#veganism is a social justice movement

[teenagefeeling]

the tweet linked in that post honestly pissed me off, what world is that person living in where meat eaters are always considerate towards vegetarians and make sure their dietary needs are met? like, countless times i have been invited to dinner with friends or family but they pick a restaurant where i can't eat anything. or i go to a party and my only food options are the raw bell peppers & carrots from the veggie tray because literally all the other hors d'oeuvres have meat in them. when one of my ex boyfriends found out i was a vegetarian, his response was to try and convince me to start eating meat. i cannot count the amount of people who have insulted me to my face solely for my dietary choices, which don't affect them at all. be for so fucking real.

[vvitchscvm-deactivated0666]

here I was thinking it was a dehumanizing insult to compare women's rights to animals :|

[angryasiandyk3]

a cool detail in Leigh’s og script that I feel like a lot of people forget is that Adam’s a leftist/communist- and he’s very involved in social justice movements and protests based upon the description of his apartment. dude has a whole portrait of Che Guevera on his wall

makes sense why he had a feminist vegan punk gf

i so wish that he had more time in the movies because Leigh had written his character with so much more background </3

[drdemonprince]

what do u think about romance abolition? i recently discovered that i dont think romance actually exists as in i think every relationship every person has with anyone is unique and different. the concept of romance is rooted in a lof of our opressive systems and aphobia is inherently tied to it. i think these labels of being in a "romantic" relationship endanger everyone due to a percieved wrong clearness of what their relationship boundaries and expectations are and it also devalues "platonic" (and a lot other) relationships.

i also recommend the aromantic manifesto blog on here to kind of get part of the concept im talking abt

this comes from the mind of an audhd aroace trans person, if thats of any relevance!

thank u for ur blog an your opinions ⭐

I am fairly receptive to the idea that romance as we currently conceive of it is a recent cultural invention that is pretty ahistorical, and that is used to further the isolation of individuals from community. but also, I don't think we are going to get anywhere as a social or political movement in denying the feelings that a majority of people have, myself very much among them.

Even if it is all born of cultural conditioning, the cat is kind of out of the bag, and a great deal of us experience a romantic drive, romantic longings, close attachments that are romantic that we experience as distinct from non-romantic attachments, and view romance as a meaningful fount of inspiration in our art, sexualities, and even spiritualities.

I am all for a move away from amatonormativity and the primacy of the monogamous, legally committed relationship, but I do think there is something emotionally real going on there for those of us who experience it. I used to care a lot more about straightforward rationality, and after that about justice, but now I care a great deal about the emotionally felt reality of things, and the realms of life that are not easily categorized or known. I can't explain why the idea of romance is important to me, only that it is, and I personally have no desire in doing away with it.

perhaps I feel some of the resistance to the idea of romance abolition that some instantly feel when they first hear of family abolition-- The idea makes them uncomfortable because of what it sounds like, which is a threat to something that they are very bonded to.

I think on an institutional level it would be very beneficial to not tie social benefits or legal status to a person's romantic relationships. but in terms of my personal life? I draw very firm boundaries between relationships that are romantic in nature and those that are not, that is a distinction that is very important to me and I often feel really trampled upon by people who believe that no one should see a designation between those things. in most of the world writ large that's a very small problem, but I mostly run with polyamorous queer people who tend to see many of their relationships is a big mishmash of affection and commitment and friendship and that can get real fucking messy real fast in addition to being beautiful or revolutionary or what have you.

I think ultimately I'm a little bit more interested in providing the social supports and physical infrastructure that would make it more possible for individuals to form community in whatever ways that means for them. I think a lot of beneficial social changes and liberation would flow from that, rather than moving to abolish romantic relationships first.

and I really do get uncomfortable when a certain subcategory of relationally radical polyamorous queer people try to push against other people's romantic or sexual boundaries in the name of liberation; I understand if that sounds like a totally ridiculous complaint to you, the way a person complaining about veganism being forced on them almost always sounds like a overreacting cry baby, but I've been in enough toxic fucking communities since I was an 18-year-old to feel like I'm owed this grievance, and kind of want to give voice to it because I have seen people be abused in the name of otherwise really understandable ideals like these.

I think it is okay for a person to draw distinctions between their types of relationships, and to want certain forms of attachment with only certain people... there has to be a way to square this with a desire for greater community ties and interreliance. I need there to be, or it would not be a ideology I could really find myself safely within to be honest.

All that uncomfortable hand ringing aside, as a member of the asexual community and a person who does not form connections in a typical way, I have so much respect and care for my aromantic comrades and I do recognize how supremely excluded from basically every social practice and institution in the world you are, and how difficult it is for anyone to make family or build community for themselves in a world that prioritizes exclusive romantic relationships over everything. and I do really believe that fighting against that is a worthy and necessary project. I am perhaps just ultimately a bit less enlightened in terms of what I personally need and aspire to.

[less-freshly-vegan]

Like "veganism is good for the environment" and "we should all be vegans" are generalisations. Sure, there are going to be cases wherein someone should not be vegan or in which all their food is magically super sustainable because they grow it all on their own farm and just eat 1 egg a day from their tiny little chicken coop because they need protein and absolutely can't get beans etc.

And frankly I'm kinda feeling right now like...deal with the generalisation? When I see "running is good for you" stuff or "we should all be exercising more" I don't go on a long rant about how omg I can't run and not everyone should be exercising so this article is bad actually. I accept it's not about me and move on.

When someone says "murder is bad" I assume they don't think it's bad if in self-defence. I don't need them to clarify when they think murder isn't awful, because yeah, most of the time murder is not good lol.

Pretty much every social justice movement makes generalisations. It's primarily because going "X is good unless..." waters down what you're saying and distracts from the point. For example look at all the people who bring up why some people can't be vegan despite not being in those groups themselves. It's a distraction so they don't need to think about their own motives.

(I've literally had people living on over 5k a month telling me about how veganism is bad because not everyone can afford fake meat, for example. Like mate that's extremely unrelated to why you are not going vegan.)

I just get tired of being expected to clarify every single exception to veganism. I don't care to argue over the "nuance" of "veganism is good for the environment" just as I don't care to argue the "nuance" of "running is a good form of exercise". Would eating vegan for you personally genuinely be worse for the environment? Okay, cool. Don't care, too busy trying to explain to everyone else why their beef burger is shit for our planet.

[insufferablefirehazard]

Veganism is about the animals. If you think your food choices have no effect on others you're forgetting about them.

You can look up

The documentary called Dominion (free on YouTube)

Dairy is scary (YouTube)

Earthlings

ngl the amount of time and effort vegans put into arguing with people over dietary choices (which have 0 impact on anyone but themselves) instead of devoting time to literally anything that could actually accomplish something is a little weird

like why do you make 5 vegan smugposts on reddit a day. there are still people who think that circumcision is normal and who have no concept of class consciousness. i just don't understand why veganism of all things is the hill people choose to die on.

kinda makes me think you value egojerking more than human life tbh

[acti-veg]

thank you for your reply on the idea of veganism getting in the way of welfarism - I think what they were trying to say is that realistically, most people will never go vegan, and there's more hope of decreasing suffering by focusing on welfarism because that is a more realistic goal, whereas focusing on veganism will take the focus off that and most people will never go vegan anyway? what are your thoughts on that?

There are two key assumptions here:

1) Veganism will never be popular enough to make a significant dent in number of animals killed.

2) Welfarism improves the lives of farmed animals.

I don’t buy into either of these. The global popularity of veganism has already had an obvious impact on demand. Global consumption is still rising, but it would have been rising at a faster rate had none of these vegans existed.

What’s more, if everyone who claimed to care about animals actually went vegan, instead of pretending they eat cheeseburgers because they think this is the best way to improve animal welfare, we could make an even bigger difference. Every social justice movement has had to deal with this same critique, then when that ideology becomes widely accepted, everyone pretends that they were always on board.

As for the second assumption, we have had at least fifty years of welfarism being broadly accepted by the public, even politicians and farmers themselves pay lip service to it. So why, under this almost universally held ideology, are things worse for animals now than they have ever been? Everyone is already convinced, so what is the problem exactly? The only rational conclusion is that welfarism does not work.

There is no way you can take an animal’s welfare seriously while they are legally considered a commodity, to be bought, sold and killed for profit, or so disposable that it is fine to shoot them for fun and call it conservation. The idea that you can look after someone’s welfare while simultaneously exploiting and killing them is far more unrealistic to me than even the most idealistic forms of veganism.

[anjanahalo]

Wayne Vs Fenton 3

start of the madness

pls note I'm putting these numbers in as "what I have written." They're not gonna necessarily be in order. I hope to make a full fic to put on AO3. In the interim, here's stuff I wrote in general as it strikes me in the moment. This bit is from Tim's perspective after Damian and Danny Are Friends become a known quantity in the Wayne household. ~*~

Damian making friends didn’t make sense. Everyone else felt complacent in simply accepting it. Tim wasn’t. Considering his upbringing, autonomous socializing wasn’t part of Damian’s personality. Nor was how calm and patient the former assassin child became with all of his siblings, Tim included. Damian himself insisted he and this “Danny” were friends. Hell, Damian even called the kid by a nickname. Not his last name, not “Daniel.” His actual, preferred nickname. Tim was suspicious and instantly began investigating. Daniel “Danny” Fenton, age 15, moved to Gotham two months ago from Amity Park, Illinois with his godfather and temporary guardian, Vlad Masters, former mayor of Amity Park, head of Vladco Industries, and heir to Wisconsin’s Self Proclaimed Dairy King’s fortune. Child of Jack and Madeline Fenton, doctors of something called ectobiology, former college classmates of Vlad Masters, and founders of FentonWorks, a cottage research facility that developed antighost (Ghosts? Really?) weaponry and equipment. Brother of Jasmine Fenton, currently a student of Yale in their psychology undergraduate program, and already a shoe-in for the Dean’s list. Honestly, of all the people related to him, Danny ended up being the least interesting. Middling grades that dropped in high school along with attendance. That was probably what led to his coming to Gotham. A set of brilliant - if evidentially weird - parents and a rich and involved godfather doing what they could to help their faltering son to succeed by sending him to one of the top schools on the east coast. There was evidence that Amity Park itself had some apparently minor meta vigilante protecting it, but searches for “Phantom” turned up nothing in the Justice League’s database, suggesting whomever this was might be an actual ghost like Deadman and, thus, restricted to access by those with JLD clearance. Tim put aside that issue for later. He could just ask B for privileges later. Besides, the only information he found on this vigilante was on a few amateur fansites and local papers. No major news sites or government listings. It couldn’t be anything major. His focus remained on Daniel Fenton. Except, even when looking into the kid’s socials, there wasn’t anything interesting. He had a couple friends back in Amity, the most interesting of the two was Samantha Mason of the Mason family, though Tim already knew of her from various socialite dinners she looked ready to burn to the ground, pink and lacey dress or not. Her social media was full of activism, conservation movements, and calls for both veganism and something called ultra recycle vegetarianism. Tucker came from an average family of upper middle class parents, nothing odd there, though his social media showed his love of technology and ancient Egypt. Nothing strange there. Danny’s social media, besides his friends, included links to Nasa, occasional rambles about high school life, and, for some reason, a dog photoshopped to look green. From the replies of his few followers, it was an inside joke since they all cooed over the dog and didn’t comment on the green. Again, nothing strange. Even the one time he managed to hack into Damian’s phone to see his messages yielded nothing. He and Danny would meet for what Danny called “playdates.” For some reason, Damian played along with a name Tim knew he’d scoff as childish and beneath him. Even that would be innocuous. One or the other would suggest meeting at various parks, arcades, even the observatory, negotiating dates and times, and that was it.

Danny was a normal kid. Damian was a born and bred assassin. Why in the actual fuck were these two friends? Nothing made sense. Everyone else was happy to ignore it because of the peace the irrationality before them instilled. Tim wouldn’t become complacent. Whatever Danny was hiding, he’d find it.

[thatveganwhiterose]

Can you imagine having so much cognitive dissonance and contempt for a perceived “bad vegan” that people on this website will spread literal false information and act like right-wing reactionaries simply because they want to “own the vegans”?

Instead of realizing that there are always bad faith actors or groups within any social justice or leftist and progressive movement and to discuss why said bad faith actor or group is being disingenuous, so many of you on tumblr dot com would literally rather boost false claims, spread misinformation, and bootlick massive corporations that would let you perish from climate change in an instant?

It’s actually really disheartening and repulsive to see people here, on a site that claims to generally care about the well-being of others (planet and animals included) and promote things like boycotts, voting, and protesting, to actively and fervently spew actual disproven nonsense.

You may be proud for “owning the annoying vegans” but it really just makes you a reactionary, uninformed asshole.

[responsiblelemon]

Reblog this to remind someone that veganism is not a diet, that it's a philosophy and social justice movement that revolves around reducing harm as much as possible to all sentient lives.

[morethansalad]

Gentle reminder that veganism is not a diet.

Veganism is not a lifestyle either.

Veganism is a social justice movement with the goal of liberating animals from our speciesist cultural practices which have incorrectly come to believe that exploiting animals is necessary for survival and even a civilized notion. Being vegan includes doing all that is possible in your power to practically avoid supporting industries and practices which deprive animals of a complete & happy life.

It's not new. It's not a fad. It is radical in this day and age, but simply in the same way that labor laws (eg. for children, slaves, sweatshop workers, slaughterhouse workers, etc) were and still are. Exploitation is exploitation.

🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨🌼

[vegance]

the way that anti-vegans absolutely refuse to engage with the fact that veganism is primarily a social justice movement. yes, it has giant environmental + public health benefits, but it is ultimately about the exploitation of animals and humans in the animal ag industry.

"eating eggs is not that bad for the environment" maybe not (though it's still worse than tofu per 1000 kcl), but it's bad for the chicken?

not allowing women to vite might not be bad for the environment either, and has a long tradition i'm sure, but it's still shitty??

[veganfairie]

when talking about veganism and eating disorders, it's people with ed's whose voices should be lifted up. yes, even when they are vegan. veganism is a social justice movement, not a diet. no, sufferers shouldn't try to transition to a plant based diet until they know it's safe, and have talked about it with their doctors or nutritionists. no, not being able to go on a plant based diet doesn't mean you can't be a valid vegan, as in order to be vegan you only need to do what you personally can do. lots of love from a bulimic vegan with vegan friends who still have to rely on animal products because of the situation they are in. we exist so please stop talking over us. please stop erasing us. please stop redefining veganism to mean something it's not. please stop using us as your shield and please research veganism or at least be willing to learn and listen before going into debates and mocking us. the vegan community is kinder to us than you'd think.

[aksemmi]

one thing I will say about animal rights/liberation on this site is that I think it would be useful for animal rights/liberation advocates to brand themselves as this, rather than make veganism the label they fly under - not even because of something like trying to make room for nonvegans necessarily, or because they shouldn't encourage veganism, but because I worry an excessive identification with veganism itself on its own risks missing the point of actual praxis beyond not doing a bad thing, and fails to communicate that animal liberation is a social justice movement, and ends up getting wrapped together with parasitic parareligious health practices

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i used to be vegan and i know that a lot of vegans are super annoying but anti-vegans are so much worse.

no, vegans are not only eating raw vegetables there is a lot of options in the vegan kitchen and no, the food does not „taste bad/like nothing“ have you ever heard about spices and oil? fried onion and garlic?

no, veganism is not a #white people thing. buddhists for example have been practicing veganism for a long time before white hippies started picking up on it in the 60s. the quintessential „vegan“ ingredient tofu comes from asia and is consumed by vegans and non-vegans alike.

yes, modern processed vegan foods and vegan alternatives are not necessarily healthy. for a lot of vegans, health is not their main concern. that also doesnt make a meat based diet healthy in return, especially considering how meat is produced, how chickens are fed antibiotics and whatnot. the average meat eating person will still have a worse diet than the average vegan because they eat all sorts of processed foods and vegans tend to put more emphasis on nutrition.

no, that doesnt mean all vegans are on a healthy diet. vegan junkfood exists and theres even affordable products, like fries and chips, that you can buy.

no, eating and preparing meat is not „manly“ bro you literally went to the supermarket and bought some steak from the freezer, not that hunting is „manly“ but cmon you‘re embarrassing yourself.

no, vegans are not lacking protein, the literal only thing vegans are lacking is vitamin b12 and there‘s supplements for that - still healthier and more nutritious than the average person’s diet.

no, telling people to consider veganism is not racist, because usually vegans who do that are not referring to whatever ethnic group is literally relying on meat consumption, they‘re telling you to maybe cut down on meat, milk and eggs when you buy your groceries.

yes, vegan alternatives tend to be more expensive. no, that does not mean veganism is inherently classist, it means that corporate greed is an issue.

i feel like a lot of the hate on veganism comes from the same people who hate on social justice and „karens“ and even sometimes has misogynistic undertones like meat consumption and bbqing being painted as a #man thing.

that doesn‘t mean that some vegans aren‘t insufferable and the vegan movement doesn‘t have issues with racism and other downfalls, but the criticisms listed above are not among those issues.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Apr 29, 2024

There is no word in the English language more likely to generate heated debates and general bewilderment than “woke”. Those who use the term – as a form of self-identification, a pejorative, or simply as a means to describe a belief-system – tend to do so without consideration of the multiple ways in which it is interpreted.

Only this week, an opinion piece in the Guardian bore the headline “‘Woke’ isn’t dead – it’s entered the mainstream. No wonder the right is furious”. Its author, Gaby Hinsliff, shows no sign of having attempted to understand the various meanings of the term or how it has changed over the years. Even the headline betrays her lack of curiosity. What we call “wokeness” has been promoted by the Conservatives and Labour alike, and so to grapple with this subject in terms of “right” and “left” is to miss the point spectacularly.

In the wake of the Cass Report, Hinsliff understands in some vague way that the lack of evidence of “gender medicine” and the sterilisation of healthy children has come about due to the rise of the “woke” ideology. But she conflates this grotesque medical scandal with the closure of vegan restaurants and the declining popularity of oat milk. This is precisely the kind of semantic confusion that Guardian writers are usually so eager to criticise.

Hinsliff defines woke as “the broader push for social, racial and environmental justice”, but misses an important qualification. To this formulation, it would be accurate to add the words: “by authoritarian means”. For all that the woke movement attracts bullies who can enjoy the mask of virtue, I do not doubt that many of these activists are well-intentioned and genuinely believe that they are fighting for a better world. I too would like to see an end to racism and injustice, but I do not for a moment imagine it is a realistic aim given the imperfectability of human nature, and nor do I suppose that the erosion of free speech and liberal values is the best way to attempt it.

On the contrary, the only successful and provable method of curbing racism and other forms of injustice has been the liberal approach. And this is the very method that the “woke” are so determined to undermine and jettison.

In one sense, Hinsliff is correct. Authoritarianism is becoming more mainstream. The new hate speech law in Scotland, the proposed equivalent in Ireland, the Tory party’s various crackdowns on peaceful protest and the anti-freedom antics of the Canadian government all point to a disturbing trend. All this, of course, has come about because many decent people have been gulled into believing that the woke movement is simply a “broader push for social, racial and environmental justice”.

And given that the stakes could hardly be higher, we do require accessible terminology to describe the fundamental aspects of this ideology that is wreaking so much havoc on the western world. Personally I use “woke” as a descriptive shorthand without pejorative connotations. I do so as a kind of courtesy to all those activists and thinkers who have embraced the term for themselves. Those who claim that the word was invented by the right as a “snarl-word” simply don’t know their own history.

It's not perfect, largely because so few agree on its meaning. In 2021, a survey by the Centre for Policy Studies found that only 37 per cent of respondents understood what “woke” meant. And in a YouGov poll in the same year, 23 per cent of respondents said that they were not “woke’, while 12 per cent said that they were. Of the 59 per cent who claimed to understand what it meant to be “woke”, only a third referred to themselves as such, with more than half rejecting the label.

But how else are we meant to encapsulate this sprawling and complex ideology? It is the new state religion, the creed of the establishment, but without accurately describing it we have no means to hold it to account.

I suppose we have two options. Here’s one way that we might describe this dominant worldview:

“An ideology underpinned by the postmodernist notion that our understanding of reality is wholly constructed through language, and therefore censorship and other authoritarian measures are necessary to reshape society, with an intersectional focus that rejects the traditional Marxist prioritisation of class and economic disparities in favour of a conceptualisation of group identity as the prism through which all analysis must be filtered, with a particular emphasis on a form of standpoint epistemology that asserts there are multiple ‘ways of knowing’ and that the ‘lived experience’ of the marginalised must take precedence over empirical or scientific methodology – which are merely tools of the oppressor class – all of which is predicated upon the Foucauldian notion that society operates on the basis of invisible power structures, and that denials of such structures are evidence of their existence (as anyone who would deny them is likely to be benefiting from the privileges they afford) and that therefore there must be a cultural revolution in order to guarantee equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity, one that will ultimately achieve the wholesale obliteration of ���whiteness’, ‘patriarchy’ and ‘cis-heteronormativity’, in which the parameters of thought and speech are limited to the propagation of the cause, and in which all activities of all branches of the media, the arts and the state must be directed towards that end.”

Or we could just say “woke”.