Convenience
17 November 2006

After reading some of the comments on the entry about Peter Singer, I’m amused. Some wish to accuse me of vegan policing, of beating people into dietary submission, and of being a vegan-nazi*. As my writing has argued in the past, I’m not here to beat anyone into dietary submission, or to march omnivores or ovo-lacto vegetarians off to death camps for their poor choices.

In light of the comments, I wish to make two points:

1. Peter Singer is oft cited as one of the “fathers” of the modern animal rights movement. He has written about speciesism (in Animal Liberation) but has somehow lately come around to the idea that one can be a compassionate or conscientious omnivore, an idea which is, on its face, patently absurd, because one cannot be “conscientious” in making a dietary choice that necessarily deprives another being of its freedom and right to live. Gary Francione played this out brilliantly on the last podcast over at vegan freak radio. In short, are we worshiping Singer just because of who he is and the weight he throws around in the movement, or are we following him because of his logic and argumentation?

2. Related to point #1, if you’re an ethical vegan, your choice not to consume animal products is an ethical stance. Like any other ethical stance, it should be consistent, regardless of convenience (and really, being a vegan is not that inconvenient). The way to fight speciesism is not to be a part of it in your day-to-day life, and the quickest route to this is veganism. Thus, why participate in speciesism for convenience? Most of us who are antiracist wouldn’t participate in racism for convenience. Can you imagine the absurdity of an antiracist who claimed to care about racism, but on occasion told racist jokes around his friends just to fit in? Singer proposes just such an absurdity in his promotion of consuming animal products out of convenience.

Regardless, I can’t get why vegans would want to consume animal products at all—personally, they sicken me even to think about, given the exploitation involved. I also can’t even remotely understand why it would be controversial to call someone—a public figure who supposedly supports animal rights—on their promotion of non-veganism. If it is controversial to suggest that people who claim to be vegan shouldn’t eat animal products, this movement is way more fucked up than I ever thought it was.

* I find it odd also that people have called me a nazi-anything in defense of Singer, a man who has advocated consensual sex with animals, and who has also taken stances towards the disabled that many disability advocates have found shockingly eugenicist.
  Posted by Bob Torres    Permalink    Filed under:
Potentially Related Articles:

There are no related articles