Diatribes 謾罵 : Anthony Bourdain's Irrational Dislike of Vegetarians

Anthony Bourdain is a famous American chef, writer, and host of a food travel show. He's been a guest judge on Top Chef several times, and has generally come across as one of the more intelligent, less annoying guest judges.

I've always wondered to what extent chefs think about things like vegetarianism, and unfortunately, in this case, I've found my answer is that Bourdain does not think very highly of vegetarians. Here is Bourdain explaining his disdain for vegetarians, which Wikipedia boils down as vegetarianism as being a "first world luxury". First of all, this seems to be a rather ignorant remark about vegetarianism, given the large number of vegetarians (for example, Buddhist and Jain) in India and Asia.

There are deeper issues than that, however. Essentially, Bourdain's argument is that vegetarian is rude to the traditions of the places he visits. The problem is that he doesn't understand vegetarianism: it's not a preference, or merely culture, it's an ethical principle.

Let me clarify this by way of alternative: what I don't agree with is those who impose cultural standards on others, for example those who look down or are horrified by cultures that eat things like dogs or whales but see no problem with eating animals in general.

This is not the same as vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is based on the moral principle that all things should be given equal consideration based on their capacity to feel pain. I won't argue this in detail here, those who are interested should look into the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. You might want to think of what principle you use to justify treating animals differently from humans, considering that many animals are more intelligent that a significant proportion of humans (fetuses, babies, those with severe cognitive disabilities, etc).

So Bourdain goes on a long rant about how vegetarians and vegans are ruining tradition, with the implicit criticism of vegetarianism as mere preference rather than a moral philosophy. That's rather silly though - should we accept and cherish all traditions merely because they are traditions? Should we have accepted slavery in the American south because it was tradition? Or perhaps foot-binding in China? Or the inability of women to vote in many countries? Or polygamy? Religious intolerance? Hatred of homosexuals?

Of course, a brief aside is probably in order, as some people will probably object that I'm equating human suffering with animal suffering. I'm not saying it is the same in terms of degree, but same in terms of kind. Certainly, I believe animal suffering should trump the desire to eat particular types of food and preserve certain types of culture.

The thing is, this is a principle I think almost everyone agrees with, but most of us just choose to ignore. Consider this excerpt of Bourdain's show No Reservations, when in Malaysia, he visits a village where the custom (tradition) dictates that the guest must kill a pig for a ceremonial dinner. For a chef who has to deal with food every day, and must certainly think about where it comes from, he seems to feel a lot of guilt and trouble over killing the pig. I'm not surprised though, having a pig tied up and scared, and having to drive a spear through it to kill it, is pretty horrible for both the person and the pig. If Bourdain thinks that the pigs he normally cooks that come from factory farms are getting any better of a life and death than that one though, he's mistaken.

Although he does kill the pig, it seems to shake him quite a bit. From the description of his corresponding book, No Reservations (click on "Features" tab and scroll down to Malaysia):
“ And I killed a pig. There was no graceful way out. ... It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. Tracey, shooting the execution by the river's edge, was fine until she looked down and saw she was ankle-deep in blood. Me? I wanted to cry. I realized I'd lost someting. Learned something terrible about the real cost of dinner. ”

Despite this realization, he still chooses "tradition" over both ethics and emotions. It's kind of sad that, an otherwise intelligent and thoughtful person could be so dismissive of vegetarianism. I guess it just goes to show how hard it is to change one's behavior when biology (desire to eat meat) and circumstance (not generally having to think about what the meat on your table used to be) are against it.