vegan in suburbia

yackattack:

vegansaurus:

We had a post the other day about veggies being cheaper than people acknowledged, and it garnered some responses that called it insensitive to greater structures of food politics. We know the cost of food isn’t the sole determiner in the diet of many people, but the fact remains that many…

I absolutely love this post from Vegansauras, regarding the cost of fruits/veggies vs. other foods graph that they posted recently. Bravo, to you!

veganasfuck:

Not because:

• meat and animal products are super healthy
• vegans are mean and you don’t want to be associated with them
• you’d die without meat
• you only get organic meat that was humanely killed
• you/someone you know were raised on a farm so you know how it REALLY is
• veganism is SO expensive. 

Why you’re REALLY not vegan:

Because you’re entirely desensitized to any form of violence, and cruelty that does not directly impact your life. You hate vegans, not because we are pushy and promoting an unhealthy diet, but because we make you see things you try so hard to pretend aren’t real. You put more effort into pretending to care about animals enough to only get ‘humanely slaughtered’. Because you’re afraid that if you do care, you’ll have to CHANGE the life you’ve become accustomed to. That’s why you remain IGNORANT or indifferent. Because you’re afraid. And it’s selfish, and pathetic. 

thebourgeoisiehobo:

Philosophy and Omnivorism are not good friends, and if you’re chummy with philosophy, you might want to burn the bridge between you and meat eating (or else things will just be awkward at parties).

To start, let’s look at a list of some philosophers in the past who were allegedly vegetarians/vegans (it’s hard to tell since vegetarian used to mean vegan but the word vegan did not exist until 1940’s) within their lifetime: Confucius, Apollonius of Tyana, Daumer, Aristotle, Empedocles, Plato, Plutarch, Pythagoras, Socrates, Theophrastus, Jiddu Krishnamurti, (Tolstoy is counted as a key figure in philosophy to some and is also on the list of veg*ns, as well as Kafka) Quintus Sextius, Bernard de Mandeville, and Thoreau (among many others that would take too long to list).

It would seem that some of the bases of philosophy, derived from the more historically noted above, would lean heavily towards veg*nism. Many (greek philosophies especially) will find non-vegetarianism to be an immoral position.

I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual development to leave off the eating of animals.

- Thoreau

The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind; but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species and these will flow from the breast of a true man, as streams that issue from the living fountain.

- Plutarch

The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds.

- Plato

Exploring in areas of philosophy, I find that deontology, utilitarian ethics, virtue ethics all to be more applicable to the ideal of veganism/vegetarianism than to omnivorism: deontology with the moral duty not to kill, utilitarian ethics with the maximizing of utility for all (or better, to at least minimize all forms of disutility/suffering, which is usually more important to utilitarians or else you create a system of mere pleasure seeking, i.e. hedonism), and the virtue of being strong in your actions but not using them to cause excessive harm.

Existentialism places the responsibility of the choice on the individual who has acted, and thus people buying meat in the grocery stores would have to own up to the fact that they themselves are contributing to the death of an animal. It doesn’t outright say “don’t do this” it just merely states “you pay for the crime/good deed, you’ve done the crime/good deed. This is you.” (“In choosing his ethics, he makes himself, and the force of circumstances is such that he cannot abstain from choosing”). In choosing to pay for the death of another animal, what does that make you? Certainly not the innocent bystander. 

Naturalism, non-maleficence, and Universalizability are all deeply rooted in the idea that no amount of unnecessary harm is ethical. 

Most philosophical theories are altruistic, with egoism and relativism sitting on the outlines of moral philosophy like that child who hasn’t learned to share his toys or get along with others yet. That child is the philosopher who would support non-vegetarianism