Black or White, or abstract veganism

I try my best to be coherent on my opinions, looking and neutralizing (when possible) that fallacy we all seem to suffer that makes us live quite well supporting opposing ideas, picking one or another when it suits us.

People that think about the problems of the World often come to a depressing conclusion that there's too much to change and it will never happen in one life time, maybe even in 10, or 100 life times.

People who don't usually think about that often use the argument that X is way more important than Y, so fighting for Y without fighting for X first is ridiculous. And we all know that nobody can fight for X, right?

Maybe. But if we always think like that, we end up having two wrongs: X and Y. Whereas if you can change Y but not X, and you do change Y, we're left with just X to worry about.

So here's my proposition:

Do what you can.

Maybe somebody will think about X while you think about Y. At some point, maybe both will be fixed.

So here's today's allegorical story.

In the past, I used to shrug off the idea of vegetarianism by thinking that it was just a result of people confusing food for pets.

When I finally took the time to read upon the subject, I found some interesting comparisons on how people used to consider slaves as non-humans and hence not being elligible to common respect. I also found many, many articles explaining how we can sufficiently replace meat protein with other vegetable options. And finally I realized that I loved vegetarian Indian food. So I couldn't sustain my comfortable meat-eater position anymore.

Before you ask, yes, it was a woman that managed to call my attention to some of the above. A radical, a vegan.

Anyway, when I decided to take off animal protein off my diet, it wasn't because I think killing to eat is wrong, nor for religious reasons, but because industrialized meat, poultry and co. really go for some extremelly cruel methods. It's the cruelty during the animal's life before it reaches our tables that bothers me to no end and make me not want to be conivent with it.

In the other hand, I'm not a natural militant. I don't like to keep poking people and saying how they're wrong and I'm right, and I'm not very sure that it's an effective method either. So I had to find a way to fit these new behavioral ideas together.

And here's where we get to the "Black or White" part. You've certainly heard this before: "The World is not Black or White". Well, it's true. Most of the time, reaching a goal is out of reach. If it's an ideal goal, it's unreachable by definition. So here's the way out:

Do what you can.

I came up with some sort of table with what is less ethically wrong and I'll choose based on it. For example:

1. Not eating any animal protein is the ideal goal.
2. Milk and eggs are less bad than meat.
3. Organic animal proteins are less bad than non-organic. The animals are supposed to be better treated.
And so on and so forth.


Somewhere in that table I'll prefer synthetic fibers over leather or fur.

Anyway, (1) is too difficult for me. There are many things that I'm not yet willing to let go, like cheese and desserts. Even though I realize that it's a somewhat unattainable goal, it's still the goal, the north.

So, ok, I want cheese? I'll look for the organic over the non-organic. I hope the cows that produced the organic milk which was used to produce the cheese were treated fairly.

So, let's say that I wanted to preach vegetarianism or veganism to you. I'd say, don't eat meat! If you say you can't, it's too damn good, then I'd say well, at least eat organic meat. Organic is too expensive? Are you sure you can't pay for it? Well, avoid eating meat when you can, like eat it only once or twice a week, for example.

Get the picture? For any goal, any effort is better than no effort. If you can do better than that, great! If not, well, do something. Anything!

Makes sense? Yes? No? Why?

On the next post I plan to target the "too expensive".