If you were a farmer, would you be able to do it?

[Soycrates]

I'm reading this article on former meat and dairy farmers who had realizations during their career that they were carrying out animal cruelty and exploitation, and decided to go vegan. As Howard Lyman puts it (number 4 in the list): "did I have the intestinal fortitude to know the difference and to make a change? Do you go to your wife when you have a multimillion dollar operation and say, ‘Wait a minute: I think what we are doing is wrong’? I realized that my livelihood was built on sand. Everything I’d believed in my entire life was at risk because there I was with a business built on killing animals.”

If you were a meat/dairy farmer (or had a job directly contributing to animal exploitation), could you really see yourself becoming vegan?

How would you go about it? What kind of new, vegan-friendly job would incorporate your skills? Do you think you'd start a sanctuary?

[miniboes]

Have you heard about how many army veterans in a way enjoy killing just because they are so used to it? The behavior is so integrated into their life routine it becomes familiar and exciting. That's a very crude explanation and it does not do it justice at all, but anyway. I feel like killing other sentient beings really messes with your head at some point, and I feel like if I were put in the position I might not be able to question it, I might even take enjoyment of it the same way I enjoy cutting twigs off a tree. I have no idea how my mind would respond to such activities.

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't blame the farmers as much as I blame the consumers and the advertisers. I also don't blame hitmen much for contract killings; it's the people who hire them who are to blame.

So, I don't see a contradiction there. Somebody whose livelihood depends on killing animals could still go vegan and support animal rights.

This, by the way, is the actually correct analogy to "Thomas Jefferson owned slaves" argument that Dawkins fallaciously uses to justify his own situation.

[anothervegan]

My father was a pig farmer and I worked part time on the farm when I was a teen. I'm now 38 and vegan of nearly 4 years. My Dad agrees with all my vegan viewpoints and justifications and certainly wouldn't describe himself as a cruel man (nor would I). Yet I witnessed him doing terrible cruel things: cutting tails off piglets, clipping teeth, cutting testicles out - all routine stuff without anaesthetic, and it's legal in a country that would jail you for doing the same to a dog or cat. If a piglet was born sick, it would meet concrete instead of the vet.

He's retired now and an occasional vegetarian (don't get me started!). He adores his dogs and is passionate about wildlife. He spends a fortune on feed for the bird table. Yet his is undeniably also a man who can mutilate pigs as they writhe and scream in agony. On some weekends I would pass him the piglets, by the hind legs. 23 years later and I couldn't even guess what I'd be capable of if I witnessed someone doing such an atrocious thing. I'm fascinated and disgusted at how a 15 year old animal lover could be so indifferent to a beautiful animal, as it is handed to a man with a scalpel, yet overjoyed upon seeing a fox or deer when walking the dogs an hour later. We're all conditioned to put species into different boxes and somehow to allow the animal lover and farmer to co-exist in the same person, just as most people who aren't farmers would describe themselves as compassionate yet eat meat. This hypocrisy seems as rock solid today as it did then. The key, for non-vegans, is in not addressing the hypocrisy at all. To acknowledge it means either changing so that your ethics and behaviour align, or in admitting you're not a nice person, which isn't comfortable for anyone.

[Jebus]

[quote="anothervegan"]My Dad agrees with all my vegan viewpoints and justifications and certainly wouldn't describe himself as a cruel man (nor would I). Yet I witnessed him doing terrible cruel things: cutting tails off piglets, clipping teeth, cutting testicles out - all routine stuff without anaesthetic, and it's legal in a country that would jail you for doing the same to a dog or cat. If a piglet was born sick, it would meet concrete instead of the vet./quote]

In my opinion, you have to be a cruel person to carry out such acts. I believe that consumers of meat could still be decent people as many of them are just ignorant and/or uninformed. However, I believe only a very cold hearted person is capable of inflicting torturous acts on other beings while they are screaming and begging you to stop.

[anothervegan]

That makes sense, in theory. But I've met many farmers - all decent people who'd rescue a cat from a tree in a heartbeat. My Dad was never cruel to me or my brother and is a loving and generous person. I've met grumpy or unfriendly farmers too, but no one who oozed evil. The hypocrisy in the system allows 'nice' people to do vile things and remain 'nice', to themselves and others.