To be clear, my reason for disgust isn’t because I think that eating meat is impure. It’s because seeing dead animals, or parts of dead animals, reminds me of the life that once existed and is now gone. This is the same reason for why I would never be appetized by human flesh—seeing dead people fills me with sorrow, and seeing many dead people in places where dead people shouldn’t be (such as on supermarket shelves) fills me with horror, because it reminds me of the atrocity that continues.
Many vegetarians don’t have these emotions because they haven’t fully recognized the atrocity for what it is. They aren’t really coming to terms with the scale of suffering. Many vegans don’t either, but I don’t think it’s possible to really be cognizant of the atrocity for what it is and not have this emotional reaction, for most people. For this reason, I want to be horrified, disgusted by meat, because I don’t want to ignore the scale of the suffering around me. I want to be aware of and motivated by this wrong (except of course it is overwhelming and counterproductive). And I’m referring to myself here, but I think we would have much more pro-animal action if other people also tried to internalize nonspeciesm in this way too.
To be clear, my reason for disgust isn’t because I think that eating meat is impure. It’s because seeing dead animals, or parts of dead animals, reminds me of the life that once existed and is now gone. This is the same reason for why I would never be appetized by human flesh—seeing dead people fills me with sorrow, and seeing many dead people in places where dead people shouldn’t be (such as on supermarket shelves) fills me with horror, because it reminds me of the atrocity that continues.
Many vegetarians don’t have these emotions because they haven’t fully recognized the atrocity for what it is. They aren’t really coming to terms with the scale of suffering. Many vegans don’t either, but I don’t think it’s possible to really be cognizant of the atrocity for what it is and not have this emotional reaction, for most people. For this reason, I want to be horrified, disgusted by meat, because I don’t want to ignore the scale of the suffering around me. I want to be aware of and motivated by this wrong (except of course it is overwhelming and counterproductive). And I’m referring to myself here, but I think we would have much more pro-animal action if other people also tried to internalize nonspeciesm in this way too.
I hope that makes sense.