Meat consumption has been proven to be vastly more damaging in terms of global warming, deforestation and excessive water usage than almost any other product, maybe save palm oil. Not to mention that the vegan in this scenario is doing something to help as an individual, albeit passive aggressively, whereas empyrean-sea more or less implied that unless you give up everything that causes environmental damage, you can't talk.
Not exactly. The reply highlights a simple fact that the vegan speaker had no reason nor standing to get on a soap box about the rainforest. The simple fact is that the common practice for raising cattle in rainforest areas is this: forest is slashed and burned. The ash provides nutrients as the soil tends to not hold suitable nutrients for many cash crops. The land is farmed to provide “exoctic” or out of season produce- or staples like grains and soy (google the correlation between soy production in the rain forest and deforestation...) Once it isn’t suitable it is either abandoned or converted to produce meat. So to be clear- no. She is not “making a personal difference” or whatever. She’s morally masturbating. Buying local and in season would be making a small difference. Ethically sourcing soy and tofu. Being vegan doesn’t mean one is by default helping the rainforest. That can be vegan and harm the rain forest just as badly as if not. If I eat locally produced meat we can...
... argue that the overall environmental impact is or isn’t higher- but we can rule out direct culpability in the destruction of rainforest for my food, not so much so if our vegan enjoys out of season produce and imported soy products. So just comparing FOOD, without calling in any of the other ways our every day actions harm the rain forest, we can see the implied hypocracy. Additionally- the other products of the rain forest ARE relevant. A person may eat meat but abstain from other damaging products such as rain forest timber products. So they would also be an individual making small personal choices to save the rainforest, just not the same ones. How could our vegan indulge in non meat related destructive behaviors and judge a person who may eat meat from the rain forest but doesn’t engage in other behaviors without being a hypocrite? Now...
... you might say: “well she wasn’t evangelizing or anything. She just said...” I’m going to stop you right there. She is. However we want to phrase it. Is she “raising awareness?” That falls apart. If we forgive her mentioning of meat a destructive to the rainforest as a well intentioned attempt at building awareness- we must also forgive the responder because he too is just trying to build awareness of all the other ways to help too. If we give her a pass as simply doing her small part- we must also give him a pass as doing his small part. And there in is where we come to the soapbox. When we raise awareness we are not assuming the other person doesn’t know a thing- we are making a general statement for those who do not know. It’s safer to tell a person a stove is hot than assume they know right? However when we make it a personal statement- not a statement like “this is harmful..” but “this is what I’m doing to help..” we are no longer raising awareness but at the very least...
... bragging. We are justifying our position on a superior moral platform as a person of moral authority over the listener. Unless we are campaigning or fund raising- which she was just having a normal conversation. So- the response is proportional to the stimulus. Lastly- if we are going to assume a stance of “small personal good” we must do two things. 1. We must apply that universally. If any small effort is better than no effort, and we can justify morality off of the attempt at good- then no person making any small contribution can be said to be doing less on a personal level. Him asking her to give up sugar is no different than her expecting others to give up meat if they’ve already given up paper and copper etc. 2. We must prove that it is actual good and not merely the intent to do good. One can with good intentions, make a situation worse. The desire to do good is a start and not an end. Actually doing the good is the harder part. The fact she does not eat meat does not mean..
Tl:dr- He is correct in his assessment and any crimes one is guilty of the other is equally guilty or equally innocent. Both have good intentions. His point is valid because if one takes a platform against local drug dealers, and claims to have given up Heroine on their moral position on drug dealers- but is still buying crack from the local dealer- one may be doing a small good by reducing the profits that dealer makes, but is still as culpable in that harm as anyone else and cannot ask others to follow their example if the real issue is that they don’t like heroine and not that they want to stop drug dealing.
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· 5 years ago
Shit's gonna happen despite you my guy. Just sit down and have some eggs and bacon with everybody else.
Or don't, I'm not your dad.
Or don't, I'm not your dad.