Opening doors

Tips and thoughts for a welcoming take on animal advocacy

I shared an article called This Is Why Vegans Should Stop Being Mean to Vegetarians (Ari Solomon, Mercy For Animals) on facebook group Friendly and Pragmatic Vegans and Vegetarians. I would like to share a few replies to the stimulating conversation which followed, trusting they will be inspiring and heart warming.

Speciesism could be described as the ideology which justifies refusing to take a person’s interests into account simply because they are not human. Is it speciesist to tolerate vegetarians (i.e., “non-vegans”)?

No, it isn’t speciesist to use an effective and intelligent approach and to appreciate steps forwards in order to help more animals and bring about change without getting stuck at a micromanagement of other people’s lifestyle.

Plenty of vegetarians may not be in a situation where they can go vegan. They might live somewhere where it’s still very difficult. They might not live on their own and experience social pressure or economical pressure.

On top of this, PLENTY of vegans are exclusive and go around telling others how they’re just “not vegan”.

I personally don’t see vegans as any better than vegetarians but I do wish nobody ate dairy (here’s why) or bought eggs (here’s why).

Vegetarians are already boycotting killed animals flesh and for all we know quite possibly leather too, and maybe they are voting for parties who promote better reforms for animals and signing petitions. Maybe even boycotting wool (here’s why). Perhaps they have reduced their intake of milk and eggs.

They might be very well informed but not everyone wants to be “radical” and veganism in many instances is still considered quite radical. Whether we like it or not.

I would love a world with no animal exploitation and I think that the dairy and the egg industries are cruel, sometimes even more cruel than some parts of the meat industry but I appreciate that the vegan VS vegetarian thing is not helpful.

“I think it’s important to make the distinction that even if you think the choices people are making are unethical, you don’t think they’re bad people. I’ve seen plenty of wonderful, compassionate people making unethical choices for a variety of reasons and it’s not my place to make a value judgement on their goodness or badness as people!

It’s amazing how receptive people are to, “I know you’re a good person and I’m not making a value judgement on what you do, but this is the choice I’m making for myself.” When I talk to people that way, I tend to have a much more positive response and I’ve even seen previously defensive people cut down on meat/dairy/eggs after a conversation like this. :)” (Kendall Imogene)

“I recently had quite a debate with an “abolitionist” (1) over at Unnatural Vegan’s FB page, about the ethics of vegetarians who know about the reality of the dairy industry, but choose to eat dairy anyway. I’d love to link to it, but after a long back and forth he decided to wrap things up by deleting his opening comment and all the subsequent replies, which was… annoying.

I’ll always advocate for education. Ignorance should be nobody’s excuse for their behaviour, so there should be no pressure placed on any animal rights activist not to talk about animal rights to whomever they deem receptive to the message. How you do it and with what level of persistence is a question for that person, but both factors can influence how the movement and you personally are seen. I would always encourage these people to exercise respect and good judgement regarding with whom and how they raise the issue.

The world is a complicated place and so is the ethical minutia involved in navigating it. Take the example of Facebook, a platform we’re all evidently signed up to. At a time of great austerity, where many poor and disabled people have been reduced to needing food banks to survive and vulnerable people have committed suicide as a direct result of new imposed taxes and benefit cuts, Facebook, a large, powerful and wealthy corporation are one of the worst dodgers of UK corporation tax in the country. By not paying their share, they are actively reducing the money the state has and are contributing to the need for governments to find the short fall from their people… usually the most vulnerable.

Does our continued use of FB make us complicit with their tax avoidance and the consequences of it? Does everyone who owns a new piece of modern tech share a part of the blame for those who have killed themselves working for the factories which churn this stuff out and are they burdened with some of the blame for China’s grotesque levels of pollution, driven by the West’s need for ever shinier new gadgets? Is somebody who dedicates their life to Doctors Without Borders less ethically minded than a vegan with a regular 9–5, because they have chicken in their salad instead of tofu? (2)

There will always be somebody more vegan, more activist, more altruistic and more moral than you, just as there will be people far worse. I find the trick is to pick your battles, do what you can where you can and help and support others to do the same. For some people vegetarianism is a sustainable way in which they can contribute something to the cause of animal rights. I met somebody who refused to go vegan recently, because they couldn’t imagine never having their mum’s fried eggs ever again. So I just said well fine, give up what you can, replace your milk and butter with plant based equivalents, and have your mum’s fried eggs every now and again, maybe try and source the eggs from a local seller. The vegan community had brow beaten this guy so badly, that it had scarcely occurred to him that he could go “mostly vegan”, so he just dismissed the notion as a sacrifice too far and didn’t even try.

A phrase I’ve always liked is, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”. There is a subset of the vegan community who view people in narrow, polarising terms, where you’re either on board or you’re a bad person, but I just find the world so much more complicated than that, as here I am, eating my veggie not-chicken sandwich with vegan mayo, whilst surfing Facebook… ;)” (David Perkins)

Editor’s notes: (1) — Here, the term “abolitionist” refers to those absolutists who refuse to promote steps forward. I personally would describe myself as an abolitionist (I explained why here), but not an absolutist.

(2) — Chickens are actually the animals you shouldn’t be eating if you care about animals at all. Here is why.