Let’s start with a wicked little paragraph. Guy Debord chose to kill himself the old-fashioned way; Jean-Luc Godard—“the dumbest Swiss Maoist of them all,” in the words of the amusing situationist-inspired slogan—turned to assisted suicide; the next provocateur of genius will no doubt opt for medicalized euthanasia. The bar, as they say, keeps dropping.

On the other hand, Mark Zuckerberg rose in my esteem (not hard to do) when I learned that he had decided to eat no animals except those he killed himself. It’s a commitment we might suggest (or require?) for everyone who mocks vegetarianism. The same…