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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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I think there's merit to the straw vegetarian/vegan trope. I don't think I've ever met a vegan in person who tried to convert or harangue me. However, I have seen them on social media.

I guess that the mediating effect of being in person causes people to tone down their beliefs for the sake of social harmony. One assumes that the growth of the web and social media is what's driving the great awakening, rather than any deeper ideological shift. Freddie deBoer did an interesting post about a book from the 90s that mocked PC types from that era. Their beliefs weren't that different from those of modern progressives.

This sounds like an argument for why the straw vegetarians are less than warranted.

I dunno dude, there are some intensely irritating adverts on the web and on broadcast TV in the UK right now focusing on children calling adults "scared of change" for not being vegetarian. They have been outright despised by absolutely everyone I've talked to about it and almost every comment is negative. But obviously someone thought it was not only a good idea, but that it would work to sell their product, and nobody along the way pulled the brakes on it. So that brand of non-self aware annoying absolutely exists on that kind of scale.

I honestly think straw vegetarians are much more a product of the cognitive dissonance of meat-eaters who realize deep down the incredible cruelty of the meat industry and on some level register vegetarians as a walking mirror of their own hypocrisy.

(I say this as a somewhat self-hating meat eater)

I think small family farms are an entire world of difference from industrial meat processing. I feel people who actually kill/process the animals the eat basically have no moral burden. They are willing and able to do the task themselves. I've killed animals before and have found myself able to have done so without self-disgust, so that somewhat mitigates the qualms I have about my meat-eating. As for the rest of it I try to only eat meat once or twice per week.

I've kicked around in my head the hypothetical of requiring people over the age of 14 or 16 to get a "meat-eater's license", i.e. having to kill/dress a larger mammal by themselves in order to qualify to eat meat. I wonder what percentage of the larger population would disqualify themselves from eating meat if they were forced to jump through that hoop. I do feel that if you cannot steel yourself to take the life of an intelligent, social animal like a pig or a deer or a cow, then you should not eat meat.

I don't identify as an effective altruist (but I generally shirk from labels, and I dislike that label for much the same reason I dislike "rationalist").

I feel people who actually kill/process the animals the eat basically have no moral burden. They are willing and able to do the task themselves.

By your reasoning, is it hypocritical to be disguisted by watching or participating in gay sex, but support gay rights?

I don't follow this logic at all. Why would I be obliged to enjoy gay sex if I supported gay rights? It's not a question of taste: I don't think pineapple on pizza is unethical because I don't like it. I wouldn't seek to criminalize things that are simply not my preference. The hypocrisy would be to deny others the right to marry the people (i.e., consenting adults) they love, when I already enjoy that ability.

The crux is that you get meat by killing a sentient, emotionally complex, intelligent animal. I think that if you can't bring yourself to do that (and have to rely on the emotional distance of someone else doing the dirty work), then yeah, I don't reckon you should eat meat, because industrial meat processing takes that one bloody act and multiplies it billions of times yearly. We all have our hypocrisies and have to pick where to draw the extent of which we tolerate them, so I think if you can't stomach the very simple act the meat industry is built upon, you shouldn't seek to benefit from its utterly horrific economies of scale.

I think that if you can't bring yourself to do that (and have to rely on the emotional distance of someone else doing the dirty work), then ...

That's the same scenario I described for gay sex, except without the boo light "dirty work". You can't bring yourself to watch (or participate in) gay sex. But if someone else does it in private, the emotional distance allows you to tolerate it. Is your tolerance hypocritical?

Or do you think that no significant number of people have visceral, negative, emotional reactions to gay sex?

In that case, the straw vegetarians/vegans are like the street preachers who try to convict us of our sins? And like the LGBT people who demand this be classified as hate speech, we recognise deep down our own depravity, hence why we project onto the vegetarians?

It's a theory, at least 😁

Thanks to the linked article, TIL the term "Jewitch":

There are, for instance, self-identifying Christians who do not see any distinction between homosexual and heterosexual relationships, including but not limited to LGBT Christians; and Jews who do not regard witchcraft as contrary to their religion, including Jewitches who identify as both Jews and witches.

I mean, you don't have to believe me, but I have zero moral qualms about meat eating and still think most of the stereotypes of fanatical vegans are accurate. My only rule for animal cruelty is: does the cruelty serve some productive economic purpose? So long as the answer is yes I don't care how animals are treated.

I don’t think it’s cognitive dissonance, since caricatures of other moral scolds like fundamentalists Christians are common. People don’t like being told they are sinners regardless of how true they think the accusation is deep down. If anything the more people genuinely believe the accusation is false the more they mock the moral scold.

Yep you hit the nail on the head. I’m right there with you.

"All gay guys are flamboyant"

"All vegetarians are annoying in-your-face activists"

etc...

There is a tendency to think that the most obvious in-your-face representatives of a group are actually statistically representative of the group, but in reality they might simply be statistically representative of the most obvious in-your-face part of the group. One might interact with a dozen gay guys every day and just not realize that they are gay because they are not flamboyant and straight is the default. One might interact with a dozen vegetarians a day and just not realize that they are vegetarian because they never mention being vegetarian and eating meat is the default.