Author Topic: the most ambivalent argument  (Read 9710 times)

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the most ambivalent argument
« on: September 10, 2009, 02:50:36 AM »
I’ve seen your "even the most selfish argument is not working" and I really don’t get you. You say it’s unrealistic/impossible to veganize the entire world population but on the other hand you criticize these sorts of inducements methods that take into consideration these views and work with what they got to help the animals

Offline takin

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Re: the most ambivalent argument
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2009, 12:06:50 PM »
I agree
In advocating veganism it’s legitimate to use all the tools you’ve got.
The aim is to make others realize how insane an animal based diet is, from all perspectives and angles (unless you are a CCF member or their banker)
Meat eating is a lose-lose-lose situation and no one says so. If the facts are on your side why not use them?
I don’t think we should hide the fact that an animal based diet doesn’t fit the human physiology and causes a wide range of deadly diseases just so we’d be able to say we appeal only to the moral basis and care about nothing else.

There is nothing desperate about telling the truth, if you want desperate go after prop 2 and its like.

Euthanasia brigade

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true but selfish
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2009, 09:56:23 AM »
Funnily enough I always perceived myself as an animal liberation advocate nothing more nothing less; leave the cardio vascular diseases to the physicians and concentrate on being the voice of the most oppressed group in history. Just because a certain fact is true doesn’t mean it must be placed in the first row, but you choose to put it there cause it’s gonna play well, don’t you? There are many true facts on your side, and one of them says there are billions of animals tormented and murdered each year, weigh that against a couple of thousands strokes…doesn’t the choice to advertise vegan diet as low in sodium and saturated fats seem very problematic?

SATS

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Re: the most ambivalent argument
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2009, 09:56:41 AM »
And clearly before animal based food will be considered as unhealthy, healthily improved meat and eggs will be manufactured. You can already see omega-3 enriched eggs and lactose free low fat milk and no cholesterol meat and etc. It is an endless, pointless and chanceless chase.

I was wondering while browsing the site and watching some of the materials but always felt it was a little off topic, now after the first comments I guess its more appropriate to ask where do you stand on the welfarism – rights debate?

nvhemt

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the most selfish argument
« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2009, 03:29:07 AM »
"A world which battery cages could have been invented in is a world that unlegislating them won't cure anything"
this sentence from the end of asleep was stuck in my head, might give you a clue…

Offline takin

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Re: true but selfish
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2009, 06:08:44 PM »
leave the cardio vascular diseases to the physicians and concentrate on being the voice of the most oppressed group in history.

What better way to help animals than to advocate veganism, each vegan in his lifetime rises the issues (first among them is the animal right issue) hundred times a year.
I’d gladly leave it to the doctors, but they are just as conformed as the rest of the nation. I don’t want to spend time on nutrition but protein deficiency myths are an issue no one else is addressing.   

Offline E.A.S

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Re: the most ambivalent argument
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2009, 11:03:19 AM »
where do you stand on the welfarism – rights debate?

I think this question was directed to us.
It is needless to discuss the old and worn out all or nothing debates and welfarism vs. liberationism arguments to say the least, because both are not relevant in this website as both are totally chanceless in stopping the suffering. However, regardless of the fact we are sure a non speciesist society is even theoretically not possible, and I think that explaining why a sufferingless world is not an option is even more needless, we are against welfarism because we want strong and confident activists who constantly think how to abolish all forms of animal exploitation, and welfarism, also as a mean and not as a goal still doesn’t challenge anthropocentrism and severely weakens the movement. Not declaring a fight against speciesism is preserving it.
Speciesist activists can and do initiate activities which in the short term ease animals’ pain and suffering, but in the long run welfarism, trendism, celebritiesism and sexist activism only frame speciesism and animal exploitation.
The solution won’t come from them so it is much more interesting and more important to notice that many non speciesist activists are constantly initiating and taking part in speciesist activities, holding speciesist signs, wearing speciesist T-shirts. It all comes from one place- despair and disbelief, before they even tried.
What more than the T-shirt "VIVISECTION KILLS HUMANS TOO, WE ARE ALL VICTIMS!" do you need?! It is the hopelessness T-shirt!
In the discussion about the suffering argument – the article about animal experiments someone expressed his disgust of the horrible connection between humans and non-human victims in the experiments industry and I highly identify with what he wrote.
In even the most selfish argument and in the slideshow rodents and in many other places we wrote that activists don’t believe there is a chance to change reality using moral messages and so they turn to anthropocentric, egoistic and speciesist messages.
I really liked what you wrote Euthanasia brigade and I totally agree. What do the activists say by concentrating on the human victims? "We know that you know that meat is a dead animal and you probably know as most people do today that the animals are raised in horrible conditions suffering all their lives until they are brutally slaughtered, but we don’t expect you to do anything because of this but because it hurts you. Never mind that you are willing to let them suffer, the world hunger to continue and the destruction of the environment to prolong, but hurting yourself? That’s really crazy!"

I can understand why these activists are desperate from the attempt to uproot speciesism, the problem is that they waive their true ideology and compromise their goals. The worst expression of the speciesist activism is the attitude not the slogans. If reality can’t be changed conventionally you don’t compromise your morals, you act unconventionally. Reality doesn’t change for the better when people don’t listen, don’t change their opinions and consumption habits, on the contrary. So the rational thing to do is to go the extra mile not to compromise.
There is no doubt that welfarism is speciesism, but not all welfarists are speciesists.
Desperate liberationists too can take part in welfarism and again I can understand that, but what I can’t understand is the built-in axiomatic approach that it is humans’ decision. It is as plain as the nose on one's face that the animals’ fate is in the hands of humans and the activists’ role is to try their best to convince all mighty humans to make the right decision and not hurt the animals… if they may of course.

The conception that there is no choice, if humans don’t listen to us when we talk about their victims’ interest, then we got to talk about their own interests, is the extremist form of speciesism.
The speciesism is in the head of the activist who thinks his one and only duty is to convince the abusers to stop abusing and not to stop the abuse.
As far as most activists think, their variety of options is expressed in persuasion methods only. The basic approach is hardly ever questioned. Convincing people to divert their diet is the only option, the differences are in the way to do it. Years of failures and the activists are still sure it is something with the way they deliver their message.
If something didn’t work they will try another but all the options have the same in common, they all are different tactics with the same strategy to convince the abusers to stop abusing.

There is parallelism between the anti-vivisection advocacy and the vegetarian/vegan advocacy since in both cases the approach is convincing humans that eventually they are the ones getting hurt, whether it’s high cholesterol, water pollution or deadly drugs. This is as low as it gets, no where else to sink to once an activist turns to reliance on the selfishness of humans.

Activists can try to justify the choice to use speciesist messages through the spectrum argument - in the short run it is speciesism but in the long run this use can turn more people to be less speciesist. But the speciesism starts from within. It is the human choice axiom that is the harsh speciesism and which I wish to deconstruct. Explaining to activists that it is not the torturers’ choice whether to stop torturing or not, is our challenge. It is the tortured choice and unfortunately they don’t have a way of defending themselves so it should be our job. Stop the torture and not convincing the torturers to stop is what should be the goal. It may sound obvious to some of you, so why is it that so many activists focus all their efforts on the oppressors and so little on the oppressed? The focus is on humans and it shouldn’t be like that because they are not the issue and because it didn’t work a single time for a single struggle all along history even when the victims were other humans. Please read our article about slavery more than ever before in history for that matter.

Your confusion with our believes is I guess because we don’t believe it is possible to change the world in any meaningful way so how come we are so furious with other activists who like us act as if it is impossible. Well besides the obvious that it should have made them choose to try to find a way to annihilate the world, we realize that some will need some time in more conventional activism first, one of our goals is to create a shortcut. We hope this website will inspire as many activists to start their own stopping all the suffering group and of course a welfarist approach may suppress the ambitions and aspirations of the soon to become O.O.S activists.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2013, 03:17:29 AM by O.O.S »

 

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