The blog Vegans of Color has been inching slightly away from the standard vegan line. Yesterday Royce posted Absolutely Vegan, Absolutely Anthrocentric, arguing against veganism in a post-factory farming world. He wrote that without factory farms, animals and humans could potentially benefit each other, and vegans who think otherwise are the speciesist ones.

And today he posted What if Plants Had Secret Lives?, a serious exploration of the issues posed by Sorry Vegans, Brussel Sprouts Like to Live Too, the NYT article about plant intelligence that all other vegans hate even before they read it.

Royce went to a message board and found vegan responses to plant pain eerily similar to those of reactionary omnivores who mock animal suffering. And then he ponders what vegans would do if plants really did experience pain.

What is pain but an unpleasantness resulting from a stimulus? Is it really any crazier to think that a plant can feel, than that an ant or a worm or a sponge can as well? …

Obviously I could draw a line, remain vegan, say, “Too bad plants. There is nothing we can do about this. I must eat.” Or I could explore other modes of getting my food: fruitarianism, necrophagia, coprophagia (shudder), detritivorianism. …

Perhaps this is why it is upsetting to think of plants as possible of suffering. Because then veganism would become the moral equivalent of pescatarianism, and there wouldn’t be as much space to maneuver ethically. You can’t feed many people on naturally dead things and fallen fruit. If plants can feel, it requires a rethinking of what an ethical diet, ethical living in general, means for all of us.

But don’t worry, vegans. At the end he draws back to the safety of vegan certainty:

But of course it would never be fodder for an anti-vegan. Even if plants can feel it doesn’t excuse the horribleness that we direct towards animals.

Still… do I sense the rumblings of a future ex-vegan itching to burst through that vegan cocoon?