On “New” Vegetarianism and Sarah Palin

A regular Animal Person reader asked me a question that I thought I’d pass on to you (and I have permission to do that) about the word "vegetarian," which he says "means anything and therefore nothing."

Here are some of his points:

• People find it chic to self-identify as vegetarian, while veganism is seen as radical, hardcore, too moralistic, purist, etc. 
• "Vegetarian," the word, is a slippery thing that seems to have a tendency to flat out lie. At the same time, many groups — Peta, etc. — use the words interchangeably.
• Vegans will often come down really hard on neophyte "vegetarians" for being "vegetarians" — who are still confused about the difference between vegan and vegetarian — THUS reinforcing the stereotype that "vegans are hardcore purists." 
• Every single one of my Animal Rights conversations quickly devolves into linguistic minutia, in which nitpicking about the difference between the words "vegan" and "vegetarian" becomes the central topic, NOT the rightness or wrongness of killing animals for pleasure.
• Can you imagine civil rights campaigners in the South constantly having to explain what "vote" means?

(REPORTER: "So, you want the right to ‘vote’ in an political election, or just PTA meetings?"

CAMPAIGNER: "Well, some of us, the real purists… " )

• There are other problems too: Vegan has unshakeable associations with very partisan and negative attributes that, to my amazement, are still being reinforced by vegans themselves. "Vegans are a bunch of smug, self-righteous assholes" is the general agreement from the point of view of many rather mainstream folks. This is largely a fiction, but fiction sells, and many vegans keep reinforcing this. "Vegetarian" is a far less threatening word.
• The problem with this is that I’ve actually met people who WANT to live vegan lives, but resist being associated with "vegans"! They continue to eat eggs and dairy almost out of protest against or potential fear of embarrassment about the "hardcore" "purist" vegan fiction. That is a serious problem! And it’s a language problem, not a moral issue. This is not about real values. It’s about perceptions, associations, connotations.

QUESTION: Would it be worthwhile to try to take back the definition of Vegetarian? Or is it a lost cause?

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: LAKOFF TO THE RESCUE?

I’ve been re-reading Lakoff’s ideas on Reframing.

One idea might be to declare a new word: call it New Vegetarian.
Define it simply as "vegan." Vegan and New Vegetarian would be totally
interchangeable. And you can’t easily add a hyphen in front of "New
Vegetarian," So pesce-New Vegetarian aint going to work without
exposing the speaker as a ridiculous hypocrite. If New Vegetarian
caught on, it would then force the word "vegetarian" to define itself
as "old vegetarian."

To use Lakoff’s theory, right now, "Vegan" is framed INSIDE the
"Vegetarian" frame. Vegan, lacto-ovo, pesce-, etc, are basically all
within the Vegetarian Frame. But, if we create a new frame: New
Vegetarian (which has the friendly "vegetarian" AND the progressive
sounding "new"), then "vegetarian" would find itself framed within the
(vegan) New Vegetarian frame.

Vegetarian becomes reframed as "old vegetarian." I can even drop the
modifier New" and just say, I’m a vegetarian, they’re Old Vegetarians.
What’s an Old Vegetarian? Well, someone who eats animals.

At this point, they can’t get outside the new frame of New
Vegetarian. I’ve defined the bigger, less ambiguous frame. "New" can
only be countered by "Old." And, for outreach purposes, I can ask
people to become vegetarian and say, New Vegetarians don’t eat any
animals. They’re vegan. But if you like, you can start your journey as
an old vegetarian.

I don’t have to ask them to declare themselves "Vegan" which will
set off all kinds of associations in their head. New Vegetarians are
people who don’t eat any animals. They’re vegans, but if you don’t like
the word vegan, just say New Vegetarian.

What do you think?

On Sarah Palin

There’s so much to say about John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin. I
think it’s genius because he needs to reach certain groups and she fits
the bill perfectly. It’s very, very easy to mock her. I’m sure you’ve
been e-mailed the same list of links to articles about her and pictures
of her that would make you laugh if the prospect of her
running the country weren’t so frightening.
So let’s stick to what she stands for, like drilling in ANWAR, hunting
and killing any and every nonhuman (even trophy hunting and the aerial
hunting of wolves), the NRA, of course the Iditarod (and her husband is a
musher), and taking the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy away
from women.

Some thoughts:

• I’ve been hearing people say something outrageously ridiculous:
  That women are going to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket–and
  particularly Hillary Clinton supporters–because there’s a woman on the
  ticket. Who actually believes that?
• For anyone interested in doing the right thing for animals, there’s
  usually not much of a choice for the White House, except Dennis
  Kucinich. And by no means does Barack Obama appear to be someone who
  would stand up for animals, though he does have an impressive record of
  public service and standing up for the disenfranchised. But this is a
  clear case of one camp being unfriendly to nonhumans to the extreme.
• Meanwhile, the "pro-life" stance has always shocked me in its
  hypocrisy. These people are against a woman’s right to choose. They are
  anti-choice. If they were pro-life, they wouldn’t be in favor of killing people who are already outside the womb, don’t you think?
• "Pro-life" is really "pro" human lives that have been deemed worth
  saving. This includes blastocysts that are not even sentient. Meanwhile
  they’re pro-killing/anti-life of any nonhuman life they might want to
  take for just about any reason. I hope the average person is able to
  see the contradictions.

Again, it’s really, really easy to take shots at Palin. But seriously, what do you think about McCain choosing her?

And yes, I realized I was going to write about caging versus killing cats and dogs, and I’ll do that tomorrow. Sorry.