Teaching (calming) my fiancé

[BethanyWard]

My fiancé has recently become vegan and is really invested in animal rights...overly invested.

I tried talking with him about the recent news over separating families on the Mexican/American border. He instantly brought up the fact that this is already happening to animals all around the world - and I get that, I know he’s right about that - however the more we talked about it the more passionate he became in defence of the animals and eventually began shrugging off the separation of human families as if it was completely insignificant, almost defending the America/Mexico situation.

He’s an angry vegan, yes, but I was wondering if you think that this is normal in vegan philosophy, or if it totally goes against it. Should what is happening on the border be justified by vegans?

 

[amberfunk]

What is happening has nothing to do with veganism. He probably just doesn't want to talk about it.

 

[BethanyWard]

What is happening has nothing to do with veganism. He probably just doesn't want to talk about it.

If it has nothing to do with Veganism then shouldn’t he not use Veganism as an argument to justify it - if Veganism is irrelevant?

 

[Lou]

Being vegan in a non-vegan world is at least frustrating. Some vegans get angry. Some get depressed. Most of us get over it.

Not to long ago I started a thread.
https://veganforum.org/threads/dark-thoughts.2641/

I was upset when I heard the President call people "animals". Sheesh, Its bad enough that we treat animals badly. Treating people badly is even worse.

As a card-carrying snowflake, I found it very encouraging when so many people got upset about our government's treatment of immigrants.

But as a card-carrying vegan, I find it very discouraging that most Americans take it for granted when we treat animals badly. And those animals are pretty f*¢king innocent.

In defense of your fiance, I know why its upsetting. It took six weeks to separate 2000 families. Worldwide we slaughter over 2000 farm animals per SECOND.

Collen Patrick Goudreau uses an expression, "The Joyful Vegan". (as opposed to the angry vegan or the depressed vegan.) She writes and podcasts about it a lot.
This short article discusses it a bit.
https://www.care2.com/greenliving/confession-being-vegan-is-really-hard-sometimes.html

and this podcast discussed it a lot. It's less than 8 minutes.
http://www.colleenpatrickgoudreau.com/being-a-joyful-vegan/

You might share these with your fiance and then spend a little bit talking about them. It could be rewarding.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Good post (the one just above mine). Veganism doesn't justify the border separation issue. Is it possible that he is not justifying the border separation issue, but is against the separation, but just considers it the lesser of the two issues? I suspect you are slightly misrepresenting his position.

To most people, it seems offensive to seemingly be more interested in a pig than a human child. But if the number of animals suffering is 1 million times more (for example) then the number of immigrants suffering, then the animal suffering must be more important overall? Unless of course you think that a human child is more important than a million pigs? But when you look at it that way, it's no longer as obvious which is the more important issue.

If you think that human rights are more important than animal rights, then you are safely sharing the opinion that many of us, even many vegans, have. But if you are so sure that human rights are more important than animal rights that it feels offensive to even make the comparison, then two things are likely happening.

1 An emotional rather than logical reaction. Fair enough, we all do it, it's natural and normal starting point, but try and get past that.
2 Like most people, you are a speciesist and have a discriminatory attitude towards animals and need to learn more about speciesism. Again, don't take it personally since 90% or 99% of people are the same.

I hope that's not too direct. Respect and best wishes to you.

PS Your fiance probably could do with showing some more concern to the children. Has he only been vegan a year or two? Sounds like he's in the early phase. If so, it may moderate over time.

 

[Kellyr]

It sounds like the two of you were butting heads trying to each get your point across.

How the US is treating immigrants is absolutely despicable. And the justifications the Trump administration is using makes my blood boil. This is an important issue that shouldn't be ignored.

However, in the bigger scheme of things, humans justify doing much, much worse to hundreds of thousands of animals every single day. And yes, it's heartbreaking and reprehensible, as well, yet it gets ignored all the time because it is inconvenient and most of all, a large chunk of the human population just doesn't have the same kind of empathy for animals as it does for other humans.

Your boyfriend has that empathy and is just ****** that yet again animal rights are ignored and he's likely trying to point out the hypocrisy of everyone's concern for those families in the context of animal suffering. The vehicle he's using to get his point across, however, isn't likely to get may people on his side since people are apt to feel more empathy towards other humans because they simply relate to human beings far easier than they do to animals.

Maybe it might be easier for you to hop on his side if you look at other news stories that get people riled up where the hypocrisy is much easier to spot: Western culture getting angry over some eastern cultures slaughtering dogs for meat, for example. Or wishing death upon big game hunters who kill a lion. Those same people getting outraged over these kinds of stories later on have a steak for dinner, not even stopping to think about the animal that died to be on their plate.

 

[Lou]

Gosh, these replies have been great.

I think another thing that can be pointed out here is that when people behave towards other people without compassion, a vegan sees the livestock industry as the root for this kind of behavior. The philosophers that vegans like to quote all claim that a compassionate world cannot exist without compassion for animals as well.

“I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
- mahatma gandhi

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
- pythagoras

"Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace."
- albert schweitzer

"We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature."
- rachel carson

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
thomas edison

Then this one seems to be spot on
“Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: They are only animals.”
- theodor adorno

I wonder what theodor would make of Trump calling immigrants animals, and saying they infest?

Anyway, a lot of people are mad that Trump is "dehumanizing' people. But certainly, our society has had a lot of practice by constantly minimizing the value of animal lives.

 

[veganDreama]

I know how it feels to be angry all the time. In the end I had to stop thinking about all the animal violations that go on. I'm doing my bit by being vegan.