No vegan ever said this –
Let’s be clear, veganism is about respect for animals’ lives, not about judging animals’ lives. It’s about not being unconscionable towards animals just because we can be. It’s about having that peace within us because we have aligned ourselves with our values – even if our outer world is chaotic and messed up. Veganism is as much about us as it is about animals.
Yes, the above picture of ‘nature’ doing its thing may look upsetting, but it’s not for us to pass judgement on it. No Vegan has ever claimed that either human or non-human animals that need to eat other beings for their very existence and survival are wrong to do so.
A much better meme, especially for the maker of the above meme, would be the one on this mug –
The absurd things that Vegans are purported to be and say come out of the mouths of both the supposedly intelligent and the irredeemably stupid. Neither has dominance over the other with the absurdities they trot out. The lies, propaganda and plain dumb-arse comments made about Vegans – which I roll into the one efficient word ‘bullshit’ (normally referred to as BS for politeness’ sake) – is mind-numbingly unvaried. Most of it is recycled on a continuous loop, and is actually more boring than offensive after a while.
Non-Vegans tend to blame their verbal diarrhoea on Vegans behaving badly. And you know what? it’s true – most of us do at some time or other behave badly. Those who have never behaved badly aren’t trying hard enough 🙂 Behaving badly can vary from being REALLY, REALLY annoying and confrontational, to looking at a non-Vegan the wrong way. Just being a Vegan can trigger a non-Vegan. Naturally, non-Vegans can’t be expected to take responsibility for their own behaviour, though. I don’t like every Vegan or everything that Vegans do either, but so far I’ve not seen anything that Vegans do that is as bad as the way the animal agriculture industry treats animals. And non-Vegans happen to be an integral part of that horror show, whether they think of themselves as being players in it, or not.
However, I’m not here to give non-Vegans the bash. Ha! Who am I kidding – of course I am 🙂 Well, those non-Vegans who give Vegans the bash, at least, or make dumb comments on Facebook. Having said that, I’m mostly able to ignore the dumb comments these days, although I can’t deny that Facebook has hooks all over and all through it, and dodging them can be a hard job. The geeks who control it are much cleverer than I am, and the odd hook does still get me on a bad day. Like today. We’re all only human.
So how should we react to the dumb stuff that’s said about Vegans? Well, one thing I know that no person has also never said, whether Vegan or not, is “thanks for giving me the bash, I’ll now change my ways”. If I was being mature I would advise everyone to engage with each other in a mature way. So for the record I advise everyone to engage with each other on Facebook in a mature way. Even if you’re the only grownup a room full of mud-slingers, be the mature one. In reality, do what you want. You won’t listen to me anyway – and why should you? I never listened to anyone who advised a mature and thoughtful approach – I had to develop that as I matured. But you don’t have to wait to get old to get mature if you’d like to give it a go now. Getting older does gives us a helluva different perspective on things, and what we spend our time on, but it doesn’t always make us mature.
For those who ascribe all sorts of shite to vegansim over and above actual vegansim, like the numpty who made the above meme, for example, here’s rule #1 of what veganism is actually about –
Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.
Guess what? There are no other rules about vegansim. Now stop just making other stuff up, or adding stuff to it that you feel should be under the vegan umbrella. Have your own moral code about anything you want, that’s your prerogative, but if you think it’s vegan, re-read rule #1.
A B'Older Vegan 