Vegetarian….yep that’s me
I have been asked about my diet choice over the years. When I first started down this path (in my 20’s), I was defensive and could rattle off a hundred “facts” about why it was the wise choice. My family and coworkers thought I was a little crazy and were worried about me succumbing to malnutrition. I had several vegetarian cookbooks given to me as Christmas presents to make sure I was “eating right”. More than 20 years have passed now and my response has mellowed. “Oh, there are lots of good reasons…” has been my typical reply, but in the last year or so, I’ve noticed the frequency of the question has increased. My simple response seems less and less satisfying to me.
So lately I’ve been more introspective about the choice I made so long ago. Partly because of the frequency and real interest that seems more than just mere curiosity, partly because there is so much scientific information that exists now outlining the environmental and health benefits of a vegetable based diet, but also because my husband and I may start a family by adopting. Food is a central issue for kids, really all of us, and this is a family value we’ve come to accept as very important and central to who we are as human beings. We’ve arrived at a solid understanding that we cannot compromise this value. I’ve had to ask myself, why this is?
College of course
…in an intro Philosophy class with writing component and a rasta kind of hippie friend that was such a uniquely lovely vegetarian person, I became, well curious…AND I love animals. Have you ever just sat and watched the social behavior of cattle in a pasture?…it is truly fascinating, but I digress…
Anyway, I still have a paper I wrote on my chosen topic of vegetarianism. I dug it out to rediscover what it was that first began to inform my choice. With so much documented information available now concerning environmental and health benefit reasons, providing a different avenue of thought seemed more constructive and potentially compelling as unique and unusual information. I wanted to share my philosophical underpinnings with you today and maybe recipes in future articles if interest is revealed by you as readers.
“It is easy to judge the heart of a man from how he treats animals” Kant
Vegetarianism is an ancient ideal. Its beginnings can be found in the ancient story or myth of the “golden age”. Plato believed the period exemplified the best of humanity, the only possible age where “complete peace and moral progress” could have existed. In the Statesman, he describes that men living in this period were vegetarian and the time was one in which fruit trees sprang up with no cultivation, men slept on soft beds of grass, and they conversed with the animals, “seeking to learn what they could about the special faculties human beings lacked”.
Many ancient philosophers looked to this age as epitomizing the ideal circumstance. It served as the highest goal to be strived for. Dowbrowski, in The Philosophy of Vegetarianism, initiates us to the idea that the story of the “golden age” is the true basis for ancient vegetarianism. Many believe the Greeks were vegetarian because of their belief in transmigration of souls, but the philosophical father of vegetarianism, Pythagoras, formulated the ideals of his time into a philosophical foundation based on religious beliefs (including transmigration), health reasons, and ethical considerations.
Dicaerchus, who denied immortality and the existence of the soul, was fascinated with vegetarianism based on ethical considerations. Dicaerchus linked animal eating with war and asserted that vegetarian man is superior because he believes it is “morally wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering on a being that can experience pain”.
Plato was also believed to be vegetarian. Dowbrowski cites passages in Republic in which Socrates, upon suggesting the idea of a republic, outlines the necessity of providing food for his creation and lists a detailed optimum diet which omits meat. The foods listed are described as “foods of health and peace”. A second text, Laws, contains a passage in which “Clinias states, with no objections from Plato, that vegetarianism is a widely current and highly credible tradition”. Finally there is Epinomis. The legend of these men has it that they put a check on the devouring of flesh, and absolutely condemned the consumption of some animals. Plato bestows on their rule a blessing of the first order… he believed such a diet does show an attempt to become the best person one can become… the practice being important to the life of one seeking understanding.
Aristotle was less sympathetic. In Politics, he “makes it clear that the rule of the mind over the passionate element is natural in man, and the equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is harmful”. He continues with a similar comparison between man and animal, concluding that even tame animals need the rule of man in order to survive. When we apply the same principles to human relations his theses further disintegrates. He believed the male to be superior to the female and extended this idea of natural rule and superiority to all mankind. “When there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their bodies, and who can do nothing better), the lower sorts are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master…whereas the lower animals cannot even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts. And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different”.
A student of Aristotle, Theophrastus, sifted through his teacher’s complicated theories on animals to deduce vegetarianism as a conclusion. He believed that the sentiency of animals placed restraints on our enslavement of them. Known as the father of ecology, “his practice of vegetarianism was likely the result of his studies of plants, the most extensive in antiquity. More than any Greek philosopher, he understood the differences between plants and animals, not the least of which was the inability of the former to experience pain”.
Plutarch was the first Greek writer to advocate vegetarianism on grounds of universal benevolence. His thought experiment is intended to be instructive: “if you want to eat flesh, kill the animal yourself without the aid of a weapon, as lions do, who kill and eat at once”.
Thus ancient vegetarianism consists of several basic arguments: 1) a mythological belief in a past vegetarian golden age; 2) faith in transmigration- led them to spare animals in the belief that animals were, or would become human beings; 3) concern that flesh eating was injurious to health of either body or soul; 4) concern for animals themselves- in that we can lead healthy lives eating vegetables and should not deprive life of an animal- eating meat is cruel and ought to be avoided.
Dowbroski believed the second argument received undue emphasis as the leading argument for vegetarianism. He believes the primary concern is not one of religion or morality but one based on arete or personal excellence. “It is the striving to become the best human being one can become that differentiates Greek vegetarianism from its contemporary counterpart, not the primitive belief in transmigration or the like, whose importance has been overemphasized by several commentators”. This misperception coupled with some of Aristotle’s views may have made the dietary practice susceptible to criticism by the Judeo-Christian tradition. Subsequently, vegetarianism faltered in the west while in the east it is over two millennia old in practice.
“The Judeo-Christian tradition, even for a sophisticated thinker like St. Thomas, has largely been speciest. Just as slavery, racism, and sexism were once accepted even in the most intelligent of Christian circles, by then unmasked for their injustices that they are, so might the same be done for speciesism”. The theological tendency to exalt the human animal above all other animals in a role of dominance and control runs counter to the idea of agape or unconditional love. A view that seems more consistent with Christian ideals would be one of stewardship. Debrowski reasons this to be humanities role- the price we pay for having superior reason, compassion, and language. He states this stewardship as our duty and notes that we are capable of rejecting our duties or choosing not to be compassionate.
So perhaps this idea of personal excellence is the purest essence of the idea of vegetarianism. It is compatible with western religions, where transmigration of soul was not. Hopefully too, we as a species have overcome our insecurities and no longer suffer the need to denigrate non-human animals. As the human population continues to put pressure on food resources, the inefficiency of meat production will become prohibitive to all but the most wealthy. I believe we are currently witnessing the resurgence of vegetarianism as part of our natural evolutionary awareness. It will take hold, this time, in the west out of necessity. Our current culture of meat eating in the amounts that we do, in particular in the United States, is a fairly recent phenomenon. The silver lining that is found among the problems of overpopulation, food and energy shortages, and environmental concerns is that we are being forced to reevaluate our place in this world and its impact.
“I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came into contact with the more civilized.”
Henry David Thoreau- American 19th century vegetarian
Not just some passing fad…
So that was a bit thick to take in, I know…and it was written for school many years ago. But isn’t it fascinating to know how far back this thought exists in our human strivings to understand the who and why of our existence? I hope some of you made it to the end of this piece and found some useful bit that helps move you toward leaving a smaller footprint during your stay on the planet. And please consider doing additional research for more current considerations for this diet choice.
And from another totally different angle, check out this funny (and honest- I can totally relate) article on vegetarianism at www.slate.com/id/2190872 for an article by Taylor Clark titled “I may be a vegetarian, but I still love the smell of bacon”.