Banana has left.
No, the grey zone has always been there, same size and everything - but what it consists of differ from person to person. It has to do with individual interpretations off avoiding harming/killing animals 'as much as possible', doesn't it?Korn, the "grey zone" seems to be getting bigger?
I live in a house with windows made of glass. This means that some birds will get killed a few times during my lifetime, because I have decided that my need for windows is more important than the life of these birds. Unless I escape this society and go stoneageism, I'll harm and kill animals, and even then, I'll step on some insects.
Let's not make it taboo to discuss the grey zone and how to deal with it - or pretend it's not there. Also, let's not make it bigger than it is and focus on it all the time.... some people ie. have a tendency to register and let us know all they do that is not vegan, which we don't need to hear. I guess they just want to feel that they're not 'cheating', or sum up for themselves where they are right now before they possible go vegan.
I mentioned three 'grey' areas:
'one is the fact that it's impossible to be a 'perfect vegan' in a non-vegan world'. It is, and this will always cause some thoughts and discussion, for example because because newcomers are surprised to find animal products where they didn't expect to find them. We need to face this, it would be weird to censor these discussions away or pretend that we all always avoid all animal products, or never support any companies or people who put money into the met industry...
'another one is that whatever ideals or goals we have, we're not perfect'. IMO; this is also important not only to accept, but to acknowledge. If we wouldn't, we would get a number of visitors who probably would just leave after a while, because they felt that they weren't able to achieve 'perfect-veganism', while all the others in here appear to be enlightened.
'a third is that in order to live as close to the way you want as long as possible, for a few/some/many (?) people this means that in some situations they may use some tiny amounts of animal products, otherwise, the vegan label would just became a headache for them...'
This is related to the other examples, because in our world, vegans actually don't avoid animal products 'as much as possible'. It's impossible to live in this world and do that. The glass window example is only one of many other I could mention.
There are grey areas, but also, we don't want a site with a main focus on the grey area - we are not heading for a confession club where all of us report evry time we by accident killed an insect when walking or driving a car, or start a thread everytime someone feel like eating something non-vegan (which new vegans sometimes do)...
It's a question of balance, and I don't think we can solve this one by adding some clever new gudielines - but maybe I'm wrong. We just need to improvise a little.
Veganism isn't about denial, guilt or turbo-perfectionism, but for some vegans and others, eating and food IS, even life as such has small or big elements of guilt in it.
Normally, we (?) tend to think that 'it's not important what I think, but what I do'. Somehow I think it all boils down to who we are.
I personally feel more comfortable with people who are dedicated to do their best, but accept that in some situations this doesn't happen or isn't possible or that they have some days/situations where they just aren't doing whatever they can to avoid killing/harming, than people who pretend they are perfect or that there are no grey areas. If we wouldn't accept the grey zone, we could all develop some sort of spiritual anorexia.
We can't expect others to have the same grey areas as ourselves, can we?
This is a site for vegans. The way I feel it, I think it's OK to share issues you have with the grey areas if you feel a need to discuss these topics with other vegans. If we can't talk about these issues with other vegans, who should we talk about them with? (But please use the search engine first!!! )
I don't eat honey occasionally or occasionally kill insects intentionally, but if I did, I'd probably not see a need to mention this unless I ie. were considering dropping veganism or wanted to discuss these issues with someone / wanted feedback from others to find out how they felt about these topics.
I haven't read all the posts Banana has written, but I have seen that she has been very open both about her history with eating disorders, and about her issues with using the label 'vegan'. She seem to be serious about dealing with this in the best way she can, and has decided to leave, which in a way is both sad and fair/healthy for her. The following is probably all about by my ego, but I feel more supportive towards Banana than people who appear to be vegan and then go 'what is wrong with eating free-range animals'... I don't know if she has been 'policed' here, or if she is more sensitive than others, or if she simply feels that she isn't a really a vegan. It still feels sad when people leave: I guess it makes us all thing that maybe we could have communicated with each other ways that didn't want to make some people leave or possibly move away from being vegan.
People have left earlier, and will in the future. This is not the first time someone has decided to drop considering themselves vegans.
If everybody who has even been a vegan or vegetarian would have reminded veg*ns, there would have been a lot of us out there.... As people who are against using animal products, I guess addressing why some people decide to NOT call themselves vegan anymore could need some more focus.
I don't think Banana will go back to using more animal products than she has told us that she occasionally does, she is probably just dealing with labels in a way that feels better for her, and that's fine with me.
I'm convinced there are other members who think along the same lines as her: they agree in being vegan, but don't ALWAYS do their best to avoid animal products, and/but they don't share their 'slips' with us... and that's fine with me to.
Please don't throw any stones if you live in a house with glass windows...
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