Reasons why I became a vegetarian
Editorial Design Project - Final book
Pour ce projet final de design éditoriel, nous devions réfléchir à un thème qui nous parle, qui nous tient à cœur, et créer un livre explicatif relatif au sujet choisi. La contrainte fixée était de mettre en page 40 pages au minimum. J'ai choisi le thème du végétarisme, et plus particulièrement les raisons pour lesquelles j'ai choisi de devenir végétarienne, et d'expliquer pourquoi la cause animale me tient tant à cœur.
For this final project of editorial design, we had to think about a theme that speaks to us, which is important to us, and create an explanatory book about the chosen topic. The constraint was to lay out at least 40 pages. I chose the theme of vegetarianism, especially the reasons why I chose to become a vegetarian, and explain why the animal cause is so important to me.
Why I became a vegetarian
September 3, 2012. That's the day I made a big decision: becoming a vegetarian. Since then, I have received thousands of questions about why and how, I have been criticized from all sides and of all kinds, had to listen to arguments that I did not ask about the fact that I am wrong , that what I do is useless, that it would harm my health, blah blah blah ... That's why I would like to rectify some of these opinions by exposing here my reasons, my engagements, my values and thus to avoid heated debates with skeptical people who would just seek to find a "loophole" in my arguments and would only tire me, being able to stretch their file and continue my little way quietly. Good reading!
"If anyone wants to save the planet, all he has to do is just stop eating meat. This is the most important thing you can do. It's amazing, when you think about it. Vegetarianism rules so many things at once: ecology, famine, cruelty - Paul McCartney
Definition
Vegetarianism is a food practice that excludes the consumption of animal flesh. Its broadest definition is ovo-lacto-vegetarianism, which consists of eating plants, fungi, and foods of animal origin (such as honey, eggs, milk, and their by-products). This is the classic Western vegetarianism of which practitioners were called "Pythagoreans / Pythagoreans" until 1847.
"Humanity to inferior animals is one of the noblest virtues of which man is endowed, and it is the last stage of the development of moral sentiments. It is only when we are concerned about the totality of sentient beings that our morality reaches its highest level. The animal, built like us, suffers like us too often from our brutality. The one who, without motive, makes the animals suffer, commits a barbarous action, I would willingly say "inhuman", because he tortures a flesh, sister of ours, he brutalizes a body that shares with us the same mechanism of life, the same aptitude for pain. " - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
Environmental Protection
Since I was little, I have always loved all animals. But my family and I had always been rather big consumers of meat, at least we ate it several times a week. Being small, not knowing how to cook myself and not daring to take my insurance in front of my parents and my entourage, I therefore for a long time gave up my desire to become a vegetarian.
Also, I was little informed on the subject, to this is added the fact that the trend "vegetarian-vegan" that we know currently did not exist at all (by this, I refer, among others, to rays entirely dedicated to vegetarian products in the shops and the increasing flowering of restaurants sporting a vegetarian menu).
When I entered the second year of high school at La Planta in Sion, one of the main themes of our geography / geopolitics course was global warming, its causes and its consequences on the planet, since the last century until to today, resulting in the emergence of victims such as climate refugees. We watched the documentary film "Home" about human pressure on the environment and the consequences it has on climate change. The themes are all related to the environment: lack of water, deforestation, melting ice or the depletion of natural resources. Agriculture becomes intensive, wastes water, promotes monoculture, and transforms landscapes.
It is this point that has given rise to a real trigger in me: life has made me acquire certain values, such as respect for nature and animals. Eating meat indirectly helps, through industry and intensive farming, to destroy that environment and those beings I respect. Eating meat goes against my values, so why continue? Is this what I want? Continue to live consciously doing things that go against my values? If I do it in this area, what would prevent me from doing it in all other areas of life?
"Have the courage of your opinions, visit the slaughterhouses and continue to eat meat if you do not have the heart raised by what you saw! " - Brigitte Bardot
Animal well-being
"The French have already discovered that the darkness of the skin is not a reason why a human being is abandoned without possible recourse to the whims of someone who torments him. One day may come when it will be recognized that the number of paws, the villi of the skin or the termination of the sacrum bone are also insufficient reasons to abandon a being sensitive to the same fate. An adult dog or horse is, beyond all possible comparison, a more rational being, and also more conversational, than a newborn for a day, a week, or even a month. . But, even if it were otherwise, what would follow? The question is not, "Can they reason? Or "can they talk? But: "Can they suffer? »» - Jeremy Bentham
At the same time, during our biology classes, we had discussed the conditions for rearing animals: "ensauvagement" of domestic animals, animals that become aggressive as a result of the treatment they undergo, "animal madness", meaning an intense and prolonged malaise, the hens in cages peck between them, which requires the painful removal of their beak; pigs, if they are not incarcerated in stalls that deprive them completely of movement but in "bigger" cages, self-injure, etc. and consanguinity, which breeds the physical and mental fragility of farmed or so-called "purebred" animals.
"Auschwitz starts everywhere where someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: these are just animals. " - Theodor W. Adorno
Continuing my personal research, I quickly discovered that breeding conditions were similar in all countries, and that they apply as much in the wild west as in the depths of our traditional Switzerland. For there are methods of treating animals that are infinitely cruel and which, despite their atrocity, become natural in a person working in a slaughterhouse who has always been used to treating living beings as mere merchandise.
"No civilization has ever inflicted such severe suffering on animals as ours, in the name of rational production" at the lowest cost ". Let's not be afraid of words: France is covered with concentration camps and torture chambers. For these millions, for these billions of animals, the simple fact of living, from birth to death, is a torture every second. " - Armand Farrachi, "Pity for the animal condition"
Spirituality
Having studied the science of religions, including mainly religions and Asian philosophies, I was naturally directed to Buddhism, even before taking the step of becoming a vegetarian. Buddhism, in general, believes that all beings have the fundamental right to exist and not to suffer. Baptized, raised and confirmed in a Catholic family, but not adhering to any religion, I believe nevertheless in the existence of the soul as well as of a force, a breath of life of which all the living beings are endowed, as much the animals, than humans and plants. The only difference with these is that we, animals and humans, are endowed with an individual consciousness and a nervous system that allows us to feel the pain. It is natural for me to consider animals as equals to our human race. I therefore consider my "beliefs" rather as a way of thinking, a philosophy developed from a completely rational reasoning, a cult dedicated to an abstract entity and devoid of scientific explanation.
"Alas, what kind of virtue do these beings practice? They fill their belly with animal flesh, spreading fear among the animals that live in the air, in the water, on the earth! Practitioners of the Way must abstain from meat because eating it is a source of terror for sentient beings. "- Buddha Shakyamuni, 2500 years ago
Philosophy and animal rights
When vegetarians or vegans talk about animal rights, animal equality or antispecism (a word today demonized by society in general and which promotes the divide between meat consumers and vegetarians) the world rises up and brings out its most conservative side. Many do not understand how we can draw a parallel line between slaughterhouses and concentration camps, or compare chained animals to black slaves of past centuries. Still others have this image of "extremist" vegetarians and vegans because it is the activists who are the most publicized, and do not necessarily show a very "smooth" image of their claims. But how to show a beautiful image of something disturbing that is happening now? In the end, few people are open to constructive debate, listening to the arguments of others. There is the source of hostilities between "pro" and "anti" ...
"As long as human beings continue to shed the blood of animals, there will be no peace in the world. The distance between the creation of the Hitler gas chambers and the Stalin concentration camps is only a step away, because all these acts were perpetrated in the name of social justice and there is no will have no justice as long as the man grasps a knife or a pistol to destroy weaker beings than him. "- Isaac Bashevis
To conclude, I have explained here my reasons, the why of the how, by pointing out the fact that each and everyone have a different way of thinking, divergent opinions and an own conscience. My reasons are unique, just like every person in this world. It is when we arrive, all different, to live together, that we will know peace.
©Soraya Poulin 2018-2019
