The Real "Fervor of the Vegan": A Response to The Atlantic, Part 1

Edit: The Flickr page from which I retrieved this photo from Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary didn't include a name, but Ryan of Veg Blog recognized this sweetie and clued me in: this is the lovely Ainsley.

Last Thursday, Max Fisher of The Atlantic sent me a quick, kind note about my blog here and about an article he himself had just written. From his message, I was initially optimistic about what I would find when I followed the link, but when the page loaded, my disappointment was immediate. From the title, the photo he featured at the top, and the very first line, I could tell this was a piece that was going to frustrate and even anger me. To Mr. Fisher's credit, I want to repeat that he contacted me kindly and that we exchanged a couple very brief but respectful messages. I told him that I was bothered by the post and that I would write a response when I had time, and he was welcoming about this. So. Here we go. And because this response is long, I'll be breaking it into two parts.

We might as well start at the beginning. The title of the article is "The Fervor of the Vegan." The photo immediately below the title is of "Meat Is Murder / Vegan Attack" spray-painted in black on a brick wall. The first line plainly states that "not eating meat" is a "religion" for vegans. Ugh times three.

First, "the vegan" in the title implies that all vegans fit one mold or all hold some very specific, universal set of characteristics. We don't. We aren't all different copies of the same forgotten Cylon model. Vegans have this in common: we don't eat, wear, exploit, or support the exploitation of animals; in our food choices, and in our other purchases and life choices, we do our best to minimize harm. But that's it. From there, we're as varied as omnivores--as varied as anyone else in personalities, jobs, lifestyles, backgrounds, politics, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, involvement or non-involvement in activism, and so on.

Second, I'm irked that someone professing to understand and respect vegans would choose this image of all images to represent vegans' "fervor." The percentage of vegans who go around spray-painting buildings--least of all with the words "vegan attack"--is ridiculously small, so very tiny that it's absurd that images such as these are ever considered representative of how vegans express themselves. Far more vegans express their passion and compassion through amazing, flavorful cooking and food blogging; through one-on-one conversations with friends and family; through rescuing and caring for animals; through peaceful, accessible, and friendly writing, leafleting, conversations, and demonstrations. The "fervor" of vegans is not in paint on a wall. And I'm damn tired of vegans being portrayed by those in the media (or by those who feel guilty in response to vegans--more on that in part 2 of this post) in this way. (Because of our image among non-vegans, I don't even like it when fellow animal advocates use these images to represent us--when I wrote a piece on animal activists in December, and another animal-advocating site saw it and reposted it in full, they added such an image to the post without my permission, and although I was flattered by the inclusion of the post, I wasn't crazy about the image.)

On a related note, Max perpetuates the idea of vegans as the "angry vegetarians." But as I told Max last week, most vegans aren't angry vegans, but some get angry when they see articles such as this, when they're constantly portrayed and/or mocked as something they're not, when they constantly have to defend themselves or once again respond to self-justifying misrepresentations of veganism, and when they so frequently have to defend the animals themselves in other articles and posts (not like this one) that minimize or mock animals' suffering. Getting angry in response to things that warrant anger doesn't make someone (or a group) generally angry. There are perpetually angry, vocally hostile, verbally violent vegans. But they are few (this is the subject of another long-overdue post). And those few need to stop being cited as representative of who most of us are.

And the religion remark. Oh, Max, the religion remark. You even made it as if it were fact, as if vegans would agree with it! Veganism is not a religion. It's not about praising, pleasing, and earning the approval of some god or about arbitrary rules handed down over generations. It's not about belief or faith in something or someone intangible and unseen. It's not about trying to secure your place in a next life. And it's not even about some sense of purity. Veganism is about minimizing, as much as possible, the unnecessary suffering and killing of our fellow beings. It's about very real, breathing, thinking, feeling individuals right here beside us on this planet--and it's quite simply about not exploiting, torturing, and killing them. It has far more in common with other social justice and civil rights movements than it has with any religion.

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See part 2 here.

(Flickr photo by angela n. of a cow with visitors at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary)