someone’s life, they are not something.
Yes I agree, you and I are not living in a survival situation. We all have a lot of brainworms regarding animal exploitation that we must fight against as it has become so normalized nowadays in almost every aspect of our life. Cognitive dissonance makes us justify things in ways that if examined rationally or applied to other scenarios we would discard immediately.
Thanks for the recommendation and the explanation, I’ll add it to my reading list.
As animal liberation is one of the subject in which I am the more active, let me try to get you to understand my view on this subject as a vegan.
First, yes this is a systemic change and only individual changes would never amount to anything. The commodification of animal life is driven by profit. Currently this is the material basis for it that is then justified via speciest ideology. However, consumption is not neutral. The problem does not start at consumption but it is in part maintained by it.
For me living as a vegan it feels like a political statement that I’m expressing at a minimum 3 times per day around other people. This is praxis and helps challenge the exploitation that is pervasive in our society. It shows we can and must do better. It is in itself a small act and of course this won’t overthrow the specieist system and capitalism, it helps however raise collective consciousness about the issue and shows solidarity with the oppressed animals.
As most vegan will tell you, being vegan is not the end of the road, it’s only the start. Organize around the subject. Join political movements, join organizations that support workers transitioning out of these industries. Promote systemic changes/alternatives.
Finally let me answer to your last point: "the animal is already dead". I feel like this is a really bad argument. Just because other people decided to do a terrible action does not mean you need to compromise your values and partake in it. Imagine yourself applying the same logic to humans. Especially when in the grocery store you might have alternative close by (think any legumes) that might be cheaper.
Imagine going into a store where there are two kinds of shirts. One is created by slave labor and the other is not. Would you accept someone saying, well I’m used to the kind of t-shirt created by slaves and these are already made anyway so why would I bother choosing the other? My point is of course if your medication contains animal product no animal liberation militant or vegan will berate you for using it, but when the alternative is literally 5 feet away in the same grocery store or a few blocks away then the arguments stops working.
You can draw a parallel to what Lenin says about compromises in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder. A striker compromising with their oppressor because their strike fund is empty is not the same as a strike-breaker "compromising" with the oppressor. Some compromise are justifiable, others are not. Here you are "compromising" with your morals because you’re used to meat.
any ideals that are not rewarded by a material base I’m not sure I understand this sentence, could you get into it more or give me some book recommendation on this?
BTW I’m digging more into their position and found this bit again about identity politics:
These claim that some parts of the working class benefit from the oppression of others - which is in essence the same lie as the capitalists' claim that oppressed workers take other people's jobs.
What the fuck is this first part?! Do these people not understand systemic racism and how it can up to a point benefit working class white people? I mean also living in the imperial core is literally benefiting from the oppression of the periphery.
The idea that we can just become one big working class is an idealistic model of class politics that doesn't represent historically successful communist parties.
You mean by pretending there are no oppressions between members of the same class ?
Sorry, I see this a lot bit never got what it's supposed to mean.
That's exactly how I felt reading it lmao!
Nice to hear your talk went well :)
I’m not that familiar with trots, but I would hope they are not all reactionnary shitheads. Still I was getting excited of having a leftist org near me... Guess I’ll take the advice of looking for a remote org as I don’t have the energy to start an org at the moment.
That’s actually not a bad idea, I might look into it thanks!
Yeah...
This is crazy to be so in support of China to start not taking the side of the workers and the proletariat, and excusing exploitation.
Disclaimer, I have not looked into this news deeply, but if the workers were in slave-like conditions, stopping the construction and forcing the conditions to improve is 100% the right move.
I really wish for China to continue improving workers rights, this is fundamental for a socialist state and if they don't, I hope other countries won't let them get away with this.
P.S.: Fuck the meat industry