ARZone 4th Member's Workshop

ARZone is pleased to present the next in our series of Member’s Workshops.

ARZone aims to host Member’s Workshops as an opportunity to involve all members in a conversation about issues and opinions raised in previous Guest Q&A sessions, in order to think critically about those questions and answers, to involve all members in open dialogue, to explore certain issues more fully, and to consider the ways we can all become more informed and better advocates for other animals.

Rather than feature a guest, ARZone workshops are conducted as open forum discussions for ARZone members, facilitated by the site admins.

The proposed topic for this week’s Workshop is “Is Being Vegan Easy?”

Here are a few questions and responses from recent guests which touch on these issues and may serve as starting points for our discussions:

Richard O’Barry discussed some of the difficulties he faces in being vegan while living and working in remote regions of the world :“I live with this conflict constantly because I recognise that the fish has just as much right to life as the dolphin. But I put the dolphin in this sea pen and the dolphin has no ability to catch the fish himself. If I don't catch the fish for the dolphin and eat the same food myself, we all starve in the jungle together.”

http://animalrightszone.blogspot.com/2011/05/veganism-in-jungle.html

Matt Ball talks about being consistent when it comes to what our children might eat as a guest at someone’s birthday party: “Our choices aren’t important because they conform to a certain philosophy or because they meet a certain human definition. Rather, the importance comes from our choices’ consequences: the actual impact we can have on reducing the animals’ suffering.” http://animalrightszone.blogspot.com/search/label/children

There are two Q&A’s from Melanie Joy’s chat that are important to our topic. In the first, Dr. Joy speaks to the difficulties we might have in reaching out to children. She says, “So we can raise consciousness among children, but what those children do with this information is dependent on what their parents determine should be done.” This bears on whether being vegan is easy in that many of us have children and grandchildren who are told (either by other adults or the culture at large) that there is something wrong with us because we choose not to use other animals. How we deal with our children is part of us being vegan.

http://animalrightszone.blogspot.com/2010/09/presenting-vegan-message-to-children.html

In the second question from Melanie’s chat, she talks about how carnism is “Normal, Natural and Necessary” - the “3 N’s of justification”. In the face of these societal pressures, how easy is it for anyone to be vegan - particularly someone who is new to veganism?

http://animalrightszone.blogspot.com/2010/09/3-ns-of-justification.html

Join us this weekend and share your thoughts about

All members are encouraged to participate in this workshop, as well as to suggest topics for and participate in future forums in ARZone.

Animal Rights Zone (ARZone) exists to help educate vegans and non-vegans alike about the obligations human beings have toward all other animals. By providing a space for a variety of blog posts, forum discussions, notes, videos and more, ARZone fosters a sense of community among its members. Through live online chats with a diversity of people who work both within and outside of the animal advocacy community, ARZone supports rational discourse and intelligent dialogue about the most pressing issues facing us today.

CHAT TIMES:

3:00pm            Sat 7th                         Pacific Time

4:00pm            Sat 7th                         Mountain Time

5:00pm            Sat 7th                         Central Time

6:00pm            Sat 7th.                        Eastern Time

11:00pm          Sat 7th                         UK Time

8:00am            Sun 8th                        Australian Eastern Standard Time

To find your time for this chat, please use this conversion site, or feel free to ask for help:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html