My beef with vegetarians

By Deauwand Myers

I've encountered Westerners and native Koreans who are vegetarians or vegans. Most are pleasant enough, but some are exceedingly pushy with their beliefs. Not so subtly, they believe in the supposed moral superiority of not eating flesh.

The loudest and most subjective argument you'll hear PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and their counterparts assert is any use of animals ― for food, clothing and/or medical research ― is morally wrong.

Now, let me be clear: I understand the way most countries raise and process meat is unsanitary, inhumane and ecologically unsustainable. Further, the labor practices in the meat industry are often atrocious.

Purchasing organic meat, poultry and fish when and where it's possible helps mitigate this, but we have a long, long way to go before eating animals becomes as close to carbon neutral, and morally sound, as possible.

But there are those who go much further than this. They believe any consumption of meat is wrong, regardless of the conditions in which the livestock was raised and processed. That is, to kill animals for food is bad. Period.

Humanity has eaten meat from the beginning of its existence. Especially for infants, young children and females, lean cuts of beef and pork, poultry and fish are vital and important parts of an overall healthy diet. (Tragically, there have been instances where infants and young children have died of malnutrition due to their parents' insistence on keeping them on a strictly vegetarian or vegan diet).

Multiple studies have shown societies where meat is regularly eaten, particularly fish, have the longest life expectancies in the world. Japan, Mediterranean countries and Norway are examples.

Further, if harming animals is a problem for some on the vegetarian/vegan side, they must acknowledge growing crops also kills many, many smaller animals. There's no getting around it: providing food for human consumption, whether it's plant or animal-based, results in the death of critters, large and small.

But I have another problem with this argument that being an omnivore is inherently immoral. There's a tendency in wealthy countries, and not just among vegetarians and vegans, to romanticize and anthropomorphize animals. We, far too often, ascribe human characteristics, and more perversely, human worth, to animals. Conversely, we treat other humans like animals.

In many countries, I've seen people walk past the poor, destitute and homeless without a word or second thought. But let them see a stray dog or cat, and then, suddenly, they feel great pity for the animal, sometimes giving it food, or even adopting it.

For centuries, throughout the Americas, for example, dogs, particularly well-trained hounds and police dogs, were used to terrorize and hunt down indigenous folks, slaves and the like. We saw this kind of terror most vividly during the 1950s and ‘60s, because such instances were televised: disturbing images of police dogs violently attacking civil rights activists.

Horses, too, have been used as an instrument of colonization and imperialism for millennia. There's a movement in America to outlaw raising horses for meat even as you read this. (I have tried raw horse sashimi and sushi in Japan before, by the way: it's quite good).

Of course, horses and hounds can't and shouldn't be blamed for whatever their masters put them to task to do. What I am saying is simple: back then, like now, these animals were treated far better than the humans they were trained to work against.

Some of those same folks championing a ban on horsemeat have no problem eating pork. I mention pork here because just as illogical as it is to humanize dogs and other animals, it's nonsensical to then have a hierarchy of what animals are worthy or not of being spared from the dinner table.

Pigs are actually far more intelligent than cats, dogs, horses, chicken or fish. So, if the argument is the inherent smartness of a species should preclude it from slaughter, pigs should be spared above all others. Only some primates, dolphins and whales display higher levels of intelligence.

Animals may have intelligence, even rudimentary forms of language, and they may be cute, and they certainly shouldn't be tortured or abused. But they are not human beings, and the way some have deified them as equal to or better than fellow human beings is just as morally obscene as operating feedlots and industrial farms, where all manner of ill goes on in the process of making cheap protein.

Torturing animals to test cosmetics is wrong and unnecessary; but using animals to research vaccines, medicines and medical techniques that could save many human lives is worth the loss of animal life.

I eat meat. I like meat. I wear leather. My immortal soul will not be damned because of it. Animals aren't people. People are people. Confusing the issue is intellectually dishonest.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory and is currently an English professor outside of Seoul.He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.