5 Smart[ass] Answers to 5 Dumb[ass] Questions About Veganism

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Round Two:

http://current.com/groups/animal-rights-veganism/93278793_round-two-5-smart-ass-...

CONTINUED...

PART TWO...

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Question Three: Why do you care more about animals than people?

The Smart Answer: Actually, I don’t. One of the most beautiful things about empathy is that we don’t get to pick and choose who we care about, we just do. In the case of farm animals, I can’t help but care immensely about their suffering, not only because it is so cruel and unnecessary, but because it takes place on such a massive, institutionalized scale. Another beautiful thing about empathy is that there isn’t a finite amount of it. The more you feel it, the more of it you have. Which would explain why most of the vegans I know are also human rights activists, feminists, environmentalists, and so on. Being vegan doesn’t consume all of your empathy; it liberates it.

Another thing to consider is how closely tied animal and human suffering actually are. The foods that cause the most animal suffering are also the foods that cause the most human suffering, by way of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. And it doesn’t stop there: studies have shown that people who abuse animals are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against humans. In short: I don’t care more about animals than people, I care about them all, together.

The Smart-Ass Answer: Since when does caring about animals mean not caring about people, as if the two are mutually exclusive? This is about as logical as asking someone who volunteers for the visually impaired why they don’t give a shit about the hearing impaired.

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Question Four: But don’t plants have feelings too?

The Smart Answer: Actually, from what we understand at this point, they don’t. But while science has failed to demonstrate any measurable level of sentience in plants, it has become increasingly clear that animals not only feel and suffer like humans do, in some cases they feel and suffer more. Anyone who has ever spent a reasonable amount of time with a dog, for example, knows how intense their feelings can be; most people recognize a dog’s happiness, loneliness, excitement, anxiety, fear, jealousy, devotion, and even empathy as similar to our own. And people who care for pigs, chickens and cows assure us that their range of emotions is equally broad.

If you’re still convinced that plants belong in the same ethical grouping as animals (and people), consider this: all of the animals you eat EAT PLANTS — and lots of them. In fact, it takes 5-10 times more plants to produce an animal-based diet than a plant-based one. The process of cycling vast quantities of corn, soy and wheat through farm animals results in the loss of 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, 99% of the carbohydrates, and 100% of the fibre. It would be difficult to design a more wantonly wasteful use of plants.

The Smart-Ass Answer: Wow, I would never have pegged you for a plant rights activist. And a botanist, bioethicist, and plant psychologist to boot. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you were using pseudoscience to justify what you already know to be morally unjustifiable behaviour. I’m really looking forward to your forthcoming paper, “Assessing the Long-term Impacts of Refrigerator Crisper Confinement on the Emotional Development of the Common Eggplant”.

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Question Five: What if your plane crashes in the middle of nowhere and all you can eat is whatever wild animals you can catch?

The Smart Answer: Life or death situations are ethics game changers, even if animals aren’t involved. Extreme situations can force people to choose not between right and wrong, but between wrong and less wrong. In the case where you are forced to choose between your life and someone else’s – or between two other lives – your decision will always be a difficult one, especially if the ‘someone’ in question is a person or animal you have a close relationship with.

Your question places me (a vegan) in a situation where I must kill animals in order to survive. The point of the question is to force me to admit that I either a) value my own life more than an unknown animal’s, thus ‘justifying’ your meat-eating, or b) value an unknown animal’s life more than my own, thus proving me to be the crazy, people-hating extremist you knew I was all along.

The bottom line is that it’s a loaded question, a bomb engineered to go off no matter how I approach it. The only honest way to answer the question is to say that I couldn’t possibly know how I would react in that situation, but I’m sure it would be very difficult. Unlike the situation we’re in now, where a win-win outcome (no one has to die) is not only possible, but as simple as opting for a veggie burger.

The Smart-Ass Answer: So let me get this straight: not only have I just been in a horrific plane crash, but I’m nowhere near a tofu factory? Talk about a double whammy of shitty vegan luck. First off, if all I can eat is what I can ‘catch’, I’m already in big trouble. I not only lack the claws and teeth required to take down a wild animal – I also lack the speed, agility, and strength. And even if I do manage to get ‘lucky’ and trap, say, a chipmunk (using the pack of almonds from the flight, which I somehow fail to recognize as a more direct food source), I’ll still die if it is the ONLY thing I can eat. Unlike true carnivores, who can survive solely on flesh, human beings require a broad range of plant-based nutrients like vitamin C, fiber and magnesium in order to survive.

Solid question, though. Kind of like the one about which I would rather save from a burning building: my partner or my child; my dog or a total stranger; my iPhone or someone else’s iPad. There’s nothing like a highly implausible hypothetical to defend a habit that has nothing to do with survival, and everything to do with lazy, ignorant, and arbitrary personal taste.