Monthly Archive for April, 2008

I can haz bread?

Published
by
Jennie
on April 30, 2008
in Daily and Random
. 3 Comments

A conversation last week between two very exhausted, frazzled women. One of whom is me. 


“Well, but when you can’t even eat bread it’s hard to live on a low budget.”

“I know but - wait what? Bread?”

“Vegans can’t eat bread.”

“Huh?”

“Vegans can’t eat bread. It all has milk and eggs in it.”

“I don’t know what you mean by bread, but I promise you, that substance made from flour and yeast that they bake in the oven and then use to make sandwiches with? I can eat that. It doesn’t all have animal products in it.”

“No you can’t. Vegans can’t eat bread.” 

“Dude, I ate bread this morning. I am vegan.”

“Whatever.”


Is it any wonder people think it’s a) ridiculously hard and b) extremely expensive to go vegan?  

To set the record straight, vegans can indeed eat bread. In fact, I’m eating bread right now and getting peanut butter all over my keyboard. Alex is not amused. 

A misunderstanding…

Published
by
Alex
on April 29, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 4 Comments
Over at the Vegan Soapbox, an interesting post titled Why Do Omnivores Hate Us provides a good example of the misunderstandings that exist between vegans and non-vegans, which came in the form of a comment. In response to the author’s question, “Why do omnivores hate us (vegans),” a commenter remarked: 

“Sorry but your wrong…you happen to mention that we omnivores are the angry ones…i personally respect the choices of others..the reason many of us get angry is this….if u invite a vegan to dinner u have to go out of your way to cater for them, if u visit a vegans house, u eat wot ur given…..secondly when ur eating vegetarians and vegans find it perfectly fine to try and convert us…we dont approach you and tell you to eat meat so we dont appreciate people trying to convert us, we are intelligent enough to make our own decisions so why do you always have to bring it up to us…iv been called a murderer, zombie, baby killer and graveyard of rotting flesh purely cause i eat meat…i dont call you savage carrot murderers and graveyards of rotting plants…so why do u all think we are wrong…how do you know veganism is right for the planet..i can garuntee if meat was outlawed and every1 ate just plants and somthing massivly wrong happened to the world you wouldnt be so cocky and say..oh but we didnt know…if people want to be vegetarians and vegans then fine but stop trying to convert us..its like a cult.”

Attempting to extract the argument here is difficult due to the poor grammar, spelling, and sentence structure; however, read through it several times and I believe that you will be able to decipher the text. 

Notice that the commenter is assuming the invalidity of the authors’ argument for veganism (i.e., all sentient beings are possessors of inherent value, and ought to have their interests protected with rights), without actually considering the argument. I didn’t comment about this, however. I took a different approach - to get at the lack-of-substance of the comment itself, and the absence of reason.     
I responded as follows:

Ethical vegans believe that meat is the result of an unjust institution that turns a rights-holder into a thing, a tool. It seems unreasonable to equate carrots and a cow - unless someone believes that carrots are rights-holders, therefore, our consuming them is unjust. “U eat wot ur given” at a vegan household because vegans are taking an ethical stance; at a meat eaters house, this is only similar if the meat eater believes that carrots have rights, for example, and thus take an ethical stance against eating vegan food. This is self-evidently different: it’s analogous to asking someone who believes in the equality of all human beings to participate in chattel slavery - likewise, it’s unreasonable to argue that the racist is placed in an ethical dilemma if they go to a non-racists home who busses their own tables, as opposed to having a Black slave do that work for them. 


As this should be clear, you must understand why an ethical vegan would suggest that a conversation is necessary when confronted with a meat eater. We believe that you are violating another individuals’ most basic moral rights, which is unjust and ought to be stopped. Again, an attempt to convert me from veganism on a similar level (i.e., I am violating the rights of a soy bean) is clearly absurd, and illogical. So, it’s not the same. However, please do, start a conversation with me about why consuming meat is ethical and we can go from there.


And, believe it or not, this is a conversation that vegans constantly have. What is obviously, so clearly a difference for the vegan, is obtuse and unclear for some non-vegans. 
 
Non-vegans, where am I wrong on this?  

From the back of my coffee mug.

Published
by
Jennie
on April 28, 2008
in Random
. 2 Comments

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening the circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”


- Albert Einstein

Thoughts on the recent shark attack.

Published
by
Alex
on April 28, 2008
in Thinking
. 0 Comments

I want to use the following quote in two ways:

George Bernard Shaw said, “When a man wants to murder a tiger, it’s called a sport; when a tiger wants to murder him, it’s called ferocity.”

#1):

This is an interesting quote; however, it seems that Shaw is equating the tiger’s actions with the “sportsman’s” on a moral level. Murder is the unjust taking of another’s life, which the hunter most assuredly does when he kills the tiger, but the tigers’ taking of the hunter’s life is different in kind.

Consider a hypothetical: if a five year old human infant were to get his hand on a gun, point it at you and fire, would you say that the child was acting immorally? I would say that the child is not acting immorally because the child is incapable of acting morally or immorally: from Kant, having the capacity to bring impartial reason to bear on one’s actions is the necessary characteristic to qualify as a moral agent (i.e., to be able to act morally or immorally). 

Applying this to the situation of the tiger killing the pseudo-sportsman (a.k.a., murderer for sport), it would seem that the term ”murder” is incorrectly applied. As with the child, the tiger is not reasonably considered a moral agent, therefore, as in the case of the child shooting you, the tiger can’t be said to have unjustly taken a life. Both the tiger and the human infant are moral patients.

And #2):

The news coverage on the recent shark attack in California allows us to consider the substance of Shaw’s remarks. 

A situation is posited where an individual is gleefully enjoying all the ocean has to offer while a “real-life Jaws” awaits his opportunity to strike, unprovoked, with viciousness and rage. Indeed, “unprovoked” is the most commonly used term to describe this attack. Deconstructing this, however, reveals the absurdity of this description.

The ocean is the shark’s natural environment - his home and refuge. As the shark is a natural carnivore, this environment is his supermarket: due to necessity, the shark must consume meat to survive; therefore, when he is hungry he hunts for prey. If I enter his environment I necessarily assume the risks of doing so; I am in fact, provoking a possible attack by entertaining myself in the shark’s home. If I was attacked while having a swim in a river I knew to be populated with a school of piranha, it’s hardly reasonably for me to argue that my attack was ”unprovoked”: piranha’s are carnivorous, so it is in their nature - it’s what they do to survive - to eat meat, as I am meat, I assume the risk of being attacked.

Calling an attack “unprovoked” shifts the focus (and blame) from the individual participant onto the animal, which is illogical and unfair. Indeed, while most argue that the shark has left the area, others are actively pursuing him so as to murder him. I say that the hunt for this shark constitutes the unprovoked attack: we freely decide to enter the shark’s domain, he responds in a way natural to him, and we murder him for doing so. It’s as if there exists some pre-determined standard for acting between non-human animals and human animals that is only broken when a surfer, for example, approaches a shark and punches him in the face. As the child ought to not be placed in prison for shooting you - she isn’t playing by the same moral rules - the shark ought to not be punished for behaving naturally.  

The death of the individual is tragic, but we mustn’t deflect blame from that individual, and all others who freely participate in these activities, onto a morally blameless animal.  

It is our species that creates these situations of conflict, and yet as a species, we are incapable of accepting our responsibility for doing so. We develop land heavily populated by raccoons, for example, and then argue that we must, as a matter of necessity, murder those raccoons that happen to find themselves on our property because they are “pests” or a nuisance. This is the height of infantile reasoning, and Speciesism.

“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

                                                                         - Schopenhauer (The Basis of Moral Duty)

Crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox. 

I’d completely abase myself, but I’m not that kind of girl.

Published
by
Jennie
on April 27, 2008
in Daily
. 0 Comments

Last week I was on the phone with a friend from back in Salt Lake, and she brought up my web site and how she had made her friends from school read it. She’s a vegetarian and I’ve heard a couple stories about her friends giving her shit about it, so I was naturally curious about their reactions. Especially since I’d like to think of this blog as something non-vegans can read and think about without feeling attacked or vilified. Not an easy thing to do when one of your writers is in the habit of attacking people like it’s his job, but one can hope. 


From the awkward pause after the question was asked, however, I gathered reviews from the non-vegan set were less than favorable. I guess they feel that we’re self-righteous and more than a little arrogant. It’s a complaint I think I lot of vegans (and vegetarians) hear on a regular basis, at least when you’re trying to broach the subject with non-vegans. I’m the first to admit it’s a touchy subject, but if I think I’m better than you I promise it has nothing to do with veganism and everything to do with the fact that I’m smarter, cuter, and a much snappier dresser. Plus I look better in hats. That alone gives me a reason to feel smug. 

As a vegetarian I spent a decade and change feeling the same way about vegans. Every one I knew had told me exactly why I was wrong to just be a vegetarian on several different occasions. Nothing is a bigger turn off than being told why you’re pretty much the scum of the earth for trying to do the right thing. It took me years to get over the unpleasant association, years in which the majority of the people who had acted out their self-righteous fantasies on me went back to eating meat, eggs and dairy. Obviously pissing people off is very poor way to go about changing their minds - acting self-righteous doesn’t do veganism any good, and it sure as hell doesn’t help any animals. 

In addition to the phone call, last week was marked by a letter to the editor about a friend of mine who wrote an op-ed about animal rights. For his trouble, he got called self-righteous, and it got me to thinking - why? Why is it that when you try to defend other sentient beings, to keep them from being nothing more than objects, resources, that you are called self-righteous. Should we ignore arguments that are fundamentally flawed, inaccurate facts, prejudice and ignorance? No. The day I discover an argument against animal rights that makes more sense than the ones for it, I will have no choice but to stop fighting, but I don’t believe that day will ever come. 

Let’s get this straight right now. Being a vegan doesn’t make you a good person. I think by some people’s standards I could easily be conceived as a bad person. Being an omnivore doesn’t make you a bad person. The majority of my friends and family are meat eaters. I love them, and I believe they are good, solid people or I’d dump them faster than a high school jock dumps a girlfriend who won’t put out. That doesn’t mean I refrain from talking to them about veganism and trying to make the case. I know I’m not better than them, not in this matter. It has taken me years to change the way I think, and I’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to do so. To have an enlightened conversation about anything you need two parties, and there’s too much at risk to offend one. As I tell my mom, I’m not trying to tell you how to do anything - I’m pleading with you to please, just think about what I’m saying. What I have to say may be offensive, and because it runs contrary to what we have been taught is normal, it’s hard to hear and even harder to stomach. 

Veganism and vegetarianism aren’t an exclusive club. It’s not about us and them. It’s about everyone learning and thinking. I truly believe that most people have no desire to hurt animals, and given the facts will accept veganism as a moral baseline. This isn’t about me being better than you, more right than you. It’s about the fact that we kill and torture millions of non-human animals, feeling, caring, sentient animals, every year for reasons that cannot be justified. I say we because I have a part in it too. How do you accept such a responsibility? It’s hard, but not impossible. 

Veganism isn’t about purity. It’s about thinking about the impact your actions have on other beings and choosing your actions accordingly. As the existentialist Sartre said, we as human are defined only by the actions we choose. Our daily actions choose the way we wish to define ourselves and our species. 

Throughout history there have been groups of people who were systematically discriminated against, discrimination that was justified in the minds of the majority at the time. There have also been people who stood up against this discrimination, people who were probably called self-righteous, and yet they continued to fight because they knew their beliefs were right, and that it was up to them to pick their actions accordingly. For me as a vegan, that means that I am responsible for educating people, for bringing these issues up. I do it not to make you feel bad about yourself, not to attack you as a person, but because I respect you enough to think you should know. Don’t let the mild attacks of sarcasm fool you: I’m rooting for ya. 

Cross posted @ Vegan Soapbox.