Intersting question and article on NPR
Vegans Think They Are Better Than Everyone Else?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/08/30/160117028/do-vegetarians-and-vegans-think-they-are-better-than-everyone-else
Here are my words on that issue:
I get that too sometimes, but I don't worry about it because I think I know what it really is about. It's about changing the subject, because the average meat/egg and dairy eater does not want to hear that their choices are bad for them and for animals.
To attack the messenger is as old as the world.
It is much easier to make vegans and vegetarians out to be "holier then thou" then to take a critical look at their own behavior.
I was once a meat/egg and dairy eater and I admit that I had for a while, the same attitude. The only difference is today that I eventually, after facts and truth, have been presented to me changed my behavior and fully admit that my previous behavior was wrong. So the difference lies in the willingness to learn and to change for the better.
Those that change the subject are stone walling the real issue. they don't want to hear the truth, it would mean facing the truth about their own behavior and having to make a choice, convince over compassion, appetite over compassion, selfish needs over compassion, a lifetime of habit over compassion. Seems a difficult choice, but not when your heart is open wide for compassion and life.
Imagine if someone said to an average meat/egg and dairy eater who otherwise lives an exemplary live "Do you think you are better that those child molesters that you are so upset about?" Do you think you are better than these robbers that hold up convenient stores?" Do you think you are better than these murderer that you send to jail?" Of course nobody would even ask these questions, because we except that we are all better than someone who engages in these behaviors.
Only because torturing animals and abusing them, so we can have meat, eggs and dairy and fur and leather, is not a crime (yet), Vegans are supposed to all fall in line and shut up about cruelty.
Should the abolitionist have shut up about slavery.? Should Dr. King have shut up about racial issues and mistreatment and discrimination of blacks? Was he holier than thou? Of course not... he was simply RIGHT in his fight! He was a visionary who knew right from wrong. So do Vegans. We are visionaries who know right from wrong when we see it and we act upon it.
History tells us that just because something isn't illegal that does not mean it is right or won't someday be illegal and universally accepted as unethical.
Are those that denounce and fight racism "holier than thou?" Are those that denounce and fight sexism "holier than thou"? Nobody would ask those question, except when it comes to food choices, which translate to Vegans in to choices of compassion over cruelty.
Vegans chose to raise their voices in defense of animals and actually in defense of humans as well, that are often suffering the fall out of a meat/egg and dairy world.
So we are not holier than thou we are just making better choices and our argument is on the right side of history, just like meat eater would agree it is wrong to kill humans, we simply know it is wrong to kill anybody and we don't apologize for it.
