Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
In the end, that unique and highly individual conscience is our guide to the very best vegan life we can manage. For some of us that just has to be enough.
Image by We Animals Media is of a snake rescued from research in a
university
I recently did a post on social media where I mentioned a number of
subjects which I have observed over the years to be less popular with page
followers than others. I can’t remember having posted that type of
observation before but many engaged with the post and the responses were
interesting and helpful. Some also made it clear that The Elephant will
likely lose followers as a result of this blog but so be it. I am nothing if
not sincere and I’m not doing this to be popular.
I found myself reflecting on the fact that my writing centres mainly on
these areas of exploitation that affect the majority of us, namely
consumption, clothing, testing and entertainment and decided that this was a
conscious choice on my part. Not only are these areas common to us all, but
in terms of sheer victim numbers, if we were to bring these horrors to an
end, then massive strides would have been made towards a vegan world.
Minefields
There were comments regarding the many minefields that can trigger defensive
and hostile responses. Hostility can quickly divert the focus from the
subject of a post and the message becomes lost in mudslinging and
recriminations. A topic that was mentioned as particularly contentious by
one advocate, was why humans riding on the backs of horses is not vegan.
This made me consider other similar trigger subjects that incite fury every
time they’re mentioned – like the use of members of other species as
‘service animals’. We have all heard of individuals, usually dogs, used as
guides, or used as assistants to humans with various medical conditions,
used to detect drugs, firearms, money or explosives; I’ve read of dolphins
and sea lions used to detect mines, pigeons used to carry messages even in
this day and age, horses used for various purposes in the military. We hear
of individuals of various species used as ‘therapy animals’ for humans.
Nonhuman body parts are even used as spare parts for certain human medical
procedures.
Vegans who are forced by health and circumstance to take life preserving
medications, is another thorny subject. All medications will have been
tested on nonhumans because that’s currently the law. Many contain milk,
gelatine and/or various other derivatives from the bodies of others and
there are no vegan alternatives. I would never presume to judge anyone for
what they do on that score. In what are literally life or death situations,
it’s purely for the individual to decide, but I know from personal
experience that they are unlikely to get a free ride from their conscience
on that subject.
And the topic of ‘pet ownership’ in itself is a massive minefield. Ranging
from the terminology, the legal standing of other lives as our ‘property’
and the logistics of caring for other individuals of many different species,
the pitfalls are many. In the past I have touched lightly on the topic and
have made no secret of my views on the domestication of species to act as
companions and accessories for humans; views which I have held only since
veganism opened my eyes to the fundamental human self interest of the
practice.
My recent post was pounced on almost immediately with a demand to know what
I feed to the cats in my care, and the accumulation of all these thoughts
and opinions led me down the path of considering the role of conscience in
our veganism.
What is veganism?
To recall the definition by the Vegan Society:
“Veganism is 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 animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
The phrase within this definition that lights the way for each of us down
the avenue of conscience is ‘as far as is possible and practicable’.
Does ‘as far as is possible and practicable’ let us off the hook?
However, far from being a license to be lax about our interpretation of
veganism, I have always found the phrase to be something of a goad that
results in continuous self examination; constantly questioning whether I’m
really doing my absolute best. I came to the conclusion long ago that a
constant feeling of guilt is probably more to do with my own upbringing and
personality than anything else, but maybe others can relate. No one else in
the world knows the unique combination of circumstances that each of us
faces and there’s no flow chart that gives us black and white instructions
for any and every eventuality.
Caring for others
Going back to the topic of feeding those in our care, it is certainly one
aspect of life where we may be forced to make choices based on our personal
circumstances, the species, the health and the medical needs of those whom
we care for, along with any other considerations that we must weigh in the
balance. And feeding isn’t the end of it. Should we confine our nonhuman
family members to our houses to safeguard them from nonhuman and human
predators, as well as to prevent them from following their instincts to prey
on other creatures if allowed to roam free?
What do we do when those we look after have ticks or fleas, worms, nits or
other lice or even maggots? If we follow through with our examination of our
own speciesism, these tiny creatures too have lives that they may or may not
value. Common sense tells me they probably do. Nevertheless I have yet to
read a vegan argument for allowing infestations of those whom we regard as
parasites to remain unchecked within and upon our own bodies or those whom
we care for. To leave parasites unharmed is to actively permit harm to the
host creature. We may not treat our decisions on the subject lightly but in
the end of the day it presents us with a dilemma and we all make judgement
calls about the matter. We must. But in no way does that let us off the hook
as far as conscience is concerned.
Conflicts and conscience
I know I am not alone in being conflicted. I have spoken to other vegans who
are similarly pained by the compromises forced on them by circumstance,
illness, poverty, or simply the fact of trying to live vegan in a nonvegan
world. Some rescues are unwilling to take on individuals of species that are
not by nature vegetarian, preferring instead to seek adoptive homes for
them. It’s not my place to judge or even hold an opinion about that. I must
simply understand, trusting their integrity and empathising from experience
with the sleepless nights that I know these decisions will have caused.
At the end of the day, veganism is a principle that provides a template to
guide our decision making. It can never be absolute, because we are not all
the same. I’m the first person to hold up my hand about my many failings and
have done so often in a very public way. That has been a conscious choice,
however none of us is obliged to explain or justify ourselves in order to
satisfy the random judgements of those who don’t know anything about us. For
each of us, what keeps us awake at night are not the opinions of strangers,
but our own conscience; considering and squaring our own behaviour and
decisions with it. It can give us a really hard time and sometimes our
relationship with it is, at best, an uneasy truce.
But in the end, that unique and highly individual conscience is our guide to
the very best vegan life we can manage. For some of us that just has to be
enough.
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