Are there no meat-eating anarchists?

[mrs quoad]

If you're raising them it's not their natural environment. I do love a pointless Internet gotcha.

I suppose the baby-eating anarchists would count.

.

 

[Toast Rider]

yeh that's what i'm asking. what are your grounds for saying that being vegan seems essential to any kind of radical anticapitalist approach. and approach to what?

That in my experience vegan seems an essential component of such a lifestyle; rejection of animal cruelty as its not necessary (they argue).

 

[mrs quoad]

That in my experience vegan seems an essential component of such a lifestyle; rejection of animal cruelty as its not necessary (they argue).

It is very kind of you to offer them a nice n juicy straw man to nosh down on

 

[Pickman's model]

That in my experience vegan seems an essential component of such a lifestyle; rejection of animal cruelty as its not necessary (they argue).

and this experience: of what duration and breadth is it?

 

[Athos]

the meat or the dog?

The dog is on the string, not the meat!

 

[Toast Rider]

and this experience: of what duration and breadth is it?

8x9

 

[Pickman's model]

8x9

so short and narrow

 

[Toast Rider]

It is very kind of you to offer them a nice n juicy straw man to nosh down on

What was the straw man?

 

[Toast Rider]

so short and narrow

Like I said, repeatedly, it was experience as it seemed to me. You are free to disagree. It was never a statement of fact

 

[Pickman's model]

Like I said, repeatedly, it was experience as it seemed to me. You are free to disagree. It was never a statement of fact

yeh. and it seems to me that that experience is negligible as since 1990 i have met rather more omnivore anarchists than i have vegans. other people have reported the same thing. so i am not persuaded that your pov is as strongly based as you may believe.

 

[DWNL]

To be an anarchist is to be against hierarchy. Eating animals is a clear sign that the meat-eater believes in some kind of hierarchy and therefore, though they may claim to be anarchist, they are not. For the same reason, someone who claims to be an anarchist but is not also a feminist, is not really a genuine anarchist as they probably don't really care about the struggle against patriarchy and about gender equality.

But perhaps there is potential for these people to change as time tick away, perhaps not.

That's how I see things anyway.

 

[danny la rouge]

To be an anarchist is to be against hierarchy. Eating animals is a clear sign that the meat-eater believes in some kind of hierarchy and therefore, though they may claim to be anarchist, they are not. For the same reason, someone who claims to be an anarchist but is not also a feminist, is not really a genuine anarchist as they probably don't really care about the struggle against patriarchy and about gender equality.

But perhaps there is potential for these people to change as time tick away, perhaps not.

That's how I see things anyway.

I disagree with your assertion that one cannot be an anarchist and a meat eater. For example, the person may simply not see the need to extend to non-human animals the same gains human society will make in the revolution.

 

[butchersapron]

I think it's a rather crap stretchy use of the concept of hierarchy too.

I am an anarchist but not a feminist nor a vegan. Amn't i?

 

[NoXion]

To be an anarchist is to be against hierarchy. Eating animals is a clear sign that the meat-eater believes in some kind of hierarchy ...

Is it? How?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Being vegan seems to be almost essential to an anarchist outlook or lifestyle? Or indeed any kind of radical anticapitalist approach.

All is not quite as it seems.

What about even getting rid of capitalist industrial agriculture and raising animals in their natural environment (which is healthy for the land)?

Contentious. Raising livestock to feed 7.4 billion people wouldn't be very healthy for the land.

I eat meat (to be clear, though i imagine that's fairly obvious at this point)

You're obviously not an anarchist then, by your lights.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Real anarchists eat babies

Fried or boiled?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Rather depends what you mean by anarchist. If you mean vaguely green/lifestylist types, I'm not even sure a majority are vegan, even if the bulk are vegetarian. If you mean libcom/class struggle anarchists, vegans definitely a minority.

Class-struggle anarchists need meat to fuel their antisocial tendencies.

 

[Toast Rider]

All is not quite as it seems.

Contentious. Raising livestock to feed 7.4 billion people wouldn't be very healthy for the land.

You're obviously not an anarchist then, by your lights.

Why wouldn't it be healthy?

I make no claims to be anything other than anti capitalist. I like anarchist politics, but I don't pretend to be an expert

 

[ViolentPanda]

Why wouldn't it be healthy?

I make no claims to be anything other than anti capitalist. I like anarchist politics, but I don't pretend to be an expert

Even at non-Western levels of meat consumption, the amount of land that would be needed to feed enough livestock would mean goodbye to our rainforests, if non-intensive/"industrial" methods weren't used. A lack of forestation wouldn't be healthy because of far less CO2 conversion, less carbon-sinking and massive over-burdening of what little foliage was left. In other words, given current population levels, it'd be a quick way to send us all to hell. Of course, that would have the benefit of meaning that the land had a chance to recover, before the next bunch of humans evolved from the primordial ooze...

 

[Toast Rider]

Even at non-Western levels of meat consumption, the amount of land that would be needed to feed enough livestock would mean goodbye to our rainforests, if non-intensive/"industrial" methods weren't used. A lack of forestation wouldn't be healthy because of far less CO2 conversion, less carbon-sinking and massive over-burdening of what little foliage was left. In other words, given current population levels, it'd be a quick way to send us all to hell. Of course, that would have the benefit of meaning that the land had a chance to recover, before the next bunch of humans evolved from the primordial ooze...

Do you have a citation for that?

 

[DWNL]

Is it? How?

To be honest, I'd say it's pretty obvious really. Ere, take a butchers' at this, I think this articulates things perfectly: What Do Anarchists Think About Animal Liberation?

“The horse and the cow, the rabbit and the cat, the deer and the hare, the pheasant and the lark, please us better as friends than as meat.”
― Élisée Reclus

 

[danny la rouge]

Do you have a citation for that?

I recommend Colin Tudge (2004) So Shall We Reap: how everyone who is liable to be born in the next ten thousand years could eat very well indeed; and why, in practice, our immediate descendants are likely to be in serious trouble.


It may be a decade and a half old now, but the premise is still correct: we have a certain area of useable arable land (0.22 hectares per person on the planet), which is enough to feed 5 times that number if used logically. I.e. Not over producing protein, wastefully, and from the wrong sources.

 

[Toast Rider]

We can't assume that everyone in the world would eat meat, nor that western levels of consumption (or non western for that matter) are required.

Or that we haven't overpopulated this pale blue dot

 

[Pickman's model]

Class-struggle anarchists need meat to fuel their antisocial tendencies.

and preferably without breaching the pythagorean prohibition

 

[danny la rouge]

We can't assume that everyone in the world would eat meat, nor that western levels of consumption (or non western for that matter) are required.

Is anyone here assuming any of those things? (Or was that just a rhetorical flourish?)

 

[Toast Rider]

To be an anarchist is to be against hierarchy. Eating animals is a clear sign that the meat-eater believes in some kind of hierarchy and therefore, though they may claim to be anarchist, they are not. For the same reason, someone who claims to be an anarchist but is not also a feminist, is not really a genuine anarchist as they probably don't really care about the struggle against patriarchy and about gender equality.

But perhaps there is potential for these people to change as time tick away, perhaps not.

That's how I see things anyway.

I'm not sure i'd call the food chain a hierarchy, plus there are obvious and clear differences in the capacities of man and animal. I think the anarchist position is derived from justification of authority. Would you argue there shouldn't be a hierarchy between doctor and patient? What if the patient refused to innoculate their kids against easily preventable diseases for which science has working vaccines? That has obvious consequences.

Is it a hierarchy when the fox eats the chicken? Is a fox better than a chicken? THat's meaningless in the context of the animal kingdom.

 

[Toast Rider]

Is anyone here assuming any of those things? (Or was that just a rhetorical flourish?)

I think it was implicit in the response and thus worth addressing.

 

[danny la rouge]

I think it was implicit in the response and thus worth addressing.

In which response?

 

[Toast Rider]

In which response?

Are there no meat-eating anarchists?

 

[danny la rouge]

Are there no meat-eating anarchists?

Best to quote the post you're replying to.