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nulloperation wrote

Thus, it is experienced almost entirely as a consumer practice

The fact that vegan activism happens sort of negates that assertion. Taking a look from a Raddle post from last week, surely you wouldn't describe the Animal Save movement and what Regan Russel was doing as "consumer practice", right? Neither DXR, right?

Regardless, as I understand you, you aren't so much making an argument against veganism, but rather arguing that we need to go much further than veganism in fighting capitalist hegemonic food system. I'm sure many vegans will agree with you on that one.

veganism is a liberal ideology

I do object to the description of veganism as inherently liberal. Like, you somehow need to eat flesh to be proper leftie? Absurd.

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celebratedrecluse wrote

I do object to the description of veganism as inherently liberal.

It's defining yourself as an individual liberal subject, based on consumption choices and public-sphere performativity. You can't get much more liberal than that, lol.

If you want to discard liberalism, you discard describing yourself as someone who consumes in a particular type of way, and instead define yourself by your creative pursuits, for example, as well as other endeavors which are not bound up in consumptive economic activity alone.

surely you wouldn't describe the Animal Save movement and what Regan Russel was doing as "consumer practice", right? Neither DXR, right?

Consumerism isn't the only aspect of veganism as a liberal ideology, but it certainly is liberal to go on USA's Democracy Now and talk about your non-violent "protest". The entire goal of these actions is opposed to the principles of direct action, because it's aimed at getting an imagined liberal public to change its individual consumptive behavior, rather than actually challenge or build alternatives to the agribusiness industry. It's delusional to think that the influencing of individual consumption choices, is anything other than a self-consciously described indirect action.

Like, you somehow need to eat flesh to be proper leftie? Absurd.

You've entirely twisted my point, because you're so deep into the blinders of liberalism you cannot see your surroundings. It really doesn't matter what you eat at all, and vegans/vegetarians/religious wingnuts are always the people who are trying to make that argument. Not to mention the class disparities obscured by such puritanical discourse.

As an aside, I'm not a leftist. I'm a communist and anarchist, not a leftie or a liberal.

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nulloperation wrote

you're so deep into the blinders of liberalism you cannot see your surroundings.

Aw snap, the top anarchist in charge on Raddle has denied me membership of the exclusive anarchist club!

it certainly is liberal to go on USA's Democracy Now and talk about your non-violent "protest".

Yea, I hope you got to tell Graeber that he was wrong, and all those liberal BLM "protesters" demanding abolition of the police ... sheesh, I wouldn't want to be seen around one of those.

(I would find it more interesting if you addressed my points rather than resorting to name-calling and postulates about word definitions.)

Serious question though: What do you think then about vegans that do violent actions?

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celebratedrecluse wrote

Aw snap, the top anarchist in charge on Raddle has denied me membership of the exclusive anarchist club!

This reeks of insecurity

Graeber, BLM libs

Yes, some of these people have also engaged in liberal first-worldist politics, which doesn't interest people like me and has been met with critique by people like me. It doesn't mean that some of them aren't interesting and do interesting things sometimes. But to pretend there isn't substantial liberal recuperation happening in these examples you brought up, is to basically refuse to acknowledge the reality. It is necessary to understand how liberalism is continually reified, otherwise one cannot understand how to chip away further at it and build an actually radical, autonomous future.

(I would find it more interesting if you addressed my points rather than resorting to name-calling and postulates about word definitions.)

I actually have been engaging with your points, the criticism of something as having liberal characteristic is a constructive discussion of limitations, and an invitation to explore a point of view which challenges your own. Rather than seeing this as a threat, you could see it as an opportunity to learn about another person's point of view. I think you have a desire to negate any criticism of veganism as an ideology or praxis, perhaps because it is crucial to your identity. Frankly, if this is the case, This is a shallow way to explore politics and I encourage you to try on other shoes before you keep on your walk.

What do you think then about vegans that do violent actions?

Well, I find incredibly inspiring the resistance of indigenous people to the destruction of the Amazon for cattle grazing and other colonial & exploitative activity, a crucial aspect of which is the opposition to the large multinational agribusiness industry and its militarized policing arms, and those fights are sometimes but not always mutually violent. But it's not really framed by western liberal veganism in the way I think you mean. So perhaps that's not a good example.

Honest: I can't really think of any politically violent vegans who committed that violence for the advancement of veganism, ALF and ELF usually did non violent actions. Those people, generally have had a broader analysis of their situation, and while their approach hasn't really borne much fruit it's a commendable legacy of insurrectionary anarchism and direct action, because they usually weren't trying to inspire consumption chioces at least as their primary goal, but rather tried to alter the things in the world which they wanted to change, directly, through their own decisions and actions.

Anecdotally, I find most "vegan activists" to be as a group rather disconnected from the material realities of collective struggle, and thus frustrating although partially well-meaning. I do dislike a social norm I have observed in some of these groups, to engage in pointless and shallow virtue-signaling, at the expense of intersectional understanding and practice of struggle. However, this is not fair to label all people who identify their diet as vegan as like this, it's a large group of people now and the trend of a majority doesn't dictate the behavior of an entire subculture, and additionally it's more indicative of psychopathologies associated with leftists and liberals in general than it is with vegans in particular.

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nulloperation wrote

I think you have a desire to negate any criticism of veganism as an ideology or praxis, perhaps because it is crucial to your identity. Frankly, if this is the case, This is a shallow way to explore politics and I encourage you to try on other shoes before you keep on your walk.

Yea, when I see people who I love and respect for their work in fighting a cruel system being dismissed as "liberals" engaging "almost entirely [in] a consumer practice," then it saddens me. I feel the need to express why their work is of tremendous value to me. You are right that is a part of my identity, but how exactly is that shallow?

But to pretend there isn't substantial liberal recuperation happening in these examples you brought up, is to basically refuse to acknowledge the reality.

I think you are correct in this, and while that's also true for veganism, that's quite far from the initial assertion, that "veganism is a liberal ideology". There are many vegan anarchists and, yes, there's also a lot of anarchist anti-vegans spewing out a lot of bunk, like, say, Peter Gelderloos' apathetic argument that death isn't really sad anyway:

The Western tragic ideal, which is inextricable from the capitalist war against nature, presents death as a bad thing, and apparently so do some vegans, but to the rest of us, this only appears as philosophical immaturity.

I think the carnist bunk needs to be addressed the same way racist and sexist bunk needs to, and while I think you're making some valid points, this thread is still rich with nonsense carnist distortions. It's just sad in the same way racism and sexism is, especially in an anarchist space.

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ruin wrote

You’ve made points that I both agree and disagree with, but I think your last statement is my issue with this discussion.

By framing it as carnist vs vegan is to take dietary choices (regardless of their motivation) and frame them as ideologies.

In doing so the conversation will obviously be tied to ideals and absolutes and lacking in nuance as you keep pointing out.

I was hoping the op would clarify the context of the blog post itself. It was about karmic attribution which seems more interesting and nuanced than an ideological moral argument about veganism, and I don’t believe in karma...

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