The importance of being a moderate vegan

A lecturer in my undergrad degree once told us of a friend of his who was vegan. He said this friend just ended up very angry at the world and began withdrawing from human society. This, as my lecturer pointed out, was a Very Bad Thing. How can you influence society if you're no longer a part of it? You're certainly no use to anyone as he so eloquently put it: "living in a tree and throwing your crap at people."

With this in mind I think it is so important to be an otherwise normal, productive and functioning member of society as a vegan. We're not all the extreme, brick throwing variety of vegan, who send letter bombs to animal testing faculties and won't eat anything if we didn't grow it ourselves, pick it out of a dumpster or otherwise procure it from a 100 meter radius of our homes. No disrespect meant to any of those people, more power to you,  but I think, that type of attitude has done a lot to distance the movement from the general population. Certainly, recent bandwagon jumper Ellen and fad diet promoter Oprah have done more for the mainstream acceptance of the movement than they have.

In this way, veganism suffers from the same elitism that is rampant in the punk rock world. Elitism exists because no one wants to get beaten up by a bully wearing the shirt of their favourite band. But elitism stops punk rock from spreading and being shared with others, which is kind of selfish. As Matt from Punkas.co.nz puts it "punk's worst enemy is itself." Veganism needs to be shared, like Punk Rock - and the benefits are communal. Just like when more people start liking your band, said band is more likely to tour and make albums for your enjoyment, the more vegans there are, the more vegan products will become mainstream and readily available for all!

Telling people about the origins of their food while they're eating, or coming across angry, emotional or irrational when you argue the point of veganism is just going to turn people off to you. People can't stand being preached to, and veganism is no religion. Just explain the facts and be reasonable. Being vegan is totally reasonable. Where's the harm in not eating animals? You don't need to. You won't die.

Similarly, don't let anyone make you feel you're not vegan just because you don't subscribe to EVERY linked ideology, because you drink coke, because you indulge in a vegan treat from an unvegan source (e.g. Popsicle Slushy = totally vegan ingredients, but made by Fonterra. I'd argue that you are sending a message to companies saying that you like their milk free products. Where is the harm in that?) or because you wear sweat shop shoes or eat noodles with palm oil and chocolate that isn't free trade... people spend so much time worrying about what is vegan and what isn't, what's punk and what isn't, that they kind of miss the point entirely.