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Recently, I've been subjected to several posts on Twitter about Peter Singer. Singer posits a compelling argument: Society accepts a certain concept, A, yet its variant A', which along many relevant dimensions is similar to A but should be less objectionable, is met with taboo. Here is Singer's post, although I don't want to get into the the details because I'm thinking not about the argument itself but the prevalent reaction to it. The most common response to Singer's points is not an intellectual rebuttal but rather an expression of shock and outrage. The taboo around A' is like an emotional firewall, preventing any rational discourse.
This pattern of reaction is disconcerting. We live in a world of complex issues that demand thoughtful consideration, yet it appears that a significant portion of discourse is reduced to emotional outbursts. It's really hard for me not to feel disheartened or even adopt a misanthropic view when I see things like this.
So, is this emotional explosiveness truly representative of the general populace, or is it just that on Twitter, the most extreme views gain the most traction? Moreover, how can we, as individuals seeking constructive dialogue, navigate this landscape without succumbing to frustration or misanthropy?
I'm genuinely interested in understanding whether these reactions are as pervasive as they seem and what strategies we might employ to foster more meaningful, thought-provoking conversations, especially in a world dominated by emotional responses.
Besides being obvious sneerclub bait, this post is kind of ridiculous because you can sum it up as "Why does the Motte exist?", but I just want to know if there is any way to bring more people into the Motte's style of discourse or how serious a problem it is that some people are seemingly unpersuadable.
Zoophilia and meat eating are made comparable by Singer because he frames it as such. He illustrates that himself as "Imagine that you are an animal etc". But if one rejects this framework, if I imagine myself as a human, than it is effective to cut short engagement by having a simplified emotional response, eg by being shocked or mocking the idea. Taboos (an old fashioned word, you can also describe this category as "infohazard" or maladaptive training data which derails your brain software) are best preserved not by studying them in ever increasing detail, but by making them unthinkable.
For example a different framework could be: "Moral is that which makes my village survive the winter and makes my tribe/family/progenity thrive". A diverse diet does that. Romantic/Erotic attachment to animals does not and triggers disgust (maybe even genetically encoded?). It is noteworthy that the recent rise in veganism was not caused by the old arguments against animal harm like "imagine being an animal", but by new egoistic pro-human arguments like "veganism is more healthy" or "red meat causes more colon cancer" or "vegan calories can feed the world cheaper" or "western diet produces too much CO2, destroys the rainforest for cattles and we should switch to something more sustainable".
Of course, all of these instinctive revulsions are shaped by the ancestral environment, just like your genetic traits. The ability to store fat that served your ancestors well in the savannah is causing you obesity and diabetes. A moral preference that served your ancestors perfectly well in a nasty, brutish and short life as hunter-gatherers or tenant farmers may well be counterproductive today.
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Right, and creating a new taboo can often be done by appealing to an existing taboo and trying to draw an emotional connection between them, so that this unthinking revulsion gets spread to the new thing you're trying to eradicate.
That's the whole point of this line of argument, to try to do that to factory farming.
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Begging the question, like the Veil of Ignorance, a related utilitarian device. Both presuppose those whom ones actions affect. Rawls only talks about adult human inhabitants, and relies upon risk aversion[1] to make his point. If the reader would be forced to identify with any sentient being in a society, a dog, a child, a rat, his experiment would fail. Were I a rat, I would support rat poison being made illegal, but since this would be absurd, Rawls has to narrow down the set to only those which the present society deems within the overton window to advocate equal rights for.
[1] A "Those who Walk Away from Omeals" society in which one person is sacrificed for the salvation of the remainder, is disfavoured to a "Harrison Bergeron" society or our current one on either egalitarian grounds, or deontological ones.
I strongly disagree, and would go so far as to say that the only way this can be held true for our modern society is through willful delusion.
It requires that everyone suffer to some degree, and many significantly, to produce our material comforts. How many minimum wage workers in the West are particularly enthusiastic about their jobs? How many people do exactly the same things they would if they had infinite wealth and no need to labor for a living? Vanishingly few, none if you consider where said wealth came from.
I posit that almost anyone who had a tangible option of introducing Utopia at the cost of one suffering child would pick that option, either in a heartbeat like myself, or after much groaning and wringing of hands. It's only because it's a work of fiction that people can convince themselves that they'd do otherwise.
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Regarding "Those who Walk Away from Omelas": The older I get the more I suspect the people who walk away are in the wrong.
For example the map in this old article which became a meme:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html
Great-Grandfather: Allowed at age 8 to walk six miles to go fishing.
Grandfather: Allowed to roam in the woods.
Mother: Allowed to walk by herself to the swimming bath.
Zoomer Kid: Only allowed to walk to the family house street.
In a sense past generations larger freedom was bought by Omelas-sacrificing of children lives.
Don't forget larger prosperity and technological advancements in general.
Things that would be risky or deadly in 1950 are actually not risky or deadly now, from sex (safer from pregnancy and disease, but far more restrictions on it then ca. 1970) to physical activities (we can fix injuries we couldn't before) to vehicles (airbags and crumple zones solved 90% of the problem) to being unaccompanied in public (every kid is wearing at least one tracker at all times and the "dog lost/want a ride?" trick stopped working 40 years ago for the same reason that airline hijackings are impossible now).
Yet even with all those improvements we still refuse to actually use any of them. Curious.
Hmm. With respect to sex, it was probably least consequential (socially and physically) from the late 60s until maybe 1985 or so, with the rise of AIDS.
As far as physical activity: trauma medicine is great at saving lives and also a very mixed bag. For the most part, if you're alive after suffering an injury that would've killed you in your father's time, you're going to be crippled for life and in chronic pain.
I think that a lot of it is that the Boomers were the first generation, or one of the first, to grow up in a world where the idea that no parent should have to bury a child was an accepted truism.
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Interestingly, most lifelong vegans I know are either South Indian Brahmins who are often vegans (rather than vegetarians like many other Hindus) [edit: I think some may drink milk, but they don’t eat eggs] or children of 1960s/1970s hippies who grew up vegan and don’t like the taste of meat and dairy, even if they don’t necessarily ‘believe’ the way their parents did.
At least in Europe (or maybe just Germany) there is increasing demand for vegan food and the main advertized advantage is that it is more eco friendly. Animal welfare is a bonus, but is more used as an argument by organic farmers pushing their animal products, eg one should drink bio milk and bio cheese from happy cows from the idyllic small family farm in your region, instead of buying from the gruesome big business factory farm industry.
https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Plant-Based%20Food%20Goes%20Mainstream%20in%20Germany_Berlin_Germany_GM2023-0002.pdf
Of course it sorts itself into a little bit of culture war issue here, as vegan products are more coded left/young/urban/educated/female and eating meat is more rightwing/boomer/rural/workingclass/male, and politicians pander to certain voter segments with the food they post at instagram …
https://www-derwesten-de.translate.goog/panorama/promi-tv/markus-lanz-markus-soeder-zdf-mediathek-gaeste-id300507832.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
… but I see at family gatherings the resigned acceptance that a vegan alternative has to be served.
Watching the rise of a nominally new Gaia-based religion to replace the remnants of Christianity in Europe in real-time is going to be genuinely fascinating. Looking at successful religions, dietary restrictions and the conspicuous observance of them seems ritualistically important in binding people together and giving them a sense of commitment. Selecting a specific day for conspicuous dietary restriction is pretty on the nose, even if Tofurkey doesn't hold quite the culinary appeal of a good ol' Catholic fish fry Friday.
I think this is also part of it. There is the "Veganuary" in January which is even tried by flexitarians/carnivores and sort of like Ramadan or catholic lent. And the dietary restrictions by the more fanatic minority have outsized influence on the more tolerant/flexible majority, which pushes culture in one direction.
It is a bit of virtue signaling (the vegan has bragging rights over the vegetarian), a bit atonment for our sins (at least eating vegan Pizza with fake cheese feels that way), good old market capitalism (aside from fake cheese many products got crazy goods. I don't care if I eat real chicken nuggets or plant based nuggets), but it is also development of a shared culture and being part of something bigger (which is universally regarded as good or at least not bad, which is nice). Also the small talk aspect, one can share recipes and cooking tricks.
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