April
2004
Vegetarian
Advocate: Vegetarians and Violence: The Anarchist Cookbook
or the Moosewood Cookbook?
By Jack Rosenberger
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A recent winter night. I’m driving our red Subaru station wagon
and Zoe Levy Rosenberger is sitting in the back seat, strapped inside
her car seat. Tonight’s musical selection is Fela Anikulapo Kuti
singing “Zombie,” an incendiary song in which he berates
and mocks Nigerian soldiers as unfeeling robots. Outside it’s
cold but not uncomfortably so, and the evening sky is unusually dark.
We’re racing to the train station to pick up Rani. As we glide
down a steep street, Zoe notices the stars and announces, “I’m
going to make three wishes.” Always curious about the thought
processes of my grade-school daughter, I ask, “What are your
three wishes?”
“I can’t tell you,” she says. “If I do, they
won’t come true.” Zoe pauses for a moment, then says, “Oh,
I can tell you.” She pauses for a moment. “I wish I could
fly.” Another pause. “I wish Helen would visit.” Another
pause. “I wish everyone in the world wouldn’t eat animals
tomorrow.” Zoe re-considers what she’s just said, and then
articulates the thought more precisely. “I mean I wish everyone
in the world was a vegetarian.”
I steer our little red car into the nearest parking space at the train
station. I’m glad Zoe shared her three wishes with me, but it’s
a bittersweet moment. Zoe knows humans can’t fly like birds do,
but lately sometimes she pretends she is a bird. She likes to run, arms
flapping at her sides, and leap in our house and in our yard, fantasizing
that she can fly. As for her second wish, Zoe calls Helen “my
bestest friend.” Zoe and Helen have known each other for nearly
all of their young lives, but Helen and her family temporarily moved
to England about four months ago. However, they’re visiting New
York in two weeks, and we’ve arranged for Helen to have a sleepover
at our home. And as for everyone in the world being a vegetarian, well...that
would be one of my three wishes, too.
A Vegetarian World
One of the most difficult aspects of being a vegetarian parent is that
there is so much about the world that is contrary to my values of compassion,
respect, and mutual acknowledgement and understanding—and beyond
my control. I want to raise Zoe in a world of vegetarians, but it’s
clear that outside the walls of our home, such a world does not exist.
As the theme for this issue of Satya is “Violence and
Activism,” I’ve thought about what role violence can play
in creating a vegetarian world. In short, what is a better roadmap for
a vegetarian planet—the Anarchist Cookbook or the Moosewood
Cookbook?
For me, Moosewood author Mollie Katzen wins this round. (Despite
the fact that Mollie isn’t a vegetarian.) People can’t be
persuaded by violence to eat only vegetarian food. The idea is almost
comic: “Eat that veggie dog or I’ll be forced to shoot
you!”
Nor can violence deter people from breeding, raising, and slaughtering
farmed animals or selling their flesh and other body parts for profit.
I understand how an activist can feel a sense of satisfaction and victory
after firebombing a parking lot of meat-delivery trucks or vandalizing
a fast food restaurant. However, in the long run, such actions are
ineffective.
First, the number of vegetarians who participate in such endeavors
is too small and the number of non-vegetarian institutions, like factory
farms and fast food joints, are too many. It’s an impossible
task. Second, the American public frowns upon property destruction,
activist-oriented
or not. As a tool, violence is a public relations disaster for the
vegetarian movement.
What to Do?
I think vegetarians need to be realistic about the world we live in.
I used to believe that most people, if they only knew the facts, would
embrace vegetarianism. However, most people, I’ve learned, simply
don’t care. By the time a person reaches adulthood in this country,
he or she has been exposed to the moral filth and sheer horror of factory
farms and slaughterhouses. There is no mystery about the life of a
turkey
whose body is served on a platter on Thanksgiving Day. Yet, few people
have the compassion, empathy, or internal strength to became vegetarians.
How can we increase the number of vegetarians in the world? I think
we need to appeal to people’s sense of self-interest by promoting
vegetarianism as the healthiest and best style of eating. One good idea
is an advertising campaign whose tagline is something like “Be
good to yourself. Eat Vegetarian.”
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