I am really sorry if I hurt or offended you, FortyTwo, or diminished the horrendous experiences that people have suffered. Again, so not my intention, as I think you are awesome. And maybe it was an extreme comparison, but I sometimes feel that as humans we place ourselves above other animals who may suffer greatly without our being aware of it because we simply don't have the knowledge of how/if those animals feel the depth of emotion/suffering that humans feel. I think part of the problem with the continuation of inflicting harm on animals for food production is that humans feel superior to animals and thus feel entitled to do with them as they please. The food chain argument from non-veg*ns I hear on pretty much a daily basis is just one example of this pervasive sentiment.
Oh, no, no, you're fine! You haven't hurt me at all. My apologies if I came across as defensive or touchy. When I respond to something I tend to end up writing an essay's worth about it, and I suppose I can be kind of intense. And thank you, that is a very nice thing to say.
Anyway, know that I really do mainly agree with you - there is a reason I'm vegan, after all. I believe that in any given situation, if there's an option that involves
not exploiting an animal, that option should absolutely be taken, because I don't want to exploit animals. For me personally it's an issue that is independent of the effect on the animal - we should know better. I like to think I know better, and I observe that in my lifestyle, so I consider myself vegan.
My mind always ends up taking that to its farthest extremes, though. What does "vegan" mean? The accepted definition is not using animal products or exploiting animals as far as is practical and possible. But then, like, if someone is imprisoned in a dungeon and they have nothing to eat for a week and a rat dies by their foot, does eating that rat make them not vegan? Theoretically, that person could be eating a rat a week and still be considered vegan while they're doing it, because it's not practical nor possible to survive without using those animals... and that just brings us back to all the fundamental dilemmas. What about someone who is strictly vegan, such as myself, who eats things that have palm oil in them? Palm oil harvesting has a LOT of ethical problems, but it's generally accepted as vegan, even though animals may have suffered to obtain it. What makes that any more or less "vegan" than anything else? What is practical or possible in that situation? Should some foods that are technically vegan be avoided because they've caused exploitation of animals? What about exploitation of people? Depending on who you ask, that's either just as bad as or worse than exploitation of animals. Should a proper vegan then avoid anything that's not fair trade? What about clothes? And, naturally, pets?
If you try to base things around a definition of "vegan" you just sort of spiral down into this rabbit hole of ethical dilemmas until you're just eating shriveled tomatoes out of a window box and gently picking ants out of a warm Brita pitcher and weeping to yourself. That's why I prefer to keep the definition of veganism out of this sort of thing and focus on the ethics in the first place, which then just brings me back to the whole spectrum of animal suffering vs. animal exploitation.
I'm rambling again, aren't I? Anyway it's just a really complicated issue and trying to reduce it to "vegan" vs. "not vegan" seems super reductive to me.
