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I tend to agree with JonLaw on his last point.

I think this thread is highlighting how people can feel slighted or attacked or whatever when they're different. In this case, vegans/vegetarians are indicating that they feel negativity directed at them.

Similarly, gifties can feel hostility from NT types (especially in schools, but in many other settings, too). NT types can feel as though the gifties think they're superior to them.

And on and on, depending on which particular group of thousands you happen to fit into, depending on the setting.

So maybe a lot of people's reactions can come from feeling discomfort. Dunno. Just an idea. Obviously, there are times when one group really is trying to slight or attack the other one. But personally, I don't think that's the case here. I do think there's been some misinterpretation, though.

FWIW, I took Dude's post as defense of the veg*ns and not as a means of calling us morally reprehensible nor stupid. I believe that he was stating the none of the veg*ns has claimed moral superiority nor greater intellect.

At the risk of being preachy here , my ethical motivation for not eating dairy is as follows:

Cows, like all mammals, lactate only when they have given birth. As such, they need to be impregnated to give milk and the baby cows are generally removed from their mothers so the milk can be utilized for human consumption. We have a dairy farm about a mile from my house or less. It has, on the perimeter, a large field of dog igloos that are used to house the male calves as they cannot be turned back into the dairy herd to be milk cows themselves. These male calves never leave the igloos in which they live and are slaughtered as veal fairly early in their lives. I believe that they are kept in small confined areas so that they do not develop significant muscle tissue and their flesh remains soft.

Actually, I tend to think that the cows who are destined to be meat have better lives from what I see of them locally. They have a good amount of pasture space and fairly good lives and the calves are not taken from the moms. They live among the herd. Until they head to the feed lots, which are about 40 mins from my house, their lives look pretty decent and certainly better than that of the local dairy cows.

For the most part, I'd agree with you here. I have not felt attacked by the majority of the posters and do think that the majority of the rankling at the others of different beliefs has probably been due to misunderstanding. The only person whose posts I have found to be truly attacking have been DAD22's.

If I am wrong here, I am open to reinterpreting my reactions, though. For those of you who are not veg*n, please do tell me how I should interpret these posts in a manner that is not meant to insult or bait the veg*ns or imply moral inconsistency:

It has?

Truly just confused as to where-- in this thread, I mean-- that opposing viewpoint has been espoused. I have seen that initial notion proposed, and repeated-- but with caveats that I think may make it at least somewhat valid. No, not moral high ground or anything, but that higher intelligence correlates with veganism/vegetarianism. Atheism also correlates highly, as has been noted repeatedly as well. I do not see anyone of faith objecting vehemently to that assertion, however, but a few have remarked that this doesn't fit their profile personally, ergo "smart =/= atheist" any more than "vegan = smart" seems entirely relevant.

I do think, for whatever this is worth, that some are feeling a touch more defensive than is warranted by anything being said here.

I sincerely do not mean that to offend. Just that I see no judgment here for being veg*n meaning anything in particular.


Naturally, I object to a morally-based veg*n point of view being imposed upon me. I object to this in much the same way that I object to being told that I need "educating" in order to become a person of faith. I don't. I'm not ignorant because we disagree in our conclusions.

Regardless of my personal feelings about eating other creatures, I mean. Not everyone has the physiological means, the financial means, nor the TIME required to find work-arounds for the limitations in their own families. I know a great many people who would prefer to be veg*n but cannot due to their circumstances, and instead they choose to minimize their animal protein consumption, or eat what they, personally, can live with. I think that several of us posting in this thread have embraced that kind of life and been fairly open about our logic or rationale, and our reasons why we do as we do. In addition, I do NOT think that it is my place to tell anyone else right from wrong within their own dietary rules-- this includes choices about eating/not eating meat or anything else in particular.


I should also point out that I've had acquaintances inform me in no uncertain terms that I'm morally bankrupt because I have participated in animal research, and that they hoped that some animal rights group would destroy my lab, etc. etc. That strikes me as distinctly sociopathic, too. Pretty sure that most diabetics using human insulin are kind of thrilled that animal research over a period of 100 years has resulted in a life expectancy which is rapidly approaching normalcy. A lot of modern allopathic medical interventions wouldn't exist without animal models.

So some of us are pretty familiar with the militant variety of radical veganism. I consider those people to be nearly as scary/unbalanced as religious zealots. But I realize full well that those are a VERY few bad apples, and that most veg*n people are just like anyone else.


Here is a philosophical puzzler for vegans:

If vegans ran the world, so to speak, meat would no longer exist. Animal 'husbandry' would give way to... what, exactly? So no more dairy farming. No more backyard chickens. No beehives, right? What then? What will happen if all of those things go away? Farming brings animals into being. Those animals live simply because of that industry and husbandry. If there is no purpose for them, they would never be born at all. Is that not exercising human dominion, as well? Or are domesticated animals "mistakes" that need correction?

I'm genuinely curious about that. I've never understood the purpose of "freeing" animals that have few innate instinctive survival skills. It seems more cruel than captivity, honestly. If life is sacred-- and I can concede that this is a valid outlook-- then eliminating animal husbandry completely means that many animals will never have the chance to live a life to begin with.

Of course, eliminating honeybees is also extremely problematic for a host of reasons, and that one means that if even 20% of the world population attempted to be vegan, we might all be in real trouble. Everyone thinks that honeybees are "natural" but they most certainly are NOT-- no more than domesticated turkeys are natural.

Maybe Jonathon Swift was on to something.

Well-stated.

And it's THE elephant in the room, honestly. Well, IMO, it is.



ETA: interestingly, I crossed posts with Val and Cricket. Interesting both how similar and how different our observations about the conversation were! Many similarities.

We have??

Again, not seeing this, if it has taken place. I have seen NO posts trashing being veg*n.

I thought that the point of this not being a matter of being BETTER was sort of the point of it all to start with. I also think, for better or worse, that for a HG child, even if s/he is thinking that s/he holds moral superiority, learning to keep those kinds of thoughts to one's self and be reasonably gracious is a social skill of no small merit. It's a discussion we've had in our home re: Atheism/Christian Fundamentalism, frankly.



As for the joking, well, that is sort of what we do around here. There isn't anything too sacred for some of us. Sorry about that if it offends occasionally, but in my defense, I'm an equal opportunity offender there. The only real joke that I can think of was my cat one, and that was to make a point that most omnivores have some pretty strange logic going on (and to point out that I'm not someone rounding up neighborhood strays to remake Re-Animator in my basement or anything).

I have three cats and I love them dearly, even when it is far from convenient. Oddly, there IS no sharp dividing line in my head between companion and food animals. I'm unusual in that regard, I'm aware.

Because you asked nicely, here is a sampling of some of the previous statements in this thread which, in my reading, disconnect the notion of intelligence or morality from the choice of diet:




Agreed in its entirety.

I have no response to the bit that followed on a veg*an militancy, on account of I don't think bringing extremists into the conversation is particularly helpful. Hopefully, militant vegans don't represent the beliefs/behaviors of any participants in this thread any more than Ted Nugent represents mine.

I'd hope not! Much as I like Ted in some respects, he kinda scares me in others. Also, as noted, I know many veg*ns who are lovely, nonjudgmental people.

I guess I thought it wasn't entirely irrelevant since it was (obliquely) referred to in the original post that veg*nism might be related to IQ. It may be that I was puzzled over "opposite" and the intended meaning there, as well.

From what I could see - Dad22 and HK were being seen as 'slighting/attacking' by vegans when all I saw them doing was asking intelligent questions and trying to talk through some obvious inconsistencies (from their perspective) in the vegan approach to diet.

That is ultimately why I chimed in - I do agree that this did go off on a bit of a tangent and apologise to all that I may have inadvertently offended.

I started a new post on the awesomness of Harvard so that we can inadvertently offend each other in an entirely new way.

(I was looking for decline of the legal profession stuff and found this article by accident. I don't know whether it is accurate. But it is funny.)

"Brown and Cornell are Second Tier"

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....and_Cornell_are_Second_T.html#Post161199