Aging & Wisdom Quote by Andy Rooney

Rooney’s line snaps shut like a barroom joke: it’s not interested in vegetarianism as ethics, ecology, or religion, but as a punchline about masculinity and competence. The mock-etymology ("old Indian word") is the bait. It borrows the authority of anthropology while being transparently made up, letting Rooney smuggle in a jab and still keep his hands clean: relax, it’s folklore. That false provenance is the mechanism. It turns a modern identity label into something primitive and humiliating, reducing a chosen diet to a failure to perform an older, supposedly more authentic role.

The subtext is classic Rooney: a cranky defense of common sense against what he’d frame as lifestyle affectation. Vegetarian becomes shorthand for softness, for opting out, for the late-20th-century consumer who gets to curate morality at the grocery store. The joke flatters the audience as practical and unsentimental. If you laugh, you’re on the side of people who can "handle" reality.

It also rides on two cultural assumptions that haven’t aged well. One is the casual use of "Indian" as a generic prop, flattening Native cultures into a stage set for white commentary. The other is the idea that hunting equals legitimacy, that meat is a measure of toughness, and that opting out must be a deficiency rather than a decision.

Rooney’s intent isn’t nuanced persuasion; it’s social sorting. The laugh is a tiny referendum on who counts as serious, and who gets dismissed as a "lousy hunter" in a world where most dinners are bought, not earned.