Natalie Portman wrote a piece for the Huffington Post about her devout vegetarianism and credited “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer as a major part of her inspiration to go vege. Well, Miss Thang is raising a lot of eyebrows with her controversial and PETA-like approach to her defense of the lifestyle, most specifically when she compared eating meat to rape. Two choice quotes from the piece are right here:
“I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., ‘What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?’ ). I’ve also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else—a historically dangerous stance (I’m often reminded that ‘Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know.’ ) But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong.”
And of course, the doozy:
“He posits that consideration…which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if that’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).”
I really despise when vegetarians take this approach to explaining their lifestyle. Shaming people in to converting to an animal-free diet is no way to go about it, and comparing the consumption of animals bred for eating purposes to rape? Well, that’s pretty low, not to mention extremely unfair. While it’s one thing to want to drive your point home, this approach seems immature and quite simply designed to trigger disgust and guilt in the reader. It could be an effective approach, but is it honest or fair? Not really.
