Certainly, animal cruelty is an important issue but I think a lot of well-intentioned vegans come across like animals are more important than people. I think that the degree of respect and special treatment that each form of life deserves is relative to the intelligence which it contains. By that I don’t mean the level of education it has. Think of the different forms of life: dust, air, trees, fishes, insects, mammals, etc. You treat dust and insects differently than you might treat people. Each form of life has a varying degree of intelligence. I think that it’s our job to become educated about that and reciprocate the appropriate degree of respect.

I think that extremism in all it’s forms is bad and that as we debate these topics we should avoid it. I’ve known extreme vegans who freak out about how cows are slaughtered to feed people but have no problem smashing a harmless spider just because they don’t like it in their house. Spiders, like cows, are amazing creatures that deserve a great respect. If I don’t like a bug in my house, I put it outside. How hard is that? Maybe that’s not the best example but I believe in karma, fate, the “law of the harvest” or whatever you want to call it. If we disrespect life in any of it’s forms we become less deserving of respect ourselves and it will return to us in some form or another.