Stop it.

When I helped run the the “Vegan Circlejerk” Reddit community we were always firmly anti-utilitarian. Utilitarianism is a nonsensical, murderous, carceral, western philosophy that espouses using impossible math to come to conclusions. The wrong way to approach the world is to attempt to do equations and decide on your approach based on nonsense regardless of your intent for the “greater good.” We and the communities I’ve helped moderate have always believed in doing the right thing. Acting in accordance with your belief will bring you the result you want.

After my crew and I stepped down from Reddit, that community was steered towards antinatalism. I am personally against this and want to have this community come to consensus against it as well. I have no right to tell other people what to do with their bodies. For some I believe this philosophy is a way to control women’s bodies and set impossible standards. For others I believe it to be an expression of frustration and depression. Neither of these are in the spirit of abolitionist veganism and it will never become a prerequisite for it. Additionally the antinatalist philosophy is exclusionary to people who already have had kids which, when you get to my age, is most people. The admin of lemmy.vg is the same person who brought this philosophy to the subreddit, I would hope that recent events would encourage them to remove this link. To be clear if you decide having children is not for you that is great. I also came to this conclusion. I also don’t believe everyone who promotes people coming to their own decision is a bad person or doing the wrong thing if that includes not having children. It is when we demand people do not that it becomes problematic.

By extension these other utilitarian adjacent philosophies can be found within our movement and it is time to formally denounce it. The point of veganism and leftism is to promote life, not rally against it. The point of veganism is to elevate all life to the consideration that is supposed to be enjoyed by humans. The point of leftism is to ensure that all humans are elevated to that status too and protect each other. When we adopt philosophies that are anti-life, anti-birth, anti-woman, anti-human we lose touch with this and it is the seed from which ur-fascist thought grows.

What happened in Palm Springs is a tragedy. They were not bringing the fight to capital which oppresses us all, it brought the fight to people we are in solidarity with against capital. It was not bringing the fight to the soldiers of the settler regime, it attacked the entrapped. It was essentially a murder suicide from a depressed person who needed solidarity and community. Our vegan communities are doing a disservice promoting misanthropy to our comrades.

Please if you agree or disagree leave your statement in the comments. Thanks.

  • arcane potato (she/they)@vegantheoryclub.orgEnglish
    6·
    6 days ago

    This is the first I have heard about the incident in Palm Springs. Everything I read about it seems to presume I would know who is against fertility clinics but I can’t figure it out. Would be grateful if someone could clue me in. (I thought that the current flavor of US fascism supported fertility clinics. I know some religions are against it but seems unclear who would do it, especially without a statement.)

    My take differs from what Hamid posted slightly - but it could also be me reading too much into it, lol! I read this statement as presenting life as inherently good an joyful, something to be enjoyed.

    I personally view it as neutral. It just is. It is not inherently good or bad, there is no meaning. But paired with that is a fiery opposition to treating some life as worthless or as a source of commodities. To me, life has no meaning but fuck anyone who tries to impose meaning on any being through their authority. Examples include capitalism (workers lives are to produce value for the capitalist), patriarchy (people who can give birth’s lives are to produce workers), carnism (animal lives are here to extract commodities from). Also fuck everyone who withholds the requirements for life (access to food, water, clean air, community).

    The point of veganism is to elevate all life to the consideration that is supposed to be enjoyed by humans. The point of leftism is to ensure that all humans are elevated to that status too and protect each other.

    This is probably just semantics and me being way too literal in my thinking but the above is where my veganism and leftism is centered and it is so without the idea of “promoting” life. We’re here, we’re alive, and we all deserve to live in peace, comfort and community.

    Utilitarianism assigns value in an arbitrary manner based on the observers values and that’s super wack to me.