This is a critical review of a blog post made by a (supposedly) vegan blogger whose article, which is primarily a gigantic appeal to futility argument/nirvana fallacy, littered with (ironically) arbitrary and inconsistent anecdotes and more fallacies, have been used by non-vegans and animal agriculture industries to justify their murderous ideology. This article will be breaking down the arguments presented in that article, one paragraph at a time, to reveal it for what it really is - a big pile of nauseating verbal diarrhoea, pandering to interests of the non-vegan significant others of the author.
https://medium.com/@rheea/i-am-vegan-but-veganism-is-arbitrary-and-inconsistent-b4d8a6e3b581
The paragraph(s) in the article being deconstructed will be italicized and the critique will be given below in bold. Here we go:
One of my favorite feminists Simone De Beauvoir once said if a certain propaganda makes sense, is rational, and for all other purposes ‘good’ than why not propagate it? In other words, propaganda doesn’t have to have a negative connotation. It’s also been the founding justification I’ve had about being vegan for the past one year.
propaganda
/prɒpəˈɡandə/
noun
1. information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.
Veganism is not a propaganda because it is not biased or misleading, non-humans have the inherent right to live free from human exploitation, and humans have been violating it by oppressing them and using them. These are facts. One would need justifications to not be a vegan, not to be one.
I’ll cut to the chase right here: You usually read these kind of articles from ex-vegans. I am vegan and have no plans to give it up, but like any philosophy or belief system we owe its integrity to criticism within the system. Truthspeak, I don’t see much of that in the vegan community. If you are vegan, thinking about being vegan, non-vegan, vegetarian- whatever you are, I hope you will read through this entire thing I’ve written. At the very least out of sympathy because I’ve spent the better half of my long Easter weekend writing it.
Getting back to what De-Beauvoir said about propaganda. Now, I justified veganism to myself, but the other critical part of being vegan is to acknowledge that it’s a movement. One that expects you to tell others to ‘go vegan’, and to show people the grave injustices they are carrying out by eating dairy and meat. Let’s get to definition of veganism.
“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.”
Now if you’ve read this you might have picked up on this phrase : ‘As far as possible’
This means that vegans know that everything they consume and use somehow will hurt an animal. The crops we eat will use pesticides that kill birds, insects, rats, and rabbits. We know that buying snacks from companies that also make non-vegan foods support animal abuse. By this metric using social media supports animal abuse because of the plethora of non-vegan advertisements on it; from bacon jam to leather and everything in between. This is why the ‘pragmatic’ vegan will tell you to not worry about all that. After all, we can’t live under a rock, so we do the best we can.
Yeah, so what's wrong in doing what we can instead of worrying about all the things that we can't do, and as a result, not doing anything at all? let's see what the author feels is wrong in that.
But here’s the logical fallacy. The ‘best we can’ is actually not truly the ‘best’ every individual can do in their unique circumstances that accounts for socio-economics, culture, and belief systems. Veganism says do ‘the best you can’ with an arbitrary set of rules. These rules try to be upfront: don’t use animal products. Don’t eat dairy, don’t eat meat, fish or any seafood. And and don’t use byproducts like silk and leather. Fair enough right?
But there are too many inconsistencies here and the problem is that the dogma of veganism has set itself up for these issues to occur. Let’s get into it.
Before we get into it, note that 'the best we can' is not a logical fallacy, it's what it literally means, because we cannot do (or change) everything in a snap (like Thanos with all the infinity stones could). The 'best we can' is surely not the same for every individual but there is also surely a 'least we can' that almost every individual (privileged, as the author says) human can do which is what the mainstream veganism advocates - don't eat, wear or use substances derived from any land or marine animals, like their flesh, or any other body parts, or secretions, and don't use animals for entertainment, amusement, experimentation, which obviously inflicts harm on animals, which the definition includes in 'any other purpose'. So much for 'arbitrariness' - don't oppress, and use non-humans. Anything in life is to be done to the best of our capabilities, situation and resources, and it is stated explicitly in the definition of veganism so there shouldn't be any room for misinterpretation, and yet here we are. It is clearly a nirvana fallacy/appeal to futility. So, the real logical fallacy is the one seen in the cited paragraphs.
Now, let's get into it to see if there are actually any inconsistencies here, and if the 'dogma' of veganism has set itself up for these to occur.
Any Industrialisation will Eventually Exploit
Vegans like me are all about the new ‘vegan products’ in the Indian market. We’re telling everyone to switch to it. But over-industrialisation of any raw materials leads to exploitation. We’re saying: don’t use the milk from a cow, it’s not yours. But we’re also saying: it’s fine to eat crops (and then further ask others to rely on them fully) that use pesticides and kill so many animals.
Vegans like the author are the problem here, if one can see carefully, about being 'all about the new vegan products' in the Indian market. You don't need any new products branded ‘vegan’ to stay vegan, to not exploit animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Everything one needs to survive and thrive are already available in the form of plant based foods, and supplements which are already vegan 1. Yes, we are asking people to not use the milk from a cow (and also a cow for the milk), and yes, we are also saying it's fine to eat crops and also to rely on them fully, even though pesticides are used on them which kill so many animals. It's funny how the author conveniently dismissed the fact that by directly eating plants one causes the least amount of animal deaths due to pesticides. Because when one eats animals along with other plants that they normally eat, they are responsible for the deaths of those animals whom they directly eat, and for the animal deaths caused by pesticides used on plants that they normally eat, and also for all the animal deaths caused by pesticides used on plants that are fed to the animals who were killed to be directly eaten by them.
Pesticides are used to protect the crop for human, and other oppressed animal feed too. Animals killed by pesticides are unavoidable deaths in the current farming systems, while killing of animals for eating them is intentional. By that, I don't mean that the lives of those animals doesn't matter, those animals matter as much as every other animal does. So we should try to minimize such deaths as much as possible. Veganic farming is a potential future of farming - it doesn't use animal manure (from oppressed individuals, but may use manure collected from exploitation-free sanctuaries) or pesticides which kills animals, but uses creative methods to protect crops. You might be thinking that this is where veganism is inconsistent, but it's not. Because it clearly says 'as far as is possible and practicable ', it might not be possible for everyone to find and buy only from veganic farms because they are not everywhere. If it's possible for a vegan, they would do it.
Also, by supporting such crops where pesticides are used, you are not actually creating a demand for pesticides, but for the crops. We can actually protest to ban the usage of pesticides that harm animals while still supporting crops, but we cannot protest to ban meat, dairy, eggs, leather, silk, wool, etc., while still supporting them by buying them. Another important point to mention would be that the animals used in the food, clothing and other industries are all enslaved, oppressed and tortured before being killed, but the animals who are killed by pesticides were either liminal or wild, and were living free from direct systematic human oppression and exploitation. Now, if you start thinking that this principle can be applied to all other animal products as well, and say, 'I can only quit meat, but not eggs', 'I can quit all dairy except cheese', etc., then we can remind ourselves that we have already established above what is 'the least we can do', and which is what most vegan animal rights activists say while advocating for animals, by busting the excuses that non-vegans use while asked to go vegan.
Let’s take the example of Palm oil- the cheapest refined oil we have. Palm oil is highly contested topic because of the mass deforestation it causes. Who loses? The orangutans who live there. Some vegans won’t eat it, but it’s still technically vegan, and to be frank you have to have enough privilege and language skills to be aware of the repercussions of palm oil (even though India doesn’t mostly use palm oil from these regions). In any case, if we start gauging country-specific ingredient practices, then the rules for veganism should technically change country to country. But we don’t because of the standard set of rules. Unless you’re a vegan who says ‘I don’t do palm oil either’, palm oil is still technically vegan.
Talking about palm oil, yes, the author is right here that it is technically vegan, I don't know if the author said that because she have understood it correctly or it was just by chance. Orangutans are not used or exploited to obtain palm oil. But they unfortunately happen to be the victims of palm oil industry, just like how other animal species fall victims in the case of pesticides usage, how animals native to an area fall victims to habitat destruction, due to construction of houses, offices, parks, dams, etc. The most important and similar relation would be how numerous species of animals fall victims to all of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, oils and crop industries where they die due to habitat destruction caused by clearing the forests to make cultivable land, just like orangutans'.
People avoid palm oil for various reasons - like health and environment. It seems to make some sense when people avoid palm oil to try reducing their impact on the planet along with being a minimalist, anti-natalist and vegan but in reality palm oil isn't the real problem, consumption inherently is, with billions of people surpassing the carrying capacity (without cutting into the resources of thousands of other species) of Earth for humans. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) itself states that ‘the oil palm gives the highest yield of oil per unit area compared to any other crop…”. And those vegans who consciously choose to avoid only palm oil because of orangutan issue are just being speciesist, by giving more importance to one animal species, and continuing to consume other oil crops which harm other species.
Coming to that point of 'if we start gauging country-specific ingredient practices, then the rules for veganism should technically change country to country. But we don’t because of the standard set of rules.' - we are already gauging country-specific ingredient practices because if animals are not exploited for some ingredient, it is vegan; doesn't matter what the ingredient is, or which country it is from. The 'rules of veganism' are still the same throughout the globe, it's just the practices that vary from country to country that makes a product vegan or not. If a milkshake in one country is made from milk that is obtained from animals, and in another country it is made with milk that is obtained without animal use, then it is vegan in the second country but it is not in the first. It is plain simple, I don't understand why this was so difficult for the author to grasp.
We can try as much as we want to compare the cost-benefit analysis in the indirect (or direct) harm caused in producing the same/similar crop types in different regions of the world, but we will not get an accurate comparison. This is because of so many confounding variables involved, including the chain of effects of additional carbon footprint on importing a product in adding to global warming and thereby harming some climate-change-susceptible animals in the process.
A hunter who hunts for his meat in small village might actually retain the natural ecosystem than relying fully on agriculture and its havoc wreaking on other animals who lose their homes.
Of course, we can (and in my opinion we should) try to reduce our environmental footprint, but veganism is primarily an animal-rights philosophy, not an environmental one. Protecting the negative rights of animals not to be harmed takes precedence over ‘retaining natural ecosystems’. But, thankfully we rarely have to consciously make this trade-off between animal rights and veganism. It’s not an either or situation. Such arbitrary anecdotal stories, presented by the author is a Red Herring argument, as i) it lacks any data to support it ii) confuses veganism for an environmental movement and inadvertently pits environmentalists with vegans (when there is so much shared grounds) and iii) relies on appeal to extremes (people living in relative isolation) as an argument against veganism, when a large number of humans are not living in such conditions.
Still, looking at the example presented by the author, hunting for his meat in a small village might not even be necessary because i) the village is small, and ii) the human population would be less in a small village, so the people there can fully rely on sustainable agricultural practices without wreaking havoc in the natural ecosystem as a small population would need only a small amounts of food. If we are talking only about one person hunting in a small village where other villagers are depending on agriculture, this lone hunter would not actually be helping much in retaining the natural ecosystem by hunting for his meat while others and himself partially relying on agriculture. If we are talking about a small village filled with hunters who hunt for their meat, they would probably be doing much more harm to the ecosystem by hunting several animals daily for their food, than being fully dependent even on unsustainable agriculture. This situation can be actually seen in many North-Eastern states in India where they have hunted animals en masse and almost led to the demise of several species. If we are talking somewhere between, single hunter in the small village to an all-hunter small village, animal rights activists aren't asking those remote people to go vegan, they are asking only those who live in cities, developed or developing areas, who are 'privileged', as the author refers. Not that we don't want those people to go vegan, but because it will become easier to practice, and be possible for them to go vegan once the city privileged folks go vegan, due to various reasons.
What’s the lifeline of the urban vegan? Almonds. I eat a kilo of almonds month. They are the most used vegan substitute for milk. We say, as vegans, we can’t eat honey because bees end up getting killed and we are putting them to work for our own tastebuds. Ah, but did you know that the manufacturing of almonds kill thousands of bees in order to pollinate almond flowers? In fact California ( Hello California Almonds) has to use industrialised bees from bee keepers to keep their almond production going. By this comparison, if we can’t have honey, we should definitely not be able to eat almonds either. I’ve also read an article about the Thailand coconut industry harnessing the ability of overworked monkeys to pick them. Goes to show, if the demand is high enough, we will exploit: human or animal. Goes to show that many of our ‘plant-based’ foods can become increasingly cruel. And there’s the dogma issue again, because vegans will say: but it’s still vegan.
If anything almonds is not, it is a lifeline to vegans. Myself, and a lot of vegans I know, don't use almonds as frequently as the author thinks, for as many foods. A lot of people can go on fine with zero almonds a month. The author eats so many almonds a month? that just shows how privileged she is, but not everyone is, and they are still vegan. 'They are the most used vegan substitute for milk' - are they? Is this statement supported by some evidence or is that just the author's opinion? After all, there are more than 10 different plant based alternatives for milk. Vegans don’t need to consume any ‘substitutes’ in the first place.
Coming to the bees killed in the manufacturing of almonds, did you know that bees pollinate not just almond flowers but a lot of other plants and crops? Did you know that a lot of other animals also pollinate apart from just bees? like wasps, hornets, bats, hummingbirds, beetles, etc. Did you know that bees will continue pollination even if we request them not to? And that they are not pollinating because humans, particularly vegans, love almonds as their milk? Almonds themselves are vegan because they are not animal products, but they are not vegan if they are produced using animals. So is the case with coconuts picked using monkeys. So it looks like the author did not understand veganism after all, and probably 'her opinion' on the palm oil being vegan thing was just a coincidence. So if there is a way to identify which almonds were produced by exploiting bees (like California Almonds), or which coconuts were produced by exploiting monkeys (Thailand coconut industry), then there you go, you have successfully identified which ones are vegan and which ones are not. Anyway, there's no evidence proving that these happen in India, so both almonds and coconuts are vegan in India (unless they are imported from those places and you are able to distinguish them). Also,
Drawing by wwwegan
The Health Issue
Some sections of veganism like to concentrate on the health aspect of going plant based. For one that means saying no junk food, because there is plenty of junk food that’s vegan (french fries, chips, and a bunch of Indian namkeens). The truth is this. We have uncontestedly evolved by eating animal products and it’s fair to say there is a pretty obvious food chain/give and take built in naturally into this world. I really can’t expand on this point because it would make this article far too long, but you only have to watch National Geographic to know this. Many vegans will say they had much better health and ‘energy levels’ when they went vegan. Others will say the exact opposite and will not be able to sustain their nutritive needs because of various reasons, including the fact that their genetics might not be able to extract or support the breakdown of essential nutrients on a vegan diet.
I personally have felt no difference switching to a vegan diet. No health miracles and no ill health either. My body was able to do its thing just fine. The fact is we haven’t been able to study long term effects of veganism (or rather the ability for all humans to do well on this diet) because we are only 3 percent of the population, and most of that population is privileged with access to healthy alternatives.
I cannot see any relation between the health issue and the evolution of human beings eating animal products, and the existence of a natural food chain in this world but anyway, there are no natural food chains existing in this world, there are only food webs, and it's too complex to see it as a linear chain in which one animal eats another and then another animal eats this animal. Also, there is evidence suggesting that humans (in terms of evolution of brain) did not evolve because they ate meat, and that our ancestors were mostly plant based (So claiming that humans evolved into what we are today mostly because we ate meat is highly debatable (Unless the author just meant to say that humans evolved 'while' eating animal and plant products or that humans have evolved to be biologically omnivores (which is true, contrary to what many vegan pseudoscience peddlers claim)). Humans have adapted to deriving nutrition from animal products also while eating plant based, but the major contributor to the evolution is not just as simplistic as either plants or animal products. The ability to cook food has a huge role in human dietary adaptation).
Now, let’s get to the fallacies the author has commited. There are two logical fallacies involved in that argument - appeal to evolution and appeal to nature. What our ancestors did to survive or what wild animals do to survive DOES NOT dictate what humans choose to do morally when there is absolutely no nutritional requirement for consuming animal products for the majority of humans. Plants, fungi, bacteria and mineral-based supplements are all a modern human needs to thrive.
Coming to the actual health issue, there are undeniable health benefits of a whole food plant based diet, see how I didn't use veganism? The term ‘healthy’ itself is a very ambiguous and relative term. But, for the sake of arguments, let’s consider it as the common-sense notion of it, i.e. being in a good mental and physical shape. Veganism may not be healthy, but certain diets adopted by vegans such as WFPB diet can be. A person can be vegan eating only vegan burgers, pizzas, oreos, noodles, french fries, etc., but she/he might also most probably be unhealthy. So plant based is not synonymous to veganism. Impossible burger is plant based but not vegan, because they test on animals. The American, Australian, and the British Dietetic Associations took the position that a vegan plant based diet is suitable to all stages in a human life.
'I personally have felt no difference switching to a vegan diet. No health miracles and no ill health either.' - Same pinch here, even I didn't notice any difference. Still, there are a lot of studies that show the nutritional sufficiency and healthiness of a plant based vegan diet. But if someone is stuck on wanting 'long term studies', check here, here and there are a lot of them here. A lot of people evidently made their health better, some even reversed and cured their dangerous diseases on a WFPB diet. So just because you and I didn't get any miraculous health benefits, doesn't mean that there are none creditable to a plant-based diet.
Only around 3 percent of the world population is vegan (?) and that comes to around 321 million, but that is still a huge number. These millions of people are not from the same socio-economic, cultural, traditional, demographic or national backgrounds. So a lot of authentic, credible studies can easily and reasonably be done. You can check out the book "How not to die" by Michael Greger to find such studies.
P.S. Veganism was never about human health to begin with anyway. It is simply a benefit (as per the definition).
The Cult Issue
I am going to bet many vegans will identify with these post-vegan feelings. If that is too large a declaration to make, then I will admit to several from this list. Here is what a lot of people who turn vegan feel in the first few months of turning to the philosophy.
1. We feel emotional. We look at all the everyday foods we used to eat and wonder why it took us so long to quit
2. We are quickly very frustrated with everyone else around us, who have not yet seen the ‘light’.
3. We start checking labels to ensure we aren’t having anything non-vegan. We know (and keep learning) the different dyes and chemicals that come from animals. We’re hawks at spotting ‘milk solid’ on any packaged thing.
4. We start talking about how hard it is to find a vegan romantic partner
5. We start asking for ‘permission’ on vegan groups in the guise of questions‘ I watched my sister go horse riding, should I have walked away?’
Essentially nothing is wrong here. But these are the same symptoms that display itself when anyone moves to a cult or group that sets itself up on one grand idea of being the right way.
Agree on the first 3 that most vegans do relate to those, but the last 2 are not necessarily true to 'the most' in my opinion. And there is a reason for why most people feel as described in the first 3 points and those reasons are far from those that make veganism a cult.
1. We feel emotional. We look at all the everyday foods we used to eat and wonder why it took us so long to quit
This is self explanatory. It's because there are trillions of animals being exploited and killed every year and our everyday choices contribute to it. It's reasonable to feel emotional because animals are not some objects, religious rituals, or stuff written in some 'holy book'. They are sentient beings who can feel and suffer like us. In fact it would be apathetic and indifferent to not feel anything for them, after being responsible for all the suffering they had to endure because of our unaware actions.
2. We are quickly very frustrated with everyone else around us, who have not yet seen the ‘light’.
Yes, because the 'light' here is not some personal enlightenment or a door to the heaven, it is the truth. It is about what we have been doing to the innocent animals while living ourselves as if we are causing no significant unnecessary harm to anyone. Roaming around happily and ignorantly. Sitting in front of a dining table with a big smile on the face while munching on body parts of exploited, tortured and murdered animals! Of course it would be frustrating to see people eating and using animals as if it's nothing.
3. We start checking labels to ensure we aren’t having anything non-vegan. We know (and keep learning) the different dyes and chemicals that come from animals. We’re hawks at spotting ‘milk solid’ on any packaged thing.
Again yes, because we do not want to participate in animal exploitation anymore, not after realizing that those non-vegan products, which we might buy if we didn't check for animal substances in the ingredients, are made after inflicting a lot of pain and suffering on animals. We become hawks if we need to.
None of these points put veganism under the banner of cult. The author has clearly not researched into what characterises a cult.
I’d question why we are so hell bent on finding a vegan partner when a vegan person can be a jackass all the same? Wouldn’t you rather choose a person who has purpose and feels motivated to do this part for the world at large? Or would you rather choose a person because they are vegan? Heads up, a few weeks ago I had a vegan come on my wall and say anti-islamic crap then called me a bitch for questioning his ridiculous assumptions. Being vegan has nothing to do with having a larger value of equality and justice that applies to the world. This is why when we start looking for other vegans to marry, we become the same as any other cult or caste looking for a similarity based on a belief/practise system. I am all for community and building purpose and being helpful to a community that you align with. But when we fail to question our own community and its rules then the integrity of our intent starts to collapse on all its logical walls.
To answer why we are so hell bent on finding a (non-jackass 2) vegan partner rather than choosing someone who has purpose and feels motivated to do his part for the world at large, firstly, a lot of vegans are okay to live with non-vegans. Whom to live with is their personal choice, but if the author really wants to put her nose in someone's personal choices because she sees cultish behavior, let's try to understand why vegans who do it, do it. It would be clear if you can think of an answer to this question - why would a person who realized and condemns animal exploitation wants to live with someone who actively participates in animal exploitation even though they have a 'purpose' and 'feels motivated to do their part for the world at large'? Do you think a feminist would want to live with someone who participates in women abuse? Do you think an anti-racist would want to live with someone who actively participates in racist behavior? Especially when it's in their power to decide if they want to live with them or not, without any moral obligations like they would have with dependent parents or siblings, or kids? I think it's pretty clear now.
It is also somewhat clear that this kind of illogical and improper comparison with marriages in same religions and same castes came out as a result of making veganism anthropocentric. This is not about 'someone' and what 'identity' they hold but about not wanting a future together with a person who is speciesist and sees non-human animals as objects and commodities. Once you start seeing veganism as a movement for non-humans' rights and their liberation, issues like these resolve themselves. I am not against questioning and internally criticising the movement to build up integrity. But when it is done just for the sake of doing it, without properly understanding the underlying concept, it will inevitably lead to such ill-constructed misrepresentation of something important and crucial for the rights of someone (non-humans).
Drawing by wwwegan
Why Evangelism Doesn’t Sit Right With Me
This past year, there wasn’t one moment where I felt right about the whole evangelism part of veganism. The pamphleting, the graphic videos of animal abuse, and the whole ‘go vegan’ hashtag. All my blogs on vegan food has never used the words ‘go vegan’. I hadn’t been able to identify why it didn’t make sense to me. But now it does.
It all goes back to the main essential problem of dogma.
When I was in college in Colorado, every few months the anti-abortionists group would come and put up 12-foot long pictures of dead baby fetuses dumped in bio-garbage bins. I kid you not. And they would go ahead and chant on a microphone how we were sinners to support such a monstrosity. Now many vegans are pro-choice and some are even anti-procreation. Is there an essential truth of sadness when we see a dead fetes in a bio-garbage bin? Perhaps, depends on our perspective. Is it really going to change the circumstances that require abortions in the first place? Nope. Is this an effective way of doing it, even if we were to argue that abortion is wrong? I’d say no, and there are studies and psychological insights to support that graphic images/evangelism don’t work on changing people’s behavior.
First of all, it seems to me that the whole comparison of showing animal exploitation and slaughter footage with pictures of aborted fetuses is so fallacious on multiple levels which I'll be explaining below. Abortion is legally, socially, and morally very different from animal exploitation.
- The reasons for abortion and animal slaughter are completely different. Abortion is done when a parent doesn't want to have a child, whom they conceived by their will, or because of not taking proper precautions while having sex. Animals are exploited and killed because people want to eat and use them. People can have sex without having to go for abortion. Animals have to be exploited and killed if people want to eat and use them. Fetuses are not necessary victims to sex, animal are necessary victims to non-vegan living.
- The people who go for abortion do it with complete consciousness that they are going to kill a future person and that they have to live with it, and also, it happens very few times (if not none) in the total lifespan of a person. While some shake it off quickly maybe because they don't care, others might get affected by long term trauma. But in the case of killing animals for eating them, or any other purpose, they are not even recognized as non-human persons. They are treated as commodities and machines. They are killed everyday by millions and every non-vegan contributes to it almost every single day without batting an eye.
- A lot of people are already childfree by choice, or are not going to abort because they want to have kids, or take precautions to not accidentally conceive. That means a lot of people are not even participating in the 'monstrosity' of abortion. While in comparison, almost every human being is a participant in the exploitation and murder of animals.
- The 'monstrosity' of abortion is not as terrible as anti-abortionists claim. Fetuses are not sentient at least until they are 8 weeks old in gestation. Aborting a non-sentient fetus does not pose any moral conflict 3. Humans can have sex, and even abort fetuses without inflicting any harm on sentient beings, but with eating and using animals, there is no way to eat and use them without harming them.
- One cannot say for sure that doing such an activity is not going to change the circumstances that require abortions in the first place. Who knows? Some people who were going to have sex that day might use condoms now because they saw those 12-foot long pictures of dead baby fetuses. It could be the same with showing graphic pictures/footages of animals in slaughterhouses. But the difference here is in the former case, people still have sex, they lose nothing, but in the latter case they need to change their behavioural habits. The author claims it doesn't work in both cases, while I do not know about the anti-abortion case, I do know about the graphic animal footage case. The author is absolutely incorrect is asserting that graphic images don’t turn people vegan.
A lot of people have turned vegan just because they watched such graphic footage/images of animals being tortured in the animal exploitation industries. It's because a lot of people are disconnected from animals and are conditioned to see them as things, objects and commodities, and most of them are not even aware of the atrocities that are inflicted on animals in the industry. If you want proof, go to some vegan group on facebook and post a poll asking how did they go vegan, you'll find a lot of people saying it was because of some footage/images/infographics they saw at some point in their lives. Not kidding, I have seen several such polls and the results too.
If the author wants to talk about effectiveness of such approaches, she should have had some hands-on experience on the ground doing some grassroots activism (which clearly she doesn't have from her comments in this fb post corresponding to this blog post). Far from the author's claim that studies say it doesn't work, a lot of vegan activists, including myself, has plenty of evidence (though anecdotal) to say that it's pretty much effective. You'd know this if you are a vegan and are active in the online vegan community, or if you are an AR activist.
So on instinct I thought this gaudy way of doing things was the reason why I didn’t think evangelism is the answer. But there’s more.
Veganism when practised with evangelism tells people there is ONE way and only ONE way to to be ‘cruelty-free’. And as I have pointed out, there are contradictions to that. The fact that Vegans bypass it because they have a default set of rules is the failure in logic. And yes, it’s still ‘the least harm possible’ but again one set of rules which can make it problematic especially as we live in increasingly industrialized times.
Veganism is not cruelty-free, educated vegans know this. Vegans who promote it as a cruelty-free lifestyle are just not educated yet. Again, there are 'no set of rules' established by some fascist authority. It's common sense that we should not use animals for whatever the purpose, in order to fight for animal rights and animal liberation. It's inconsistent and hypocritical to advocate animal rights and still use animal substances.
Yes, 'evangelism' is necessary if the author thinks it's evangelist to ask people to not be racists, sexisists, ableists, homophobic, etc. Every vegan should ask non-vegans to stop being speciesist and to stop using animals (i.e. to go vegan).
What’s more is that veganism frown upon vegetarians and call people who eat meat ‘carnists’ which in my opinion only furthers us from seeing that humans are ironic by nature, and that the metric of compassion simply cannot be derived from one set of rules in such a very diverse world.
By the way, it's not about compassion, it's more about justice. Vegans who use the word ‘carnists’ should stop using it because it is a speciesist term and instead adopt the words ‘speciesists’, 'non-vegans' or 'malzoans' in appropriate places. Racists will be called racists, speciesists will be called speciesists.
There are so many people who have the same concerns about the way we are using animals for our own ends. They aren’t vegan but they understand how our need to consume at such a rapid rate is leading to animal testing, environmental damage, and horrific conditions in factory farms. But veganism does not acknowledge this: it simply states, you have to go vegan in order to prove your compassion or intent in creating a world with compassion.
Again, it isn't about compassion. It's clear why vegans ask such 'understanding', 'concerning' people to go vegan and call them inconsistent and hypocrites if they don't, even after providing them all the facts and evidence. If you understand that it's a moral issue, and also that it's causing a lot of irreversible damage to the environment, why are you still doing it? Why are you not vegan? There is nothing you need prove to anyone. You know it's wrong, you know it's damaging significantly, then what is the 'only' reasonable logical way? You know it because you are ‘concerning’ and ‘understanding’.
Again, I roll to my point: veganism is one set of rules, and when the hypocrisies/inconsistencies in veganism are called out, we quickly say :
But it’s still doing the least harm
But in India our foods are not manufactured that way
Doesn’t matter, at least you are supporting a vegan product from a non-vegan space
(All these points are addressed above.)
All the while, knowing that veganism itself is privileged because it requires most of us to be on the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If we are educated consumers and know how the world works and have access to news, articles, and studies we should use it to lower our carbon footprint and most importantly reduce cruelty. But how will this translate to the masses who don’t have access to this information and then very little context to apply it to their socio-cultural reality?
That's where the 'evangelical' vegan animal rights advocates come in, to educate the uneducated, to spread awareness where it doesn't easily reach. Also a lot of the privileged human population are non-vegans. When all those privileged people turn vegan, it will become easier for the masses who are below the poverty line and don't have access to information readily. For example, when the privileged demand for animal products reduces, their prices reduces initially and then the produce also reduces, the poor are benefitted here when the prices reduce, and when the animal produce reduces, the amount of animal feed also reduces and there by the the availability of grains increases, and their prices also decreases. Hence, it'll become easier for those people to become plant based. (Not to mention, meat is already quite expensive than most plant based stuff).
Also ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ is like the author’s article: arbitrary, unsubstantiated and inconsistent. A lot of studies have critiqued this model and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Here’s one.
And if vegan alternatives and awareness (relatively speaking) were the solution, then wouldn’t most of America be vegan? But they are the top nation when it comes to factory farming. In fact dairy industries are now producing almond and nut mylks because they see the value in catering to this crowd. See the irony there?
So the author is assuming here that most of America is having proper awareness along with the alternatives. But she fails to understand that the awareness is not proper because she herself didn't understand veganism properly and wrote such an inaccurate fallacious article. Veganism in the current world is being referenced and represented wrongly as a diet, a fad, a trend, a religion, a cult, a personal choice, a health pill but very rarely as a moral imperative in the mainstream media. Change will come when it is represented accurately by people who advocate it. Also, taste, tradition, habit, culture and religion of people of any place (including America) primarily decide the dietary and lifestyle habit of the people.
Ok, so the rational vegan will argue that it must have a top bottom approach and it will time, but veganism is the future.
If a farmer in a small town by his own understanding of compassion says to his neighbor farmer : ‘hey stop over milking your cow, give some to it calf too’ is that not an act of change? Is that not an act of him doing the best he can in his own capacity and reality? If a urbanite reduces his dairy intake up to 50% consciously, doesn’t that create a change in demand that could in turn work for better welfare? I would strongly argue that it could. And that brings me to my next point.
Yeah sure, it does. But when an educated vegan talks to such a farmer, he shouldn't stop at 'oh this farmer is already doing the best he can in his own capacity and reality' because cows are still being raped and exploited on such dairy farms, male calves are still being separated from their mothers and sent to slaughter, female calves are still being deprived of their mother's milk, 'spent' cows are still being sent to slaughter. The best the dairy farmer can do is to ditch dairy farming and switch to some other way to earn his living. When a dairy farmer realizes that cows aren't milking machines, and sees them for what they really are, they themselves realise what they have been doing is wrong. It is not equivalent to living under a rock. It is not impractical or extreme or radical. There are a lot of such farmers already who ditched dairy farming and switched to farming crops, or some other business, a quick google search will bring up those compassionate farmers.
If an urbanite reduces his dairy intake up to 50% consciously, sure it might bring some change in the demand. But why did that urbanite stop at 50%? Why not reduce to 0%? The same ethical reason that he had to make a conscious choice can be applied to the remaining 50% too. Is it really the 'best he can do'? Surely no. What's the excuse to not ditch dairy completely? Because dairy isn't necessary for good health. Clearly the author's apologism and anthropocentrism is being put on display here.
Animal Welfare and Anti-Cruelty Should be Universal
Instead of arguing whether we were meant to eat plant based or not (or should not just because we have the brains to understand cruelty) we should be finding strings to pull together. The ‘carnist’ and the vegan and the vegetarian. While vegans are evangelizing making sure people adhere to a certain set of rules, there might be others who are trying to make the industries itself more accessible to people to ask them about their methods.
Yeah, while vegans are fighting for the rights of non-human animals, because no one else will, there might be, and there surely are, others who are fighting for a different cause. Are vegans stopping them? Nope. Are vegans somehow becoming a hurdle in their work? Nope. So why all the whining?
We use the word sentient beings, but vegans won’t eat mussels will they? Or shrimp? You can cite environmental issue, but if you look at the compassion part, is it as cruel as eating something factory farmed? Don’t we have a history of eating local when it comes to the types of vegetation, seafood and meat we ate? Look at the Jain philosophy which actually take into the account of insects and rodents — the one thing that vegans dismiss. But before the dairy industry was as unabashedly as cruel as it was, wasn’t the Jain philosophy have it right in terms of balance- only take what you absolutely need with the least harm.
Yep, vegans won't eat mussels, or shrimp or any of the crustaceans (as a precautionary measure because this is a case where sentience is not conclusionary proven or disproven), and nope, we won't cite environmental issue, because veganism is not about environment (not the non-sentient part of the environment). We will talk about this - Mussels, oysters, etc., are bivalves and bivalves have nerve ganglia, which are nerve clusters which most likely enables them to subjectively feel pain, while they might not experience it the same way we do, they probably do feel pain.
"is it as cruel as eating something factory farmed?"- might not be from the author's view, but it most probably is from the victim's view. Also, veganism is about ending animal use, not choosing what degree of use is permissible.
Coming to the 'history' part. Why is the author suddenly appealing to the history? We all know we have done awful things in our history. So should we do it because we did it then? Nope. Maybe the author is talking about eating animals and also seems to be 'okay' with it because she thinks it's all about compassion and doesn't really care about animal rights. If anyone like the author sees animal products like consumption units and not something that is inherently the result of a violation of someone's body being turned into a commodity for consumption, they will equate animal products to things like plastic and how minimalistic you are etc. Jainism is different from veganism. If one appreciates both, shouldn't they adopt all the good things from both the philosophies and ditch all bad things from both of them, instead of cherry picking what is convenient to (wrongly) criticise one of them. The insects and rodents issue was covered above when we talked about pesticides issue. And as per the 'balance' is concerned, milk isn't necessary, unsustainable for the demand, and probably those humane practices from our past themselves have lead to the current cruel dairy industry. So to not repeat the history, moderation is not the solution, abolition is. Cows don't voluntarily give us milk, nor do they consent to us taking (stealing) it from them. Humane milk is a myth. The least harmful way of taking milk from a cow is to not take milk at all.
Yes. But globalisation has screwed that up for us. So as long as my almond strawberry amaranth grain cheesecake is plant-based, vegans will give it the thumbs up. Even though I am using almonds, even though I am taking grains away from the local people who used to rely on it ( and indirectly causing them to depend on a new grain for their own sustenance)- and this is neither good or bad, it’s just the truth. It’s just the irony that comes with one set of rules.
Globalisation has screwed that up for us? That's debatable. And what happens with the local people who used to rely on one grain and are now forced to depend on a new grain, well let's be honest that this is not caused by veganism and the 3% of vegans worldwide, Almonds are used by non-vegans a lot more than vegans use them. So is the case with all other grains and stuff. Non-vegan food is eaten by only non-vegans, vegan food is eaten by both vegans and non-vegans. So please stop putting all the blame on vegans. I don't understand why the author is so much pissed off by 'one set of rules'. Anyway, let's continue.
If a person makes it their life work to reform factory farming (but eats meat sometimes) or if a person works with the dairy industry to reform its practices our vegan community will simply call them hypocrites.
They are called hypocrites because they are hypocrites. The Cambridge dictionary defines the word hypocrite as "someone who says they have particular moral beliefs but behaves in way that shows these are not sincere". So what would you call someone who makes it their life work to reform factory farming, or dairy farming because they believe animals deserve moral consideration but still continue to eat animals and dairy? *HYPOCRITE*!!
Oh I wouldn't call such a noble person a hypocrite if she/he makes her/his life's work to reform animal agriculture because maybe she/he wants to have guilt-free animal products, or less bashing from animal welfare people, or a lot of praise and money from the welfarist organisations.
This is the precise reason veganism won’t really do squat about change at scale, because we are so heavily reliant on getting people to do the things we say are the way. What’s dangerous is that in order to honour this set of vegan rules, we’re making up quick excuses as we get into the messiness of processed foods. Our collective knowledge of what goes into our food and what is killed and used to make them are become increasingly lower.
Lower your consumption, that’s one way of looking at things. But it also reminds me of countries like America telling people to save water. The problem is that the good citizens of America will try to save water, but the system and culture of people using massive washing machines and having access to 24-running water kind of stunt actual systemic change.
Vegans are essentially well meaning. I think I am well meaning, but to forget that we are just a set of rules will keep us from making all of us come together and share the same concerns. We need to contemplate together that hypocrisy and dualism exist in all of us, and at the same time most of us want compassion. Most of us want to do something that makes things better.
Yeah for someone who doesn't understand veganism and animal rights (and calls it ‘evangelical’, ‘a cult’, thinks almonds are the lifeline for vegans): veganism is not going to do squat. (On a serious note to the readers, you can checkout VEGAN 2017 and VEGAN 2018 films on youtube to know what is veganism doing already.)
I agree with the author here - 'Lower your consumption'. And when one actually wants and tries to change stuff, even if they are in a 'bad system', they can indeed change stuff on their individual level - 'As far as possible’.
I am Vegan Even Though I Wrote 3000 Words on Why it’s Inconsistent
Over 3000 words on why veganism is inconsistent but not a single mention of speciesism.
I don’t believe that animals and humans have no relation to each other, there is a certain life cycle and symbioses with us and them just as there is in the rest of nature.To dispute it doesn’t happen in nature is to be irrational or in denial.
What I believe is this: humans have taken so much, so much that we’ve upset this balance and now use animals as objects. Veganism is accessible to me, I can afford some of the easy substitutes that make my food appealing in a culture where I am taught that it can’t be delicious without dairy and meat. I also have had no problem with my health (nothing super amazing, nothing detrimental).
It’s my way of protesting the gross consumption we partake in. However, as a vegan I can also see how it can quickly become contradictory, how many of my actions consume so much else from our environment (Which also nurtures animals). I also see that some of the substitutes I use might become increasingly cruel as the demand goes up for it. It’s immensely important any group of people with one approach to creating a better world are in a position to see it for what it is : a tool.
There might be symbiosis between different animals (including humans) in the nature but we humans, as a species, have come out of the natural ways long ago. Everything we eat, wear, use for shelter, or any other purpose is coming from unnatural means like agriculture, clothes, houses, etc. We have no necessity for exploiting animals for any of our needs, nor do animals require humans to take care of them (not talking about domesticated animals who do need us to take care of them, but we can do it without taking/stealing anything from them; and also the lives of wild and liminal animals to whom humans have caused direct or indirect harm 4). Even if it is not harming animals while we use them humanely, the contemporary status quo of animals as property probably started from humane use of animals. Moderation is not the solution, abolition is. Insisting that we follow natural ways of living with symbiosis and all is just being stuck in tradition and history, and it's also a romanticized 'appeal to the nature' logical fallacy - just because something is natural doesn't mean that it's moral. After all, territorial killing is natural, killing babies is natural, rape is natural, stealing is natural. It's not necessary for our sustenance, it doesn't need to be done.
When it comes to the dairy industry in particular, veganism shines as a tool. And I hope everyone reading this will look into the dairy industry to see how horrific it really is.
But there are many tools. The question is not “will you be vegan’. The question should be what tool will you use? I think there are hundreds of ways,tools, and actions. The one group that upholds the compassion card might quite well stunt it because of dogma and a lack of self-awareness of its flaws. The truth is that vegans and non-vegans can have compassion and respect life while also doing things that are contradictory.
I have to account for my privileges and my access to knowledge. I’ll have to then account for how it all fits in with me, how I see the world, and how I can best act on it.
I am vegan because it’s the best thing I can do in my circumstances. It’s the most doable way for me to process the access to information I have on the world.
I have to account for my privileges and my access to knowledge. I’ll have to then account for how it all fits in with me, how I see the world, and how I can best act on it.
I am vegan because it’s the best thing I can do in my circumstances. It’s the most doable way for me to process the access to information I have on the world.
Veganism is not just a tool, it's justice. It might not look like justice or serious enough to the author because she is not the victim of non-veganism. Sure, everyone is free to pick whatever tool they feel is right, but veganism is not a tool just as much as anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, etc., are not tools. Being vegan is the bare minimum one can do after recognising that non human animals are like us in most ways that matter morally, and those differences that do exist between us, doesn't really matter morally and are just part of an insignificant, irrational discrimination called speciesism.
In the last but one para of this article the author seems to tell that it isn't necessary for everyone to be a vegan. As I said above, she is not the victim, it of course isn't necessary for her. But it is absolutely necessary for the victims, the non-humans.
If you are not vegan, please go vegan. You probably understand the 'why' already.
1. If you want to point out medicines being tested on animals because they are necessary for our general health and survival - animal testing is immoral and unnecessary, also inefficient. There are better non-animal testing methods available, but currently not used in a global scale. But yes, medicines are necessary because they are used for reasons mentioned above, and not usually used for pleasure. So using medicines even though they are tested on animals is justified. We can still fight animal testing without boycotting medicines. To know more about animal testing, watch these.
2. Sorry for the speciesist language. The usage of the word 'jackass' here is to mean 'a stupid person' but it also means 'a male ass or donkey'. The 'stupid' meaning was probably derived from 'donkey' because donkey was seen as a 'stupid' creature, and that is ableist. Yes, not using a speciesist language is important. Read the section subtitled 'Part 1e: A Little Pejorative Goes A Long Way' from https://legacyofpythagoras.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/speciesist-oppressive-language/
3. Read these to know more about it:
4. Read ‘Zoopolis’ by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka to understand the positive obligations we owe to different types of animals
Oooioooooooo
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