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A Vegan No More

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Re: A Vegan No More

#241

Post by Sidnicious »

> In the span of just a few days I received an outpouring of emails from fellow ‘vegan’ bloggers, who told me in confidence that they weren’t really vegan ‘behind the scenes’.

> I even received emails from two very prominent and well respected members of the vegan AR community. One a published and much loved vegan cook book author, the other a noted animal rights blogger, their emails detailed their health struggles and eventual unpublicized return to eating meat.

This pisses me off the most, and what makes veganism look like a religion to me. You learn much more from being wrong, and talking about being wrong, than from standing by a point of view because it's popular.

Re: A Vegan No More

#242

Post by Psyonic »

Xodarap wrote: post #220
gregwebs wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could actually be doing more harm then good if you are focusing on "meat or no meat". This really still re-enforces factory farmed meat because it acts like the only meat choice is factory farmed. If the choice is between the environmentally destructive technique- grain fed factory meat or sustainably raised grass-fed meat, that would actually make the meat situation better.

Grass-fed meat is often worse for the environment. See e.g. http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/04/08/grass-fed-be... In any case, consider an analogy: suppose you wanted to end human slavery. Would supporting "sustainable" slavery end it more quickly, or not supporting any slavery at all? I realize that slavery is not the moral equivalent of eating meat, but in terms of the effectiveness of boycotts, they are…

Reminds me of something Slavoj Zizek once said:

"The worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it."

Re: A Vegan No More

#243

Post by sh1mmer »

gb wrote: post #161
sh1mmer wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually veganism is much older than the word 'vegan', which was coined in the 1940s. There are many eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, that encourage various forms of veganism (not all of them necessarily healthy diets) in their monastic orders. However, I think you are fairly liberally type casting vegans as single issue people. I would argue most vegans probably know about where their food comes from…

Actually most Buddhist monks depend on alms, so they aren't required to adhere to a vegan diet; they eat whatever the populace around the monastery offers. The only thing the Buddha ever said about eating meat is that one should not accept meat if they even suspect that the animal was killed specifically for them.

Actually while monks do depend on alms it depends what Buddhist tradition you come from. In many schools of Mahayana ('Great Path') Buddhism all animal produce is to be rejected.

It's impossible to declare "the only thing the Buddha said" because the Pali and Sanskit writings we have today are accounts of the aural teachings from the Buddha written 500 years or more after his death. More than that while there is a lot of agreement over parts of the canon there is also disagreement over other parts leading to various traditions and schools of Buddhism.

Re: A Vegan No More

#244

Post by sh1mmer »

DanielStraight wrote: post #203
sh1mmer wrote: post #115

Reposting my thoughts from Reddit: As a vegan I'm sad on two fronts. a) That some vegans see the need to attack someone in this way. I know some vegans consider (including myself) see it as a deeply moral issue. However, I'd rather be like Ghandi than a fundamentalist. First and foremost, we can't help how we are made. I can't understand how it is immoral to care for oneself first. That said I personally haven't suff…

Maybe people just don't like being told that their moral stance is less strict than yours when they don't feel they're doing anything wrong. Your post is almost literally asking, "Why are people upset when I have a holier-than-thou attitude?" What is really the difference between, "I have chosen a stricter moral stance," and holier-than-thou?

Stricter implies that I am applying more conditions to myself, 'holier-than-thou' implies that I'm somehow applying them to you too.

I've chosen my morality for me, I'll happily advocate it if you are interested. However, my act of choice in no way threatens your own act of choice.

What I find frustrating is that because I've made a choice for me people choose to assume I'm judging them.

Re: A Vegan No More

#245

Post by cjbprime »

xenophanes wrote: post #237
cjbprime wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't really call those arguments. They assume that animals can suffer without giving an argument that animals can suffer. Whether animals can suffer is the core issue which should be addressed, and is not addressed by these statements. No, you're decades out of date. It is established fact, on all sides of the animal rights argument, that animals suffer and feel pain. I'd be shocked if you could find a single…

I have read the research and it's wrong. If you think otherwise you have not given an argument, you just appealed to authority.

> I have read the research and it's wrong. If you think otherwise you have not given an argument, you just appealed to authority.

You haven't explained why it's wrong. Surely the person who thinks that the almost-unanimous scientific consensus of the last few decades is "wrong" should be the person who is, you know, posting links to their crazy theories or whatever? I can't post them for you.

Re: A Vegan No More

#246

Post by pyre »

jerf wrote: post #208
pyre wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that everyone out there that claims to be vegan is part of some all-encompassing singular movement? Who is the leader? Where is the movement's webpage?

Are you claiming that nobody ever uses that argument? That rhetorical device cuts both ways, which is why it is useless in actual logic. I don't become paralyzed by the fact that I can't draw absolute boundaries around things, and I reject disingenuous invitations to be so paralyzed for your rhetorical benefit. Yes, this is clearly an argument made for veganism, by a significant proportion of vegan thought leaders. I…

  > Your accusation of strawman doesn't hold. It is a valid point that
  > if you claim your movement is about health, but you ignore the
  > biggest health problem there is (because it does not fit the
  > ideology), the claims to health should be, if not entirely ignored,
  > certainly not taken at face value. It's perfectly logical.
You seem to be arguing against the validity of vegetarianism/veganism as a whole based on the statements of a few vegetarians/vegans. You also seem to be under the impression that vegetarianism/veganism is some sort of singular 'movement' that has extreme solidarity and a singular purpose.

None of this is the case though. People decide to become vegetarian/vegan for a variety of personal reasons ranging from health to animal welfare (aka 'animal rights') to religion.

There are a number of movements that advocate a vegan diet (e.g. Peta) but that is a lot different than what you seem to want to imply. Your 'strawman' is the idea that vegetarianism/veganism is some sort of 'movement' where everyone believes the same thing and has the exact same goals. [ What are 'vegan thought leaders' anyways? ]

Re: A Vegan No More

#247

Post by kadavy »

steve19 wrote: post #163
abeppu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oysters are actually a weird case for some vegans, in that a lot of the arguments made for veganism don't really apply. They don't have brains, so there's not really a chance for suffering, and they can be farmed in an eco-friendly way. Peter Singer, the animal rights philosopher that vegans are always quoting, has at points said that he doesn't object to eating oysters. http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/

Unfertilized chicken eggs don't have brains either, right? They are still "unclean".

The issue with them for most vegans is probably that hens are usually kept in inhumane conditions.

Re: A Vegan No More

#248

Post by kadavy »

lwhi wrote: post #187
kadavy wrote: post #3

I've never been a vegetarian, but I used to eat very little meat. The one mineral I rarely hear about when talking about a vegetarian or vegan diet is Zinc. It is nearly impossible to get enough Zinc without eating animal products. You can either eat nearly 3 pounds of peas, or little more than .5 ounces of canned oysters to get enough Zinc in your diet. Being low on Zinc weakens your immune system, and your libido,…

Pumpkin seeds have a load of zinc in. A handful on salad does the job.

You would have to eat nearly 1.5 cups of pumpkin seeds to get 100% DRV http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/30...

Re: A Vegan No More

#249

Post by DanielStraight »

sh1mmer wrote: post #244
DanielStraight wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe people just don't like being told that their moral stance is less strict than yours when they don't feel they're doing anything wrong. Your post is almost literally asking, "Why are people upset when I have a holier-than-thou attitude?" What is really the difference between, "I have chosen a stricter moral stance," and holier-than-thou?

Stricter implies that I am applying more conditions to myself, 'holier-than-thou' implies that I'm somehow applying them to you too. I've chosen my morality for me, I'll happily advocate it if you are interested. However, my act of choice in no way threatens your own act of choice. What I find frustrating is that because I've made a choice for me people choose to assume I'm judging them.

This makes your point... I just find it incredibly odd.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that when you say "stricter moral stance," you mean "more rules." That is not how I would interpret "stricter moral stance."

I suppose I'm also thrown off by the concept of "my morality." If morality is entirely personal, the whole concept of stricter or looser moral stances seems nonsensical. If it's entirely personal, then isn't everyone, by definition, strictly adhering to their own morality?

Re: A Vegan No More

#250

Post by abeppu »

steve19 wrote: post #163
abeppu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oysters are actually a weird case for some vegans, in that a lot of the arguments made for veganism don't really apply. They don't have brains, so there's not really a chance for suffering, and they can be farmed in an eco-friendly way. Peter Singer, the animal rights philosopher that vegans are always quoting, has at points said that he doesn't object to eating oysters. http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/

Unfertilized chicken eggs don't have brains either, right? They are still "unclean".

I eat eggs sometimes, but I'm not proud of it. The moral considerations are very different from oysters because of how they're produced. Producing a lot of eggs requires a lot of hens. Having a lot of hens (and not roosters) involves killing a lot of male chicks. Producing any volume of eggs economically requires having a lot of hens in not that much space, which typically involves things like clipping beaks. This also produces a lot of concentrated waste which can often cause environmental damage. Keeping a lot of hens fed requires that you give them a lot of feed, which requires agricultural resources which might otherwise have produced food to be eaten by people. So eating eggs entails killing and torturing birds, producing toxic waste and using agricultural resources inefficiently.
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