Hello, I have a question. Let's call me Nirvana. This is part 1. veganism is about doing everything you can to avoid harm, yes? I'll give you a scenario, a person is baking vegan cupcakes with sugar bought from the store. A nonvegan such as myself walks up to them and asks, what veganism is about. They say to reduce harm as much as possible. I'm like okay. Education is key and all that for making good choices. but what about the people or animal bones used to pick/process that cane sugar.
Nirvana part 2. They can point to my shirt and say Do you know if that shirt was made in a sweatshop? I say, Of course not. And they say "okay well is it okay then to say fuck all and run over a bunch of people?" I say nope. Appeal to futility fallacy or Nirvana fallacy I get it. They say "We do what we can, it's about harm reduction. If this product harms humans and animals, but this product does not, or has human rights issues that can be fixed. That's okay. Because Veganism
Nirvana 3. "Is all about adapting. If you can't find an alternative now, we wait for one to come up or avoid the animal product entirely until it does" I'm like okay. "So you don't know if that cane sugar had human or animal lives attached to it, and I fully agree with what you're saying. But you're still in the dark about that sugar's origins. Wouldn't you avoid it until a sustainable cruelty free option pops up?" I don't see them avoiding baking cookies anytime soon yeah?
Nirvana 4. So isn't that hypocrisy because they're still eating mysterious sugar, despite this vow of harm reduction? Is it not choosing some exploitation of humans and animals as okay but other exploitation of humans and animals as not okay? In her defense, idk if there's any organic, fair trade powdered sugar in a small Arkansas grocery store. But you can just not eat sugar at all, if you don't need it yeah? I'm already transitioning to veganism, but I already know ppl like me will sniff that
Nirvana 5. In me or us from a mile away. Even if they're doing absolutely nothing, we're all still eating these cupcakes without a care in the world yeah? Because we'd be long dead before giving up that sugar mate. So how'd you avoid becoming the laughing stock of a whole non-vegan crowd at a bake sale by not following you're own "find an alternative or avoid animal products full stop until u find one that aligns with veganism" values?
This sort of finger-pointing is unfortunately absolutely rampant. The first thing I’d point out, is that ethically sourcing things like sugar is not as difficult as you might assume. It’s hard to know for sure with pre-prepared products of course, but you can quite easily obtain ethical sugar that isn’t filtered using bone char, even in the US, which is really the only place that this is a problem.
I think that the key thing to emphasise is that it’s about being realistic. I can easily give up all animal products, and I can probably give up sugar too, if there really was no ethical alternative. But can I give up all crops I can’t trace directly to farm? Can I give up all electronics? Can I avoid driving, public transport, banks, tech companies, supermarkets, big oil, energy companies, supporting any company owned by an unethical parent company? There is a limit to one person can reasonably be expected to do, while still existing and trying to survive in a consumer-driven, capitalist society.
That said, take those objections seriously. Think: Could I find ethical sugar? If the answer is yes, then you should try to. But otherwise, you need to really turn this around on the other person, since, if they’re interrogating you about your consumption, they should be able to defend their own. You’re not perfect by any means, nor am I, but at least you’re going vegan. Are they? Why not? Also keep in mind that even if you were a complete hypocrite, that wouldn’t have any bearing at all on whether or not going vegan is the right thing to do.
We all need to do our best, what our best looks like is different for everyone, not only in terms of accessibility but in terms of the energy needed to track and trace all of our products. But the key thing to remember is that this obection is almost always used to put down people for doing something, by people who are doing absolutely nothing. It’s okay to hold your hands up and say ‘yeah I could be doing better’, we all could, but at least we’re actually trying, so don’t let people who aren’t even doing that make you feel bad because you can’t be perfect.
