Bigmouth Strikes Again (and he's right)

So - Morrissey! It seems as though every word out of this man's mouth offends a vast number of people. Recent scandals include reactionary bollocks regarding the Falklands, ill-judged comments on the Utoya attacks, and some welcome, if poorly thought-out, criticism of the royal family; but the main target of Morrissey's ire is meat. Meat eaters, the meat industry - he's like a parody of an in-your-face, preachy vegetarian. Now, he's compared eating meat to paedophilia, prompting the predictable chorus of outrage from the interwebs.

But, I have to wonder, do people really hate Morrissey because they're offended on behalf of child abuse survivors/the victims of Anders Breivik/whatever else he compares the meat industry to? Or are they simply shocked to see an outspoken vegetarian, one who dares to question the morality of slaughtering defenceless creatures en masse so that you can have a bacon sandwich? Here is a sample of some of the comments from articles about the incident:

Fuck the diet! Full English breakfast for me this morning after hearing this nonsense.

 This is what happens when people exist outside of societal norms for far too long... they go absolutely stark raving mad.
I will not greet a flesh eater? What utter nonsense. Poor delusional twit.

Just goes to prove veggies' don't have a brain.

And so on...

Penny Rimbaud once said that one of the reasons that so many meat-eaters seem to have so much hatred/ridicule for vegetarians is that nobody likes having their ideas challenged. A lot of the outrage online about Morrissey's anti-meat comments looks to me like people shouting down any dissenting opinion. It's a common tactic - get angry and berate someone for their lack of "respect" so that you don;t have to think about what they've said. You can see it in the way a Tory MP tried to shut down Glenda Jackson'scriticisms of Thatcher, or in what happened when people protested about the London Olympics, and I can certainly see it here. Nobody likes to be told that something they consider to be perfectly normal is in fact wrong.