Veganarchist.
I hate the word veganarchist. It makes me want to go eat chicken or something. I’ve been vegan for 8 years now, an anarchist for 7. They are really different things. Vegan is a dietary choice. At best, it’s a tactic for reducing animal suffering. Anarchist reflects so much more. Sigh.
I figure most people already feel however it is they’re going to feel about the word veganarchist. It just… it just really gets under my skin. I’m often at odds with other vegans, because I’m sick of how people wield it like a big dogma club. I’m sick of vegans thinking they’re on to something pure and wonderful and beautiful. I mean, yeah. I’m glad I’m vegan. I don’t see myself stopping. We live in a world of factory farming, of domestication, of all sorts of horrors, and I’d like to avoid supporting that (though as far as food choices go, local/organic is probably more important than vegan). But for chrissake. Veganarchist? It’s insulting to anarchism.
I think “veganarchist” is like the bougie, snooty neo-vic faction of anti-baconpunk. :D
Dude, I feel you. I’m sick of -people- thinking they’re pure and wonderful and superior. People are gross bastards regardless of what they eat.
Though, I think you’re pretty ok. <3
Hmmm…this dialogue seems oddly familiar. I wonder where I’ve heard this before…. :-P
My point exactly: People spending too much time/effort looking for words to define what they do rather than just doing it…People looking for a flag to wave when they do get around to doing whatever that is…And also alienating themselves and others (read: segregation) with a word that is completely made up.
And not to be a total bitch and further my previous point, because I do agree with everything you said here, BUT…this can all basically be subbed for what I was trying to say last night. Behold!:
I hate the word feminist. It makes me want to go suck a dick or something….(etc)
ha! <3
You know, right after I posted this I thought about that, about how I spend a lot of my time defending labels. I ended up with two thoughts: 1) if someone wants to label -themselves- as a veganarchist, I suppose they can go right ahead. it’s when they think that all vegan anarchists are “veganarchists” that it makes my brain fill up with pain. And 2) I figure there are people who feel the same way about the anarchist label that I do about the vegan thing… about it being a political choice but not being some big important pure blah blah blah. And those people are probably right.
i went vegan around the same time i was starting to teach myself more about anarchism. i’ve came across the term “veganarchy” a few times and it’s always rubbed me the wrong way. i don’t know if i just think it’s tacky or something else. since identifying as an anarchist i’m learning more how important language and vocabulary is (words DO mean something, action ISN’T everything)
i guess i feel like “veganarchist” is not really a label, it’s parading. in a bad way.
Not break the mood, I’m sticking with “Cannibaliberal”: transforming the Evil into a strong body politic 12 ways.
Glenn Beck au gratin, creamed Cornyn, etc.
“We gladly feast on those who would enslave us”.
Nothing more ethical than picking bits of degenerate members of your own species from your teeth. Call it radical recycling.
Well… excluding the fact that traditional anarchism can be somewhat anthropocentric in the sense that it seeks out total human liberation while ignoring the speciesist implications of industrial-captialist soceity. To me, veganism seems to be less about a diet and more about a particular mindset that holds that life is universally and inherently valuable, despite the technicalities of species, the dietary choice is spawned from this conciousness. To believe in supreme equally, no gods, no masters is also to believe that no one species seeks to dominate another, as has our industrial food processes. There is a natural food chain, and in that web, we do consume meat, but we’ve blown that out of proportion. You see, they’re really interrelated.
Ian: fair enough, that the word veganarchism and be referring to how traditionally, anarchism is anthropocentric. I’m glad to hear that you accept that we’re part of a natural food chain, though… I feel like I’ve heard similar arguments about all species having an equal right to life, but I guess I just can’t see how this doesn’t naturally extend to plant life.
So maybe my issue is that I see veganism as a tactic, anarchism as a goal and a fundamental philosophy. I mean, that said, I’d also rather prefer not to eat animals at all, even after a theoretical collapse/revolution that ends capitalism and the state. But it’s more mutable.