Forum - Stowarzyszenie Empatia

Influence is not a simple nut to crack. When it comes to changing people's minds about how we treat animals, we are challenging traditions, habits, deep-seated beliefs about nutrition and social norms. Accepting our message means acknowledging that past and present behavior is wrong and contributes to suffering. We need to appeal to an individual's compassion and in the same breath tell them that what they've been doing supports cruelty. And we need to ask them to stop doing things they probably enjoy. Crafting that message in a way that it will be received requires some thought.

It's easy to let our passion for what we have to say outweigh our sense of how to best craft a message so that it will actually be heard. But that is the difference between venting and influencing.

We need multiple models for conversion. Not everyone will respond to the same message. We need to be marketers. Without compromising our objective, we need to be able to talk to people in multiple ways. Trying to convert someone is not always the equivalent of shouting horrific facts followed by "go vegan!". We need more than one tool in the box.

The reason I decided to do this interview is that I suspect that you are saying publicly what a lot of people are thinking about veganism. It would be easy for us in the vegan movement to pretend that people with your view should be dismissed as unreachable, but I think it’s a conversation our culture is going to have to have.

I just read your post about vegan weddings and it got me thinking about the difference between how you see the world and how most ethical vegans see it. While some animal liberation advocates approach the subject from a purely rational point of view, my sense is that most vegans come to view animals the way they do because they have had a meaningful relationship with one or more. These relationships led to viewing animals as very similar to humans, with many of the same emotions and having an inner life. To us, animals are “persons.”

In your post on weddings, you say the following about comparing killing animals to human slavery, “Of course it’s an outrageous comparison, but that’s how many ethical vegans see it (your eyes can open to some truly offensive comparisons once you accept anti-speciesist logic).” I have never seen someone explain how these comparisons are so offensive; they simply state that they are and then rely on other humans -who have a clear self-interest in seeing the world that way - to agree.

History has been riddled with one group exploiting another group and justifying it by convincing themselves that the exploited group is inferior. The exploiters have failed to recognize these claims of inferiority for what they were at the time – self-interested rationalizations. So how likely is it that we have finally reached the pinnacle of moral evolution and are now able to set aside our own self-interests to accurately recognize which other groups are inferior?

Even if human slavery is much worse than animal slavery, there is still room to believe that animals are more than just pieces of meat to be enjoyed at a wedding. I hope most people would not consider their dog to be only a piece of meat to be eaten at a wedding reception.

Another difference is that you think veganism is only about symbolism and doesn’t actually do any good. If you believe that, then I can see why your attitude is critical towards vegans who are causing such a fuss over something you think is merely symbolic.

The idea behind ethical veganism is not only to remove one’s self from support of animal cruelty, but to be part of a growing movement that will one day become the norm. If someone doesn’t actually become vegan themselves (or close to it), they cannot be part of such a movement. You have said that you believe it’s inevitable that any given vegan will one day reject veganism. While some people try veganism for a while and then stop, I know many people who have been vegan for decades and show no indication of changing. Our numbers and impact are growing.

Carol Tucker-Foreman, ekspert Food Policy Institute [Instytutu Polityki Żywnościowej], działającego przy amerykańskiej Federacji Konsumentów, zwraca uwagę, że połowa czynników chorobotwórczych przenoszona jest za pośrednictwem mięsa i wędlin. Jej zdaniem oznacza to, że amerykańskie rozwiązania prawne dotyczące nadzoru nad przetwórstwem mięsa wymagają systemowej modernizacji, wzorowanej na zwiększeniu uprawnień dla FDA, przegłosowanej w ubiegłym roku przez Kongres.

I’ve written before about the importance of acknowledging people’s fears and perceived barriers about going vegan. Our job as change makers on behalf of animals is to put those fears to rest by making dietary change as easy and realistic as possible—without promoting practices that compromise health, of course.