My days of vegan hero worshipping and giving a shit about which celebrity will claim to be “vegan” for the next half hour or until it becomes too personally or financially inconvenient for them to continue living with integrity are loooooong over.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
I cringe each time I see people rush to gush over the latest “vegan” celebrity or public figure (“Ooooh, look! Beyonce’s eating a salad 😮!!!”, “This YouTube person nobody’d ever heard of before last week is gonna be live streaming their 22-month vegan juice fast challenge while doing goat yoga!”) because it quite often ends the same way – with an intentional, unrepentant and oftentimes very public return to living non-vegan and resuming their previous complicity in the morally unjustifiable oppression and killing of vulnerable non-human individuals for their personal gain. Whatever benefit there theoretically could be if someone “popular” actually influenced other non-vegans to start living vegan – which is often the rationalization used to justify all the adulation – is offset and negated by the selfishmessage contained in their morally conflicting actions once they return to a non-vegan life (“Do this, it’s really important… until it isn’t, then just go back to doing whatever you want because, hey, you do you. YOLO!!!”). Consider as well that many of these individuals fallaciously claim to be “vegan” after having merely adopted a plants-only diet – while continuing to benefit from animal exploitation through the clothing they wear/promote/sell and the products they use/promote/sell – and it becomes clear that this only serves to further the general public’s confusion about what veganism truly means, reducing an ethos of justiceand nonviolence to little more than a collection of recipes and a way to score cool points.
“The partnership between animal welfare groups and industry to promote economically efficient animal exploitation is considered a ‘win-win-win’ not only for both sides of the partnership, but for consumers as well. Consumers are assured that they can be excused for their indulgences in the products of animal misery, due to these so-called ‘higher standards’ of welfare, and welfare groups win by receiving tens of millions of donation dollars annually for acting as the industry ‘regulators’ and the developers of these ridiculous labels.
But the biggest winners, by far, are the animal exploiters themselves, who not only receive consulting advice by ‘welfare experts’ and prominent animal activists, but are also given awards and special endorsement from advocacy groups. The payoff they receive in increased consumer confidence must have them laughing all the way to the bank. Meanwhile, the most basic rights of an increasing number of animals are still being sold out to fulfill the trivial desires of those who insist on consuming and using the products that come from their bodies.”
“Except in the most extreme situations, we always have a choice as to the direction we take.”
I used to be among those who believed that celebrity vegans were a positive force that, simply through the influence they have over their fans and followers, would help us move closer to the goal of dismantling speciesismand achieving the right for non-human individuals to no longer be treated as the property of humans… but then I would see them backslide, one after the other, offering excuse after excuse as to why it was “too hard” to stay vegan (excuses tend to include specious “health” issues, overwhelming cravings, general inconvenience) until I began to see just how counterproductive it all is. If these powerful and privileged public figures are teaching by example, the lesson seems to be that it’s acceptable to put one’s ethics asidewhen following them becomes an obstacle to personal benefit, even when that means engaging in behaviors that victimize others… and that is unacceptable.
Might As Well Jump… Off The Wagon
We’re frequently informed that so-and-so “fell off the vegan wagon” so let’s be clear – no one “falls off” any wagons. That passive and misleading phrase implies something happening by accident – or worse, that the oppressors themselves are somehow the victims of capricious fate. Except in the most extreme situations, we always have a choice as to the direction we take. Whether celebrity or commoner, when it comes to those who purport to be “vegan” but then resume engaging in, supporting and promoting animal exploitation , the reality is that a conscious decision is made and they jumpoff whatever wagon they’ve climbed on, fully aware that there are other choices they could be making, like the choice to be morally consistent and the choice to live with integrity.
Tragically, the trillions of vulnerable non-human individuals who are the innocent victims of said exploitation never have a choice, each having been forcibly bred into existence for the sole purpose of being used as a disposable, replaceable “thing” to satisfy some human desire before being discarded or having his/her remains flushed down a toilet. This is the ultimate objectification and subjugation of a sentient being and it is fundamentally unjust.
Rather than putting people on pedestals with only the slim hope that they’ve truly internalized the ethical message of veganism and will carry that message to others (as opposed to trying a plants-only diet and deciding it’s not for them after all), let’s focus our own energies on engaging in clear, consistent, unequiVOCAL grassroots vegan education advocacyto create the vegan world we all want!
[We encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
A common question I’m asked when non-vegans find out I’m vegan is “You must have cravings, don’t you?”
Why yes, I do.
Now, I could take this opportunity to describe how I’ve been able to find wonderfully delicious veganized versions of practically every non-vegan foodstuff I once enjoyed eating before I began living vegan, but there are easily hundreds of blogs and other websites devoted to extolling the tummy-tempting virtues of thriving on food made entirely from plants, so I’ll pass. Instead, I’ll tell you what this vegan craves every… single… day.
I crave justice, fairness and basic respect for the vulnerable non-human victims of systematic oppression who are exploited and killed by the billions each year for human pleasure, comfort, convenience and entertainment.
I crave a world in which that shit is no longer normalized, tolerated and marketed as acceptable and desirable via cultural conditioning, tradition, emotional attachment and pseudoscience.
I crave an enlightened society that teaches its younger generations to treat themselves and those around them, regardless of species or any other arbitrary characteristic, with the respect and unconditional love they deserve merely by virtue of each individual’s inherent sentience rather than teaching them to devalue life.
I crave the dismantling of speciesism, the most egregious and deadly form of violent oppression our global society has ever known, until it is nothing more than an ugly scar on our collective heart and a dark stain on the tapestry of our lives, ever reminding us of a barbaric past we ought never repeat.
I crave an end to the self-centered fear endemic to humans that causes individuals and groups to claim false “superiority” over others resulting in the wrongful domination, subjugation, exploitation, humiliation and extermination of those individuals and groups deemed “inferior”.
I crave a time when there is no longer a need to convince goodhearted, rational people that it is wrong to hurt and kill others for their own benefit because they will have already learned to live in accordance with their inherent understanding of right and wrong.
Oh, and soft pretzels. I crave soft pretzels like nobody’s business, and that’s ok because there’s a place near us that makes them with no products of animal exploitation so they’re suitable for vegans!
If the point of the original question was to ask whether I have, in 14 years of living vegan, ever had a craving for animal flesh or secretions, the answer is yes. Early on, I had the occasional craving for certain kinds of sushi (that’s pretty much the only craving I can recall having more than once) and understood two things: 1) the taste cravings I experienced had nothing to do with the fish in the sushi and everything to do with the spices being used which can easily be replicated without any animals being involved and 2) giving in to the craving was not an option.
Having a craving doesn’t mean it’s appropriate or acceptable to give in to the craving, especially when to do so means taking something that belongs to someone else without their consent (i.e.; an animal’s body and/or secretions). That’s called theft, and most people would agree that theft is wrong. Although I could conceivably experience a craving for some animal product such as eggs, cheese, milk chocolate, honey, bacon or anything else that may have once brought me pleasure to eat, it doesn’t mean I will go out and buy or otherwise indulge in any of these items to satisfy that craving. I have the option to either substitute what I’m craving with a 100% plant-based version or to go without… and still continue to live. All cravings pass; the deadly consequences of giving into these kinds of cravings last forever, and my fleeting desire to satisfy my palate pleasure could never justify taking the freedom, body or life of another individual. I’m just not that important.
Having focused on palate cravings to this point, it should also be noted that the same principles apply to desires for other products obtained through the exploitation and killing of non-humans – leather jackets, suede shoes, wool sweaters, fur coats, silk scarves and other such items of personal attire, furniture, automotive accessories and the like.
My sense is that the “cravings question” (and the “protein question“, and the “B12 question“) comes not from the non-vegan’s desire to understand more about my life as a vegan but rather to understand what their life might be like should they choose to start living vegan. It’s a veiled attempt to say “Here’s why I could never be vegan” as if a desire for bacon (for example) gives one moral license to devalue and take the life of a living, breathing sentient being by paying someone to cut her throat and then butcher her body to pieces so one can swallow her flesh and ignobly defecate her remains into a toilet. A more honest question might be, “Will I have cravings for the familiar foods I enjoy and how will I manage to get through them?” It does provide a conversational opening for me to help debunk the erroneous preconceived myths about veganism that they may have come to believe up to that point if I’m willing to take the time and they’re willing to listen with an open mind. I can identify with those fearful questions and recall that the night I began living vegan, I had no idea how I was going to navigate this new life path, but I knew without a doubt that there was no going back to my previous morally indefensible non-vegan path. And with that, I set my mind to figuring out whatever I needed to know to live as nonviolent a life as possible with as much moral integrity as I can. I searched for and found fantastic online resources, books and articles that helped me make sense of how to live vegan, and much of this can be found in the Downloadable Content, Online Vegan Resources and Recommended Reading sections of this blog.
A Few Questions We Hope Non-Vegans Will Ponder
Consider how you would answer this question: “Is my pleasure more important than someone else’s life?” If your answer is”no”, then you already believe what vegans believe and can easily align your beliefs with your actions by living vegan! If you answered “yes”, then the next question to ask yourself is whether you would find it acceptable for you to be harmed or killed for someone else’s pleasure. If you answer “no” to this question, then ask yourself how you justify holding this moral double-standard when you understand that to do so results in the violent exploitation and slaughter of innocent, vulnerable individuals.
If you can identify with any of the cravings mentioned above and are not vegan, I’ll first ask you to ask yourself why you feel one way but act another, and then I’ll ask you to make the one decision that will bring your values and actions into congruence – the decision to live vegan.
[We encourage all readers to click the colored links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
It is what it is, and it’s not what it’s not
If animal advocates wish to be taken seriously, then we need to strive to be as honest, factual and accurate as possible in our rhetoric, approach and messaging. When we make the statement “Animals are not property” as I’m witnessing more and more often, we’re failing to do so… and we’re failing the animals we’re trying to help.
Here’s why.
Unfortunately, yes they are… and wearing fallacious t-shirts isn’t going to change that.
While vegans and animal rights advocates (the two groups are often mutually exclusive, unfortunately) may understand and work tirelessly to convince non-vegans that non-human animals are individuals rather than disposable, replaceable objects or “things” to be used merely for the satisfaction of human pleasure and convenience and then killed or discarded when no longer “useful”, saying that animals are notproperty is simply untrue because current laws state that animals are indeed property. This is the problem we are trying to solve, and denial of reality never changes reality, no matter how fervently one may wish for that to happen.
The idea that animals are considered property under the law is not a matter of debate – it is a fact. A simple Google search for “laws that state animals are property” yields results such as:
Here’s a wildly popular vegan advocate who ought to know better and yet he wears and sells these shirts:
No sleeves and half-truths
This conflicting messaging is 50% fact and 50% fantasy:
Fact – animals are not objects or machines
Fantasy – animals are not property or slaves – right now, they’re legally the former and because of this, often allowed to be treated as the latter.
As the saying goes in Alcoholics Anonymous, half measures availed us nothing.
Here’s another vegan “rockstar” who’s unfortunately carrying a careless message:
Here’s a better sign: “I haven’t done my research”
[Realizing I’ve opened myself up to debate as to the overall effectiveness of these two well-liked individuals’ advocacy by posting these photos in what might be construed as an unfavorable light, I submit this essay that discusses the organization with which they often workand encourage readers to draw their own conclusions.]
If animals weren’t legally considered property, we wouldn’t be working all day, every day to convince people to live vegan. There would be no need to do so, as animals would currently be enjoying the right not to be used by humans against their will. The fact that they are property is why we still need to do that.
Consider the following scenario: if one were to steal a dog from someone’s home and the dog’s owner (yes, owner – vegans and animal advocates may think of people with companion animals as “guardians” but the law recognizes them as owners) called the police, had the thief arrested and pressed charges, neither the owner, police or judge are going to be swayed toward leniency and allow the thief to keep the dog on the basis of the thief’s argument (or t-shirt, or sign) that “animals are not property” when, in fact, the law stipulates they are. It is also important to bear in mind that laws protect property owners and not the property itself, so even if the nonconsensual relocation of the dog were to arguably result in her/him having a more pleasant life, the thief’s actions would still be considered criminal as they violated the property rights of the owner. I firmly believe that animals ought not to be seen or used as property but, until the laws change, the fact remains that they are property whether we want to accept it or not. It is what it is.
All first impressions matter
Living as we do in a speciesistsociety in which laws maintain that non-human animals are the property of humans, making untrue statements to the contrary (which includes wearing shirts and carrying signs bearing such erroneous information) renders one’s argument effectively invalid and is likely to close the door to further productive communication on the subject. The notion that these false statements “get the conversation started” is problematic since starting a debate with a fallacy immediately calls one’s credibility into question and weakens an already challenging position. Considering that vegans comprise roughly 2% of the population and therefore represent a minority opinion regarding the rights of non-human animals to be treated with fairness and justice, it is crucial that our position be as strong as possible and that we take care not to put obstacles in our own way to make our goal that much more daunting to reach. Since we only have a few moments to make a first impression, careless and confusing messaging is best avoided if we want to create fruitful conversations.
Here’s an example of clear, direct and factual messaging that is easily supported:
To illustrate that animals are not objects, I’ve often asked non-vegans if they live or have ever lived with a companion animal. Nearly 100% of those with whom I’ve spoken state that they have, so I then ask them to tell me one of the animals’ names and they gladly comply. I then ask whether they live or have ever lived with a lamp (or table, or sofa…) and 100% of them state that they have. When I ask them to tell me the name of their lamp, they are unable to do so and, when I ask them why they didn’t name their lamp, they usually reply (after blinking at me a bit) that “people don’t name lamps”. I then ask them to consider that the reason we usually name the animals with whom we share our homes and lives and don’t usually name our lamps, tables and sofas is that we inherently recognize that animals are individuals – animate, lively, and responsive individuals possessing unique personalities and qualities that clearly indicate they are more than mere objects – and that lamps, tables and sofas are simply things. In my experience, this seems to be readily understood and often segues neatly into further conversation about the problems inherent in objectifying individuals regardless of what species they might belong to, and the oppression and exploitation that invariably follows.
So what’s the solution?
By educating the public with honest, factual and accurate messaging that treating non-human animals as objects and “things” rather than the individuals they are is morally reprehensible and that the only morally acceptable choice given that conclusion is to live vegan, we are working to dismantle speciesism and build social change. This is a necessary precursor to creating meaningful legal change that will shift the paradigm that currently defines animals as property, makes their myriad uses for human benefit acceptable and even appealing, and demands their unnecessary and violent deaths. This paradigm shift begins with clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education because, when individuals begin to live vegan, they quickly cease supporting, promoting and engaging in all forms ofanimal use and exploitation.
There is a difference between what is and what we wish would be. Let’s accept reality and work toward making our wish for animals to have the right not to be used as property and to be treated with justice, fairness and respect come true!
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read ourDisclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
The following content originally appeared on the Facebook page of my friend and fellow abolitionist vegan advocate Pierre Roland Roy-Parentand is reprinted here with his permission (and South Florida Vegan Education Group‘s appreciation):
Why do I do it? How do I do it? Background issues and more.
I fully realize that talking about the ethics of veganism turns some people off or makes them feel uncomfortable. I get it. I really do. This discomfort stems from the way most of us have been taught to think about animals from the time we were little kids; that it’s okay to love some while it’s also okay to eat/use others. This speciesism(which exists in every culture) is deeply ingrained in our minds and it has had and will continue to have a variety of serious repercussions over the years, obviously for the animals, the environment and for everyone’s health.
Why do I do it? So why do I talk about veganism and the importance of going vegan if it makes people feel uncomfortable? Well, I believe that one’s temporary discomfort (as it was for me when I was first exposed to veganism) is worth it, especially if it can lead to a re-conceptualization in the way we regard animals.
How do I do it? I often start with a basic question: “Do you believe that it’s wrong to inflict unnecessary harm on animals?” 99.99% of people will agree that it is wrong. So, in essence, people believe in the concept of veganism. The problem is that about 98% of people’s actions do not align with their beliefs. We call this cognitive dissonance. There is a long list of reasons for this cognitive dissonance.
Ethical vegans see veganism as a social justice movement in much the same way as abolitionists did when they wanted to end slavery back in the day. Many of those who worked to abolish slavery would never have pushed for reducing slavery or making slavery more humane. It had to go. It was a violation of a person’s most basic right – the right to not be someone’s property.
Now when it comes to animal rights there are some similarities and there are important differences. Slaves are human. Many could and did speak up and did a lot more than just speak (they fought, they escaped, etc.) to gain their freedom. They also had a number of non-slave advocates who fought on their behalf. Animals now have more and more advocates who are willing to speak up on their behalf. They need us because they obviously cannot fight for their own freedom or escape in order to obtain the basic right not to be property.
I see the pursuit of animal rights as a question of fairness, as an extension of basic justice. Yes, we accord some basic justice to a few animals, especially those we anthropomorphize – the one we deem cuter (puppies, kittens), smarter (dolphins, great apes), magnificent (lions, elephants). We often regard these species as worthier of greater human care, kindness and justice while other species (typically those regarded as food animals) are viewed as dirty (pigs), dumb (cows), scary (sharks) and thus unworthy of extended human consideration pertaining to their rights.
None of the positive qualities we accord some animals or the negative qualities we accord to others should matter with respect to all animals having the right to live their lives. The only thing that should matter is that they are sentient, that they feel pain, can suffer and want to live. Their lives are important to them even if they are of no importance to anyone else.
I am always glad to keep the discussion with non-vegans going, to answer questions, to recommend books, films or websites. I am not going to condemn a person who eats/exploits animals (I was once a part of this group) but neither am I going to praise him/her/they (once they have understood the simple concept of veganism) for reducing their intake of animal products via a meatless Monday approach for example or a poorly defined baby steps approach having no defined end date in mind.
Praising a person who employed either of these strategies would be like praising someone for subscribing to racist-free Fridays or misogyny-free Mondays. I would no more throw the animals under the proverbial bus than I would people of colour or women. All of these prejudices are morally wrong (speciesism, racism, sexism) and they need to end.
I can’t (obviously) force anyone to end any of these prejudices by imposing my beliefs on them. It is something that people have to work out for themselves once they have examined the facts. I think that those who truly take the time to discuss the issues, do some reading, watch some films, check out some websites will begin to see that veganism makes sense and is the morally correct path to take. However, I do understand that just because it makes sense and is fair/just does not mean that people will all become vegan in the end. Some people have powerful conflicts of interests which will lead them to advocate for their continued use and exploitation of animals. Most of us do not have these powerful conflicts of interest.
I refuse to hate anyone who does not see things my way, frustrating as that may be, whether they do so through benign neglect (the willful ignorance approach) or by mounting a stringent defense of their self-interest in continuing to exploit animals. The law will nearly always reflect the opinion of the majority of us out there and until the tide shifts and people begin to extend an invitation to non-human animals to join the moral community the laws protecting some animals while allowing us to use and exploit other animals are not going to change.
Going vegan right now does not require anyone to wait for new legislation or new technologies to pave the way forward. It really is the easiest grassroots approach to making a change that will make a real difference for every species that exists.
So in the end, I am more than happy to engage in discussions with people, sharing food and recipes but I won’t advocate for better welfare regulations, reducing one’s animal intake, etc. If people choose to take any of these paths rather than immediately going vegan once they have examined the issues and checked out the facts, then they will do so anyway and they won’t need a pat on the back from people like me in order to do so.
Veganism is as close to a social justice/peace movement for all that there is out there. I hope in the end people will see it this way and embrace it.
Peace. Love. Justice.
Pierre
Pierre and Aura, both of whom are thriving on a 100% plants-only diet!
With messaging focused on cruelty and suffering rather than the inherent injustice of animal use itself, FARM intentionally misses an opportunity to promote veganism and instead promotes harm reduction.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Life Outside the Fast Lane
I am pleased to report that for the 4th consecutive year, I did not “fast against slaughter” on World Day for Farmed Animals (October 2). Here are some of my thoughts on why I made that choice… and why I think others should as well.
Before I began living vegan, if I’d known that someone was “fasting against slaughter”, I would not have been compelled in the least to inquire about why they were taking such an action. In fact, it would likely have further solidified my existing belief that “vegans are extremists”, a myth that was fed to me as a byproduct of our human society’s ubiquitous exploitation of individuals of other species for its own pleasure and benefit. In my non-vegan mindset, such activities struck me as ludicrous and I could not have imagined investigating or taking part in something I saw as completely nonsensical. It’s important for those vegans who choose to support and participate in this and related events to understand and carefully consider the probability that a furthering of this “extremist/ridiculous vegan” image may be an unintended outcome of their involvement and association with such single-issue campaigns organized by large, self-serving corporate animal welfare charities. When this happens we move further from, rather than closer to, the goal of dismantling speciesism to achieve the right for non-human animals to no longer be treated as human property.
In this case, the group behind the event is Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), an organization whose founder Alex Hershaft made this revealing statement when asked in a 2015 interview to describe FARM’s mission:
“Our mission is to get people to reduce and eventually eliminate the number of animals killed for food. We tried to make it very simple. We’re not into making vegans, we’re not into reducing suffering, we’re not into ending factory farming. All that other stuff is implicit, but we’re very focused on just reducing the number of animals [killed], however we can do it, and there are lots of ways of doing it. The most obvious way is to get people to go vegan, but you can reduce the number much more effectively by getting some major cookie company, like Keebler, to reduce the number of eggs in making cookies.”
Simple logic proves that these campaigns are not reducing animal use and are, in fact, causing more harm than good by failing to clearly, emphatically and unequivocally call for an end to all animal use and instead promote the message that some animal use is morally acceptable.
While it’s a nice-sounding idea that reducing the number of eggs used by a cookie company will reduce the number of animals killed for food, apply a little critical thinking and it is difficult to believe that when Keebler agrees to use fewer eggs, the result is a decrease in egg production and the freeing of laying hens. Many such reduction initiatives have been implemented in recent years and yet the number of animals being killed every year for human consumption continues to increase, not decrease (for any who might be under the false impression as I once was that “no animals die in egg production”, please read this eye-opening article from Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary). When animal “rights” organizations such as FARM promote the message that “it’s ok to use eggs – but just not too many eggs” – they are reinforcing the speciesistidea that it’s morally acceptable for humans to use animals and their secretions – to steal their property and their lives – for their own purposes.
FARM’s intentional refusal to promote veganism as a non-negotiable moral imperative and instead to present it as just another option to “reduce the number of animals killed for food” (which conveniently overlooks the myriad other uses of non-humans for human pleasure and personal benefit) is the hallmark of the animal welfare movement. As always, one need only frame the issue with humans as victims to immediately see the speciesisminherent in the idea of working to “reduce” rather than advocating for a stop to such violent and oppressive victimization. From a previous Turbulence of Dreaming essay entitled Challenging Our Complacency Vol. 1:
“Unfortunately, it’s quite likely that humans will always rape and murder other humans as they have since the beginning of time, but it’s not likely that anyone is going to advocate for ‘gentler’ rape and ‘kinder’ murder based on that terrible likelihood. When we believe a behavior is morally unjustifiable, we advocate for the abolitionof said behavior rather than ‘nicer’ ways to continue propagating the same injustice. To do the latter only helps the perpetrators and beneficiaries of the injustice feel comfortable about continuing to reap the benefits of their oppression-of-choice.”
Non-Human Resources
Fasting for farmed animals, as my friend and fellow abolitionist vegan educator Colin Wright has noted, does nothing to further the idea that, if we are to change the property paradigm that allows and demands that animals be used as disposable, replaceable resources to be exploited for human pleasure and benefit, we need always promote veganism as the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species.
There is no discernible educational value in intentionally refusing oneself nutrition in order to make a vague (and mostly silent) point about standing “in remembrance and solidarity” with the millions of animal slaughtered for food each day. I don’t need to cause my own suffering to enhance my empathy about the unnecessary suffering of my fellow sentient beings.
No, I won’t be fasting against slaughter this year or at any time nor will I ever promote such an idea. Instead, I’ll continue living vegan and educating others about veganism as our moral obligation to those non-human individuals with whom we share this planet.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
“Look into the faces. Look behind their eyes. They are not ‘voiceless’, they are talking to us with their eyes and their body language; they are screaming, we’re just not listening. Be vegan.” – There’s An Elephant In The Room blog
No-nonsense and No Nonsense
I began writing this essay after spending several hours engaged in peaceful, positive conversations with non-vegans about the ethical reasons for living vegan at an Earth Day event at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida. As always at our Vegan Education Station, we employed no gimmicks, no tricks, no public theatrics, no graphic videos, no gruesome images, no bribery, no shaming, no intrusiveness, no deceptiveness and no coercion in our interactions with our interlocutors (these are all tactics we have observed being employed by animal welfare and animal “rights” organizations that consistently resist the idea of simply educating the public about veganism). Rather, as always, we politely and patiently provided those who approached us with no-nonsense information about the consequences of their choices (that there is always a victim at the end of one’s choice to consume products of animal exploitation) and asked them to think from a perspective many of them admitted they’d never considered before. Our conversations were respectful on both ends, even when we were challenged with the ubiquitous anti-vegan arguments such as “Lions eat other animals – are you gonna tell them to stop?” (“Lions are obligate carnivores and have no choice but to consume flesh – humans, on the other hand, have many other choices”), “But what if I was in an extreme situation and was starving?” (“You’re not experiencing either condition, so what’s stopping you now?”) and “How will I get my protein?” (click hereto find out my answer).
The caption reads in part: “We had just left Everest Base Camp where we slept for the night, and headed to Mt Kala Patthar to hike to the summit (5,550m)… Within about 6/7 minutes we were hit with a blizzard, temperatures of -5 with wind chill and hard hitting snow, so we had to abandon – but we did manage to speak to 1 couple who took a card!” Yes, when you want a neat photo, try “activism” at 18,000 feet – you’re guaranteed to reach (nearly) no one but you’ll look cool in the process!
In 2016, in what appears to be another in a countless series of attempts to reinvent the animal welfare wheel (one that’s been spinning ceaselessly – and going nowhere – for over 200 years), a group in Melbourne, Australia (now with international membership) calling itself Anonymous for the Voiceless began engaging in what their website describes as “street activism” in which “Cubes of Truth” are formed by individuals wearing Guy Fawkes masks who arrange themselves into a human square and hold laptops or other media devices playing videos depicting the inherent horrors of the animal agriculture industry. I can identify with the idea of wanting to trigger, as their website suggests, “…curiosity and interest from the public” in an “…attempt to lead bystanders to a vegan conclusion through a combination of local standard-practice animal exploitation footage and conversations with a value-based sales approach”, as it’s not much different from the so-called “vegan” outreach in which I used to participate in Miami and other parts of South Florida, although we didn’t wear masks and only had a single video screen playing an endless loop of nauseatingly dreadful animal abuse.
I came to the understanding some time ago that our “vegan” outreach was anything but vegan, as we failed to deliver a clear, consistent message that all animal use is morally unjustifiable and instead offered passersby a confusing combination of vegan and vegetarian messaging through the videos we played and the litter-ature we handed to peoplewhether they wanted it or not.
[It appears that “Cubes of Truth” are being staged in Miami, so it’s possible that the so-called “vegan” outreach mentioned above, soon to be featured in an upcoming essay here at The Turbulence of Dreaming, has morphed into this new version]
Here again is why I no longer believe in, support or engage in speciesist efforts such as these: my ten years of hands-on experience with this kind of activism has led me to the sad conclusion that such messaging, like allanimal welfare messaging, misses the point entirely. By focusing our activism on showing the public how awful non-humans are treated in the animal exploitation industries, we fail to make clear that all animal use is inherently unjust and this plays directly into – and tacitly reinforces – a deeply speciesist cultural mindset that as long as we treat non-human individuals “humanely“, “kindly” and “compassionately” while we’re confining them against their wills and forcibly breeding them into existence for the express purpose of violently taking their lives to serve our desires, it’s acceptable in the end to kill them and consume their bodies, skins and secretions because, after all, they’re only “things” and objects to be used, not individuals. By focusing on the symptoms (“cruelty“, “abuse”, “mistreatment”, etc.), we fail to address the problem, and the problem is not how we use animals to serve our own needs; the problem is that we use them at all.
Speaking of problems, here are several problems inherent in Anonymous for the Voiceless:
Problem – Animals Have Voices – We Just Refuse To Listen
“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” – Arundhati Roy
Anonymous for the Voiceless’ implication that non-human individuals don’t have voices is not only incorrect, it’s also ableist. Here’s why.
“The ableism embedded in animal-rights discourse is evident in a common rallying cry used by animal advocates. To be a ‘voice for the voiceless’ is a sentiment with which many activists within advocacy communities identify. It became common to use the biblical phrase ‘a voice for the voiceless’ to refer to animals after the publication of a poem written in 1910 by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox… this poem was radical in its acknowledgment of animal suffering.
The phrase a ‘voice for the voiceless’–giving voice to a population that is unable to defend or speak for itself–inevitably conjures the sentiment in Wilcox’s poem: that the voiceless are physically unable to speak or help themselves… But [it] is wrong to suggest that animals are not telling us what they want…
Animals consistently voice preferences and ask for freedom. They speak to us every day when they cry out in pain or try to move away from our prods, electrodes, knives, and stun guns. Animals tell us constantly that they want to be out of their cages, that they want to be reunited with their families, or that they don’t want to walk down the kill chute. Animals express themselves all the time, and many of us know it. If we didn’t, factory farms and slaughterhouses would not be designed to constrain any choices an animal might have. We deliberately have to choose not to hear when the lobster bangs on the walls from inside a pot of boiling water or when the hen who is past her egg-laying prime struggles against the human hands that enclose her legs and neck. We have to choose not to recognize the preference expressed when the fish spasms and gasps for oxygen in her last few minutes alive. Considering animals voiceless betrays an ableist assumption of what counts as having a voice.
…When animal advocates describe animals as voiceless, even when it is meant simply as a metaphor, it gives power to those who want to view animals as ‘mindless objects.’ In the long run, activists will help animals more if we treat them as active participants in their own liberation–as the expressive subjects animal advocates know them to be–remembering that resistance takes many forms, some of which may be hard to recognize from an able-bodied human perspective.”
The compelling arguments made in Taylor’s article offer a new perspective on the idea of “a voice for the voiceless”, the very phrase I must admit I’d used to describe myself in the early days of my animal “activism”. Having eloquently explained the ableism inherent in the phrase, Taylor has helped me understand the unsettling feeling I experience whenever I hear animal advocates refer to non-human individuals as “voiceless”. I knew the idea was wrong, but I hadn’t considered that it also carries the weight of oppression.
Problem – Value-Based Selling = Selling Out Our Values
Prior to seeing the term on the Anonymous for the Voiceless website, I was unfamiliar with the idea of a “value-based sales approach”, which is defined as “the process of understanding and reinforcing the reasons why your offer is valuable to the purchaser“. By definition, a value-based sales approach is about catering to the selfishnessof the consumer to get them to agree that what you’re proposing will benefit them in some way. Such an approach, in animal advocacy terms, would necessarily put the focus on the ancillary benefits of living vegan (i.e., personal health) and would fail to take into consideration and make primary what matters most – the value to the victims of continuing their lives free from use, commodification, exploitation and execution by humans. To understand why such an approach is problematic from a vegan advocacy perspective, please consider this from a previous essay on this site:
“It can be argued that those who ‘go vegan’ for their own health and personal betterment – which really translates to adopting a plant-based diet, the definition of which is anybody’s guess these days – are essentially acting from the same place of selfishness that had them eating animals and their secretions to satisfy their own pleasure in the first place. When that’s the case, there’s little to stop them from reverting back to their original selfish position of consuming products of animal exploitation (one supported and encouraged by mainstream speciesist society) and resuming their complicity in the violent oppression of non-human individuals, and this happens far too often. Other than an alteration in diet, nothing’s changed for them in any meaningful and fundamental way. There’s been no move from selfishness to selflessness, no firm and unwavering commitment to eschew participation in all forms of animal use and no realization that all of these constitute injustice. Everything is still all about them, and the animal victims of human selfishness remain sadly overlooked.”
Problem – “We Hold An Abolitionist Stance…” But They Don’t
On the Anonymous for the Voiceless website, they loudly proclaim in all caps (like everything else on the page): “WE HOLD AN ABOLITIONIST STANCE ON ANIMAL EXPLOITATION.” As an abolitionist veganeducator, I found this statement intriguing so I sought to find out whether their assertion holds up when put in the Reality Machine.
Brain + critical thinking = Reality Machine
Here’s what I found with a minimum of investigation:
In a 2016 interview with Freedom of Species (a podcast website that features a mix of single-issue animal welfare campaigns and unequivocal vegan campaigns) Paul Bashir, co-founder and director of Anonymous For The Voiceless, is asked about the organization’s “abolitionist position” and has this to say about a “baby steps” approach to veganism, which would be in direct opposition to the abolitionist approach (I’ve italicized some notable quotes in the passage):
“We would never behave that way [promote incremental baby-step reduction efforts] in the face of any other injustice and therefore it is totally an injustice to expect that…in respect to veganism”.
He then draws analogies to human oppression and states that:
“Humans are animals and therefore the cruelty that we inflict on animals needs to be considered equally to the cruelty that’s inflicted on humans… it is just as serious and it’s just as problematic and it’s just as much of an injustice, therefore, no, nobody should be cutting back, everybody should be realizing that this is outright insanity and we all need to just stop. I refuse to compromise on that, on our values. No science or any sort of rational experiment has ever compelled me, that I’ve ever come across, to believe that ‘baby steps’ works, that it gets people to go full-blown vegan… since we would never compromise on those other injustices that occur within our own species, we shouldn’t be doing that with non-humans.”
If Bashir, the group’s co-founder and director, truly believes that “nobody should be cutting back” and is honest when he says, “I refuse to compromise on that, on our values” and so on, then one has to wonder how it came to pass that rather than adopting a stance of unequivocally promoting veganism, Anonymous for the Voiceless instead prominently promotes on their website a three-week dietary “challenge” that, in addition to erroneously positioning veganism as a mere diet and something challenging to achieve, clearly promotes a baby-steps approach. One needs only click the handy link to the Challenge22 (“Let’s try vegan!”) website to find that the FAQ page states that friends and families of those already vegan “…don’t have to commit to being vegan for life, just agree to give it a try for 22 days.” In fact, that appears to be all they ask of anyone as they offer “participants a free, supportive online framework for trying veganism for 22 days.” The Challenge22 focus is clearly on “trying”, not committing to, a diet and lifestyle (as opposed to the ethical position that veganism is – “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose…” –Vegan Society 1979) as the participants have access to “culinary experts” and “certified dietitians who give nutritional advice” so that they will be “equipped with nutritional information, cooking tips and recipes that enable them to maintain a healthy, tasty vegan lifestyle.” There is no mention of abstaining from any of the other myriad forms of animal use nor any mention or indication of veganismas one’s personal commitment to justice and nonviolence toward non-human individuals. One can only conclude from the information they provide that Challenge22 is far more committed to maintaining speciesism than it is to dismantling it through veganism. They’re not “trying” to promote speciesism – they’re promoting it.
To understand why this is speciesist, one need only frame it in human terms – imagine an anti-spousal abuse organization promoting a platform for spousal abusers to take a few weeks vacation from beating their partners but not have to commit to such a drastic lifestyle change permanently. Hard to imagine? It ought to be, much as it should be hard to imagine that an organization seeking to create a vegan world would promote anything less than living vegan as far as possible and practicable, and yet Challenge22 is doing exactly that.
Here’s a 2017 quote from Bashir’s Deskgram page chronicling one interaction he’d had:
“They couldn’t believe how young animals were slaughtered in the meat, dairy and egg industries. They were disgusted by the standard practices in free range farming. They despised animal cruelty, like most people; and after 10 minutes of chatting they realized there was no way you can be a non-vegan and truly represent those values. I told them about Challenge22+ and they said they’d do it. Why and how. In that order.”
I won’t belabor the aforementioned point about why focusing on the specifics of animal “cruelty” makes no sense from an abolitionist animal rights perspective, however I will point out that helping people realize they need to live vegan and then immediately directing them to a website that only asks people to “TRY vegan!” for 22 days is morally inconsistent. “Give it a shot for a few weeks and see what you think” is not a clear vegan message. It lets people off the moral hook and that’s unacceptable. Bashir seems to agree with this concept and yet, puzzlingly, this is his tactic and that of his organization.
Is it possible that Anonymous for the Voiceless simply hasn’t found an online vegan resource that does better than asking non-vegans to become 3-week plant-based dieters?
“Get 22 days of full support: Challenge22.com” – Paul Bashir
I find it perplexing that Anonymous for the Voiceless, while claiming to be “abolitionist”, would promote organizations that equivocate about or entirely avoid the idea of veganism as a moral imperative… and allow their organizers to be similarly noncommittal:
In a January 2017 article in the Guardian, Matt Stellino, an Anonymous for the Voiceless co-organizer in Sydney Australia, comes across like someone who is as serious as anyone could be about wanting people to live vegan and yet, at the end of the article, the equivocation comes: “The kebab shop doesn’t have to close,” Stellino offers. “We just want falafels for everyone.” That’s not asking for veganism. That’s asking for plant-based options and, contrary to what some vegans assert, offering plant-based foods to non-vegans is not getting us closer to dismantling speciesism and ending animal use. It merely adds more choices to the menu and further identifies veganism solely as a dietary option.
Problem – It Sounds Good, But What Does It Mean?
Every so often in the animal welfare sphere, a new organization arises promising a fresh and exciting “new” approach to “saving” or “sparing” animals, usually asking for volunteers to recruit members and needing large amounts of donations. If this sounds suspiciously like the modus operandi of a multi-level marketing scam, there’s a good reason for that… Notice that with such organizations the math involved in calculating the amount of “saved” or “spared” animals is always very fuzzy, but the math involved in calculating the amount of money needed in donations is always very clear. I’m not sure whether Anonymous for the Voiceless is on the same level as the large, donation-based animal welfare corporations (yet), but I am curious about the math I’ve seen posted by them on various sites: “125,253 bystanders taking veganism/animal liberation seriously!”, “32,851 conversions!” What exactly does it mean to “take veganism seriously” and at what point in the conversation does that become clear? Does it mean they will start living vegan from that moment or is it just something now being considered by someone who hadn’t previously given it much, or any, thought? And at what point in the conversation is a “conversion” recorded? These seem like intangibles to me and the statistics carry more than a whiff of self-justification and marketing.
New Doesn’t Always Mean Better
It’s easy to be lured in by the shine and flash of the new, especially to those who see the injustice of animal use and feel a desperate desire to “do something“, but we need always remember the following:
A disease is not cured by merely exposing and treating its symptoms but rather by directly addressing the root cause that creates the symptoms. This compelling essay from Gentle World entitled Are Anti-Cruelty Campaigns Really Effective? discusses the matter eloquently. An excerpt:
“…a united front of widespread public education focused on why and how to become vegan would address the root of the exploitation problem by challenging not only all of our uses of animals, butour society’s decidedly speciesist attitude in and of itself.
To illustrate the point, it’s helpful to consider the analogy of a tree. The animal exploitation tree can be divided into several sections, including the roots, trunk, and branches.
The roots of the tree – mostly hidden underground – represent our society’s underlying speciesism; the cultural prejudice against all animals (other than humans) that makes it possible for us to ignore the basic needs of others in favor of our own trivial desires. Speciesism, like racism, sexism, and other oppressive cultural prejudices, ignores morally relevant characteristics (such as the fundamental interests of the oppressed or exploited), in favor of morally irrelevant characteristics (such as membership of a species, race, sex, and so on). When we eliminate speciesism (individually or as a group), we respect the interests of individual members of other species sufficiently to take those interests into account with our own, and everyone else’s interests. The behavioral result of such respect is veganism – avoiding animal products and uses in our lives as much as is reasonably possible.”
It makes no sense, is counterproductive and is unethical to engage in one or more forms of violent, systematic, exploitative oppression while working to end another. It is particularly counterproductive to engage in the same form of exploitation – in the case of Anonymous for the Voiceless, speciesism – one is trying to end.
And The Reality Machine Says…
By applying critical thinking rather than taking everything at face value and accepting words that don’t match actions, it becomes clear that Anonymous for the Voiceless is, sadly, not only engaging in ableism by portraying non-human individuals as “voiceless” but also promoting speciesism through their focus on animal “cruelty” and their affiliation with speciesist organizations such as Challenge22.
Therefore, while it seems to me that Mr. Bashir is a committed animal activist and appears to want to help end all animal exploitation, the organization he’s co-founded has unfortunately strayed from their stated “abolitionist stance” and landed deeply in animal welfare territory.
The Simple Solution – Vegan Education
If you oppose at least one form of violent oppression because you recognize it is morally wrong, then to live in integrity requires opposing all forms of violent oppression because they are all morally wrong. Speciesism, simply by virtue of having the largest number of victims and the highest ever-increasing death toll worldwide, is the most egregious form of violent oppression our world has ever known. It’s time to dismantle speciesism, and the way to do that, again, is through living vegan and educating others to live vegan.
Animals are not voiceless and truth doesn’t come in cubes. There are no masks or laptops required to educate others about veganism. If you want to dismantle and end speciesism, carry the vegan message of nonviolence and justice for non-humans by speaking your truth clearly, consistently and directly with words, not theatrics. Provide the public with the simple, logical idea that when you realize it’s wrong to hurt, steal from and kill vulnerable individuals for your personal pleasure and satisfaction, the only rational and just response is to live vegan.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
A recent bout of cold weather in South Florida had the disturbing effect of causing iguanas, a non-native species introduced to the area by humans, to become immobilized and fall out of trees where they generally sleep. Even more disturbing were the ensuing discussions and news reports about what to do with them where conversations ranged from moving the iguanas to where they could get warm and recover from this cold-induced condition (that would be my choice, and I confirmed with a wildlife rehabilitation expert that they can and often do fully recover when assisted and given the opportunity to do so) to calls for “humane euthanasia” (a euphemistic rationalization for opportunistic killing) and even suggestions that they be butchered and eaten.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, the loudest, most fervent voices seemed to be the ones advocating for either killing these sentient individuals or just letting them die, with these lethal options often being framed as a “favor” to the local environment the “problem” reptiles are accused of destroying.
The underlying issue here is this:
Humans create “problems” like this all the time through actions that include unnecessary introduction into the local environment of non-native species brought in as pets/property, forced overbreeding of companion, farmed and “wild” animals, urban/suburban sprawl, overuse of resources causing displacement and starvation of native non-humans – to name a few – while seeming to have no workable long-range strategy in place for dealing with the consequences. The default “management” plan often ends up being the violent extermination of innocent, vulnerable individuals and groups who wouldn’t be here in the first place had it not been for human interference by bringing them in and throwing the ecosystem out of balance.
I often wonder how long it’ll be before the idea that humans occupy special protected status erodes to the point that the “cure” for human homelessness is to start “humanely” dispatching those nuisance layabouts whenever possible.
If anyone can combine speciesist proverbs and cannibalism, it’s Ray Bradbury… 😉
Response Ability
Historically, our specieswide refusal to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, combined with our socially accepted laziness in seeking morally justifiable solutions for the problems we’ve created yet refuse to own, results time and again in our resorting to the use of unnecessary violence and killing as a brute “solution”.
We cause unmanageable situations and later position ourselves as victims of circumstance when inconvenient consequences arise and grow beyond our control. Our irresponsibility creates true victims – in this case, the iguanas we thought would make such cute and interesting pets who couldn’t possibly end up outside their enclosures and alter the ecosystem – and we justify killing those victims (and others such as pythons and other non-native species again imported as pets/property, then discarded into an unsuitable environment and left to fight for their survival) by hiding behind the rationalization that we are merely defending ourselves and being protectors of the environment.
It’s a tragic narrative worthy of Mary Shelley:
“I brought you here and created an unexpected condition. I don’t like the consequences. I’ll have to kill you now. Sorry, it’s for the best.”
As a species and as individuals, we can do much better than this. It’s time we start.
“I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest…”
Victim Eyes
When our actions create victims, it’s time to change our behaviors.
Our action of living non-vegan creates trillions of victims every year through our consumption and use of land-dwelling and aquatic non-human sentient beings whose vulnerable bodies we thoughtlessly exploit in order to satisfy our personal pleasure, comfort, convenience and entertainment. But it’s not about abstract numbers, as this excerpt from a previous essay explains. It’s about individuals:
In truth, it wasn’t the sheer numbers that affected me – it was the individuals. I can’t imagine what six million or ten billion of anything actually looks like, but looking into the terrified eyes of one calf being torn away forever from her mother, one pig in the slaughter line watching his companions hung by their feet and having their throats slit, one baby chick having her beak seared off with a hot blade, one dog being skinned – ALIVE – and thrown in a pile of dying, mutilated dogs, one cow struggling valiantly to evade the man trying to shoot her in the head with the captive bolt gun… that’s what haunted me. The eyes.
Eyes like yours and mine. Eyes that rolled in their sockets in pain and anguish. Eyes that screamed and cried and pleaded. Eyes that, if they could speak in words, would say, “Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I don’t understand. Please stop. You don’t have to do this”. And though there were no words, I understood the language conveyed by those eyes and I could not pretend to not understand. I saw the pain, I saw the fear, I saw the misery, I saw the hope and the life drain from those eyes, I saw defeat… and I was affected.
The Simple Solution
Consider if the iguana situation described above had instead involved kittens, puppies, rabbits, horses or other non-humans who are generally looked upon as “cute” (but still have the potential to wreak havoc on the environment). More than likely, people would fall all over themselves organizing efforts to rescue and re-home these unfortunate individuals, however this clearly was not the case for the iguanas and this difference in attitudes, approaches and behaviors based solely on species membership points to the glaring speciesism that pervades our largely non-vegan society.
As individuals, when we make the commitment to live vegan by abstaining from the exploitation of other vulnerable individuals for our selfish benefit (as we generally tend to do without hesitation when those potential victims are human), we live in integrity with our values, aid in the dismantling of the violent form of oppression known as speciesismand help create a peaceful, fair and just world for all beings regardless of species.
Live vegan – there’s nothing to it but to do it.
[I encourage all readers to click theblue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Lately, I’ve been questioning whether there is a fundamental flaw in my thinking.
I tend to operate under the assumption that, when given the option, people would prefer to live with moral integrity. When asked whether they think it’s wrong to hurt and kill the vulnerable for pleasure, most (if not all) of the people I meet say “yes”. Much as I and others work to provide them with incontrovertible evidence that, if one believes it’s wrong to unnecessarily harm and kill innocent, vulnerable sentient beings to satisfy one’s pleasure, comfort or convenience, the only logical response is to start living vegan as soon as possible, many resist and make the choice to continue benefitting from the injustices inherent in animal use – thereby living in direct opposition to the moral standards they profess to hold.
Could the problem be that the people I meet have no true desire to live up to their own standards in instances when to do so would prevent them from getting what they want, preferring instead to violate their own moral boundaries in an ongoing quest for self-satisfaction? For example, for those of us who understand that robbing a bank is wrong because taking that which does not belong to us is fundamentally unjust, would we do it anyway if no one was looking and we wouldn’t get caught?
“I knew I was ‘hitting bottom’ when I was violating my standards faster than I could lower them” – Recovering member of Alcoholics Anonymous
This excerpt from a previous essay helps explain why this phenomenon occurs:
…the innate human characteristics of selfishness (“What’s in it for me?”), laziness (“How much energy am I going to have to spend on this?”) and a desire to be right at all costs (“I’m right, you’re wrong… and I’m also right!”) set up stumbling blocks to accepting new and vital information. The result is defensiveness born of cognitivedissonance(“If what you’re telling me is true, that means my firmly-held beliefs are wrong and I’ll need to make significant changes… and that can’t be simply because it can’t be, so clearly you’re wrong and I’m right because I believe I’m right!”) and an almost impenetrable wall of denial is immediately constructed.
Or perhaps the problem is that the people I meet just don’t have a clear understanding of what values make up their moral compasses, so they follow the crowd and rarely, if ever, question the speciesistsocietal indoctrination they’ve been exposed to since birth that tells them non-human animals are exempt from the moral community, have no real rights and therefore can be used and exploited for the benefit of humans.
When applied to vegan advocacy, the Socraticmethod is an invaluable tool for helping non-vegans quickly understand what their morals are where animals are concerned and how veganism is in line with the values in which they already believe.
Here’s an example of Socratic questioning in a vegan advocacy setting:
Questions adapted from vegan advocate Chris Petty’s questionnaire
Being Conscious of Our Conscience
I do my best to live in accordance with my moral compass and am sure that I fail to live up to my own standards almost daily in some aspect of my life or another, but I am far from claiming to be perfect in any way. I just do the best I can with what I have and, when I realize I’ve done less than my best and violated a boundary, I admit my transgression as promptly as I’m able and amend my behavior so I can do better the next time and recover my serenity in the process.
Prior to embracing 12-step recovery to heal from the traumatic effects of having lived in close proximity to others’ active addictions, I used to believe that I didn’t have a conscience. To the casual observer, based on many of my choices and behaviors the first 26 years of my life, this might have appeared to be the case. One day I mentioned this to another recovering person who gently suggested to me, “You always had a conscience – you just didn’t listen to it.”
And with that, the atomic bomb of truth landed right in my lap.
BOOM.
Once again, our perspective is our reality.
Over the past 23 years, I have come to understand and incorporate the Twelve Steps as guidelines for living an emotionally healthy life, and part of my process in “working” the Steps involved making a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of myself. Much has been written and shared about this particular step on the recovery path that many seem to find daunting and too tall an order to complete (it’s often said that the Twelve Steps are a “simple program for complicated people”), but a friend broke it down to its essence for me by saying, “Dude, I inventoried my morals” and it suddenly sounded manageable. I came to realize that I didn’t really know what my morals were – what were the values I held dear and believed in to the core of my being? What were my basic beliefs about right and wrong? Did I have my own moral code or was I only watching others and taking my cues from them?
Prior to making my own moral inventory, I could only guess at the answers to such questions and finally wanted to know, so with the guidance of a trusted friend I dove in and did the work.
Consider this passage from an Al-Anon publication:
“My Fourth Step inventory helped me discover who I am, what my values are, the behavior I’d like to keep, and the things I’d like to change. With this in mind, I am working to establish new behavior that reflects my integrity and expresses my true values. Where in the past I have accepted unacceptable behavior [from myself and others – Editor], I now can choose a different response. I must consistently do what I say I’m going to do. Today I have the courage and faith to be true to myself, whether or not others like or agree with me.” – Courage to Change, Al-Anon Family Groups, p. 345
Once I’d done a good deal of introspective self-examination and completed my moral inventory, I had a much clearer understanding of what I believe in/what I don’t believe in, which behaviors of mine are acceptable/unacceptable to me, what my core values are and who I truly want to be as a person. In short, I came to know – and embrace – who I am. I became able to identify and enumerate those values that comprise my moral compass and began setting internal boundaries for my behaviors. I began living and behaving in ways that were in line with my values and I became more and more comfortable with myself. It became clear that the more I listened to my conscience, the less anxiety I created for myself and I found that each time I transgressed my own boundaries and stepped out of integrity with my morals by choosing not to listen to my conscience yet again, I felt a familiar sense of shame. This was the same feeling that had haunted me all those years I’d lived contrary to who I really was, acting out unhealthily in reaction to the toxic cloud of other peoples’ addictions that was everpresent in my life. It was this feeling that kept me believing I was unworthy of everything – love, acceptance, friendship, family, happiness, success… oxygen – and I knew I no longer wanted to willingly engage in behaviors that would invite my shame to return like a vampire to suck the blood from my soul and leave me cold, empty and nearly lifeless again… and again… and again.
A Literal Moment of Truth
On that night nearly thirteen years ago when I was suddenly confronted with evidence that, by living non-vegan, I was undeniably complicit in, supporting and promoting a worldwide system of enslavement, exploitation and execution of vulnerable sentient beings, I had a choice to make:
Knowing the truth of the consequences of my choices, do I continue to fund and personally benefit from these injustices… or do I do the right thing and cease my complicity in them immediately by living vegan?
I knew almost instantly that my only acceptable course of action was to begin living vegan right then and there, and here’s why:
I understood from my Fourth Step inventory that I place a high value on justice, fairness, honesty and integrity, so I do my best each day to live in a way that honors those values. When I fall short, there is another part of the Twelve Step process that is extremely beneficial in helping me get back on track, and that’s the Tenth Step.
Step Ten – Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Until I was shown the truth about animal exploitation that night in 2004, ten years after my recovery journey began, I was ignorant – and on some level, willfully so – as to the part I was playing in it and once I knew, I couldn’t un-know. My mind, my gut and the tears streaming down my cheeks all told one story – all animal use is unjust and I won’t be a part of it any longer.
Simply put, I was wrong. I admitted it. I amended my behavior.
In that moment, I was faced with a moral dilemma. Do I choose to take the selfish route and continue doing what I was doing by rationalizing, justifying, minimizing, intellectualizing, blaming, shaming, deflecting, avoiding and otherwise denying that living non-vegan runs in direct opposition to my core values or do I make one selfless decision to stop victimizing others? Each choice presented its share of consequences, but I knew the consequences of the selfish choice – shame and self-loathing – weren’t ones I was willing to face again, so I made the selfless choice.
My vegan life began that night.
Quote by Michele McCowan
“Humility will help us see ourselves in true perspective and keep our minds open to the truth.” – Al-Anon’s Courage to Change
I make no claims that I take or have taken morally higher ground than others nor that mine is necessarily an example to follow. I only wonder whether my Twelve Step way of living, the moral inventory it suggested I make and the suggestion to take ongoing accountability for my behavior made me somehow more receptive, open and willing, at least in that moment of truth, to making a hard and fast commitment to living vegan than many of the people I meet. I am certainly not suggesting that embracing the Twelve Step philosophy is a prerequisite for embracing veganism nor that it’s some sort of universal missing piece of the puzzle, as I know others in recovery who have been exposed to the truth about animal exploitation and continue to personally benefit from those injustices, however I do believe that immersion in some sort of moral inventory process is crucial if one is to have any chance of fully understanding one’s own moral compass and living in integrity.
My feeling is that my moral inventory was a critical piece for me since I would almost certainly not be living vegan today had it not been for the Step work I did that led me first to define my morals and then commit to living by them as best as I’m able one day at a time.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Co-written by Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya
Wednesday Morning at 7 o’clock As the Day Begins
On Wednesday 11/8/2017 over an 8-hour span, I once again received back-to-back emails from not one, not two, not three, not four… ok, four of the major animal welfare (not rights, mind you – welfare) organizations with similarly-themed messages of how to be more “compassionate” around the upcoming holidays. In fact, two of the emails had the word “compassion” and “compassionate” in the subject line:
Receipt of such emails all in one day is a common occurrence for me, and it’s no coincidence such email solicitations always arrive just before payday – I’m sure there are studies proving this is the optimal time to send donation requests – as handy reminders of the stellar work they’re doing that only their dedicated and knowledgeable staff and volunteers can do (undercover “cruelty” investigations, “pressuring” non-vegan restaurant chains to add plant-based options, throwing self-congratulatory parties)… and only with my donations. I’ll offer a brief look at the content of the emails.
What’d I Say?
Mercy for Animals (MFA) informed me that “Animal torture has been exposed inside yet another government-owned slaughterhouse…” and that “unthinkable cruelty” was happening before slaughterhouse workers were “…stringing [pigs] upside down and cutting open their throats” which, if I’m not mistaken, is how they’re generally slaughtered. The assured me that I can “make a difference” by “making a special donation today as part of the Million-Dollar Challenge” and by taking the “Veg Pledge”… which unfortunately does not equate to living vegan. In fact, they make a vague suggestion (see below) to “choose compassionate vegan alternatives” (which, I suppose, could be added to any meal right alongside the animal flesh and secretions that might already be there. That may make it different, but it certainly doesn’t “make a difference”) while offering a VEGETARIAN Starter Guide, furthering the time-honored animal welfare tradition of conflating vegan and vegetarian as if there are one and the same.
“The best way to help cows, pigs, and other farmed animals is simply to choose compassionate vegan alternatives. Sign up here to get your free VegetarianStarter Guide, meat-free recipes, news, and tips.”
Compassion Over Killing (COK) invited me to “celebrate compassion!” at their event costing $100-150 per ticket, which I wouldn’t be interested in doing even if it were free and happening next door to my house (since they’re actually just celebrating themselves as a corporation). When they start talking about justice, I’ll start celebrating, albeit warily as I try to figure out what their angle is. Much like MFA, they did offer me another opportunity to “…still lend your support to help us continue our life-saving work for animals in the year ahead. Please donate now! All donations through December 31 will be matched dollar-for-dollar!”
Vegan Outreachasked me to sign a petition asking a non-vegan pizza company to add “a delicious vegan cheese pizza” to their menu and “Heck—throwing in a few toppings like meatless pepperoni or savory sausage crumbles would be even better!” They also reminded me that they’re “…working to expose and end cruelty to animals through the widespread distribution of our booklets promoting plant-based eating and compassion for animals” (again with the compassion…). Rather than promoting “plant-based eating”, a concept so vague that it’s anybody’s guess as to what it means and can actually be defined as eating salads with animal flesh and secretions on top (“Well, it is plant-based…”), is it unreasonable to expect that a corporation called Vegan Outreach might promote, say, veganism?
Lastly, before offering a Meatout Monday recipe, Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) reminded me that Thanksgiving is “the perfect opportunity to share a compassionate meal with friends and family” (more compassion – yay!!!). They suggested I “invite others to experience how amazing a vegan meal is for your health, the environment, and of course for the animals!” In the spirit of consistently putting animals last on the list of reasons not to eat animals, they go on: “Whether you’re looking to improve your health, are environmentally-conscious, or truly care about the animals*, the holidays are the perfect time to celebrate life together over a delicious, plant-based meal” (ah, plant-based!). They also offer a pledge to “go vegan for Thanksgiving”, as if abstaining from products of animal exploitation for one meal or even one entire day equates to embracing veganism. Once again, a major animal welfare corporation muddies the waters and erroneously equates eating one plants-only meal with living vegan.
Who’s to Blame?
I want to be clear that I find no fault with those who operate at the volunteer levels of these MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing-Manipulation)-style welfare corporations, as I am sure that they, just like me, join the ranks in hopes of making real change for animals with a corporation that purports to be doing exactly that, since the idea of taking on such tasks individually seems overwhelmingly daunting and often leads to feelings of despair and hopelessness. Enter the smooth and seductive siren song of the large animal welfare corporation(s) to offer comfort, community and a cure – “Join us and help the animals! Be a voice for the voiceless and stand with like-minded people who are already working to solve the problem of animal cruelty/abuse!”. I know that I was once brainwashed and beguiled by the manipulative messaging of MFA, COK, PeTA, H$U$ and the like and would have continued engaging with, supporting and promoting them and their single-issue campaigns had I not been shown the hypocrisy, ineffectiveness and counterproductiveness of their methods and messaging. Just as with other multi-level marketing or pyramid scheme models, eager volunteers are recruited by those in higher positions or at the same level but with time in the organization and used to bring in more recruits and/or solicit donations, in this case through handing out free organization literature and/or convincing people to join email lists, both of which do provide information about the plight of animals and welfare reforms but are ultimately mechanisms for bringing in donor dollars.
Essentially, these very organizations operating under the pretense of working to stop the exploitation of non-humans are engaging in the exploitation of the humans they enlist to perform for low or no pay in the service of increasing the organization’s financial bottom line. Volunteers and low-level employees are used for their time, energy and effort in such areas as fundraising, undercover investigations and member recruitment while being inculcated with the false belief that the corporation they serve is working to create a better world for animals. Meanwhile, millions in donor dollars and grants roll in each year, salaries are paid to those in higher positions, careers are solidified, agendas are furthered… and animals remain property to be used, discarded and replaced despite all the “critical”, “eye-opening”, “groundbreaking”, “life-saving” work supposedly being done on their behalf.
I observed this phenomenon in action during set-up at a South Florida “veg” fest in fall 2016. While strolling past the Mercy for Animals table, I observed the MFA coordinator (someone I know and with whom I have interacted – a sort of local animal welfare “star” – but whose identity I will not reveal) pointedly instructing the lower-level volunteers that they need to focus on getting people to join the MFA email list: “Sign-ups, sign-ups, sign-ups!!! At an event like this, we should be able to get at least [inaudible something-hundred number] new sign-ups.” Since fall is the season for year-end fundraising, dollar-for-dollar matching and million-dollar challenges, the push to focus on email “sign-ups” rather than engaging with and educating the public was not surprising. The coordinator’s forceful tone of voice seemed to indicate that obedience to this directive was not open for debate.
In the eyes of the animal welfare corporations, every person is a potential donor, and the more people who are reached by email, snail mail, street “activism”, college leafleting, social media and other methods, the deeper the potential donor pool. Slick and glossy publications, videos and emails are carefully crafted to tug at both heartstrings and purse strings. Note the use of evocative and melodramatic language in this email donation plea received 11/9/2017. One can almost hear the minor-key string section playing in the background while the somber narrator intones:
“Suffering animals—like Clara and Max—need you to act now.
When our brave undercover investigator met Clara at a Hormel pork supplier earlier this year, the gentle and intelligent pig was pregnant and forced to live in a gestation crate so small she couldn’t even turn around. Once Clara gave birth, all her babies, including little Max, were taken away from her and mutilated without painkillers.
Your compassion enables MFA to continue speaking out for defenseless animals and put an end to cruel practices like tail docking, castration, and cramming animals into tiny cages.
With you by our side, we’ll conduct even more eye-opening undercover investigations like the just-released footage captured at a Mexican slaughterhouse. We’ll also pressure more of the largest food companies to end the worst forms of abuse in their supply chains, and we’ll inspire millions of people to leave animals like Max and Clara off their plates for good.
I know that it breaks your heart to see and hear about such horrific animal abuse. That’s why I’m asking you to please help MFA make 2018 our most impactful year yet. Together, we can end this cruelty and create a kinder world for all animals.”
Sincerely,
Nathan Runkle President
Max!!! Clara…?
In the Multi-Level-Manipulation world of animal welfare corporations, low-level employees and volunteers are manipulated into reaching out to the public who are in turn manipulated by the materials to which they are exposed, and the money flows steadily in. Employees and volunteers believe they are helping the public learn that animal abuse exists (as if they didn’t already know this) and the donating public come to believe that by “doing something” and donating to animal welfare organizations, they are discharging their moral responsibility toward animals, and this idea is cosigned by the organization’s literature that suggests they shouldn’t take “drastic” steps like, for example, living vegan.
If the animal welfare corporations were to stop their single-issue campaigns and put their formidable resources into unequivocally educating the public about veganism as our moral obligation toward non-human individuals and providing support for new vegans, we would move quickly toward abolishing the property status of animals, demand for products of animal exploitation would dramatically decrease… and they would soon find themselves out of work as the paradigm shifted and the status quo changed, leaving them with no “horrific” cruelty to reduce or “worst” abuses to end, making it nearly impossible to make convincingly dramatic pleas for continued donations. For this reason, it has neverbeen in the best interest of animal welfare organizations to work in the true best interests of animals, but rather in what they tell us are the best interests of animals. For this reason, they will continue to partner with animal exploiters to ensure there is a steady supply of cruelty to reduce, abuses to end and single-issue campaigns to wage as mechanisms for soliciting a steady supply of donor dollars to keep themselves salaried and in business.
Why in the World…?
Now, in case anyone’s wondering why I’m still getting emails from groups like this long after putting my welfare days behind me, please allow me to explain:
I keep myself on several animal welfare email lists (though not PeTA or The Humane League– I do have standards…) so I can see what Big Welfare’s latest shenanigans are and to watch with mild amusement as they continue to pretend they’re all separate organizations rather than one large vomitous mass corporation, dividing up single-issue campaigns based on which seems to fit which brand and will result in the largest number of donor dollars, tremendous grantsand the furthering of careers for those at the highest levels of each corporate entity.
Who’s Down With OPP?
On the subject of grants, I am mortified as I look at this page I inadvertently found detailing the sheer numbers of dollars (roughly $16 million per year in 2016 and 2017) being lavished by the Open Philanthropy Project upon organizations under the rather vague heading of “Farm Animal Welfare”, about which OPP states:
“Billions of animals each year are treated cruelly on factory farms. We believe that raising awareness of current practices and pushing for reform could reduce animal suffering by enormous amounts, yet we see relatively little attention on this issue from major animal welfare groups.”
“Relatively little attention… from major animal welfare groups”? Relative to what??? That’s essentially the entire focus, theme song, parade route and lifeblood of every major animal welfare group, and it goes like this – farmed animals endure horrific, torturous crueltyevery day of their short lives en route to being slaughtered for human consumption [TRUE], so we need to do something/anything – usually involving “compassion” and/or some sort of weak legislation making a horrible situation slightly less horrible – to reduce the cruelty/suffering/abuse and ensure they’re treated humanelybefore they’re killed [FALSE].
Why, if the stated problem is true, do I contend the proposed solution is false?
Because the idea – and the entire animal welfare philosophy dating back over 200 years – is predicated on a false premise. That false premise rests on the notion that non-human individuals are destined to die to satisfy human pleasure, comfort and convenience no matter what we do, therefore the best we can ever hope to do is to make conditions better (more “humane”/less “cruel”) for them along the way. If we believe that to be the truth, then we can only keep trying to make the inhumane a little more humane for these pathetic, hopeless, condemned beings… and, if that’s our position, then why bother living vegan by taking the moral stance of refusing to participate in any and all forms of animal use wherever possible and practicable? Doesn’t it now become permissible to eat, wear and otherwise use non-humans now and then (or why not all the time?) since we’re all working to ensure that these things happen in the nicest ways possible? I mean, as long as they’re treated well and killed humanely…
So if the problem is true, what then is the solution and how is it being achieved?
The solution is to change the current paradigm that allows for and demands that animals be considered propertyand be objectified and commodified for use as disposable, replaceable human resources. This is being achieved through dismantling speciesism, and the method by which that’s occurring is twofold:
If we believe, as any non-psychopath does, that it’s morally unjustifiable to hurt and kill vulnerable individuals to satisfy our personal pleasures and desires, and we come to understand that the most vulnerable members of our global society are, without exception, the non-human individuals we call animals, then our only reasonable response is to immediatelystop participating in and benefitting from systems of oppression that result in the unnecessary harm and death of these sentientbeings. We stop paying others to do what we know is wrong, and we stop doing it ourselves. In short, we start living vegan.
We make a point of educating others to live vegan, and we do this by engaging in clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education advocacy at every available opportunity, whether one-on-one, in groups, in person, online, over the phone or through any other creative means at our disposal. This does not mean simply handing a brochure, pamphlet or flyer containing vegan information to every passerby (coupled with a cheery “Go vegan!”) and hoping they a) read the material, b) are moved by it and c) decide to start living vegan and have some understanding as to how to do that. We would no sooner expect this to be an effective form of vegan advocacy as we would expect that, by handing astrophysics textbooks to random strangers and saying “Go astrophysicist!”, they will go home and become astrophysicists… and yet, this is a stock in trade method used by most animal welfare groups. Rather, this means taking whatever time one can to engage others in calm, rational, educational conversations, asking effective questions and answering those we are asked to the best of our abilities. It also means directing non-vegans to solid, unequivocal vegan resources online and in print (please see our Downloadable Vegan Content, Online Vegan Resources and Recommended Reading sections for excellent information).
While single-issue campaigns and the welfare corporations behind them may seem attractive on the surface, all one needs to do is apply a bit of critical thinking to conclude that they are speciesistin nature and ultimately counterproductive to the cause of abolishing animal use, and there is nothing attractive about that or about engaging in the exact form of oppression one claims to be working to eradicate.
[*a quick note on language and perception – when we talk about “the animals” as opposed to “animals”, we are defining non-humans as groups (i.e.; herds, flocks, schools) devoid of personalities or other markers of individuality rather than framing them as the individuals they truly are. This results in devaluation and depersonalization, making true empathy for them as individuals that much more difficult to achieve in the minds and hearts of those who have long been trained to view and treat them as mere objects to be used, discarded and replaced. This can make our vegan advocacy even more challenging, so once again it behooves us to be mindful of the words we choose and the language we use.]
It can be argued that those who “go vegan” for their own health and personal betterment – which really translates to adopting a plant-based diet, the definition of which is anybody’s guess these days – are essentially acting from the same place of selfishness that had them eating animals and their secretions to satisfy their own pleasure in the first place. When that’s the case, there’s little to stop them from reverting back to their original selfish position of consuming products of animal exploitation (one supported and encouraged by mainstream speciesist society) and resuming their complicity in the violent oppression of non-human individuals, and this happens far too often. Other than an alteration in diet, nothing’s changed for them in any meaningful and fundamental way. There’s been no move from selfishness to selflessness, no firm and unwavering commitment to eschew participation in all forms of animal use and no realization that all of these constitute injustice. Everything is still all about them, and the animal victims of human selfishness remain sadly overlooked.
I’m never surprised when this recidivism happens, and it’s no longer a disappointment. At this point, it’s expected. What I do find disappointing is that more vegans don’t see it coming like a slow-moving freight train and continue to celebrate each time some public figure decides to temporarily (and not always exclusively) eat plants: “Ohhh, look! Blahblahblah-celebrity ‘went’ vegan!!! Isn’t that AMAZING???”
No.
What would be amazing is if that person began truly living a life of moral consistency and started living vegan rather than “going” vegan, ‘cos when you “go” someplace (to the store, to the movies, to work, on vacation), more often than not you come back to the very same place you came from, and that’s usually the place where you live. Conversely, when you live a particular way, you embody your ethics and take them with you wherever you happen to find yourself (just as you would in opposing racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, ableism and any other form of oppression, all of which are analogous to speciesism). When I found myself, I began living vegan. It’s not only how I live, it’s where I live.
Wait – It’s Not All About Me??
It’s crucial to remember that veganism isn’t primarily about us and how we can benefit from ceasing to participate in the non-consensual use of animals. Personal health and environmental improvements are side benefits of living vegan, and vegan advocates and educators ought to be careful not to erroneously frame them as the goals or primary motivations. Veganism is an ethical position that represents a return to living according to our almost universally shared belief that harming – and killing – others for no good reason is always wrong. “But their bodies taste good!” is as morally unjustifiable a reason for taking a life as “But their bodies feel good!” is for sexually violating another individual. Each represents a terrible injustice that serves only to satisfy the pleasure of the perpetrator to the extreme detriment of the victim.
Used To Be = Never Was
Each time I hear that someone “used to be vegan”, I can be sure they never internalized the ethical position and have to wonder where they got the fallacious information that simply eating an exclusively plant-based diet equates to living vegan. I implore vegan advocates and educators to always be clear, consistent and unequivocal about the meaning, importance and ethics of veganism.
Lives depend on it.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue linksembedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya – co-founders, SFVEG
Overheard: “How about taking a stand against the murder of unborn children through abortion? When I see you joining that cause perhaps I will listen to the rest of your moral outrage and the weeping for sheep…”
The above is an actual quote I saw recently from a pastor in response to a conversation about veganism. [Please note that this essay does not attempt to make a correlation between abortion and animal rights. The example used by the pastor might well have involved any human rights issue or plight – natural disaster, genocide, famine, etc. – involving humans]
It’s important to remember that veganism is not about humans – it’s about abstaining from any and all uses of non-human individuals for human pleasure, comfort and convenience.
Yes, people say things like this. It’s a version of one of the archetypical arguments against veganism that usually goes like this: “Humans come first. Once we get human problems sorted out, then I’ll worry about non-humans “.
Let’s apply a bit of critical thinking to these ideas by putting them in the Reality Machine.
Aside from being a blatantly speciesistposition (simply substitute the words “non-human” and “human” with different human races or genders and the unjust bias is immediately clear), this justification for continuing to engage in the exploitation of vulnerable individuals hasn’t a leg to stand on, and here’s why:
Livingvegan (eschewing the use of all products and forms of animal exploitation wherever possible and practicable) takes zero energy, resources, time or effort away from advocating for any other cause, whether human rights-related or otherwise. One can live vegan and still engage in any activity one chooses, probably with even more energythan when living non-vegan!
To further examine the fallaciousness of the argument, the idea that there will come a day when humanity’s myriad problems are finally put to rest is, in a word, preposterous. Therefore, to claim that one will gladly engage in working for animal rights once all human rights have been permanently secured is nothing more than a lie based on an impossible premise designed to derail the animal rights conversation and justify one’s continued use of products of animal exploitation. It is a disingenuous position designed to obfuscate the underlying selfishness motivating the argument, and it by no means presupposes that one is spending one’s days and nights engaged in any form of advocacy or activism whatsoever. It’s a bluff that is easily called and checkmate is soon to follow.
“Giraffes probably think ‘Giraffes first’, so what’s the problem??”
In and of itself, veganism is passive – it doesn’t require one to do anything but rather to not do certain things (i.e., not eat, wear or otherwise use and/or objectify non-human animals for one’s personal benefit). From there, if one chooses to spend one’s time, energy and resources engaging in animal rights advocacy through clear, consistent vegan education, that is one’s choice (and one we highly recommend) but again not a requirement.
Armed with the knowledge that one can live vegan and continue to participate passionately in whatever activities or advocacy one feels compelled to participate in, why – other than for purely selfish reasons of pleasure, comfort and convenience – would anyone not choose to do so?
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya – co-founders, SFVEG
What could possibly follow “but” in any of the above statements that would morally justify making an exception to the ideas as presented? The answer is simple: nothing.
Imagine hearing someone say, “I agree that racism is wrong, but the Ku Klux Klan is having a bake sale fundraiser this weekend and they make delicious cupcakes, so I’ll be buying some!” The moral inconsistency in such a situation would be glaring, and yet people routinely say they disagree with specific injustices while participating in and supporting, sometimes without realizing it, those same injustices.
Speciesism can be defined as a double standard created by humans placing higher moral value on some individual animals over other individual animals, based solely on the morally irrelevant criterion of species membership. To disagree with speciesism is to agree with veganism, which is defined as “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms, it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” – Vegan Society 1979
I’ve had countless conversations with people who said they agreed it’s wrong to hurt and kill animals unnecessarily… and then the “but”s came – “But I love eating my meat/chicken/fish/steak/bacon”, “But I could never give up my dairy/eggs/cheese/honey”, “But I need my protein”, “But my leather shoes are so comfortable”, “But I don’t eat much red meat” and on and on. It should be noted that referring to “my meat”, “my dairy”, “my leather”, etc. (which seems to happen more often than not) overlooks and negates the fact that these “products” were once the bodies, skins and secretions of autonomous individuals and are therefore stolen property. It exposes the underlying selfishness that drives speciesist behavior. When framed in this way, might those same people counter with, “I agree that stealing is wrong, but…”?
Interestingly, the problem in examples like this doesn’t lie after the “but”.
In all of the example statements above, the reality is that everything before the “but” is an untruth. Here is what’s really being said:
“I agree that [fill-in-the-blank form of oppression] is wrong, but since I’m personally benefitting from it in some way, I’ll just look the other way and pretend nothing’s happening and that I’m not participating in something I say I find morally reprehensible even though my actions tell an entirely different story.”
When one truly agrees that a form of oppression is fundamentally wrong, one does not equivocate or make exceptions in order to satisfy one’s desires for personal pleasure, comfort and convenience. Being morally consistent means not engaging in, supporting and/or promoting racism, sexism, heterosexism, speciesism or other forms of oppression because one finds it inconvenient not to. One simply stands in one’s truth and follows where one’s moral compass points, making course corrections along the way wherever necessary.
Since most people believe it’s wrong to hurt and kill vulnerable sentient beings for no justifiable reason, living vegan gives every individual the opportunity to be true to themselves, to live honestly and to live in congruence with their moral values and in harmony with their fellow travelers on this planet we all share.
One final statement to consider:
I agree that the simplest and most immediate action one can take to stop the violent oppression and exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our global society – non-human individuals – is to start living vegan. There are no valid reasons not to; there are only morally unjustifiable excuses to hide behind.
There is no “but” here. There is only truth.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
I took this picture of two adjacent magazines yesterday in the Whole Foods checkout line. For those who may have been paying attention, this was the message:
“The Animal Mind: How they think. How they feel. How to understand them… and how to dominate them, exploit them and grill them once we’ve killed them”.
(far in the background, a “Real Food” poster depicting fruit hangs virtually unnoticed)
The Time Magazine cover story does not question whether animals think and feel, but rather it plainly indicates that non-human individuals think, feel and can be understood. In a word, they are sentient, and when it comes to inclusion in the moral community, sentience is all that matters. Unfortunately, by choosing a photo of “man’s best friend” as the animals’ representative rather than an individual from a species not commonly held in high regard, fetishized and one of the chosen groups with whom humans often share their homes and lives, Time subtly reinforces the otherization of those animals not fortunate enough to have been deemed by humans to be “pets” and companions.
If It’s “Invisible”, Why Do We See It Everywhere We Look?
Contrary to what a certain “vegan” author – one who promotes reducetarianism and “reducing harm” rather than advocating unequivocal veganism – might suggest, I contend that there is no “invisible belief system” compelling humans to use and eat animals (the concept of “carnism” has certainly sold a lot of books, but so has Dianetics…). The speciesism that underlies and fuels our global society’s deadly disconnect where non-humans are concerned, and its manifestations, could not be more stark, overt and obvious… and it looks like this:
Love, cherish and protect these animals. Enslave, exploit and execute these animals.
Is there a morally significant difference between the two groups?
No. The only difference is the one arbitrarily assigned by non-vegans based on how humans can most benefit from objectifying non-humans and using them as “things” to satisfy our fleeting pleasures. When humans victimize other humans in that way, there is an almost universal outcry against what is rightly understood to be oppression and a vociferous demand that it stop at once. Conversely, when humans victimize non-humans in that way, they begin fabricating easily refutable excuses, rationalizations and justifications to make the unacceptable acceptable. We find “right” ways to do wrong things. We justify killing for pleasure, comfort and convenience.
If one agrees that it is wrong to harm and kill unnecessarily, then since there is no human need to consume animal flesh or secretions or to use animals for any other reasons, animal use is therefore unnecessary and it becomes one’s moral obligation to live vegan.
Denial of reality does not change reality, it merely provides a temporary escape from emotional discomfort and cognitive dissonance. It’s time to stop pretending that the obvious is hidden and work under the premise that fits reality – there are things in this world that are easy to see but difficult to look at. When we agree to look at them together, we can start living in the solution and end the problem for good.
Those who argue against veganism are, knowingly or not, arguing in favor of exploitation, oppression, enslavement, bullying, theft and needless death. Once non-vegans are educated and come to understand these stark realities, changes happen. Lives are transformed.
A vegan world is within our reach.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue linksembedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Despite some technical difficulties with the audio, on Friday 6/16/17, Trish Roberts of HowToGoVegan.org and VeganTrove.comand I discussed several aspects of veganism and its relation to other social justice issues. Here is the link to the video of the livestream:
Thank you to Steve Grumbine of Real Progressives for allowing usspace to engage in discussions about veganism with a particular focus on its ethical implications.
Please join Trish and I as we welcome Elena Brodskaya, co-founder and Presidentof SFVEG on our next livestream Wednesday 6/21/17 at 9:15 pm EDT… and stay tuned for future episodes!
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites.]
Speciesism, analogous with racism and sexism, can be defined as an unjust double standard created by humans placing higher moral value on some individual animals over other individual animals, based solely on the morally irrelevant criterion of species membership.
Speciesist Comment of the Day
Here’s a statement from one of the “superstars” of the animal welfare movement in an article promoting, among other welfarist strategies, MeatlessMeaningless Monday:
“It’s not about being perfect, it’s about moving in the right direction,” Nick Cooney, Executive Vice President of the non-profit animal advocacy organization Mercy for Animals and co-founderThe Good Food Institute, tellsBustle. “Keep in mind no one is perfect and change takes time. If you don’t think you can resist the craving [to eat animal flesh and secretions] right now, it’s much better to have a burger once a week than to give up entirely on your desire to move toward plant-based eating.”
[It should be noted that while MFA – and other large animal welfare corporations – lack moral consistency by promoting speciesism on a daily basis, they do maintain consistency in their messaging as versions of Mr. Cooney’s statement can be found in other MFA publications. This striking similarity in strategy to certain political organizations and individual politicians should not go unnoticed.]
Consider how such a statement would sound if the victims of injustice were human rather than non-human. For example, what if the issue at hand (no pun intended) were spousal abuse? It would sound like this:
“If you don’t think you can r̶e̶s̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ resist the urge to beat your spouse right now, it’s much better to h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶r̶g̶e̶r̶ beat your spouse once a week than to give up entirely on your desire to move toward p̶l̶a̶n̶t̶-̶b̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶e̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ not beating your spouse altogether.”
Of course, Mr. Cooney fails to point out (as usual) that “plant-based eating” does not equate to living vegan. A 100% plant-based diet is only one component of a way of living that seeks to exclude all forms of animal exploitation/use.
When the innocent, vulnerable victims of violent injustices are human, advocates call for an immediate end to said injustices, rather than a gradual shift in a nonviolent direction. When the victims are non-human, advocates often take a much more relaxed, “take your time” approach.
Using one set of standards for human victims of injustice and another for non-human victims of injustice is an inherently speciesist position and is fundamentally unjust itself, as it would be if the sets of victims were not of different species but of different races, gender identities, sexual orientations, classes, etc. One cannot hope to effectively advocate against injustice while participating in injustice.
[I encourage all readers to click theblue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites.]
In my brief stint as a “vegetarian“, I puffed up my chest and very loudly proclaimed that I was “reserving my rightto eat cheese, eggs and fish if I need to”.
I’m not sure what I thought I’d “need” them for but I eventually realized that when the “right” I’m reserving takes away the rights of others to live and continue their lives free from exploitation and oppression, it’s not a “right” at all.
It’s a wrong.
I’ve been living vegan ever since.
Veganismrepresents a return to living according to our almost universally shared belief that harming – and killing – others for no good reason is wrong. Irrespective of species membership, “But their bodies taste good!” is as morally unjustifiable a reason for taking a life as “But their bodies feel good!” is for sexually violating another individual. Each represents a terrible injustice that serves only to satisfy the pleasure of the perpetrators while causing irreparable and wholly unnecessary damage to their victims.
The analogies intersect further when one considers the fact that female non-human animals are routinely sexually violated, often under the licentious euphemism of “animal husbandry”, in order to be forcibly impregnated to produce milk and offspring for human consumption.
These violations, like all violations forced upon sentient non-human individuals to satisfy human pleasure, comfort and convenience, are unnecessary and therefore morally unjustifiable. Realizing this, the only rational response is to immediately cease one’s participation in these injustices and begin living vegan. It is, on every level, the right thing to do.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites.]
I have come to believe that, when it comes to veganism and animal rights, anything less than clear, consistent abolitionist vegan education fails to carry the message I find more important than any other – that living vegan is the simple action every individual can take right now to take a powerful and unequivocal stand against society’s continued commodification and exploitation of individuals of other species. To take a welfarist approach – engaging in single-issue campaigns designed to lessen and regulate abuse rather than abolishing use – is, in my opinion, misguided and counter-productive to the achievement of the goal everyone in our “movement” purports to share: the end of animal exploitation.
Now, I know this can be an unpopular position to take amongst vegans and other animal rights activists, but try to bear with me for a few minutes if you will. Since this makes sense to me, it stands to reason it may make sense to some of you as well.
Mercy For Animals litter-ature at an animal adoption event
Prior to having this realization and still firmly believing I was doing what was best for the animals, I engaged in a host of animal welfare activities, including but not limited to: creating and signing petitions, attending demonstrations and protests, writing letters to editors, publishing articles and, perhaps most of all, public leafleting (or, as I now think of it, public littering. As comedian Mitch Hedberg once said, “When someone hands you a flyer, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Here, you throw this away’.”).
Lest anyone come under (or continue under) the false belief that this intentionally confusing and speciesist booklet espouses veganism or animal “rights”, please have a look at why that couldn’t be further from the truth. Feel free to read along here: http://www.veganoutreach.org/cc.pdf
On page 2, the first page of text: “Of course, the choice is up to you. Whether you decide to cut out meat entirely or just cut back, you can make a big difference for the world at every meal.” – presenting people with the “choice” to cut out/cut back on meat reinforces the speciesist ideas that a) exploiting animals is a personal choice (a choice ceases to be personal when said choice involves a victim, and the choice to exploit animals involves countless victims), so whatever one chooses is ok and b) there is a morally relevant difference between meat and other products of animal exploitation, which there is not.
Page 3: “When I learned how the animals suffer, I went vegetarian.” – why is “Vegan” Outreach promoting vegetarianism? Either they don’t understand the difference between the two or it’s time for a name change.
Page 4 contains a quote from a representative of the Humane Society of the United States, a self-proclaimed animal “protection” organization that sponsors events such as Hoofin’ It, which involved the slaughter and consumption of various species of animals. As the Denver Post reported, “A different hooved (sic) animal will be showcased each evening.” Yes, this is the same H$U$ that also offered coupons for bacon on their Facebook page:
Page 6: “when people eat less meat, producers raise and kill fewer animals.” – again, they are promoting “less meat”, which is far different than seeking an end to animal exploitation.
Page 9: “it became an easy choice for me. If you choose to educate yourself, it’ll be an easy choice for you, too.” (a quote from Ellen DeGeneres, who is not vegan based on her self-reports that she eats secretions from “happy” chickens) – what is this vague “it”? Is “Vegan” Outreach afraid to use the word vegan in its own publication for fear that they may alienate their largely non-vegan donor base and lose their donor dollars (see below for more information on that topic)?
Page 10: “eating vegetarian or vegan” – even when they do use the word vegan, it is relegated to a subordinate position behind vegetarian. Perhaps they should rename the booklet “Vegan: The Second Best Choice”.
Also on page 10: “Many elite athletes and bodybuilders are vegetarian or vegan.” – again, vegan is the second choice behind vegetarian and offered as one of two dietary options, rather than as a moral obligation.
Page 11: “plant-based diet(s)” is mentioned twice, furthering the common misinterpretation of veganism as a dietary choice. Once again, meat is singled out: “…when I stopped eating meat” leaves dairy, eggs, honey and other products of animal exploitation out of the conversation and essentially speaks of a vegetarian diet as opposed to veganism.
Page 12: “Ask your server what dishes they could prepare for you without meat”, “Ask to substitute vegetables for meat in your favorite dishes” and “Order a few side dishes if there are no meatless meals” are among the list of restaurant ordering tips. Nowhere are dairy, eggs, honey or other animal products and secretions mentioned.
Page 15: The header reads “IT’S YOUR CHOICE” (see previous paragraph discussing page 2 and “choice”).
Also on page 15: Promotion of a “gradual transition to eliminating animal products” based on “research” is coupled with the speciesist idea that one should start by eliminating one type of animal (chickens) from one’s diet before eliminating others (cows and pigs) based on the idea that “many more chickens are killed to produce the same amount of meat as from cows and pigs”. The reasoning behind this – to “prevent more animal suffering”. This reinforces the notion that we should be concerned primarily about reducing suffering rather than ending the unjust use of non-human animals entirely, missing the point that veganism is about ending animal use, not reducing animal abuse. Having met many people who have been “vegetarian” (by their own widely varying definitions) for anywhere from 20 to 40 years, it would seem that a “gradual transition” might keep one complicit in animal exploitation – and therefore directly responsible for continued animal suffering and death – for up to 4 decades, whereas a person who starts living vegan ends their complicity that day.
It is shameful that an organization calling itself “Vegan” Outreach would shy away from asking people to live vegan in a clear and coherent manner. Instead, their literature reinforces the ideas that eating vegetarian is enough and that slavery is a personal choice. If one’s goal is to convince people to take a strong and unyielding moral stance against the exploitation of vulnerable sentient individuals, it’s hardly a good idea to cater to and enable the inherent laziness and selfishness of the general public in an effort to achieve that goal. Such a strategy is in itself lazy and disingenuous and simply will not work. Conversely, if one’s goal is to maintain the status quo so the donor dollars keep rolling in, this strategy should be wildly successful – and it is: according to the most recent data availableon Pro Publica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Vegan Outreach received contributions of $891,216 in 2013. That’s nearly a million dollars that could have been used to engage the public in unequivocal vegan education… but was not.
In total, the word “vegetarian” appears 6 times in Compassionate Choices while “vegan” appears 11 times – twice as subordinate to vegetarian, four times on its own and five times simply in the name of the organization and a website they run (this is Marketing 101). As a committed abolitionist vegan, not only will I never hand a Compassionate Choices (or other Vague-an Outreach) booklet to another human being again in my life, but I would rather not hold such a piece of purposeful disinformation in my own hand ever again… unless on my way to a shredder.
The literature I believe in and give to others today when I engage with them in one-on-one vegan education carries an unequivocal vegan message and can be found here:
If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan and staying there. It is the single best decision I ever made in my life, and my only regret is that I didn’t understand enough to make that decision sooner. If you are vegan, please eschew participation with and support for animal welfare organizations and campaigns that profess to have the best interest of animals in mind, yet in reality exist to serve their own ends through self-promotion, donation solicitation and putting out small fires while ignoring the larger source of the fire. Instead, please engage in clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education that promotes veganism as the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species.
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
My name is Keith and I hope you’ll read this essay.
You are not here by accident, mistake or coincidence. There is a reason you have found this page. I’m asking your attention for only a few minutes and hoping you’ll seek to answer the three questions at the end of this essay.
What is it that opens a closed mind and lets in the light? What image, word or sound softens a heart hardened by societal norms, traditions and expectations and allows fairness and justice to flow? What is the catalyst for one person to change?
I’d like to tell you mine.
I was a staunch meat, dairy, egg and honey eater from as far back as I can remember. I wore leather, wool, silk and used other products derived from the bodies of animals. I used products that involved animal testing and contained animal secretions. I enjoyed various forms of entertainment that involved the use of animals. In short, I did what it seemed everyone around me did – the things society taught me were acceptable – and I did these things without a second thought. When I was too ignorant to know that McDonald’s “food” ought to have quote marks around it, I would routinely order 2 Big Macs, a 20-piece McNugget and a chocolate milkshake and have one Big Mac devoured by the time my lunch companions reached the table with their orders. I ate at every steakhouse I could find, identified my mom’s pork chops as my favorite food on the planet and greedily consumed every type of animal flesh that came my way, from alligator to ostrich, never once giving a second thought to what the consequences of this type of blind consumption were to my health, the health of the planet and – least of all but most importantly– the freedom and lives of the animals I was eating. After all, they were already dead, so I had no part to play in any of that… right?
I mean, it’s not as if my consumption of and demand for animal products for eating, wearing and other uses was a direct contributing factor in supporting a worldwide system of unjust animal enslavement, abuse, torture, suffering, neglect, indignity and, ultimately, the mercilessly brutal taking of their lives… right?
Wrong.
In 2004 when my cousins sat me down to eat a delicious home-cooked vegan meal and watch Peaceable Kingdom, a beautiful documentary that gently challenged me to examine my beliefs about animals – only hours before which I had defiantly declared, “I’m not drinking your vegan Kool-Aid, so don’t get your hopes up” – I became aware in 70 minutes of what I’d been blind to my entire life: I was complicit in a well-hidden, cruelly concealed worldwide atrocity that was, to my mind and the minds of many others (including Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer) nothing short of an animal holocaust [noun – “destruction or slaughter on a mass scale”; Middle English: from Old French holocauste, via late Latin from Greek holokauston, from holos ‘whole’ + kaustos ‘burned’] bearing similarities to the human Holocaust including but not limited to the stark, overcrowded housing conditions, merciless brutality and the increasingly efficient methods of killing, but differing wildly in terms of sheer numbers. In fact, there are six million animals slaughtered for food globally every hour of every day. Six million per hour – the equivalent of the estimated death toll of Jewish people in the human Holocaust every… sixty…minutes.
I had no idea, on any conscious level, that nearly 10 billionland animals and countless sea animals are killed for food every year in the country I call home and in even greater numbers abroad. I had no conscious awareness that my choices about the food I ate, the clothes I wore and the products I used were directly responsible for the unimaginable suffering and death of countless individuals of other species. At the end of the film, I had cried more than once and could only sit and mutter, “I had no idea… I had no idea…” and desperately wonder what I could do to stop supporting this nightmare. The answer was simple – start living vegan. Change what I can where I stand, right now.
In truth, it wasn’t the sheer numbers that affected me – it was the individuals. I can’t imagine what six million or ten billion of anything actually looks like, but looking into the terrified eyes of one calf being torn away forever from her mother, one pig in the slaughter line watching his companions hung by their feet and having their throats slit, one baby chick having her beak seared off with a hot blade, one dog being skinned – ALIVE – and thrown in a pile of dying, mutilated dogs, one cow struggling valiantly to evade the man trying to shoot her in the head with the captive bolt gun… that’s what haunted me. The eyes.
Eyes like yours and mine. Eyes that rolled in their sockets in pain and anguish. Eyes that screamed and cried and pleaded. Eyes that, if they could speak in words, would say, “Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I don’t understand. Please stop. You don’t have to do this”. And though there were no words, I understood the language conveyed by those eyes and I could not pretend to not understand. I saw the pain, I saw the fear, I saw the misery, I saw the hope and the life drain from those eyes, I saw defeat… and I was affected.
At that moment, when my closed mind opened, the light inside turned on and my heart spoke louder than my stomach, I knew I had been changed forever and that I could no longer participate in the system I now understood for what it was. It was then that I began to live vegan – to eschew, wherever possible and practicable, the use of products of animal exploitation and to educate others where and when I could about how they too could stop promoting this injustice. I hadn’t known till then that there was another choice available – a choice to live a vegan life – and once I knew, I couldn’t un-know.
This footage is not graphic, but it tells a haunting story in three and a half minutes:
My only regret about living vegan is that I didn’t have – or didn’t pay attention to – information that would have gotten me there sooner.
Veganism is a way of living that affords other individuals the dignity, freedom and right to live their lives free from intentional harm and from being treated as the property of others. It is the spiritual principle of Live and Let Live extended beyond one’s own species. It is a selfless act in a world overrun with selfishness. It is putting aside one’s entitlement in favor of allowing other individuals to enjoy life in their own ways. It is stepping out of an ego-driven, fear-based life into the light of Love. It is the conscious choice to stop hurting others and, in so doing, to stop hurting oneself and the world we all share. It is a social justice movement that aims to bring an end to the most violent, egregious and deadly form of oppression on the planet: speciesism.
Speciesism, analogous with racism and sexism, can be defined as a double standard created by humans placing higher moral value on some individual animals over other individual animals, based solely on the morally irrelevant criterion of species membership.
Veganism is not some sort of moral “high ground”, but rather a recognition of and respect for equality between individuals. As my friend Michele McCowan so eloquently put it, “I don’t feel superior because I’m vegan. The truth is I am vegan because I don’t feel superior to others.”
To define veganism as simply as possible, I take you to the source:
“The word ‘veganism’ denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” – Vegan Society, 1979
Now that you’ve read what might be some new information (or had some existing information reinforced), I ask you to answer the following three questions:
What is it that might open yourmind and let in the light? What image, word or sound might soften yourheart and allow fairness and justice to flow? What might be yourcatalyst for change?
If you have even the slightest interest in living vegan or learning more about veganism, here are great places to start:
[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Would those who argue against veganism (and therefore, by default, in favor of speciesism) be just as quick to argue in favor of racism, sexism, heterosexism or some other form of oppressive injustice involving human victims if perpetuating that particular form of injustice personally benefited them in some way, as does continuing to consume products of animal exploitation?
Fighting against any moral and ethical stance that works toward ending the exploitation of a group, the abolition of which threatens one’s personal pleasure, comfort and convenience (and always at the expense of the exploited group), exposes a perverse form of selfishnesson the part of the defender(s) of the exploitation.
Cognitive dissonance(the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual when confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values) can make it difficult to accept certain truths, but denial of reality never actually changesreality. Rather, it creates a false premise upon which to predicate one’s behavior and takes one further from the truth of a situation, always with deleterious effects to oneself and others.
Personally, when I was presented with overwhelming evidence that my behavior as a non-vegan was directly contributing to a system of animal slavery, exploitation and needless death (in essence, an animal holocaust claiming billions, and possibly trillions, of sentient beings every year), I took an immediate and unequivocal stand against this injustice and started living vegan within the hour. It was the only direction that made sense to me, the only way of living I could live with and the single best decision I’ve ever made in my life. The “transition” was fairly simple and living vegan quickly became, as vegan educator ElenaBrodskayaput it, “…not second or third nature, but just Nature”.
It would save an abundance of time and energy – as well as countless lives – if those who oppose veganism would cease their mental and ethical gymnastics, stop trying to find, in the words of the Roman philosopher Seneca, “a right way to do the wrong thing” and just start living vegan.
[I encourage all readers to click the bluelinksembedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites. Also, please read our Disclaimerregarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]
Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya – co-founders, SFVEG
A friend recently suggested I might like a Facebook page devoted to an organization whose goal is to create lab-grown, or cultured, meat. That friend was wrong.
Because I do not support this idea, I won’t link to that page lest anyone think I’m in favor of it (there are several players in that market – my opposition is not to any specific organization but to the idea itself as I will make clear in this essay). However, I would like to share my thoughts on lab-grown/cultured/“clean” meat and welcome comments and conversation on the subject. For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to this product throughout as “cultured meat”.
I see the cultured meat endeavor as problematic in several ways (this is not a comprehensive list by any means).
The current process for creating cultured meat involves the use of fetal calf serum, a product obtained by sticking a needle in the still-beating heart of calf fetuses removed from cows who were pregnant at slaughter (though one potential manufacturer says they’re seeking plant-based alternatives to this gruesomeness). Therefore, this is just another by-product of the exploitative dairy industry and not something I would remotely support. Also, if some companies eventually use plant-based sources but others continue using fetal calf serum, there’s really no telling which cultured meat is ending up on the consumer’s plate.
While it’s true that cultured meat could become an available alternative to the traditional consumption of animal corpses (once it passes the point of being a mere novelty item, if that even happens), this a) does nothing to educate the public that meat and all other animal flesh and secretions are an unnecessary inclusion in human diets and b) helps maintain the status quo and reinforces the paradigm that sees non-human individuals as “things” (objectification) and demands they be enslaved and used as human resources for their bodies and secretions.
The availability of cultured meat does not mean that people will automatically choose to consume it and eschew traditionally-obtained meat just because it’s there. Non-vegans already look askance at vegan food – fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, legumes – and think what we eat is weird even though it’s the most natural stuff in the world. Do we really think these same people who handle tofu like they’re trying to defuse a bomb are going to embrace “meat” made in a laboratory or some other industrial setting? As far back as 2013, the animal agriculture industry was already coming up with propaganda designed to shame “real men” into continuing to eat yummy slaughtered animals and not something grown in a Petri dish (the linked article contains the first use I’ve ever seen of the euphemism “live beef animal”. They could’ve saved keystrokes and some of my brain cells by simply saying “cow”. Talk about the language of denial…).
For those non-vegan consumers who do decide they enjoy cultured meat because its texture and taste are similar to traditional meat, what happens when they go shopping or out to eat and the establishments are fresh out of cultured meat, as is bound to frequently happen? Do you think they’re going to order a nice vegan entree instead… or will they opt for a traditional hamburger, steak, pork chop or chicken breast since this is what they’re used to? Because no one educated them about veganism since organizations were too busy trying to make the unacceptable acceptable by creating meat-that-isn’t-meat-but-is-really-meat-but-sorta-isn’t-really-meat-but-is-just-like-meat-but-oh-I-give-up, these consumers will continue purchasing someone’s slaughtered remains and again create demand for the continued exploitation and execution of vulnerable individuals of other species.
The image above illustrates two problems with cultured meat. One is that without a change in the public mindset and attitude toward the use of non-human individuals as “things” to satisfy their desires (said change can be achieved through vegan education), cultured meat will often be passed up in favor of society’s traditional consumption of animal flesh. Another is evident in the “How It Works” diagram in which we see that “Tissue is taken from animal’s muscle”, reinforcing the idea yet again that it is morally acceptable to take that which does not belong to us, in this case a part (size notwithstanding) of a nonconsenting individual’s body to serve our own purposes. Even young children understand intuitively that when something of theirs is taken without their consent, something unfair has happened. It is a sad indictment of our society that when the majority of these children become adults, they will not only accept larger injustices but promote, condone and profit from them despite intuitively knowing that such actions are morally unjustifiable.
In a sense, cultured meat is to traditional meat what methadone is to heroin – a healthier-seeming (on the surface, anyway) alternative promoted as a harm-reduction solution while in reality just creating its own new set of problems. As anyone who’s detoxed from both heroin and methadone will attest, methadone is harder to kick by far (with nearly 40 known withdrawal symptoms that last… and last… and last…) and just another substance on which to form a dependency. Doesn’t it seem logical to avoid the potential negative consequences of both by not using either when there’s absolutely no reason to have them in one’s body in the first place?
There is one particular organization promoting cultured meat (again, I refuse to post a link here and risk even inadvertently promoting such a thing, but feel free to contact me for details if you’d like) co-founded by silver-tongued, supposedly “vegan” hucksters whose combined resumes offer a road map through the very heart of Animal Welfareland, if such organizations even have hearts. These individuals are standing on the ground floor of what may end up being a very lucrative venture, one that will at best do absolutely nothing to further the cause of justice for non-human animals and at worst set the cause back immeasurably. Where it will be productive is in lining their pockets, as they seem to have found a way to become rich(er) at the expense of the animals they purport to want to help. Here’s what one of the co-founders had to say on the subject:
“…we don’t necessarily need to convince people to make decisions based on ethics if we can simply make products that taste as good, cost less, and are equally convenient.”
Uh… I’m sorry… what??? Are you saying we need to put ethics last behind trivial desires like palate pleasure, personal finances and convenience? Why, that sounds a lot like the reasons people choose to consume products of animal exploitation in the first place! And if you believe that people are going to start living vegan simply because you provide them with great tasting alternatives, you’re in denial so deep you’re drowning in it. So, where do the animals figure into this agenda of yours?
“…making a positive difference for the environment, their own health, and animals.” “…a big win for consumers, for our planet, and for animals.” “…people who are devoting their entire lives to alleviating global poverty or saving the world from the effects of climate change or helping animals.”
Ah, I see – the animals come last, as I would expect from someone whose behavior has reeked of speciesism for as long as I can remember. Tell me – since you’ve spent decades working for organizations that are supposedly devoted to animal rights, wouldn’t you agree that the animals’ need for justice is of paramount importance and the rewards we receive by abstaining from animal exploitation are simply positive side effects of finally doing the right thing and not a goal in and of themselves?
“…if we don’t eat animals, we’re likely to live longer and better lives…” “…not eating animals, which is good for their health, will have an immediate and positive effect on our health, too.”
Hmm, guess not. That’s an amazing piece of understatement, by the way, that “…not eating animals… is good for their health”. If anything ever went without saying, it would be that. Alright then, what exactly is your focus?
“The [organization] is focused on using markets and technology to compete with animal-based meat, dairy, and eggs.” “Perhaps most critically, I believe that compassion for other animals, which is perhaps best exhibited by refusing to consume them, will lead to a deeper spiritual health and a clearer conscience, which will also improve our mental and emotional health.”
“Perhaps” twice in the same sentence? That’s equivocation followed by equivocation. If you were on trial and refused to take a stand twice, I believe you’d be held in contempt of court. As for the “clearer conscience”, I have to wonder how clear one’s conscience could be when one purposely chooses personal profit over ethics. I do understand how you, as a career speciesist, would mistake injustice for a lack of compassion and how that would leave you confused as to what a refusal to consume animals (and their secretions, which you seem to have overlooked) signifies. The welfarist statement you’ve made that “compassion for other animals… is perhaps best exhibited by refusing to consume them” would indicate that you believe there is a spectrum of other, not-quite-best-but-still-acceptable methods of showing “compassion”, such as increasing the size of cages in which non-human individuals are confined against their wills, more “humane” slaughter techniques and other “improvements” (alterations, really) in animal slavery that simultaneously help maximize profits for suppliers and maximize donations for animal welfare groups. Not unexpectedly, these are the types of campaigns in which the groups for whom you’ve worked specialize. Statements like this clearly identify the problem with focusing on “compassion”and animal abuse rather than justice and animal use, and equivocation naturally follows. What also naturally follows is that individuals with such attitudes would gravitate toward, work for and create organizations that reflect a similar misunderstanding of the problem and its solution. After all, water seeks its own level and like attracts like.
It’s well past time we stopped looking for every way in the world to get people to stop exploiting non-human animals a little bit at a time (a position and strategy that would rightly be seen as completely unacceptable if the exploited victims were human) and discounting the one that’s actually most effective – clear, consistent, non-violent vegan education. It works.
The simplest and most immediate action one can take to stop the violent oppression and exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our global society – non-human individuals – is to start living vegan. There are no valid reasons not to; there are only morally unjustifiable excuses to hide behind.
Here are links to a two-part podcast (approximate duration 23 minutes) and one other from Vegan Trove that delves deeper into the problems with this idea:
Veganism is not some sort of moral “high ground”, but rather a recognition of and respect for equality between individuals. As my friend 
It would save an abundance of time and energy – as well as countless lives – if those who oppose veganism would cease their 
