I can’t completely wrap my head around what Erik Marcus is trying to say here. He directs you to a post by Seth Godin, where Seth says “The egg is a standard manufactured egg, created in quantity by drugged chickens in prison,” (emphasis added) and then Marcus comments:

“Notice how thoroughly Seth Godin trashes factory farming without ever coming across as some holier-than-thou vegan. I think that for many meat-eaters, indirect arguments like this are non-threatening and enormously persuasive. And no matter how passionately you believe in veganism, it’s worth understanding the utility an indirect approach can offer.”

Well duh, Sherlock! Seth Godin is NOT a vegan, so even if he used a shaming, holier-than-thou approach, he’s still not a vegan and won’t be called a “holier-than-thou vegan.” It’s that simple.

That is, unless he’s lying about eating eggs, in which case, is the lesson from Marcus supposed to be that vegans should lie!?! Should we pretend that we eat animals in order to make meat-eaters feel less threatened by us? Should we avoid the word “vegan” like Godin does? Should we pretend that veganism is not a viable alternative to factory farming?

Godin says: “If I make an egg at home, I’ll use a free range egg from the farmer’s market, which I’ll happily pay 39 cents for. This egg tastes like an egg, and the extra money pays for a local farmer and a (slightly) happier chicken.”

So, is this indirect, nonthreatening approach we’re supposed to take actually a promotion of happy meat? Because that’s what it seems like. Now I’m no Francione groupie – in fact I find some of his ideas repulsive (like the sexist and elitist ones) – but he’s got a point. When it comes to vegan education, we shouldn’t be promoting happy meat. Yeah, that’s what Seth is doing.

Godin’s post is presenting a false dichotomy between factory farmed eggs and so-called free range eggs as if those are the only options. It would be one thing if he presented the full spectrum of options, including veganism – even implicitly, and offered the information so that consumers could make a better informed free choice. But that’s not what he does. He offers two options and encourages the reader to choose one. It’s funny that Marcus called Godin’s approach “indirect” because that’s the furthest from the truth. It’s a direct approach to happy meat promotion, not an indirect approach to veganism. An “indirect” approach would imply the option of veganism. And a useful, indirect approach for veganism would, uh probably, just maybe, come from a VEGAN!

So, yeah, I can agree with the statement that “no matter how passionately you believe in veganism, it’s worth understanding the utility an indirect approach can offer,” because that can be effective. (And that’s my motivation behind encouraging non-vegans to see Food, Inc. because the factory farming and slaughterhouse images are an indirect promotion of veganism.) But is Godin’s promotion of free-range eggs a good example of an indirect, nonthreatening approach to vegan promotion? The answer is clearly NO. Better examples:

• Eats Well With Others
• Living Without Meat
• BitterSweet
• Don’t Get Mad, Get Vegan

And while we’re at it, if we’re going to “trash factory farming,” we can do a lot better than simply calling them “prisons.” I mean, geez! Even Jon Stewart did better. He called factory farms “Abu Ghraib.” Because yeah, factory farms aren’t just prisons, they’re torture chambers.

We can do better. We can show people factory farm footage:

So sorry if that’s too direct and too holier-than-thou and too [insert stupid excuse that people who like to eat animals will use to reject veganism]. But this is Vegan Soapbox, not Make-The-MeatEaters-Feel-Less-Guilty-Box.

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Sections: Vegan Activism, Vegan Resources, Vegan Theory
Topics: activism, blogging, cage-free, chickens, eggs, erik marcus, factory farming, food inc, free range, humane, Meet Your Meat, seth godin, Theory, Vegan