u/explorerofbells - originally from r/GenZhou
Hey comrades,

I’m a part of a discord server called Vegan Theory Club that’s run by mix of leftist tendencies. It’s a theory club that’s explicitly leftist and vegan, but we talk about more than just the book of the month.

We just started reading Eternal Treblinka - Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust by Charles Patterson, which we voted for. (Our last book was Kapital.) Right now is the perfect time to join!

We’d love to have you!

https://discord.gg/B9MgcchcKe

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    3 years ago

    u/warender99 - originally from r/GenZhou
    I disagree. Your analysis comes from the viewpoint that socialism and veganism are necessarily intertwined. They are not, and the consumption of meat predates capitalism by a large span of time. Without making a idealist morality based argument about the consumption of meat irregardless to the means in which said meat is acquired, what reason do you see that necessitates the entire eradication of meat/animal product consumption?

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        3 years ago

        u/warender99 - originally from r/GenZhou
        “Woah I’m not reading that crap, sum it up in one word!”

        -Bender bending Rodriguez

        Nah but for real appreciate the link. Looks like a decent read, I’ll return here once I’ve finished. I also don’t want to get lumped in with the other people with the whole elon musk green capitalism type thing. My angle is different from theirs. Much less about the proposed alternatives within capitalism and much more about what diets Looks like in a socialist society compared to today. It is obvious that we need to drastically reduce our meat consumption for the benefit of the environment, im just not quite sold on the complete veganism angle.

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          3 years ago

          u/calciumpotass - originally from r/GenZhou
          Don’t worry none of it addresses artificial meat

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            3 years ago

            u/warender99 - originally from r/GenZhou
            I think the point the are trying to make can be justly summed with the following quote from the literature provided

            “Whoever has accepted that liberation is necessary (at all) to end socially produced suffering and exploitation has no reason–other than an ideological one–to exclude animals from this endeavour. The analysis of capital relations as central relations of exploitation and domination in today’s society shows that the production of capitalist profits is not solely based upon the exploitation of wage labourers, but also upon the exploitation of animals (and nature in general.)”

            It isn’t so much that artificially grown meat could not replace meat, but rather that as a part of our struggle for liberation we must logically include Animals. Indeed to think about it from a moralism perspective I now understand is to think of it from the wrong angle entirely. It is easy to mistake all vegans/animal liberation activists as adhering to idealist tendencies. The literature does a pretty good job distinguishing itself from this and providing a historical materialist perspective on the matter.

            “The ecological damages caused by clearing rain forests, by monoculture cultivation or by the pollution of water are already partially irreversible. Therefore, whoever believes that they can ignore the production of meat or even transpose it into a socialist operation, is taken in by the naïve and romanticized image of industrialized food production that the capital lobby groups are promoting. The conversion of the food and meat industry into ecologically sustainable, vegan and socially planned production, in contrast, would be a timely socialist demand.”

            Everything we do must be grounded in reality, lest we become dogmatic, idealist fools. It is no lie that the meat industry is responsible for massive damage to the earth. It’s abolition therefore is necessary for the preservation of our home planet. Artificially grown meat could not hope to replace it in the short or even medium term. There is no argument within the paper that necessitates the utter abandonment of that possibility, but I do think it is easy to understand the social change of vegan diets is clearly the better, more feasible solution. Alternatives to meat therefore would not likely by pursued by a wholly vegan society. That is to say if I woke up in the morning and the whole world was a United socialist project, it would necessarily be an important task of that project to convert the existing food industry into a, like the quote says, “ecologically sustainable, vegan, and socially planned” one.

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              3 years ago

              u/calciumpotass - originally from r/GenZhou
              I appreciate that you’re trying to take that lazy argument in good-faith. But honestly, if lab-grown meat has no hope to replace the cattle industry in the short or medium term, veganism has no hope of converting the majority of the population for the foreseeable future

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        3 years ago

        u/warender99 - originally from r/GenZhou
        Hey big thanks for the reading material. It certainly helped my understanding of how veganism and Marxism intertwine. Quite a perspective changing read. It’s always crazy to me when I read something that so perfectly demonstrates the ideas in my head. From the addressing of the ideological strains of veganism as it exists today, to the synthesis of the two using historical materialism. It addressed any and all counterpoints I had as I read it. Well put together I must say.

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          3 years ago

          u/explorerofbells - originally from r/GenZhou
          It makes me really happy to hear that. Thanks for taking the time to read.

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      3 years ago

      u/courtneygoe - originally from r/GenZhou
      THANK YOU

      OP isn’t operating in good faith whatsoever