The Great Debate: To call yourself a vegetarian or vegan – PART II

As the co-moderator of this blog, nothing makes me happier than to see posts explode into lively, fiery debates. When I say fiery, however, I’m talking about igniting debate, not burning those who disagree with you. So I’m both thrilled to see that Kenny Torrella’s post yesterday set off a heated exchange and disappointed to see that some readers – on both sides of the issue – responded with bitter sarcasm.

Blog readers have every right to be pissed off by any view they disagree with, but there’s a big difference between being respectfully pissed and just plain out pissing on somebody else’s opinions. All I’m saying is be respectful, be civil, and most importantly, keep it real!

With that in mind, I’d like to extend an invitation to any interested readers to participate in this discussion. If you’re not a contributor on “Animal Writes,” but would like to weigh in by posting a guest entry, shoot me an email at benjidavidow@gmail.com

Now, moderator business aside, I’d like to take off my referee shirt and jump into the fighting ring with the understanding that everything I say is my personal opinion as an activist and not as the blog moderator. At the same time, I’d like to see if there’s any room for reconciliation between the sparring viewpoints.

To summarize, Kenny, a vegan farm animal activist (and a friend of mine, for full disclosure) argued from experience that labeling himself as vegetarian rather than vegan is more effective in outreach. He echoes the insights of Bruce Friedrich, who has found that talking about veganism right off the bat tends to overwhelm and turn away folks from engaging with the issue. Some readers retorted that a vegan who labels himself as vegetarian is dishonest and has sold out by neglecting animals that are exploited for dairy and eggs.

I agree with some of the commenters that there is profound inconsistency in ethically motivated lacto-ovo vegetarianism, since, for example, more animals are slaughtered in the egg industry than in the beef industry. However, for anyone doing veg outreach, the vital and never-ceasing question must be: how can I have the greatest impact for farm animals? In Bruce and Kenny’s experience, explicitly advocating veganism turns a slight fraction of people vegan at best, while advocating vegetarianism leads many down a path that often leads to veganism.

As Kenny notes, Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, has talked about the importance of asking people to take the first step rather than the last step. If Joe Shmoe takes the first step and sees how easy it is, he’s likely to take the next step. But if you ask Joe to leap to the finish line, he’s likely to walk away – probably in the opposite direction.

Imposing a moral baseline seems to me not only counterproductive, since it often turns people off from opening up to the issues, but also disingenuous, since nobody consumes a 100% cruelty-free diet. No vegan I know, myself included, eats in a way that causes zero harm to animals, farmers, laborers, or the environment. So holding up veganism as a moral ideal, even with the best of intentions, is misguided. The question is how to minimize our harm. Veganism is a huge step in that direction, but it is not the endpoint, and treating it as such tempts the language of self-righteousness and absolutism.

The comments on Kenny’s post reflect a broader rift in the animal rights community between so-called abolitionists and so-called welfarists. Abolitionists advocate an uncompromising pro-vegan stance and tend to oppose any incremental welfare reforms for farm animals, since they believe such reforms only reinforce the legitimacy of using animals for food. Welfarists, in contrast, believe that incremental steps forward for animal welfare are important and can be advanced in tandem with a non-exploitation ethic.

My sense is that these diverging viewpoints are rooted in deep convictions. To make a sweeping generalization, I think abolitionists place higher value on honesty, purity and idealism, while welfarists value efficacy, practicality, and nuance. Now, I bet that few welfarists or abolitionists would actually accept this categorization. A welfarist might believe that she is acting with more integrity, since in her view, renouncing efforts to improve welfare standards is doing a disservice to animals. An abolitionist might believe that he is acting with more efficacy, since welfare reforms, in his view, will turn away many potential vegetarians. My point is simply that where one falls on the abolitionist-welfarist spectrum is most often the product of underlying values (and formative experiences) and is unlikely to be swayed by means of debate.

Any conversation on effective outreach runs the risk of universalizing the matter and suggesting that some tactics are all-around superior to others. While some tactics will have greater success in some or most cases, there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for outreach. So it’s conceivable that while some or most vegans may be more effective talking about vegetarianism, other vegans, given their temperament or their convictions or who they’re talking to, may have more success talking about veganism.

At the end of the day, you won’t find the answers on how to do effective outreach in a book or on a blog; you’ll find them on the street where you can put different tactics and styles to the test. So the best advice I can offer is this: get out and find what works for you!