Why I Don’t Write More About Veganism - by Jamie Paul
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While I don’t have a regular beat, as most writers seem to, I do have a range, one whose parameters might vaguely be summed up as “ideas” and related subjects. There’s a reason why I don’t write about ice hockey, or cooking, or kung fu films, despite my interest in them — because they fall too far outside that range. And yet, I have interests well within this range that I have rarely touched on. Foremost among them is veganism.
I’ve been vegan for six and a half years. I was vegetarian for three years prior, and something akin to what we would now call “ flexitarian” for four years before that. A proverb writers lean on is “write about what you know.” Given my experience in this area, plus how well-versed I am in the arguments, this seems an obvious trove of material to mine. And yet, I have mostly opted not to. Why? No one has ever confronted me about this, but it’s a question my conscience asks me. I have only publicly written about veganism once, for Areo Magazine, in which I argued that leading by example is more effective than evangelizing people. This has become my philosophy regarding how (and how often) I speak about veganism. But while I stand by that view, I did not arrive at it from a purely logical utilitarian calculus. The truth is, I felt more or less bullied into a corner, from which that path was the best available option.
Long before I became a writer, long before I went vegan, years before I was even vegetarian, I became convinced that consuming fewer animal products would be beneficial on multiple fronts. I argued this case anonymously, in mostly left-leaning spaces. I can’t recall ever getting more blowback than I did in those comments.
