Dear TEK. We will simply agree do deeply disagree. I started writing a long “point-by-point” response to your comment, but I think it is pointless and from experience this type of exchange goes nowhere. Avoidable suffering is cruelty, and that is the whole point of veganism. Not over-the-top philosophical stuff. It is simple: if you can, don’t cause harm. Food and clothes go in that category.
Not much in the world can be changed simply by changing something like what we eat and wear. More environmental choices are one example, and I certainly do that as well. We explicitly choose the suffering of animals in the face of LOTS of non-animal options. Of course there is suffering also in plant and seed agriculture, but by orders of magnitude less, as we use MORE land and crops for feeding the animals that we eat than if we cut out the animals altogether and put them out of their hellish living and death conditions.
Your response is an elaborate weave of cognitive dissonance management. In essence you say that as long as there will be suffering of any form or debates over certain things, THEN killing animals is all good. That does not make sense. I find it sad that we must always debate over something that is indeed quite clear.
“If wars are ethical then factory farms are ethical”… 1) we are not attacked by cows and pigs and they do not pose a threat to national security, 2) tell me what to change in my day-to-day life choices to directly stop war and I will. I promise. “Somes places dogs etc”… yes… and those places are also blind to the fact that they are torturing and killing sentient living beings for pleasure, and it is avoidable.
Cruelty elsewhere does not make cruelty here less bad, and vice versa as well. I have “ethical issues” with killing sentient beings when there are other options. Your past experience does not make you more right. MANY ex pig, cow, sheep, goat, milk farmers/producers have not only turned away to that way of living but are now also vegan and animal defenders! Including that “quote” in my text that you quote in your comment, which is from an ex pig producer turned vegan…
Your comparisons are all comparing apples and oranges and making fast associations that seem to work but are fundamentally flawed. I am sure you feel all good with your inner logic, so I will wish you all the best. As for me, killing animals in the face of other yummy, healthy, and plentiful (and growing) options is automatically unethical.
Slavery was never ethical for me, but I see that is was for you. As was rape of a non-married woman, arranged marriages, and so much more things that were widely seen as normal and no big deal. No, I do not agree that “it is ethical until it is not.” It is a social norm, yes. But not ethical.
So since we see the world from a fundamentally different angle, I am sure I will not “convince you” of taking into consideration avoidable suffering in simple life choices by having empathy, as perhaps you don’t care, which means we are extremely different indeed… and I will keep on at least avoiding the suffering I can avoid causing by not eating animals, wearing animals, or encouraging other forms of animal suffering when I have the option not to. Be well. Have a great life. Regards. PB.
