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Ah, purity tests, here we fucking go again.
This seems like rage bait in its entirety. Gatekeeping that you can’t be left if you aren’t a vegan as well.
Nah, the meme says people who believe in meat eating (carnists) can be leftist on other issues, but they just can’t bring themselves to be progressive about animals.
Which is 100% bullshit.
I used to eat meat once every blue moon. Then I got a diagnosis that my body has a super hard time retaining iron and plant-based iron sources are more difficult for the body to process, so I need to eat more red meat.
I want that meat to be sourced without animal harm - ideally through lab-grown stuff. But that’s just not available anywhere where I live.
Read the comment you replied to again. You are not among those mentioned.
But they eat meat and are progressive about animals, which is impossible as per that comment, how are they not among those mentioned?
As the other user mentioned here - from the OP it seems like I am very specifically among those mentioned.
I pretty much gave up on trying to please people for this reason. There’s always something they find flawed about you.
It’s literally impossible to please everyone.
This is why i try as hard as i can to phrase things as “i really think you should consider not doing XYZ” or if it’s really severe “So: you doing XYZ is objectively quite shitty, i hope you can accept that and be motivated to stop doing it because it makes you feel bad, but also i don’t hate you for it it just makes me sad”
Like with veganism we should all eat as little meat as we can. Eating meat is bad in so many ways but obviously it can be quite difficult to stop, so i don’t judge people for eating meat but i will judge people for ignoring that it is bad and refusing to even consider changing their habits, just try to eat less meat or at least switch to meats that are less bad.
If only I could fool my family into believing they are eating meat.
Food chain still exists, home slice, and I’m at the top of it. Doesn’t change my feelings about labor rights, or housing, or healthcare. You’re presenting a false equivalence argument.
You’re on top of it? Because you buy factory meat in a store?
Your being dense on purpose? You think human as a specie isn’t at the top? Like if we want we couldnt kill every animal specie?
We built civilization and you think we areny the apex?
So you believe in rule of the mightiest?
Can you even call yourself a leftist?
Maybe you have a point to make but this isn’t it.
As i said in another comment, the way we treat animals is and should be different from they way we interact with other humans.
I dont advocate for the rule of the mightiest between humans. For animals, i think we dont have any moral obligation in the way we treat them. Doesnt mean im ok obliterated species or kill rare animal for sport, just that we are ok to eat them.
i think we dont have any moral obligation in the way we treat them
I think that way of thinking is problematic. Because you could easily swap “we have moral obligation only towards other humans” with “we have moral obligations only towards people of our own tribe / group”. You can freely swap out who is in the protected in-group, and what is okay to do to the out-group as a result.
“For animals, I think we dont have any moral obligation in the way we treat them.”
Yeah… Thats really fucked up thinking.
If it doesn’t matter how we treat animals, why aren’t you okay with wiping them out or hunting them for fun?
Think about it with a moral view. Should we kill millions of animals a year even tho we don’t have to and is considerably worse for your health and to the environment?
considerably worse for your health
Not quite the case. The way we in the western world consume meat is not particularly healthy. But a vegan diet is not healthier per se. You can have a pretty healthy diet that includes meat (although definitely with less meat than the average person in the western world consumes) and you can have a pretty healthy vegan diet. The difficulty with vegan diets is that humans are biologically omnivores, and while it is possible to lead a healthy vegan diet, one does have to be much more careful about their diet so that one doesn’t miss any important nutrients. There’s a reason the human palate is trained to like meat.
to the environment
This is more an argument to reduce meat consumption than to eliminate it, something I am entirely for. Whatever food we consume, it will just about always have an impact on the environment. The question is how we can reduce that impact to a point where it is sustainable.
Idk, I never liked raw meat. You have to roast it until you taste either ash or Unami.
Jesus fuck, then you’re roasting it entirely wrong.
But I like the taste of ash.
Which is why Jeff Bezos should be able to control your entire life, living conditions, reproduction, and milk you for all the money he possibly can, right? He is at the top of the food chain so you don’t get a say, and that’s good and moral. Right?
The interaction between human and human and animal and human are different.
Theres not much elso to say. What is true for how we treat animals, the fact we can eat them (in my opinion) because we are over them, doesnt reflect in how i think a human should and can treat another human. Thats it
lol why? So you can feel better about it? Which like, I get it people only have so much energy to deal with shit and if you can’t then if it makes you feel better to pretend then sure. I’m not here to make anyone go vegetarian or vegan or anything, but saying we’re the top of the food chain and that you’re a leftist is laughable. That’s some ancap shit.
It’s at the top of the subjective hierarchy that you are inventing to justify your cruelty and violence. That’s rationalization, that’s not objective reality. That’s how you cope with being a fucking monster.
We aren’t talking about “we” were talking about you. Lions in general may be at the top of the food chain but an individual disabled lion isn’t and is liable to get taken down by a species “lower down” like hyenas.
If you’re justifying eating meat by the ability to kill another animal then unless you can prove you can kill a cow you shouldn’t be eating steak.
You aren’t a predator at the top of the food chain, at best you’re a kleptoparasite appropriating the kills of others using money.
They can’t read either. I’ve stated more than once in this thread that I hunt or buy locally for nearly all of the meat I consume. Let them feel superior for now. I’m hunting vegans if I ever run out of deer and feral hogs.
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You wouldn’t even be capable of staring at your own navel this hard if your ancestors hadn’t taken to eating our furry neighbors. And you have no idea the emissions caused by my diet, but since I hunt the majority of my meat I’m actually reducing the emissions of local deer herds and hog sounders in my area. I do not participate in beef farming at all, but mostly because I find it to be boring of flavor and overly expensive, not out of any moral obligation.
I am not an apex predator? Sure, I’m an omnivore. Now, however, if I am not at the top of the chain, how about you tell me what might be hunting me?
Well I guess that justifies the horrific conditions of factory farming animals by the billions congrats on the moral high ground.
Can’t speak on that. I don’t buy much meat, and what I do is from small local farms. I hunt the majority of my meat. You must have strong legs from jumping to conclusions.
Do you think that every person on Earth could eat as much meat as they want without factory farming?
See, what you’re really saying is that there’s too many people, which is true. And many people eat too much meat. Americans in particular all seem to want to eat until they are uncomfortably full. And the fact of factory farming is it’s every bit as wasteful as every other kind of farming in this country, throwing away perfectly usable product because Americans have been propagandized into only wanting certain cuts.
And for some reason quite a few people choose to live in concrete hellscapes where you don’t grow food and can’t fend for yourselves. Spread out some. Simplify your lives. Y’know, or continue to suffocate in urban sprawl.
Fuck it, maybe Trump and company are doing the Lord’s work by reducing the number of living Americans by bringing back some plagues.
“im physically capable of making other creatures suffer therefore it’s acceptable for me to do so”. Aight dude. Clearly there’s no changing your mind, but for those looking - this mindset is the same as people who sexually assault women.
Food chain still exists, home slice, and I’m at the top of it. Doesn’t change my feelings about labor rights, or housing, or healthcare. You’re presenting a false equivalence argument.
Corporate chain still exists home slice. And I’m at the top of it. Doesn’t change my feelings about exploiting you, not giving you proper social safety nets or healthcare.
Might makes right is a shit argument.
You don’t control my food, kid. Hell, you don’t control my water. You might control a couple types of fuel I utilize, but if I can’t get those anymore then that’s not really a problem either because society has already collapsed, and I still have fuel that you never controlled. And I will still eat, have water, have shelter, and I already live without doctors. I am capable of full self sufficiency. Are you? I have serious doubts. You don’t have an argument. Go eat some kale that has to be shipped from mexico.
You’re absolutely right. You currently can choose to do all of that.
But just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should nor that doing the thing is the right thing to do right ?
You can also just as easily choose not to inflict violence and cruelty on those who can’t defend themselves.
Yeah, that’s why I have human children locked in my basement that I sometimes eat the flesh of. It’s not immoral, I’m just above them on the food chain.
Just becuase you’re so poor that when you cherry-pick policies to support because they would benefit yourself most of those policies happen to be left-wing, that doesn’t make you a leftist.
You’re the one throwing labels around. I’m just me. I’m not much for emotions, nor empathy. I have a moral compass that works well enough for me and that’s honestly as far as I care about the subject. I don’t kill for entertainment or trophies. I hunt at least 60% of the meat I consume. When I purchase it, I try to buy from small farms directly. I grow much of my own veg, too. Does that matter in any real way? Unlikely.
Little vegan children might be delicious, but I wouldn’t eat one raised on the trash the city folks eat. There, are you properly outraged by my callousness?
I wonder what leftist values you think you can express without empathy. Like, honestly, why do you even give a single fuck about this entire thread, you’re not in this picture at all.
Whoop, there it goes. Right out the window.
“Might makes right. Taking the body of a vulnerable individual is just how I roll. I don’t see how that has anything to do with decency and mercy!”
You could have just said, “Hi, I’m the meme.”
Decency and mercy are when I place my shot to dispatch an animal to reduce its suffering as much as possible. So, sure whatever makes you feel superior, but you need to understand that you are the meme here.
Decency and mercy are when I place my shot to dispatch an animal to reduce its suffering as much as possible.
Okay. I appreciate that you do that.
Have you considered that to reduce the animals suffering as much as possible you could just… not shoot it? And then to on about your day doing literally anything else that makes you happy?
I’m not going to disagree with you that “but meat tastes better”. Or that hunting is fun and there’s an emotional connection that hunters can get to it.
But you can literally do anything else other than inflict violence and cruelty on those weaker than you. It’s a choice.
It’s a choice I’m ok with. But hunting is not fun. It’s work done for survival, just like gardening, which I also do. I minimize the cruelty by having good aim that I have put a lot of effort into learning and practicing. I’m unmoved by your limp wristed pacifism. I provide for myself and my family, how much of your food do you grow? All your food travels by diesel truck or worse. You are not better than me, and your diet likely has a more negative impact on the environment.
In point of fact, the environmental impact of shipping plants hundreds of kms is an order of magnitude less than the impact of consuming local meat. But you don’t actually care about that, it’s sophistry.
Oh man. I could go on again about how it’s not because you can inflict violence that you should and that you’re justified doing so because you can. I’ve already mentioned that in the other reply to you.
So there are two more points I’d like to make.
-
Do you think there’s a possibility you’ve been propagandized to the point where critique of meat eating feels like a personal attack? Because if you notice I’ve been nothing but cordial to you while both your comments you tried to do personal attacks. “Go eat kale”, “limp wristed pacifism”, neither are accurate. But would you examine why you feel like resorting to that?
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veganism is indeed much better for the environment. Cows are extremely thermodynamically inefficient. If you’re vegan you plant something you eat it and you get the calories you need. For animal farming you have to plant a bunch feed the cow. Plant more feed the cow. Do it for years and then kill the cow. Any argument of efficiency is an argument for veganism. Not against it. So no. Eating meat has a much worse quantifiable impact on the environment. Most studies put it at 10 to 20 times worse. Very easy to look up if you care enough.
And if you reply to this “what about hunting”, “what about roadkill”, “what about them natives” which are the usual retorts. I’d say who cares about any of that. That’s not even a rounding error in the total meat consumption we do as a species and total amount of unnecessary cruelty we inflict on animals.
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Please feel free to elaborate on this obvious nonsense.
What part confuses you? I didn’t stutter.
So your entire philosophy that justifies needless violence, cruelty to a vulnerable individual, despoiling the environment, and exploiting people doing traumatic jobs because they would starve homeless otherwise, your ENTIRE argument can be expressed in one glib, garbled, arrogant sentence. Hey, if that’s all you got, then that’s all you got; that in itself is the answer. But if you’re trying to show how you can do these things and also embody leftist values, you’re failing, and no amount of bluster or irony can change that.
I think you’re a leftist when it comes to labour rights, housing, and healthcare for humans. I also think you’re in favour of imprisonment, forced labour, and a might-makes-right worldview justified by the appeal to nature fallacy, all of which are traditionally associated with fascism. In short, I think you’re a very complex individual with a wide range of political views on different topics.
Any imprisonment is cruel and unusual. Kinder to kill a man than to lock him away from the world. All labour should be at will. If you don’t want to work you should be able to stay out of the way. A universal basic income is needed for this if we don’t somehow erase commerce entirely, because folks gotta eat and sleep. Cool, do it. If labor is truly voluntary that increases its value too, Production has to make it worth participating. Jobs would still feel like jobs, but they wouldn’t feel like shackles. It’s a pretty notion I think. Fascism appalls me, I was raised by a civil rights activist that helped arm and train minorities in the 60s and 70s. I have actively fought bigotry since the early 90s when I was in highschool. I have participated in a riot when the cops killed a young man for no good reason and my city exploded for a minute. Now on to this “might makes right” horseshit you are so wrapped around the axle on, you seem to have lost touch with the simple fact that man is an animal as natural as any out there. There are many, many species that are carnivores or omnivores and we are no better or worse than any of them or those that choose to eat at the salad bar, in fact we are them too.
Any imprisonment is cruel and unusual
So putting chickens in tiny filthy cages where they’re so stressed out that they have to be debeaked, because otherwise they’ll peck themselves to death, is cruel and unusual?
Of course. Chickens belong in a yard or a pasture. You still occasionally have to cull the unnecessarily violent ones from time to time.
People need to spend more time in the yard and not be in cages too. I live 50 miles from the closest town you might have heard of. I don’t have neighbors. Part of my property is a registered wildlife habitat. Society sucks so I do my best not to participate any more than I have to.
Well, most of the chicken and eggs at the store comes from chickens in those tiny cages. So are you going to boycott these evil chicken corporations?
I buy eggs from the family up the road. They have a nice mix of colors.
That’s good, how about chicken meat?
I’m okay with bringing up the contradiction, we all need to be held accountable but too often this can be used as a purity test.
Food is a deeply personal issue that we should try not to moralize, I understand that can be difficult when there are real consequences to the climate and suffering of animals but If you moralize food you will lose people.
I say this is a 7-year vegan. I understand this is a meme but memes normalize culture and it is best to lead with invitation, not accusation.
Food is a deeply personal issue that we should try not to moralize, I understand that can be difficult
Personal issues end where others right to exist begin. A personal choice is what color choice you wanna be wear in the morning.
If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it. And yes. Choosing to eat meat has victims. You’re eating your victims.
You’re not going to convince me, you’re preaching to the choir but you messaging isn’t meeting people where they’re at and will leave us with a lonely moral victory.
Homie. If there was a magical sequence of words that made people understand that exploiting and committing violence against those who are weaker you was wrong the world would be such a better place already.
I think the only way to achieve that is slowly through better education. But even that is difficult when people distrust education.
Education is how we win, and it is slow because it has to undo the cultural normalization of meat as an identity. The meat industry has spent decades lobbying for subsidies and advertising meat as part of the American way of life.
It is really hard to fight that because once something becomes part of a person’s sense of self, attacking it engages the ego. It is the same issue with car dominance.
I think it is important to keep in mind that victory is not an all or nothing game. A lot of leftist ideals interlock with a thought structure that makes people more open to persuasion through reason.
That change comes a little bit at a time, not by one well reasoned argument, but by seeing happy, thriving communities as living proof.
Indeed. Great username btw.
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At the same time that “little bit at a time” change can 100% come from a well reasoned argument, the first step i took was to cut out beef since it’s by far the worst food for the climate and it really isn’t difficult to stop eating it (both pork and chicken are readily available and tasty, so it’s basically just a matter of checking ingredient lists for stuff like meatballs and sausages).
I think the key thing is just that people have to be presented with an immediate action they can take that isn’t some huge sacrifice, and ideally actually benefits them in some way.
Like to make people drive less: Maybe ask them if they’ve considered that an electric moped would be MUCH cheaper to operate, way easier to find parking for at work, and means that a person at home can still have access to the car. That’s very reasonable for a lot of people and might well lead to them ditching the car entirely.
In modern society, almost all personal choices have victims, it’s all connected.
If you want to argue the degree of separation between the choice and the victim that’s an interesting conversation to have.
If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it.
If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time (in this context), that implies a lack of imagination, mental flexibility and a level of privilege that taints anything else you might say with the idea :
“If they can’t think of a single scenario where that statement doesn’t apply, how much thinking are they really putting in to the rest of what they say”
For some, eating meat is life and death, through no fault of their own.
Oof. It gets repetitive hearing the same arguments.
In modern society, almost all personal choices have victims, it’s all connected.
This is the there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism argument.
True however there are degrees of difficulty and effect of your actions. Picking soy milk at a super market instead of milk takes barely no effort and has discernible good effects. Sure there’s also exploitation in the making of the soy milk. That’s a different issue. Which if you care enough I can also point you in the direction that I choose to combat that.
Evil existing isn’t a sensible moral justification for inflicting more evil into the world. Do your part to make the world a better place.
If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time
This is the let’s make this impersonal and ask “what do words even mean” argument.
Dont be obtuse is my answer to that.
For some, eating meat is life and death, through no fault of their own.
This is the “what if you were on a deserted island and there was only a single cow in it. Would you eat it” argument.
I’m not sure if your statement is true. But sure. If that is true. They get a pass. I’ve had a meeting with the other vegans. They all agree too.
That isn’t the case for me though. It isn’t for you either. It isn’t the case for the vast majority of people.
Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.
It is indeed the “no ethical consumerism” argument and as I said it’s an interesting conversation to have.
I wasn’t arguing against your general premise. I specifically called out the lack of flexibility in your statement and what that implied to me.
That isn’t the case for me though. It isn’t for you either. It isn’t the case for the vast majority of people.
Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.
And this is the exact kind of privilege and/or lack of imagination I was talking about.
It wasn’t about word choice as much it as what that word choice implied.
It suggests you don’t understand how limited the choices can be under poverty, or how widespread it is.
I wasn’t positing it as a gotcha, I am “being real” when i say there are very real circumstances (for a non-trivial amount of people) that don’t adhere to your ideal.
Assuming Walmart was your example because it’s what you know and not because America is the only place that exists, physical distance is far from the only factor.
Assuming you have a home, even if you lived next door, that’s not even close to a guarantee you’d be able to afford a continuous level of food that matches your ideal and also reaches a level of healthy nutrition.
The easy example is literal starvation, where it’s not possible to secure enough food of any kind, let alone the kind that adheres to your premise.
This isn’t an obscure thing from 300 years ago, this is a reality, today.
I wasn’t saying you were wrong, i was saying your argument possibly comes from a position of privilege and if you think this is a 300 year ago problem, I was correct.
edit: clean up
Honestly, I would be vegan-ish rn if not for executive disfunction.
I might have the cash, but just eat meat slop and peanut butter
soylent is a great fit for my executive disfunction
Fucking right?
Food in a bottle with little to no prep is where it’s at.
I’m still waiting for them food cubes from starfield
CHUNKS
When i can occasionally get focused on some meal prep (or remember that meal prep exists) just coking up an industrial sized VAT of generic food+sauce and sticking that in the freezer is also a good one, if you can negotiate with the brain to make it happen.
hmm, I’m interested in what @shapis@lemmy.ml take on this would be.
They get a pass. If they are ever stranded in a deserted island and must kill to survive they get a pass too. Same for if they are about to starve and the only option is hunting a gazelle.
All the other vegans and I agree. We had a meeting.
That’s not even a rounding error in the amount of cruelty and murder we inflict upon animals though. The main concern right now is stop the senseless cycle of breeding little mutant animals in hellish conditions just to murder them at a young age. The scale of that dwarfs all other forms of animal abuse by a few orders of magnitude.
The Vegan Society defines veganism as a philosophy and way of living that seeks to exclude as far as is possible and practicable all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.
I feel like that is a good definition and a good way to go about it.
I agree when talking with normies, but this is a socialist community on a mostly socialist platform. Like you shouldn’t be moralizing about meat when canvasing, but it’s fine to do so at a DSA meeting where people are already aware of the problems of exploitation and domination.
I think there’s a distinction to be made between “This thing is bad”, and “Doing this thing makes you a bad person”.
Telling people in a gentle and understanding way that they’re doing something bad, is good. You just have to be very careful to adjust your language to the people your speaking to.
But saying that people are bad for doing the bad thing is pretty shitty, it might feel righteous but it’s extremely unlikely to result in anything but alienating those you talk to.This is why i’m “flexitarian”, mostly just eat chicken and i try to eat as little as possible, but i’ll eat the odd bit of other meat depending on circumstances. I acknowledge that eating meat is “objectively” bad, but that there’s also a limit to how much i can actually change my diet without feeling miserable, and it’s quite nice to be able to tell people “Well you can just do what i do, sticking to chicken is really not that difficult at all, give it a try!”
People are deeply, unflinchingly weird about food. They’re weird about a lot of things, but most of all food.
I think being offended by this meme means that one isn’t wholly comfortable with one’s own cognitive dissonance
Wanting to enjoy animal products and a great deal of the types of food ever made by humans does not inherently necessitate animal exploitation, and therefore isnt necessarily cognitive dissonance.
Factory farms and legitimate animal abuses are horrific, but the vast majority of human relationships to animals and animal products in history has not been anything like that. I dont take issue with actual husbandry or hunting, its the circle of life.
One of the great failures of activism in this area is that vegans conflate horrific animal abuses like factory farms with any form of eating animal products, which most people would not agree with, and it makes it easy for people to write off any activism to close factory farms and things like that as just “crazy vegans” or whatever.
I would love to see lab grown meat and other things that mean we could move beyond killing animals for consumptive purposes, and eventually we will. In the meantime, we can have ethical farming practices that ensure quality lives for animals that will be eaten. There is no cognitive dissonance in that. I dont think the majority of people believe there is an ethical issue with eating animals at large, just that there are unethical ways to raise animals to be eaten. I dont take issue with anyone believing that eating any animal products is unethical, but I also do not believe that there is some universal ethical truth to that idea whatsoever, nor that people eating meat is purely a social construct. Humans are omnivorous animals, we evolved to eat animals. If anything, veganism is far more of a socialized construct than biological evolution.
Beyond that, there are plenty of animal products that vegans refuse to eat even though taking them doest harm the animal or cost its life. Eggs, dairy or butter, etc.
What in the cope did I just read
Well, clearly you didn’t read it, since you see it as cope…
How do you eat the body of someone who doesn’t want to be eaten and think it isn’t exploitation. Do YOU even listen to the words you are saying, or are you just distracting yourself from rational thought until the bad feelings go away?
We can tell you’ve never thought seriously about the subject in your entire life because you make claims like eggs and dairy don’t harm the animals producing them. That’s so ignorant, you have to be going out of your way to avoid learning about where your food comes from. But you have paragraphs of arrogant shit to shovel down our throats. Read a fucking book, okay?
How do you eat the body of someone who doesn’t want to be eaten and think it isn’t exploitation
I take it you never heard about eggs or milk…?
We can tell you’ve never thought seriously about the subject in your entire life because you make claims like eggs and dairy
Ah, no, you have! So why do you only and specifically associate “non-veganism” with “eating the body of someone who doesn’t want to be eaten”?
That’s so ignorant, you have to be going out of your way to avoid learning about where your food comes from.
Let me guess: your argument is the cage-locked, industry scale production, yeah?
But you have paragraphs of arrogant shit to shovel down our throats. Read a fucking book, okay?
Are you capable of taking a deep breath and not spazzing out here, or is that out of the question and we won’t have a conversation?
to be fair, the person that responded to me isn’t the same that wrote the initial response I responded to (???) but I share your sentiment wholly
There’s a massive difference between industry-scale production and free-range, small-scale production. The former can never be ethical, by definition. The latter: absolutely can. It requires humans to cut down on animal products consumption drastically, so campaigning and education is necessary, but equating ALL non-veganism with animal cruelty does more harm than good to that goal.
what in your mind makes it ethical to do the things to a chicken that would not be ethical to do to a human? you can’t just say “it’s ethical;” that is the entire debate.
You are ignorant of the realities of “free range” ranching, but that is not really relevant yet so we’ll ignore it.
Free range, small-scale “production” (disgusting word to use in this context imho) - why would this be any less exploitative than what animal AG is doing in the billions? Sure, the animal is treated better, which is good in a vacuum, but the animal still can neither consent nor object to being exploited. At best, it’s a chicken laying eggs for reproduction or for its own sustenance and is robbed of these, at worst it’s a cow that’s being force-impregnated to give milk, to sustain its calves which it can’t, or it’s killed for meat. The end result is, whatever way you wanna spin it, a dead or exploited animal.
All these hypotheticals of people having “small-scale productions” or, for some reason not being part of the larger issue at hand just because they raise their own animals, is ultimately just cope to justify cruelty and exploitation. Accept that fact and move on, but at least be aware of what you’re doing, or change something about your perspective.
Veganism explicitly mentions to reduce the exploitation of animals in all facets of life, more or less. If you’re dependent on animal products because you’re living isolated and have no access to other nourishment - sure. I doubt the average Lemmy user is in such a predicament, however. Thus, it’s absolutely within the realm of reason to assume that living as a vegan is possible and should be strived towards - especially if you’re a self-proclaimed leftist.
How do you know that cows do not want to be eaten?
eggs and dairy dont harm animals because the animals want to produce eggs and dairy and have been designed to do so
Humans farming dairy hurts cows: https://vegfaqs.com/vegans-milk-cheese/
Humans farming eggs usually hurts chickens: https://www.veganfoodandliving.com/features/are-eggs-vegan/
There’s also the simple fact that most of us do not need meat, dairy, or eggs to survive. So why risk harming other creatures to get it?
It’s simplistic and implies leftism as a monolith. That being said, it’s a meme not an essay. Starting an argument from a talking point devoid of context invites dissent. As well as ridicule.
It’s completely accurate. There are so many right wing arguments responding to this post it’s not even funny. So many white liberals setting the timetable to another’s liberation, so many LGB people who think the T is just going too far, so many workers threatening to vote for the party that dismantles workers’ rights if the pro-worker party supports migrants.
And the same happens every time. Non-vegan self-identified leftists’ arguments against animal liberation are almost always right wing logic and right wing talking points.
yea, I see the same things you do.
Lol how many times have I heard vegans say, “oppressing minorities isn’t as bad as animal agriculture”
Like I def know vegans who are bad ass leftists, my own leftism was inspired by veganism, and when the conditions of my life make it easier to eat vegan I will switch my diet back.
But there are lots of people who are vegan for health reasons, which is a perfectly fine reason to be vegan. But they don’t tend to be especially left wing. The owners of a vegan hot dog restaurant/manufacturing in my city are like MAGA vegans. I had an ex girlfriend who was vegan, who never had sympathy for homeless people or any social causes before we got together.
I think what veganism and leftism have in common, is that many people are motivated by deep sympathy or empathy to make changes to themselves, in the hopes that in doing so we will make a change in the world. If we change enough people’s minds, and they change themselves, eventually it will lead to a shift in the real world.
But leftism is not “my way of life is better and you’re a bad person if you don’t think and act like me” which is the attitude of many vegans (and some leftists). That isn’t vegan leftism, it’s vegan centrism. Checking product labels isn’t political, and alienating people for their diet isn’t leftist.
Leftism does not equal “having sympathy outside of my self”. Sympathy and empathy are like senses. These senses allow us to identify objective truth, particularly injustice, by allowing us to sense pain in others. When this motivates us to make change to ourselves or the world, to resist injustice, that is leftism.
Every dividing issue has a political left and right. There are moderate and hard right conservatives, progressive and centrist liberals, left and moderate socialists. Left vegans are like some of the best people in society, and a conservative or centrist vegan is likely closer to the left on some social issues, if I had to guess.
But maybe that’s not the point of the meme. Maybe veganism is like a litmus test for performative leftism
As someone who is exploring veganism right now, this extreme stance is kind of a turn off. Like I’m still going to eat plant based, but this makes me not want to talk to people who call themselves vegan or even call myself vegan either.
Edit: It’s strange that the response I am getting to this is to call me right wing and white, of which I am neither. But I am someone who is just trying to eat plant based.
Yeah, it’s called white veganism.
I do not understand what you are saying here.
It’s a type of veganism that focus superficially on animal rights and use exclusionary language.
The opposite is intersectional veganism.
Thank you for this.
You’re welcome:)
What makes you think OP doesn’t support other leftist ideals?
I do not know what OP thinks about other issues. They might have great stances on other stuff, but I am not taking position on that here.
I say it is white veganism because the purism is exclusionary in the sense that it is gatekeeping and imposing immorality upon those who fail to be clean vegans. Our communication should be assertive, but we should also make it inclusive. Let the 99% join without the fear of being ostracized.
Oh hey, you’re the same person that I responded to in a different comment on this post. I’ve given a more detailed explanation there, but you’re arguing against a straw man interpretation of the OP. It doesn’t say meat eaters can’t be leftist, it says self-identified leftists tend to argue against animal liberation with right wing arguments.
So the OP is not exclusionary to meat eaters, it is only exclusionary to people that oppose animal liberation. Which is good because animal liberation is good. Trying to sell oneself to centrists by compromising one’s ideals, thus proving one has none and one will sell people out for political expedience in a heartbeat, has been catastrophic for left-wing parties throughout the western world for the past 40 years.
I’ve cut my meat consumption to a third. I realise I don’t even like meat that much unless it’s ultra processed lol. I think vegetables and tofu are bloody bangin but for now I’m happy with meat 2 days a week, whether that’ll go down further I dunno
Are you exploring veganism or plant based? They are not the same thing. Veganism is much more radical and has a real focus on ending animal suffering.
Either is a step in the right direction and reduces animal suffering.
Stop gatekeeping
Sincerely
a vegetarian of 11 years
Careful, you’ll trigger the VERVs (vegetarian-exclusionary radical vegans).
I’m anti-slavery. I went from owning 7 slaves to 1 house slave and I only lightly beat them. Stop gatekeeping demanding I end all slavery, what I do is ethical.
Sincerely,
A vegan.
Insufferable
Your achievements in cutting animal products out of your lifestyle are overshadowed by the people you almost certainly have persuaded not to try
It’s funny how every non-vegan knows exactly how to convert people; better, in fact, than every single person who has experienced conversion. Hilarious, in fact.
“this is why you don’t have more vegans, a vegan was correct about my intentions and inaction. That won’t win me over! …it wins over others but it won’t win me!”
Really impressive how it’s always “this isn’t how you win over non-vegans” from the non-vegans and never the people who are vegan.
I just think they don’t ever want to hear about their situation in life keeps pain existing where it shouldn’t.
It’s typical shitlibbery, we always have to cater to them and tone it down etc.
I don’t care any more, let them rage.
Giga based of you
I mean, a vegetarian would say that while patting themselves on the back
I am doing the one where you don’t eat any animal products or use any animal products. The reason I chose to do this is personal, I am not adopting any ideologies.
Also called “how to make chuds tag themselves in one simple step”. It disappointingly never fails…
Insufferableness about this shit wont win you a single friend.
This isn’t being insufferable. Certainly not when compared to other infighting
iff (all leftists agreed)(either)(to be vegans)(or)(veganism has nothing to do with leftism) then (I would just go with the consensus and do the vegan thing)
since the majority of people, and, presumably, the majority of leftists don’t agree to be vegans, we should probably stop using it to divide the left.
You can use this talking point for any leftist topic because, guess what, the left is already divided. People use this to argue against anti-racism or anti-imperialism because “the Left has to be united”, “no war but class war”, led by the most privileged of the oppressed groups
vegans aren’t being repressed. their argument is that animals are being repressed.
I don’t think you’re using parentheses correctly.
do you think you understood what I was saying?
beans are alright but pulses
are what i swear by. god damn i fuckin love lentils 
What if i dont care about animals? If i would become vegan i would do it just for the enviromental benefits.
So do it.
Nah i don’t wanna. Meat is too tasty.
I commented just because, in contrary of what you said in the post, i think you can be easily ok with animal exploitation and still consider yourself a leftist.
Having said that, i try to avoid meat when i can and i try to prefer a more vegetable based diet. Im just not ready to ban meat all around right now. As i said, i’d do it just for the enviromental damages of intensive farms, not because im compassionate about cows or chickens.
But as you said you wouldn’t do it for the environmental damages, you won’t do it all. So you’re just talking complete shit.
But that’s not the point i was originally addressing. You shifted the focus towards the fact i’ll be not going vegan.
I made the ipotetic sentence that IF i would be going vegan i would do it just for the enviroment, ignoring the animal exploitation you addressed in the post, and by doing so i think my leftism would be intact.
I was just saying that i dont agree with the fact that “veganism is leftism” and that the leftism of a person is also judged based on what he thinks of animal exploitation. If you want to stay here and point out im not going vegan because basically im too lazy, thats ok.
Highly recommend you the following reads, might change your mind:
- Animal Rights and Feminist Theory, Josephine Donovan
- Mothering Caring and Animal Liberation, Greta Gaard
- License to Kill: An Ecofeminist Critique of Hunter’s Discourse, Marti Kheel
- Why Feminist-Vegan now?, Carol J Adams
- Yapping out loud for animals and prostitutes, Mirha-Soleil Ross interviewed by Nadja Lubiw
- Fighting Cocks: Ecofeminism Versus Sexualised Violence, Pattrice Jones
- Inderdependent Animal: A Feminist Disability Ethic-of-Care, Sunaura Taylor
- We can avoid the debate about comparing human and animal oppression, if we simply make the right connections, Syl Ko
- Why animal liberation requires an epistemological revolution, Aph Ko
Maybe you should care about animals? If it’s morally defensible to abuse whom you don’t care about, then all anyone has to do is not care about you to be free to abuse you.
Animals are animals and human being are human beings. Your point would made sense if you put animals and humans be on the same level, which in my opinion they aren’t.
The fact im ok with killing animals to eat meat doesnt mean that i think that some people hold less value or that if they’re powerless in some situation justify me or anyone else in abusing, killing them or anything of sort. Because they’re people. Not animals.
Some rich doof will think “workers are just workers, they don’t deserve the same consideration educated people do”. How would you argue against this logic? Because it’s humans? But humans are also animals, how can we arbitrarily exclude ourselves from that group?
Are you really trying to say theres no difference between a human and an animal?
Im smart enough to understand that humans are to be treated in a way, animals are just animals. If some idiot thinks that there are “levels” in humanity because of characteristics they cant control or are precluder to somebody because of socieconomics factors above him, ill be sure to punch him.
No such difference that warrants the treatment we give them. Sure, they can’t read, they don’t speak a sophisticated language etc. How does that influence their capability to feel pain? Boredom? Fear? Isolation? Saying “animals are just animals” really makes me wonder, what do you think makes us so different that we don’t deserve to be subjugated to physical and mental torture?
No, they’re trying to make you tell us what the moral difference is between humans and animals. YOU’RE the one saying they are not the same. We are asking, why? “Because I’m smart” is not an answer. If you can convince yourself that an individual with obvious interests, desires, and emotions is not even in the same moral category as a human that you like, you can EASILY convince yourself that any human being with interests, desires and emotions is ALSO not in the same moral category. This isn’t a hypothetical, this is something people do every day. So we’ll accept that humans all have the same moral worth, but you still have to explain why animals have so little moral worth, that they way they taste is more important than their lives.
“I don’t know the difference between a human being and a cow” isn’t the flex you believe it is
Don’t know where I said that, so good flex on your deduction skills.
Are you telling me you’re not out there arguing there’s no difference between livestock and human beings?
I’m out here arguing that the pain and suffering that a human would feel from being abused like an animal is no different from the pain livestock animals feel from the way we treat them. What you are trying to say is that because animals cannot read, speak or enjoy theatre, their cries of pain can be ignored.
Humans are animals, too.
You’re just one step away from de-humanizing other people and treating them like shit. (Or others doing the same to you.)
Recognize and reduce suffering where you can. Humans aren’t that special. We’re just lucky to have been the first on this planet to evolve to be smart enough to build societies and stuff.
There’s plenty of science fiction stories that explore this. Oh look at these puny humans. They haven’t even colonized other planets in their system. And they’re still fighting amongst themselves. [Insert plenty of other good reasons that we suck, here.] Clearly, they’re savages, and we can exploit them as we see fit. Oh, actually they taste really good, let’s make a human farm, breed and kill millions every month.
I don’t think you’ve thought this through. You should consider the possibility that you’re just rationalizing something that has become quite normal, but actually is kind of horrific if you think of the harm that it’s causing.
Well, i think you made a pretty good point. Maybe i really am rationalizing.
But about your example with another civilization, don’t you think there’s a pretty big difference between two civilized (even if at different levels) species, where the more advanced one could recognise the fact we are just at a lower grade but still “respect” the fact we are sentient, and between humans and animals?
I mean, even if they are on another stage of civilization i dont think we can subjogate like those tribes who lives uncontacted in islands or forests, cause they are still people.
And why can’t we treat animals similarly to how we would want to be treated?
Many animals show quite civilized behavior. Live and let live. Sometimes they cooperate cross-species. Where they don’t, it’s mostly due to evolutionary pressure and need for survival. We’ve gone beyond the need of consuming meat for survival. And more importantly, we can reason about if it’s good or not. Also, occasionally I question how “civilized” us humans really are.
I feel like you’re just saying that humans are better, more important and/or more special than animals, treating that as a fact, and somehow extrapolating from there that we somehow have the “right” to inflict harm on “lesser” beings purely because meat tastes good?
Also, thank you for being open.
They are not putting them on the same level. Rather, you are trying to say animals have no value, not that they have less value than a human. You and every vegan agree that humans have more value than animals. Vegans simply disagree with you that animals have no value. Their lives must still be considered, even if they are not as important as a human being. They are not so worthless that your sensory enjoyment is worth more than their actual lives, even ignoring the direct harm it causes you and other humans.
Imagine if you only thought that human beings that you were personally related to or loved had intrinsic value and everyone else can be treated like, well, meat. That’s very close to what you’re suggesting here.
Hey, it would be awesome if you did that, but that’s not veganism. That’s environmentalism.
Let’s say that one day we discover how to replace an environmentally harmful process we all depend on for some aspect of modern life with one that requires animal ag. The environmentalist would switch. The vegan would abstain from both. Because they have different objectives.
Veganism is about animals.
The point i was waking reffered to the post, which implies the fact that leftism is tied to veganism and that NOT being vegan strip me of the tag of leftist. I disagree with that. I just then added my opinion on veganism which you corrected (rightfully). I would be enviromentalist then if i’ll happen yo stop eating meat.
Addressing the larger point: turning your back on mercy for vulnerable individuals and instead choosing needless cruelty and violence for nothing more than your own sensory pleasure (ignoring that you are being manipulated by capital to behave this way, except to acknowledge that I don’t entirely blame you) is an obvious abandonment of all core leftist values. You can’t be both things at the same time. You are depending on compartmentalization to separate this atrocity that you commit from your view of yourself as a leftist. But the lies you tell yourself are not convincing to others. (Well, those who don’t cling to the same lies, of course.)
It’s not hard to eat less meat and animal products. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to go to zero overnight.
Some people are emotionally invested in meat, and I can’t understand that. Especially if they just buy it at the supermarket.
Most people want to think they’re good people, and anything that suggests otherwise will get an irrational, emotional, response back. It’s annoying that you have to like coddle and massage people, but that’s how people are.
What really gets me is when people think hunting is immoral but they eat supermarket meat. That cow that you’re eating lived a short life of torture vs a deer that lived in the wild until it was processed into a full freezer of food. The only people who have a moral leg to stand on against hunters are vegans.
I’m vegan but I’m okay with Aboriginal animal agriculture because it’s sustainable and it doesn’t need human supremacist rhetoric to justify it.
Emancipation is a great goal. Like any goal we do not flip a switch to get there. We need better and more accessible technology to free animals from bondage.
Emancipation is currently impractical. Human athletics require large quantities of protein and calcium. Animal products are the current common source.
I have grown plants for some time. I kill animals that eat my plants. I don’t even eat the animals I kill. I need to eat.
We’re humans. We’re awesome. We can come up with better alternatives.
The source of all protein in your food web is plants. The source of all calcium is the Earth itself, mainly as harvested by plants. Animals only add inefficiency; they are not what enable “human athleticism”, they only make it more expensive and harmful.
Neither of those points address the ethics or politics of harvesting vulnerable individuals for flesh and secretions. Doing so clearly requires stepping outside of values like compassion and fairness, and so requires stepping outside the leftist political sphere. Consuming animals is an exception to leftist politics, not some kind of special case.
I have altered the leftism Pray that I dont alter it any further
This just in: progressives continue to progress. More news at 11.
The theory is quite the opposite when you truly consider homo sapiens animals. Are we not allowed to exploit ourselves to seize our means? At what point do we befriend dogs, cats, eagles, etc. to hunt and gather?
Egalitarian societies, the few left, still hunt meat. Still domesticate wolves, eagles, etc…
