No, people tune out vegans because they want their treats. Meat is a luxury, and suffering people crave luxury, and so anyone who correctly observes “your luxury is soaked with blood” is going to make enemies. We have so few luxuries under capitalism that people will defend their treats to the death, there’s no way to actually convince people to give up meat. I sympathize.
But I’m not going to coddle their commodity fetishism, either. You can’t exist under modern capitalism without having some blood on your hands, but some commodities are more blood soaked than others. They should at least understand what they’re eating and think about the system of exploitation they’re engaged with.
Besides, giving up the most exploitative commodities is just good sense. I’m certainly not going to demand every cadre be a perfect vegan, it certainly isn’t the primary contradiction, but if a discussion about meat comes up I’m going to be honest.
That doesn’t touch the underlying and inescapable fact: industrial meat is impossible without hurting and killing workers. Any fully socialist society will move away from meat simply for the fact that the logistics of making it safe make it unsuitable for mass production. We would either ration meat severely so no worker had to mutilate their mind and body to harvest meat for billions of people, or we’d need fully-automated slaughter and meat processing facilities. The simple logistics of meat are a problem when we consider the workers behind it.
That’s why I stopped eating meat, because I know I’ll have to give it up eventually anyway. Why not start now? It’s easy.
No, people tune out vegans because they want their treats.
Meat is not a treat. It’s a high protein food that’s a staple in a lot of people’s diets, meal plans, known meals that work for protein, and fast food and restaurant menus when eating out. Going out and getting a fancy steak is a treat, sure, but that’s the outlier form of meat consumption. Including some chicken in a meal for protein is not. I just don’t even know how to process this statement. It feels like we’re living in two different worlds.
If plant protein is cheaper then meat doesn’t need to be a staple, you can make high protein meal plans and diets without any meat while also saving money. Therefore, it’s a luxury. People eat meat because it’s tasty and familiar, not because it’s necessary.
“If it’s possible to get a job that pays more, then people who can’t afford to pay rent should just get one. Therefore, complaining about rent prices is invalid and people are just doing it because they don’t want to be bothered to get a better job. People stay where they are in life because it’s comfortable and familiar.” <- That’s about what you sound like right now. It is characteristically no different than bootstraps individualism.
But it’s not possible to just get a job that pays more? People are stuck with the jobs they have in most cases.
But anyone can stop eating meat whenever they want. The comparison is nonsensical.
What would be more fair is to compare it to saying “It’s possible to save money by not spending it on luxuries, so people who can’t afford to pay rent should stop spending money on luxuries.” I’m also not even saying that. People deserve luxury, bread and roses, etc. I’m only saying that meat should be acknowledged as a luxury, to properly frame it in the discussion.
You know in years of being on lemmygrad, I’ve managed to avoid need for the block feature, but I might finally try it because this is getting genuinely time-wasting to have this keep popping up in my notifications with individualist arguments and individualist representations of reality that ignore/deny how systems work.
No, people tune out vegans because they want their treats. Meat is a luxury, and suffering people crave luxury, and so anyone who correctly observes “your luxury is soaked with blood” is going to make enemies. We have so few luxuries under capitalism that people will defend their treats to the death, there’s no way to actually convince people to give up meat. I sympathize.
But I’m not going to coddle their commodity fetishism, either. You can’t exist under modern capitalism without having some blood on your hands, but some commodities are more blood soaked than others. They should at least understand what they’re eating and think about the system of exploitation they’re engaged with.
Besides, giving up the most exploitative commodities is just good sense. I’m certainly not going to demand every cadre be a perfect vegan, it certainly isn’t the primary contradiction, but if a discussion about meat comes up I’m going to be honest.
That doesn’t touch the underlying and inescapable fact: industrial meat is impossible without hurting and killing workers. Any fully socialist society will move away from meat simply for the fact that the logistics of making it safe make it unsuitable for mass production. We would either ration meat severely so no worker had to mutilate their mind and body to harvest meat for billions of people, or we’d need fully-automated slaughter and meat processing facilities. The simple logistics of meat are a problem when we consider the workers behind it.
That’s why I stopped eating meat, because I know I’ll have to give it up eventually anyway. Why not start now? It’s easy.
Meat is not a treat. It’s a high protein food that’s a staple in a lot of people’s diets, meal plans, known meals that work for protein, and fast food and restaurant menus when eating out. Going out and getting a fancy steak is a treat, sure, but that’s the outlier form of meat consumption. Including some chicken in a meal for protein is not. I just don’t even know how to process this statement. It feels like we’re living in two different worlds.
Wrong, vegan protein is cheaper.
Why reply to me with such a non-sequitur?
If plant protein is cheaper then meat doesn’t need to be a staple, you can make high protein meal plans and diets without any meat while also saving money. Therefore, it’s a luxury. People eat meat because it’s tasty and familiar, not because it’s necessary.
“If it’s possible to get a job that pays more, then people who can’t afford to pay rent should just get one. Therefore, complaining about rent prices is invalid and people are just doing it because they don’t want to be bothered to get a better job. People stay where they are in life because it’s comfortable and familiar.” <- That’s about what you sound like right now. It is characteristically no different than bootstraps individualism.
But it’s not possible to just get a job that pays more? People are stuck with the jobs they have in most cases.
But anyone can stop eating meat whenever they want. The comparison is nonsensical.
What would be more fair is to compare it to saying “It’s possible to save money by not spending it on luxuries, so people who can’t afford to pay rent should stop spending money on luxuries.” I’m also not even saying that. People deserve luxury, bread and roses, etc. I’m only saying that meat should be acknowledged as a luxury, to properly frame it in the discussion.
You know in years of being on lemmygrad, I’ve managed to avoid need for the block feature, but I might finally try it because this is getting genuinely time-wasting to have this keep popping up in my notifications with individualist arguments and individualist representations of reality that ignore/deny how systems work.