What is Veganism?
Veganism is not a fad, not a religion nor a sect, but an ethical approach, in a philosophical sense and in a practical sense.
In 1944, Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson coined the term veganism. The etymology of the word "veganism" comes from the term vegan, which in turn derives from VEGetariAN (using the first three and last two letters). Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson created veganism for ethical reasons to nonhuman animals, they felt it was a horror exploitation similar to human slavery. This can be read in the first issue of the fanzine "The Vegan News" (News Vegan) of 1944:
Donald Watson's journey to veganism, a philosophy and a way of life based on respect for sentient animals, began when he was very young, on the farm of his uncle George, about it he says:
"One of my earliest memories is the vacation on the farm of my uncle George where he lived surrounded by interesting animals. They" gave "something: the farm horse pulled the plow, the smallest horse pulling the carriage, cows "gave" milk, the hens "gave" eggs and the rooster was a "wake-up" very useful, I did not realize at that time that he also had another function.'s sheep "gave" wool. never could understand why "gave "the pigs but they seemed so friendly creatures ... always happy to see me. then came the day when one of the pigs were killed: yet I have vivid memories of the whole process-including the screams. course ... I decided the farms, and uncles-had to be reassessed: the idyllic scene was nothing but death chain where each creature days were numbered in the time when they ceased to be useful to humans."
"We can clearly see how our current civilization is based on the exploitation of animals in the same way that past civilizations were founded on the exploitation of slaves, and we believe the spiritual destiny of the human lead in the future to contemplate with horror the fact that the man was fed products made from the bodies of other animals. ""The Vegan News", No. 1, 1944.
In 1951, Leslie Cross, then vice president of the British Vegan Society, wrote for the magazine Vegetarian World Forum a document entitled "Veganism defined" but it also exposed the agreed definition of veganism:
"The goal of our movement should be the end of the exploitation of animals by man. The word" veganism "shall mean the doctrine that man should live without exploiting other animals." The Vegetarian World Forum, Vol.5 No.1 - Spring 1951 pp.6-7.
The reason that veganism was defined as the doctrine that excludes exploit other animals is that veganism is assumed that these individuals are not mere things but each one of them is someone. If an individual has the capacity to feel, that is, if you can suffer and enjoy then you have interests in these experiences that must be respected: it must consider actions that may cause harm or benefit other sentient individuals, this ethical approach is called Sentiocentrism.
To avoid damage to other sentient animals, vegans do not use or consume animal products in any of the areas of life (food, clothing, entertainment, research, etc..). Lets say living a vegan life is the practical result of ethical principles that are behind that lifestyle.
The vegan movement is abolitionist, it is not a movement that has as objective to being enslaved and kill other animals for "a more appropriate manner", what is known as "Welfarism", but the abolition of all animal exploitation. The abolition will arrive when they are granted legal rights to the non-human animals, thus leaving be properties.
