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 don’t think it’s particularly healthy to think of the life of your fellow animal as disposable simply for the sake of your own pleasure.
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Are you really going to turn to Travis the chimpanzee for your moral compass?
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Are you saying that sober apes are known for being good role models?
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So basically, because orangutans are “pretty chill”, and they can catch and eat fish without it causing them any apparent moral distress, it’s OK for human beings to eat fish, too…? Isn’t that sort of circular reasoning? And why should orangutans’ conception of morality have any impact on humans’, anyway?
In any case, my own stance is that the idea that some people deserve suffering and “that’s just the way it is”, necessitates equating those people with animals — often explicitly — and the indoctrination that animals are a category of creature deserving of violence and subjugation, starts on a child’s plate.
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Someone has to kill and prepare your meat, though, and it’s mentally and physically unhealthy. Don’t forget the worker.
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Based on the mental illnesses that are associated with slaughter work, I don’t believe they do it “without any problems”. They are able to cope with the harm they’re doing to themselves, but fundamentally we all empathize with animals and it hurts to hurt them.
I’ve killed animals. I fucking hate it and I won’t do it again if I can help it. It hurts.
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A lot of unhealthy things have been normal at different points in history, so I don’t really see your point.
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I’ll start by saying death to US. I hope I didn’t imply that your home is somehow less healthy than the Great Satan!
What I’m saying the people who are forced to kill animals, whether for survival or income, are harming their mental health. I am not saying that they are unhealthy; they can cope with it as long as they don’t have a lot of other stressors in their life, people who kill animals can live healthy, productive lives.
But, based on the rates of mental illness associated with slaughter work that far exceed other lines of production work, there’s clearly something unhealthy about killing animals. People who kill animals are more likely to experience health complications, like PTSD and addiction and suicide.
We can analyze the material reality of common practices in a scientific manner. Notice I never brought up morality. I am speaking purely about the impact on health. Smoking certain plants is culturally significant in some cultures, too, but it’s also unhealthy. Plenty of people who smoke never experience health problems, but the reality of the health impacts don’t change just because people did it for 1000s of years.
Have you ever killed an animal? I killed a rabbit once. Did you know they scream? I don’t think that was good for me.
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