7 ms·

The “meat paradox” only happens because people living in cities are disconnected from how their food is grown. People that lived on a farm, even for small peri

The “meat paradox” only happens because people living in cities are disconnected from how their food is grown. People that lived on a farm, even for small periods of time when they were little, have no such issues.

solidsnack9000 8y ago
Indeed, the article uses "meat-eating" as a gloss for eating animals raised in cruel conditions. The article at no point considers the possibility that moral conflict is an unavoidable part of life, even if there are things we can do to reduce it.
- osacrum 8y ago
  Eating meat is not an unavoidable part of life.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > the article uses "meat-eating" as a gloss for eating animals raised in cruel conditions Probably because that's how the vast majority of meat animals are raised.
strict9 8y ago
This is exactly it. When my grandmother had fried chicken growing up it was a result of "going to the back yard and shooting it (the chicken) between the eyes, plucking its feathers off, and frying it in fatback." If today's fried chicken arrived on a plate the same way it did for my grandmother, I probably wouldn't have made the decision to eschew meat about 10 years ago.
- war1025 8y ago
  I doubt you would shoot the chicken though, as that would basically blow its head off. More likely she would have just wrung its neck or chopped the head off. In modern small-scale processing, they put the chicken upside-down in a cone and slit the neck to let the chicken bleed out.
ozzyman700 8y ago
If I understand correctly, this is the meat paradox: "the psychological conflict between people’s dietary preference for meat and their moral response to animal suffering" How does living on a farm remove this issue? Does something about living on a farm make you not feel conflict about wanting to eat meat and at the same time not wanting to kill sentient beings? I've never lived on a farm but I've seen pig and chicken slaughter in real life. Done by hand. I felt the same before as I did after, I feel that if I have the resources to choose to consume no sentient animal body parts, I have a moral obligation to not eat sentient animal body parts. Still, the ease of energy from meat compared to other foods makes me desire it, along with taste. This paradox is something that bugs me often.
- RightMillennial 8y ago
  See, I grew up on a small farm. We raised chickens that my father would butcher. He'd string one up, slit its throat and it'd die instantly. After it was bled we'd pluck the feathers off and then cook it for supper. There wasn't anything particularly cruel about it, and I feel no moral qualms about eating chicken or any other meat for that matter. Maybe growing up on a farm taught me the reality of it which I see as normal.
  - ozzyman700 8y ago
    Feelings of parents actions being intrinsically "good" morally seem like they would factor in as well. Or at least, I feel like if I saw my father slaughter animals I would accept it more. I also completely understand that vegan lifestyles are very far removed from the requirements of homesteading or personal farming. It may be impossible to harvest a nutritionally dense enough food in the winter that isn't a living creature. As a person living where anytime of the year I can buy produce from around the world, I have more freedom to choose what I eat. I'm interested in your ability to not feel moral turmoil about killing sentient beings. Have you ever struggled with it? My issues around eating meat are based on the lack of necessity I feel towards it. I don't need to eat meat to survive, my choice to eat meat is a choice to support (in my opinion) murder. A predator has no choice but to hunt, an eagle cannot decide to stop eating prey and switch to plants, it seemingly lacks the ability for self reflection of it's actions. Your last sentence "Maybe growing up on a farm taught me the reality of it which I see as normal." The reality you explained of chickens being slaughtered in an instant way is still something I see as unnecessary.
benj111 8y ago
I don't think it's the only reason. I have a hard time rationalising my meat eating, but then following through on that train of thought leads me to full on veganism, which is further than I want to go, so I don't. And I grew up in the country.
nick_ 8y ago
But all farms are not even close to equal. Generally there are two categories of farms. There are small family-type farms where livestock live quite a good, cared-for life. Then there are enormous factory farms where an animals life is, in short, absolutely awful. The slight-of-hand moral reasoning I see all the time is that someone will use their mental picture of a small family farm to fill in for the reality that almost all of the meat/dairy/eggs they buy and eat came from a factory farm.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  This is what people tell themselves to find an 'out' for eating meat.

solidsnack9000 8y ago

Indeed, the article uses "meat-eating" as a gloss for eating animals raised in cruel conditions. The article at no point considers the possibility that moral conflict is an unavoidable part of life, even if there are things we can do to reduce it.

osacrum 8y ago
Eating meat is not an unavoidable part of life.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
> the article uses "meat-eating" as a gloss for eating animals raised in cruel conditions Probably because that's how the vast majority of meat animals are raised.

strict9 8y ago

This is exactly it. When my grandmother had fried chicken growing up it was a result of "going to the back yard and shooting it (the chicken) between the eyes, plucking its feathers off, and frying it in fatback." If today's fried chicken arrived on a plate the same way it did for my grandmother, I probably wouldn't have made the decision to eschew meat about 10 years ago.

war1025 8y ago
I doubt you would shoot the chicken though, as that would basically blow its head off. More likely she would have just wrung its neck or chopped the head off. In modern small-scale processing, they put the chicken upside-down in a cone and slit the neck to let the chicken bleed out.

ozzyman700 8y ago

If I understand correctly, this is the meat paradox: "the psychological conflict between people’s dietary preference for meat and their moral response to animal suffering" How does living on a farm remove this issue? Does something about living on a farm make you not feel conflict about wanting to eat meat and at the same time not wanting to kill sentient beings? I've never lived on a farm but I've seen pig and chicken slaughter in real life. Done by hand. I felt the same before as I did after, I feel that if I have the resources to choose to consume no sentient animal body parts, I have a moral obligation to not eat sentient animal body parts. Still, the ease of energy from meat compared to other foods makes me desire it, along with taste. This paradox is something that bugs me often.

RightMillennial 8y ago
See, I grew up on a small farm. We raised chickens that my father would butcher. He'd string one up, slit its throat and it'd die instantly. After it was bled we'd pluck the feathers off and then cook it for supper. There wasn't anything particularly cruel about it, and I feel no moral qualms about eating chicken or any other meat for that matter. Maybe growing up on a farm taught me the reality of it which I see as normal.
- ozzyman700 8y ago
  Feelings of parents actions being intrinsically "good" morally seem like they would factor in as well. Or at least, I feel like if I saw my father slaughter animals I would accept it more. I also completely understand that vegan lifestyles are very far removed from the requirements of homesteading or personal farming. It may be impossible to harvest a nutritionally dense enough food in the winter that isn't a living creature. As a person living where anytime of the year I can buy produce from around the world, I have more freedom to choose what I eat. I'm interested in your ability to not feel moral turmoil about killing sentient beings. Have you ever struggled with it? My issues around eating meat are based on the lack of necessity I feel towards it. I don't need to eat meat to survive, my choice to eat meat is a choice to support (in my opinion) murder. A predator has no choice but to hunt, an eagle cannot decide to stop eating prey and switch to plants, it seemingly lacks the ability for self reflection of it's actions. Your last sentence "Maybe growing up on a farm taught me the reality of it which I see as normal." The reality you explained of chickens being slaughtered in an instant way is still something I see as unnecessary.

benj111 8y ago

I don't think it's the only reason. I have a hard time rationalising my meat eating, but then following through on that train of thought leads me to full on veganism, which is further than I want to go, so I don't. And I grew up in the country.

nick_ 8y ago

But all farms are not even close to equal. Generally there are two categories of farms. There are small family-type farms where livestock live quite a good, cared-for life. Then there are enormous factory farms where an animals life is, in short, absolutely awful. The slight-of-hand moral reasoning I see all the time is that someone will use their mental picture of a small family farm to fill in for the reality that almost all of the meat/dairy/eggs they buy and eat came from a factory farm.

WalterSear 8y ago
This is what people tell themselves to find an 'out' for eating meat.