Because the difference between anarchists and communists is one of strategy while the difference between vegans and bloodmouths is wanting to cause suffering for selfish reasons. It’s not sectarian.
And no. If you’re not following your ethics to the ultimate conclusion and still have a strain of “I deserve the exploits of others suffering” in you, then you’re not actually a leftist.
Folks used the same argument here early on during trans struggle sessions and we correctly adopted the position that to be leftist your need to be pro-trans.
Also we are obviously talking about current conditions.
Also yeah I’ll echo that you don’t seem to understand the very basics of what’s being discussed here so maybe you should ask yourself why you have such a strong reaction. If I were so ignorant, I would be asking questions or going to self-teach.
Veganism is not about vegans being a marginalized group.
I think the idea is that the other creatures, like animals bred in captivity for their meat, are the ones which aren’t protected. Vegans don’t seem to speak for them (as say, a liberal might for a marginalized group while denying them their voice) rather use inductive reasoning to reflect contradictions in meat-eaters and their ethics in practice, particularly around ideas of self-oriented material interest.
If we use genocide as the mass slaughter of any life (we’ll probably conveniently ignore microbes and only stick with multicellular life) rather than human life, animals bred for consumption (as well as those affected by humanity’s effect on the environment) are deliberately genocided and it’s done to some anticipation. The scale makes this far worse, other humans can be a meaningful threat and thus for the oppressor it is reasonable to eliminate them if their very existence poses a threat, as is the case in settler-colonial societies.
I don’t know why you or others might treat non-human life differently than human life, and that is what I consider to be occurring. Feel free to disagree, I would be curious to read your thoughts as it’s not a perspective I would say I understand. Three reasons for my prior comment which come to mind are 1. anthropocentrism, 2. lack of empathy and 3. solipsism. For the second there is a relevant quote which I think captures this well:
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” — G. M. Gilbert
If instead of ‘fellow men’ you put ‘fellow creature’ I think you might understand where some of the arguments come from. Don’t get me started on eugenics and how we are more or less perfecting it with plants and domesticated animals.
This is both not what genocide is and it also trivializes actual genocides. You’re right to call this view anthropocentric, but I’m not going to say that animal life is a 1:1 equivalency with human life. Industrial farming is fucked up I agree, and should be ended. I also agree that veganism is a good thing, better than eating meat. But overall it is not the same thing, not at all.
I think we can be pro-vegan in the exact same way, encouraging and fostering vegan thought and talking points even if we don’t think they fit into our lives. We’re not that, but I’ve honestly thought a lot more about my relationship to meat and the ramifications of my diet due to vegan posters than I ever did before, like how trans posters made me think about my relationship with gender. There’s obviously a difference in that veganism has the ultimate goal of making everyone vegan, not all trans people want gender abolition, but if we can all think a little more vegan than we did yesterday I think that’s a good thing. More people are likely to become vegan if there’s an environment open to its discussion than if there isn’t. I’m genuinely thinking about it a bit rn, might have to do some research.
Instead of grappling with the actual ethics of the thing we’re supposed to defer to these ethically flawless fully realized utopian projects? Next will you say it’s okay to be homophobic and a leftist because the communist projects of the 20th century can’t be criticized?
The core of leftist beliefs that exploitation be abolished. Vegans are right.
The core of leftist beliefs that exploitation be abolished. Vegans are right.
Exploitation of workers…
How am I exploiting a krill when I use it to make kimchi? How are you not exploiting workers when you buy your tofu?
When you use subjectively defined ideologies like vegan as a litmus test for morality or utilize semantic definitions of exploitations as a precondition for leftism, their entire meaning becomes reductive and trivial.
Because the difference between anarchists and communists is one of strategy
Wut? Anarchism and communism are diametrically opposed ways to organize the structural hierarchy of a revolution… If that can be reduced to “strategy” then in your definition there isn’t a meaningful difference between communism, anarchy, or fascism.
you’re not following your ethics to the ultimate conclusion and still have a strain of “I deserve the exploits of others suffering” in you, then you’re not actually a leftist.
We are talking about the organization of a political hierarchy and the distribution of labour and resources of humans, not the ethics of eating other animals.
Leftism does not have an inherent opinion of the morality of meat eating, environmentalism, or any other progressive cause people like to attribute to it. Leftism in its most basic form is simply when workers seize the means of production, and some of those workers have and will be in the meat industry.
You can build a leftist revolution around the morality of enviromentalism, or animal welfare, but in no way is it inherent to leftist ideology. To attempt to claim so would require a Prager U amount of historical revisionism.
Because the difference between anarchists and communists is one of strategy while the difference between vegans and bloodmouths is wanting to cause suffering for selfish reasons. It’s not sectarian.
And no. If you’re not following your ethics to the ultimate conclusion and still have a strain of “I deserve the exploits of others suffering” in you, then you’re not actually a leftist.
oh so Cuba, Viet Nam, China, the USSR, the DPRK, the Paris commune… all are or were vegan? funny how that bit gets left out of the history books
this is actually the dumbest response you could have made lmao
Folks used the same argument here early on during trans struggle sessions and we correctly adopted the position that to be leftist your need to be pro-trans.
Also we are obviously talking about current conditions.
Vegans aren’t a marginalized group of people, they aren’t being genocided by Evangelical fascists, full fucking stop
Trans people deserve to be considered a protected class here, vegans don’t
This is a poor analogy. Vegans are not the exploited party they are simply the ones who match their morals with actions.
Do you have any thoughts as to why the pushback has the exact same patterns?
Also yeah I’ll echo that you don’t seem to understand the very basics of what’s being discussed here so maybe you should ask yourself why you have such a strong reaction. If I were so ignorant, I would be asking questions or going to self-teach.
Veganism is not about vegans being a marginalized group.
Vegans are arguing about the oppression of animals, not themselves. Animals are being genocided, and in the most extreme way seen in history.
yeah 100%, im going to stay on the news mega from now on what the fuck are these arguments
I think the idea is that the other creatures, like animals bred in captivity for their meat, are the ones which aren’t protected. Vegans don’t seem to speak for them (as say, a liberal might for a marginalized group while denying them their voice) rather use inductive reasoning to reflect contradictions in meat-eaters and their ethics in practice, particularly around ideas of self-oriented material interest.
If we use genocide as the mass slaughter of any life (we’ll probably conveniently ignore microbes and only stick with multicellular life) rather than human life, animals bred for consumption (as well as those affected by humanity’s effect on the environment) are deliberately genocided and it’s done to some anticipation. The scale makes this far worse, other humans can be a meaningful threat and thus for the oppressor it is reasonable to eliminate them if their very existence poses a threat, as is the case in settler-colonial societies.
I don’t know why you or others might treat non-human life differently than human life, and that is what I consider to be occurring. Feel free to disagree, I would be curious to read your thoughts as it’s not a perspective I would say I understand. Three reasons for my prior comment which come to mind are 1. anthropocentrism, 2. lack of empathy and 3. solipsism. For the second there is a relevant quote which I think captures this well:
If instead of ‘fellow men’ you put ‘fellow creature’ I think you might understand where some of the arguments come from. Don’t get me started on eugenics and how we are more or less perfecting it with plants and domesticated animals.
“genocide as the mass slaughter of any life”
This is both not what genocide is and it also trivializes actual genocides. You’re right to call this view anthropocentric, but I’m not going to say that animal life is a 1:1 equivalency with human life. Industrial farming is fucked up I agree, and should be ended. I also agree that veganism is a good thing, better than eating meat. But overall it is not the same thing, not at all.
Even if cows are worth 0.0001% of a human, animal agriculture is by far the worst genocide and indeed the worst crime ever committed on Earth.
I think we can be pro-vegan in the exact same way, encouraging and fostering vegan thought and talking points even if we don’t think they fit into our lives. We’re not that, but I’ve honestly thought a lot more about my relationship to meat and the ramifications of my diet due to vegan posters than I ever did before, like how trans posters made me think about my relationship with gender. There’s obviously a difference in that veganism has the ultimate goal of making everyone vegan, not all trans people want gender abolition, but if we can all think a little more vegan than we did yesterday I think that’s a good thing. More people are likely to become vegan if there’s an environment open to its discussion than if there isn’t. I’m genuinely thinking about it a bit rn, might have to do some research.
Can vegans please stop comparing minority groups to animals? Holy fuck stop being transphobic
Can carnists please stop engaging in bad-faith arguments? Holy fuck stop being speciesist
not a “carnist”, i eat vegan shit exclusively these days
Vegans see animals as someones not somethings. Maybe take out the speciesist lenses that make solidarity look like transphobia.
This thread is bringing me back to some of the fun arguments of the bad times.
Instead of grappling with the actual ethics of the thing we’re supposed to defer to these ethically flawless fully realized utopian projects? Next will you say it’s okay to be homophobic and a leftist because the communist projects of the 20th century can’t be criticized?
The core of leftist beliefs that exploitation be abolished. Vegans are right.
Exploitation of workers…
How am I exploiting a krill when I use it to make kimchi? How are you not exploiting workers when you buy your tofu?
When you use subjectively defined ideologies like vegan as a litmus test for morality or utilize semantic definitions of exploitations as a precondition for leftism, their entire meaning becomes reductive and trivial.
they probably ate less animal corpses than your average you.
Wut? Anarchism and communism are diametrically opposed ways to organize the structural hierarchy of a revolution… If that can be reduced to “strategy” then in your definition there isn’t a meaningful difference between communism, anarchy, or fascism.
We are talking about the organization of a political hierarchy and the distribution of labour and resources of humans, not the ethics of eating other animals.
Leftism does not have an inherent opinion of the morality of meat eating, environmentalism, or any other progressive cause people like to attribute to it. Leftism in its most basic form is simply when workers seize the means of production, and some of those workers have and will be in the meat industry.
You can build a leftist revolution around the morality of enviromentalism, or animal welfare, but in no way is it inherent to leftist ideology. To attempt to claim so would require a Prager U amount of historical revisionism.