Re: Re: Cat food?

[harvard!topaz!jerpc.PE.UUCP]

> Easy.  Decide that it is immoral to kill an animal for food and
> then stop eating meat.  [For a start, you could decide that it
> is immoral to take calves, force them to live in small, totally
> dark boxes with their legs tied for a few months and then slaughter
> them.  That is why veal is so tender.]

Even I myself don't believe in eating veal, for this reason. 
However, I have to be realistic about other animals that are
good for eating.  Likewise, I always stay out of the ocean here,
to avoid sharks, and out of the lakes to avoid amoebas, which
would consider me edible.

> When I do something for moral reasons it is not done to affect
> how others act, it is done so that I believe I am doing the
> correct thing.  I don't steal cars (for moral reasons), but that
> has nothing to do with whether someone steals my car -- and the
> reason I don't steal cars is in not to protect my own car from
> being stolen.  Your analogy does not make sense.

That's because it had a lot of implicit stuff behind it.  The
idea of not eating meat for moral reasons is a very difficult
one.  Animals don't behave immorally because they have no "moral
principles" to abide by.  However, people do.  Well, then you
have to get into whether moral relativism is the "real thing",
in which case you can do more or less anything for moral
reasons, and I don't have to if I don't agree with your morals;
or assume that moral principles are absolute, in which case you
have to decide which to abide by.  Personally, I believe in
absolute moral principles, and the ones that I personally abide
by say that a long time ago it was immoral to eat animals, but
now it's not.

My analogy (such as it was) was more along the lines of "why
have sympathy for animals that would eat you if they had the
opportunity?"

> Could you describe this "vegetarian demeanor" better?  I want to
> find out if I have it.  (Moral reasons are part of the basis for
> my being a vegetarian.)

I have never known any male people who were vegetarians! So it
is hard for me to say what male vegetarian types are like.  Our
secretary at work is a vegetarian; also an XSO of mine; also
someone I used to work with.  I also knew a vegetarian who
doesn't fit the above characteristics, but she was a hypocrite
who was a vegetarian just because she thought it would help her
get into medical school; she also made me eat unsalted peanut
butter.*  Anyhow, all the vegetarians I have known have just had
this way of behaving and of speaking, which was very
distinct; they were sort of shy, very quiet, but underlying this
quietness, they had strong opinions which they just didn't
express unless prompted a good bit.  They were always very warm
and wholesome individuals.  (There are some other examples I
have known that fit the above characteristic; in fact, only the
one, that I knew of, who was different).  But beneath this very
subtle and quiet surface, they were always very complex.  They
always seemed fundamentally in touch with the Human Experience,
somehow.

> I would suggest a survey to find out how many members of this
> list are write-only members, but the write-only members would
> never read about it!

One of the problems of trying to be civil is that one can't very
well be discourteous to someone else just because they have been
discourteous to you.  Thus, when someone is discourteous to me,
all I can do is not afford them the consideration I afford
others.  Thus you can identify write-only members by being alert
to key-words like "ingrate" and "uncivilized" in certain of my
postings... :-), as they say.

Of course, the above paragraph doesn't apply to any person in
particular, and is just a general commentary on dealing with
people who ask a favor of you, then when you go to lots of
trouble for them, don't even say "thank you" or acknowledge that
you did all that for them, so that you are left in the
uncomfortable position of not knowing whether what you had done
was received at all, or whether it was, so to speak, merely
poorly received.  I've always taken silence as a sign of either
arrogance or elitism, myself; but that is just my own
shortcoming.

				"We let the wierdness in."
					-- jer

*She was the "food manager" at the "eating house" where I ate in
college.