The most honest ethical position I hold gets tested three times a day. Or at least it used to be tested; for me, the meals now represent not only a way to get the nutrients in and satisfy the repetitive hunger, but a way to fight the Absurd and the meaningless suffering.

The Absurd and the meaningless suffering

I don’t see myself as Sisyphus, that would be futile and a poor understanding of Camus’ work, but I have the urge to revolt against the Absurd as we do when we imagine the king’s happiness in his meaningless and eternal task. The universe is in all ways meaningless and irrational and rebelling against this meaninglessness is the only way to fight it. Not by finding meaning, since that task is impossible due to the permanent gap between the human need for meaning and the eternal refusal of the universe to provide it. But by revolting against this refusal - it is your own refusal to increase its absurdity, or your refusal to die, since death is a state in which you cannot revolt.

My revolt is clearly mostly fruitless, or better said, it will not move the needle in a direction coherent to my perspective, and more or less I do not care about such a thing, since the revolt should be personal, should be internal and true to your own self. And this revolt is against meaningless suffering.

Even if the universe is meaningless in his entirety, I see the bones that he throws at us, bits and fragments of meaning that we can cling to even if they are subjective to the individual or to a species and in the grand scheme they do not matter, they are still present. One of those is suffering - or more precisely, the gratuitous kind. I won’t pretend this follows from the absurd. It doesn’t. Caring that suffering is gratuitous is a moral commitment I bring to the absurd, not one I derive from it. Absurdism is the room I think in; this is the thing I carry into it. Suffering is meaningless, or at least meaningless most of the time. Think about a bird, a bird that develops cancer and has immense pain, for the bird there is no salvation, no heaven to hope it reaches when the time comes, no God to pray to, it is suffering not temporary and necessary so another animal can feed upon it, there is no predator-prey transaction, just suffering for the sake of suffering - this is what I believe part of the absurdity is.

Now let’s think about the same bird but no cancer, no illness, up and about its day, suddenly a predator, let’s say a lion since it will serve the example better, jumps upon the bird, one or two strikes and bites and the bird is dead - short term suffering so another species can live. Is this meaningless? Maybe from the bird’s point of view, maybe the bird might think “I lived some amount of life just so I can be fed upon?”, but for the lion the point of view is dramatically different - “The bird lived and grew so I can see another day”, the suffering of the bird is not meaningless for the lion.

Now it’s true that there might not be a lion, but a domestic cat and the suffering will prolong, or not a bird but an antelope and the same problem emerges, but this is not due to their wish to prolong suffering, any predator would wish for a quick and easy fight, the longer the fight the longer the chances to lose and more energy cost - so this, I might say, is irrelevant for our discussion here.

In the end both scenarios are absurd, the suffering meaningful or not is absurd and even the absence of suffering suffers from the same problem, there is no inherent meaning in the grand scheme, but on a smaller scale we can derive bits and pieces of it and interpret the suffering of a prey through the physiological need of a predator.

But how does this apply to us?

The vegetarian problem

I am not a vegan or vegetarian, there is a huge difference, morally speaking, between me and one of those. Their positions vary a lot and it would take a lot of effort and time to explain each (here is not the place or time to do it) but most positions consider animal lives worth an equal value to the human one - Animals can suffer. Therefore causing animal suffering for trivial human preferences (taste, convenience) is wrong in the same way causing human suffering for trivial reasons is wrong.

Or the environmental / pragmatic part of it - eat less meat because it seems vaguely better - for health, environment, animals, some mix. Animal agriculture, especially industrial, is a major driver of climate change, deforestation, water use, and biodiversity loss.

I can understand both and the first one even more, but I think there is more than this and it requires a broader discussion

First: Vegans and vegetarians don’t have an issue with the absurdity of the situation but with the equivalence of suffering. Morality and the lack of it are absurd concepts in the grand scheme of things. Why should we care in this case? Why should we rebel against the suffering if the absence of it is also absurd? How can you fight the presence and the absence of a thing? When does the fight become futile?

There are no right answers for any of those things, the only thing that I see doable is a hierarchy of the absurdity, and the fight, the rebellion, should be targeting the most absurd.

Second: Industrialization is for them a selective issue, industrialization is bad when we talk about animal farming but not when we talk about consumer goods, or medicine. Or even in the same category, industry farming - that reduces the impact of the land and water use (let’s imagine vertical farming, better fertilizers, better technology for more efficient farming) is not an issue - on the contrary - but the animal farming is an issue.

In my view industrialization is not an issue, on the contrary if we consider death as the ultimate defeat against the absurd, the increase of life expectancy by industrialization was one of the greatest revolts we did. But also we create other smaller fights that are hard to track.

Third: The fight is collective for them, for me it is individual, regardless of the position you take, I actually do not care, the burden of morality lands on each according to their views. For them this is not the case, their morality works as a class action, everyone needs to fight the same fight, everyone needs to have the same point of view, that animal rights are equal to ours.

This is absurd, convincing people that your point of view is superior to theirs is a fight that leads nowhere, agreeing or disagreeing on something is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, moreover trying to convince someone that your fight is right will turn the revolt into a doctrine, you turn your view from a revolt against something into a religion-based argument. But this is fine for their argument since they don’t argue the futility of their fight.

A theological problem?

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. - Genesis 1:28

I will only argue the Christian position, since this is the one I am most familiar with. If we take Genesis 1:28 at face value we can argue God gives humans authority over fish, birds, and every living thing - to do as we please with them (not clear to me whether this applies only as far as being fruitful and to multiply, but I think it’s irrelevant).

So suffering of the animals is fine, meaningless suffering of the animals is fine as long as it serves the purpose of reproduction. That means more or less keeping animals in small crates just so we can feed them endless amount of food and slaughter them at massive scale is fine.

In the end we are made in God’s image, does this mean that God promotes suffering? That seems illogical but the absurdity of God would not stop there as we know from the holy book.

“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” - Genesis 2:15

Not long after, we also have the contradiction: we were put in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it - to take care of it. How would we be able to take care of the garden and the lives in it if we are also able to reign over it?

This seems like a contradiction but more likely it’s a bad interpretation of the first part? Dominion over something does not equate to cruelty, it might, but it is not necessary, and Christians or Vegans might argue that God put us in the garden to take care of its creation not to use it as we please in the end - “When God sings with his creation will a turtle not be part of his choir?”

Eating against the absurd

The turtle question hangs there because no system answers it cleanly. Not the vegan one, not the Christian one, not the carnivore’s. Each of them either flattens the absurd into a doctrine or pretends it isn’t there. I said at the start that my meals get tested three times a day. Until now I have only described the tests other people fail, but where do I stand?

It’s no secret, if you reach this part, that my biggest problem is meaningless suffering and this applies to the ethics of eating as well. I have no problem with eating meat, I have a problem with eating badly industrialized meat.

I believe that animals confined to a cage, without the possibility to socialize, move or even see the sky are the prime example in which we as humans do not fight the absurdity of suffering but we increase it. We have the means to discern what is meaningful - eating to survive, surviving to revolt, and what is not: degrading the life of other species for convenience. So if we can stop degrading their life and stop being part of their absurdity, why wouldn’t we?

But if death is absurd either way, how would a good life and a humane death move the needle? It would not and that’s not the point, since we established that closing the gap is impossible we need to pick our fights and this fight is not against the inevitable death of an individual or better said against the inevitable absurdity of death in itself, it’s against the action that we do to strip down the individual’s ability to revolt.

If we think about it, cows, chickens, sheep and many other animals are the way they are due to our interventions. We bred them in order to provide sustainability for us, so we can continue the revolt, in this we also offer them a better chance of surviving, giving them the possibility to revolt. A symbiotic relationship between us, them and their lives and death against the absurdity of life and death in itself.

The obvious objection writes itself: You can’t scale this. There are eight billion people and most of them can’t eat meat from animals that saw the sky. Does that make my position elitist or transitional? I don’t think so. Defaulting to what doesn’t increase suffering - plants, mostly - isn’t refinement, it’s humility. The meat is the exception, not the standard, and the exception is the part that requires effort and verification. The everyday meal is the cheap one. The fact that it can’t scale is part of why it stays a revolt and not a rule.

So what can I do? I can accept that death is absurd, but I can also accept that I don’t want to increase the suffering of other beings meaninglessly and I can revolt against it, I can choose the meat from an animal that had a “good” life, the animal that could see the sky and socialize with other animals, and whose death was dignified, quick and painless.

And also I can accept that this is irrelevant for others, and I don’t want others to adapt to my point of view since the revolt is internal, your hierarchy of what is worth revolting against is different and should be.