Marketing Trivial Human Desires
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Here’s an example of some omnivorous backwards logic:
“While I honestly don’t believe all activists are tree-hugging Greenpeace lunatics, nothing changed for me because Melissa and the other activists featured showed how extreme many of the views still are, especially when your right to decide for yourself is superceded by the rights of animals. (If I choose to stop eating meat, it can’t be because you assaulted me with images of dead or tortured animals. When you do that, you take away my ability to decide for myself.)” (source)
Let’s be compassionate and give the writer the benefit of the doubt. In order to reasonably interpret his argument, we should to eliminate the slurs. Let’s pretend he didn’t call activists “lunatics” or “extreme.” We don’t have to ignore that completely, just set it aside for the moment in order to have an honest and reasonable discussion.
For example, pretend someone told me, “I don’t think all women are dumb, but I don’t like feminism because no one should tell me what to think.” In order for me to accurately identify the contentious idea and debate logically, I should respond to the point about feminism and set aside for the moment the comment about women’s intelligence, though clearly, the two concepts are intertwined.
So, let’s be charitable here and get to his base idea. He says “If I choose to stop eating meat, it can’t be because you assaulted me with images of dead or tortured animals. When you do that, you take away my ability to decide for myself.” The crux of his statement is that he believes eating meat should be a) a free choice, and b) not influenced by the nonviolent, honest actions of animal advocates.
Let’s take each claim individually.
a) First, the claim that eating meat should be a free choice: He believes his desire to eat animals is more important than animals’ desire to not be eaten.
He’s framed it in a way that sounds like he cares about freedom of choice, personal freedom, or human rights. But really, it’s about his personal desire to eat what he wants to eat. He might argue that he has a right to eat a twinky or a right to drink a beer. If he’s at all logical, he might argue that he has a right to swallow glass or eat diet pills. That’s the kind of “right” he’s talking about here.
He’s not talking about a right to personal autonomy like freedom from imprisonment, freedom from torture, freedom from force. He’s talking about freedom to eat things he calls food.
Vegans do not consider animals food. Talk about eating animals sounds to me very similar to talk about eating rocks or eating lead paint. Sure, the physical process of eating a salad is nearly the same as the physical process of eating lead paint, but lead paint is not really food. In fact, in high doses, it’s poison. Meat is poison, too. It gives you heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Animal rights vegans go a step farther than human nutrition and proper diets. Not only are animal products bad for your health, animal products are the direct result of unjustified immoral harm. Animals are sentient beings who have feelings and families. They are no more food than human infants are food.
If we really think carefully about it the guy doesn’t so much care about freedoms and rights. In fact, he doesn’t much care about the relationship between animals and humans. This isn’t about a belief that humans are superior to animals; It’s a belief that humans’ whims are more important than animals’ lives.
One need not believe animals are equal to humans in order to believe in veganism and some forms of animal rights. One need only believe that animals’ lives are more important than trivial human desires.
b) The second claim asserts that the choice to eat meat should be not influenced nonviolent animal advocates. He used the term “assault,” but he’s not talking about violence, he’s talking about “images of dead or tortured animals,” that is, he’s talking about accurate depictions of the truth. He is saying he should be able to choose to eat animals without having true knowledge of all the facts. What kind of strange logic can justify this position? The answer is, there is none. It’s not logic, it’s marketing. See, he continues:
“Stop making people feel guilty for their food choices—give them better ones instead. Sell. Me. On. Great. Tasting. Alternatives.”
Spoken like a true marketer. Only a sales person, firmly entrenched in American capitalism, would reduce a moral argument about rights to consumer choice.
That said, he’s got a point. Our goal of a vegan world is best achieved through multiple means, consumer marketing of veganism is one of those means. So yes, we should “sell” veganism through great tasting food. And, well, we do. Here are just a few of the wide array of excellent sources of great tasting vegan food:
- VeganMoFo – month of vegan food photos
- Vegan Foods – bought or homemade – photos
- Vegan Soapbox flickr pool
- Vivacsious Vegan – mostly food blogging, with some animal rights and personal spice mixed in
- Cafe Veg News – Daily lunch with the VegNews staff
- Vegan Chicks Rock – The trials and tribulations of an amateur vegan chef
- Vegan Improv – 50% gourmet, 50% street food, 100% vegan.
- The Vegan Place – vegan recipes, cookbook reviews, and convenience food
- Not Just Greens – unhealthy vegan (but it’s not really)
- vegan baking – flickr pool of vegan baked goods
- Vegan Photography – pics by vegans of vegan stuff, like food
- Love Like A Vegan – food photo blog (recipes too)
- Vegan Appetite – A Midwestern vegan who is passionate about cooking and loves sharing good food.
- Vegan Hacker – tips and tricks for vegan living
- Vegan Creations – crafty foods
- Vegan Feast Kitchen – The kitchen journal of a vegan food writer: ideas and recipes.
- Swell Vegan – personal vegan blog
- Vegan Feast Kitchen – The kitchen journal of a vegan food writer…ideas and recipes; culinary flights of fancy; opinions; passions; discoveries; and more. Weight Watchers’ points and WW Core Plan info included whenever possible!
- Vegan Store – all kinds of hard to find vegan items
- Alternative Vegan – Based solely on produce. You don’t have to buy expensive, fancy, hard-to-find ingredients to be vegan; the most interesting and tasty vegan food is just produce! Learn how to remove the fear from the kitchen, and do things on your own terms
- Vegan Health – Nutrition and other health issues for vegans
- Seitan Worshipper – SEITAN is G O O D
- Vegan Planet – vegan cookbook author shares recipes and insights
- Vegan Spoonful – vegetarian mother of 2 who shares delicious (and usually healthy) vegan recipes that her family enjoys
- Where’s The Revolution? – vegan food and animal rights
- Eat Peace Please – “The Adventures and Disasters of an Organic Vegan Kitchen” Based in Tempe, AZ.
- Eats Well With Others – a foodie who just happens to be vegan finds vegan meals at omni restuarants
- Food Fight – vegan grocery store
- Rabbit Food – cooking with bunnies, not cooking bunnies
- Naked Food Cafe – whole food, in its least processed form, both cooked and raw, almost exclusively veg
- Vegan Health – VeganHealth.org exists to: Help people make the transition to a plant-based diet, Provide accurate information about the known health benefits, Give specific nutritional recommendations.
- Veganize Me! – she veganizes her favorite recipes
- Vegan Vice – for Animals, Earth, Health & Happiness
- Hezbollah Tofu – proving Anthony Bourdain wrong
- Vegan Eats And Treats – As they say: Eating a vegan diet is healthy, delicious, compassionate, and friendly to the earth. What could be better than that?
- Veginity – one veg chef sharies his passion and knowledge of cooking awesome veggie dishes from around the world
- Two Vegan Sisters – vegan recipes and photos
- Vive Le Vegan – Vegan cooking pages of Dreena Burton, at-home mom of 2 kidlets and bestselling author of Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, Vive le Vegan! and The Everyday Vegan.
- Chocolate Covered Vegan – skinny vegan blogs about eating
- Bitter Sweet – the small sweet people and things in an otherwise bitter world
- Dinner with Dilip – vegan cooking photos and recipes
- Vegan Menu – examples of vegan foods
- Eat’n Veg’n – vegan food and recipes blog
- College Vegan – recipes, advice, and more
- Vegan Restaurant Guide – photo pool
- Veggie Stuff – another flickr pool of vegan and vegetarian foods and other things
- Vegans From Mars – Vegan Wine Guide
- A Vegan For Dinner – The everyday veg*n family daily eats. Their diet is 95% vegan, 5% vegetarian, 100% delicious!
- Veggie Brothers – mail order vegan food
- Sassy Vegan – food, fun, and other random thoughts
- Vegan Sweeties – vegan bakery in California
- Don’t Get Mad Get Vegan – helping to promote a healthy, happy, vegan lifestyle.
- Vegan Lunch Box – children’s vegan foods, pictures and recipes
- Tiny Vegan Kitchen – vegan videos, recipes, photos… fun stuff!
- Week Of Vegan – week’s worth of vegan foods
- Green Options – organic vegan eating made simple
- Just The Food – delicious and cruelty free
- Try Veg – Free vegetarian/ vegan starter kit and tons of information.
- Fueled By Popcorn – tasty looking food from Portland
- Nash Veggie – vegan food, restaurants, recipes, gardening and the occasional rant
- Ardent Vegan – vegan food, artwork and ramblings
- Wiki Vegan – communal vegan information site
- The Politics Of Food – Vegan mom with tips on cruelty-free living and baby raisin’!
- Live It Up Vegan – one family’s VEGANfantastic experiments and discoveries
- Cruelty Free Kitchen – food porn aplenty
- Vegani – food and pics
- Binge Cafe – Big talk. Food for the mouth and mind.
- Vegangelical – Shameless veganism in the spare-ribs South.
- But Did They Eat It? – Healthy, home-cooked, Mummy-made vegan food for a family
- Yeah That Vegan Shit – recipes that will make you scream
- Vegalicious – wide variety of meals that satisfy your taste as well as provide the nutrition that you need as a vegan
- Skint Vegan – One girl with a serious love of cake, trying to stretch the pennies…
- Seitan Is My Motor – This vegan food blog is about cakes and cookies, about recipes, about vegan cookbooks and everything else that has to do with food.
- Cheap, Lazy, & Hungry – Vegan cooking by a loud and idle teenager
- Adventures in (Vegan) Cooking – teen vegan cooks
- Veg Guide – a community-maintained, world-wide guide to vegetarian and vegan restaurants, grocers, and more.
- Don’t Eat Off The Sidewalk – intended to showcase vegan food
- Conscious Kitchen – a place where food is given a great deal of thought…a concerned, compassionate, active, engaged and reflective place, full of delicious food and free of animal products.
- Vegan Knitting – vegan cooking, vegan knitting, and vegan travel
- Eden in the Kitchen – Personal food and adventure blog. She says, “I am a child of God. I am also a wife, a writer, and a firm believer that we must live the changes that we wish to see in the world. I love the beauty of creation, and with all my heart I wish to care for it an
- Vegan Cooking – recipes ad recipe search
- Vegan Recipes Search – Find vegan recipes from a number of vegan recipe sites
What amuses me, and I’m simply assuming what responses you may receive (as Jen did with her post about how killing a sentient being for food isn’t a “choice” like any other), is how some people will completely ignore your perfectly reasonable argument and make their baseless claims again: “I have the right to eat whatever I want…Why do you care about my choice.”
Perhaps I’m wrong, but we’ve all heard that seriously juvenile response before.
~ Recent blog post: "They exist for our use" and so forth…. at http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg ~
Yes, we’ve all heard it before.
It still irks me, though. It shows an utter lack of understanding and a serious disrespect of what animal rights is all about. They discount the entire notion that animals don’t deserve to suffer or die for us.
Yet, if it weren’t animal rights, they probably wouldn’t care nearly as much. If I wore a t-shirt that said,
people would just laugh. I doubt anyone would be seriously offended or that anyone would say I was acting “morally superior.” But when I wear pro-animal t-shirts, like
some people get indignant and act like I just slapped them in the face, which is kind of funny, because no one forced them to look at my chest (or read this website).
However, the majority of people react positively when I wear pro-animal clothes. People often say, “Hey! I’m vegan, too!” or they say, “I like your shirt.” So, the tide is changing. I get much better responses these days than I did twenty years ago.
Sometimes I wear a t-shirt that says “Guilt-Free Vegan.” I wonder what people think when they read that
~ Recent blog post: "They exist for our use" and so forth…. at http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg ~
I agree with your point. As a teacher, I’m constantly frustrated by the “choice” argument- as if one’s “free choice” to do as s/he desires trumps every other argument. It’s an American affliction- we’re always bombarded by the message that we should do what we think is right, and for many, that’s the end of the decision-making process.
~ Recent blog post: 2 quick (and slightly crazy) tips at http://wherestherevolution.blogspot.com ~
I love the response:
But I just love to eat a steak every now and then — I could NEVER give that up!
I wish everyone had to kill their own meat if that’s what they wanted to eat! They need to face reality. So sad how people can just shrug off torture.