Putting this in writing because, at heart, this is a writing issue for me.
I'm reading a story about a man who's portrayed as this super compassionate person when he nurses a goat back to health and in between chapters he's hungrily eating lamb stew. Like do you know where that comes from?
It's really annoying because it's just so jarring. I'm not saying that you can't be a good person while eating meat, but I wish it wasn't that thoughtles. It's a trope that's frustratingly common.
One of the most famous examples is Steven Universe. I try to go easy on the character, given his youth and upbringing, but the writers should have addressed it. I won't expect veganism right off the bat, but it felt strange that his thoughts on eating meat didn't come up any time he ate meat. And eating meat shows up in several plot-intensive scenes. It's a shame too because he's a half human and half alien that doesn't need to eat. And the plot features themes of oppression and imperialism.
I just wish character writing wasn't so bad sometimes. Just give your main character a different trait if you want to describe eating meat. It's not that hard, is it?
-edit: I'm not trying to spark another struggle session, I just hate seeing character disconnects like that where it's not even brought up. It's legit just bad writing. You can have a protagonist eat meat and still have a good person.
The particular story I was reading featured a contemporary adult temporarily living at a farm. He cares about particular animals there but the author makes a fumble by not even drawing a connection between the goat he befriends and the ones he eats. If his personality wasn't such a Mary Sue, and the author didn't mention it every five pages, I could've ignored the dissonance.
I'm acquainted with veterinarians and people who work in vet clinics and they're almost universally omnis.
That's interesting. I can't imagine being on that side of animal care like for a farm and then just eating steak. It's not surprising though because in the world, veterinary care is literally made into a business under capitalism. It's easy to eat commodities.
Well generally people only like cute looking animals, like kittens, dogs, rabbits, and turtles sometimes
They couldn't care less about cows or pigs
counterpoint: plenty of people find cows and pigs cute yet still eat them. they'll still get distressed when they see animal cruelty toward living animals and actively choose to avoid anything that reminds them that what they're eating was once cute.
I once watched the Hormel Farms meat cutting promotional documentary from the 50's with a friend and they were grossed and horrified up until the exact moment the meat was sliced into bacon strips and the reaction went instantly to "ooh I'd eat that"
The worst one for me is The Doctor from Doctor Who. He can canonically speak to animals and abhors all forms of exploitation but somehow isn't vegan.
Probably he is friends with Churchill, although he was also friends with Mao back in the 70s.
This bugs me too. But the problem is that carnists genuinely don't think there's a contradiction here. They really think you can be a compassionate animal lover and then walk out back and stab an animal because you think its flesh will taste good. Just pure brainworms.
I can see why it'd bug someone. But also I can see how it's possible to both care about animals and eat them.
I can see how it’s possible to both care about animals and eat them.
:centrist: :galaxy-brain:
:wtf-am-i-reading:
murder and torture are separate crimes, and a clean kill from a hunter's is a more humane death than the usual disease, biting predator, starvation, or freezing.
The meat industry is indefensible but there are some small groups of weirdos out there who electively hunt game without participating in animal agriculture. Like, fully electively, not "we're poor and ammo for great grandad's old rifle is cheaper than grocery meat" and i believe the guy i know who grew up like that when he says he cares about animals.
Lemme go around humanely killing babies so they don't have to die in a car crash, sounds logical. Consent doesn't stop at arbitrary species lines
No no, you have to refer to it in abstract terms. You're not killing babies, you're just "hunting game."
uhhh a game animal is literally one that you hunt. It's a category differentiator between them and livestock, fish, and wild animals we don't find suitable for hunting,
Multiple US states have a "Department of Fish and Game" , there's literally a 19th century british law called "The Game Act" and so on.
It's only an abstraction to the extent that I don't care to try to remember what part of the country an old acquaintance grew up in and try to work out what game animals were available to his family.
I know what the word game means, but thanks for carnistsplaining
It's abstract language similar to "man dies in officer-involved firearm-related event." What you call "game" I call living beings with thoughts and feelings who dont want to die.
it's not at all similar to that and your bit of being a cartoon parody of vegans is about to burst at the seams.
It's definitely similar. Using different language to make an obviously evil act sound more palatable.
Uh, yes it does? Unless Plants and Bacteria are somehow not an 'arbitrary species line'.
it's not arbitrary, are you telling me you can't see the difference? Which ones have the capacity of feeling joy, pain, emotion? Fuck off carnist
I can absolutely see the difference, but I very genuinely don't understand why it's not arbitrary. Why does a capacity for emotion endow a greater right to life?
easier to personify things we project emotion onto, but as a dirty carnist i think the brain functions we should care about for drawing the line are more complicated.
human societies used to do infanticide in times of strife rather than have people starve to death.
Times of strife like the current poverty under capitalism and banning of abortion in red states, you insensitive clod.
Hmm, yes, I'm also a people lover. I have several of them in my basement. I love the way they scream, "Oh God please let me out! I don't want to starve to death!" People are so great.
What, you're telling me that's not what being a people lover is? That's just, like, your opinion.
I mean, this argument has been done a million times, but my stance is humans =/= other animals. I love gardening, I very much care for my plants, but the root veg gets pulled up and dies to be eaten - the line is drawn is somewhere by everyone (except Jains).
Utterly incoherent post. Of course humans aren't other animals, why does that matter? It isn't immoral to harm humans because of some divine law about harming humans, it's immortal to harm humans because that causes suffering. That is not a way in which we differ from other animals. It is a way in which we differ from plants.
See, if you were vegan, you wouldn't have to twist yourself into these weird incoherent logical knots.
I think there's a pretty big contradiction between respecting and loving an animal and also thinking a person has the authority to determine the end of its life and consume it.
And don't get me wrong I get the childish understanding of where food comes from is deliberately designed, but it just feels like such transparently bad writing that this person who cares about animals enough to help them that they wouldn't care about other animals.
Usually this is reconciled by ideology: there is a hierarchy to all things, even life itself, and humans stand above other things. God gave Man dominion of the earth etc. etc.
This carries into secular societies along similar reasoning
Yeah they're at most veget*rians like in Avatar. Where did the baby cow go, Aang? What happened to the male chick? Omnis have such massive hypocritical blind spots it's wild. In Eragon he can hear the thoughts of animals, lives with vegan elves and still reverts back to omni at some point
Doesn't Eragon explicitly murder animals in order to "save energy" when he begins doing magic for reelz? Like when he prepares for battle he drains animals of their essence and stores it in gems I think.
Not to death if I remember correctly, but yeah that's not vegan for sure. Unless he asks them all for consent before, à la Goku Genkidama
no, but vegetarianism isn't any better than the usual omni carnism
no
oh good that was a close one :sweat: I was going to name AATLA as a notable counterexample to the OP.
Aang is nominally vegetarian but you never see him eat a piece of cheese, maybe he's vegan after all.
I think it's unfortunately because of how people really see animals. They "love" animals, but also still seem to believe that animals are just a tool for humanity. Sometimes they're the cute ones we hang out with, sometimes they're the ones that do work for us so we can sit around, and sometimes they're the ones that have to die for us because why shouldn't we eat what we like? It doesn't make sense at all, but this warped view of animals and distorted sense of "love" people think they have will always lead to these types of characters. I wish more people would follow their love of animals to it's logical conclusion and stop eating them.
They “love” animals, but also still seem to believe that animals are just a tool for humanity.
This but unironically.
Weird guy online named "edge" harassing me. I am shocked!
I guess it makes more sense in some settings, like where killing animals for meat to survive is actually a thing that needs to be done, but yeah its very silly sometimes.
The only time I’ve seen the “loves animals but eats them” character done well was a chefs table episode about this Italian butcher. My wife met him while studying abroad there and said he’s a wonderful guy with a huge personality. The mini doc goes into how he loves animals and wanted to be a vet at first but had to take over the family butcher shop when his dad fell ill to support his family. It’s a very conflicting portrayal because he simultaneously is very proud of his work as a butcher/chef, but also loves his animals and at one point he actually tears up while talking about the butchering process. Really interesting watch. I’ll see if I can find the name of the episode
S6E2 Dario Cecchini
Thanks! That sounds interesting. I didn't mean it to sound like you can't eat meat to love animals or be a good person. I was just speaking to a particular trope where the character motivations are out of sync with their other actions while not reflecting on it at all.
Capitalism puts a lot of pressure on compassionate people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do or like. It sucks because so many parts of society have exploitation deeply entrenched.
What purpose does your post serve? It "feels" like it, even though there is no arguing in this thread? I feel like this is saying more about you than the thread.
You 'were' vegan? But aren't anymore? You just stopped caring about animal liberation at some point?
Vegans on TV are used for only one thing: a paper thin act of teenage rebellion that must be simultaneously hypocritical and the butt of a single joke repeated hundreds of times: "look at this meat. Want to eat it, ya stupid vegan!?"
Fucking hunter x hunter establishes that all hunters have kinship with animals then the next test is 'go grill me some pork' and we see the protags slaughter boar and pile their bodies... yes I hatetthis trope
Lol I saw that episode for the first time earlier this month. It's so wildly dumb. The boars were super personified too.
Sure but they also slaughter people with the same level of care. I think it makes sense that those characters, one of them is a child assassin and one of them is a serial killer clown, would be okay with a pork chop.
:10000-com: I find this jarring in so many things. That was one of the many things Raised by Wolves did right, as soon as the kid starts feeling kin ships with nature like the first sign of it is he stops eating meat. It really showed a well thought out character.
