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.
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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.
lol
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.
I mean, we obviously disagree on this point, that ain't news.
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.
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