this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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In France it's quite common to find all kinds of fish in the vegetarian section of the menu. I didn't see it classified as vegan yet though.
That kind of thing puts me on edge lol
Yeah. As much as I dislike dogmatism, and vegans eating bivalves bothers me very little, I think there is an actual slippery slope issue here. If you accept that maybe some animals are OK to consume, how and where do you then set an arbitrary line?
I would probably dislike someone if they told me they were vegan and then tried to justify eating X animal because y
Don't mind if they just say they try to avoid eating meat, that's still commendable, but the moment they try to assign the label to themselves it really irks me
I came across this idea about twenty years ago, before I was even vegan, but still concerned with being an "ethical meat eater". At the time I found the arguments convincing. It's amazing the lies you will believe when you want to. When I became a vegan, I did not rely on my ability to determine the validity of the argument that bivalves don't suffer. I had seen time and time and time again as an "ethical meat eater" I had an incentive to lie to myself, and that if I wanted to, I would always find a way to excuse any bad behaviour. It didn't really matter to me in that moment whether or not bivalves might be a vegan loophole; my veganism exists not only to keep animals safe, but to keep ME safe from harming animals. It tells me, if there is doubt, don't fucking do it.
What I have learned about bivalve behaviour since then has made me think that this was always just a way for us to lie to ourselves. They are amazingly sophisticated compared to what a casual observer would assume. They have interests. There is no reason I need to exploit them for food, jewelry, or other personal uses.
Bivalves are exploited by humans in another way: to remediate ecological damage that we have caused. They are excellent at water filtration. They get to live out their natural life cycle, but we've taken autonomy from them and removed them from the selection pressures of reality, imposing instead our own self-interested selection pressures. This seems a bit more thorny to me.
According to medieval beliefs, fish are a naturally occurring phenomenon in waterways. They just manifest spontaneously in rivers and lakes, making them not an animal. It was convenient for Catholics to believe this, because they were prohibited from eating meat on Fridays. If fish aren't animals, then Catholics can eat them on Fridays. So, they were encouraged to continue thinking of fish as just a part of the lake, and that weird "fish are vegetarian" idea persists to this day...
I guess that's also the reason then, why mussels, fish etc. are considered sea fruit in many languages: Frutti di Mare, Meeresfrüchte, fruit de mer [...]