AR-News: Excerpt from an essay on Effective Advocacy: Personal Purity vs. Effective Advocacy

[Bruce Friedrich]

Full essay:
http://www.goveg.com/active/effective-intro.html
Learning from our mistakes: Five things we do wrong
http://www.goveg.com/active/effective-3.html
Personal Purity vs. Effective Advocacy

The number one thing that we do wrong-and I am speaking from many years of
doing this myself-is that we place personal purity ahead of being as
effective as possible for animals. We lose sight of the fact that veganism
is not an end in and of itself but rather a means of ending cruelty to
animals. Being vegan is not about being perfect and causing no cruelty at
all-it's about decreasing suffering as effectively as possible. 

We all know this, but it bears repeating: At some level, everything we
consume harms some animals. Every non-organic thing we eat involves
pesticides that kill birds and other small animals. Organic foods use animal
fertilizer. Harvesting vegan foods kills and displaces animals. Bike tires
and even "vegan" shoes contain some small amount of animal product. We could
all go out into the woods and live on nuts and berries as "level 10 vegans,"
but ultimately, that would be far less effective than living where we could
influence others to adopt a vegan diet as well.

Animals don't need your purity, or else it would make sense to go live in a
cabin in the woods, causing as little harm as possible. What the animals
need is your advocacy-and they need for it to be as effective and
influential as possible. Ultimately, veganism can't just be about us, or it
will become just one more narcissistic cultural fad. Veganism must be about
helping animals.

So the issue of personal purity becomes one of basic math: Adopting a vegan
diet means you're not supporting the torment and slaughter of dozens of
animals every single year. Helping just one more person to go vegan will
save twice as many animals. But the reverse is also true: If you do
something that prevents another person from adopting a vegan diet, if your
example puts up a barrier where you might have built a bridge, that hurts
animals-so then it becomes anti-vegan, if vegan means helping animals.

We all know that the number one reason why people don't go vegan is that
they don't think it's convenient enough, and we all know people whose reason
for not going vegan is that they "can't" give up cheese or ice cream. But
instead of making it easier for them to help animals, we often make it more
difficult. Instead of encouraging them to stop eating all other animal
products besides cheese or ice cream, we preach to them about the oppression
of dairy cows. Then we go on about how we don't eat sugar or a veggie burger
because of the bun, even though a tiny bit of butter flavor in a bun
supports significantly less suffering than eating any non-organic fruit or
vegetable, or using a plastic bottle, or about 100 other things that most of
us do. Our fanatical obsession with ingredients not only obscures the
animals' suffering-which was virtually non-existent for that tiny modicum of
ingredient-but nearly guarantees that those around us are not going to make
any change at all. So, we've preserved our personal purity, but we've hurt
animals-and that's anti-vegan.

Always, always, always remember: Veganism isn't a dogma. Veganism is about
stopping suffering. Let me say that again, as a 17-year vegan: Veganism is
not a list of ingredients or a set of rules. Being vegan is about doing our
best to help animals. So it requires thought, not a checklist.

So if you're at a holiday party with meat-eaters and you're talking about
how you can't eat the bread because you don't know what's in it, or you're
at a restaurant and there's a veggie burger on the menu but you give the
server the third degree about the ingredients or about how it was cooked,
you are forgetting the essence of being vegan. You've just made veganism
seem difficult, throwing up barriers to the others at the table who might
have otherwise considered the plight of animals. In this situation, others
are unlikely to want to ask about your diet, and they're even less likely to
think of it as something they might consider. Look at the big picture and
you'll see that your pursuit of purity in that instance does significantly
more harm to animals than consuming that tiny bit of animal product!
Remember that if just one of those people follows your example, you can save
hundreds of animals! And if just one of them might have but decides not to
because of your example, the reverse is true: You are hurting animals.

If you're worried about what you're going to eat in a restaurant, call ahead
and figure out what meets your standards, and then order it with gusto. If
you're worried about what you're going to eat at the office party, get on
the catering committee or just bring along some great vegan food. But
please, never, never make it seem like being concerned about animal
suffering is a chore, because, of course, it's not. 

. Eating With Meat-Eaters

In the same vein, I went years refusing to eat with meat-eaters. Please be
aware that many meat-eaters read your non-attendance as either deprivation,
self-righteousness, or both, and that's the sort of club nobody wants to
join. "You can't even go to parties, can't go out to eat, whatever. Who
wants to live like that?" 

Another advantage of taking part in gatherings is that people are likely to
ask you about what you're eating, especially if they know you're a
vegetarian. This is your perfect chance to get a bit of information into
their heads and maybe even into their hands. As previously discussed, you
need to do it in an upbeat way, and you need to gauge the situation so that
you don't alienate everyone, but you should be able to present the basic
moral argument without being aggressive.

What I do in these sorts of situations is to try to get a feel for the level
of interest; often, you can have a good conversation even at a meal where
meat is being served, as long as you're upbeat and speak mostly about your
personal beliefs in kindness and against cruelty. But if it seems like
vegetarianism is the very last thing most of the people would want to
discuss, I say something like this: 

You know, this is an issue that is really important to me. I believe that if
you saw how animals are suffering on factory farms and in slaughterhouses,
you would be horrified and you wouldn't want to support it. But I've found
that having this discussion with a table full of people is often unpleasant
for some of the people and I don't want to monopolize the entire
conversation. I do have some literature and some videos, and I'd love to
talk with you about this later. Can I get your e-mail address?

Boom! You've raised the moral issue AND you come across as the nicest person
at the table. Everyone who, when that person asked, "Why are you a
vegetarian?" hunkered down to listen to your long moral monologue will be
singing your praises. But you will have raised the ethical issue, which is
crucially important.

One last thing to say about eating with meat-eaters: If you're going to a
function where taking food is appropriate, please take along some tasty
dishes; when one person substitutes your recipe for theirs, that's a little
victory. Few things convert people like delicious vegan food! 

[CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE FOR MORE]

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