NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Don't be so pessimistic. The world can be changed, contrary to the words of the naysayers.
Do angry vegans turn you against going vegan?
- Thread starter Watermelon Man
- Start date
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
One of many I'm afraid. The relentless hunt for anti-vegan "gotchas" is in full swing...
It's a bit like he search for the holy grail, lol.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
So you don't think that animal lives are equal to human lives?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
And yet such things happen. I linked to an organisation, CIWF, that is run by people who are very often vegan themselves and that forms alliances with meat eaters and meat producers in order to effect change. And they have had tangible results - law-changing results - wrt practices such as farrrowing crates. Not enough, not nearly enough, and they wouldn't claim it was, but very clearly better than not having done that.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
Fine, if that's your calling then go for it and see how you get on.
There is a fundamental principle at steak (badumtss) here which I don't believe it's reasonable to expect most vegans to find at all acceptable. As JR accurately put it, factory farming is the symptom. The real cause is the high demand for meat, dairy, fish and eggs. Changing the farming practices that produce the end product that people are buying is a bit "arse about face" imo. I would have thought that the biggest bang for your buck would be from changing the attitudes of the people who buy the stuff.
Most vegans would include slaughtering with all the other animal welfare items, and slaughtering a well cared for animal is perhaps an even bigger betrayal and inhumanity than factory farming, in that at least they are relieved of their misery.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Well we fundamentally disagree on the real cause here. The real cause of the destructive nature of modern farming practices is the capitalist mode of production. By capitalist logic, it is better to ruin the soil with 50 years' exploitation then abandon it than to farm that land in a sustainable way that gives a lower return on the capital invested in it but does so indefinitely.
I'll give you a worked example:
A tract of land can be managed in a sustainable way that produces a 10k return per year to the farmer, a way involving mixed farming, rotation, etc. But the farmer calculates that he needs at least 20k to make farming a viable living. By making certain capital investments in technology, the farmer can increase yield in the short term to make that 20k, paying back the capital investment over time, let us say 50 years. So the farmer gets his living, capital gets its return, and 50 years later the land is useless as the soil has been degraded so much. The reason that farmer couldn't make a living without the capital investment is because the capitalist system has driven prices down due to the fact that this investment/higher yield/destruction option exists alongside the option of cheaper imports. The alternative is just to abandon the land and leave it unfarmed, which in practice is often what happens. So you end up with some land being overexploited while other land is not exploited at all, all in the name of maximising returns on capital over the short term (and when it comes to land, 50 years is very much the short term), which is the only thing capitalism is interested in.
That's what we're up against.
I'll give you a worked example:
A tract of land can be managed in a sustainable way that produces a 10k return per year to the farmer, a way involving mixed farming, rotation, etc. But the farmer calculates that he needs at least 20k to make farming a viable living. By making certain capital investments in technology, the farmer can increase yield in the short term to make that 20k, paying back the capital investment over time, let us say 50 years. So the farmer gets his living, capital gets its return, and 50 years later the land is useless as the soil has been degraded so much. The reason that farmer couldn't make a living without the capital investment is because the capitalist system has driven prices down due to the fact that this investment/higher yield/destruction option exists alongside the option of cheaper imports. The alternative is just to abandon the land and leave it unfarmed, which in practice is often what happens. So you end up with some land being overexploited while other land is not exploited at all, all in the name of maximising returns on capital over the short term (and when it comes to land, 50 years is very much the short term), which is the only thing capitalism is interested in.
That's what we're up against.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Farrowing crates are not banned and gestation crates are still legal for the first four weeks of a sow's pregnancy. Cages for laying hens have also not been banned, they have just been substituted for slightly larger cages. Veal crates have been banned, but calves are still ripped away from their mothers shortly after birth and live in isolated, barren pens before being killed. In other words these individuals still have to endure forms of suffering and torture that I would not wish on my worst enemy. Why should I or anybody else support these practices when there are an abundance of alternatives now available?
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Well quite, but surely this makes the prospects for the humane treatment of exploited animals even more fanciful? It seems more plausible that we ought to remove animals from the sphere of commodity exchange entirely, if we are concerned about their welfare. Capitalists only care about the bottom line - if we boycott animal products they will stop producing them and animals will stop being bred into miserable lives.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
Yes the economic system does play a major part in how our food is produced, there would not be any factory farmed and slaughtered animals if there wasn't the demand for them. It is the publics insatiable appetite for animal products that encourages the suppliers to meat (
) that demand. Simply changing the farming practices, whilst in itself is an improvement, is like trying to put a band aid over a gaping wound.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
An excerpt from this excellent book...
THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE
When you picture grass-fed beef, you probably envision an idyllic scene of a cow outside in a pasture munching happily on grass. That is certainly the image those endorsing and selling these products would like you to hold. And there is some truth to it.
But it is only a part of the story. There is something missing from such a pleasant picture—something that nevertheless remains an ineluctable part of the actual reality. Grass-fed beef does not just come to you straight from God's green Earth. It also comes to you via the slaughterhouse.
The lives of grass-fed livestock are more humane and natural than the lives of animals confined in factory farms and feedlots, but their deaths are often just as terrifying and cruel. If they are taken to a conventional slaughterhouse, as indeed most of them are, they are just as likely as feedlot animals to be skinned while alive and fully conscious, and just as apt to be butchered and have their feet cut off while they are still breathing—distressing realities that tragically occur every hour in meat-packing plants nationwide. Confronting the brutal realities of modern slaughterhouses can be a harsh reminder that those who contemplate only the pastoral image of cattle patiently foraging do not see the whole picture.
No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution: Amazon.co.uk: John Robbins: 9781573245753: Books
THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE
When you picture grass-fed beef, you probably envision an idyllic scene of a cow outside in a pasture munching happily on grass. That is certainly the image those endorsing and selling these products would like you to hold. And there is some truth to it.
But it is only a part of the story. There is something missing from such a pleasant picture—something that nevertheless remains an ineluctable part of the actual reality. Grass-fed beef does not just come to you straight from God's green Earth. It also comes to you via the slaughterhouse.
The lives of grass-fed livestock are more humane and natural than the lives of animals confined in factory farms and feedlots, but their deaths are often just as terrifying and cruel. If they are taken to a conventional slaughterhouse, as indeed most of them are, they are just as likely as feedlot animals to be skinned while alive and fully conscious, and just as apt to be butchered and have their feet cut off while they are still breathing—distressing realities that tragically occur every hour in meat-packing plants nationwide. Confronting the brutal realities of modern slaughterhouses can be a harsh reminder that those who contemplate only the pastoral image of cattle patiently foraging do not see the whole picture.
No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution: Amazon.co.uk: John Robbins: 9781573245753: Books
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
'Signs of distress' are neither here nor there; if keeping animals for meat is exploitation, then keeping companion animals is too. And feeding meat to a companion animal is supporting the meat industry as much as eating the stuff yourself.
You might well be too young to know this, but a vasectomy does not deprive a man (or any male creature) of a sex life, so consent aside, is not the same as the mutilation of castration or spaying.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
Another "gotcha" hunting session.
So keeping a rescued abandoned cat is equivalent to keeping an animal for meat? Really?
Myths and facts about spaying and neutering : The Humane Society of the United States
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
Have I got this right, it's ok to farm animals to feed other animals but not to feed people? Why isn't it the lesser of two evils to let the cat be put down humanely and stop supporting the exploitation of farm animals? I would suggest that campaigning against keeping companion animals, and the subsequent absence of a market for the bits of creatures that people cannot or will not eat would go some way to pricing meat out of the reach of many people thus reducing the number of meat animals being raised. And why is it OK that animals be used to satisfy the emotional needs of humans but not OK that they be used to provide food, footwear or shelter? Humans can - and arguably should - find companionship with other humans.
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
Another "gotcha" hunting session.
So keeping a rescued abandoned cat is equivalent to keeping an animal for meat? <snip>
Who said that?
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
"if keeping animals for meat is exploitation, then keeping companion animals is too."
Really?
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
Serious question - is English your first language?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
wrt 'using' pets, I would suggest that, with cats and dogs, at least, that's not the best way to describe the relationship. We use one another, and have done ever since these relationships started. You can't really make that argument about animals bred for meat.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
No it's not okay. We shouldn't be breeding cats as pets in the first place but the fact is that we have cats in shelters and the question is what should we do with them. There are two options (assuming that the cat's nutritional needs cannot be met with fortified plant foods): (a) kill the cat or (b) adopt them and feed them other animals. It's a genuinely morally difficult dilemma, one that vegans are not responsible for and wish didn't arise in the first place. I am not sure what I think about it, but it's very far down my list of practical concerns about the way we treat other animals.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Cats unlike dogs need meat in their diets
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
To be clear, is it right that you don't think it's ok to breed any animals as pets? What about using animals as, for instance, guide dogs?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
You think guide dogs are pets? Wtf?
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
I really don't see any distinction; meat animals are fed, watered, sheltered, medicated. Some of them are probably named and get their ears scratched. They broadly get from people what pets get from people.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Depends what you call them, e.g. dinner, thanksgiving (in Canada and America)I've heard that naming animals isn't a great move if your going to eat them later.
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
Fair enough. Human interference in the lives of other species isn't going to end before the extinction of humans probably.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
I certainly think we shouldn't breed obligate carnivores period. I certainly think that we should adopt and foster companion animals rather than buy them from breeders. I suspect that pet ownership generally is wrong. Can breeding guide dogs be justified? I'm not sure. It's an issue I hadn't considered until you asked me. Veganism, like every ethical doctrine, has to deal with hard cases, but I'm not so interested in discussing those whilst there are practices so manifestly and obviously unjust as our use of animals for food.
Athos
Well-Known Member
But, surely it's around the margins - the difficult cases - where principles are clarified? It's hard to know where to draw the line on exploiting animals without some unified conception of why (and when) it's ok to do so. Also, it's that absence of a coherent ideology that leaves some vegans exposed to charges of hypocrisy.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
These problems occur in all moral domains. For example most people accept that it's generally wrong to kill other humans but there are numerous disputes about when it is permissible to kill (e.g. war, abortion, euthanasia, death penalty and so forth). Similarly it's not incoherent to think that it's generally wrong to exploit and kill animals whilst acknowledging that there are tricky cases where it might be okay (often these cases are tricky for epistemic rather than normative reasons - I don't know anything about guide dogs or potential viable alternatives so I'm loath to comment without possession of all the relevant information).
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