinner. I was an animal lover who cooed over kittens and piglets. And I was able to engage in a sort of perfectly understandable mental sleight of hand wherein my conception of chicken as dinner was entirely divorced from my conception of chicken as a formerly living creature. This is understandable because it was how I was raised and is a cultural norm. It is also psychologically useful in that it allowed me to maintain a broad range of nutritional options without undue mental conflict and guilt – and this relates to evolutionary utility also, I would guess.

Another reason is that, as I have said before, vegetarianism is something of a farce. Even as a strict vegan who tries to buy personal grooming and household cleaning products that are animal free, I do things every day that negatively impact the lives of animals. Animals are in everything, their parts are used in all kinds of manufacturing that I support with my dollars, they are forced out of habitats that I live in or drive on or buy products from, they suffer from my chemical waste in their waters, and on and on and on. Choosing to not eat meat is a very direct way to avoid harm, but it doesn’t eliminate all or even most of the harm. Who’s to say that my veganism results in greater net good for animals than the actions of a meatie who lives a rural lifestyle and grows their own foodstuffs? I can’t prove that. Given the reality of this state of affairs, it’s hard to feel superior to a meat eater simply because they eat what I won’t.

Also, I am not hard on the meaties because I think they believe, at least in relation to their eating habits, that they aren’t doing anything wrong. I doubt there is any in depth thought about their eating at all – they just eat what they were raised on, without any trouble, because, hey, isn’t this what everybody eats? It’s normal. I get that. I used to be that. And I have a lot of empathy for that. It’s hard to get all judgmental on people you feel you have an emotional, empathetic connection to, whose actions you understand.

Related to this is the idea of a plurality of values. It’s not for me to say what other people do (i.e., what they eat). Animal rights is one value; freedom of choice and autonomy of individuals is another. I value humans above animals and think the right of people to choose to eat meat trumps the rights of animals to not be eaten. This is hard to justify, and the best explanation that matches my belief that I’ve read is in Douglas Hofstadters’s book “I am a Strange Loop,” wherein he discusses a concept he calls Hunekers. In short, a Huneker is a measure of your relative value and worth. A cat has more Hunekers than a fly, a human has more Hunekers than a cat. You can check out the book for more detail but basically, it’s related to sentience and cognition and other very subjective measures of a thing’s intrinsic value. This probably isn’t possible to justify in a strictly logical-proof sort of way, but lucky me, I’m a person and not a logic machine, so I can hold this belief nonetheless.

Which brings me to another point: no one is a logic machine. This is why most explanations are little more than rationalizations. We try to make sense of the world but in fact most of our beliefs and behaviours defy logic. It’s just the way we’re built, and it has evolutionary value which I won’t go into here. Just keep in mind that people are not machines. They certainly are not logical, and their decisions are overwhelmingly not based on a logic-algorithm. They constantly act against their beliefs and best intentions (think of overeaters, homo-haters who are closeted gays, women who pick abusive boyfriends, etc.). This is because in addition to our logical faculties, we come packaged with a bunch of hard wired instinctual responses, and a big suite of emotional programs that nearly always override the logic part of us. We need to always keep in mind the difference between how people should think/feel/behave and how they actually do.

But still, isn’t logic fun? Let’s engage with it, shall we? Simply because we aren’t logical is not good enough reason for us to abandon our attempts to aspire to logic!

Recall the proof presented by Incognito, which I paraphrase as follows: meat eating is unethical, I should not be unethical, therefore I should not eat meat. Anyone who eats meat is unethical, therefore when I see meat eaters I JUDGE THEM HARSHLY. In general, I think this is a reasonable proof. I accept the premises and think the conclusion follows. But still, it’s not valid from either point of view (meatie or veg), because the suite of premises is too limited. Up to this point I have been explaining why I don’t judge the meaties despite what could be considered a necessity of logic. I’m actually still acting on logic, but we would need to add more premises to the proof (such as some kind of accounting for and ranking of additional ethical concerns) to see it.

Now I’ll switch to my hypothesis about why the meaties aren’t reacting out of response to the logical proof. Here is a totally unscientific observation: people react very strongly to the idea of veganism. It’s far out of proportion to the stimulus. When I think of all the ways I disagree with people, there is no doubt at all that eating no meat pisses them off the most. Why? Why is it easier for people to accept that I don’t believe in God, say, than that I don’t eat meat? Surely to a religious person that could be a much huger trigger. After all, in that case I’m not only going to burn in hell, I’m going to take society down with me (corrupt children, act without morals, destroy marriages, and all that stuff). But you know what? I have never gotten even an ounce of hassle related to atheism. But bring up something as relatively inconsequential as my personal dietary habits and BOOM, the freak out is on. It even happens on this blog. There is more going on here than meets the eye.

So what does happen when my eating habits come up (which, by the way, I try not to draw attention to)? The reaction typically involves the meatie getting loud and saying something like: “Well I would never do that! I love meat! I could never give it up! It’s perfectly healthy and there’s no reason to give it up!” In other words, they respond as though the stimulus statement was “Eating meat is wrong” rather than “I eat a plant based diet.” I don’t accept that these are synonymous statements, though our logical proof suggests that the latter leads to the former. In order to make that leap from “I eat plants” to “you’re bad” there is an intermediate step that is necessary. We could call that step “therefore.” So what we get is, in truncated form: “I eat plants” – “therefore” – “you are bad.”

What happens in “therefore”? This is what psychology and, most particularly, psychotherapy is all about! There is nothing in “I eat plants” that requires “therefore” to lead to “you are bad.” It is definitely an option, and clearly it’s the option most people are taking. But in my case, it is simply wrong. In my case, the chain should look more like: “I eat plants” – “therefore” – “I am concerned about my own role in animal rights and also my personal health over the long term.” Or, “IAP” – “T” – “I understand that these ethical issues are more important to me than to other people, but I understand those other people, and think their choice is fine. After all, it’s their choice to make.”

So I hope we agree that there are a multiplicity of statements that could follow “therefore” (this requires us to accept that there are more premises than simply “eating meat is unethical” and “people shouldn’t be unethical”). The logical necessity of judgment is predicated upon a limited set of initial premises which do not reflect the actual state of affairs. The interesting question is, why do people jump to those simple premises? Why are the others not included or even considered?

One reason maybe is the militant stance taken by some vegans and vegetarians. Maybe the meaties assume I’m getting all judgy on their ass because that’s happened to them before when dealing with a vegan. In this case their reaction makes sense even if it’s unfair; I shouldn’t be stereotyped. Actually I find this reaction very inconvenient because it sets up an us-them dichotomy that interferes with my ability to discuss my choices in a reasonable manner. There is a lot of good that comes of a vegan diet, but often I don’t even bother going there because I know that anything I say will be perceived as an attack, and I am acutely sensitive to not being one of those militant vegans. From a purely selfish and functional point of view, I have nothing to gain by making meaties feel bad (i.e, judged). Hassling them will not make them go veg! I am also placed in the rather uncomfortable position of having to take the defensive reaction of the meatie (“Well you’re not going to talk me out of eating meat!”) without rebuttal, because any rebuttal I try to make presents as proof of the initial attack. Which wasn’t an attack, it was just a statement of my personal dietary choice. But try to say that and see what happens!

I have another hypothesis about why there is such a powerful kneejerk reaction to vegetarianism, but it’s not going to be very popular with you meaties. In this case, I get to be the one who presents an unassailable position because anything you say will only make my case look stronger. And I totally accept that in most senses this is not a falsifiable hypothesis. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, only that it’s not provable using standard methods (psychotherapy is one method that might prove it on a case by case basis). So please know that I know this isn’t necessarily the case, it’s just an idea of mine, and I don’t assume it’s correct all the time or even any of the time, I’m just throwing out my thoughts because that’s what blogs are for. Quite the preamble, eh? I just really, really want to make sure you know that I’m not presenting this as THE FACTS, just as an idea. Keep an open mind; I try to.

Here it is: I think meat eaters get so darned defensive about eating meat because on some level, they know it’s wrong. Actually, that’s not quite right – when we work at the level of defenses, we’re not at the level of logic but rather at the level of deep emotion. The defensiveness is a result of my position triggering deeply buried feelings of shame and guilt.

Short interlude to explain, in simplified form, defenses: When people have uncomfortable emotions (guilt, shame and sadness are major ones), they may either experience the emotion, or trigger some psychological dynamics that protect them from experiencing the emotion. The mechanism of protection varies – there are probably around two dozen commonly accepted defenses. A simple defense is denial, wherein the person simply denies reality in some way. A classic example is the person who is told their wife has just been killed – he may say, “That’s impossible! No!” Denial in action. Rationalization is also a defense, in the same category as denial, disavowals, which function by keeping unpleasant or unacceptable stressors, impulses, ideas, affects, or responsibility out of awareness with or without misattribution of these to external causes (DSM-IV-TR, pp. 809).

So what is going on when I say “I eat plants!” and a meat eater launches into an angry, elaborate explanation of why they will keep eating meat? I hypothesize that two defenses are operating here. The first step happens in “therefore”: a defense called projection. In projection, unacceptable impulses and their attendant feelings that you have are put – projected – onto someone else as a way of disavowing the unacceptable stuff. You attribute them to someone else. Examples I found online here include:

I do not like another person. But I have a value that says I should like everyone. So I project onto them that they do not like me. This allows me to avoid them and also to handle my own feelings of dislike.

An unfaithful husband suspects his wife of infidelity.

A woman who is attracted to a fellow worker accuses the person of sexual advances.

In the case of me and my plants, the projection could be this: “I have a value that says killing is wrong. But here is someone who proves that my diet involved unnecessary killing. My unacceptable feelings are guilt and shame, and anger at this person for making me feel them. I project my rage onto them, and now I act as though they are the angry ones, which allows me to believe that I’m not the one with the problem.”

Given that projection, it makes perfect sense that meat eaters react to “I eat plants” in a hostile manner. The reality of their experience is that I am attacking them, because they have projected anger onto me. Up there is just one example of the specific terms of the projection – there are several others I can think of, but you get the idea.

Step two of the process, which happens after “you are bad”, is rationalization. The meat eater is sensing emotionally that I am attacking, and now they respond verbally with all kinds of explanations as to why they must keep eating meat. They really feel they must defend themselves because I am attacking, and the method chosen is another defense (rationalization). There is of course no reason why they must stay carnivorous, which I prove simply by my existence, but they’re giving it a good try, marshalling all kinds of excuses.

And I want to say here, that I think it’s totally valid for someone to say, “Well, I eat meat because I like it, and I don’t want to change.” It’s true, it’s no bullshit and I respect that. No meat eater is answerable to me – I’m simply not the boss of you. There is no need to prove to me why you should keep eating meat – and the very fact that some meat eaters feel compelled to try suggests defenses in operation. Keep in mind that we agreed there is no necessity to move from “I eat plants” to “you are bad”. The mental work of getting there is done by the meat eater. I am fascinated by what that mental work is, and above is one hypothesis about how it could be explained. I find that hypothesis rather convincing, but of course I would because it supports my position, and because it fits into a paradigm of psychological function that I ascribe to. And as I say, it’s next to impossible for anyone to prove it wrong, but it may nonetheless be wrong.

A final point: I do believe in certain moral absolutes. Human slavery is wrong, for everyone, at all times, forever. Post modernism can kiss my ass – wrong is wrong. Violation of a body’s integrity is also wrong, such as by murder or rape. In cases like these I believe that it doesn’t matter what your beliefs are, you must act in accordance with the higher moral principle. But I am not yet convinced that animal rights belong in that pantheon of absolutes. There may come a day when we must act as though animal rights are an absolute, for example if the environmental devastation of farming combined with the wastefulness of producing meat creates a situation where starvation and planetary ruin threaten to kill us all. But going back to the Hunekers, I just can’t see my way to considering animals a top tier priority in an abstract sort of way. Us humans have bigger fish to fry, ha ha.

Yet that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. In the wealthy west, there is no need beyond emotional and cultural ones to eat meat. Those are important things – each person must decide for themselves whether they place emotion and culture above cruelty and suffering in lesser species. These days there is also the added saliency of the environmental argument – the single biggest thing you can do for the environment, after living in an apartment, is to go veg. But again, I leave it to each individual to make the call. (Of course I would be thrilled if everyone went veg.)

And that is why I’m not judgmental about meat eating, in a nutshell. There’s more we could get into but at some point you (I) just have to stop typing, so I’m going to publish and call it good. If you got this far, hooray, you have made my day.

Posted in Personal, Psychology, Religion, Veganism, Vegetarianism | 7 Comments »