Speciesism and the Silencing of Vegans

Yesterday, I wrote a critique of Emily Weingarten's shaming of out-of-the-closet and vocal vegans at the AnnArbor.com website ("We're vegans, not freaks"). This morning, I left a comment in response to her article:

Hi Emily. I just wanted to point out a couple of things that concern me about your article.

You write that to get respect, vegans need to "be able to eloquently state their reasons for being vegan and to be consistent in their diet and lifestyle." Then in your subsequent points, you imply that vegans shouldn't discuss their veganism with non-vegans unless they're actually approached by them, lest they offend them ("What we can do is support the people who are interested in learning more about vegan lifestyle and possibly becoming vegan without alienating ourselves by projecting our vegan philosophies on others who may not be interested at all.") and that vegans should be morally inconsistent by eating animal products when offered, lest they offend non-vegans. So which is it? Should vegans "eloquently state their reasons" or should we shut up about our reasons, lest we "project [our] vegan philosophies on others"? Should we be "consistent" or should we be willing to display to people (as you suggest we should) that politeness trumps honesty, integrity in our moral choices?

By definition, vegans refrain (to the full extent they can knowingly do so) from consuming and otherwise using nonhuman animals and their secretions / products. You state in your piece that "being vegan" might lead someone to consider stopping to wear "leather, wool, and silk". There's no "might", though. Being vegan actually entails not wearing lather, wool and silk since they're all animal products. In writing that that you choose to knowingly eat animal products when friends and family offer them to you and chiding other vegans, stating that it's the correct thing to for them to do, you're basically stating that you're not vegan and that other vegans shouldn't be, either. Or you're trying to redefine "veganism" as something that somehow involves the deliberate consumption of animal products, which by definition, it doesn't.

You seem to go to great length in your article to convey to vegans that they should keep their veganism to themselves--to not talk about it unless approached to do so and to toss their ethics aside when faced with having to refuse vegan products lest they hurt others' feelings and come off as judgmental, but the truth is that in your article, you're actually shaming and judging vegans--for being openly, honestly and consistency vegan.

http://my-face-is-on-fire.blogspot.com/2010/03/no-emily-veganism-isnt-just-about-you.html

Weingarten responded, basically repeating the same points with which I'd taken issue in my comment, while at the same time denying that it had been her intention to make those points:

Thanks, everyone, for your comments thus far. To address Mylene's comment, I'd never suggest vegans to be embarrassed of their lifestyle choices or be "in the closet," as you say in your blog. My intended message here is that no one wants to hear vegans project their views on others or pass judgments about non-vegans, just as vegans don't want meat eaters or vegetarians criticizing their choices. Certainly, it's important for vegans to be as consistent as possible in their lifestyle choices, from food to clothing and personal care products. As vegans, we need to understand that we are a minority and getting respect is all about giving it.

So, figuring that she'd either misunderstood or misread either what I'd stated in my comment or in my blog post about her opinion piece, I gave in and offered up clarification of what it was about her opinion piece I found disconcerting:

Thanks for responding, Emily.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you were implying that vegans should be "embarrassed" of their lifestyle choices; I did, however, mean to express that you you seemed to be shaming and judging vegans who choose to communicate honestly and openly with non-vegans about their lifestyle choices and the reasons for them. You make it clear even now in your response that vegans should keep their reasons for being vegan (and thus, their opinions about the ethics of consuming or otherwise exploiting nonhuman animals) to themselves when you write that your "intended message here is that no one wants to hear vegans project their views on others or pass judgments about non-vegans".

Basically, you're saying that no one wants to hear why anyone who is vegan chooses to be vegan, particularly if that explanation involves telling non-vegans why it's immoral to treat other sentient animals as things. Between that and telling vegans in your article that if they're offered food that contains animals body parts or secretions that they should buck up and eat it, you make it fairly clear that vegans should not let on in any way whatsoever either *that* they are or *why* they are vegan around non-vegans--unless they're asked by someone who somehow manages to guess that they're vegan in the first place. Because that would just be disrespectful?

What if your article had been another ethical scenario? Take child abuse, for instance. If you were against child abuse and yourself refrained from abusing children, would you lecture other people who are against child abuse and who refrain from abusing children, telling them that they should keep their opinions to themselves since they shouldn't project their "anti-child abuse philosophies" at others around them who do choose to keep abusing children? Of course not. Would you suggest to someone who is against child abuse and who refrains from abusing children that if he or she was offered a child to slap around a little that he or she should do it, lest he or she hurt the feelings of the person who offered up the child?

As vegans, we are indeed a minority. This is why we need to be open and honest about the ethics of using other sentient animals as things. We shouldn't be shaming each other into silence about it. Furthermore, to normalize it and bring an understanding and acceptance of it into the mainstream, every opportunity that can be taken in good faith and with patience to educate others about animal exploitation should be taken. It's not a "personal" choice. For many, veganism is a response to a deeply entrenched speciesism in society that needs to be altered as soon as possible. This speciesism is is no different from racism, sexism or heterosexism and we should be as open and honest about our rejection of it as we are about our rejection of other forms of discrimination or exploitation that involve sentient animals.

A few hours later, I received an email from Stephanie Murray, AnnArbor.com's Community Director, informing me that my second comment had been removed:

Good afternoon,

I’ve removed the following comment from AnnArbor.com for the comparison between Emily Weingarten’s article and child abuse. This is not a fair comparison takes the conversation off-topic. You are welcome to remove that reference and repost.

Thanks,

Stefanie Murray
Community Director, AnnArbor.com
StefanieMurray@AnnArbor.com

And on the website, in the comments thread was a message from Paula Gardner (listed as AnnArbor.com staff) stating: "A comment was removed due to a personal attack."

So on one hand, looking for answers and clarification by unravelling the multiple layers of a writer's confused and contradictory statements was apparently unfair and took the conversation "off-topic". On the other hand, attempting to defend vegans against Weingarten's attempt to shame them into silence with her opinion piece somehow ended up labeled a "personal attack". And why? Because it was deemed absolutely audacious and unacceptable to draw a comparison between the exploitation or abuse of human children and that of nonhuman animals.

This, my friends, is speciesism.

(Edited at 5:00 pm AST to add: An anti-vegan commentator posted in response to Weingarten's piece mentioning that his or her comment may have been construed as a "personal attack", so it seems that it's possible that I've only been deemed guilty of "going off-topic" by trying to get a straight answer out of Weingarten. Since being on-topic is deemed off-topic, however, I've decided to refrain from commenting further on Weingarten's piece, lest I waste my time and merely end up having yet another comment removed. Thanks for reading!)

No Emily, Veganism Isn't Just About You or Me

A self-described vegan called Emily Weingarten wrote a fairly negative review of Bob and Jenna Torres' Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World for the AnnArbour.com website yesterday ("We're vegans, not freaks"). I admit (with a small amount of embarrassment) that I have not yet read the book. It's been on my "must read" list since I first stumbled across their Vegan Freak Radio podcast a few years back. The podcast was where I first learned about abolitionist animal rights and Bob and Jenna were the first two vegans I'd ever heard discussing veganism as anything other than a "personal choice". I had spent years wandering about in various online vegetarian communities where vegans were often labeled "extremists" and where vegans having the audacity to talk about veganism were often chided for hurting others' feelings by suggesting (or even rudely asserting) that consuming dairy or eggs or using any other animal product was wrong. Hearing Bob and Jenna's podcast was a relief; Bob and Jenna's were the first two voices I'd ever heard presenting veganism as the absolute least we can do if we're serious about the rights and interests of nonhuman animals, and they did so in this matter-of-fact way that made veganism sound normal and the consumption and use of nonhuman animals sound extremist.

Their podcast also led me to the serious and earnest study of Prof. Gary Francione's writings and of his abolitionist approach to animal rights, which has the sort of clarity that left me sorry I hadn't had it pointed out to me sooner, so that I wouldn't have wasted years fooling myself into thinking I was doing enough for animals. (It's kind of funny and completely coincidental, actually, that with the exception of a brief mention of my interest in Prof. Francione's work a few months beforehand, my first actual post discussing it in any way was almost exactly two years ago.)

So why am I writing about a review of a book by a couple whose advocacy literally changed my life, when I haven't in fact read it? It's not so much what Weingarten said about the book itself that I want to address, as much as what she makes obvious feeds into what she's said. Before she dives into that, Weingarten says of the Torres' book that

Vegan Freak is a sort of vegan manifesto in which the authors [...] attempt to instill vigor and commitment into already-vegans and inspire non-vegans to take on the lifestyle. There isn’t anything wrong with this. Sometimes the only way for vegans to get respect is to be able to eloquently state their reasons for being vegan and to be consistent in their diet and lifestyle.

After what to many might sound a fair and reasonable statement, Weingarten continues, throwing in the "however" which is the raison d'être for her entire piece: "Inspiring others to be vegan is OK, so long as it doesn’t go too far." What could she mean by "too far"? She provides one example of it in pretty explicit detail when she states that it's not her intention to focus on that particular example of it:

I don’t want to write a blog entry criticizing Vegan Freak because the authors spend so much time criticizing anyone who is not vegan and using a variety of other negative tones such as cursing profusely and making bad sexual jokes.

Now, I don't want to write a blog post criticizing Weingarten for criticizing Vegan Freak's authors for engaging in what she views as their unacceptable behaviour or delivery, partially because she cites no specific examples of it (and I haven't read the book). Most importantly, though, since I haven't read the book and since humour and tone are such subjective things I could get lost in trying to deconstruct what she means by "criticizing anyone who is not vegan" and discussing the thousands of increments between words like "tasteful" and "prudish" that would come up in discussing language use and sexual references. Instead, I want to focus on the remainder of Weingarten's review, which isn't so much a review of the book, as it is a lecture on appropriate behaviour for vegans--her own "manifesto" of sorts.

Weingarten writes, first, that "[a]ny reasons for being vegan are great, so long as they are motivated by a desire to create some sort of positive change." I sort of agree with that. I mean, environmental and health factors are certainly valid motivators to go vegan, for a variety of complex reasons. She writes this, however, as if wanting to criticize the Torres' focus on what is ultimately the most important reason anyone should have to stop using nonhuman animals--the basic immorality of using them at all. It's a tiny shaming, really, that could be overlooked if not for the fact that it becomes a recurring theme in her piece. She goes on to emphasize the "green" factor further in a second point by making the mistake of creating a false dichotomy, asserting that "[e]nvironmental vegans are just as valuable as ethical vegans". As seen in a recent essay on the Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website, it's not an either/or situation ("Veganism: Morality, Health, and the Environment"). For further reading on veganism, animal rights and environmentalism, do check out Vincent Guihan's essay from last August on his We Other Animals blog ("I would throw 1000 ancient redwoods out of the lifeboat to save one kitten! It's not because I'm bad; it's because plants aren't sentient").

Weingarten really goes downhill from there. Her third point is "Veganism is about you", and in it--never mind the wrongheaded title of the point itself--she makes two errors. The first is that she more or less contradicts a statement made in her first point, where she asserted that one's reasons to go vegan should not be selfish ones--that they should not be "vain". In explaining her third point, she writes about veganism being about making yourself feel better and reassures her readers that "[i]t’s OK to be proud of yourself for making these personal choices". So... it both should and shouldn't be about patting yourself on the back. Her second error involves trying to redefine "veganism" to include the option of deliberately choosing to use animal products; if you have any doubt of how "personal" she feels these "choices" are, note this particularly confusing statement:

Being vegan might also make you consider how the clothes you wear make you feel, and you might stop wearing leather, wool, and silk.

I'd like to think that Weingarten slipped and actually knows that "being vegan" means that you don't wear leather, wool and silk--not just that "you might stop wearing" them. Maybe her slip-up was due to the fact that those words were mostly filler leading up to the bona fide punch of her point (i.e. another otherwise easily overlooked tiny shaming of the Torres' or of other vocal vegans that just adds to the small pile that is her recurring finger-wagging theme) where Weingarten reminds vegans to act with "modesty and humility around non-vegans". (Disapointingly, though, Weingarten does indeed go on to further illustrate her confusion about what is meant by "veganism" a bit later in the piece.)

Weingarten's issues with vocal vegans who choose to educate others about veganism become even more apparent as she goes on to explain that since the "whole world isn't going to stop eating meat" and we "cannot expect our entire society to adopt a vegan lifestyle when meat and dairy are central components of most Americans’ diets", we apparently need to 1) manage our expectations of others' behaviour and (hey, since everybody else is doing it anyway, and we don't want to look like unreasonable extremist "freaks" or anything) 2) change our own behaviour to better adapt to the expectations of others that we be more like them when it comes either consuming or not consuming animal products. Weingarten's opinion of vegan advocacy is summed up when she says:

What we can do is support the people who are interested in learning more about vegan lifestyle and possibly becoming vegan without alienating ourselves by projecting our vegan philosophies on others who may not be interested at all.

Let me translate: Go be vegan in the world and if someone happens to notice and to express curiosity about it, great, but otherwise, shut your pie-hole about it, because telling people that using animals is wrong is preachy and rude. Have any doubts about Weingarten's opinion being that avoiding being rude to your fellow humans trumps the rights and interests of animals? Read on:

Yes, the dairy industry can be just as cruel and unethical as the meat industry, but vegetarians and vegans have many common values, and as vegans, we must respect that in order to be respected.

She admits that although consuming dairy is unethical that to obtain respect, vegans in turn need to "respect" (i.e. turn a blind eye to the fact) that vegetarians continue to engage in this unethical behaviour and opt to exploit animals since we apparently have "common values" (which obviously exclude those values that lead vegans to refrain from continuing to voluntarily and knowingly use animals as things). But according to Weingarten, in yet another little shaming, merely voicing the obvious truth would be disrespectful.

Furthermore, one's so-called "personal choice", as Weingarten so adamantly described it, suddenly becomes a public and political one when faced with whether to leave aside our ethics to instead consume animal products offered to us by others. According to Weingarten, it seems that non-vegans are emotional messes incapable of processing someone's being consistent about his or her ethics; suddenly, the "no, thank you" involving eating animals or their secretions becomes a selfish choice. To illustrate this, Weingarten, the self-described vegan, writes:

It might make me a speciest [sic] to say this, but people are much more important to me than animals. So if on my birthday, someone makes or buys me a non-vegan cake, I’m going to have a slice to avoid offending that person or causing hurt feelings.

So, on top of not talking to non-vegans about veganism, lest you offend them, being a really good vegan also means eating animal parts or secretions, lest you "offend" that non-vegan by refusing to do so. Yet, strangely, at the beginning of her piece, Weingarten herself wrote that

Sometimes the only way for vegans to get respect is to be able to eloquently state their reasons for being vegan and to be consistent in their diet and lifestyle.

Weingarten then wraps up her piece by going back to the book and claiming that it lacks the "compassion, humility, peacefulness that is [sic] inherent to a vegan lifestyle". The truth is, though, that Weingarten's article displays a lack of the sort of consistency, logic and understanding (most notably of veganism, itself) that are inherent to actually being able to comment with any sort of authority (or sense, really) on veganism or on how vegans should behave in the world.

Her piece isn't so much written in good faith as it is a passive-aggressive reprimand of vegans who don't stay in the vegan closet. It ends up conveying a sense that vegans are outcasts who should keep their veganism to themselves unless asked (although if vegans should hide their veganism, one is left to wonder how non-vegans would even think to ask about it). It conveys that that vegans should keep their veganism to themselves, even if it means compromising their ethics to avoid hurting the feelings of those who choose to keep treating nonhuman animals as things for human use and enjoyment. I don't know about you, but I think that we owe nonhuman animals more than to agree to behave as if it's somehow improper to assert that it's wrong to use them as our property. Weingarten, on the other hand, makes it clear that she thinks that we owe nonhuman animals less. That, in fact, is a shame.

"What Farmed Animals Are For"

During my customary morning tea-drinking and Google News perusing this morning, I found yet another reason to roll my eyes at Jonathan Safran Foer. I'd mentioned a few times around the holidays that I was reviewing his book Eating Animals. The review grew more and more lengthy and then my issues with it became so numerous that I decided to hold off on blogging it and to instead turn it into a paper for school. Once I'm finished with it, I may share it on the blog in installments (if it turns out half-decent). But back to this morning...

The British trade website Farmers Weekly Interactive ran a short article by a guy called Adam Bedford today ("My pint with a vegan") that calls for a shrugging off of the "meat vs. no meat" approach to considerations of raising animals for human consumption. Bedford's piece has all of the typical elements of pro-animal industry and anti-veganism articles that show up in this sort of context. First, there is a reference to a real or fictional encounter with some token and/or stereotypical vegan(s). Bedford describes his encounter with unfettered derision as a "vegan love-in" where he claims to have shared "a pint" with a couple he admits are "generally nice people" albeit "militant vegans". What exactly he mans by "militant", the reader is left to fill in himself / herself depending on his or her preconceptions of vegans. I figure that it was merely a trite attempt to reinforce a stereotype , since he describes the most "scary" and "uncomfortable" thing about them that they held a "deep-seated and fundamental opposition to the farming of livestock".

The next typical element in such articles is the token unapologetic (and very often exaggerated and sensationalistic or even sexualized) reference to the tastiness of (or to the vital act of devouring) this or that animal body part or secretion. In this case, Bedford counsels his domestic partner to help him muster up the wherewithal to get through a newspaper excerpt of Foer's Eating Animals he coincidentally comes across the morning after his outing with the "militant vegans": "'Best chuck a couple of extra rashers in there love,' I cried wearily, 'and 3 kilos of beef dripping. I need some psyching up.'"

The next typical element in such articles is where I often mention that the author has completely missed the point or has engaged in something akin to speaking in tongues. Often, it's merely the author's indulgence in using a straw man fallacy. In Bedford's case, he goes on to cite Foer extensively to make his point that when considering the use of nonhuman animals, we must move away from (he quotes Foer) an '"all or nothing framework on food choices"', going on to say that he agrees with Foer that doing so could " help the industry to engage in a better, more sensible debate", but tipping the scales in adding that it would be "very useful for British farmers". Bedford calls this "[s]ubverting an ethical argument used as a justification for not eating meat". (I choose to call it regurgitating Foer honestly, instead of pretending that Foer is not actually condoning the consumption of animals, but I digress.)

Bedford, you see, views Foer's watered down rendition of the ethics of using and consuming animals as a great opportunity for farmers to grab to promote--the use and consumption of animals! Bedford doesn't acknowledge that the use of animals is an issue. He is no promoter of humane choices or of "happy meat". He makes it very clear that enslaving and slaughtering nonhuman animals for human consumption is perfectly legitimate. He does, however, give the slightest token nod to Foer's mention of "factory farming" as presenting a potentially valid ethical quandary worthy of being weighed. However, clarifies his stance by saying:

"Factory farming" aside, I personally don't think eating meat or not eating meat is an ethical decision, it's a food choice. One's views on capital punishment, supporting Manchester United and kicking a cat are an ethical decision. I have no issue with someone who doesn't eat meat, as that is a personal decision for them to make. I personally choose to eat meat because I believe that that is what farmed animals are for.

No, Bedford views Foer's "arguments" and assertions as great stepping stones to talk to consumers about "the system in which UK meat is produced, the environmental credentials of livestock farming in the uplands, and the provenance and localised nature of livestock production". What's particularly noteworthy is that he seems quite fond of the fact that he found fodder for those in agriculture to promote the cycle of enslaving and slaughtering nonhuman animals for human consumption in what he calls "the arguments used by the 'anti-livestock' lobby". Go, Foer, go!

Listen to the Joint Statement by a Group of Abolitionist Vegan Feminists for International Women's Day

Joint Statement by a Group of Abolitionist Vegan Feminists for International Women's Day

As abolitionist vegans and feminists, we oppose the use of sexist tactics in the animal advocacy movement. Ethical animal rights veganism is part of the logical conclusion of opposition to the exploitation of all sentient beings -- both human animals and non-human animals. Opposing speciesism is incompatible with engaging in sexism or any other form of discrimination, such as racism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of oppression.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed many female activists saying that there is nothing wrong with using "sex" as a tool to get our message across, using various arguments to try to justify this view. Further, other advocates have been unfairly attacked for "sexism" because they are openly critical of sexism and sexist choices in the movement. Neither should be acceptable to advocates who take anti-oppression work seriously.

Some advocates defend the use of sex by accusing us of being "anti-sex" or prudish. Abolitionist vegans are not prudes by any means, however, we see that the way sex is used to sell things in our patriarchal society reinforces a view of women as commodities. For example, just take a look at the way in which PETA uses sex in its campaigns - they reinforce harmful Western beauty standards by using only thin, large-breasted women, who tend to be posed to appear vulnerable and alluring to the (heterosexual male) intended viewer, as well as using only men who are muscular and trim and posed to look powerful and self-assured. When sexism is being used to try to "sell" justice for non-human animals, at the expense of reinforcing harmful attitudes towards human women, the irony is clear. The seriousness of the injustices committed against both non-human animals and human women in this world are cheapened by the use of tactics based on inane and harmful stereotypes; far from challenging the issue of animal exploitation, this kind of approach reinforces the very stereotypes that have harmed human women and non-human animals alike.

Some of the activists defending the use of sex believe that showing our sexuality will call the attention of potential vegans by appealing to their own self image, implying that when they see how sexy being vegan makes us, they will want to become vegan too. This notion is not only misguided but also detrimental to the actual message we should be getting across. Veganism is about animal rights, not about feeling sexy, or having better sex (characteristics we all know have little to do with being vegan or not, but with each individual's lifestyle and well-being) and it is most certainly not about "looking better" than people who eat meat.

Promoting veganism as a way to become "sexy", which unfortunately is almost always equated with "losing weight" in our society (for example, the book "Skinny Bitch" comes to mind), further reinforces prejudices against larger or overweight people, which harms both women and men in our society, but particularly women. Not to mention that veganism is not some magic bullet to lose weight - there exist plenty of vegans who are far from "skinny", who are essentially being given the message that they are failures by these sorts of campaigns that imply or flat-out promote veganism as a way to achieve western beauty standards. Appealing to these harmful standards not only reinforces them, but draws attention away from the true reason people should go vegan, which is to acknowledge the moral personhood of non-human animals.

Many of these activists defending sexist tactics claim that they are not, in fact, sexist tactics, that they "empower" the women who choose to participate in them, and so that criticizing these campaigns is disrespectful to these women - some even claim that to criticize them is itself sexist. These arguments are false for a number of reasons. First of all, these claims are usually made to male activists when they criticize such campaigns. But one's gender does not in and of itself make one more or less qualified to speak about sexism or feminism.

There is a real "men should shut up and listen to women" attitude in these claims that seeks to replace the egalitarianism that feminism demands with a hollow and biologically-based authoritarianism. As bell hooks suggests, while sisterhood is powerful, feminism is for everybody. As abolitionist vegan women, we are extremely glad to have as allies men such as Gary L. Francione, among others, who has been denouncing sexism in the animal advocacy movement and consistently speaking up for feminism for years. While we do of course believe that women should be listened to and taken seriously, listening does not equate to agreeing with or accepting someone's arguments simply because that person is female; disagreeing with those arguments and presenting logical counter-arguments does not equate to being sexist. It is unfortunate, but sexism is so pervasive in our society that some women do not even believe that it's still an issue, do not see how sexism has an impact on their lives, and do not feel that feminism is relevant to them. Some male feminist allies have spent years studying feminist theory; just because they're male doesn't invalidate this expertise.

Furthermore, the view that anything a woman chooses to do "empowers" her is simplistic in that it ignores the patriarchal context in which those choices are made. Yes, the women who participate in the campaigns we are criticizing have chosen to do so voluntarily, and some may feel liberated, or feel as if their choices are themselves a challenge to female objectification, and we do recognize that they feel this way. We are simply asking them to seriously consider that these campaigns are both harmful to women as well as ineffective in challenging the exploitation of non-human animals, and that, in view of this, women should no longer support or participate in them.

As stated above, the view that women are "empowered" or "liberated" by choosing to commodify themselves ignores the structural dimension of sexism in our patriarchal society. Whether we like it or not, our choices to try to "take back" patriarchy's commodification of women by participating in it voluntarily affect the lives of other women, especially women with less power. In a culture that still views and presents women as sex objects on a daily basis, the "taking back" or "reclaiming control" intent of these choices is entirely lost to the greater public, and the objectification and commodification is simply reinforced. When this sexism is reinforced as being acceptable or no big deal, the overall effect is to reinforce the attitudes that allow the trafficking, abuse, and other forms of exploitation and violence that are inflicted on women in poverty and of lower socio-economic status around the world every day.

Some claim that these campaigns are necessary to get the attention of the public. As we mentioned above, this draws attention away from the real reasons behind veganism: the rights of sentient beings not to be considered property. Getting attention at all costs is not the way to promote a serious issue such as violence against animals; in a world where this violence is already not taken seriously, attention-at-all-costs tactics only serve to further trivialize the issue. PETA's sexist campaigns do get attention, but overall it is attention for PETA, not for the real issues. It's a guerrilla marketing tactic designed to get people talking about PETA so that the donations keep flowing. (And look, it's working, since here we are talking about PETA, but we felt we couldn't discuss this issue without mentioning the largest and worst offender, unfortunately.)

Even more disturbing are the video campaigns that juxtapose sex and explicit, gory images of violence to animals, purportedly to grab the attention of young heterosexual men and then to inform them about the treatment of non-human animals. For example, PETA's "State of the Union Undress 2010" features a woman stripping "for the animals", after which a second video automatically begins playing, depicting graphic violence inflicted on nonhumans. How exactly is getting men to associate these sexually arousing images with gory images of violence going to help anything?

The campaigns that blatantly use sex and Western beauty standards are not the only sexist tactics used in the animal advocacy movement. For example, the longstanding campaigns against fur have a distinctly sexist element. By singling out fur, advocates are not only implying that there is some moral difference between fur and leather or other types of animal-derived clothing, which there is not, but they are also singling out those humans who wear fur while ignoring or minimizing the actions of those who wear other types of animals. Most fur in our society is worn by women. Effectively, these campaigns single out as morally wrong a particular use of non-humans mainly by women, while minimizing other equally morally wrong uses by all genders. Does pointing out that a little old lady in a fur coat is wrong to use animals while ignoring a biker in a leather jacket really help anything?

Also worth mentioning are the gender issues involved in animal exploitation. The animals exploited specifically for their milk and eggs are, it should be obvious, females being exploited for their reproductive cycles. They are repeatedly forcefully impregnated in the case of cows and other mammals used for their milk, i.e. raped, then their babies are taken from them, which causes extreme distress to mother and baby. Both mammals and birds are killed once they reach an age such that their reproductive cycle slows down or stops, and they are no longer profitable to their owners. Similarly, female animals of most of the species exploited by humans are used as "breeding" animals, forced to have litter after litter of young, and discarded when their usefulness for this purpose wanes.

While, as is to be expected in our speciesist society that considers non-humans property, feminism and sexism have always referred to humans, when looking at it from a perspective that is both abolitionist vegan and feminist, this exploitation of female animals' "femaleness" could be seen to fall into the intersection of these two struggles. It is odd that some people claim to be vegetarian (but not vegan) for "feminist reasons" - one would think that if someone believes the eating of animal flesh to be connected with the treatment of women "like meat", that they would also see the use of animal products that come specifically from female animals' reproductive cycles as being connected. Feminism is not merely a matter of having a vagina and a monologue; it is a daily lived practice, a dynamic force for change and liberation, a dialogue, a community, and a social transformation embodied in words and actions every turning moment of our lives.

If feminism is for everybody, that includes nonhuman animals. As animal rights advocates, whether we are male or female or genderqueer, it is our responsibility to oppose the exploitation and oppression of all sentient beings. This will be achieved by educating others in a creative and objective manner. How can we presume to end the exploitation of non-humans while encouraging or accepting the exploitation of our fellow human beings?

The bottom line is: commodifying ourselves does not truly "empower us". We can't use sexist methods to further a social justice issue. All exploitation of sentient beings is related; we're not going to end speciesism, the oppression of non-human animals simply because they are not human, without a firm commitment to ending sexism as well, and certainly not with the kind of attention-at-all-costs opportunism engaged in by certain activists at the expense of other oppressed groups.

Ana María Aboglio
Paola Aldana de Meoño
Jo Charlebois
Elizabeth Collins
Vera Cristofani
Karin Hilpisch
Mylène Ouellet
Renata Peters
Trisha Roberts
Kerry Wyler

What Vegans Eat

I've been posting the occasional link over the past few months to recipes on Mike K's Vegan for the People food blog. I've especially been spending a lot of time ogling his posts since the beginning of January, when he began participating in something called E.A.T. World, where bloggers "travel the world" by sharing recipes and food-related posts from around the globe. It's really worth checking out what he's posted so far, including his most recent recipe for Feijoada. I'd posted a recipe for a variation on this popular Brazilian dish back in March of 2008.

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Cookbook author Robin Robertson recently shared a recipe that caught my attention on her Vegan Planet blog, mostly because I've been looking for a vegan recipe for Jewish Apple Cake. Robertson's is indeed an Apple Cake, but I'm not quite sure that it even vaguely resembles the finished product of my significant other's mother's recipe, which is the sort of beloved nostalgic childhood foodstuff that's best left either reproduced accurately or not at all. I'm posting about Robertson's recipe anyway because it looks really yummy! (Oh, and if anyone has a good recipe for a vegan version of traditional Jewish Apple Cake to share, I'd really appreciate it!)

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So I leave you with that and with a favourite recipe of mine I'd initially posted on My Face Is on Fire back in January of 2008. It's for Spicy Sweet Potato and Bean Burritos. They're simply amazing. I usually make them using black beans and don't always add avocado. The recipe is very roughly adapted from a couple of different recipes found online over the years. It's a hybrid that's taken on a taste of its own. Enjoy!

Spicy Sweet Potato and Bean Burritos

1-2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 cups of kidney beans or black beans, canned
1 cup of water (or leftover bean liquid)
1Tbs chili powder, heaping
1 tsp cumin, heaping
2 Tbs soy sauce
4-10 inch soft whole wheat tortillas
2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes (with an optional dab of margarine)
1/4 cup green onions, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1/4 cup salsa
chopped jalapeno peppers (optional)
vegan cheese shreds (optional)

Cook in advance enough sweet potatoes to make two cups (I usually bake a couple of small ones or a really big one). Set aside.

Heat the oil in saucepan over medium heat. Sautée onion in oil until transparent. add garlic and stir. Add beans, water, chili powder and cumin. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce head to low. Simmer until beans are very soft, about 10-15 minutes. Stir in soy sauce.

Mash beans in the pot with a potato masher or large fork. Simmer over medium-low heat to cook away any excess liquid, about 20-25 minutes (watch it really closely, though). Taste and add more seasoning if warranted or desired. If you like things REALLY spicy add some chopped jalapenos at this point.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Spread about 2/3 of a cup of the bean mixture down the middle of a tortilla and top with a 1/2 cup of mashed sweet potatoes. Sprinkle with some green onions. Roll up the burrito and place it seam side down (to keep it from opening) on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with vegetable cooking spray (alternately, you can brush on a bit of oil). Repeat with the remaining tortillas.

Bake for 15 minutes or until burritos are crisp and turning slightly golden. Top burritos with avocado and salsa.

Optional: Sprinkle some vegan cheese on top (I rarely bother, 'cause it's really unnecessary).

Makes 4 servings.

There's Cranky and Then There's Hateful

Back in mid-February, I wrote about a piece about Cal State Fullerton's Daily Titan student paper in which one of the paper's writers, April Ehrlich, went on a tirade against a vegan friend who had purportedly offended her by not eating animal products when invited along on a camping trip. Her piece read like an indignant entry in a sixth grader's diary (no offense to sixth graders--I've no doubt that many of you could hop-skip circles around her where maturity is concerned) and seemed more of a fabrication mustered up to provide Ehrlich with an excuse to take a swipe at vegans. Why? Who knows why anyone chooses to use public forums to attack any group of people hatefully, really. Just last week, Ehrlich pretty much confirmed my hunch that she had just been out to spew a couple of vitriolic passages to perpetuate stereotypes about vegans, when she wrote yet another awkwardly-written and hostile piece for the paper ("Assassinating apples").

She starts off writing about a "small population of responses"--people who had apparently confirmed with her that they, too, "had experienced pomposity regarding a 'showing off' of prominent cruelty-free diets". Then Ehrlich goes on to try to attempt to portray this "pomposity" by slipping in that she supposedly forgot to mention that she too had apparently recently decided to "embrace" veganism. Laced with the sort of sarcasm that's smelly for want of cleverness, Ehrlich describes how "loose vegetarianism" had been her starting point and that she'd occasionally eat meat "for the sake of loved ones and cultural experiences" until things supposedly changed:

I have decided to stop eating fish and other animal-murdering substances such as gelatin and broth. In addition to this, I have nixed all forms of dairy from my diet, such as cheese, yogurt and ice cream.

Why? Well, let’s just say a light has shone upon me. I now understand why anybody would call an egg-frying, milk-chugging vegetarian an insufferable monster that was raised off a family of twits. Veganism, after all, stretches all the way back to the 1940s. At this point, how can anybody NOT understand and bow down to vegan culture?

Ehrlich continues, mentioning Americans' being "so good at understanding and embracing diversity", but of how her newfound veganism convincing her to reject this American trait or custom to instead tell all of her "omnivore friends, family and casual acquaintances that they are wrong". How wrong, according to her vegan-caricatured self?

I don’t care if you were raised off chicken fingers, or if your species had developed canine teeth after billions of years of natural selection – your culture and your beliefs are completely wrong, and better yet, monstrous.

I mean, where does one even begin with something like this? Has she been skimming through the anti-animal rights Weston A. Price Foundation's website?

But then she slips out of caricature long enough to flip things around to display a fairly mangled understanding of basic plant reproductive biology by going on about how vegans are somehow responsible (because non-vegans obviously don't consume any plant-based foods?) for damaging plants' leaves when fruit is picked and somehow interfering with photosynthesis, and damaging stems and thus depriving insects and birds of nutrients from flowers these stems would ordinarily "hold up" for them. Because of this, Ehrlich asserts that she's in fact become a "fruitarian" to set herself apart from "those barbaric vegans wolfing down standard store-bought fruit". The whole thing, of course, devolves into that old familiar and dearly unoriginal taunt found in the comments sections of articles dealing with animal rights in tabloid papers the world over: "Well, it looks like the least hypocritical way to avoid the exploitation of animals and natural sources is to just stop eating altogether."

I'm not sure if Ehrlich thinks that she is being humorous. Other than appealing to a small pocket of prejudiced readers who might delight in her jeers and find value in her clichés and stereotypes, I'm not certain who would benefit from her writing. Surely it isn't anyone whose reading interests reflect any sort of basic intelligence or open-mindedness. Surely it isn't the students at her school who take the interests of nonhuman animals seriously and who live their lives accordingly (and who seem to be her intended targets). The sad thing about all of this is that were Ehrlich writing about a group of people whose lifestyle choices are grounded in anything other than straightforward ethics, her piece could easily be deemed hate literature by some. Instead, we're left to hold it at arm's length as just another hostile and badly-written piece of filler in a college paper in Ehrlich's diversity-embracing America.

The Importance of Vegan Advocacy

Educating others about veganism is one of the six principles of the abolitionist approach to animal rights. Promoting anything less is promoting or endorsing the continued use of animals, and one's own decision to become vegan is merely a starting point in terms of everything we can do to teach others to stop using animals as property. As Vincent Guihan points out in his latest blog post at We Other Animals, educating others about veganism literally "lay[s] the groundwork for abolition" but there is so much more in addition to it that abolitionists can and should do for nonhuman animals.

Check out my friend Pao as she throws her own two cents in to discuss why we should be advocating for veganism (check out her YouTube channel for more videos at porolita22). For more information about the abolitionist approach to animal rights, visit Prof. Gary L. Francione's website, Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach.

Starting from Scratch

The majority of the comments and emails I've received in response to my previous post have been positive. However, between a couple (two, so far) disgruntled commentators and a small handful (three?) of indignant emails from a) vegetarians who are aghast that their consumption of animal products excluding animal flesh should be likened to the consumption of animal products including animal flesh, and b) vegans who either think that it's wrong to draw this comparison or feel that it's too demanding to ask humans who've stopped using some animal parts/products or species to make an honest effort to stop using all animal parts/products or species, I've decided to step back and offer up the following question(s) as a starting point for discussion:

1. Why is (or isn't) it wrong to use or exploit nonhuman animals?
2. When (if at all) is it ever acceptable to knowingly use or exploit nonhuman animals?

I'm looking forward to your responses.

(P.S. Edited to remove the second question, since it's not pertinent for the sake of this discussion. I'll revisit the second one in a blog post in the near-future.)

Why I Will Not Advocate Vegetarianism

Honesty as "Bashing"

A vegetarian blogger recently lambasted me on Twitter for having called for consistency in animal advocacy by asking vegan activists not to mince words or water down their message to advocate anything other than veganism. I pointed out that to endorse anything less makes as much sense as endorsing part-time murder or part-time child abuse. If one takes the interests and rights of nonhuman animals seriously, how can one reconcile this with supporting someone else's continued exploitation of animals? The blogger took issue with this and used it as an opportunity to promote a post he wrote ("Veganism is a Part of Vegetarianism") accusing those calling for veganism of being "vegetarian bashers". In this piece, VegBlogger asserts that it is "counterproductive to vegetarianism as a whole (which includes veganism) to bash vegetarians or vegetarianism" and makes clear that "bashing", in this case, means:

1. that "they are doing no good" (i.e. to point out that animal exploitation other than the actual consumption of animal flesh is immoral), and
2. telling vegetarians that they are "the same as an omnivore" (i.e. to point out that there is no significant ethical difference when it comes to animal exploitation whether you consume the flesh or secretions of animals).

So here's the deal: In modern and common parlance, "vegetarianism" is understood to mean a plant-based diet that may or may not include the consumption of animal products such as dairy, eggs or honey. In terms of taking the interests and rights of nonhuman animals seriously, veganism is no more a "part" or "aspect" of vegetarianism than it is a part of omnivorism. It is not a subset of vegetarianism, which concerns itself with what one chooses to eat. Veganism isn't solely about diet, but is about making a commitment to nonhuman animals that involves refraining from exploiting them as far as is possible in all aspects of one's consumption (i.e. food, clothes, personal care products, entertainment, et al.). In his or her article, VegBlogger makes it clear that he or she views omnivorism (which involves the consumption of animal flesh) as a big bad by repeatedly portraying comparing vegetarianism to omnivorism as the "hurling" of "insults" at vegetarians. Basically, one would assume by this that VegBlogger views the consumption of animal flesh itself as immoral, but stops short of viewing the consumption of animal secretions (or any other exploitation of animals) as ethically problematic and thinks that it's rude that others should view the consumption of animal secretions as such and be forthright about it.

It Is What It Is

The truth is that there is as much--often more--suffering involved in dairy or egg consumption as there is in meat consumption. There is no less death involved. Calves are taken from their mothers and sent off to slaughter in the dairy industry, male chicks are killed--sometimes ground alive--in the egg industry. In both industries, the the milk-producing cows and egg-laying hens' daily lives are filled with misery and as soon as their production goes down, they're sent off to slaughter, as well, to in turn be used for food. When one consumes animal products, one continues to commodify nonhuman animals--to treat them as things that exist to satisfy our selfish urges. One continues to be complicit in all of this. This isn't just a matter of opinion leading to the unwarranted wagging of a finger. The facts are what they are and to try to convince oneself otherwise (i.e. that the consumption of animal products like dairy and eggs is less ethically problematic than the consumption of animal flesh) is self-delusional; to perpetuate that sort of confusion in others who choose to continue exploiting animals is both dishonest and misleading. If a vegetarian who consumes animal products finds the truth "insulting" or offensive, that's unfortunate, but it doesn't alter the facts.

On Stepping Stones and Shuffling

Some, like VegBlogger, insist that an exception should be made for vegetarianism (i.e. the consumption of animal products other than flesh) since vegetarianism is a "stepping stone" to veganism. The example often brought up is that most vegans were once vegetarians; most vegans were once omnivores, too, yet few would jump at positing a causal relationship there. The reality is that vegetarianism is no more a stepping stone to veganism than any other altered form of omnivorism is a stepping stone to veganism. If anything, humans sometimes get lulled into complacency by deluding themselves that they're doing enough by merely cutting out this or that animal product. I know this firsthand--I was a lacto-vegetarian for many years and I truly wish that, rather than pat me on the back and reassure me that I was doing enough, someone had actually talked to me about veganism.

Thinking that shuffling out this or that animal product is "enough" is like telling oneself that it's alright to beat the hell out of one's child on Tuesdays as long as one refrains from doing so the rest of the week. An accusation often thrown at vegans for being unequivocal about vegan advocacy is that we present an "all or nothing" dilemma that purportedly sends so-called potential vegans back to their omnivorous ways. If my neighbour told me that she only beats her child on Tuesdays and I told her that she needed to stop completely, would it make sense to accuse me of sending her back to beating her child everyday by taking an "all or nothing" approach to the situation? Would it make sense to accuse me of "insulting" her if I asked her to stop altogether? Would it make sense to say that I was "insulting" every other person who chooses to beat his or her child on one single day a week (i.e. rather than everyday) since I was ignoring that "every little bit counts"? Of course not. So why is it such an issue when we're discussing the interests of nonhuman animals? Is it because their interests are not as significant to some as those of humans? Is that not speciesist?

We owe nonhuman animals more than to let human feelings trump nonhumans' rights to not be used as things. I also think I owe my fellow humans more than to lie to them about what we owe those nonhuman animals. I'd like to give my fellow humans enough credit to think that they can handle the truth and act accordingly, rather than mislead them into continuing to exploit nonhumans, which is what I'd be doing by advocating vegetarianism or any other type of nonhuman animal consumption.

Further Information

For more information on why we should persevere in educating others about veganism and why stopping short by endorsing vegetarianism as an ethically significant "step" is problematic, please visit The Abolitionist Approach website to read these three essays:

"Vegetarianism as a "Gateway" to Veganism?"
"Some Comments on Vegetarianism as a "Gateway" to Veganism"
"Vegetarianism First"

Also visit Dan Cudahy's Unpopular Vegan Essays blog to read his essay "What Is Wrong with Vegetarianism".

Go vegan. It's the right thing to do and it's an easy and healthy thing to do.

Sprouting 101

(This is a post from March 28, 2008 that I thought I'd bump after a conversation about sprouting earlier today.)

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to fix myself up a batch of something I used to have on hand almost constantly up until just a few years back. I decided to try my hand at sprouting again. I popped over to the local health food store to load up on some extra organic Speerville Flour Mill kamut and spelt berries--grains I usually boil or steam to eat instead of rice, or throw into the bread machine with any old bread recipe ingredients to make a really chewy and nutty-tasting bread (with a really crunchy crust).

I don't use a store-bought sprouter, although if I were making sprouts for more than one person (or decided to up my own sprout intake significantly), I'd consider it for the sake of convenience. A simple clean Mason jar does the trick for me right now, though, providing me with enough sprouts to throw into a couple of salads or stir fries. A second Mason jar to sprout something different might be useful, too, though. So? Here's the scoop on everything you could possibly want to know about sprouting. I'm not going to go over every facet of it here, since there are bunches and bunches of other places online where you can go to find sprouting FAQs that aren't commercial sites like the one to which I just Iinked, which is actually really easy to navigate and has a lot of usable info for low-tech sprouting.

Make sure that your hands and sprouting tools are clean whenever contact is made with the sprouts, incidentally. And ensure that the grains (or other things) you sprout are clean and have been stored well before you use them. There are indeed safety concerns revolving around sprouts that haven't been stored or handled properly.

Here's the My Face Is on Fire crash course: Take around a half cup of a mixture of kamut and spelt berries (I've read that spelt doesn't sprout particularly well, although I've had no issues with it--you may want to stick to kamut or something else for your first try at sprouting). Take a bunch of grains and pick out the broken or discoloured ones. Rinse the grains off in a colander and place in a jar. Add 2-3 times the amount of water (so, a cup to a cup and a half) and let the jar sit overnight. In the morning, check to see if any grains are floating on top and if so, press down on them to see if they'll sink. If anything's still floating, pick it out, then rinse your sprouts well over the sink, saving the water for later for your garden or houseplants. Wrap a layer of cheesecloth over the jar's mouth and tip the jar to let the water out. I tend to keep the jar tilted mouth-downward with the cheesecloth on it and kept in place with a rubber band to ensure that there's no water left in the jar, which could cause spoiling. You can rinse and drain them once or twice a day at 8-12 hour intervals and they should be ready in around three days. You can sprout them for a longer period, as long as you keep rinsing and draining them--they're alive! Here's an "Instructable" on how to grow sprouts, just to show you how easy it really is.

There are a zillion other things you can sprout successfully--all kinds of grains, nuts, seeds and beans. Soaking and sprouting times vary accordingly and some sprouts store well in the fridge, while others don't. Remember that Google is your best friend! Once you figure out what to sprout,you'll be burdened with figuring out what to do with them, because the possibilities are plentiful. I like to sprinkle 'em on salads, throw them in wraps or sandwiches, add them to stir fries/casseroles/soups or use them when baking hearty bread or rolls. You can even make sprout cereal, hot or cold, or sprouted "oatmeal". It's all trial and error, baby!

(Listening to: A Vegan Freak podcast while taking photos in me kitchen.)

Dealing with Invitations, Family Reunions, Meals, etc.

Pao (aka porolita22) talks about the ins and outs of dealing with social gatherings with friends and family where food is being served.

Preview for Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home

I haven't seen this yet, although a few abolitionist friends have praised it. I've been told that it was done in response to the original Peaceable Kingdom documentary (which had focused on how we use animals rather than on whether we should use them at all). Unfortunately, those who've seen the premiere have said that the documentary avoids all mention of veganism; this means another opportunity missed to state the obvious in terms of what we can do to alter the status quo. It's a shame.

Bits and Blurbs About Veganism: Getting it Right

With a sigh of something akin to relief, I stumbled upon some articles here and there that left me feeling a little hopeful this morning while sipping on my gingery morning tea. Hofstra University's The Chronicle had a short piece by contributing writer TJ Edouard today, in which he offers some informal tips on dining out as a vegan. Of his own decision to go vegan, he writes that even after watching sensationalist videos, he wasn't completely swayed. Although they had a bit of an impact on him, his cultural background of the dairy and meat-laden sort left him first shunning other animal products instead (e.g. leather, fur). The turning point for him, he writes, came when he realized that "standing for something that you believe in is better than disregarding it because you are too selfish to pretend to care". So, he went vegan.

His article is interesting, because he talks about obvious (e.g. Parmesan cheese in sauce) and sometimes not-so-obvious (e.g. eggs in pasta) animal ingredients, and also about cross-contamination (e.g. when foods otherwise described as animal-free end up cooked in the same grease as animal products). As he states, the important thing is to get used to asking questions. Not only is the onus on you to inform yourself of what it is that you're eating, but in asking, you're also educating wait staff about animal ingredients and the dietary aspect of veganism.

(Some would argue that vegans should avoid all non-vegan restaurants in the first place to both ensure that they don't inadvertently consume animal products, as well as to avoid supporting businesses that mostly (or in any way at all) profit from animal exploitation. This is something I hope to write about in the near future and in the interim, I'm very interested in hearing others' thoughts on the subject.)

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In an informative piece in The Daily Princetonian today ("The daily value of veganism"), Senior Columnist Miriam Geronimus addresses nutritional concerns some of her family and friends have volleyed at her since she made the decision to go vegan last semester. Dispelling a number of myths ranging from the all-too-common "vegans get inadequate protein" to "vegans are all underweight", Geronimus does a fine job of educating her readers that it's not only not unhealthy to consume an animal-free diet, but that it can actually be more healthy. As she puts it: "Myths that veganism is unhealthy abound, but they are no reason not to be vegan if you otherwise would want to be". She's right!

With a little bit of self-education, it's easy to enjoy an animal-free diet; it's also easy to otherwise avoid consuming or using animals. The thing is that even if it weren't, it would be the right thing to do. It's not about convenience, but is about conviction--about doing what's right. Furthermore, as articles like Geronimus' illustrate, concerns over convenience when it comes to eating a nutritionally balanced diet are generally total bunk.

No more excuses, 'K? Just go vegan.

Bits and Blurbs About Veganism in the Media

First, we had one college student's diatribe against her vegan friend for refusing to eat animal products while along on a family camping trip, insisting that politeness trumps ethics. This morning, I stumbled across a piece from Washington University's paper ("The delicious flesh of animals") in which its Senior Forum Editor proclaims that "there is no real 'meaning' to a cow’s life, other than to be killed for the cow’s meat". According to AJ Sundar, taste buds trump ethics. Reflecting the sort of muddled thinking that results when proponents of welfarism around the world turn the question of the treatment of nonhuman animals into the main question with which we should concern ourselves (i.e. while ignoring the ethics of using them in the first place), Sundar writes:

Perhaps animals ought to be treated in kinder terms, and I want to be very clear about where I stand: I do think that factory farming, or any other inhumane method of slaughtering and breeding animals, should be replaced by more humane methods of raising and killing animals. But I don’t think there is an extra obligation to refrain from killing animals altogether­ [...].

Sure, animals might lead a hard life on the range, what with the neutering and branding and penned-in spaces. But is it really that much worse than the average human’s life? Sure, factory farming is cruel, but surely raising animals in a free-range environment would be far kinder to the animals than in nature: Remember that it takes a wolf roughly half an hour to kill a cow, and the poor cow stays alive through most of this time as it gets eaten alive.

Is this what happens when too many well-meaning former-hipster profs throw books by guys like Michael Pollan on the syllabus for "Arts & Humanities 1000" classes?

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An article in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania's Weekender this morning ("Just say no to meat") was a good reminder of why advocating for anything less than veganism as a moral baseline when promoting the interests of nonhuman animals will, invariably, perpetuate serious moral confusion. Weekender's General Manager, Rachel Pugh, describes herself as a supposed vegetarian of "15 years" who, while having "dabbled with the vegan way of life", has also purportedly "dabbled" with eating animals, allowing "fish in and out of [her] diet for the past eight years". Following in the Jonathan Safran Foer mode of thinking, by which knowing and thinking about how animals are raised for us to use somehow nudges us up the moral ladder in terms of our own consumption ethics (i.e. regardless of our follow-through), Pugh claims to be "conscious" of what she eats and where it comes from and insists that after having watched the movie Food, Inc., she's "even more conscious than ever".

Hmm... So what does it mean to be "even more conscious than ever"? Apparently not a single thing. She writes that "others’ choices to consume meat and animal by-products has [sic] never been a concern of [hers]". Furthermore, her own use of animals isn't really a concern of hers, either:

I think I’m somewhat in the vegetarian minority due to the fact that I could care less about others’ meat eating habits. It just doesn’t rattle me. Perhaps this is because I wear antique fur, which makes me a total hypocrite. And I’m fine with that mainly because I love mink stoles from the 1940s. In my book, if it’s been dead for over 30 years, it’s fair game. I just wouldn’t kill anything now for an accessory. I should add, of course, if it dies of natural causes today, this is also fair game which is the case with my recently purchased water buffalo bone ring. See? There are exceptions to every rule but a girl has to have standards.

Lesson learned? If you think that we should not exploit other sentient creatures because they have interests of their own, say so. And say why. Shrugging and suggesting that every little bit counts gives credence to the sort of wishy-washy half-hearted messages spread by people like Pugh, where lifestyle choices involving whether or not to be complicit in the use and slaughter of other sentient creatures are described as "dabbl[ing]" and where participating in this dabbling is written off as "personal preference".

Don't we really owe nonhuman animals more than that?