First, my wife decides that she wants to be purely vegetarian (we had already tried to mostly eat only locally-raised pasture-fed animals, but that is no longer good enough), that she wants our son to be raised vegetarian until he is old enough to decide himself, and that she'd really like it if we could keep a vegetarian household. As I have mentioned before, I really love to cook, and this pretty much means that a whole section of the palette is now ripped away from me, and I can never paint with those colors again. Oh yeah, and she also wants me to be happy and excited about it. What the fuck. I should at least be allowed to be unhappy about it, right?!?!?!
Then, I'm browsing around over on Bjørn Østman's blog, and I see a comment from someone exhorting people not to travel to the atheism convention in Australia, because of the impact of air travel on global warming.
I can't fucking stand this shit any more. I am a reasonable man, and I do way more than the average American to try and live an ethical life. But it's never good enough. What do I have to show for my efforts? Yet more restrictions and sacrifices heaped on me, more guilt, more politicization of everyday decision, more worry and deliberation -- and the planet is still headed for disaster, animals are still suffering in massive numbers, because nobody else is changing.
I'm really about to have an ethical implosion here. It's too hard, it causes too much strife, and I don't feel like it makes a difference. I'm a fucking sucker, a fucking sap, for trying to live an ethical life when everybody around me is reaping the benefit of doing what is right for them. I'm so sick of this bullshit.
Guest post: In what world?
3 hours ago
Someone has to start social change.
ReplyDeleteSee also: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ethicsfor
"I'm a reasonable man."
ReplyDelete?
:-)
Suggestion: Challenge your wife to read:
ReplyDeleteThe Vegetarian Myth before she insists her whole family follows HER fanatic trip !
-- an ex-Vegetarian
I'm a fucking sucker, a fucking sap, for trying to live an ethical life when everybody around me is reaping the benefit of doing what is right for them.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that air travel is "unethical" because it causes pollution seems bizarre to me. Is there an ethical imperative not to pollute ever? Running the heater in the winter pollutes, is that unethical?
Also, guilt only works if you let it. I eat meat every day, and I don't feel the least bit bad about it.