It has been a fractious start to 2022 for my family, our New Years Day zoom call got the year off to a bumpy start, with my brother reviving a pretty vicious argument from 2019 around brexit, The Spectator and Rory Sutherland who I just don't find that funny, even before he pushed for a hard-brexit with extreme anti-EU rhetoric loosely conflating the EU membership to the Klu Klux Klan membership!
So back in Jan 2019, we had a fairly big family row, my brother was banging on how great Rory Sutherland was and I was struggling to get through to him that I didn't find him that funny. Even my mother, who is a huge Spectator fan, seemed to side with me for once, this is from an email we exchanged at the time:
"I find the KKK and EU membership conflation in the Spectator more worrying (and Rory Sutherland is a top Advertising Executive, so really should better than to play with fire)."
However, my mother seems to be a fan of the Spectator and Sutherland again? But maybe I don't forget and forgive that quickly?
So why does Sutherland still get under my skin? Well I do get he is a very talented and popular guy, but like some of Boris Johnsons' more glib jokes/slurs:
"if gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog."
I find more than a touch of toxic masculinity in both Sutherland and Johnsons, both of whom I see as stalwarts of The Spectator?
Anyway, our second family zoom call of 2022 went slightly better, but it was still pretty difficult. Now as my family really ought to know I have been following a vegetarian/vegan diet for the vast majority of my adult life. I started following a vegetarian diet when I was 21 and I'm now 51.
About 6 or 7 years ago, I started following a pretty strict vegan diet after reading The China Study
(by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell), which I think is an amazing book. I also read their follow-up book "Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition", which discusses why despite the ever-growing body of strong scientific evidence that people who follow a "whole-food plant-based diet" typically have long and healthy lives, as well as being a significantly more environmentally friendly diet i.e. win-win for me. Especially for me, as I think this diet tastes great and I just don't like eating meat that much.
The only problem with a strict vegan diet was that it can be awkward for family and friends? My brother holds vegans and vegan diet in total contempt and likes to regal discussions with horror stories that it will destroy your health and you'll have to eat some utterly disgusting concoction as a cure, this is an old argument (15 or 20 years ago) but there was something about having to eat refined human effluent!?
My mother is also a bit intolerant of vegetarians and vegans, nothing as gross as my brother's nonsensical objections. My mother doesn't like having to prepare a 2nd course or dish for vegetarians and vegans. Actually, I do have quite a lot of sympathy for my mother on this one: while I do wish my family would eat more veggies and less meat & dairy, I do also appreciate that big family occasions are a lot of work for the host to prepare and these traditional occasions are accompanied by traditional cooking / big dishes. So while I do wishes my family were a little less conservative in their tastes and a bit more open to alternative thinking and ways, I do feel for my mother on this one.
Still, I'm pissed at my brother again, he ought to know that I have made big compromises to fit into my extremely conservative family and he is still banging on about "f!*king vegan diets" in 2022. After last weeks highly fractious call, I was do everything to keep calm but this was hard not to react to?
Fingers crossed for next weeks family call!
fractious | ˈfrakʃəs | adjective(typically of children) irritable and quarrelsome: they fight and squabble like fractious children. • (of a group or organization) difficult to control; unruly: King Malcolm struggled to unite his fractious kingdom.
toxic masculinity
The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and men themselves. Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity
stalwart a stalwart supporter of the cause: staunch, loyal, faithful, committed, devoted, dedicated, dependable, reliable, steady, constant, trusty, hard-working, vigorous, stable, firm, steadfast, redoubtable, resolute, unswerving, unwavering, unhesitating, unfaltering.
