Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
There's an Elephant in the Room blog
August 2018
In seeking to make a virtue of ‘reducing suffering’, an unwinnable ‘numbers game’ is being played.... As I have noted before, with regard to our unnecessary victims, we fail them all if we fail to recognise them for the individuals they are. They are not a quantity that we can cut down on like our sugar, fat or alcohol intake. We are talking about individuals here.
Image by Jo-Anne McArthur /
We Animals
More and more often I see comments from those who for some reason identify themselves as vegans, comments in which they are approving the most astonishing levels of violence and brutality to the defenceless individuals that veganism is sworn to defend. I shared an article this morning, that pointed out that the ‘lab grown meat’ industry uses fetal bovine serum, a substance derived from the hearts of calves, cut from their heavily pregnant mothers in the slaughterhouse.
I think too many vegans are thinking of this as the Holy Grail, which may
subtly be taking pressure and urgency off of other modes of action and
analysis.
~ John Sanbonmatsu
Please see this link ["Clean
Meat"? - Two Animal Rights Advocates Say "NO"] where the points raised
by philosophy professor John Sanbonmatsu closely match my own perspective.
The subject of lab grown meat is a fertile source of controversy amongst
those who are unaware of the grotesque reality it involves, however, this
essay has been fermenting for a few days following the reading of a
particularly shocking number of comments by apologists for the continued use
of nonhuman individuals.
Virtuous pragmatism?
My thoughts here are applicable in far too many situations. Whenever any
article of this nature is posted, there are invariably several who announce
that ‘anything that reduces suffering’ is ‘okay with them’, as they scramble
to commandeer a shaky patch of moral high ground, while seeking to cast
critics as ‘extremist’ and ‘unrealistic’ when compared to their own
‘virtuous pragmatism’. I have several issues with this.
First and foremost, in seeking to make a virtue of ‘reducing suffering’, an
unwinnable ‘numbers game’ is being played. This quality termed ‘suffering’
is not scalable. As I have noted before, with regard to our unnecessary
victims, we fail them all if we fail to recognise them for the individuals
they are. They are not a quantity that we can cut down on like our sugar,
fat or alcohol intake. We are talking about individuals here.
To illustrate this, and this is mainly for those who find themselves leaning
towards the ‘less harm’ / ‘reducing suffering’ idea as being good in theory,
I’d like to suggest a brief thought experiment.
A thought experiment
We all have people we love; children, parents, siblings, friends so let’s
focus on them (the human ones, in this instance, leaving aside our nonhuman
companions just this once). Let’s think about those whom we love the
absolute most. For example, I have two sons, grown men now but still
inspiring in me the fierce love that all mothers know so well, the sort of
love that would stand unhesitatingly in front of a bullet, would gladly lay
down its life to keep them safe. I’m thinking of them here and no doubt
everyone has someone in their life that inspires protective love. Now. Look
at these beloved faces in your mind’s eye while considering the following
question.
If a circumstance arose where they were threatened with some completely
unnecessary harm but, rather than fighting to protect them all, you decided
that ‘reducing suffering’ would be good enough, which ones would you consign
to torment, incarceration, mutilation and an agonising and unnecessary
death, and which ones would you consider as worth sparing? Would it be your
youngest child? Your eldest? Your mother? Really think of what you’d be
agreeing to on their behalf; the terror, the gore, the whimpering and
begging for the hurt to stop.
It’s not so easy now, is it? After all, when we’re promoting ‘less harm’ and
we strip it all down away from the rhetoric, this is what we’re saying about
some other mother’s children, parents, siblings, partner. We’re advocating
that collateral casualties are a reasonable price to pay as a scientifically
unproven route to some imagined ‘greater good’. However that sort of high
ideal is fine only when we’re talking about someone else’s loved ones. Or in
fact for some, preferably some other species and their loved ones. It’s
always easy to sound noble about sacrifices that are never going to touch us
personally.
What we think we’re saying vs What is being heard
When we promote ‘less’ harm, a strategy that often accompanies the ‘I’m good
with that as long as you’re trying’ approach, we’re completely overlooking
something. Despite seeking to claim brownie points for pragmatism amongst
extremists, we are actively promoting all the horrors of non veganism.
Whatever we may fondly imagine we’re saying, what our audience is hearing is
that it’s perfectly fine to not be vegan.
In saying that we’re ‘okay’ or ‘have no problem’ with this nebulous and
highly subjective idea of ‘reducing suffering’, the message that we are
conveying to a non vegan audience that, let’s face it, wants nothing more
than to have their own current behaviour vindicated is this: ‘Veganism isn’t
all that important. Yeah, there are some extremists out there who go over
the top but hey, people like me are realists and as long as you’re trying,
I’m good with it. Every little bit helps.’ I even saw a conversation with
almost these exact words on a thread recently. Some self-identified ‘vegans’
were falling over themselves backwards to condone harm and bloodshed in
their efforts to be seen as ‘reasonable’ while those who were not vegan were
swapping anecdotes about why their own brutal choices were perfectly fine –
and no doubt would seem even more fine having had a ‘vegan’ seal of
approval.
Accept that the message isn’t popular
And here we have another point to note. Promoting veganism to any audience
that has normalised animal use, harm and slaughter – and every dietary
permutation and position short of veganism falls fairly and squarely into
that category – is never going to be popular. As I said earlier, because
people want their behaviour to meet with approval from their peers, the last
thing they want to hear is unsolicited information about the harm that their
actions have been causing, and facts about how totally unnecessary it is.
Every one of us, when we were not vegan, had a ready set of justifications
with which we had studiously avoided recognising the consequences of our
actions. An advocate who promotes veganism is going to run headlong into
that wall every single time. Unless of course we take the tack that, ‘yeah,
that’s all fine, I’m good with that’, in which case, the wall of excuses has
once more served its purpose, deflected the challenge to our carefully
constructed narrative and dismissed consideration of veganism.
It’s going to hurt
That moment when we finally open our minds to veganism is painful. Always.
It doesn’t come gently at the end of a long period of having our awareness
‘raised’ whatever that means. It’s not a gradual and sweet progression of
enlightenment that allows us to feel good about ourselves all along the way.
At the point where we have to decide one way or the other whether to embrace
veganism or ignore it, we feel sick with horror, chilled with the
heart-stopping realisation of exactly what we’ve been paying for.
And for the purpose of this essay, the final major issue I have with the
‘I’m good with that as long as you’re trying’ idea is this. Who the hell
gave us the right to sanction a bleak existence being used as a resource,
violation and slaughter on behalf of another sentient individual? Surely
being vegan is defined as an acceptance, an internalisation of the
fundamental injustice of taking the life of any individual because we know
that it’s all unnecessary?
A false dichotomy: being realistic or being unequivocal
If we hold true to ourselves and unequivocally champion the defenceless
victims of non-veganism, it’s naive to even hope we will be liked and we
must learn to accept this.
Often presented as ‘unrealistic’, unequivocal vegan advocacy does not mean
being drawn into mudslinging, anger and aggression, even when that is the
tone adopted towards us. The truth speaks for itself. It is my experience
that providing facts, calmly, honestly and without compromise, does work.
When a critic seeks to ridicule veganism, or justify their own abusive
choices, they are seldom in a mindset for having a reasonable discussion.
The fact that they invariably choose to do so in a public thread emphasises
this; when cheered on by their animal-harming contemporaries who are
similarly seeking justification in the comfort of numbers, it becomes almost
unthinkable for them to back down. That is why I consider that leaving a
link to information and making a strategic withdrawal is often the best
policy. But somewhere, someone lurking on the post may click on our
information and it may start to plant seeds.
Never lose sight of what’s at stake
In 2016, 74 billion land based individuals each endured an existence as a
resource and a death so horrific that we shrink from even thinking about it.
The number of aquatic individuals subjected to our unspeakable brutality far
exceeds that number by many multiples. They all deserve nothing but our best
efforts to defend them, to bring down the whole vile commercial edifice that
has been built up to support the consumer choices of those who are not
vegan; that massive industry in which sentient individuals are no more than
business assets.
And those who are queuing, trembling in fear and horror in the
slaughterhouses at this moment, as well as the innocent and defenceless
individuals who will continue to comprise that queue every day into the
future until the madness ends, are relying on us to defend them without
compromising a single one of them.
We can do that. Believe it. Be vegan.
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