Food has always been a key marker in the way we see ourselves, but now the battle lines are being drawn between those who see animals as a source of supper and those who don’t
As a gesture of solidarity with the tens of millions of carrots murdered every year to facilitate #Veganuary,” typed failed mayor Laurence Fox while still in his folk music period and presenting as a flaccid tree, “tonight I forsake vegetables.” Then he uploaded a picture of his steak. As a piece of food photography it was poor; as a statement of resistance it was powerful. Last week Fox News apologised after airing a piece titled Up in Your Grill, which claimed Biden wanted to curb meat consumption. This would include, they said, a plan to cut 90% of red meat from the American diet, leaving them with 4lb of meat a year, or “one burger a month”.
It wasn’t true, but that mattered little, because it had the green taste of something true, and it pricked in all the right places. “I’m pretty sure I ate 4lb of red meat yesterday,” Donald Trump Jr tweeted in response, a cry of freedom. Fox’s steak and little Trump’s tweet were self-portraits – food as a symbol of their identity politics. They were grenades lobbed into a culture war that is playing out in meat and soy and sausage rolls, and what it means to be a man.
Such wars are not new, but each battle updates its weapons. Prosaic objects and domestic choices come to symbolise the politics of each side, whether cars, lattes or bras, burned. Food has always been a key marker of who we are and how we see ourselves, so inevitably becomes a marker of identity, especially at a time when so many certainties, the economy, health, the environment, gender roles, are being challenged. When posted with a Veganuary hashtag, a steak is no longer just a steak.
...The main problem here is suitably chewy – most meat-eaters don’t want to harm animals, but unfortunately they also do want to eat them lightly grilled with a little rosemary. The cognitive dissonance is most clear in the language that turns a cow into beef when hot on a plate. And meat-eating overlaps with so many other of our contemporary anxieties. Thirty years ago, Carol Adams published The Sexual Politics of Meat, linking meat-eating to notions of masculinity and virility in the western world. The idea was that men and meat lean on each other, using the other’s weight to survive like drunk people walking home, both terribly fragile. Since then the need to assert meat as a signifier of male identity has intensified. On her website Adams logs hamburgers “named for rapists – the Harvey Weinstein burger in England or the Bill Cosby in Pakistan”, and maintains that when we remove meat from a meal, we’re threatening the patriarchy. Which, to some, is terrifying.
The psychology of eating meat is a complex area of study illustrating the confluence of morality, emotions, cognition, and personality characteristics.[1] Research into the psychological and cultural factors of meat-eating suggests correlations with masculinity; support for hierarchical values; and reduced openness to experience.[2][3][4] Because meat eating is widely practiced but is sometimes associated with ambivalence, it has been used as a case study in moral psychology to illustrate theories of cognitive dissonance and moral disengagement.[n 1] Research into the consumer psychology of meat is relevant both to meat industry marketing[8] and to advocates of reduced meat consumption.[9][10]
For this particular post, though, they accuse meat eaters of "showing their teeth" and throwing "grenades". Yet, they describe us as being rapists and Harvey Weinstein types who quiver in fear over the loss of the patriarchy. No grenades there?
Time to utilize one of our trusted analytical tools.
Conclusion: This whole thing is pure, USDA, Grade A bullshit.
1 comment:
“Don’t bitch with your mouth full” is a thought which comes to mind. The thing that drives me crazy about these elitists who say they won’t kill for food, and I take them to task heavily on every opportunity… What about all the bugs that we annihilated trying to keep you lettuce clean, (and I can tell you it’s a lot because that’s what we do) diseases that we destroyed trying to keep your apples pretty, the nematodes we whacked to keep your carrots straight. Do plants particularly like being cut in half thrown in a box put the vacuum cooler and sealed in a truck and hauled halfway across the world so they can be macerated by somebody’s teeth, Abe then dissolved in acid,,,, The elitiest arrogance. Like Ted Nugent says “if you eat, there’s a good pile involved. Deal with it”
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