they're pictures of nothing at all

[dragonladyflame]

Vegetarian Deconstruction

Okay. So I'm standing by the refrigerator in my vegetarian co-op and I open the door to see what I can eat and I see, what do I see, but some sausages. Apparently, I discover, we have tons of sausages. And chicken. Vast quantities of meat have stuffed the co-op to the gills -- all of it left over from a local art

Comments

[ithych]

I don't think it's a question of moral flexibility so much as a question of having sufficient moral complexity to deal with the possible range of situations. Violating your morals is bad; re-thinking and refining your morals to better fit reality is good.

I call myself a vegetarian so people won't bug me about eating meat, but really, I'm not. I'm a no-industrial-animal-products-atarian. (Plus no pork, ever, because the smell nauseates me.) There are a few restaurants in my area that only serve meat from local small farms, and when I go there, I eat meat guilt-free. I actually feel really good about it, because it's like I'm sticking it to the meat industry twice: not only am I not supporting them, I am supporting their local, family-owned competitors. Take that, meat industry fuckers.

This practice makes sense to me because I believe that the small farm way of life has some inherent socio-cultural value, and supporting it is part of my moral web. Not wasting food when its already purchased and may or may not get consumed otherwise is, I think, another perfectly reasonable addition to the moral web. But it's not really a violation, it's just adding more complexity.