Fauxmage
05-11-2007, 11:59 AM
Or, leather stuff you had before you went vegan. Lots of people hate waste, and feel like they should keep using their leather stuff until it wears out. Other people claim that purchasing used leather goods is more environmentally friendly than purchasing non-leather versions of the same products.
I know that people have lots of reasons to become vegan. Many claim the health benefits of the diet are what convinced them, but of course this does not cover the use of animal-free non-food items. Leather is not bad for your health, unless of course you are an animal who gets killed for your skin! The motivation for these folks is "my health comes first. What is best for me?"
Others go vegan because they discover that it is the best way to help our environment. Environmentally oriented vegans believe that, since it harms the environment to cast leather items into the landfill, its better to wear them until they fall apart. The assumption here is that they are the only people who are able to make full use of the leather items they owned before they became vegan, that there are no alternatives except to throw them away, or use them until they wear out. But how about giving their old leather items to friends or family members who perhaps might have admired them? Giving your old leather things to your friends, and explaining why you want to give them away, might just plant a seed in their minds that will one day bear vegan fruit, and it will save you a lot of explanation when someone who believes you are vegan asks you why you use leather.
Some environmental vegans actually view leather as a meat industry by-product, and feel that the use of by-products is not unethical because they believe that since animals are slaughtered for the purpose of consuming their flesh, they are not creating an independent demand for other body parts like the skin and bones. They also like to claim that producing leather alternatives is wasteful and harmful to the environment, since they are made from synthetic materials and purchased new. These are probably valid viewpoints for people to whom the environment comes first because it is the only environment human beings can live in. The motivation seems to be "my environment comes first. What is best for my environment?"
But then there are the people who are vegan because we care about other animals too, not just human ones. We recognize that animals are not commodities or production materials. We get rid of the leather things we had before we went vegan as fast as we can because we can't stand what it symbolizes: pain, blood, and death. We do not purchase second hand leather either, even if it is more environmentally friendly, because we do not view animals as sources of clothing or upholstery, any more than we would have viewed the Jewish people as sources of lampshade material and soap, if we had lived during the Holocaust.
Trying to avoid "waste" is a noble goal. But when we think of giving up the leather stuff we had before we went vegan, and not wanting to because it is "wasteful", we are promoting the idea that animals, and the things people turn them into, are commodities. To me, veganism is about changing the way human animals think about non-human ones. We don't think of our dead relatives as commodities. We don't worry about how harmful to the environment it is to embalm them with toxic chemicals, how wasteful to bury them in huge cemeteries when that land could be put to better use growing food or providing space for people to live, or how much energy it takes to cremate them, and how the smoke from the cremation pollutes the air we breath.
Of course, if I were to suggest to a new vegan who is trying to justify their continued use of leather that there is an awful lot of perfectly useful animal skin to be found in any cemetery, or ask them why they didn't strip their dead relatives' bodies of all useful materials instead of just letting all those resources go to waste in the casket, I'd get labelled an animal rights fanatic. Its so much easier to call someone a name instead of think about the things they have to say, or answer the questions they ask.
But it isn't judging a person to ask them to contrast their attitudes about human and non-human animals. The ultimate goal in my own personal application of veganism in my life is the total abolition of animal exploitation. This is accomplished in part by no longer allowing animals to be viewed as commodities. As long as a person thinks of something that comes from an animal as something that is subjected to the idea of being either wasted or made good use of, they are promoting the idea of animals as resources, which cannot be considered a vegan way to think of animals.
After all, if a Jewish person managed to obtain a lampshade made from their grandmother's skin by some sick Nazi, would it be reasonable to expect them to use it until it wore out, give it to someone who didn't care who it was made of, or give it a decent burial? I'd like to hope that any human in possession of any such artifact would give it a decent burial, regardless of whether they knew and loved the human animal from whom it was manufactured. Since veganism revolves around compassion for animals, and compassion for animals necessitates that we avoid treating them in ways we would not like to be treated, I would like people to think about what it means when they view a piece of leather as a product, and not as the body part of someone who should not have been killed and flayed and turned into a shoe, or a belt, or a wallet, in the first place.
Can we best serve animals by thinking about them in terms of use and waste? Veganism isn't just about what we don't do to animals, its about how we need to think about animals, both while they are alive, and after they are dead.
I know that people have lots of reasons to become vegan. Many claim the health benefits of the diet are what convinced them, but of course this does not cover the use of animal-free non-food items. Leather is not bad for your health, unless of course you are an animal who gets killed for your skin! The motivation for these folks is "my health comes first. What is best for me?"
Others go vegan because they discover that it is the best way to help our environment. Environmentally oriented vegans believe that, since it harms the environment to cast leather items into the landfill, its better to wear them until they fall apart. The assumption here is that they are the only people who are able to make full use of the leather items they owned before they became vegan, that there are no alternatives except to throw them away, or use them until they wear out. But how about giving their old leather items to friends or family members who perhaps might have admired them? Giving your old leather things to your friends, and explaining why you want to give them away, might just plant a seed in their minds that will one day bear vegan fruit, and it will save you a lot of explanation when someone who believes you are vegan asks you why you use leather.
Some environmental vegans actually view leather as a meat industry by-product, and feel that the use of by-products is not unethical because they believe that since animals are slaughtered for the purpose of consuming their flesh, they are not creating an independent demand for other body parts like the skin and bones. They also like to claim that producing leather alternatives is wasteful and harmful to the environment, since they are made from synthetic materials and purchased new. These are probably valid viewpoints for people to whom the environment comes first because it is the only environment human beings can live in. The motivation seems to be "my environment comes first. What is best for my environment?"
But then there are the people who are vegan because we care about other animals too, not just human ones. We recognize that animals are not commodities or production materials. We get rid of the leather things we had before we went vegan as fast as we can because we can't stand what it symbolizes: pain, blood, and death. We do not purchase second hand leather either, even if it is more environmentally friendly, because we do not view animals as sources of clothing or upholstery, any more than we would have viewed the Jewish people as sources of lampshade material and soap, if we had lived during the Holocaust.
Trying to avoid "waste" is a noble goal. But when we think of giving up the leather stuff we had before we went vegan, and not wanting to because it is "wasteful", we are promoting the idea that animals, and the things people turn them into, are commodities. To me, veganism is about changing the way human animals think about non-human ones. We don't think of our dead relatives as commodities. We don't worry about how harmful to the environment it is to embalm them with toxic chemicals, how wasteful to bury them in huge cemeteries when that land could be put to better use growing food or providing space for people to live, or how much energy it takes to cremate them, and how the smoke from the cremation pollutes the air we breath.
Of course, if I were to suggest to a new vegan who is trying to justify their continued use of leather that there is an awful lot of perfectly useful animal skin to be found in any cemetery, or ask them why they didn't strip their dead relatives' bodies of all useful materials instead of just letting all those resources go to waste in the casket, I'd get labelled an animal rights fanatic. Its so much easier to call someone a name instead of think about the things they have to say, or answer the questions they ask.
But it isn't judging a person to ask them to contrast their attitudes about human and non-human animals. The ultimate goal in my own personal application of veganism in my life is the total abolition of animal exploitation. This is accomplished in part by no longer allowing animals to be viewed as commodities. As long as a person thinks of something that comes from an animal as something that is subjected to the idea of being either wasted or made good use of, they are promoting the idea of animals as resources, which cannot be considered a vegan way to think of animals.
After all, if a Jewish person managed to obtain a lampshade made from their grandmother's skin by some sick Nazi, would it be reasonable to expect them to use it until it wore out, give it to someone who didn't care who it was made of, or give it a decent burial? I'd like to hope that any human in possession of any such artifact would give it a decent burial, regardless of whether they knew and loved the human animal from whom it was manufactured. Since veganism revolves around compassion for animals, and compassion for animals necessitates that we avoid treating them in ways we would not like to be treated, I would like people to think about what it means when they view a piece of leather as a product, and not as the body part of someone who should not have been killed and flayed and turned into a shoe, or a belt, or a wallet, in the first place.
Can we best serve animals by thinking about them in terms of use and waste? Veganism isn't just about what we don't do to animals, its about how we need to think about animals, both while they are alive, and after they are dead.