I'm so vegan it hurts

Salon.com Life

I've seen and heard exclamations of this sort from various vegans over the years, and Salon.com's Cary Tennis has a surprisingly thoughtful response that other vegans may find helpful. I'll start with the most germane snippets of the reader's letter:

My problem is that I am finding it harder and harder to function in this world where animals are slaughtered and consumed. I go to grocery stores as little as possible, considering I have often simply cried when I am forced to walk down the aisles containing the flesh of once living creatures. I only date other vegetarians or vegans and have mostly surrounded myself with friends who are vegetarian or vegan.

[snip]

I am having trouble not being angry at those around me that eat animals. I've become shrill and pedantic, but I don't know how else to be.

The other problem is that I feel I am being pushed out of the radical activist community. Whenever I bring up the question of animals at broader activist coalitions, I am told flat-out that I am demeaning the plight of X (where X stands in for a group of humans who are somehow oppressed, though few of them are being slaughtered, I might add) by suggesting that we extend our fight for all life that is oppressed by Power. In this way I have been unable to sustain coalition practices with various feminist, civil rights, queer liberation and antipoverty groups. I am becoming more and more of a mono-issue radical, even though I have always tried to proceed in intersectional coalitions.

How do I stick to my principles -- for I am unapologetic on this issue -- without bouts of anger and depression? Is continuing to isolate myself from those who eat animals a good course, or should I try to be more open to those who commit acts that I feel are evil? How do I continue to build coalitions with people who refuse to believe that the treatment of animals is important? In short, how does one live as a joyful, ethical vegan, fighting for life and liberation against all forms of oppression?

Heady stuff, and something I'm not used to seeing outside of smaller veg-friendly communities. I was moved by the respect Tennis showed for the writer:

Sometimes we adopt beliefs that meet certain personal needs of which we are unaware. We might have, for instance, a strong spiritual thirst that no religion can satisfy, and so we imbue our activities in the secular realm with a spiritual passion and fervor, and so we take practical setbacks especially hard. Or we might have a powerful moral sense of right and wrong and yet a very sensitive nature, and so we are drawn to debates and yet find that we take things too personally. When our activities are meeting several needs at once, particularly when some of those needs are hidden, we often find that the thing we love is also the thing that gives us the most pain. So it is important for you as an activist to know yourself well. Until you do, you are likely to respond to conflict and setbacks with uncontrollable emotion.

There is a stumbling block, however, in coming to know how your political beliefs meet your psychic needs. You may fear that if your beliefs have a personal motivation they are somehow less valid. But adopting certain beliefs that fulfill certain emotional or spiritual needs does not mean those beliefs are invalid. It only means that you choose certain causes among many because those certain causes have a personal meaning to you. The trick is to know what that personal meaning is. Knowing that will not only help you avoid pitfalls but can also be a source of great strength.

This is true because you are not just working for a cause; you are expressing your deepest sense of who you are. We humans are smart and efficient, and we choose activities that meet many needs at the same time. It is also important to keep in mind that others, also, while their reasoning may not be correct, have deeply personal reasons for putting forth what they believe. In working with activist coalitions, you may find at times you have to let other people work out whatever they are working out, and offer them support, even if it feels as though to do so weakens your own cause. There are many things worth fighting for in this world, and though activists may differ about priorities, they are all basically good people trying to improve the world.

A good way to discover why you are reacting so strongly to certain situations is to enter a period of...

[snip]

...some kind of spiritual questioning, in which you deepen your beliefs about how we should treat animals and try to connect it with your broader moral and ethical beliefs, would be extremely helpful. If you cannot attend a retreat or work with a therapist, perhaps you could simply take a break from activist activities to read and reflect.

[snip]

I suggest you do this not only to be more effective in your work, but also to better play the other roles in your life. After all, you are not just a militant vegan; you also have family, friends, intellectual and artistic interests, a spiritual side, an emotional life. It may be that you are simply out of balance, that you have ignored many of your other legitimate needs in pursuit of this singular objective. If you can find out what else you need to be happy, perhaps after a while things will just straighten out for you and make more sense.

It may appear that I have steered clear of the topic of animal rights. What I respond to is your inner turmoil, your emotional suffering, which would be important to me no matter what the substance of your beliefs or the nature of your conflicts with others. I support your struggle to improve the world by advocating greater compassion and awareness of other living things. And I think the way to wage that struggle is to gain greater awareness of the forces in your own life that drive you to do it.

So, that was well met. Truly the problem goes beyond the issue of animal rights, as I'm sure other types of advocates face their own issues (despite the unique AR issues raised by the reader), and Cary Tennis did a very smart job in recognizing that and addressing the roots of this reader's (and many devoted vegan's) struggle.

On a side note, it's nice to see veganism addressed so constructively in a well-read non-veg forum.

Finally, my advice would be to let go. It's understandable for caring people to take the world on their shoulders, but it doesn't do anyone any good. One must take care of one's self, and follow one's own compass first and foremost, and then take a breath and look at the world from a place of peace.

Looking at non-vegans as "others" or even murderers is a filter that ultimately harms you and your activism. Looking at people as individuals with their own set of circumstances that have brought them to where they are at this point in time will open you up to be a more effective activist, and you find yourself connecting with people on a much more personal level. This is ultimately healthier for you, and allows for a much more profound impact to be made on the individual. This keeps you from talking at them, when you should be talking with them, ideally listening more than talking (see Dale Carnegie, How To Win Friends and Influence People, etc.). Oddly, when you stop trying to be so militant -- i.e., imposing your views on others -- you open people up to find out what appeals to them, which gives you the ability to see where a vegan lifestyle intersects with what's important to them. You can know what's important to them until you listen. In the process, you create the potential for meaningful relationships where everyone wins, rather than everyone being a means to an end.

After looking at this subject for some time, it seems that any activism that hopes to succeed needs to connect to people on an individual level, whether through conversation, the written work, or various art forms. But slogans and arguing priorities is a form of attempted mental dominance that is never as effective as one-on-one communication.

UPDATE (Tuesday, March 14, 2006): Bob and Jenna discuss the story in Vegan Freaks podcast #30 and bring up some points I didn't address here, mainly that the article is dismissive in the sense that attributing the letter writer's need to advocate on behalf of animals comes from a psychological need, which isn't something you'd say to a civil rights activist. I say that it might. I think a lot of activists have a strong sense of justice, and their activism comes out of a need to see justice served. That can manifest itself in a number of ways.

Categories: vegan | activism | burnout