Articles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle From All-Creatures.org

Vegans are idiots

From Jeffrey Spitz Cohan
November 2023

Many of us are even advocating for veganism. But to what end? Tens of billions of animals are sent to slaughter, year after year. But, even if veganism never becomes the norm, we can take some solace in knowing that we acted with integrity.

Vegans are idiots.

This isn’t a conclusion that I arrived at lightly. On the contrary, I formed this thought only after slogging through a 633-page novel.

So what’s the connection?

I don’t think I need to issue a spoiler alert before telling you that the novel is based on a fascinating premise:

What would happen if an ethical, naive, guileless man – who cares not a whit about societal conventions – dives headfirst into mainstream society?

Not surprisingly, it doesn’t go well for this man, Prince Myshkin. In fact, the novel’s naive, ethical, guileless hero is derided as an idiot.

As an ethical vegan, I found myself identifying with Prince Myshkin more and more as I turned the pages.

Consider the following:

• Sure, I’m abstaining from animal products. But according to the most recent United Nations data, the number of land animals killed globally for food increased from 2018-2020.
• A recent Gallup poll found that only 1 percent of Americans described themselves as vegan. If this is accurate, the number of vegans isn’t growing. Like, at all.
• We know that animal agriculture is a, if not the, leading cause of climate change. Yet most mainstream media content about climate change neglects to so much as mention animal agriculture. While the world continues to burn and flood.

I could go on. But you get the picture.

We vegans, we’re idiots, are we not? Sure, we’re ethical, but we’re also naive, guileless and indifferent to societal conventions. And, sadly, society is indifferent to us.

Like Prince Myshkin, we’re setting a good example. Many of us are even advocating for veganism. But to what end? Tens of billions of animals are sent to slaughter, year after year.

So, am I going to put an end to this futility and order lunch from the drive through at Arby’s?

Hell, no.

Prince Myshkin, after all, is the hero of the novel. A tragic hero, but a hero nonetheless.

We are heroes, too, we vegans. Idiots, but heroes, too.

Even if the world doesn’t turn vegan in our lifetimes, we at least are being authentic to our true selves, to our better angels, societal norms be damned. There is real nobility in that.

If doing the right thing and cutting against the grain makes us idiots, then so be it.

And maybe, just maybe, we’re not idiots, but merely early adopters.

It’s interesting, even encouraging, that the marketplace is moving in our direction. The proliferation of plant-based products in stores and restaurants is an enabler, and possibly a precursor, to the spread of vegan lifestyles.

But even if veganism never becomes the norm, we can take some solace in knowing that we acted with integrity. Dostoevsky’s novel ends in sadness, but I’m sure the writer felt the world needs more idiocy, not less.

Just for the record, I didn’t “slog” through The Idiot. It’s a wonderful novel. And it’s ripe for a modern adaptation, sort of like what Barbara Kingsolver did in rewriting David Copperfield as “Demon Copperhead” and setting the story in rural Virginia, circa 1995.

If some gifted writer does adapt “The Idiot” for the 21st Century, you can bet the main character will be ethical, naive, guileless … and vegan.

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