“Do you love animals? Do you want to make a difference for the animals? Well, do you?! GO VEGAN!”
“Duh!”
That is basically the swaying argument you get from vegans when it comes to swaying people to their line of thinking. Okay, maybe it is a bit more than that.It is more like ” If you love animals, think meat is gross, want to lose weight, stop climate change, and just be super duper then you should GO VEGAN”
Join the vegan club, and we will save the animals!
It makes it seem as though going vegan is the only first step on your path to perfection, your first step or class, like your first year of animal rights college, in a sense. But, it HAS TO BE that way. No other way.
But is that really the way to go about things? I have kind of come to think of “GO VEGAN” as possibly the last step in a line that starts out somewhere far less than the full on 100% percent GO VEGAN club. At least, I kind of wish it was.
Personally, yes I would love everyone to suddenly just stop eating critters and using animals as fashion, and so on.I think, or maybe this is more wishful thinking by myself, but I kind of think that if you went through levels of animal rights awareness, you would eventually land up at a point where you are basically living a so-called vegan life. But, you might not.But even if you did not, you would have opened your mind to some aspects and possibly have done quite a lot of good, for a lot of animals that need that help desperately.
I just think if we started off somewhere else, instead of right off the bat advocating with “GO VEGAN” we could work getting a lot more done for the interest of animals. How many times has one heard ” I respect your choice, but I could never go vegetarian or vegan.”? But, when we simply discuss animal testing for cosmetics, animals held in zoos, and the use of animals in circuses, people are far more willing to not only listen, but generally come around to agreeing.
I think people working to end such awful practices of animal testing and objectifying animals through zoos and circuses can lead people to really consider the rights of animals in a way that actually can work to a good result. How many times have people been talked into agreeing about the horrors of factory farming for them to simply just start eating ” Happy meat”?
Who knows?
Maybe humans opening their eyes to those acts may make them rethink how they think about animals, and perhaps that path can take them ultimately to ” GO VEGAN”. But, maybe not. But the dogma and strictness of the Vegan argument is failing, and there needs to be a re-thinking. Many vegans would consider a person who helps end puppy mills, is opposed to zoos and animal testing, yet still eats animals as NOT VEGAN, and certainly not an animal rights advocate! No way, Jose!
But, who is actually doing more for animal rights? The outspoken vegan who makes sure every product he or she buys has no animal products but little more, or the cow eating person who has worked to end puppy mills, volunteers in animal shelters and works to end animal testing? Who is to judge who has been better advocate for animal rights?
Sure, if we were to rationalize it, everyone who supposedly loves animals (Not that love should matter) or cares about animal rights such as testing should or could probably lead them to being vegan. But, as others have said far better than I, that is not always how humans think, or needs to happen to see animal rights advocated.* They may not. Vegan dogma says that is wrong, that you cannot be an animal rights activist if you are not vegan, but I think vegan dogma be damned. I want to see the end of animal testing, the end of abusing animals as circus animals, and so on.Those are real targets and goals, and goals a whole heck of a lot more people can get behind easier than by simply becoming vegan.
I cannot stand when people tell others that going vegan is easy.It is not easy, not at all. Even if you instantly think it is the ethically superior ideal, it still is not so simple.There is a tide you are swimming against, through all the family habits and traditions, years of societal norms, through all the vegan woo, through all the bullshit.It is not only hard to become vegan, but it may be even harder to stay vegan. We see plenty of people drop from the ranks, don’t we?
I do not mind it being hard, as I think that can be the end result, or one of the side effects of becoming an animal rights advocate. I just see selling it as easy is surely going to lead to more failure than success when it comes to new people wanting to GO VEGAN.
Now, before a bunch of vegans come after me saying they have got to the same place, animal rights activism, by starting out as a part of the ” GO VEGAN” club…
…I know you have.That is great, it just seems that most do not. Many people will never go vegan let alone consider it.But many can agree that we do a whole lot of crappy things like animal testing and zoos, and maybe we should work from there, first.Who knows? Opening peoples eyes to one may lead to the other, too.
So, why not leave veganism as a possible end result?Instead of the first course at animal rights activism school being veganism, let it be where some will land up, in a sense graduate. Maybe not everyone will go in that direction, but that is just how it goes.
I could be completely wrong. I guess.
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Great post. I was vegetarian for 23 years before becoming vegan and it took me over a year for my veganism to “stick”. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of research at first and a lot of reading labels. I am the only vegan I know, in real life, and I have to consider that not every one thinks like I do regarding animals. I am respectful of their choices and find that I’m much easier able to discuss animal issues because they know I’m not going to be “militant” with them.
Great post!
Thank you, Nicole!
Good point!
It is generally a lot easier to perhaps persuade someone if you are not calling them rapists and killers. Plus, I think even the most die-hard meat eater can be talked into agreeing that animal testing and other ways we use and abuse animals should come to an end.
I feel like “GO VEGAN” as a tactic is like conscripting soldiers and marching them off, with slingshots, into a war they do not understand. Part of me understand that yes, if we get everybody to go vegan because of any reason that it’ll save the lives of the animals we eat. And yes, in such an environment, animal rights might be an easier sell. And yes, maybe many AR people got there that way. But that seems to me to be an uninspired, misanthropic, cynical, and roundabout way to do something.
That’s why I left veganism. I agree, it should be the last step. We’ll have veganism when we have animal liberation. Not the other way around.
Great article, thanks!
I’ve been thinking about this lately, especially ally since my fiancé isn’t vegan. Since we’ve been together he has changed his views of animals a lot. He helps with cat and dog rescue. He has cut down his meat consumption greatly. He speaks out against his hunting coworkers. I like to think these things count for something even if he isn’t vegan.
Huh. Something else we can agree on. I think veganism is a process- very few people “wake up vegan” and remain vegan. It is a journey if you will, and from my perspective, that does not necessarily have a definitive destination. I also believe that one will catch more flies with (agave?) than vinegar and that rational discussion is a much more productive mechanism to open peoples hearts and minds as opposed to the militant approach that is so prevalent within the vegan community. Being vegan does not make me better than you. Being vegan means I share a different set of beliefs than you do, perhaps a perspective you have not considered and in that lies the opportunity to explore differences. I agree, the omnivore who helps shut down a puppy mill, rescue and shelter homeless or abused animals or works to legislate ethical treatment of animals does far more good than the militant vegan waving their “go vegan” flag and espousing a “holier than thou” attitude. That attitude will get us nowhere and flies in the face of compassion, which, I thought, was what veganism was all about to begin with. Nice post, T.