On Eating Animals - revised

I respect the vegetarian mentality, although I am a meat eater. After reading Pollan's chapter on ethics I feel more confident about my ability to verbalize this respect, but he didn't tell me anything new. Ive heard it before (primarily from my friend Reese, a fellow member of the UW ethics team. Reese is a vegetarian, philosophy major and part-time genius who puts all of his faith in human empathy. He believes we have a moral duty to act in accordance with our empathetic capacity). The arguments for not eating meat are highly persuasive - in fact, I don't think I could handle reading Peter Singer. But it will take more than persuasion and flawless philosophy to deter me from meat. I am one of the many who understand why eating meat is wrong, but choose to turn the other cheek. My defiance is weakly supported, but my urbanized lifestyle allows me to grieve and then quickly heal, to excuse myself from accountability.

When I was in 8th grade, my family visited Uwajimaya. I saw the pigs feet and freaked. Then I saw a duck, blackened but whole, hanging by its feet from a hook - and I burst into tears. And became vegetarian. It made me very sad, when I was younger, that animals are afterthoughts in an industrialized, human-dominated world. "It's the natural order of things," cruel friends would say. "We're at the top of the food chain."
"Exactly," Reese and Singer would argue. As sentient beings wielding such power over other life forms, we have special responsibilities to keep ourselves in check. As a 14-year-old I couldn't express anything that coherently, but I understood empathy.

I maintained my sensitivity for 2 years, but then as a sophomore I finally felt like an imitation vegetarian and gave it up. I stopped feeling the genuine empathy I once felt; I was jaded and self-absorbed; I no longer felt compelled to have funerals for roadkill birds. It felt like a mockery to pretend the passion I once felt, so I gave up the cause. The first step toward vegetarianism takes willpower and a strong conscience. But vegetarianism isn't as difficult as it sounds - eventually many vegetarians can operate on auto-pilot, like I did in my veggie days. The hard part is having the conscience to stick with it when you realize 2 years down the line that you're not actually active in the campaign for ethical food.
It takes far less effort to stare at the ground while you walk, so that's what we do.

As an adult, I should be able to define my priorities in irrefutable terms and exercise the self-restraint to abide by them even when tempted. But when it comes to meat, I don't. I've separated myself from the pain associated with empathy. Our system of food production is too far removed for me to come face-to-face with it regularly. With only rare exposure, I'm still able to deny my own empathy.

I am, however, going to make an honest effort to eat meat that was produced more responsibly. The daydream of healthy, unknowing cows is a thin veneer over the reality of the Meatrix. I long for local meat and eggs rich with beta-carotene, for an idyllic family farm unhindered by industrialism's prohibitive hurdles. Lately, the tube of gristly beef at Safeway has looked nauseating. I want to be aware of what I'm eating; the meat that once lived and breathed deserves respect. Perhaps, in the spirit of Tampopo's noodle connoisseur, I will start whispering to my pork: "I will see you soon..."