Veganism remains a somewhat fringe position. Truly ethical vegans make up on average less than 1% of the global population, and even in the most vegan-supporting countries the proportion remains at around 5% (and I doubt these figures, by the way); there is a very long way to go to achieve any truly substantial representation.
Is this likely to change? I don't know but I am suspicious that it won't. The traditional vegan argument remains at odds with the everyday person's conception of the world. Worse, vegan messaging struggles to gain a real foothold. In my opinion - and backed by nothing at all - I tend to the view that the uptake of veganism falls somewhere distant from the mean on the bell curve of types (from the most caring to the most uncaring). Put another way, about as many people as naturally lean that way are already veg*n and convincing people to truly be ethical vegans becomes less effective the further we travel towards the mean.
How could this be changed? Is there any real pathway to greater success? Here's my two cents worth.
Veganism is, in the end, a personal choice. Maybe it would be better to face this fact and stop expecting the world to become vegan. If the real intention behind veganism is to reduce pain and suffering, then any reduction is a measure of success. Holding out for some distant perfection, such as in abolitionism, is a failed enterprise and likely to fall far shorter of other strategies, even such as welfarism.
If veganism were cast as simply the extension of personal moral considerations to other animals as much as possible, I believe we could travel farther towards the goal of reducing suffering by other animals. When we take a moral position towards other people, our general belief is that we should behave honourably towards them. We might well believe, for exmple, that we would want to treat them as we wish them to treat us. If we took the view that we should also act honourably towards other animals, we might be willing to take stepts to reduce the impacts of our own behaviours, just as we do with other people.
This means that vegan advocacy would focus not on conformity to some idealised norm but rather to practical ways in which people might reduce suffering. We aren't selling adherence to a standard, we are selling the wish to do better for other animals. It also means that we'd encourage individuals to endorse what, for want of a better term, we might call vegan ethics. In fact, we'd recast "vegan ethics" as everyday ethics applied to other animals wherever possible.
Boiled down, it means that we would be selling the idea that when we act into the world, we think about the consequences for other animals. That doesn't mean that someone embracing this view would necessarily stop eating animals for example, but it does mean that they might adopt a position closer to traditional veganism than they might otherwise have done.
In the end, everyone is encouraged to take the position that suits them best, so long as in doing so they have a genuine interest in reducing the suffering of other animals. I can see a lot of interesting strategies and tactics that could fall out of that idea. What do you see as the flaws/weaknesses in this idea?
Is this likely to change? I don't know but I am suspicious that it won't. The traditional vegan argument remains at odds with the everyday person's conception of the world. Worse, vegan messaging struggles to gain a real foothold. In my opinion - and backed by nothing at all - I tend to the view that the uptake of veganism falls somewhere distant from the mean on the bell curve of types (from the most caring to the most uncaring). Put another way, about as many people as naturally lean that way are already veg*n and convincing people to truly be ethical vegans becomes less effective the further we travel towards the mean.
How could this be changed? Is there any real pathway to greater success? Here's my two cents worth.
Veganism is, in the end, a personal choice. Maybe it would be better to face this fact and stop expecting the world to become vegan. If the real intention behind veganism is to reduce pain and suffering, then any reduction is a measure of success. Holding out for some distant perfection, such as in abolitionism, is a failed enterprise and likely to fall far shorter of other strategies, even such as welfarism.
If veganism were cast as simply the extension of personal moral considerations to other animals as much as possible, I believe we could travel farther towards the goal of reducing suffering by other animals. When we take a moral position towards other people, our general belief is that we should behave honourably towards them. We might well believe, for exmple, that we would want to treat them as we wish them to treat us. If we took the view that we should also act honourably towards other animals, we might be willing to take stepts to reduce the impacts of our own behaviours, just as we do with other people.
This means that vegan advocacy would focus not on conformity to some idealised norm but rather to practical ways in which people might reduce suffering. We aren't selling adherence to a standard, we are selling the wish to do better for other animals. It also means that we'd encourage individuals to endorse what, for want of a better term, we might call vegan ethics. In fact, we'd recast "vegan ethics" as everyday ethics applied to other animals wherever possible.
Boiled down, it means that we would be selling the idea that when we act into the world, we think about the consequences for other animals. That doesn't mean that someone embracing this view would necessarily stop eating animals for example, but it does mean that they might adopt a position closer to traditional veganism than they might otherwise have done.
In the end, everyone is encouraged to take the position that suits them best, so long as in doing so they have a genuine interest in reducing the suffering of other animals. I can see a lot of interesting strategies and tactics that could fall out of that idea. What do you see as the flaws/weaknesses in this idea?
