Veganism isn’t just a diet, but the way some vegans react when someone describes it as a diet, you’d think it was the worst thing that’s ever happened. Does everyone need to understand the full scope of veganism from the very beginning? Telling them they weren’t really vegan and don’t understand the movement doesn’t really help. It definitely doesn’t help the person, it’s unlikely to help the animals. Pointing them toward resources like Challenge22, reminding them why it matters and encouraging them, that’s the difference between being right and being effective.
DAVID RAMMS: Here’s the scene: Someone just posted on Instagram saying they were vegan but had to stop because of health issues, and the comments come rolling in. Vegans, instead of asking what they were eating or pointing them toward resources, start a pile-on. “Well, veganism isn’t a diet, so you clearly didn’t understand what you were doing.” Or some variation of that. It’s smug, it’s unhelpful, and it misses the point. There’s a difference between being right and being effective, and I think this could be doing damage…
There’s a concept in philosophy called the is/ought distinction, and I think it loosely applies to what I’m highlighting today. Basically, there’s a difference between how things are and how you think they ought to be. And you can’t just jump from one to the other without doing the work in between.
Language is a good example. Words mean what people generally understand them to mean. That’s how language works. You can make the case that certain words ought to mean something different, or that you ought to use certain words over others, but you can’t just assert that and expect everyone to fall in line. If you skip the work in between, you create friction, distractions and confusion.
A lot of what I see from vegans online (myself included in the past) is exactly this. Taking how things ought to be and asserting it as if it’s already how things are, with no acknowledgment that there’s a massive gap in the middle that needs to be bridged. And instead of bridging it, we end up creating unnecessary arguments…
Why diet should be the priority. Here’s something… that doesn’t get said enough: human consumption is by far the animal’s biggest issue. Ending animal agriculture and the consumption of animals would end the vast majority of animal exploitation. The scale of it with the factory farms, fishing, the slaughterhouses, the sheer number of lives involved. There’s nothing else that comes close. So if we’re trying to figure out where to focus our energy, I think the answer seems quite obvious.
Veganism isn’t just a diet… But the way some vegans react when someone describes it as a diet, you’d think it was the worst thing that’s ever happened… Does everyone need to understand the full scope of veganism from the very beginning? Why? If someone has eliminated animal products from their diet because they believe it’s wrong to harm animals, they’re doing one of the most impactful things they can do. Does it matter whether they’ve read the Vegan Society’s definition? Or done in-depth research on the founders of veganism and how they defined it?…
Telling them they weren’t really vegan and don’t understand the movement doesn’t really help. It definitely doesn’t help the person, it’s unlikely to help the animals, and to outsiders, it makes vegans look like an unwelcoming and pedantic bunch… What actually helps is addressing their concerns. Pointing them toward resources like Challenge22, reminding them why it matters and encouraging them to try again with proper support this time. That’s the difference between being right and being effective. SOURCE
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