There seems to be an unspoken vegan rating system, where some vegans have an all-or-nothing approach, while others try to educate themselves and change their behavior gradually. We hide behind sliding scales regarding animal justice — turning the conversation into positive encouragement, healthy eating habits, cultural traditions, lifestyle choices, and personal belief systems. The narrative becomes about the nuances about how we should act amongst our peers, and we routinely turn a blind eye to the suffering of animals. Yet when we refer to other social justice issues, we don’t see them as levels. There are no levels of racism. Your behavior was racist, or it wasn’t. There aren’t any levels to committing rape. You either committed sexual assault, or you didn’t. There are no levels of veganism. Oppression is oppression, whether it’s race, gender, ability, age, or sexuality.
MICHAEL OFEI: There seems to be an unspoken vegan rating system where some vegans have an all-or-nothing approach, while others try to educate themselves and change their behaviour gradually…
Level one vegan: typically vegan for health benefits but aren’t necessarily motivated by ethical and environmental impacts (or unaware). They’re interested in healthy foods like green smoothies, veggie bowls and salads…
Level two vegans: vegans at this level are influenced to change their behaviour after watching documentaries such as Earthlings, Dominion and Cowspiracy. They have mixed emotions, feel immense social pressure, and are pretty overwhelmed with finding and cooking tasty plant-based food…
Level three vegans: these vegans are your prototypical “hardcore” advocates fully committed to veganism… They care deeply about the treatment of animals and the environment and generally have no problem educating others on the impacts of consuming animals and their by-products…
There are no levels of veganism… Veganism extends to how we treat humans as well as animals. It’s a fundamental way of thinking and acting to reduce as much harm as practically possible to sentient beings…
From that perspective, oppression is oppression, whether it’s race, gender, ability, age, sexuality, religion or animal cruelty. Call it sentientism. Yet when we refer to social justice issues, we don’t see them as levels. There are no levels of racism. Your behaviour was racist, or it wasn’t. There aren’t any levels to committing rape. You either committed sexual assault, or you didn’t.
Of course, there are grey areas of every offence which we don’t always get right, but we try our best to make the fairest judgements. And just as important, we culturally and socially hold each other accountable to do better. We feel shame and guilt when we unknowingly or unwillingly oppress another human.
However, we hide behind sliding scales regarding animal justice—turning the conversation into positive encouragement, healthy eating habits, cultural traditions, lifestyle choices, and personal belief systems. The narrative becomes about the nuances about how we should act amongst our peers, and we routinely turn a blind eye to the suffering of animals.
We make it about us while marginalising them (the animals). This might be hard to hear, but we need to do better. Needlessly breeding, exploiting and slaughtering animals is the greatest slave trade in history. We should feel uncomfortable supporting such an atrocity. ..
It’s okay to sit in the mud as you’re learning about animal cruelty. But instead of protecting ourselves from changing our ways through narratives like “different types of veganism”, let’s challenge ourselves to be better. If oppression is all the same to you, acquiring knowledge in one area of injustice will undoubtedly reinforce the same values in another type of injustice.
By the time you’ve read this article, hundreds of thousands of animals have been slaughtered for human consumption. The scale of oppression is as direct as they come. If it helps, forget the labels and instead, let’s roll up our sleeves and bring urgency to anti-oppression, including animals. SOURCE…
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