Vegans think they're Superior
Why do they think they're better than everyone else?
This is an unusual viewpoint when you stop to think about it because the entire concept of veganism is the desire for fairness and equality for all - the polar opposite of superiority.
I don't think I'm 'better' than anyone, human or animal, which is why I don't pay people to kill animals for me any more than I'd pay them to kill humans. Indeed, what could be more 'superior' than needlessly killing more than billion animals every week just because we like the taste of their flesh?
Most of us agree that taking a life for trivial reasons is wrong, and that fairness and equality are important ideals. Veganism just puts these ideals into practice by granting those we share the planet with the same right to life we'd wish to be granted ourselves. The species of any potential victim of our 'superiority' is irrelevant when we know animals want to stay alive in just the same way we do and that, just like us, they'll fight tooth and nail not to be killed
I don't think I'm 'better' than anyone, human or animal, which is why I don't pay people to kill animals for me any more than I'd pay them to kill humans. Indeed, what could be more 'superior' than needlessly killing more than billion animals every week just because we like the taste of their flesh?
Most of us agree that taking a life for trivial reasons is wrong, and that fairness and equality are important ideals. Veganism just puts these ideals into practice by granting those we share the planet with the same right to life we'd wish to be granted ourselves. The species of any potential victim of our 'superiority' is irrelevant when we know animals want to stay alive in just the same way we do and that, just like us, they'll fight tooth and nail not to be killed
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When looking more closely at the 'vegans think they're superior' claim it is worth considering the difference between thinking I'm better and thinking my choices are better.
An example:
You and a friend discover a man who is hurting a puppy and plans to kill it. The man has already cut off the puppy's tail and ripped out his testicles and is about to slit the puppy's throat.
You have three choices:
1. You intervene. You try your best to help and to stop the puppy from being killed.
2. You leave. Seeing the puppy being tortured is too traumatic. Perhaps you feel it's impossible to save the
puppy. The whole situation is just too distressing to be a part of.
3. You join the man in helping to hurt and kill the puppy.
Let's say (as most likely would) you choose option one and try to help the puppy but that your friend chooses option number two. Irrespective of what the pair of you are like as individuals (you may both be kind, intelligent, generous and both be genuinely good people) you made the better moral choice in that instance.
You are not suddenly superior to your friend because of this, and your friend is not suddenly a bad person. But in that one situation in your life you made the better ethical decision, the decision to do the very best you could to help stop an animal from suffering.
Once we're aware of the suffering inflicted on the animals we eat but continue to support it by buying these products, we've chosen option number two in the example above - even though it's clear that option number
one is the better moral choice. Does doing this make you a terrible person? Of course not. But it does mean you're not making the very best choices you can, choices that most likely align with your own moral values anyway.
So next time you hear someone say it's wrong to hurt, kill, dismember and consume animals, ask yourself why they come across as 'superior' to you. Because it's absolutely not that they think they're a better person and more likely because, deep down, you simply understand that they're making the better choice.
*The awful things happening the puppy in the example above are actually standard
practice for piglets in the pork industry. Known as piglet processing, they're inflicted
upon tens of thousands of piglets without anaesthetic, each and every day.
An example:
You and a friend discover a man who is hurting a puppy and plans to kill it. The man has already cut off the puppy's tail and ripped out his testicles and is about to slit the puppy's throat.
You have three choices:
1. You intervene. You try your best to help and to stop the puppy from being killed.
2. You leave. Seeing the puppy being tortured is too traumatic. Perhaps you feel it's impossible to save the
puppy. The whole situation is just too distressing to be a part of.
3. You join the man in helping to hurt and kill the puppy.
Let's say (as most likely would) you choose option one and try to help the puppy but that your friend chooses option number two. Irrespective of what the pair of you are like as individuals (you may both be kind, intelligent, generous and both be genuinely good people) you made the better moral choice in that instance.
You are not suddenly superior to your friend because of this, and your friend is not suddenly a bad person. But in that one situation in your life you made the better ethical decision, the decision to do the very best you could to help stop an animal from suffering.
Once we're aware of the suffering inflicted on the animals we eat but continue to support it by buying these products, we've chosen option number two in the example above - even though it's clear that option number
one is the better moral choice. Does doing this make you a terrible person? Of course not. But it does mean you're not making the very best choices you can, choices that most likely align with your own moral values anyway.
So next time you hear someone say it's wrong to hurt, kill, dismember and consume animals, ask yourself why they come across as 'superior' to you. Because it's absolutely not that they think they're a better person and more likely because, deep down, you simply understand that they're making the better choice.
*The awful things happening the puppy in the example above are actually standard
practice for piglets in the pork industry. Known as piglet processing, they're inflicted
upon tens of thousands of piglets without anaesthetic, each and every day.
"A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference."
Eeyore
Eeyore