It was the middle of my sophomore year of high school. I opened the door of the cafeteria to be greeted by the symphonic sounds of a hundred lively conversations occurring at once. I read the boards above silently, “Pizza, fries, salad, fried mozzarella sticks, fruit cup, yogurt. Salad it is.” At the register my eyes widened as I noticed my meal was almost four times the price of a lunch meat sandwich or burger. Realizing the confused look the cashier was giving me, I smiled politely, handed her my money, and ventured through the jungle of students in search of my friend group’s table. After weeks of reluctantly dealing with the dining hall food situation, I began to pack my own meals for lunch. Fresh produce from the store was just as expensive, but I was content with the increase in the newfound variety at my disposal.
I would eat lunch every day quietly hoping my friends wouldn’t notice my change in diet, fearing their judgement or disapproval. When the topic did arise, not only were my friends non-judgemental about my choice, but they were also initially supportive of it; I would get joking comments such as “I wish I had the discipline to give up meat, but I love bacon.” People often seemed to feel the need to justify their choice to eat meat, despite the fact that I never condemned them for their food choices or suggested that they become vegetarian. I look back and now see that the actions of others, which I disregarded as friendly jokes, were defensive; my lack of conformity with the societal standards in terms of diet was making individuals uncomfortable and protective of their own ways of life.
The manner in which individuals create assumptions about minority groups has a tendency to depend on their position of power, as stated in the first chapter of “Deviance and Social Control.”As exemplified in Mark Twain’s story “The War Prayer,” individuals have a subconscious propensity to convince themselves of what is normal by condemning or marginalizing those who disagree. Those gathered in the Church protected themselves against the ideas of “the messenger from Almighty God” by deeming him a madman. They did this due to the manner in which he challenged their habitual way of life; he attempted to make them understand the destruction they were wishing upon other sentient individuals who were not dissimilar to themselves. A similar psychological analysis can be applied to this particular instance of deviance and social control. My colleagues did not consciously attempt to disenfranchise me, but rather acted upon subconsciously defensive power driven tendencies. They made quippy comments about my diet to degrade the validity of the concept of vegetarianism, and to convince themselves of the normality and morality of their own decisions.
The majority groups, omnivores and war enthusiasts, were all theoretically in a position of power. The presence of a force that threatened the way things were threatened their position of power, and in order to psychologically maintain that position, they labeled the “opposition” or minority opinion as deviant. The “social controllers” in Mark Twain’s story and my own situation were unable or unwilling to see through the eyes of their “opponents,” perhaps due to guilt or fear of change. From a societal standpoint it is the lack of the willingness to shift from one’s own perspective to that of another, especially when one is at an advantage, that only bolsters the prevalence of incessant oppression, social and economic hierarchies, and the habitual classification of almost any minority group as “deviant.”
I also faced skepticism when I attempted to inform my traditionalist family about the reasons I became vegetarian. My mom and I almost always ate dinner with my grandparents who lived down the street. I came home and sat at the granite counter across from my Abuela in the kitchen as the smell of spices swirled around me. I had grown fond of watching her cook the numerous Cuban recipes she knew by heart. I would observe, entranced by the rhythm of the vegetable knife against the cutting board, the soft crackle of the skillet when she added salt, the bubble of the boiling water. I had been somewhat desensitized to the sight of red meat, never consciously connecting the dots, before I made the conscious effort to make the association between the meat and the animal. One day I casually asked her what she would think if I told her I didn’t want to eat meat anymore. She looked up from the chopping board dubiously and said to me in Spanish, “Why would you stop eating meat? You need your nutrition.” I shook my head and attempted to explain the health benefits of vegetarianism, if practiced correctly. She dismissed what is said and argued, “The food we make is so beautiful and rich, why would you want to stop eating it?” She seemed almost offended. I attempted to make her understand my logic, but with no avail. She then told me that when she was a little girl in Cuba, when they could afford a chicken she would watch her mom twist its neck to kill it. She would cry and untwist the neck of the chicken, but as she grew older she got over it and accepted that it is a part of life. I received similar reactions from my mom and grandfather.
I look back now attempting to systematically recognize the environmental, socio-economic, and religious contexts in which my grandparent’s theories about vegetarianism were materialized. My Abuela’s cooking is a ritual to her; she cooks the same recipes, makes the same movements, and experiences the same smells, all in the same kitchen. Her culture, history, and memories are brought about by each plate she makes. Cooking is psychologically connected to her pride, it is power laden. Her kitchen is her church, the stove her alter, the table where she breaks bread. When I asked her if she would do so much as to change her ritual, she subconsciously understood that question as a threat to her efforts and to her habits which are laced with emotional sentiment. She grew up in communist run Cuba, where poverty was everywhere she turned. Meat, when her family could afford it, was a blessing. Without the psychological context, meat is simply “a form of nutrition,” but with the psychological context it becomes something different. Here we examine the relationship between the signifier and the signified. The meat became a subject of natural historical materiality, serving as the material which represents privilege, affluence and power. Now that she has the ability to buy meat without having to be concerned about the cost, she subconsciously perceives herself as privileged and inadvertently clutches and defends the power which she now has. As a child she initially evidently cared about animals, and most likely was not born with the instinct to kill, rather she was conditioned to accept the death of animals for food. Such became a part of the natural order for her. This is an example of hegemony; she now perceives the consumption of meat as commonsensical.
After four months of dismissing moderately concerned glances from across the dinner table and being on the receiving end of deceivingly inconsequential “vegetarian jokes” from my friends, I decided to discontinue acting upon my belief that being vegetarian would be of benefit to my health and, though indirectly, to the health of the planet and others who reside on it. I was tired of being labeled as a “new age, extreme, over-empathetic” individual. These blanket terms, often tumbling out of the mouths of those who cared about me, had negative connotations; at times I felt marginalized, even deviant.
Despite the “conclusions” I had come to through a logical and ethical analysis of vegetarianism, regardless of the positive effect I felt my change in eating habits had on my health, I conformed to the pressures of society. There is a possibility I was searching for approval from my family. Perhaps I wanted to keep each of them happy not simply because I love them, but also because they consciously work to power my ego and increase my self worth. If one was to subconsciously perceive a decrease in the acceptance from one’s closest relatives, it is likely that the individual would seek out the root cause of the disapproval and remove it from the situation. Perhaps I listened to the logic of my grandmother because I subconsciously associate her with a wiser, older, source of reason. My social psychic subjectivity had been affected, both by my complex interactions with my friends and family. As mentioned in during class, the human “self” is always observed and lived in relation to others. Subjectivity is a process of socialization, constantly evolving in relation to communities, political establishments, etc. I subconsciously was seeking acceptance, but I perceived myself as a marginalized deviant acting outside of what was natural.
I recognize that each act of theorization, each interpretation of experience is one that sacrifices an infinite number of other viewpoints and translations of lived experience. Though the prejudice against vegetarianism is still quite evident in society, I recently returned to the practice, both as a social experiment and to attempt to transform from a transgressive deviant, only trying to live and choose what I eat as a please without marginalization, to a transformative deviant who attempts to make some changes in the system by not only endorsing more vegetarian options but also pushing for healthier options in general for the health of the population in my local community.