Animals Are My Friends, And I Don’t Eat My Friends

Sanjeev posted this in Negative Reasons to be a Vegetarian on April 5th, 2009

So said George Bernard Shaw when asked why he was a vegetarian.

From a quotable quote or literary standpoint it is an excellent statement and the widespread use of this quote is testimony to its quote worthiness. However, as an argument it is highly debatable. And I for one do not agree with Mr. Shaw.

The Webster dictionary defines “friend” as a person whom one knows well and is fond of, an ally, supporter or sympathizer. One of the primary qualities of a friend is that he is your well wisher and is not hostile to you. “A friend in need is a friend in deed”, so goes a very popular saying.

Now let us see why I have my reservations about the argument given by George Bernard Shaw against eating meat (let me also warn you that some of the arguments that I give below might seem frivolous at first reading, but if you think about them for a while, they are not bad – even if I say so myself) and I’ll spend some time on my standpoint.

I am sure however gregarious one might be, it is just impossible for a person to be friends with all. I am said to be an extrovert and the number of friends I have can be counted on my fingers. I am sure it is true for all, Mr. Bernard Shaw included. It would therefore also stand to reason that the number of animals that I might know intimately would be smaller than the number of people I know. Again Mr. Bernard Shaw could not have been an exception to this fact. So out of the six billion plus human population, people I cannot count as my friends would be close to six billion, similarly out of the multi-billion population of animals, close to 100% of the animals would not be known to me and hence cannot be called my friends. Again true for Mr. Bernard Shaw. So can, then one say that since majority of animals are not my friends, I can eat them? If one takes Mr. Bernard Shaw’s argument as it is, then it would mean that one can eat animals.

Having said that, I am sure Mr. Bernard Shaw’s statement was not as superficial as I have made it out to be in the above argument. He meant a lot more than that. He perhaps meant that animals are ‘like’ friends because of the kind of emotional relationship that we human’s have with them and hence they should not be eaten – at least that is why he does not eat them.

The above is an argument that I have read about a lot on the internet and in magazines where people try to justify their vegetarian stand – the emotional attachment with animals and the fact that they are friends. Lots of people keep pets at home and develop a friendly relationship with them and then extend that feeling to all animals in general.

To me this only shows the inadequacy of us humans in understanding plants. I love plants and tend to them very passionately in my home garden. I would call plants to be better friends than animals for a number of reasons:

A. Can anyone think of life without plants? Whether you are a vegetarian or meat eater, the fact is that if there were no plants we would not survive? So, who is a better friend – a plant that gives up its life so that we may live or an animal, who on his own cannot give us life?

B. A friend does not compete with us. Someone who loves you will sacrifice his desires and even life so that you may prosper. Animals compete with us humans for everything – food, water and air. Plants do not compete with us for anything – they make their own food from sunlight and carbon dioxide (they inhale the harmful gas and give us what we want – oxygen). Additionally, they give us so much more that in my opinion, they are like a mother or GOD Himself. If we start to count what we get from plants and trees without us asking for it from them, we can spend a lifetime making the list and yet not get to the end of it.

So who is a better friend – Plants or Animals? I am sure; we human beings who take pride in our intellect and ability to think should not have a problem answering that and realizing that it is Plants that are more our friends than Animals.

And hence my belief that we are not being vegetarians for the right reasons; that we are trying to promote vegetarian culture the wrong way and that will never cut the ice with the majority of meat eaters in the world who are anyways in a majority with more than 95 percent plus population.

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Ranjana

May 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm

Hi Sanjeev,

I guess you have started a topic that will invoke a lot of comments both postive and negative.

I am a vegetarian by choice. I come from a non-vegetarian family. So, it was really difficult for me to explain why I prefer vegetarian food over non-vegetarian.

I never took to non-veg as a child…I can’t explain why…but at that time it was not because i did not want to hurt animals or any religious reasons…when you are eight, you just know that you like something or you don’t like something.

By the time I was a teenager, I put my foot down and stooped having non-veg food compeltely, much to everyone’s dismay! After all my parents were concerned whether I would get adequate nutrition.

Now, things are cool, in fact half of my family eats veg most of the time and they have completely accepted my choice.

The only problem I face is when we eat out… I am in sad minority:(

And I still have to explain why I am a vegetarian…
I don’t put up any arguments any more…I just tell people that my system feels happier when it takes vegetarian. And since I have tried non-veg as a child and somehow it never agreed with me, I opted for vegetarian food. Simple.