The Canonical rant against going vegetarian.
Perhaps the most despicable group that I can imagine are the lifestyle-choice vegetarians. Up front, let me distinguish this group from several other types of vegetarians.
I am not including people forced into vegetarianism by their doctors, a heart attack, acute psychological trauma caused by near-fatal food poisoning, or some such equivalent horrible experience. If after several years without meat, people in this situation become so retrained that they would not enjoy meat even if they could eat it again, that does not really count. This is just an adjustment to a bad situation.
Similarly, I am not including “palette” vegetarians. If some people are so fussy that they cannot find a cut of meat to enjoy, then I lump them in with a larger group: fussy eaters. I have found that fussy eaters turn out to be very fussy people. C.S. Lewis examines what’s wrong with this in The Screwtape Letters quite eloquently, so go read it.
I am also excluding the "I only eat what I kill" vegetarians. For sure, the way we process meat in the United States is less than ideal. If you care enough not to compromise the process, then don't. Organic ranchers, Sarah Newtwon, Longshoremen: I salute you.
Nor am I including cultural or religious vegetarians. There are those who have some sort of cosmic rationale based on faith or heritage that governs the way in which they should exist and operate within the universe; of which vegetarianism is an attribute rather than an end unto itself. These people are on a path and making sacrifices, like giving up meat, is part of their journey. I can respect that.
No. I am criticizing a phenomenon that I saw many individuals undergo, particularly in Hastings and at Rice. In this phenomenon, an otherwise normal person realizes that life is sad. All of the normal tricks for creating happiness are employed: buying new shoes, insulting losers, blaming it all on mother, getting drunk, etc. But none of these things seem to work. So, the otherwise normal person tries some introspection. On the one hand, this is uncomfortable since it requires actual thinking. On the other hand, this extremely self-indulgent, self-pitying activity comes naturally to this, so far, only venially vain person (so it’s bearable.)
But having done a round of soul searching, this heretofor minor narcissist decides that the key to all misery is the hamburger and becomes the lifestyle choice vegetarian. The lifestyle choice vegetarian now has the answer. "Its not my defective personality," he or she says, "all of the fault belongs to the delicious steak and the terrible people who make it for me." Now this person is playing with power; the power of the implicit lecture!
"Hello, welcome to my home. I have cleaned the house, purchased food, made lots of preparations and am now preparing a delicious steak on my barbeque grill. I want to share the treasures of my grill with you. Care for a delicious steak and to appreciate my generous hospitality?"
"No. I am vegetarian" and implicitly "and you are a bad person for tricking me into coming to your house so that you could offer me meat. I am so superior to you that my head is going to explode."
Yes, the despicable lifestyle choice vegetarian: you saw them very often in .coms, explaining while the industry cratered.
More than anything else, it both offends and terrifies me that a person could look deep into their soul, wishing for transcendant change and come up with "vegetarianism" as the answer.
