syn. ironic, sarcastic, twisted, mocking
From Laura Fraser's "Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian":
After the health rationale came the animal rights one. Like most vegetarians, I cracked Peter Singer's philosophical treatise on animal rights, and bought his utilitarian line that if you don't have to kill animals, and it potentially causes suffering, you shouldn't do it. (Singer, now at Princeton, has recently come under attack for saying that if a human being's incapacitated life causes more suffering than good, it is OK to kill him.)
It's hard to know where to stop with utilitarianism. Do I need a cashmere sweater more than those little shorn goats need to be warm themselves? Do animals really suffer if they have happy, frolicking lives before a quick and painless end? Won't free-range do?
My animal rights philosophy had a lot of holes from the start. First of all, I excluded fish from the animal kingdom- not only because fish taste delicious grilled with a little butter and garlic, but also because they make it a lot easier to be a vegetarian when you go out to restaurants. Now that's utilitarian. Besides, as soon as you start spending your time fretting about the arguments that crowd the inner pens of animal rights philosophy- do fish think?- then you know you're experiencing a real protein deficiency.
Laura Fraser, in her journey to becoming a meat-eater, wryly condemns the vegetarian outlook by mocking the view of utilitarians. She criticizes Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation, using parenthesis to mockingly injerject another fact about the man-- not only does he support animal rights, but he feels it is "OK to kill". Her witty yet grim attitude shatters Singer's credibility and further develops the irony that characterizes the story. Fraser next denounces utilitarianism by making fun of the idea that animals actually suffer when killed for meat, saying that the animals lead "happy" and "frolicking" lives before death and asking "Won't free range do?". Her sarcastic questioning illustrates the ridiculousness she sees with animal rights advocates and cleverly supports her stray away from vegetarianism. Lastly, Fraser humorously explains her personal reasons for including fish- and eventually all meat- into her diet. She bluntly admits that "fish taste delicious grilled with a little butter and garlic", which sounds comical among her otherwise philosophical comments. This paragraph ends on a sarcastic note, remarking that if one actually analyzes the inner working's of a fish's brain before eating it, then he is "experiencing a real protein deficiency". This last comment wryly connects the so-called ludicracy of vegetarian's thoughts to the fact that they are not getting enough protein, an ironic paradox in itself that contributes to the overall twist of the passage.
Fraser, Laura. "Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian." The Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J.
Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 8th ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. 551-554.