is it a confronting word to use? of course, its making an inescapable statement that the act is not morally-neutral, which the word "kill" can be ambiguous on. it invites people to think of justifications for why such a deliberate killing for pleasure of a thinking, feeling being that doesnt want to die shouldnt invite moral judgement. thats a confronting thing to have to do, especially when youre not used to thinking about it
no leftist legitimately thinks that its wrong to use the word murder because of dictionary definitions or because it implies animals are the exact same as humans, we both know that. everyone here is smarter than that. they think its wrong because it makes them uncomfortable to have to make a moral examination of something they participate in every day, that perhaps theyre not as certain about the morality of as they think
they think its wrong because it makes them uncomfortable
This really isn't it. The most immediate reason people are annoyed by it is because it's aggressive and hostile without being funny or novel.
To the extent they engage with it, it's just a sloppy argument. When people hear "meat is murder" they see that as arguing that killing an animal is morally equivalent to killing a person. They usually disagree with this. They are then told it's not 1:1 equivalent, but killing animals is still really bad. This gets more traction -- most people like most animals -- but it also begs the question of why shouldn't we treat things that are different (animals and people) differently? The issue is then further confused when "murder" rhetoric is mixed back in; it's arguing it both ways.
i know its not the crux of the discussion, but the specific phrase "meat is murder" is a punchline these days (due to pop culture use), people dismiss it without even engaging and i absolutely think its a tactically-incorrect phrase for vegans to use regardless of truth or otherwise. but saying equivalent things like "that animal that died for your dinner was murdered" does still have some power, i think, and is what people on this site have been saying. so id like to steer clear of discussing "meat is murder" itself (pedantry but kinda important i think).
and also just something thats easy to forget - most of us here werent brought up vegan, most of us have been non-vegan leftists much like you, and most of us have been on both sides of this argument. and i can tell you 100% from my personal experience that for me the reason i disliked the word "murder" was because it made me uncomfortable about my own actions, and that the answers i was telling myself as to why calling it murder was ridiculous just werent cutting it (i of course wasnt 100% consciously aware of it at the time).
and yeah, not intended to be funny and novel, intended to be confronting and uncomfortable. if instead of saying "murder" i said "deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - a thinking, feeling being that doesnt want to die" it doesnt quite roll off the tongue in the same way but would provoke the same angry response because its not about technicalities of whether killing an animal and killing a human are exactly 1:1 or not (and i would refer you to @BeamBrain s excellent post addressing this very point). its about being told "your actions make you not as moral as you like to think you are" and reacting defensively because deep down you know theyre right.
but if you can convince yourself you proved vegans wrong on some semantic technicality, its a great way of avoiding grappling with the rather obvious truth that killing animals that dont want to die just for the sake of yumyums is wrong, but that people dont want to stop because taking action to stop doing it seems scary and hard. ps for anyone reading its actually not that scary or hard at all and its actually very liberating to free yourself from the cognitive dissonance of being a leftist trying to justify unnecessary death and suffering for the sake of treats
so yeah please stop deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - thinking, feeling beings that dont want to die, its good for them but also for you
is it a confronting word to use? of course, its making an inescapable statement that the act is not morally-neutral, which the word "kill" can be ambiguous on. it invites people to think of justifications for why such a deliberate killing for pleasure of a thinking, feeling being that doesnt want to die shouldnt invite moral judgement. thats a confronting thing to have to do, especially when youre not used to thinking about it
no leftist legitimately thinks that its wrong to use the word murder because of dictionary definitions or because it implies animals are the exact same as humans, we both know that. everyone here is smarter than that. they think its wrong because it makes them uncomfortable to have to make a moral examination of something they participate in every day, that perhaps theyre not as certain about the morality of as they think
This really isn't it. The most immediate reason people are annoyed by it is because it's aggressive and hostile without being funny or novel.
To the extent they engage with it, it's just a sloppy argument. When people hear "meat is murder" they see that as arguing that killing an animal is morally equivalent to killing a person. They usually disagree with this. They are then told it's not 1:1 equivalent, but killing animals is still really bad. This gets more traction -- most people like most animals -- but it also begs the question of why shouldn't we treat things that are different (animals and people) differently? The issue is then further confused when "murder" rhetoric is mixed back in; it's arguing it both ways.
We're not trying to be funny or novel. I find the murder of humans and the murder of animals equally distasteful, so I'll call them both murder
i know its not the crux of the discussion, but the specific phrase "meat is murder" is a punchline these days (due to pop culture use), people dismiss it without even engaging and i absolutely think its a tactically-incorrect phrase for vegans to use regardless of truth or otherwise. but saying equivalent things like "that animal that died for your dinner was murdered" does still have some power, i think, and is what people on this site have been saying. so id like to steer clear of discussing "meat is murder" itself (pedantry but kinda important i think).
and also just something thats easy to forget - most of us here werent brought up vegan, most of us have been non-vegan leftists much like you, and most of us have been on both sides of this argument. and i can tell you 100% from my personal experience that for me the reason i disliked the word "murder" was because it made me uncomfortable about my own actions, and that the answers i was telling myself as to why calling it murder was ridiculous just werent cutting it (i of course wasnt 100% consciously aware of it at the time).
and yeah, not intended to be funny and novel, intended to be confronting and uncomfortable. if instead of saying "murder" i said "deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - a thinking, feeling being that doesnt want to die" it doesnt quite roll off the tongue in the same way but would provoke the same angry response because its not about technicalities of whether killing an animal and killing a human are exactly 1:1 or not (and i would refer you to @BeamBrain s excellent post addressing this very point). its about being told "your actions make you not as moral as you like to think you are" and reacting defensively because deep down you know theyre right.
but if you can convince yourself you proved vegans wrong on some semantic technicality, its a great way of avoiding grappling with the rather obvious truth that killing animals that dont want to die just for the sake of yumyums is wrong, but that people dont want to stop because taking action to stop doing it seems scary and hard. ps for anyone reading its actually not that scary or hard at all and its actually very liberating to free yourself from the cognitive dissonance of being a leftist trying to justify unnecessary death and suffering for the sake of treats
so yeah please stop deliberately and immorally killing - for pleasure - thinking, feeling beings that dont want to die, its good for them but also for you