RE: FNB reeks of speciesism

[Guest guest]

I've been vegetarian since before it became popular,

and I've been a member of the North American Vegetarian

since around the time that Peter Singer had written his book,

which is before the movement gained speed in the USA.

 

The longtime vegetarians I knew were involved in

natural hygiene as the " science " through which

they addressed their practical concerns for health

as ethical vegetarians, and it worked quite well --

and they got good value for their money at the

various annual vegetarian conferences where

they heard medical, nutritional, and other educational

lectures and renewed old vegetarian acquaintances.

 

At that time, it was rare to find a local vegetarian society

outside Philadelphia, New York City, Washington DC, or Florida,

but today there are generic vegetarian groups all over North America.

www./NAVS-online.org

 

While the North American vegetarian movement joined with

the International Vegetarian Union and acknowledged the

legitimacy of religious contributions to vegetarianism,

they also oversaw the broader development and not only

outlined all the various reasons for shifting towards plant-based

diets, but also placed them into some common framework

and encouraged each one of them, both individually and

collectively, as part of a potential package for everyone.

 

Family life for vegetarians was also encouraged,

acknowledging also that vegetarians might have

some limitations around mate selection and

challenges around their social interfaces with

the rest of the world.

 

Also, during that time we found a great deal of

camaraderie with the religious vegetarians,

including the Seventh Day Adventists in the USA.

 

Vegetarians as I recall them were a meek but not

week people -- not weak intellectually or physically,

but they did, in my opinion, tend to be people who

related well in an array of intellectual areas --

speculating in areas where they had insufficient

knowledge to offer expert opinions, and hungering

to answer questions with one presumed expert

after another, drinking in presentation after presentation,

supporting countercultural ideas in various areas,

but often demonstrating their own grass roots

skills in solving one practical problem after another.

 

The vegetarian movement we see today at

NAVS Summerfests, I think, seems both atypical

of the diversity we see in the vegetarian community

at large, in that only a handful of persons attend.

600-900 vegetarians is a very small amount when

compared with 5-15 million vegetarians in the USA,

depending on your statistical source.

 

Except for the World Vegetarian Congresses,

I had never met a Jain at a NAVS Summerfest until

1996 -- and only before that in Boston through the

Boston Vegetarian Society -- but hardly a joiner,

and no less cliquish than the Seventh Day Adventists

and the fruitarians have shown themselves to be.

 

But the " North-Americentric " viewpoint is hardly the

global vegetarian movement, as Brian Burch has

shown himself to be.

 

But, if we ARE going to look at the Jains as an ethical

model, as the late Jay Dinshah of the American Vegan Society

(and his wife Freya and his brothers Dinshah) showed us how

to do, we would still find it deeply objectionable to write a blank

check to every countercultural protovegetarian who stabs the

value system in the back in every needless act of violence

towards nonhumans.

 

So, yes, if our thoughts are being read by others with

little real commitment to plant-based diets, and perhaps

even a benevolent disregard of the suffering of nonhumans,

perhaps we opine that we wish to be welcomed by them

because our needs are intertwined with theirs.

 

Such is modern life, but so is every other aspect of

modern life, including the ISP and phone service,

the public transportation and agricultural systems,

the language and social protocols, and the very

institutions of inventive industrialization, where

no one of us writes the rules or has much control

when the system begins to topple in one destructive

direction or the other.

 

Complain as we will, we're not alone in finding stress

in a system in which the optimization is only an

empty term.

 

But the " communities of value " in this species,

in this " world " , are largely communities in which

the opinions of fellow human beings are consulted,

but seldom, except in extremely rare cases, are

nonhumans " consulted " or their deep longterm

interests considered.

 

And, by definition, that IS speciesism - by default,

since the only concerns we consider are our own

and those sufficiently like us for us to reckon with them.

 

Alternatively, if we ARE shifting our attention from the

West to the East, it is quite challenging to overlook

the waves of immigrants from those regions we're trying

to consider as profoundly different from our own in

values, orientations, gestalts, practices, and eco-ethics.

Who hasn't noticed the waves of Asians and Indians and

Africans who move into both the culture and the economy

of the Western peoples who accept their immigration --

absorbing everything we didn't like and forgetting all

those dear traditions we may have hoped would be

our hope and future?

 

The notion of a meat-eating Hindu or Buddhist is

not welcomed by those who really BELIEVE that

all persons have inherent worth, regardless of their

genetics. The difficulty, I think, is for humanitarian

Euro-Americans to challenge newcomers of other

continents to forsake the waywardness of other

Euro-Americans, when all the nonwhite influx

can seem to see is this vast Euro-American ocean,

fully devoid of any moral issues which have not

already cast into institutional form through

religious community, educational institution,

political cause, or sociological mores.

 

For them, as for most Euro-Americans,

a social dissident is just that -- a social dissident,

only a " blip on the screen " of a massive collage

of acquiescent consensus on the relative

" rightness " of doing what successful economies

have always done, despite occasional " discontent " .

 

Maynard S. Clark

 

At 06:23 PM 9/5/00 -0400, Brian Burch wrote:

>Prior to the rise of animal rights/vegetarianism as a major movement

>in the late 70s and early 80s, all of the vegetarians I met were either

>from South East Asia or from Latin America. The Jains, for example,

>and certainly people from the Hindu and Buddhist communities have

>certainly provided examples of the way to live successfully and happily

>as a vegetarian. Try not to be Eurocentric in assuming that vegetarianism

>is primarily a western phenomena.

[Guest guest]

The Dalai Lama, if you have been actually FOLLOWING

the man and his escapades and other adventures,

is featured as the guest of honor, and is offered

a gourmet vegetarian (actually vegan) meal.

 

He chides the host organization and asks, instead,

for a meat meal.

 

That doesn't fit ANY of the pleas that anyone of

the Dalai Lama's defenders have offered.

 

Our view is that the Dalai Lama's featured behavior

here is fully indefensible.

 

 

At 02:59 PM 9/5/00 -0600, Elizabeth L Swigger (S) wrote:

>

>

>A farmer in a third world country has a tiny plot of land and makes beef

>stew to feed his family of four. How dare he! He's truly speciesist in the

>worst way!

>

>You're traveling in a foreign country. Some native people invite you into

>their home for a cooked meal. It's chicken. Throw down your napkin and walk

>away! Anarchy for all species!

>

>Get a clue, you eurocentric weepers.

>

>vegetarian but not self-righteous.

>

>

>

>RudeBoyALF

>fnb-l

>9/5/2000 2:31 PM

>Re: [FNB-L] FNB reeks of speciesism

>

>In a message dated 09/05/2000 4:38:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

>BLDonnell writes:

>

><< given some historical perspective on the whole thing, I bet it's

>still

> possible for the dalai lama to eat meat every now and then and still be

>a

> leader worth listening to. >>

>

>yea..although i have less respect for people who eat meat..i don't think

>that

>invalidates them from being good people and doing good things..i bet

>most of

>the famous anarchists were meat eaters..all this means is that we

>shouldn't

>idolize people but rather learn from them..

>

> (A)Blake(E)

>

> vegetarian, nonviolence, consensus

>-Food Not Bombs List fnb-l

>-distributing food in opposition to violence

>-archive: http://archive.foodnotbombs.ca

>-active cities: http://webcom.com/peace

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>

> vegetarian, nonviolence, consensus

>-Food Not Bombs List fnb-l

>-distributing food in opposition to violence

>-archive: http://archive.foodnotbombs.ca

>-active cities: http://webcom.com/peace

>-send '(un) fnb-l' to lists