So, you're a vegan. You reckon you're doing the world and a bunch of defenseless animals a favour by not eating them. It makes you feel good about yourself. You feel... enlightened... and righteous. You have many reasons for being a vegan which you recite to yourself daily. You have developed strong arguments for why you're a vegan and why other people are evil for not being vegan. Or maybe you tell yourself that everyone has the right to choose.
The most common reason I have heard for someone being a vegan is that that person would like to cause as little harm as possible in life - but that's just plain hypocrisy. Being a person who eats meat or not is negligible. Wearing leather or not is negligible. Driving a car or not is negligible. Using energy saving lights at home is negligible. The problem is MUCH BIGGER than these little things we have been conned into believing will make a difference.
Simply by accepting the system in full or in part makes one responsible for every hurt that every being experiences within the system. Accepting any aspect of needing money to live is accepting the meat industry, cash crops, fur trade, slave labour - anything in which money is involved in, anything that any person profits from.
How does one know that the plants and seeds and fruits being eaten instead of meat don't feel themselves being steamed alive, or chewed on, or digested by stomach acids? Does anyone even bother trying to communicate with them?
It's easy to justify ourselves and the way we live. "I am making an effort to make a difference, however small the difference may be, at least I am trying." All we are actually doing here is making ourselves feel better when we have actually done nothing that will make any difference. Anything short of demanding a new system that honours all life is a scam - a scam you sell to yourself to be able to sleep at night. Anything short of shouting to the world in every way available that our system is and always has been irreparably broken is not enough.
What good is being a vegan when most people can't afford to not eat meat? What good is being a vegan when people are forced to slaughter their entire herd because of a drought. What good is being a vegan when billions live in poverty and malnourishment AT THE SAME TIME as one third of the edible food in the world being THROWN AWAY (because one can no longer profit from it).
So then you ask: What is the moral of this particular story? WE have created a system driven by profit which has then in turn created a breeding ground for all kinds of abuses for the sake of money. Without changing this system and creating something supportive and sustainable for all, being a vegan is just another status symbol, another badge to wear to show and declare to the world that you are a good person.
This little rant is based on a youtube video I saw by a girl debunking one kind of justification system commonly used only to turn around and use another to justify to herself how being a vegan makes a difference.
You want to make a real difference? Become part of a global solution plan - not just a personal guilt soothing plan. Make an effort to change the entire system for the betterment of all life. Demand a system wherein one is guaranteed their right to a dignified life and where we show respect and dignity to others. Give up your personal fantasies for a "special" life to create a new kind of life where money does not define who we are and the lives we will lead.
Most importantly, educate yourself about how this system works and how our inaction is allowing the abuse to continue. Use common sense to discern between bullshit and fact.
Investigate an Equal Money System www.equalmoney.org
Support the Equal Life Foundation www.equallife.org (website under construction)
The most common reason I have heard for someone being a vegan is that that person would like to cause as little harm as possible in life - but that's just plain hypocrisy. Being a person who eats meat or not is negligible. Wearing leather or not is negligible. Driving a car or not is negligible. Using energy saving lights at home is negligible. The problem is MUCH BIGGER than these little things we have been conned into believing will make a difference.
Simply by accepting the system in full or in part makes one responsible for every hurt that every being experiences within the system. Accepting any aspect of needing money to live is accepting the meat industry, cash crops, fur trade, slave labour - anything in which money is involved in, anything that any person profits from.How does one know that the plants and seeds and fruits being eaten instead of meat don't feel themselves being steamed alive, or chewed on, or digested by stomach acids? Does anyone even bother trying to communicate with them?
It's easy to justify ourselves and the way we live. "I am making an effort to make a difference, however small the difference may be, at least I am trying." All we are actually doing here is making ourselves feel better when we have actually done nothing that will make any difference. Anything short of demanding a new system that honours all life is a scam - a scam you sell to yourself to be able to sleep at night. Anything short of shouting to the world in every way available that our system is and always has been irreparably broken is not enough.
What good is being a vegan when most people can't afford to not eat meat? What good is being a vegan when people are forced to slaughter their entire herd because of a drought. What good is being a vegan when billions live in poverty and malnourishment AT THE SAME TIME as one third of the edible food in the world being THROWN AWAY (because one can no longer profit from it).
So then you ask: What is the moral of this particular story? WE have created a system driven by profit which has then in turn created a breeding ground for all kinds of abuses for the sake of money. Without changing this system and creating something supportive and sustainable for all, being a vegan is just another status symbol, another badge to wear to show and declare to the world that you are a good person.
This little rant is based on a youtube video I saw by a girl debunking one kind of justification system commonly used only to turn around and use another to justify to herself how being a vegan makes a difference.You want to make a real difference? Become part of a global solution plan - not just a personal guilt soothing plan. Make an effort to change the entire system for the betterment of all life. Demand a system wherein one is guaranteed their right to a dignified life and where we show respect and dignity to others. Give up your personal fantasies for a "special" life to create a new kind of life where money does not define who we are and the lives we will lead.
Most importantly, educate yourself about how this system works and how our inaction is allowing the abuse to continue. Use common sense to discern between bullshit and fact.
Investigate an Equal Money System www.equalmoney.org
Support the Equal Life Foundation www.equallife.org (website under construction)
I agree. But it doesnt mean we should just go and do all those things simply because, it wont change everything in the world. Because would you go to a bull fight if collegues invite you? Or horse racing?
ReplyDeleteOr eat horse meat?
For xample turning of the light in the house or not wasting water etc.. can be an act of taking the environment into consideration and not unescesarry fucking with nature, even when it doesnt immediatly change the whole system. All the small changes already give a signal tot he system in totality.
I totally agree with your basic point, but not all vegans live in a self-righteous microcosm. Changing your own destructive habits is the first step towards recognising the evils of the system that taught you these habits in the first place. At its heart, veganism demands exactly the kind of system you've outlined: Respect for all forms life, human or animal, and minimisation of violence to the absolutely necessary.
ReplyDeleteAs regards plants: It's a common argument, but there is little evidence to suggest that the plants we eat feel pain or have any kind of consciousness remotely comparable to humans and animals. Pain is an evolutionary device to warn the body of danger, and to a stationary body like a plant with no means of self-defense, pain is useless. And it's doubly useless if it's invisible to the aggressor. An animal will defend him or herself if attacked and will struggle violently to avoid his or her death, to register protest with the aggressor, in the hope of staving off the attack or receiving mercy. That's why to me, logically and empirically, eating plants means inflicting a lot less violence and pain than eating animals.
I really agree with the above comments. I think getting energy saving lightbulbs is common sense because they last longer. I think driving a car can be dangerous and a good way to get lazy and waste a bunch of money while polluting the air for fellow pedestrians. I think we were born vegans and that eating a fruit and vegetable diet is the most optimal diet you will find, so why not?
ReplyDelete