Faine Greenwood: It is an incredibly deep seated cultural aversion in the West, you are not going to be able to logic people out of it, and it’s tiresome when commentators make smug comments to this effect about how “illogical” this aversion is.

So this is horrible, of course, but look how selective and hypocritical our outrage is: if he had been eating any other animal it would have been fine. We have decided that _some_ animals are okay to kill and deserve no sympathy because their flesh tastes good, and other animals should be protected.

I thought “RFK ate a dog” was metaphorical, but I was startled to find out today that RFK really *did* eat a dog and took comedy photos with the corpse

It is an incredibly deep seated cultural aversion in the West, you are not going to be able to logic people out of it, and it’s tiresome when commentators make smug comments to this effect about how “illogical” this aversion is.

Yeah, "your cultural aversions are illogical and therefore without meaning" is not the slam dunk that people who deploy it seem to think it is.

EXACTLY

✨️that's what culture is✨️

Yes

i think it *is* reasonable to as "is this cultural aversion actually racist?", considering that white culture is, in fact, just racism in a fancy package

*ask

"White culture is just racism" Unless you're using some real academic terminology, no it fucking isn't. And if you are, how about you don't?

I say this as a Native, before you gun at me for not knowing anything.

"White culture" is either the culture of a specific European state, which has various racist beliefs and ethnic beeves because every culture does, or it's white American culture, which is racist but isn't *just* racist. You just don't see the rest because you see it as the default.

I haven't fact checked this but cultural aversions to meat are some of the most deep seated according to a prof I had in college. It's why even when a person quits a religion say Islam with an aversion to pork they might still avoid it even if they say drink alcohol

And you see this broadly across cultures. Strange to us meats weird us out in a way say strange to us fruits don't. There's no logical reason I refused to eat horse on France but was willing to give musk ox a try in Greenland except us culture says horse isn't food

I tried horse and whale in Iceland and only the former gave me pause. Not sure I could eat horse in the US though. Even if it were specifically bred for food.

I've eaten whale wont do it again (I dont need to it's not subsistence for me) Also reindeer and puffin. Still wont eat horse or rabbit. But I grew up eating tripe.

I’ve eaten rabbit and tripe, but not reindeer or puffin. Reindeer I would try. Depends where the puffin comes from as I understand it is being overharvested in some places. My disgust level(?) is much stronger with insects than mammals, reptiles, amphibians (hope I’m not missing any animal groups)

The puffin was before their collapse! I'm not a monster (and their collapse was caused by climate change not heavy puffin harvesting). The issue is that the fish they need to feed baby puffins has migrated further from where they are

Exactly. Activists who think that they’re gonna persuade Americans to think about eating a pig as the same thing as eating the family dog are, quite frankly, delusional.

There's another layer too which idk how to express this because I havent and dont wanna see the photo. But you can be fine with other cultures eating dog and be uneasy rfk did at the same time. It's a signal to borrow from Kendrick that "he's not like us" since the cultural prohibition is so strong

It's likely why he's denying it, and why it's getting more oxygen than the SA allegations. SA among politicians is sadly common

Exactly. It’s extremely aberrant, socially deviant behavior for an American politician, especially the casual way he posed for laughs with the carcass.

It's kind of like - he thinks the rules don't apply to him, and this is another indication of that? (I am also not looking for the photo.)

Yeah, especially because of the picture - which I’d bet is not something people in cultures where it’s normal to eat dogs do regularly - it’s less embracing another culture’s morality and more rejecting his own.

He's eating dog in that pic like Al Franken was grabbing that woman's breasts in that pic. He & a woman are holding it up & pantomiming it with shit-eating grins on their faces. So not breaking the taboo, just mocking Koreans.

Speaking of persuasion, the MAGA crowd is desperately trying to convince Musk NOT to introduce changes to Twitter that would omit both likes and comments from the main feed.

DogeDesigner on X: "𝕏 will soon remove the likes and comments from the main feed. It will only display the total views and timestamp. https://t.co/kZNWjbKY92" / Xtwitter.com 𝕏 will soon remove the likes and comments from the main feed. It will only display the total views and timestamp. https://t.co/kZNWjbKY92

Elon:

Lol, I wanted to be a vegetarian starting at age 5, just because I'm crazy about animals. I've been one since 13, & have had a friendly social relationship with an employer's pet pig. Even I can't think about eating a pig the same way as eating a dog or cat.

“A pig like that, you don’t eat him all at once.”

(nods in Seventh Day Adventist that avoided shrimp and pork even after leaving the faith)

Emerging briefly from my hermit's cave again to throw my hat in the ring on this as a Native- yeah, me thinking that something bad's going to happen if I talk about owls at night is irrational, and Americans have the floors go 11-12-14. So fucking what?

Lots of cultures have "nonsense" taboos that people have tried to literally beat out of them, and being smug about a culture having some "nonsense" taboo because you see your own culture as superior is, very directly, cultural imperialism.

Yes, it's an imperialistic/supremacist attitude even if that culture's "white", whatever the fuck that means. Nobody owes you a culture that caters to your aesthetics. If you think meat is murder just come out and fucking say that.

fun fact: all the new supertall apartment blocks in NYC don't have a 44th floor because the Chinese think it's unlucky, as well as no floor 13

I struggle so much with this one damn, because I agree with the smuggers here but you are correct

The same exact argument about cultural aversions could be used to push someone in the opposite direction towards eating other animals.

I mean I'm from a country where there is a very large lobby that goes around literally lynching ppl for eating beef so yes, but its a complicated thing at a whole lot of levels

I was in a (terrible) community leadership program. One session was devoted to EDI & we were to bring dishes to demonstrate how accepting the group was. I brought lamb kofte, to prove the exercise was a farce. Amazing how many people loved the "beef" meatbals until they found out it was lamb kofte.

I knew historically lamb and sheep have fallen out of favor in North America in favor of pork and beef, but I didn't realize there was actually an aversion to it for some people now. How interesting.

It's not always taste: for many, it's like veal "how can you eat a baby x?" The program leader was British & liked lamb & liked the dish. I told her about reactions. She was floored. I told her it wasn't surprising and that was exactly why I cooked it. She disliked me even more afterwards 😆

I see it on menus at restaurants all the time, I didn’t really think there was aversion to it

I'm just one online skeleton, but I started eating lamb when I learned it's a sorta sustainable byproduct of wool production. Mostly off beef for opposite reason.

I had no idea people have an aversion to lamb, because in Australia it's the preferred bbq meat!

Yeah. It's really interesting telling people that it's not beef. You see *all* the emotions and thoughts in those first few seconds...

I'm pretty open to trying things and have spent a fair bit of time in traditional markets in different places. Nothing has ever given me the heebie jeebies like stalls serving dog.

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