ARCO's Abolitionists - A Vegan Forum

Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approachach wrote:A single-issue campaign involves identifying some particular use of animals or some form of treatment and making that the object of a campaign to end the use or modify the treatment. The problem of a single-issue campaign is that it presents some particular use or treatment as morally distinguishable from other forms of use or treatment and by doing so explicitly or implicitly suggests that other forms of exploitation are morally less problematic.

Blog entry by Gary Francione about single-issue campaigns. Is Every Campaign a Single-Issue Campaign?
As for veganism being a single issue campaign. Clearly it is not

Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approachach wrote:..when I talk about veganism, I talk about not eating, wearing, or using any animal or animal-derived product for any human purpose. But even if you restrict your understanding of veganism to “a vegan diet,” you are still advocating the elimination of a practice that involves more animals than all of the other animal uses combined because everyone who is not a vegan consumes animals and animal products.

My thought on this is that not all SIC are single-issue, and that veganism is not the same as animal rights (according to the above definition, kicking a dog on the street has nothing to do with veganism), but something more than just a single-issue campaign.

To educate why animals interests should have equal value as human interests is the only form of education that is not single issue.

I think I've gotten away from the animal rights side of things in my zeal to spread veganism. I talk a little about how non-human animals are also individuals who shouldn't be exploited, but I'm really concentrating on how wonderful veganism is. It's easier and "sunnier." Someone who started a really huge vegan meetup where I live has recently started questioning whether he wants to wear the label of "vegan" anymore. It has become a cause in and of itself, for some folks. I'm afraid I'm one of them.

It's just that when I was searching for a way to respond to the horrors of animal agriculture, I was SO relieved to find a set of rules to follow. I could just follow them and not have to think about each and every thing I was doing. I like that I can recognize the people and products that I want in my life. I guess I just assume that people are searching for that solution, too, so I provide it. But a lot of people really aren't searching for the solution yet, or are even aware of the problem.

I'm going to have to re-adjust my outreach.

The problem with spreading veganism without teaching anti-speciesism is that vegans will get in moral dilemmas which they will probably not be able to solve and thus be tempted to start eating meat again. Classic example for that is the Ali G dilemma. In one of his shows he talked with some senior vegans and started challenging their eating habits. He asked an older gentleman if he would eat meat if it was free, or if he gave him money. The gentleman replied 'no', of course, because he was a vegan. Then he asked if he would eat a dead chicken if someone told him that a living chicken would be killed if he didn't eat the dead chicken. The gentleman answered 'no', of course, but the guy next to him said that was one of the most difficult philosophical questions. So in some way he gave validity to the question, and that planted a seed of doubt in some dietary vegans who were watching the show. I know, at the time when I watched it several years ago, I felt weaker and unceratin in my beliefs.
This all means that someone might start to doubt his choice to be a vegan if he is faced with a difficult moral dilemma. Now, on the other hand, if he didn't brand himself as vegan, if he was just pro animal rights, he would have a better idea how to answer that question. E.g. in my life I don't declare myself anti-cannibal, but pro human rights. Being pro human rights gives me an opportunity to eat human flesh when and only if it is morally justified. So, in a situation where someone said to me to eat a piece of human flesh, or another person would die, my moral obligation would be to eat that flesh. That act in no way condones eating humans, nor killing them for their flesh. To the contrary, my act of flesh eating is to protect the violation of human rights.
So, in doing so, am I then a cannibal? A consientious human meat-eater? It just shows how irrelevant that word is. Vegan is also tricky, and we should consider if we want to be pro-veganism or anti-speciesist/pro-animal rights. Diet is one part of animal rights, but it can't be the only one.

You couldn't have said it in a better way, Teddy!

Vegans just don't need to be uncomfortable when someone asks an "uncomfortable" question simply because it's a moral position. Just as most people wouldn't eat humans in their everyday lives but they would given a life-or-death situation, vegans shouldn't think of those rare situations as the default position. After all, we take veganism to practice many, many times every day. Those are not life-or-death situations.

Regards,


Pablo
www.AbolitionOfSpeciesism.tk

Thanks for the wonderful explanation, tb!