A Study in How to Sabotage Your Cause

Richard Van Dyke

Sylva Miller

ENG 121 1N4

4-5-2014

A Study in How to Sabotage Your Cause

In his essay “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable”, Gary Steiner proposes that a vegan lifestyle is an ethical lifestyle.  As a strict vegan, he eats no meat, cheese, or eggs, and uses no products that are derived from animals.  As an animal rights advocate, he pushes his agenda with the hope that his opinions will gain traction in the American mainstream.  Steiner’s pro-vegan argument successfully highlights the ethical conflicts in the use of animal products in our lives, but the “holier than thou” tone of his essay may have the effect of alienating the reader and undermining his cause.

            Steiner immediately sets the adversarial tone of his essay with an attack on the American tradition of eating turkey on holidays.  Referring to the “fever pitch in the days leading up to Thanksgiving” (Steiner 845), he breaches the topics of animal quality of life, humane treatment, and the effects of eating animal products on consumer health.  To connect with average consumers, Steiner introduces these issues (that may be unfamiliar) by tying them in with an American cultural norm.  The appeal to ethos through these points serve his thesis well.  Sadly, his winning streak ends there.

            His appeal to the reader’s emotions (pathos) concerning animal suffering and their capacity for thought fall flat.  His audience, the average American, whose daily lives are filled with the use of animal products, is likely to dismiss this argument without a second thought.  He offers a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer to illuminate this point.  In the story, Singer calls “the slaughter of animals the “eternal Treblinka.” (Steiner 846).   In this quote he compares the slaughter of animals for food to the pogroms of the Nazis during World War II.  Using hyperbolic rhetoric such as this is a risky ploy that can easily backfire on an author.

            According to Steiner, even vegetarians (a group with whom he should be trying to find common ground), and other groups committed to the fight against animal cruelty, are not thoughtful enough on the subject of animal rights.  He decries the free range movement as having “little, if any practical significance” (Steiner 846).  He goes so far as to even refer to the people who advocate for this more humane form of animal treatment as “blissfully ignorant”, and the lives of animals raised in this manner as “living a life of pain and confinement that ends with the butcher’s knife” (Steiner 846).  He also states that, “The simple answer is that most people just don’t care about the lives or fortunes of animals” (Steiner 846), further characterizing them as uncaring and heartless.  These may be the author’s deeply held beliefs, but alienating potential allies will not serve to further his cause.

            His description and (to be frank), complaints about the difficulties of managing his strict vegan lifestyle are meant to highlight his dedication and determination, but come off as little more than whining.   When Steiner states, “You just haven’t lived until you’ve tried to function as a vegan in a meat-crazed society” (Steiner 847), it seems as if he is about to relate a part of his life that the reader can empathize with, but it turns out to be nothing but a springboard to launch a self-centered diatribe in which he laments how difficult his commitment to the strict vegan way of life is to maintain.  The quote, “To go down this road is to stare headlong into an abyss that, to paraphrase Nietzsche, will ultimately stare back at you” (Steiner 847), is so ridiculous, it nearly elicits a mental image of the author’s tears staining the page.  As an appeal to pathos, this is meant to elicit sympathy from the reader, but given the self-serving tone it falls far short.

The description of a typical dinner eaten out with his friends who do indulge in eating meat should serve to help him connect with readers who are hostile to his main thesis, but Steiner ultimately can’t help himself and lets go a salvo against them as well.  He refers to his fellow diners who happen to eat meat as “a self-righteous bunch” and all but accuses them of murder (Steiner 848).  The counterproductive nature of these comments cannot be over-emphasized.  By the end of this passage, any sympathy that the reader had for Steiner’s point of view has evaporated.  If this is how Steiner treats people he calls his friends, his readers don’t stand a chance.  It comes as no surprise, considering his lack of respect for others, that this behavior has cost him friendship.

The use of sarcasm in emphasizing nuance is a common tool that authors use to drive home a point.  Unfortunately, in this essay, Steiner’s use of sarcasm and obvious hyperbole only serve to alienate the reader.  When he proclaims that his cat “can’t appreciate Schubert’s late symphonies”, and “can’t perform syllogistic logic”, it is meant to focus attention on the fact that regardless of its lack of mental prowess, the cat deserves to be treated humanely (Steiner 848).    The irony, and hypocrisy contained in this passage seem completely lost on Steiner.  The cat is his pet, and unless Steiner has somehow garnered the cat’s permission to keep him captive, this seems to run exactly opposite to the point he is trying to make. 

As an advocate for animal rights and a strict vegan lifestyle, there can be no doubt that Gary Steiner’s beliefs are truly heartfelt.  His disrespect for his audience, however, and all people who use animal products, is apparent throughout his essay.  His criticism and antagonistic rhetoric can only serve to anger the individuals and groups with whom he should be allied.  The lack of factual evidence to back up his accusations further hampers his credibility.  It is the responsibility of an author to know his audience and present an argument that is sincere, and not condescending to his readers. Steiner’s failure to take this into account does a disservice to not only his argument, but also the important cause he claims to represent.