A Revelation

After thinking about that last post, I think I may realize why I think vegetarians are so "weird" and it's probably because, like I said earlier this morning, they're the "other," the thing that has values and beliefs different from my own. I guess I was, in a way, wary of another culture that I just didn't understand. But now, after looking at those beliefs in detail, I think I can understand them a little better and accept those different beliefs. While this probably won't change my eating habits a great deal, now I'm at least willing to listen to people when they tell me why they won't eat meat, instead of dismissing it as "crazy vegan propaganda." Now that this strange form of culture shock has ended, I can see that these are not people trying to undermine my beliefs, but people with their own values which make sense to them; I can safely say that my values (eating meat) probably seem foolish to them. While I will probably continue to look at why vegetarians oppose meat-eating, I will be a little less hostile from now on, and instead look more closely at the underlying logic, rather than dissect it like a skeptical cynic. On the other hand, maybe I will take this blog in another direction and instead look at how my view of vegetarians and vegans has changed; that was, after all, part of the reason I started my research. I wanted to understand vegetarianism, arguably a culture of its own, but I think I lost sight of that.