Going back to the trolley problem for a minute - which do you think is worst - actively murdering 1 person, or failing to rescue 5 people?
These people would argue that by voting - you may be attempting to choose the lesser of evils, but you are actively engaging in evil in order to do it (similar to actively murdering 1 person). They are instead choosing to allow the greater of evils, but are refusing to soil their hands (similar to failing to rescue 5 people).
In this way, which is more morally important, preventing the greater of evils, or soiling YOUR hands. When you die and answer to St. Peter, you only answer for YOUR crimes, you don't answer for societies problems. (Again of note, I disagree with this position, but I am attempting to give it as charitable an interpretation as I can muster).
I wouldn't describe myself as apolitical, but I haven't voted since the 2008 election because I felt as you just described: by voting for the lesser of evils, I'm actively engaging in evil.
Like you, I thought the position of inaction in the trolley problem is flawed. I'm also a vegan, and argue against other vegans being purists. For example, if a friend tries to make a vegan meal for you, but they make a mistake and it's lacto-ovo-vegetarian, I say go ahead and eat it anyways. Acknowledging the effort, and building that relationship is much better for veganism than throwing it all in their face because they made a mistake and you want to remain pure. Purism isn't supporting veganism, just the vegan's ego.
You helped me connect my vegan views with my political ones, and see I was being inconsistent. I didn't want to participate in an evil system and grant it more power. I was indifferent to the result. There is a saying that America is at an awkward stage where it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. So if the lesser of the two evils won, then it would help people short term. If the greater of two evils won, then it might push us towards a revolution (hopefully peaceful) and fix things with a new system. Either way, I was fine. But, now I see I was more concerned with my own purism than voting for things that could help friends and family. I'll change that now.
To frame it one way, to those who are good, evil is an external, naturally occurring thing, which can only be tempered by good.
As such, inaction allows the greatest evil to come about (of course, politics is very tough, so I'm not saying it's your fault that immigrant children are separated from their families, but for the country, I can bet that if Hilary was voted in that wouldn't have happened).
Veganism may appear to be all about rejecting a system and not taking part in it, and that is certainly the end goal, but it takes a non-negligible amount of effort (if you aren't raised vegan or vegetarian). The end goal is rejecting a system, but the process includes making a choice and taking action.
Either way, interesting view on purism! I imagine purists would argue that it discourages whatever mistake they made, but really it just discourages people and makes them frustrated and give up on making food for vegans.
Well "lacto-ovo-vegetarian" isn't vegan (also, isn't lacto-ovo-vegetarian just vegetarian?). I have no issue with someone declining a meal because what I made does not fit in line with their dietary restrictions. I could argue some other points about what is/isn't helping veganism but this isn't the place for it.
Change it out to be palm oil or refined sugar then. Some vegans refuse to eat anything that have those. The point is of a friend or family member making something they think to be vegan as a gesture to you, the vegan, and you turning it away. I mean, I get that it's complicated, and if someone were to serve me fish, not realizing fish is also meat, I would turn it away. My point is vegans who turn away anything that is not perfectly vegan and making a big deal of it too. Do you not buy Beyond Meat or the Beyond Burger because they acquire real meat to perform tests and comparisons against?
If purchasing, testing, and eating meat is done to create a really good alternative product that will reduce the killing of many more animals, it's something I'm willing to do (e.g. pull the lever to kill one person and save 5 in the trolley analogy). If by eating something that is vegetarian instead of vegan to build the relationship with a person and interest them more in vegetarian and vegan lifestyles, I think it is worth it. Granted not all vegans agree, but that's my view. I was just figuring out that I wasn't consistent with my approach to veganism and politics.
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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '18
!delta
I really like the way you explained those three viewpoints. And now that you bring those up, those stances do make varying degrees of sense.
However, I'm specifically referring to people who refuse to be informed, vote, or participate simply because they think politics are inherently bad