Everyone Has Different Priorities
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Animals in our society are so devalued that routine cruelty is excused by virtually any flimsy rationale.
One of the current excuses some people give for why they’re not vegan is “people first.”
You don’t have the time or resources to devote to another cause. You care most about human issues; you don’t want to get involved with animal issues. So what? That’s no excuse to justify the cruelty on your plate. The brutality inflicted on animals who become food is so extremely horrific that there’s no possible justification for it. NONE.
Stephanie explains:
[T]hey “love animals,” they can’t go vegan because they don’t have time to be, or wouldn’t be comfortable being, an animal rights activist. “I’m not like you,” such a person tells me. “Everyone has different priorities,” he or she may say.
But Stephanie examines this line of reasoning and tears it apart:
Let’s say you indeed are not an activist or potential activist. Or you’re not comfortable doing what you currently think of as activism (you absolutely can be a quiet, behind-the-scenes activist). Or you are an activist within another worthy social justice movement, and you don’t have the time and resources to devote yourself to another. Or your life is chaotic with responsibilities, and you just can’t add something else to the mix and still take care of yourself. That’s okay. But none of this stops you from doing what you can in your own personal life; none of this changes what daily choices you are capable of making in order to make how you live consistent with what you already believe.
You don’t have to be a hero to be kind to animals. JUST STOP EATING THEM! Stop making excuses. Start making a difference.
If you love animals, EAT LIKE YOU LOVE ANIMALS.
GO VEGAN!
Hmmm…I’ve had versions of this conversation with many people and written about it myself (entry “The Goat Pimp” on my blog).
While I am TOTALLY uncomfortable with factory farming (and totally cognizant that 99% of meat sold in US is from factory farms), I’m not actually against the idea of raising animals for food. I no longer eat meat myself but don’t judge others who do; I do, however, tell my friends that, for health and environmental reasons, I think it’s wiser to cut WAY back on animal products.)
The line, basically, between a “pure” vegan view (which you clearly support) and a more moderate “semi-vegetarian” position (which I think I espose) is whether or not one feels that animals should NEVER end up on our plates, or whether one feels that animals should be raised much more humanely than currently, but still eaten or used sparingly (my own view).
Your title of the blog is “everyone has different priorities”. It *sounded* as if you were going to acknowledge this, but you ended up being quite unopen to the different points of view people hold vis a vis the “right” relationship people “should” have with animals.
The title comes from the excuse given by some nonvegans:
It’s a quote from post at the Animal Rights & AntiOppression blog, where Stephanie explains that if you “love animals” then it’s inconsistent to eat them. I merely repeated and emphasized that idea.
This is the Vegan Soapbox; this is not the Semi-Vegetarian Soapbox. You are perfectly free to start your own website called the Semi-Vegetarian Soapbox wherein you may discuss whether or not animals should belong on our plates. But here, as it says right in the Discussion Policy, anti-animal discussion will not be allowed.
Animal issues are human issues, anyway. When you consider the deforestation of the Amazon for soy crops for animal feed, and the tribes whose land is getting ripped up. The easiest way to take a stand on that? Go vegan. All the people who are affected by polluted water from factory farms? The carbon emissions from agribusiness which poison our atmosphere that we humans breathe? Go vegan, save the human.
.-= Amelia´s last blog ..Mid-Week Mash Up =-.
The point was that, by NOT allowing what you term to be “anti-animal discussion,” you foreclose the option of even discussing different opinions. Soapbox indeed.
I prefer dialogue.
Here at Vegan Soapbox, we don’t talk about meat like it’s “what some people eat.” Here, we talk about WHO some people eat.
We talk about the face on your plate. We talk about cheese: it comes from a grieving mother. Eggs come from a grieving sister. A hot dog is made from pieces of young brothers and sisters; a hamburger is made from bits of used up, overbred and overmilked mothers.
Here at Vegan Soapbox, we acknowledge that torturing, killing, and eating SOMEBODY is wrong.
I agree with elaine……..but it is your website…..however you need to remember that when you go to other websites and try to critique others on their sites.
.-= eclecticfoods´s last blog ..kids reject food =-.
This is absurd. Eccentric Vegan is trying to destabilize our comfortable assumptions. She’s done that with the use of pronouns here: “its” not “who”/”he”/”she”. Elaine wants to “talk past” this challenge, instead preferring to run with her own self-serving arguments. That is why she doesn’t want to acknowledge that the title of the post itself is just that: a self-serving argument that Eccentric Vegan (and Stephanie, of course) exposed as vacuous.
Why, then, open the dialogue to someone who reasons backwards, from the conclusion to the premises that support that conclusion? It isn’t dialogue you seek Elaine, it is another opportunity to reaffirm your own pre-reflective position. And this is why you come to “Vegan Soapbox” and use unapologetic language like “on our plates”, “raising animals for food”, and “I don’t judge others…” while to still trying to be on the side of animals.
Now, I would be happy to show you why you are morally and logically inconsistent, but that would inevitably involve more self-serving reasoning about how animals are “things” to be used (just “happy slaves”). That would violate the discussion policy, however, which I respect.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..Foster Mom =-.