A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Vegetarianism/veganism

  • Jonathan Safran-Foer: “Eat a ton less meat”

    I’ve developed quite a healthy respect for Jonathan Safran-Foer. I’ve never read any of his novels, but from what I gather, he’s a critically respected writer who could probably carve out a profitable niche churning out books in the vein of Franzen and other contemporary “literary” novelists. So it must have been somewhat risky, career-wise, Read more

  • Friday Links

    –Why unions are essential for the future of liberalism. –Maryland is very close to legalizing same-sex marriage. –Indiana is very close to passing a draconian, Arizona-style immigration law. –International aid groups appeal to Congress to restore funding for humanitarian aid. –A slideshow and discussion on the question “Is meat green?” –How much would a government Read more

  • Vegetarians, vegans, and the varieties of reform

    Via Critical Animal, here’s an article looking at whether animal welfare reforms (e.g., banning battery cages or veal crates) reduce meat consumption. Some animal-rights activists, notably those associated with or sympathetic to Gary Francione’s “abolitionist” approach, have argued that such reforms only encourage people to eat more meat, because they make people feel better about Read more

  • Friday links

    –The Australian broadcaster ABC’s Religion and Ethics site has a series of articles by Martha Nussbaum on democracy and education: parts 1, 2, and 3. –Coal is not cheap. –Vegan nutritionist Virginia Messina argues that healthy diets can include meat analogues. (A corrective of sorts to anti-processed-food extremism.) –At the great metal blog Invisible Oranges: Read more

  • Meat industry starting to feel the heat

    Via Mark Bittman, an article on the effect that efforts like the “Meatless Monday” campaign are having on beef and pork producers: Efforts like Meatless Mondays are yet another headache for the beef and pork industries. They have been struggling to cope with the soaring cost of corn for feed and to hold on to Read more

  • Is universal vegetarianism (or veganism) possible?

    In his interesting book Beyond Animal Rights, philosopher Tony Milligan considers, among other questions, whether the whole world could be vegetarian (or vegan). If not, this could be considered a strike against these two dietary choices. The problem, he argues, is that we need to transition to a more ecologically sustainable system of food production, Read more

  • Ethics and isolation

    Scu at Critical Animal has interesting take on the Anthony Bourdain-Jonathan Safran Foer debate I posted about last week. One of Bourdain’s arguments (which echoes an argument made by Michael Pollan, among others) is that embracing vegetarianism alienates you from human community. As Scu points out, however, sometimes this is a good thing. Not to Read more

  • Jonathan Safran Foer keeps it real

    One thing that Eating Animals author Jonathan Safran Foer does really well in this debate about vegetarianism with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain is to keep bringing the discussion back down to earth from Bourdain’s hyper-idealized view of meat-eating. Safran Foer’s not interested in arguing that meat-eating is always, everywhere, and under any conceivable circumstances wrong; Read more

  • Bad arguments against vegetarianism, the continuing series

    The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates recently wrote two posts on why he’s “going vegetarian.” One thing that always seems to happen when someone discusses their decision to become vegetarian is that people take umbrage–as thought they’re being personally attacked. Some of TNC’s commenters fall into this category. One argument made there–and one that comes up with Read more

  • On weekday vegetarians, flexitarians, and other part-timers

    A while back I wrote a post about the debate between vegetarians and “conscientious omnivores.” I proposed that this debate was largely irrelevant to the bigger problems that characterize the standard American diet: [T]his is an extremely specialized debate among a very tiny segment of the population. The vast majority of the meat consumed in Read more