Michael-Your way might be an attempt to correct the problem for you and other humans, but not sure how being a sustainatarian corrects the problem for cows or chickens. Because preventing unnecessary death is kinda the whole point of veganism (for most).

I think Harold Brown's 4 part series of guest posts pretty much effectively calls bull shit on meat/egg/cheese eating "sustainatarians."

http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/animal_ag_will_it_be_our_death_an_intro_to_cattle_culture

The links to the remaining 3 posts can be found at the bottom of this link.

Thanks, I'll check it out.  To be fair, I don't know the motivational statistics on why people go vegetarian, (know of any surveys?), but when I was vegetarian and started altering my eating habits, it was for social and economic reasons, not to minimize animal pain.  I definitely was not a visceral ethics person.  I'll read the articles and get back to you.  While I'm doing that, have you ever read the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn?  It has some pretty interesting / sophisticated themes about the relationship to the animal and human worlds.

I've read Ishmael! It's an interesting book. I'm not sure what the statistics are, but I'm vegetarian because I think it's better for the environment, and a more feasible way to feed the world. Also, I think the dairy and meat industries are cruel to animals and unethical. *However,* there are other issues at work here. Vegan food, and organic food, are often very expensive compared to their conventional counterparts. My mom and I drink soymilk--she because she's lactose intolerant and I because I think it's a healthier and more ethical choice than cow's milk, as well as being delicious--but to ask my family to buy me special, more expensive soy cheese and soy yogurt all the time would be unfair and ridiculous.

I knew a bunch of people living in an "eco-house" at my school and only one or two of them were vegetarian; none were vegan. However, all the meat they ate they either hunted or fished themselves in season, or they bought from local farmers that they knew personally and whose farming methods they were familiar with and felt were ethical. I never ate meat with them, but I respected their choice. Also, this greatly limited the amount of meat they ate. It was maybe a once-or-twice a month thing, which is more sustainable than eating a big piece of meat every night at dinner and a smaller one at lunch.

Vegans want to prevent all unnecessary animal suffering and death. I respect that, too. But I haven't met too many vegans who are relaxed and open enough to respect other people's choices about food. I've met too many who are dogmatical, insistent, and...frankly, shrill about the choice they've made. My view is, we all do what we can in the situation we have, and we all try to do what we think is right. I try to encourage people to think about what they eat, to consider their impact on the world, rather than saying, "you should be vegan" or "you should be vegetarian" or "you should boycott this brand." Give it some thought, come to your own decision, and do your best. That's what I say.

Michelle-
1-You need to meet more vegans, because the vegans I know personally aren't anything like you or the media portray. I personally get more shit from carnies than I've ever dished out. And perpetuating that stereotype does no good (and is frankly tiring and irritating).

2-Expensive soy cheese and yogurt? We need to remember the "real" cost of dairy. Beyond the suffering, the cost of environmental impact, etc. is not in the "real" cost we pay at the grocery.

Michael-
I have read Ishmael and I did enjoy it  It certainly opened up my thinking regarding some things. However, I read it before I became a vegan, so I think I'd have to revisit it before I could speak to the human/animal discussion. I remember mostly the message about the human/environment interaction.

Michelle,

You are assuming that causing harm is a "personal choice." That is clearly wrong, unless your reasoning extends to human-human interactions. So I ask, is it ethical for me to make the choice to cause another human to suffer because I find entertainment in it? Yes, it may be illegal, sometimes, but is it ethical?  

If not, then you are arguing from speciesist premises -- for some reason, causing nonhuman animals harm is a "choice," but not human animals.
Speciesism, however, is not ethically justifiable. No more so than any other "ism," racism or sexism included. Therefore, simply "allowing others to come to their own decision" doesn't follow, as a matter of ethics, "shrill" or otherwise. 

They are causing harm to sentient beings; harm that cannot be justified. Accordingly, their decision to continue to do so isn't ethical, and therefore yes, I say, "You should go vegan".

Michael,

"...sort of opt-out, small-scale reducing harm mentality, rather than a correct-the-problem, systematic maximize good mentality.."

Isn't that sort of like saying that veganism is the correct ethical choice, while "sustainability," whatever that empty concept has come to represent, is simply the easier-but-not-ethical decision?

Furthermore, vegan legislation may be difficult, but going vegan is as simple as wearing different shoes, all things considered. Accordingly, you simply do not have a valid argument against going vegan. Just self-interest, which isn't ethical.

Hi Alex and everyone,

I was trying to express the opposite actually.  I think that making a personal lifestyle decision in order to approach social change is a lot easier and less confusing than working towards effective legislation that makes a big stride toward that same change.  There's a kind of conversation between personal ethics and political action.  In effect, I think going vegan or eating sustainably (or most lifestyle changes) are small impact.  I think talking to your legislators and advocating for smart social policy, running campaigns to make businesses change their practices (the Immokalee Workers for instance), writing op-eds and influencing media, and other political acts are much higher impact.

Of course, it's not an either / or thing.  My motto is always 'do both'.  Make consumer choices that make you feel good.. but, also, make political actions that create better laws and move billions of dollars around to better places. 

There is a heirarchy, though, that I think is not shyed away from and not respected in these converstions.   It is just simply a bigger impact to make laws than to buy different shoes.  I think it's a difficult thing to admit sometimes, but an environmental lawyer who drives around in a big SUV eating McDonald's between court cases advocating for stricter environmental codes makes a much more positive environmental impact.  I mean, people like Gore and Van Jones take planes around all the time and probably have a much more gigantic carbon footprint than all of combined, but they've also done lightyears more to advance the goals of environmental stewardship than I probably ever will (maybe!). 

So, instead of in-fighting, I invite everyone to reflect and assess what exactly we're trying to accomplish, and where we fall on that impact scale, in between the poles of personal lifestyle decisions and political / legislative action and advocacy.

I personally approach this stuff, or the agriculture part of it from the food security perspective, which is my work.  I get discouraged when people think we can just buy our way out of the problem by making a few better decisions as the supermarket, without ever signing onto a letter about the Farm Bill or the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, etc.  It's something I'm lately trying to invite more people into, the political side of it.

What do you think?

Michael,

I detect some sophism in your argument. Our point is simple. You should go vegan and advocate that others do likewise because there isn't a sufficient ethical justification for not doing so. That is the simple personal choice matter I spoke about.

As a pragmatic, macro means of addressing this issue, we can discuss the legislation. Nobody here would disagree with you. However, you stated that you weren't vegan. Your reasoning didn't follow. So I critizised that.

Hi there.  Two things, I suppose. 

1. I'm definitly not vegan.  But that was kind of my point.. these conversations about 'what to do' always seem to focus on personal lifestyle choices, i.e. how vegan you are.  I think that kind of moralizing distracts a whole vast number of people from getting involved at a greater level.

2. Going on that, I would definitely like to discuss legislative or otherwise political efforts with you.  Could you clarify what you are wanting to achieve?  And, could you point me to any pieces of legislation, efforts, etc.?

I'm not trying to be facetious either; so I can understand you, I'm literally very curious as to what vegan political goals look like, and how it's possible to achieve them (aside from consumer choices / lifestyle politics). 

Look forward to any responses.

Michael,

Veganism isn't a "personal lifestyle choice" anymore than not killing human beings is a "lifestyle choice." I detailed that above in my response to Michelle. It seems to follow from your argument that my actions opposing rape, challenging that as something other than mere "choice," is a moralizing distraction.  

Answer these inquiries Michael because I suspect you're being a sophist. Why would we discuss legislation to affect an end that you disagree with - or at least you're pretending to be open to the idea?

Well, to start, I am indeed a speciesist, and I don't make food or consumer choices based on a vegan ethical framework.  But, I definitely don't disagree with veganism as a practice, and I fully support the vegans I know in my personal life.  I'm just trying to make a distinction between 'living' something, and 'politically advocating for' something.

And I promise I'm not just talking with you for the sake of talking, I'm genuinely curious about what the political goals for vegans look like, in order to better understand, and to see if there is common ground.  My suspicion is that if the ethical code is that no harm come to animals by way of humans, this is very challenging to achieve politically.  So, I'm wondering how people go about it.

For clarification, I say speciesist in the sense that eat animal products, not in that I support undue cruel treatment, aside from slaughter.  I've moved from being vegetarian, to including sustainably raised animal products to my diet. 

Though I do feel strange in feeling the need to discuss my dietary habits as a preamble, in order to hold a political conversation here.

For a criticism of speciesism see here:

http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/speciesism_a_persistent_bane

It is an ethically indefensible premise Michael.

Furthermore, for a line of reasoning that exposes why, if you are simply to take your own beliefs about "undue cruel treatment" or unnecessary suffering seriously, you should go vegan, see here:

http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/making_sense_of_unnecessary_from_rhetoric_to_action

It's curious that you qualify your own belief with "except for slaughter." That's manifestly self-serving reasoning Michael, which, fundamentally, moral reasoning rejects as invalid.

I fail to see why we should have a "political conversation" about differing means of achieving a singular goal if one of the participants in that conversation doesn't agree with said goal. In other words, to justify ones actions to someone who is going to interpret these actions through a biased framework -- biased against the end those actions aim to realize -- is almost nonsensical.

I certainly wouldn't have expected Unionists and Abolitionists to explain and justify their practical means to ending slavery and/or preserving the Union to Southern secessionists. 

Defend your "dietary habits" -- you see, that fails to acknowledge the ethical import of your actions Michael, implicitly, so you've begged the question from the outset -- and then we can move to the realm of pragmatism.

Hi Olivia,

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

I think for the sake of pragmatism some sacrifice of your deepest ethical inclinations is necessary.  In the environmental lawyer (or Al Gore) example, if Gore took a biodiesel bus around the country giving his lectures and making An Inconvenient Truth carbon neutral, because in his heart-of-hearts he believes in a zero-carbon lifestyle, I fear the movie and message would be at least 10 years too late, and millions of listeners too little.  I'm coming to believe there is a wisdom to letting go my more extreme / absolutist sensibilities (which is a mental place I come from; I was raised Catholic!), in order to get things done.  And I think this is okay, and it kind of bums me out when people come down on others for it, not appreciating the sacrifice.  Gore (and other world leaders) have done more to change the hearts of millions by taking jet liners around the globe to big confereneces, than the most militantly environmental people I know ever will.  That's all I meant by that example.

Though, I think this is a question of our personal paths as we try to make change, no?  How are we best suited to bring our visions into the world?  Everyone has a part to play, I guess it's a mattering of figuring out where and how.  I just know a lot of people in my own life who get paralyzed in their desire to be perfectly consistent in their ethical behavior that it at worst starts to make them a little neurotic, and at best distracts them from exploring change-making outside of improving their personal behavior.

Thank you for your thoughts on the legislation stuff as well.  I'll look more into the horse slaughter bill. 

Also, the vegan school lunch options is interesting.  I actually work on school meals in New York City.  We have some advocate coalitions who are lobbying for a better Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, with more money for meal reimbursments and getting more free lunches to low-income children and school districts.  This is a good example of what I was trying to ask from Alex.  I would fully support greater meal choices, as I think that people should be able to pursue their personal freedom of choosing a diet.  And it's hard to do this when the program limits your options.  With more money, schools have a greater leeway with what they can purchase, and can buy healthier foods that respond to kids' dietary needs and preferences.  So, that's a win, and we can work on that together.  And it didn't even take a whole lot of philosophy.  ;)

Here's my organization's website: (http://www.nyccah.org).  We should have some School Meals info on there, and some one-pagers of our policy recommendations.

Cheers!

I see your point of view, Michael, and appreciate your honesty, earnestness, and respectful tone.  

One thing I didn't think of before: a lawyer isn't really hypocritical if he doesn't adhere to the standards he is arguing in court for, because he's representing a client. But if his corporate client were to market itself as "green" yet have a corporate fleet of the most gas-guzzling cars, that's where the hypocrisy would enter.

As for Al Gore taking planes, there's no comparison between that necessity (yes, I'd agree that he could be considered "an absolutist" if he were to shuttle around the country in a biodiesel bus) and the non-necessity Al partakes of but conveniently doesn't mention in his documentary: beef.

It's hard to know Al's motives in refusing to discuss what I and many others believe is not only a humane imperative but also an environmental imperative.

Is it because his family is in the cattle business? If so, hypocrisy would be at work.

Or is it because he is convinced he would be able to recruit far fewer believers if he goes "out on a limb" with the veg message? If so, then I can see his rationale in keeping quiet on the question of livestock's effect on climate change (it's big).

He's a typical environmentalist whose mind and heart don't quite embrace the WHOLE picture. They're unwilling to admit that what happens to individual animals, not just nearing-extinction species of animals, matters not only to the animals themselves, but also to the earth, and to us, their fellow earthlings.      

I agree that humans should have the freedom to choose, in the sense that we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship, and no one deserves to be repressed or oppressed.

But that liberty also means giving others the freedom to "be" instead of trampling their rights.

And what vegans are saying is that we don't have the right, or the license, to kill those "others," just because society has done this for century upon century (partly based on perceived "need" and partly based on lack of knowledge of the capacities and feelings of animals and partly based on slavish conventionality, false pride, and adherence to other less-than-noble motives).

This is NOT absolutism in the same way that Al going around in a biodiesel bus would be considered absolutism.

Why not? Because animals think and feel and have families, just like you. They live and breath and move, just like you.

This isn't about your eating habits or my eating habits, Michael. It's about how you and I and all of us humans treat our fellow living beings.

Yes, if we keep using natural resources at the current rate, and keep taking away wild animals' habitats at the current rate, we will be doing the same kind of damage as if we all became hunters and shot them. It's all inter-related, isn't it, this selfish absorption with our OWN importance and this refusal to grant similar importance to the lives of the other species. 

The ideal is that increasing numbers of people will individually wake up and realize it is wrong for humans to do to animals (steal their children, their habitats, their lives, their joys, their freedom, their fur) what humans wouldn't want to have done to them (and aren't permitted to do to eachother!).

When enough of these enlightened humans band together, they will insist that the law catch up with their evolving morality. Even then, there will be many people who aren't "there" yet, but the law will force them to conform.   

I believe that someday, centuries from now (or mere decades?), it will be considered criminal to kill and eat (or wear or mount on one's wall or put in a circus or zoo or marine park) any fellow mammal.

At some point the same laws will apply to our treatment of birds and fish and other categories of creatures. We (and they) will be highly evolved emotionally, morally, ethically, spiritually by then!

But those eventualities will NEVER happen if those of us who have seen the light don't act upon our vision now. That's all we're doing, Michael: acting upon what we know to be true. How else do you think reforms happen?

We love to do this. It's easy. We aren't being
extreme or absolutist. It's not onerous or abnormal. We don't feel deprived or sacrificial. Rather, what we do feels normal and right and good and freeing and joyful and unselfish. It's a lot better feeling than it was being deceived and brainwashed by the meat and dairy and egg industries and by our programmed parents, pastors and politicians.

Hay, Michael, I hope you do look into the horse slaughter stuff, because the very owners and trainers who are making money hand over fist on the this year's Belmont, Preakness and Derby winners could also be selling their injured or slower or older or infertile horses to auction houses, where lurk killer buyers eager to fill their trailers with enough pounds of "flesh" and transport "it" (live horses are "its" to them) to the Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses. Only when a U.S. law prevents this transport (and the rebuilding of abattoirs in the U.S.) will the breeders lose the incentive to keep pumping out foals for racing, for rodeoing, for ranching -- for bucks!         

Final thought in this way-too-long post: Please go to www.HumaneEducation.org and order founder Zoe Weil's new book, "Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life." You'll see how painless and fun it is for educators (that's the target audience) and the children they teach to begin thinking outside of the cultural box and begin making better lifestyle decisions based on their desire NOT to harm other humans or the earth or animals.

Meanwhile, I'll check out the website you supplied.

Sorry for running on and on....  

Quote:

"This is a good example of what I was trying to ask from Alex.  I would fully support greater meal choices, as I think that people should be able to pursue their personal freedom of choosing a diet.  And it's hard to do this when the program limits your options."

I agree Michael. I fully support "greater options" in pursuit of their personal freedom. I, however, want to logically extend this reasoning to include harming humans. For example, I'm not convinced by the argument that adult men shouldn't be having a sexual relationship with children under the age of 10. This is a matter of personal freedom.    

Thanks, both Lisas (S-J and R.), for enlightening me on BFF. 

Come to think of it, the only people I know whose vegan parents brought them up to be vegan are still little kids; their parents, in their 20s and 30s and maybe early 40s, are my friends.

Lisa S-J, I wonder why I've had the opposite experience in terms of defending vs sharing.

For whatever reason, I don't ever feel the need to defend myself (even in the heart of the Bible Belt). Is it because I believe, going into every discussion, that everyone KNOWS deep down that it's the right thing to do, even if they're not ready to do it?

Instead, I find opportunities galore for explaining the ethics of veganism to those who are interested. At first it was frustrating, because I wasn't seeing the results I expected: instant conversions.

Later, though, a pastor friend, from the anti-horse slaughter movement, reminded me that my words had sparked him (and his wife) to go vegan. Then another "horse" friend told me that what I had said caused her to return to her vegan ways; she had regretfully slipped back into dairy-and-egg consumption.

Once I realized that I shouldn't expect (in a willful sort of way) people to wake up overnight, then I started seeing some surprises. For example, a friend who used to hate it when her health-nut dad brought up the subject of meatless meals from a nutrition and health standpoint, realized after our conversation that she could understand and even support veganism from an ethical perspective. After praying about it for a couple of weeks, she stopped eating meat. Now, a year or so later, she eats no animal products, and her family (husband, 2 teenage girls) often follows her lead.

Since then, I've been watching other friends make changes in the right direction -- one dropping fish, one going all-vegan from occasional attempts at vegetarian dining, one going from borderline vegetarian to full-time vegetarian (not vegan yet), and so on. Others are sleeping on it!

My rambling has a purpose: to give you the encouragement to keep looking for opportunities, with a heart full of love for the little lost lambs, which I suspect you already feel.          

 

"I wonder why I've had the opposite experience in terms of defending vs sharing."

Honestly... I think it's because in "real" life I rarely talk about my veganism. My feeling on it is: people don't have to explain why they are eating what they're eating to me, so why should I explain it to them?  Unless I'm asked point blank about veganism, I really don't talk about it.  In fact, I have a friend who up until just a month or so ago, didn't even know I was a vegan (and I've known him for 3 years!). 

In the end, it's not about hiding or being ashamed, it's just part of who I am.  I do what I do.

BUT... that said... when people do realize I'm vegan, they spend a lot of time telling me that I "judge them" for their choices.  I take the point of ahimsa very seriously - I choose not to harm any living beings - humans and their feelings included.

Not sure I explained that very well, but hope that makes sense!

Gotcha. What you say makes perfect sense. We each have our unique approach, direction, style, etc. No harm in that!

One thing you said makes me realize that I don't talk about it if I'm eating with others, because, as you say, if we don't make observations on what they think of as "food" (smile directed toward Michael), they should have no reason to talk about our "choices" (ditto).

But I just remembered still another new friend who I had lunch with a few months ago. She was so fascinated by the subject, so ripe for its message, that she turned from full-fledged omnivore to vegetarian on a dime. What reinforced the rightness of it, for her, was listening to the CD I gave her that goes with Will Tuttle's World Peace Diet book. The logic was so compelling that she had no desire to fight it!        

Exactly.  My personal approach is to be an ambassador for veganism, not a cultist or fanatic in others' eyes.  It's easier to let people be curious on their own terms rather than bombard them.

I have several friends who are lacto-vegetarian, who say the same thing I did (for many years) about thinking it would be too hard to give up dairy.  When they see me out to eat or cooking delicious & nutritious meals, they start to ask me for advice on how to make the switch. 

And the same with omni friends & family.  There are some, like my mother, who have been inspired to cut meat from their diets.  Labeling themselves as "vegetarians" can be hard for people (it comes with a whole bunch of other connotations & assumptions, right?) but in the end it's not the names we give ourselves, but the actions themselves.

I thank you again (as I did under Lisa S-J's post) for the BFF explanations.

I agree with you about Alex's posts.

What is McLibel?

I'll have to Google for Ishmael and see what that's all about.

I'll also have to do something about posting a photo of ... a horse? a dog? We'll see. (I love those blueberries and spring-green leaves in Michelle Bak's pic -- is it called an avatar? It reminds me of my youth, picking all kinds of berries with my folks and my sisters.)

I love the Cane and Abel interpretation.

Ishmael also has a rather striking argument for living in harmony with the various species of the earth.

At one point there's a discussion that suggests of al the animal species on earth, humans were the first ones to achieve consciousness, via evolution.  And the author suggests that all other species would eventually achieve this, but humans are denying most animal species of their natural evolutionary path.  And so, the role of humans is really as a caretaker, to preserve and ensure that all beings have enough time to achieve consciousness through evolution.

It's kind of far out there, and I think largely impossible, and perhaps not how evolution really works, but, I think there's a poetic beauty to it.  In a world of speculation, it might actually work.  Though, maybe he wasn't being literal.  Who knows?