I’ve been reading around the vegan interwebs today, and there’s a putrid air of triumphant moralizing, as if this is factory farming finally coming back to hit us with what we have deserved all along. Look, I get it. We’re tired of watching a rapacious industry kill billions under its bloody heel, and when the things happen that we’ve warned would happen all along, it is tempting to take a moment in the spotlight to poke your chubby little finger in the faces of all those who’ve fucked with you for being vegan, or dismissed your points, and say “told you so.” (And to be honest, I’ve been guilty of it too.)
Nevertheless, this is an issue of global concern that seems to be quickly spiraling out of control. The disease itself does not care if you’re a vegan or a meat eater or a saint reincarnated: apart from any genetic predisposition or immunity you may have, you’re just as likely as anyone else to get the flu. The one big difference, though, is that most of you reading this live in countries with medical systems that can attend to you, and which will probably prevent you from dying from it, should you be unlucky enough to end up on the beating end of this particular stick.
In our haste to point fingers in faces with a “told you so,” we’re losing the empathy and compassion that are supposedly at the heart of veganism. Those who will suffer the most in this entire catastrophe deserve our empathy. The many billions of people in the world who have no access to health care will pay the price of this pandemic disproportionately, and I suspect that if it goes global, the global South will suffer the most. Many millions or more could die from this pandemic if it gets bad, and none of the “told-you-so’s” can really help any of them now. We have a duty to remind people of what has caused this problem, but we should do it in a way that educates them about the problems involved, and without the triumphalism.
There’s little doubt that our arrival at the precipice of this particular pandemic was one that was hastened by factory farming. Pigs in intensive agricultural operations are dosed up with antivirals at staggering rates, and the intensive confinement is no doubt a deadly training ground for viral resistance. But let’s not forget that swine flu in some form or another has been around longer than intensive-confinement factory farming. The problem is a larger one of us using pigs altogether as a food source, and humans being near them to “raise” them. Because pigs can harbor both bird and human forms of the flu virus, they’re the perfect laboratory for combining these strains and then communicating them to the humans who are working around them or with them. The problem, then, is a larger one of humans rearing and owning and controlling animals for our ends. To put it differently, while the risk of a swine flu epidemic is almost certainly exacerbated by factory farming, it is not factory farming alone that produces the swine flu.
If this pandemic develops into something worse in the coming weeks, we have to adopt a more responsive posture as vegans. There’s nothing wrong with telling people that animal agriculture is at the heart of this problem, but as we do that, we must remember that many news-consuming publics love to shoot the messengers. Given all of that, we must proceed with an appropriate sense of gravity and, above all, with a sense of empathy for those — human and non-human alike — who will likely die in this horrible pandemic.
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Very nice summation of all of how this should be treated, especially by vegans. It's sometimes difficult, like how you pointed out in your first paragraph, to be the finger-pointer. I mean even this morning I did it to my own mother without even thinking of it.
We have to look at it from outside our comfort zone. I'm glad you wrote this, because I was interested in your POV on the situation and many others obviously. I listen to the podcast and talk about you and Jenna as if you were super heroes.
Again, thanks for writing up this piece. I hope I can hear more of both of your thoughts on this in the next exciting podcast episode.
Great post Bob! Definitely worth keeping in mind. Veganism is about the ability to empathise with suffering after all. Thanks.
Bob,
Thank you very much for this. A large part of the reason I practice veganism is because of the unsustainability of the meat industry, but as I came to grips with that truth I also became very aware that I, like most others who have that choice, am very privileged to live in a place and to have the resources to be able to live that choice.
Your point that the disease is completely non-discriminatory is right on, and the fact that the Global South will suffer disproportionately is particularly sad because that third of the world's population are largely farmers who live a lifestyle that is largely sustainable. They don't do it because they have a choice, in fact they have no choice, they either live sustainably or they die. They may eat meat, but they eat it occasionally, and yet they will suffer for the Global North's obsession with having two to three servings of meat with every meal.
So, the outrage is appropriate, but so is the empathy and compassion you suggest. As we continue to discuss the causes of and responsibility for this humanitarian disaster let us keep the victims firmly at the center of our thoughts and concerns.
Many thanks,
Jonathan
Thank you all for the thoughtful comments.
Constructive criticism is fine, but to compare my argument to your hypothetical was troubling. We don't engage in that kind of argument, and never have. To have read that implication was troubling.
We both have spent a lot of time thinking about how to deliver this message to different people, and we deliver it differently depending on the context. For example, in the classes I taught on this when I was a University professor, I took a very different approach than I do here. In my other book, I take yet another approach. Point is, different audiences require different approaches. We're not trying to reach everyone; we never could, and we never will. We've been doing this for years now, and the first edition of our book sold many thousands of copies. While that's not a direct indicator of the success of our approach, it suggests that we're doing something right for at least some people.
Responses to your points:
i) On it being from a book: The title references it being an excerpt, and the entry itself says in the first paragraph that we go into more depth “in the book itself.”
ii) Anyone can read the site — obviously — but we cater to ethical vegans and those on their way to ethical veganism in what we write. Omnivores, vegetarians, and whatever pretentious vegans are may not find a happy home here because of the audience we write to. That's how it goes.
iii) Because we wrote a book that helps people to embrace ethical veganism, we often have people asking us questions about these issues. While most of our readers are vegans, we also have some near-vegan readers who are trying to figure out how to go vegan. The excerpt was mostly for them, and actually, I only decided to post it in response to this:
http://veganfreak.com/authors/#comment-2
Point is, yes, anyone can read this, but it isn't intended to be the single definitive guide to quitting dairy, forever and ever, without end, amen. It is simply a single page out of a single chapter of the 2nd. edition of our book — thus, the version 2.0 excerpt in the title — and I posted it mostly to answer a single question, and to give those who follow our blog a little taste of what we were working on.
Thank you for your apology. i don't think constructive criticism is out of line, but comparing the argument we make to the nonsense you wrote in your last comment frustrated me. If the constructive criticism is on-level, I'm actually happy to receive it, and we run all of our books through a peer-review process precisely to get that feedback.
You're welcome to post here if I ever open comments again (hehe) but please be fair in your comparisons. And please don't post in the wrong entry again. It gets confusing.
Thanks for the comments. It is easy to point fingers and lay blame — and I'm not saying that we shouldn't — but I think we have to watch out for that creeping misanthropy that always seems to be just underneath the surface in our movement.
I'm glad you listen to the show, and I'm flattered that you speak kindly of us. We keep thinking we'll get a show out, but times have been super-busy here. Nevertheless, we will eventually have another one out.
Thanks again.
Indeed. And we also need to remember that humans also suffer acutely. Sadly, I see too little of this awareness in the movement.
Thank you for the comment. You are right that our ability to choose is an incredible privilege, and that many others are forced into what are essentially plant-based diets because few other options exist apart from starvation. Back when I was a professor, I used to teach classes on the inequalities that arose out of our global economic order, and getting students to wrap their heads around the layers of domination was hard. Yet, it was always powerful when they realized it, and saw the concrete effects it had.
Sadly, I see too few vegans making these important connections, unless they're trying to win an argument.
What I see more often is a kind of naive assumption that if we eat plants directly, they'll be more to go around. That may be true as a general rule, but the politics of food distribution make it almost irrelevant. In short, we need to better grasp the fundamentals of human inequality, and to try to get our fellow vegans to do some of the same.
If this swine flu is deserving of so much attention, the government and the news media have to date done a miserable job of explaining why. I find this perplexing and frustrating. Seasonal flu viruses kill 35,000 people annually in the US alone. In comparison, this swine flu seems rather insignificant.
Hello!
Thank you so much for posting this wonderful article….
For most of my life I have been a vegetarian — never really liked meat but love diary and eggs! The majority of my friends and family are also vegetarians and we all concluded that since we very rarely eat a dead critter (except fish) then we are being very humanistic in our endeavors to protect animal rights. Over this past year I have come to see the fallacy in this way of thinking.
Almost a year ago I reconnected with a friend who is now a confirmed Vegan. In a prior life this friend of mine could a steak and wash it down with a salmon fillet with the best of them and now will not touch meat in any form. At first I was taken aback by this change in attitude, thinking that it must be a 'fad' of some sort — trying it on so to speak, to fit into a group or as a form of acceptance. I expected this friend of mine to try to “convert” me to become a Vegan, heck I was already halfway there but my friend did not. Instead we got into friendly discussions… debates. Never was I approached with a, “you SHOULD be doing this because…” or a, “SEE I told you….”. Instead, my friend gave me recommendations for vegan cookbooks, sent me links to read about vegan interests and instead of telling me that I should not use milk and butter when baking my bread asked me gently, “have you tried using soy milk and olive oil in place of the milk and butter. It is so killer!” And you know what? Homemade bread with soy milk and olive oil IS way better than with milk and butter!
In my everyday life I am still mostly a vegetarian. I console myself with ideas that if I personally know the farmer than it is okay to eat those eggs or with raising three children alone cow milk is more economical than soy milk and the list of excuses for not being vegan (no matter how much I want to protect the animals that I so very love) goes on. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that as Vegans, if you all are trying to convert the world to becoming Vegans do it with little, tiny baby-steps. Love and friendship can change the world however, patience and understanding is required for the changes to occur….
Besides, who does not love Wilbur (the pig from Charlotte's Web)?
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