Those who make personal ethical consistency their main priority can find themselves caught in a spiral of paralyzing (and often unproductive) self-reflection. Unfortunately, this can also lead some to start policing other vegans with regards to everything ranging from their chosen method of advocacy to their decisions on where they draw the line regarding unavoidable animal byproducts. Of course “unavoidable” is a subjective term. As most vegans are well aware, animal byproducts are used in a multitude of everyday, common items – ranging from drywall and refrigeration, to books, magazines, printed labels and printer toners, to car tires, film, fertilizers, sugar, and even municipal water.

I trust that vegans will avoid all obvious animal products and that we will each do our individual best to avoid byproducts, hidden ingredients, manufacturing processes that utilize animal byproducts and so on. But we all draw the line somewhere…and it’s unlikely that everyone will draw the line in the same place. So, does it make sense to spend time critiquing and judging one another? Is a vegan who has decided (arbitrarily? conveniently?) that it’s acceptable to purchase magazines (which are often coated with gelatin) but quizzes waiters about the manufacturing process of the sugar contained in their ketchup somehow “more vegan” than someone who does the reverse? It’s easy to see how this can quickly devolve into a contest of personal virtue – and an unproductive focus on the self.

Tragically, we live in a culture built upon the exploitation and use of animals, and as a result, it’s next to impossible to live without using some product or service that has ties to animal exploitation to some degree. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to avoid what we can? Of course not. But let’s just not lose focus of what really matters.

I recently read All On Fire, a biography of William Lloyd Garrison. I found myself thinking how grateful I am that anti-slavery activists didn’t get sidetracked by judging one another and obsessing over which of their suits were made of cotton picked by slaves, or whether the chairs they sat on, or pulpits they spoke from were made from wood chopped by slave labor. I’m glad they didn’t refuse to travel to give speeches and spread the abolitionist message because of the racist policies of trains and ships. And that their meetings focused on how to end slavery and did not devolve into a worry-fest over the origins of their pens and ink. I can only imagine what an impediment that would have made to their progress!

Did their lack of focus on those matters make them less “ethically-consistent”? Possibly. But thankfully personal ethical consistency wasn’t their goal. Thankfully they kept their attention focused on what really mattered: the abolition of slavery.

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Written by Jo Tyler. Crossposted at http://www.thisveganlife.org/vegan-inreach-or-vegan-outreach-0

In remarking about how

“even hunters try to justify their killing of animals with reasons,”

as opposed to

“I hunt because I like to kill. I take great pleasure in shooting animals with high-powered rifles or better yet with high-powered crossbows so that I can watch them die a painful, agonizing death,”

Mylan Engel Jr. takes one such “reason” to its logical conclusion.

The defense goes:

“If we don’t cull the deer herd, there will be massive starvation of deer come winter, so we are doing the deer a favor by providing them a quick death (assuming accurate shooting, which one really shouldn’t assume!) rather than a slow death from starvation.”

Arguing from this same premise, Engel concludes:

[Compassion like that almost makes one think that we should start shooting the 1 billion humans on the brink of starvation to provide them quick and relatively painless deaths rather than slow protracted ones.]

I would argue that, logically, Engel’s conclusion is a necessary one on this kind of reasoning.

Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl

It’s a matter of definition.

The Eccentric Vegan offers a video of a person reading the wikipedia definition. (Watch it)

Wikipedia says, in part:

Veganism is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans do not use or consume animal products of any kind.

and

The British Vegan Society defines veganism in this way:

[T]he word “veganism” denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.

Notice in both definitions the words “seeks to exclude”. This because it is impossible to assure that everything you eat, everything you wear, every part of how you live is completely free of cruelty to animals. The tires on your car – or your bike – were probably created with the assistance of animal by-products. The organic food you eat might well involve the deaths of many little insects. The materials used to build your home may include some products that involved the use of animal products in their production.

I think it’s useful to remember the definition and to point it out the next time someone accuses you of somehow being “inconsistent” in your veganism. You may be somewhat loose, as I am, allowing some non-vegan foods to creep in when you eat out. You may be as strict as you know how to be, “keeping vegan” as others keep kosher. No matter where you fall on that vegan line you aren’t perfect, because there is no such thing. And that imperfection is in the definition.