What is it about Vegetarianism that incites such a sweepingly dismissive attitude from the average meat eater?
It is a patient vegetarian whom thinks it wise to raise an eyebrow, or grimace at jocular talk of bludgeoning a beast of burden or sucking marrow from the femur of a ferret.
The peculiar response is usually one of aggressive mocking. Not your run of the garden, lads together, tongue in cheek jousting in and around each others belief systems or principles, but a genuine short tempered blurt.
The intrinsic flaw in communication is that the meat eater will move from the innocent asker of a question, such as, 'why are you a vegetarian', to a group of people lambasting the moral crusader in question - whether they answer the question or not.
Said lambastication will be full to the abattoir brim with Normative arguments. That is to say statements that propose a value beyond factual observation.
Example:
'You NEED to eat meat' or 'Vegetarian food ISN'T as good as meat'.
Idle, nonsensical, meaningless, aggression. Despite the nature of the statements being structured to draw argumentative responses, the aggressing party will then look at the respondent like a preaching fundamentalist when they finally offer their feelings on the matter.
For example, my official stance is simply this:
'I do not need to eat meat to have a healthy, fulfilling life. Taking the life of an animal without cause or necessity seems to me to be spitting in the face of the human soul that we have been afforded. The very thing that allegedly sets the human aside from the animal is the ability to consider, to think in a considered and self-aware fashion. This is the very process that allows us to pose moral questions and require answers before we continue with an unnecessary indulgence'.
The common response:
'I like the taste of meat too much to give it up' 'Meat is good for you' 'You need meat to survive' 'It's the food chain' 'A lion wouldn't think twice before eating you'.
'I don't agree with Vegetarianism'.
The implication:
Vegetarians are idiots.
At this juncture, roughly 30 minutes of terrible jokes about how eating lettuce is killing a lettuce and telling me I would eat meat if my mothers life depended on it....etc.....
The inflated sense of victory and achievement that comes with this is born of the fact that there are invariably more meat eaters in the room than vegetarians. The lack of interest in pursuit of the debate from the vegetarian once this level of puerile nonsense is introduced to undermine a perfectly reasonable discussion point, in order to maintain the status quo only exacerbates this.
Perhaps what causes the habit laden, blood gargling retards who shout out this feculence freely whilst smashing the bones of their victims into the top of their skulls, is that they are being asked to question the morality of their actions simply by the existence of a vegetarian.
What is preferable - to double check that you are safe from mass ostracism by colluding with those who's actions match your own? Or to carefully consider your own real feelings about a point of moral question.
There is no debate about whether the moral question exists. Vegetarians have asked it.
There is also no debate about whether the next person who tells me that i need meat to survive, blissfully unaware that i am in fact... alive...will be faced with, instead of apathy and disregard, vitriol and persistence.
This is a vow:
Come near me with a normative argument designed to sidestep consideration of the question being asked and i will hound you like hungry wolf tracks sheep, until you wilt and die of exhaustion.
Why do meat eaters aggress vegetarians? Fear, fear that they are Jew killing Nazi's dressed up as parents and friends.
'That and because meat clogs the artery that takes blood to their brain', I might say if i were to adopt the approach of my enemy.
Which i won't.
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