After reading both textbooks, “Eating Animals” and “No Impact Man,” I felt a sudden urgency and obligation to do my part on these important issues. For one, becoming more consciously aware and purchasing ethically processed meat was something that I had to immediately implement into my life. As to Beavan’s case, I felt a desired need to invest more time and effort into reducing my impact and convert my current lifestyle. As I began to integrate both of these aspects into my life, I began experiencing an extremely difficult time incorporating Beavan’s notion of reducing my environmental impact.
The primary reason why I could not conform to Beavan’s concepts of reducing my environmental impact, resided on the notion that I would have to implement a drastic and radical approach to my current routine. Switching to a public form of transportation posed the greatest threat to incorporating Beavan’s concept. As we had previously discussed in class, the horizontal layout of Arizona introduces a rigorous and more time invested transportation routine compared to New York City’s vertical layout, hence the practical accessibility within walking distance.
In my current situation, walking would not be considering an option, because it would be impossible to accomplish anything. Therefore, I looked into public transportation as another means for reducing my impact. Unsurprisingly, after thorough research it would be physically demanding to alter my daily routine according to Beavan’s lifestyle. As I calculated my travel time to my internship, I couldn’t even believe how much time I would have to invest on traveling. For a 25-minute car ride, it would take me 2 hours and 25 minutes on the bus, including an additional 40 minutes to walk to the bus stop from my house and from the bus stop to my internship site. Totaling my one-way bus ride time to 3 hours and 5 minutes compared to my usual 25-minute travel time in a car. Evidently, this pivotal aspect hindered my ability to completely commit to Beavan’s lifestyle. However, even though I do not utilize public transportation as my main form of transportation, I have incorporated other alternatives such as recycling and carpooling that do reduce my environmental impact, however, not to the equivalence of Beavan’s case.
Therefore, Foer’s approach to food with a conscious awareness suited my lifestyle and appealed more to me. Soon after reading Foer, I began to experience a vast variety of emotions. Every gruesome depiction of an image depicted one after another brewed such anger in me that I began to regret eating meat. For this reason, I began to appreciate Foer’s mentality and understand how important and critical this is to our lives. The most drastic change I have implemented was not eating fast food meat. For some reason, the ambiguity that surrounds the supply of meat to fast food restaurants repeals me from partaking. Implementing Foer’s conception of purchasing ethically processed meat and free-range eggs provide something I could actually do. Two weeks in, and this simple transition has so far been realistic and effortless.
Overall, approaching both of Foer’s and Beavan’s concepts sparked an awareness that wasn’t full there before. Unlike previous readings, both of these authors introduced new approach to addressing morality. In addition, both authors introduced how intricate the dimensions of morality and how this concept does not have to confine to the formal and proper notions of morality.
Morality and Politics 