Vegan Che Guevara
Does revolutionary rhetoric belong in veganism or is it a contradiction in terms?
“If it comes to war to end the systematic abuse of animals, I’ll most certainly be taking up a weapon.”
There was a discussion online from a vegan friend of mine in my facebook feed. Someone said the above, and I took exception to it. First of all, it’s B.S., it’s one of those false declaratives that, odds are, they will never actually have to hold true to. By making it they can pretend to be a revolutionary, without actually being one. Second, this implies that the lives of animals are greater than human ones, and there’s no way to make that seem any less ridiculous. Certainly sentient life can be equally valuable, especially if it is valued to the extent that the vegan community does. I don’t agree with that concept that we are equals with the animal kingdom, since consumption of living things is part of the natural order of things, but at least that idea is sound and isn’t strangely subservient.
Now that its been established that the vegan philosophy places humans at, or radically, below animals and that there would be a revolution of sorts that would place veganism as law, there are a few strange contradictions. Are they going to start holding murderous “individuals” responsible? You know like the wolf that killed and ate the lamb, or the pack of lionesses that coordinated an attack on a poor, victimized elephant? The shark is specifically designed to be nothing more than a killing machine, rows and rows of sharp, jagged teeth that render its prey lifeless and bloody in seconds. Blood even attracts sharks, this is the extent of their psychotic hunger! Really, where does this line get drawn? Certainly, vegans and animal rights activists don’t want to destroy all predators. Well, PETA wants all pit bulls to be killed but I don’t think they’re even very well respected in the community they claim to support. However, animal rights activists frequently refer to as animals as individuals, and speak of them as if they are equal to humans, to eat other sentient things but it’s unethical and evil for humans to consume meat, even if we have the teeth built to tear at flesh, and it’s one of the best ways to get protein and fat that your body needs to survive? I’m sorry: it’s ridiculous. If it is a personal and/or ethical choice it is wonderful, challenging and interesting and what-have-you, I respect that. But to take it to such extremes as war on the omnivorous…well, that is a pretty dangerous, ugly concept and one that is completely unjustifiable in ways beyond the simple concept that if life is respected, it means all life not just the ones you ethically agree with.
Full disclosure, I think America’s culture of meat ‘n violence has gone out of control. Over the past month I’ve made a personal vow to eat meat once a day. I am not in the income bracket to afford to boycott meat processing plants or buy organic food (whatever that means), this is reality. By consuming less of it, I am at least doing something. America over-consumes everything, from food, to oil, to land, to media and violence. This is what I think is the most important concept, above any particularities that connect with this. Veganism is certainly a reaction to this truth, so in that way I certainly respect it. It is far more efficient to dine primarily on whole fruits and vegetables, and consume far less animal products than we can now afford. Cheese, butter, milk, and especially cuts of meat are luxuries that we take for granted. In the past you would eat meat once a week if you were lucky. And before you go “Oh well we survived then!” I have to remind you, the life of a peasant was brutal. Sickness and malnutrition complicated what was already a very difficult life. High infant mortality rates and shorter lifespans were common. I suggest reading a peasant narrative or two before anyone even jumps to this conclusion.
Going even further, I am not against violent revolution either. I wrote a piece about Qaddafi earlier that was more than a little bloodthirsty, and I frequently use the fact that the French murdered their king as a defense for the unfairly maligned people of that great nation. In fact, I would go further to say that there may be no other way to liberate capital, as those Republican revolutionaries of the early 19th century did, than to revolt against the elite. It may even be a natural cycle, almost biological for the survival of humanity. Like slash and burn agriculture, it may be better to destroy rather than reform. I’m not ecologically ignorant, either, and I understand the whole validity of many tenets of the animal rights platform. Comparing a war on the consumption of animals for our use to a war on slavery is not only foolish, it’s insulting. Slavery is not a natural order, it’s an ethical one. Humans choose to take slaves, there is nothing in our biology or evolution that shows this to be useful, it is merely vanity. Yes, we needed a war on slavery, it was essentially liberating America’s serfs, much like the Revolutionaries in Europe did by destroying their king, but that in no way is comparable to veganism as the “next step” in our ethical evolution. I am fully familiar with the concept that we grow ethically as a whole, but I don’t think veganism is necessarily a natural evolution. And if it is, I would hope it’s more enlightened and beneficent than to resort to waving guns around and killing people.
It is nature that requires us to eat meat. Not three to four times a day like Americans do, or six different kinds of meat at once and then deep fried with cheese or whatever decadent embarrassment you might see on the Food Network, but just consume less of it. The cougar kills the ram, man kills a cow. This is the way things work. Going against this with all the complex, nuanced arguments that one can muster is still going against your own biology, and contradicting nature in a very real sense. To me, ethical veganism makes about as much sense as taking a vow of chastity because people are victims of sexual assault or sterilizing yourself in protest of death. And by all means, go ahead and do so but don’t threaten me with your (imaginary) gun.
