All Choices Are Valid
I feel Ellen Degeneres said it best: “Animal rights sounds like they’re about to get the right to vote. […] I always hear animal rights and I just think it’s a crazy thing ‘cause it’s really just the right to be left alone.” While she was referring to animals specifically she really meant it as a universal truth to be assigned to any living being as a sort of self-evident fact.
In the same interview with Katie Couric she goes on to explain that becoming a vegan was a person choice she made and not something that was thrust upon her. That, weighing the facts of the situation, she decided that she couldn’t be a part of what she considered to be the horrific treatment of animals.
Well, not everyone has that qualm. An individual, either informed or uninformed, has the right to decide to do whatever they wish regardless of anyone else’s point-of-view (setting aside legal implications for the time being).
Now vegans have all sorts of arguments against this point often citing human decency as their shield. Still the fact remains that opinions, even laws, are completely arbitrary garnering weight or acceptance from general consensus only. Nothing is objectively true, everything is considered subjectively by the person interpreting the information. We can convince ourselves that certain things are inherent through observation or agreement, but all that is still examined subjectively by each individual.
And before I’m labelled a relativist (which I assure you I am not), I’d like to point out that history is jam-packed with examples of beliefs which are no longer considered to be true but were once vehemently held to. Beliefs and perspectives are transient and depend largely on context. So while one may consider it important to change their lifestyle because of the conditions of animal farming, others may find the point terrifically inconsequential when compared to, say, the effects of global warming, or the management of government, or the well-fare of their family and friends. Who gets to decide what anyone finds important? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
The Vegan Ultimatum
All other points aside, the number one reason I am not a proponent of the vegan label is the severity of the vegan ultimatum. There are no part-time vegans. You can’t abstain from eating meat all year round but make an exception at Thanksgiving. You can’t give into a craving to eat a cheeseburger once in a while. You can’t wear that leather jacket your father got you for your birthday. You can’t make any exceptions in the black and white world of the vegan.
For the weak-willed the choice is almost made for them: might as well forget veganism and go for broke on the meat-munching. Harden your heart against the misery of animals and suffer the slings and arrows of vegan blame. Wear the shame quietly in regret or proudly in defiance because there is no leeway on the vegan path.
Ok, so I’m exaggerating but I’m making a point. The all or nothing mentality is pretty harsh. How useful can a philosophy truly be when it’s better to behave vegan-like in private than to publicly be a vegan backslider?
Conclusion
Those, dear reader, are just a few of my reasons for not being a vegan. Certainly I have more substantial arguments but they stem more from my own personal belief systems and are not strictly ubiquitously relevant. Or rather they would require a much longer essay than this one!
My intention is not to arouse rage in vegans or to turn anyone against anyone else. Instead I hope that vegans and non-vegans alike will consider their position from a different vantage point. Ultimately I believe that this type of open dialogue can only lead to go, however steeped in sarcasm it may seem to be.
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