Carnivorous Anarchists?

[African_Prince]

Is it possible to be both an anarchist and a carnivore?

In my view, no (unless maybe we're talking about humans who have to hunt and eat other animals to survive. While I don't think they are entitled to do this, it is understandable and I would feel the same way in regards to starving humans who hunted and killed other humans for food during times of extreme drought and famine).

There is no logical or moral reason to regard the interests of humans as being more valid or important than the interests of sentient non-humans. Intelligence is a morally irrelevant trait, we have no reason to believe that less intelligent animals suffer less than more intelligent animals do. If we did, we would have to conclude that adult chickens deserve more ethical consideration that human infants do since the latter are more intelligent than the former are.

[fight_war_not_wars]

I think that it is possible to be an anarchist and to eat meat. I can see both sides of the argument, and I think that both anarchism and vegetarianism are two personal choices. They aren't directly related, but I can see how someone who has an anarchist mind-set would be more likely to be a vegetarian (and vice-versa).

[goingaway]

This question is stupid.

I don't think I can put it much simplier.

[Guest]

why is this question stupid?

[goingaway]

why is this question stupid?

Of course you can eat meat and be an anarchist. Hierarchy between animals can never be broken. In order for anarchism to be a required part of the movement, you'd have to liberate animals. You can free them from farms and laboratories, but as long as the food chain exists, animals rights besides the efficient and painless killing of them, is pointless.

Anarchism is the liberation of humans, not animals.

No one complains when plants are killed.

[fight_war_not_wars]

No one complains when plants are killed.

Great point there! You said what I was trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to say. Although hierarchy isn't a good thing, it's different from a food chain. We need to have a food chain simply because we need to eat. And even if you don't kill animals to eat, you still are killing something that was living. It's impossible to be alive and not be killing something, to put it bluntly.

I still respect vegetarianism/veganism as a choice, but I don't think that it is connected with anarchism. Just because I had chicken for lunch doesn't mean I'm not an anarchist.

[coup-detat]

There are some people that only eat fruit that has naturally fallen off the tree. You are not killing anything then, but you are being ridiculous.

I just ate a sloppy joe and I'm proud of it.

[fight_war_not_wars]

There are some people that only eat fruit that has naturally fallen off the tree. You are not killing anything then, but you are being ridiculous.

Yeah, Fruitarians. It's way overboard in my opinion. Here's their website-- http://www.fruitarian.com/ao/WhatIsFruitarianism.htm

It talks about how fruits "support for the higher form of life so unique in human beings…love…creativity…conscience…" and how you "will not be contaminated by the poisons of the flesh from dead animals" and how you should "Be FREE…become a fruitarian…live in harmony…and experiment every day, strength and protection from the creative force that brought to this "blue planet": water, air, trees, flowers, animals and human beings… the power and "magic" of life …". These are direct quotes too.

To me fruitarianism just seems really unhealthy, since you'd get almost 0 protein.

[jack]

Alright, vegan here, and I'm not an idiot who's going to say ANARKY IS ANIMYL LIBERASHUN, but I'm also not going to let you all be idiots and make bullshit strawman claims.

"Noone complains when plants are killed"

Ah, there's the idiocy I was searching for. What makes you think that a living, blood flowing, breathing, moving, vocal, intellegent being is at all comparable to a fucking lettuce head? What's next? Why I don't care for the asphalt I drive on?

"We need to have a food chain simply because we need to eat. And even if you don't kill animals to eat, you still are killing something that was living. It's impossible to be alive and not be killing something, to put it bluntly."

Way to go, I bet we have legs because we need to walk too? Once again, a plant is not fucking comparable to anything. As far as us "needing" to eat animals, no we don't and I'd like you to cite your sophmoric source. The amount of resources spent on producing meat is seriously 10 fucking times the amount of nutrition you actually get for the food (11lbs of grain for 1lb of meat, thousands of gallons of water etc).

Anyways, with Communism production of meat will definitely decline and be ebbed away largely. Because with a planned economy the amount of resources necssary to put into meat production would not be sustainable to support. Thus, a more plant based diet and agricultural system would be adopted because it's more efficient and requires less labor. It's common sense, would you rather work for 10 hours to get something with just a different taste than what you could get for working one hour?

[AndyMalroes]

It's common sense, would you rather work for 10 hours to get something with just a different taste than what you could get for working one hour?

Seriously, I probably would...I just fuckin' love to eat meat!

[fight_war_not_wars]

What makes you think that a living, blood flowing, breathing, moving, vocal, intellegent being is at all comparable to a fucking lettuce head?

See, it's where you say "living" that the discussion comes into play. Even though they don't move "fucking lettuce heads" are/were living. Anyways, by saying "no one complains when plants are killed," I don't think that he was as much making a comment against vegetarianism/veganism, as much as making a comment against those who say that anarchists have to be vegetarians. Well, at least that was my interpretation of the plant killing comment.

[raylene86]

I guess I sort of have a side question plus a comment. First, why does the inability to break hierarchy between OTHER animals mean human animals should participate in the killing of animals for food? Second, does the fact that we often use factory farming in countries like the US put a different imperative upon us than people who kill their animals for food on their own?

And my comment is that I think it's important to note that veganism is pretty much a privilege in the current system (at least in the US). The cost of food makes it so that being a vegan in the US is very expensive if one expects to get adequate nourishment; grains tend to be cheap, vegetables not so much. I find this interesting since I've had people tell me that in some places VEGATABLES are what's cheap and MEAT is what's expensive. Then, factor in the issue of location: in a lot of urban areas, it's damn near impossible to find food that's NOT from a convenience store (likely NOT to be vegan OR nutritious). For me personally, I feel like if one can financially afford to be vegan, one probably should, although I can't look down my nose at someone who ISN'T because not everyone is equally able to do it. At the same time, I feel like expecting people to be vegans means we should provide incentives/venues to becoming a vegan in light of the fact that lots of people just aren't able to afford it or can't access the food.

[vaguelyhumanoid]

I eat (organic) meat because I'm on a very strict, medically required diet that doesn't allow any sort of grains. However, I also eat a lot of other foods like nuts, apples and seeds, so that makes me omnivorous, not carnivorous.

[obviously-bias]

I literally only came on here to discuss this topic, so forgive me if my overall knowledge of anarchy is weak.

But first of, I really don't think Anarchy is the worker's movement. That's really more of what socialism and Communism claim to be. Really what you're looking at is two separate groups of anarchists. The first group are anti-state people, and I guess free-market anarchists, or anarcho-libertarian. I have no pro-vegan argument relating to anarchy for them. But I feel like a good bit of people on this board would not consider a super-libertarian an anarchist. I feel like most that would Identify as an anarchist are also super anti-capitalist. If you are an anti-capitalist, then you should not buy any animal products. I guess if you live on a commune and you obtain a cow from a sanctuary or something and you milk it yourselves, or you have some sort of self sustaining farm, you could still be anti-capitalist.

But other than that, unless you dumpster dive for all your non-vegan food, you are supporting the biggest, most corrupt corporations in existence. And even worse, think of all the ties that the industry has to the government?

The government controls the price of meat through subsidizing, and many leaders in the government either own, or hold stock in meat companies.

I'm not an anarchist, but I'm also not trying to cheapen or mock your way of life. I just think that if you are going to be anti-capitalist, you need to stop supporting the animal industry.

[Anomie]

I'm not sure what's up with all of this mambo-jumbo on vegan principles. The issue is as simple as it gets:

All animals have the right to harm others for survival. Humans are animals. Humans do not require animal products, so humans do not need to harm other animals for survival.
Doing so is childish, anthropocentric and promotes discrimination based on inherited traits of all living beings, including humans. Of course, you are free to be as ignorant and as immature as you wish, when it comes to your actions. But do not dare call yourself an anarchist. Anarchism is an issue of consciousness/awareness.

The only point of veganism is to not inflict any needless harm on the world around you. I happen to believe that any person that consumes animal products because of being in a situation that requires them to do so can call themselves vegan, as long as they don't harm what is around them without doing so for survival. Anarchism that doesn't follow vegan principles is simply a mindless form of terribilism.

Now, to address the ramifications that have been discussed in this topic:

Humans are animals. We belong to the Kingdom Animalia. I hope we finally have that issue settled.

If anarchism is a workers movement, then feminism is a butch's movement. Just sit down or go home.

Harming other beings without doing so for survival is not a personal choice. Otherwise, randomly murdering a person would be also considered a personal choice that you are free to make.

Plants are required for our survival. I will never blame a lion for viciously murdering a zebra. I will never blame a person that has to hunt rats for survival. I will, however, blame a privileged person that promotes discrimination, indoctrination, consumerism, human slavery, worker abuse, extensive pollution, famine, etc. without doing these actions to survive.

Meat is unnecessary already. We don't need to grow it in vitro.

Veganism is not perfect and being a vegan does not make you an anarchist. You still support big companies, you probably still buy highly processed food products and you probably still use other non-animal products that are harmful. For example, we have the issue of palm oil: not an animal product. But it's not vegan either. You get the idea.

You don't vomit after eating meat because you cook it. If you can't eat something raw, then you weren't meant to eat that thing.

Veganism is not about animal rights. Veganism is about egalitarianism, refusal of ethical and legal hypocrisy and, shockingly, human rights.

Being vegan is less of a consumer activity because of the resources that were needed to produce the products. We grow food and use most of it to grow another type of food (animal), which ends up being less. It's a needless waste of resources.

We are over seven billion humans on this planet. The only way to produce enough meat for all of us is factory farming. You cannot eliminate factory farming without eliminating meat consumption.

Rape is just as natural as meat eating. So who's first?

There are tribes that have been living on vegan diets for over 5000 years. Saying people cannot live on a vegan diet is simply ridiculous.

Cows are social animals. They form bonds with other cows and animals of different species. Of course they participate in society, but your little indoctrinated brain cannot possibly comprehend anything that is not "usual" and "conformist".

I heard that human meat happens to be a particularly tasty meat type. If enjoying food is more important than critical issues of many, many kinds, then please, remove yourself from this plane of existence and never return.

Again, this is not an issue of how "natural" a certain action is, but how hypocritical it is.

No, killing a sunflower is not the same as killing a pig. Poor sunflower, sure. But I don't give a rat's arse about it. You know why? Because I need it for survival. I need plants to live. It's my right, as a living being on this planet, to do whatever I need to survive. Eating animal products is not one of those things. If I truly cared about animals in the way that you think, I'd be in the wilderness, saving rabbits from foxes. You're the one being ridiculous here.

Bees feel pain. Go home.

Peasants thought of veganism, of course. As mentioned previously, there are tribes living exclusively on vegan diets. Furthermore, my old, poor aunt, living in the Romanian countryside just became a vegetarian. Simply because she found it ridiculous to kill a creature for something that she didn't require. Also, I happen to know homeless people that follow a vegan diet. But that's beside the point.

Anyone who doesn't eat meat doesn't deserve any food? Talk about elitist losers.

Anarchism is not just about state control. But yes, it is related to the animal industry.

I find the life of a chicken to be just as valuable as the life of a human. If I'd save a human, I'd save a chicken. If I wouldn't save a human, I wouldn't save a chicken. Easy.

Adolf Hitler was not even a vegetarian. GO HOME.

You're implying that a person cannot possibly feel compassionate towards more than one species. But again, veganarchism is not about compassion. Funny that I used that term, I usually chose to reject it. Veganism is a part of anarchism. It doesn't need a special name.

hol·o·caust (hl-kôst, hl-)
n.
1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.
2.
a. Holocaust The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II: "Israel emerged from the Holocaust and is defined in relation to that catastrophe" (Emanuel Litvinoff).
b. A massive slaughter: "an important document in the so-far sketchy annals of the Cambodian holocaust" (Rod Nordland).
3. A sacrificial offering that is consumed entirely by flames.
I will not stop making relevant points only because you feel uncomfortable. Animal slaughter is a holocaust by definition.


And that's about it. I didn't quote any of the things I responded to because I'm lazy. Sue me.

And in response to the original question:

No, you cannot be a proper anarchist without following vegan principles.
Yes, you can be a vegan without being an anarchist, so my anarchistic side is not sympathetic towards all vegans.