I escaped the Reddit regime a little while ago. I consider myself a marxist-leninist-MZT. Vegetarian and vegan for a few years. I’ve a lot of thoughts on how marxism and veganism are connected. Never wrote them down. I’d like to start smth like a club for marxist vegans to develop our own proletarian theory. Most vegan theory I found is either openly bourgeois (Francione is a literal TERF) or revisionist (anti-China, anarchist, libertarian). How about fixing this?
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I’m going to lock this thread because discussions are getting out of hand. The topic of veganism and animal exploitation has once again been proven to be a sore point for marxists lol.
Three day old account asking for the creation of what has the -potential- to be a highly divisive, highly inflammatory community. I wish people would have a different attitude, one of lurking a bit in their new home, understanding its nature and waiting before seeking power and influence and change over it. I doubt OP is ill intentioned I just think “lurk more” is a good mantra.
Let me lay out some thinking.
Whereas:
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Hexbear has an existing community around this already that is much larger than this one will ever be and as we are federated you can view and interact with that community and perhaps accomplish your goals?
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Whereas the creation of that community on that site led to some of their most enduring struggle sessions and division (curiously their application asks applicants not to be racist, not to be homo or trans-phobic, and about animal liberation stuff, not a whiff about women’s rights though even after their big post about misogyny problem, really kind of telling priorities in the western left but perhaps that’s for another time). And whereas we have a meager 550 monthly users on lemmygrad total and further division of that is bad.
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Whereas great Marxist theorists have written many more times as much on atheism, anti-theism, anti-religion, etc (compared to a few carefully mined quotes relating vaguely to this) and whereas despite this most Marxists and anti-imperialists almost certainly fall within the camp of not being offended by such content nor having a problem integrating it in their lives. But whereas such content was prohibited from becoming a community unto itself on lemmygrad to prevent strife, struggle sessions, disharmony, dis-unity, and division from the wider masses.
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Whereas this by contrast would be much more divisive, tends to bring in a lot of problematic people (as with the atheism community in places) who are very dogmatic, inflammatory, hurtful, antagonistic (I’m thinking federated instances here) towards those who don’t hold their view and tend to make such posts in great number which are unfriendly to those who don’t hold their persuasion and would result in strife, dis-unity, division, and struggle that distracts from primary interests such as anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism. (And please let’s be honest here, if we’re going to say Muslims and Christians should feel welcome by not pushing the Dia-Mat hard in that direction and beating them over the head with it, it’s equally if not more important given the amount of people who eat meat even compared to the religious/irreligious (greater) that we not create an unnecessary point of tension here and a point of division from the masses).
Theory-crafting in a dedicated community? I don’t have an issue with that, I’m not freaking out about trying to connect veganism and Marxism. What I worry about is the memes, the casual posts, the rants, the venting about “carnists” and so on that stir up trouble and strife when things have been so relatively harmonious here compared to hexbear. Some of that is due to the vetting and requirements for membership, some credit is due to the admins and a lot of that I think is from discouraging anything too inflammatory that distracts from the uniting interest and goal here. I hope you can keep this in mind if you make such a community when setting rules.
I remember years ago Hexbear pulled an entire subreddit of Vegans into their site solely because they were vegan and nothing else. All they did was go from com to com and harass the ever loving fuck out of everyone. Most of them had to be banned and mods had to put in new rules in some subs. Idk if it was a psyop or just terminally online crazies. Probably a bit of both.
Now, seemingly out of nowhere a 3 day old account pops up using Veganism as an in to cause drama. This post alone already has some pretty rabbid comments popping up. Mainly by Hexbear and Lemmy.ml accounts that came in at warp speed when we RARELY see them this involved with a Lemmygrad post.
The funny thing is, there’s lots of Vegans in Lemmygrad, yet you never see them acting like this towards fellow comrades. Weird how the brand new accounts pops in, makes a post like this, and all of a sudden it’s filled with non-lemmygrad accounts starting drama. All seems suspect to me.
To add on to what you are saying. While i think its great if people want to be vegan vegetarian or anything in their own personal lives. I do not think its possible to really separate that issue from elitism. I mean its an individual making an active choice to NOT eat things that are perfectly edible. Just having to financial ability to do that is pretty rare in the wider world. So many people simply don’t have the luxury to be picky about what they eat. They just eat what they can get and it usually still isn’t enough.
So a community like this doesn’t make sense to me. What would make more sense tho in my opinion is a general recipe sharing community where people can share recipes. Vegan users can share affordable easy to make vegan recipes to help expose others to things they might otherwise not be aware are an option. Without trying to push a specific strict diet on them they may not be able to maintain logistically.
Animal products are more usually the more expensive food items. A vegan diet is cheaper, uses less land and resources. If there was no animal agriculture, we would waste less food and could feed more people.
So quite the contrary.
Did i say that it wasnt cheaper? Not getting into how prices vary by region, and westerners have no concept of price since all their shit is subsidized. Price is irrelevant. If you are living in poverty you eat what is available. Sometimes that may be vegan food sometimes it will not be. You dont pick and choose the food you eat. Your just grateful to HAVE food in the first place. Have you ever had to feed yourself without access to a store at all? Thats the reality for many people.
Many people in the world still hunt, and forage, or farm their own foods. Many others are entirely reliant on the donations of others and do not control what they get. More still rely on quick, cheap, highly processed foods that usually have animal byproducts in them.
Like i said in my post. Wanna be vegan? Great do it. But if you actually think that its possible to change the way our societies produce food by individuals being picky about what they eat then you dont understand the issue at all. Food production is a complex global machine, and the average person has no control over it. Even if tons of people suddenly went vegan all it would accomplish is soaring prices for anything vegan forcing people to go back to animal products.
Also food isnt the only place animal products are used. Lots of non-food items use animal products too. Avoiding all these things is a monumentally time consuming and sometimes impossible task. If the only soap you have has animal products do you just not clean yourself?
This doesnt even get into how many people have health based dietary issues that further restrict their diets.
This is exactly the problem with individualism. Problems like this will never be fixed by it. Just like climate change isnt going to be fixed by the actions of individuals trying to watch their carbon footprint.
So yeah for some people in some places being vegan would be cheaper. For some it wouldnt be. For some it wouldnt even be possible. But none of that matters as its all individualistic. This is a systemic issue that requires systemic change to fix.
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My thoughts are that:
Eating meat is not antithetical to communism. Animal farming will continue to exist under communism
I think there’s a connection between the commodification of animals and worker exploitation. The slaughter industry is one of the most brutal and inhumane work environments in the imperial core, almost nothing compares to the conditions that workers are under. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
This is based on vibes and not theory, though.
I think a Marxist exploitation would be interesting!
I think a materialist analysis of why veganism became popular, and why it was recent, would be interesting. There are, of course, related precedents in diet with religious vegetarianism (Buddhist, veg Hindu, etc) and minimizing unnecessary harm (Jainism, Quakers, certain middle eastern philosophies, etc). But veganism as we think of it is a modern phenomenon that emerged in a highly industrialized society of the imperial core.
I think the elephants in the room are industrialized agriculture, the end of famine conditions, and the social aspect of acquiring food from markets. Eating a modern vegan diet was not practicable before B12 vitamins and cheap staples. People that tried would eventually become malnourished. Re: famine conditions, if you have not had to think about the prospect of dying from a lack of food, you may spend more time thinking about where it comes from and how you might be more picky about it. And with the social component of markets, food is a consumer choice, an abstraction away from its production (complete with Marxist alienation), and not as much of a core social activity as are hunter gatherer activities or working a farm. Not eating animal products means a substitution of items bought at a market with no need to substantially change a budget. And when it’s a consumer choice abstracted from production, when you learn about its production you will be more likely to be horrified.
So yeah things like that are interesting. They could also assist in understanding how one might understand the advancement of veganism dialectically, e.g. avoiding being chauvinist towards societies that haven’t had the necessary productive and social prerequisites to have this perspective, being too busy dealing with imperialism and their own development. And how pushing for certain kinds of economic and food security may be a better way to spend a portion of one’s advocacy budget. And why certain psychological barriers exist to adopting a vegan stance and how they might be addressed without a liberal approach.
My thoughts are that is perfectly fine. About a year ago I started eating less meat myself and am transferring over to a more vegan diet. Grocery stores where I’m at are abysmal in terms of making decent dishes or the spices necessary so I end up growing a lot of my veggies and fruit when every season. cardboard shroomie farms had me switching a lot of my protein base with tofu and mushrooms like oysters and lions mane. I fucking love mushrooms.
I also think the whole “carnist” thing and any form of aggressive proselytization should be left at the door. What do I mean by aggressive? Well, I put “carnist” in quotes because I have first hand seen the bend that some people can have. To me, it is no different than purist leftcoms. Doctrine purity combined with a complete lack of knowledge of the conditions the person they’re talking to is going through. I’ve seen the massive struggle sessions on Hexbear and the points darkcalling made ring true.
What’s actually been the most helpful to me is an actual community that posts good recipes (once again, mushrooms), one that understands that people can and have struggled with transitioning diets and one that doesn’t beat you over the head with insults and a general demeaning nature. If someone doesn’t wish to switch to a vegan diet, that’s a shame, but it’s something that you should just accept in the sense of “Well, if they aren’t interested in actually changing, what is the point of causing a flame-war on a unrelated or even tangently related topic?”. Hexbear’s Vegan community front, smack-center is already two inciteful, divisive shit. “Carnists are deeply unserious people”. Once again, to me it’s no different than a leftcom being like “Ah, the poor simply haven’t actualized the potential of the intelligentsia for the revolution!”.
In the same manner, I am really not fond of Christianity. Will I bash and attack Christians on here? No. I’ll gladly talk about something I’m writing, or mention that it’s good that proselytization of the young is put down like in China but I wont attack anyone specifically. If you want to make a community here that talks about the ills of animal exploitation, new recipes, theory-crafting, etc that is great and should be encouraged.
edit: By the way, I’m not sure who is brigading the thread and actually marking down points that are actually rooting for discussion. Why not instead participate? It’s a shame that the thread was locked. Of course this is a sore point of discussion for Marxists, it is something that should be talked about and contained to this thread because I am afraid that after shutting this down, it could have heightened tensions and lasting “spite” for other users instead of letting them settle these things with the input and consideration of others.
That was a disappointing decision. The senseless brigading alone though illustrates mine and darkcalling’s point. A lot of vegans really do be acting like purist leftcoms. Outright disdain for those who do not share your perspective. Straight up could be utilized for wrecker shit, honestly.
Doctrine purity combined with a complete lack of knowledge of the conditions the person they’re talking to is going through.
So I wrote a thing and then realized after you had already mentioned religion also in your example (oops, reading comprehension fail lol). I will post what I was going to say anyway, but it may come across a bit of a repeat of what you have already said.
This is what I wrote:
Yeah, I would say it’s similar to what gets called “militant atheism” in this way. It’s one thing to be against exploitative, abusive, or controlling religious practices (especially cult-leaning stuff). It’s another thing to hate religion unquestioningly and in the process, be hating colonized peoples who just happen to also be religious while fighting for liberation. In a similar sense, it’s one thing to encourage someone who can realistically eat vegan to eat vegan. It’s another thing to throw everyone under the bus, including colonized peoples who hunt in ways that respect animals and do it to survive, and have a very different view and practice of eating meat than the factory farming capitalistic mode of consumption. When we try to universalize these things too flippantly, we more often end up on the side of imperialism, even if unintentionally. The imperialized, colonized peoples of the world may not have the “liberal individualism” “choices” that we have to “choose to be vegan” in the first place. Some of them are outright struggling to eat, period. So yeah, things need to be understood in the proper context.
I’m sorry if I have different opinions, I get the vegetarian part, simply not eating meat, some people I knew were vegetarian, but completely vegan? Not eating eggs, drinking milk etc? How does that work I don’t see how is that even possible? But I (and a lot of people I know) simply cannot live without meat.
cannot live without meat? how so?
Idk I’m simply omnivore I guess. My body genuinely misses something if I go without it or fish for extended periods of time. A lot of people I know can’t.
cravings won’t kill you. you’re conflating a desire and a need.
I mean, we’re apes, so we’re definitely natural omnivores without a doubt, I guess that explains it.
Omnivore means you can eat meat, it does not mean you need to eat meat.
