My friend Benson converted to vegetarianism, or I should say veganism, about five years ago. He went whole hog, excuse my bad pun. He didn’t eat dairy. He didn’t wear leather belts or leather shoes. He wouldn’t go inside my car, a Nissan Maxima, with its leather seats.
“Converted” was his word. He didn’t gradually move toward veganism for health reasons or because he was revolted at the thought of eating dead animals. He had a powerful conversion experience on a religious level. For Benson, the world was Light and Darkness, vegans and non-vegans.
One afternoon while Benson and I were in my kitchen eating falafels and couscous with raisins, I explained my need for a little animal protein. I said, “As you know, Lara and I are trying to get pregnant and the fertility doctor said adding a little red meat is better for my motility and general testosterone levels.”
“That’s very convenient for you,” Benson said. “Worry about your testosterone while allowing animals to suffer before and during slaughter.”
“That they do,” I conceded. “In nature, we kill to survive. Take the Eskimos. They slaughter whales and seals for their survival. Are Eskimos immoral? Should they be required to be vegans just because you wish to impose your cultural bias on them?”
“Really, that’s such a red herring to bring up the Eskimos,” Benson said. “What percentage of humans need meat to survive? Less than five percent, I’m sure. The fact of the matter is that you can perfectly live without eating animals and yet you choose to eat them for your own pleasure and convenience. And of course your precious testosterone.”
“A blood sacrifice to the Reproductive Cult.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m sorry, bro. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I do try to exercise compassion toward my fellow creatures. For example, I stopped eating lobsters after reading the David Foster Wallace essay.”
In Wallace’s famous essay, “Consider the Lobster,” he describes how lobsters desperately bang the lids of the pots as they’re suffering an agonizing death in boiling water.
Benson was not appeased. He said, “Selective morality doesn’t cut it. We can agree over the lobsters. But I can show you video footage of chickens, pigs, cows, dogs, cats, monkeys, and other animals—all bred for human consumption—and you’ll see the look of despondence in their eyes. And their worst suffering is yet to come.”
“I feel sympathy for mammals, I admit. But fish are too removed from me. I could quit eating mammals, for sure. But I’d still eat fish, which means I could never be a member of your Vegan Tribe.”
“It’s your selective, arbitrary morality speaking again. Any creature that is sentient should not be consumed.”
He was quoting from Peter Singer, his Vegan Messiah.
I said, “I don’t believe in Peter Singer’s sentient being theory. I’d kill rats if I needed to. And mice and other mammalian pestilence. That’s not an issue with me. But I do share your objection to making animals suffer, shedding their blood for our delectation. That can, under certain circumstances, be barbaric.”
Benson lowered his head and poked his fork through a mound of couscous. Since becoming a vegan, he was overcome with depression—the kind of overwhelming sadness that results from seeing 99% of the human race as unfeeling, cruel, self-centered and completely immoral. The worst part of his becoming a vegan, he recently explained, was that he had developed an overwhelming hatred for the human race. He knew he had to face the despair of knowing he could not convert everyone on the planet. His mission in life was to convert what few individuals he could.
He looked up at me and said, “I know you care. I could tell when we were watching those videos of the newborn calves being separated from their mothers and those pigs languishing in those tiny cages.”
“Of course I care. You think it gives me pleasure to see animals suffer like that?”
“You seem better than most of them,” he said. “If only I could convert you. If only I could get you to take the next step forward.”
“Sorry, my man, for the sake of my declining middle-aged testosterone I’m still going to eat some animal protein, mostly fish and some dairy like yogurt and nonfat milk. Can you be cool with that, at least while you’re living under my roof?”
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