A final reminder: the first ever “Come as Your Supervisor” Party in the known history of Oxford will be taking place tonight. Those who present the most accurate and the most amusing portrayals of our common academic superiors will doubtless earn the respect of their peers, as well as the intrepidity required to gain fame and fortune in the world. Those who attend simply for the food, drink, and conversation will not be penalized.
Those with any questions should contact me by the means of their choice. While I have yet to recover fully from various health complaints, I am bound by honour and practicalities to attend this party in more or less its entirety. As such, I need to finish my fish presentation before it begins… To Powerpoint!
Utterly unrelated: there are a depressing number of anti-vegetarian groups on Facebook. Are people just instinctively hostile to those with other views? Seeing so many certainly makes me want to go do something militantly vegetarian.
Hope the party was fun.
How did the party go?
Thanks for a great party! Very enjoyable night.
I want to see photos!!
Some photos from the CAYS party are in this album.
You can see Kai in drag
I am an anti-vegetarian not because I hate them, far from it as I have had vego friends in the past, I simply feel that no one has a right to make me feel bad because I eat steak. And most vegetarians/vegans online think it’s reasonable to do this. I do not think eating meat is cruel or unethical and I am entitled to my opinions. If it’s unhealthy then that sucks, but I haven’t stopped eating chocolate or chips for that reason, so why meat?
Ally,
You are entitled to your opinions, as well as the freedom to express them to others. Similarly, those who feel that eating meat is wrong have the right to try to convince you of their position. In that sense, they do have the right to ‘make you feel bad.’
I think there’s an interesting sort of moral dilemma with not bringing to light the consequences of condoning and supporting the meat industry.
We often accept people’s preferences when they are not our own, because the consequences of our preferences are not particularly important. However, the meat industry directly violates a number of rights (human, animal, environmental protection). Simply accepting people’s choice to solicit the meat industry, without question, seems like a kind of cultural relativism. Under that philosophy, there is no reason we should play any role in discouraging female genital mutilation.
If you are only feeling ‘bad’ about eating meat because your friends think less of you, and not because of the seriously detrimental nature of the meat industry, you needn’t feel bad at all.
How can you feel bad, if you can’t care in the first place?
Ally and Milan,
“I am entitled to my opinions.”
“Ally,
You are entitled to your opinions, as well as the freedom to express them to others.”
Do you guys really believe this? You are just “entitled to your opinions”, whether or not you give reasons for them? I think you are entitled to give reasons for your opinions and have them duly considered by others, but saying one is entitled to one’s opinions full stop is no more meaningful than saying one is entitled to say “Garble Garble Garble” – sure, you are free to do so, but no one has to pay the slightest attention to you. You can only expect to be respected for your opinions if you give reasons for them that show that you are a serious person.
Saying that people have an absolute right to believe anything without the need to provide evidence or justification is going a bit far.
All I intended to say is that the ‘right’ of people to try to convince you to be vegetarian is a close corollary to your ‘right’ to assert the morality of eating meat.
It is quite evidently the case that not all points of view are equally valid or defensible.