Sunday, November 6, 2011
Sophrosyne and Meat-Eating
Today, when I was in the cafeteria, I was thinking about veganism/vegetarianism. They have a lot of fake meat in the cafeteria (imitation chicken, etc). If eating meat is inherently wrong, is it sophrosynic to eat this imitation meat? My initial thought was no because, if you are naturally inclined to do the right thing, then you wont need to trick yourself with fake meat. What do you all think?
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I've actually given a lot of thought to sophrosunic eating - a (physically and mentally) healthy diet is achieved when a person chooses nourishing food options without forcing him/herself to forego a food item that she/he desires. In fact, in sophrosunic eating, a person desires what is nourishing.
ReplyDeleteAnd is nourished by what she desires. But this sidesteps the question of what a sophrosun should habituate herself to desire. Is there a problem, as Emily suggests, with desiring something that feels and tastes like dead animals, even if it is healthy and no animals were tortured or killed in its manufacture?
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I've always been turned off by the idea of wearing (fake) animal print, because I think it perpetuates the idea that animals are something to be worn. A friend raised an objection to this, reminding me that I eat fake meat ("facon", tofu chicken nuggets, etc.) and that by my hypothesis, eating fake meat supports the idea that animals are something to be eaten. These two things seem different to me, but I can't put my finger on why...maybe it's just because I really like facon and I really dislike cheetah print clothing...
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