MEAT

For many years, I barely ate any meat. My best friend was an ethical vegetarian and I was more or less living off of starch and Hard Times food. This was during my high school years and it sort of just accidentally spilled into my first few years of college - I would always argue with her about how frustrated I was that she was more focused on animal rights than human rights. I had no ethical reason for not eating meat - I was just surrounded by a mostly vegetarian culture, and it just so happened that when Emily (my best friend) talked about PETA videos on animal torture, I would begin to feel sick when I tasted meat - meatiness - gamey-ness, beefiness, etc.

When I came to college I ventured into the sciences and was exposed to things like videos of open heart surgery. I would distinctly remember feeling a morbid sensation that you could throw some of this human meat on the grill and eat it. I went to Israel once and was philosophically fascinated by a menu item - a skewer of chicken hearts - but I was horrified by the idea of eating it. I watched in awe as one of my peers stuffed his mouth with about 10 little chicken hearts.

It wasn't until college that I was exposed to the idea of the economic cost of producing meat for human consumption. Some people would talk about the production of green-house gas due to cow farts, or the ratio of grain to beef in the context of efficiently feeding humans. And then there was free-range which to this day just doesn't sit right with me - the notion that it is better to be loved before you are slaughtered and eaten is hard for me, although maybe a free range animal is supposed to taste better?

Within the last few months, I began eating meat again. Because I tried it, and it was delicious, and I embraced the morbidity of it - don't ask me why. Anything wrapped in bacon is unbelievable. I've contemplated the idea of the cost of meat in terms of pricing - perhaps we don't price meat correctly. I've contemplated a future in which meat is grown on rooftops from cow muscle cells in giant vats using solar power - I would totally still eat it.

The grain that we feed the cows - could we instead use that very same grain to create a welfare state out of a third world nation and just feed every person there, have them be beholden to us but well fed on a simple diet? In looking into this, I found heavy controversy - For one, it requires a total economic restructuring of the world.

How do I distinguish between white guilt and having a conscience? Where do I draw the lines in the sand about what I will or won't participate in - if I were to boycott every dirty business, I wouldn't do business. If I were to refrain from participating in unfair economic acts, I would as an American have to just cease to exist. To be a "good" person seems meaningless - because I can decide I am good, sure enough, but I am surrounded by people who in order to be good would never live as I do. So the ethics, and the intersection of the ethics and the politics - blow my mind. And I eat cheeseburgers and sausages wrapped in bacon and chickens wrapped in bacon. mmmmm. -

but the "choice" to eat meat comes packaged with a reality that makes the concept of "maximizing my utility" increasingly complicated. First of all, the choice is a monetary transaction - can I afford to eat meat? And this is a function of geography, caste, luck, etc. Then, there is the history of that meat - did the animal live well? What were the trade offs in developing this product versus another? What was the real cost? And then, is it healthy? Is it healthy for me, or for anyone? And then, what of the fact that I cannot choose to say, "I will pay to have this grain shipped to _x_ instead of being used to sustain a cow." (Because if eating less cheeseburgers drew a direct connection to more people being fed, then it would maximize my utility to see it happen. But that's not how it works.)

The choice is connected, so heavily, to so many factors, that the notion of individuals, rummaging through products and engaging them rationally in terms of personal utility (affording that everyone will have a variable that correlates to "how much I give a shit" packaged into their utility function) is bizarre to me. Coupled with neuroscientific evidence that humans are on average extremely impulsive, that humans construct 'rationales' but that these rationales need bear no resemblance to reality, etc - I am feeling like I should just participate fully on impulse and just hoping that my life work (perhaps helping to invent solar-powered meat-in-a-vat growing) will make the world better. Hope that the fact that the monetary value of my life is considered higher than most people in the world means that I am going to do something worthwhile.

So eating meat doesn't make me feel sick anymore. The deliciousness overpowered the grotesqueness and while I have buzzing in my mind two sides of a great controversy on meat-eating ethics, I, overwhelmed, just want to do whatever makes me feel good in the immediate future. My "rationality" extends, at most points, about 10 minutes into the future, and maybe that is overly generous. As far as living based on issues goes... I don't. I think most people don't. I think we just do what is easy and feels good with regard to most things, and that we're living passionately about a few things at once - a job, a relationship maybe. Our children, our favorite car. A bill we are lobbying for. One little piece of something huge and complicated.