We Are All Guillermo Vargas
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- Carl Lewis is “one of the most prolific Olympic track and field athletes in U.S. history; Lewis has won 10 Olympic medals (9 Gold, 1 Silver).”
- Kenneth Williams and Mike Mahler are both professional body builders.
- Katie Fitzgibbon is a marathon runner.
- Robert Millar is a professional cyclist.
- Brendan Brazier is a professional triathlete (i.e., Ironman) “and the 2003, 50 km Ultra Marathon National Champion.”
- Hank Aaron is a Hall of Fame inductee, and former major league baseball All-time Home Run Champion.
- Donnie LaLonde is the Former Light Heavyweight Champion Of The World (professional boxing).
- Martina Navratilova is a retired tennis champion.
- Mac Danzig is a professional mixed-martial artist in the U.F.C.
Each of the aforementioned individuals have two things in common:
- They are currently (or once were) athletes at the top of their respective fields, and
- They are all vegans/vegetarians.
Many people argue that they eat meat because it satisfies a human need: the human body requires those nutrients, vitamins, protein, etc. found in meat products alone. I have listed but a few of those individuals who have found great success in various professional sports because of their physical capacities (e.g., strength, endurance, ability to recover, flexibility). Yes, one’s will or desire to persevere aids in making an athlete successful, however, nobody can argue that keeping your body in peak physical condition isn’t a necessary requirement.
A growing body of evidence, which seems to find some support in the lives of the above stated professional athletes, suggests that a vegan or vegetarian diet is in fact healthier than a diet of “meat & potatoes.” It would seem that all those essential things “found in meat products alone” can also found elsewhere.
Finally, just think about your own lives and the lives of other carnivores you know: How healthy do you believe you and they are, really? It’s not the vegan/vegetarian population with the exceedingly high rates of diabetes, hypertension, clogged arteries, heart attacks, obesity, etc.
With this knowledge, is it still reasonable to argue that consuming meat is satisfying an essential human need? The truth is, you eat meat to satisfy a desire or a want, nothing more. As people have so succinctly put it, “I just like meat.”
I ask this question then: What is the difference between you consuming meat because it satisfies your desire to taste charred body parts (e.g., steaks, hamburgers, chicken) – there is no real human need to eat these things – and those individuals who prod a kitten with a hot iron because it satisfies a desire to see the kitten suffer? Both are desires, not needs, and both are trivial reasons for acting; trivial reasons that suffer unspeakable harms on another being capable of feeling it all.
Gary Francione argues that “we are all Michael Vick.” Meaning, we all abuse animals, in some form or another, for trivial reasons such as the satisfaction of the desire to wear leather. The following post provides a tangible example of Francione’s argument:
Maybe I shouldn’t have slept through art class
“A friend sent me this link today, and I was blown away. No matter how many times I see people being cruel, how many times I think there’s no way in hell something can surprise me, someone does something stupid like KILL a dog for an art installation. Yeah, you heard me. Some out-of-his-mind ‘artist’ woke up one morning and thought – today? Today I think I’ll tie up a dog and not feed it, charge admission and CALL IT ART instead of shooting myself in my worthless head. This is not art, unless we changed the definition of art to murder and I didn’t get the memo.”
While reading this post we may find ourselves outraged, disgusted, angry, etc. – at least those with a conscience will be affected anyways. However, we won’t recognize the irony in criticizing the artist and the observers for torturing this dog for a seemingly trivial reason (“art”) while we will have eaten something with an animal part or animal excrement in it today, perhaps at the very moment we’re reading the authors post. We won’t see the hypocrisy in judging these individuals while we are wearing an article of clothing that was made from an animals body part.
We are all Guillermo Vargas.
Crossposted at That Vegan Girl.
Yes, we are all Micheal Vick or Guillermo Vargas in that most of us have done something that contributes to animal suffering. Either by eating meat, eating dairy or eggs, wearing fur or leather…
I’ve been vegetarian since I was six years old. But I wasn’t vegan. I participated in cruelty to animals by drinking milk, eating cheese and ice cream, eating eggs. And I also went through a period when I wore some leather items. I had a few belts and shoes with leather.
And as a driver, I’ve hit two animals. One was a deer who leaped into the rear of my car as I was driving. The deer ran off, perhaps slightly injured or perhaps terribly injured, who knows? Another was a pet dog who ran out in front of me and I accidentally killed him with my car. That was the absolute worst. I wan an emotional wreck for a while after that.
Why am I recounting these stories? For two reasons:
1. To recognize my complicity in animal cruelty when I was merely a vegetarian and not a vegan.
2. To recognize that we are only human and can do as best as we can. Even 100% vegans can’t always avoid causing pain. Our goal is to reduce human interference with animals as much as possible.
As Gandhi said, be the change you wish to see.
Agreed Eccentric Vegan. I often myself thinking quite negatively about my past enthusiastic exploitation of animals and it truly makes me feel terrible. Yes, I was young, socialized, “a product,” but I was blissfully ignorant; I was acquainted with many vegans and vegetarians and yet I refused to think beyond my own satisfaction. I was a tragic mistake of our culture.
Ethics, or an “ideal,” is like a yardstick: it can be employed to measure how far we have gone and just how far we have to go. Aristotle refers to this in his thought experiment about the archer who has a mark to aim at…”he will be more likely to hit his target” – I think he is on to something there. I only wish I had this yardstick earlier.
Alex’s last blog post..I’d completely abase myself, but I’m not that kind of girl.
Can’t argue with that. I do count myself among the obese vegans, few of us though there may be. But I’m not a vegan for health reasons primarily. If I were then I would likely have gone back to omnivorism long ago.
When I hear protests by omnivores against the practice of killing and eating dogs (a delicacy in some places) I want to tear my hair out, but at the same time I have to consider that this is a step. Some people don’t even care about dogs being mistreated (ie Michael Vick before his transformation). So I join them. Later some of those folks are going to realize that other animals are not so much different from dogs.
I agree with all of the above sentiments–cruelty to cows, pigs, and other “food” animals is no different than cruelty to “pet” animals. I’m not doing this to play devil’s advocate, but I did just want to link an article discrediting the allegations that Vargas starved a dog to death for his exhibit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Vargas. I know, wikipedia can be iffy, but I have seen reports elsewhere that this was blown out of proportion. However, it does still indicate that the dog was starving and “escaped”, making me wonder how much the Humane Society really was involved…anyways, it’s worth a read.
I had to endure a conversation at dinner with my meat-eating friends in which one asked what kind of meat the gyros contained. I said lamb, and he looked really repulsed, then said, “I can’t eat a baby animal! At least let them have a life before they’re killed…” I couldn’t believe it! He then proceeded to convince himself that since it was dining hall food, it couldn’t be real lamb, and ate it anyways!
Jen’s original article mentions some of the rumors surrounding Mr. Vargas and his actions. However, after looking into this issue I believe that the bulk of the evidence suggests that Mr. Vargas did indeed tether the animal as an exhibition piece – the end seems to be a moot point, although I am convinced that the dog did in fact die.
Jen’s last blog post..From the back of my coffee mug.
That last comment was from me, Alex, not Jen. Sorry for the confusion…
Alex’s last blog post..From the back of my coffee mug.
By the way, Wayne Pacelle wrote about Vargas here:
http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2008/04/street-dog-art.html
He said, “We cannot turn our gaze from this terrible problem throughout the world. And when we do focus on the problem, we must turn our anger into action, and select the right targets. Let’s pivot from Vargas and focus on the ongoing cruelty, rather than seek retribution.” yet he didn’t suggest to his readers that they make the leap from dog as companion animal to pigs or cows as food. He didn’t recommend veganism.
His readers responded with a variety of thoughts:
http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2008/05/dog-art-exhibit.html
but still none mentioned veganism. So I left this comment there:
“I’m surprised none of the responses you chose to post made the connection between animals as art and animals as food. Neither use of animals is necessary. Both uses of animals cause suffering. If we should take Mr. Vargas’s actions as a pivot-point, let it be to engage in fewer unnecessary cruelties in our own lives. Go vegan!”
It’s odd that none mention veganism. It is so clearly the logical result of our outrage over Mr. Vargas.
Alexs last blog post..In memory of Frodo Baggins. Stupid name, lovely horse.
i eat meat, i came across this site because of my outrage at reading about Guillermo Vargas. I am appalled that sensible people who make a life choice such as vegans can say something so stupid as we are like the aforementioned “artist”. What he does is cruelty. But while reading the blog I have to comment on one part, i choose to satisfy my desire of eating meat, exactly the same as you choose to satisfy your desire not to eat meat, i dont preach to you about how you live your lives and i dont think you should preach to others, i dont think any less of you because of your choice, even though it differs from mine.
Darren, thanks for your comment!
Notice that you do not have to eat meat to be healthy, evidence and common sense would support this claim; therefore, animals must unnecessarily suffer and die to satisfy your desire to eat meat – unnecessary because consuming flesh is a choice not a need. “We are all Mr. Vargas” because like him, we prefer to exploit these animals in these ways – there is no need. As you said, you have a desire that you want fulfilled; ergo, an animal must be forced to suffer extreme cruelty and neglect to satisfy your desire. This is analogous to Mr. Vargas and his desire to “make art.” His act of cruelty, however, makes us feel uncomfortable while killing an animal simply to please our palate doesn’t.
Finally, I do indeed have a desire to eat meat – some meat taste’s good! However, this simple desire ought to not trump another animal’s interest in living a life free of suffering, pain, and untimely death. I “preach” to you because this is a matter of justice: would you call anti-racist discourses “preachy”? Animals can reasonably be considered possessors of inherent value and those correlative moral rights that accompany such value. We violate these rights for such trivial reasons as your “desire to eat meat,” therefore I have a duty, as a matter of justice, to explain to you why we are all morally wrong – we are all Mr. Vargas.
I do appreciate your participation and I applaud your willingness to have a conversation.
I am badly impressed about this action, made by Varges. Is he a God, which can take and give live? He noticed that all his actions was pointed only for protecting animals, because he wants to show the problem with homeless pets. He is a big liar, after this show a lot of people all over the world argued him for it, but he find a good way to clean his name with the help of lies.
I am a big fan of art. It help us humans develop us, to find every time something more and more, showing us that we do not have any limits, but this…….. I do not want to use bad words.
killing for sport or how you say “art” is disgusting. there was no need for this. poor dog tied to a rope for his final remaining days and for what? a few pictures?
if you hit a deer while your driving it is usually unintentional. you dont mean to do it and if you could youd probably avoid hitting that deer.
but i have a 6 month old puppy and a part of me died inside when i saw this dog. my pup was brutally attacked by a 10 year old kid with a hatchet. he barely made it out with his life. i nursed him back to health, and now he is more loyal than any friend i will ever have. that. my friends is what i call art.