There are multiple things going on here that are becoming painful to follow even when I was one of the ones in the conversation.
You replying to me to tell me:
Calling vegan ethics “like religion” is backwards. Veganism can be argued from moral principles: consistency, avoidance of unnecessary harm and recognition of animal sentience.
Then proceeding to argue that it’s actually the reverse, citing Abrahamic religion as an example:
the idea that animals exist for human use has often been justified through explicit religious and cultural hierarchy, especially in Abrahamic traditions: that animals were created for human use and that human dominion over them is natural or divinely ordained. So if anything, the long-standing normalization of meat eating is closer to a theological worldview than the refusal to exploit animals is.
Buddhism is a direct counterpoint to this, as it shows there is a longstanding religion that has a near opposite view on animals.
On top of this, there is as you say, the more modern secular trend of veganism in the west. So your original claim is not sound. It is a statement on what you believe about where vegan arguments should be derived from, not a historical argument on what it is in practice.
You can say “those aren’t the real vegans” like we might about the ACP with regards to marxism-leninism, but that’s the framing then, if so. Not that the diverging point of view isn’t a real phenomenon. It is the dismissiveness that I was pushing back on and the framing implying that I was arguing with strawmen.
Especially since you yourself rejected this argument (X):
Me: In any case, the form of veganism I was trying to talk about is the distinctly modern western form of it, one that doesn’t seem to have any noticeable relationship with buddhism.
If the point is specifically about the modern movement, then the relevant question is its actual moral structure now, not whether some older religion had adjacent practices.
This was a different argument where I was clarifying that I was criticizing the effectiveness of modern veganism as an individualist boycotting practice in the west. I was in the process acknowledging that veganism also has ties to buddhism historically.
The fact that we cannot point to a “vegan state” of sorts in the way that we can with marxism-leninism is part of the problem (or at least, a revolutionary vegan theory - maybe there is one, but I haven’t seen it brought up in this thread). You can tell me what vegan is and then I might talk to someone else and get a different view and where is it leading? How can anyone organize for it if there is not even broad agreement on what it means in practice beyond the very basic definition of specific foods you don’t consume?
It’s pretty easy to agree in a general sense, “Don’t mistreat animals”, but if one person’s version of that is don’t factory farm abuse them and another’s is give them human rights, we’ve got no solid ground to stand on. Am I making sense or no?
There are multiple things going on here that are becoming painful to follow even when I was one of the ones in the conversation.
Then proceeding to argue that it’s actually the reverse, citing Abrahamic religion as an example:
Buddhism is a direct counterpoint to this, as it shows there is a longstanding religion that has a near opposite view on animals.
On top of this, there is as you say, the more modern secular trend of veganism in the west. So your original claim is not sound. It is a statement on what you believe about where vegan arguments should be derived from, not a historical argument on what it is in practice.
You can say “those aren’t the real vegans” like we might about the ACP with regards to marxism-leninism, but that’s the framing then, if so. Not that the diverging point of view isn’t a real phenomenon. It is the dismissiveness that I was pushing back on and the framing implying that I was arguing with strawmen.
This was a different argument where I was clarifying that I was criticizing the effectiveness of modern veganism as an individualist boycotting practice in the west. I was in the process acknowledging that veganism also has ties to buddhism historically.
The fact that we cannot point to a “vegan state” of sorts in the way that we can with marxism-leninism is part of the problem (or at least, a revolutionary vegan theory - maybe there is one, but I haven’t seen it brought up in this thread). You can tell me what vegan is and then I might talk to someone else and get a different view and where is it leading? How can anyone organize for it if there is not even broad agreement on what it means in practice beyond the very basic definition of specific foods you don’t consume?
It’s pretty easy to agree in a general sense, “Don’t mistreat animals”, but if one person’s version of that is don’t factory farm abuse them and another’s is give them human rights, we’ve got no solid ground to stand on. Am I making sense or no?