"Vegetarian" is not a synonym for "considers self morally superior"

    While searching online, in a fit of boredom, for vegetarian quotes, I stumbled across a surprising number of articles which referred to vegetarianism as a "false religion" and accused vegetarians of considering themselves "morally superior" to meat-eaters. Both of these statements seemed a little odd, and mildly humorous to me.

    The idea of vegetarianism as a “false religion” makes little sense, largely because it’s not a religion, but more importantly because the claim is as incoherent and unprovable as the claim that there is a “true religion”. I consider the assertion to be little more than name calling, and a demonstration of a preoccupation with emotionally derived convictions, and a disregard for intellect and reason. If these individuals actually consider this to be the only, or most compelling grounds upon which vegetarianism can be disputed, they give the diet more credit than I do- and I am a vegetarian. Unfortunately, this is not likely proof of the infallibility of the vegetarian’s position, but an all too common instance of someone with no knowledge on an issue broadcasting their abstract and baseless opinions on the Internet for their fellow uninformed and likeminded readers to absorb.

    The notion that vegetarians consider themselves “morally superior” has always amused me, as I have been accused of such an opinion myself. I’ve actually never met anyone who felt that way, although I’m sure there are, as in every group, some vegetarians out there giving the rest of us a bad name. To be clear, I have never, nor do I currently, considered myself morally superior to anyone by virtue of my diet. In fact, I think the terms upon which a comparison of the degree of morality of two individuals could be made would be very difficult to determine, and I hardly believe that what an individual chooses to swallow, digest, and poop out, is sufficient grounds for such a comparison.

    What I do find interesting, however, is that even though the notion that one’s diet would suffice as grounds for moral superiority is ridiculous, meat eaters- many of whom tend to display a blithe disregard for the impact of their diet, or else appear at least as convinced as vegetarians that it is a legitimate, or even superior, choice- continue to make the accusation. Such puzzling behavior leads me to hypothesize that, in many cases, this may simply be a projection of the meat eater’s own feelings of moral inferiority. In the same way one could plausibly feel “sinful” when walking past a nun with a cigarette in one’s hand, or unintelligent when one is unlearned and conversing with a renowned scholar, meat eaters may feel -in some way- inferior when contrasting their dietary choices and the impact thereof with those of a vegetarian. Now, I want to be very clear that the above examples are intended to be demonstrative of a contrast in choices, not in any form of superiority, they hold just the same when worded the other way (one might feel like an intellectual when conversing with the unlearned.) Plus, anyone who has spent any considerable amount of time with me knows that if I was aiming to demonstrate the moral superiority of vegetarianism, organized religion is not a comparison I would be inclined make. This is simply to say that it is not uncommon to feel slightly more conscious of our choices when presented with those an individual whose choices differ notably from our own.

    Lending to this hypothesis is my own experience as a meat-eater. Unlike most vegetarians I know, I did not become a vegetarian based on any rational, moral, emotional, or environmental grounds. I became a vegetarian about four years ago because someone bet me I couldn’t. I won. I had done no research on the subject, and was convinced that eating meat was reasonably natural, healthy, and humane. This means as meat-eater I was unjaded by all the inconvenient facts and statistics that vegetarians’ minds swarm with about the environmental impact, health and nutritional issues, and humaneness related to eating meat and the meat industry. I did all my research after I made it through our entire camping trip feasting on surprisingly delicious, fire- toasted, vegetarian chicken burgers. Yet, even with my unimpressive knowledge of the issues that concern vegetarians, I still had a strange emotional relationship with vegetarianism.

    I realized that becoming a vegetarian would require an individual to give up much of what they were accustomed to and enjoyed eating. This would mean putting their values, and the product of their rational activity, before their physical satisfaction. It would also require them to constantly defend and explain a personal choice to countless individuals who are, for some reason, motivated enough argue that they are wrong, yet often too lazy to do any actual research on the subject. Instead they just throw around cliché lines like how “we are supposed to eat meat”, how the “animal population needs us to hunt, lest it get out of control”, how we have a couple pointy teeth, how vegetarianism constitutes a “false religion”, and how vegetarians are nothing but a bunch of self-involved tree huggers who consider themselves “morally superior” to the individual sitting across from them at the table with a greasy chunk of dead animal rolling around in his mouth. Although I had done little research on the subject, I could at least deduce these things, and recognize that they were sacrifices that I was not willing to make. I couldn’t help being a little jealous of individuals with such willpower, when I could hardly commit to a week long diet, not to mention their ability to commit to something for largely selfless reasons, even though it required a considerable amount of personal sacrifice. For these reasons, and surely others that I no longer recall, I had an unsettling feeling about vegetarianism, vegetarians, and when I thought on the subject- myself.

    Now that I have made the sacrifices that I clearly admired in others, I can honestly say I feel better about myself. I know that my actions are minimizing my impact on the environment, are in tune with my principle of non-violence, aren’t contributing to needless suffering, and have drastically enhanced my health, nutrition, digestion, energy, and brought me to a healthier weight. I feel that my choice has contributed to the overall utility. However, and this is a big ‘however’, just because I feel better about myself, it does not follow that I feel worse about others, or that I consider myself suddenly superior to them. Feeling good about yourself and the impact of your choices is a positive, healthy feeling, and is not at all the same as feeling superior to other people. I obviously consider the vegetarian diet to be great for the body and the environment, and I would be overjoyed if anyone chose to adopt it, but if they did that would be their choice, just as it was my choice when I committed it. Choosing not to adopt a vegetarian diet makes a person just that: a person who chose not to adopt a vegetarian diet. Since morality is unlikely to be solely a function of a person’s diet, it is unlikely that this choice is the determining factor in moral superiority.

    To say that I consider myself “morally superior” because I have made a choice for myself, which I feel good about, regarding what I ingest, and what kind of impact I want to have on the environment is, in my opinion, unable to be justified as anything more than a stereotype, and a projection of the accuser’s own dissatisfaction with, perhaps, his lack of discretion in terms of what he is willing to kill in order to treat his taste buds, or maybe his unflattering perception of his impact on the environment, or his discomfort with his contribution to an industry which he likely knows is, at the very least, inhumane. Perhaps the individuals perpetuating such a sentiment should engage in a closer examination of their own values, and feelings about their worldly impact. Maybe they have more in common with vegetarians than they realize. On the other hand, maybe we vegetarians really are all just assholes. ☺