I copied this post from a fellow activist’s Facebook feed. I was going to comment on it, but decided it deserved a longer answer and some more thought as I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt about it. There has been alot of debate online recently about this question, on whether vegans should buy “plant based” or only “vegan” labelled products. These debates are a feature of vegan activist life, and while they do help enrich and inspire our individual and collective thought, I try to avoid them as I am not a highly philosophical person. I decided to respond to this one as I think it raises alot of interesting questions.
My take is this particular question is that for us, ethical or animal rights vegans, everything about veganism has a moral or philosophical reason and reasoning. For businesses, obviously it’s different. It’s all about the practical, something I think we ethical animal rights vegans should embrace too.
Labelling food “plant based” as opposed to “vegan” is largely a business decision. I don’t care what they call it personally. If a person is more comfortable eating “plant based” food as opposed to “vegan” food, that’s great. It’s also great for us to talk and think about it, but outside our bubble, I think practicality and accepting reality as it is, lots of people are still leery of anything “vegan”, instead of imagining reality is as we’d like it be, everyone is embracing, understanding and going vegan, helps bring non-vegan people onboard and helps inform us in our activism. There is a philosophy in activism that requires us to “meet the people where they are”. That’s something I think we as vegan activist must do, even if it’s difficult at times.
There is alot of anger, frustration in animal rights activism which is completely understandable. We know that beautiful, innocent souls are living and dying in extreme suffering and misery, and will continue to do so until humans stop eating, wearing, enslaving and exploiting them. Knowing this, it’s hard to accept that it can takes years for even the most obvious and compelling of truths to be absorbed, accepted and then put into action. But truthfully, it’s reasonable to trust that veganism will happen because people are good generally and love animals genuinely. Also, it’s the only sustainable diet so we will have to stop breeding, abusing and eating animals, or we and our world will eventually perish. Its requires a great deal of patience getting the public to understand this, but the road from human love, fear, awakening and good intention to firm belief and collective, meaningful action is always a sure one, no matter how opposed, fraught, long and frustrating it may be.
We all want people to go vegan, but right now we need to want people to try vegan. We know that once they try, they buy. This is how the world goes vegan, and while retreating into frustration and anger, and our closed community is often necessary, I think we must also meet and applaud the outside world for where it is now, to help them break free of their conditioned ignorance and cognative dissonance. We can help them look into the places their minds cannot go, and help them go there, and help them understand what they’re seeing. Eventually, we as a species will reach the finish line, which is a beautiful vegan world, with lab meat, plant based meat, nut mylk, vegan options or whatever humanity needs to get there. We as vegans can be absolutists, but as activists, for many compelling reasons, we really cannot.
In 2005 when I began my vegan journey, vegan was not even the norm for animal rights. PETA was still advocating vegetarianism, and most people didn’t even know what veganism was. It’s hard to believe but there was literally only one brand of not very good vegan cheese available, and it was only available in health food stores. 19 years later, everyone basically knows what “vegan” is in terms of food, vegan options and foods are available everywhere, and the world, its organizations, and leaders are slowly getting it too. This is because people do care, and they do love animals. They also still eat meat, honey, dairy and eggs. That’s where they are and where we must meet then. It is still a hopeful place, one of love, so I keep the animals and the progress in mind always, even when at a loss of patience and understanding.
The self declared enemies of veganism wants to drown us in their endless pettiness, ridiculous arguments and semantics. But at this point, they are just people yelling at the train as it slowly but steadily drives by. The vegan journey has really just begun, but it has definitely begun. And it is unstoppable, if we are unstoppable. Just remember you care and you once ate meat, wore fur, wool or leather, and visited zoos. Most people really are no different.
