But what I hate much more than that is when it's true, and those few snobbish vegetarians in their great passive aggression ruin it for all the modest ones.
The argument is "pushing down one's throat." And before I am accused of being on par with a grade student I assure you that I'm not the one who uses it. I don't believe I've heard it oft since grade school, frankly. Personally, I don't mind it when people push their religious views if they can put up a good fight. Why lie? The world is largely a great interplay of power, and if you care for some one or some thing you're liable to obligate others to care as well. They might not care, but once they're obligated to they have no choice unless they can explain their apathy. It is only by such a process that values are democratically assessed. What need not be made topics for public dissent must be left private, for they're simply strident displays of personal preference and pride that hold no value to the audience and show him no consideration.
So I am not one to accuse others of being forceful, because usually people are not forceful. And even when people turn to outright force I still try to discern their motives; in fact: that is one of those instances when I have no CHOICE but to discern their motives, right? Yet there is some thing much more violent in the passive aggression of suggestion. Offering a lie as one offers cheese to a mouse by way of mouse-trap is more evil than to force untruth upon people overtly. To deceive some one, in a society so individualistic that every thing is one's own fault and nothing is any one else's business, is to add insult to injury, because now the victim mouse can be blamed for trusting the giver of the cheese. And if the lesson learned there is not to trust ANY one, we all are clearly in grave danger on a large-scale level.
And this is not to say either that the overt fanatic does not lie instinctively and that the subtle propagandist does not believe her own propaganda. It IS to say that her method is no less evil. And to discern passive aggression from passivity one has simply to see how she replies to CRITICISM.
So I took it upon my self, of course, to point out that in fact there are PLENTY of arguments against vegetarianism, but that as some one who's no longer on the debate team I feel no need to elaborate upon them. I all so decided to leave a joke on the post, just as a faint reminder to think of the rest of us and how we carnivores perceive the world and symbol.
Aquarians are supposed to love intellectual discussions, and I've met a few that I could talk to about every thing for hours. But you were right: Republicans are stupid. Within hours of learning that this chick is a Republican she left a message on her photo telling some one that she's not "pushing it down your throat" and to either hide her posts or to delete her.
Have you ever heard any thing more stupid?
I should like to think that it was not addressed to me, not simply for the sake of preservation of my self, but rather to believe that I was not alone in calling B.S. Having played cards with some young strangers at the bar that night made me appreciate the company of other skeptics who would call B.S. on some one first.
Orwell says that the idiom is dangerous as tool for propaganda, and Derrida says that there is no such thing as a "pure idiom". So what does one make then of the idiom "pushing it down your throat"? Of COURSE, no one is LITERALLY pushing ANY thing down ANY body's throat, and we are lucky in that respect that we're civilians in America and not prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. No one was force-fed chicken and no one was force-fed tofu. It was simply a discussion. When Antonio came over to my home and we talked Jesus I did not get on his case for "pushing Jesus down my throat". I simply got my Bible out and started analyzing it, looking alarmed each time he would forego discussion in a reasoned format for some sort of hateful and antagonistic preaching. What's the world come to if one can't hold intellectual discussion without being met with paranoia and fanaticism? I would not let him leave until we got down to the bottom of it. And yet later his young brother would accuse me, with presumption, of holding his brother hostage and abusing his religion. Was it not open for him to be disabused of?
On that note: a college male who has no luck with women might easily say that they should have the decency to wear long pants if they do not intend to copulate, and if they DO intend to they should take care to observe the virtues of their partners, and to note what others have left out.
The standard is not all too high, but college girls don't want to hear it. And I would not make analogy to it if this were not so bad now that they make analogy to it as well. To "force" some one to just see Reason, since the other is quite demonstrably "asking for" it, triggers all sorts of feminist associations with "rape rhetoric". At that point I would say: so be it. You either take responsibility for what you do and WATCH yourself, or you do not. The principle in sex applies in politics. If you go around dressed in your opinion, you're asking at the LEAST for an ideological cat-call. End of story.
If this girl claimed that there were ABSOLUTELY no arguments against vegetarianism, it follows that she meant for it to apply to EVERY one. It would be banal and a waste of every body's time to say: "there are no arguments at all for why *I* should not be a vegetarian, so I'm a vegetarian." That would be narcissistic to profess. The function of the media, including social media, is not simply to "wave one's freak flag." People go to it to learn just how to live their lives. We are blessed with a device that gives us answers now, and guidance, and no longer by appeal to some remote authority but rather by appeal to Common Sense, the sensibilities of common people. This is not some echo chamber for you to nerd out with all your vegan friends; it is an open forum to test your convictions against opposite convictions. When I was in my first or second year of college, I would walk up to strangers on the bus with questions like: how do I live my life? I needed these answers desperately, because the standards others set for me were changing (with their whims, as I would learn) and I was heading towards a mental break down, unable to recover any sense of identity and running swiftly out of time.
The Internet allows us to SEE what the People value and to operate as self-responsible, informed individuals. So to suggest that I simply Hide her posts or delete her is absurdly silly. It would mean that I should ignore her public statements so that she might ignore me, or in the latter case she could ignore me totally by my withdrawing from her social circle, even if those statements are still publically available not only to her friends but to my self as well.
What the hell? That defeats the whole point of social networking. Even if my intent were purely sexual I still would have to take an Absolutist claim into consideration. To insist that vegetarianism is good because it is an infallible position is to lure the mouse into the trap. To claim that Absolutely there are no "valid" arguments against it is to claim this for ALL beings: that we must ALL be vegetarians, for not ONE of us can produce argument against it. Again: to say that there is "absolutely" no argument against ONE person being a vegetarian is just narcissistic. If you want to appeal to your own tenacity, you do not need to pretend towards using Reason, and you do not need to do it publically. There are no valid arguments against smoking, by that same token; even second-hand smoke is just an environmental hazard; who is to say that letting cows run free is not? Yet it is still RETARDED to insist that others cannot JUDGE you for it with a VALID argument. You NEED those others to judge you, especially in your outspoken ignorance. They are your kin.
Dm.A.A.
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