Is Vegan Vegan?

Is Vegan Vegan? 

A Partial Discussion in Vegan Anarchist Primitivist group

top post:
“This is why I do not call myself a vegan — because veganism promotes the lie that agriculture is “cruelty free” so long as we don’t raise animals to eat. Veganism is to wildlife what lacto-ovo vegetarianism is to dairy cows, laying hens, and honeybees.”
Adam

comments:

Francisco: Of course veganism is not perfect, but the comparison is way off.  We can lead vegan lifestyle without affecting wild animals.

Ria: Francisco – how has agriculture impacted wildlife habitats? Impacted the human ethos that it’s ok to keep hoarding the homes we stole from wildlife when we shifted from foraging within wild communities to separating ourselves out of them?

Francisco: Ria – nowadays there are ways of coexisting with wildlife and grow food.

Ria: Francisco – yeah, I can feel that happening as a transition until we get our numbers down enough to shed our supremacist ways. If H ‘sapiens’ is smart enough to have a gentle shift returning to a thriving biodiversity, but in which we re-embed ourselves.

Liberty: Ria – most of the agriculture now is necessary to sustain the meat industry…

Ria: Liberty – true. Why do vegans keep holding so tightly to such a bad habit that’s so harmful to earth & inhabitants? We stuck?

Francy: Ria – Any food gathering methods will make a huge negative impact as long as our population is so high. I’m not convinced that foraging is any less impactful than thoughtful, considerate, small scale gardening/orcharding, but I know that animal farming, even done on smaller family farms, has a larger negative impact than both of these.

Adam: Liberty – Sure, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. But vegans always bring that up in this context as a means of deflection. It’s like a lacto-ovo saying to a vegan, “the broiler industry kills the most chickens” to avoid talking about the horrific cruelty of the egg industry.

Adam: Francy – Depends on what the animals are fed. For example, hogs fed on scraps and pastured poultry likely have a lower overall impact. I reject these because I don’t condone commodifying animals’ bodies for food. I agree with you that our population automatically means massive  resource theft from wild creatures and support reducing our population size. Foraging makes that easier than ag, because it encourages us to populate relative to our available food supply rather than the opposite. But realistically, I think some growing of food would be necessary transitionally — ideally a combination of veganic permaculture and food forestry.

Adam: Ria – Vegans are mostly just as committed to human supremacy as meat eaters. They still want humans to rule the world. They still want to continue a way of life based on the destruction of wild places and creatures. They just would rather not be reminded of their complicity in violence with something as on the nose as an animal corpse or secretion on their plate.

Francy: Adam – that’s painting with a REALLY wide brush in my point of view.

Ria: Francy – can you say more about the negative impacts of foraging? In today’s world where so much wild has been degraded and razed, and humans have overpopulated most of the land, it makes sense to replace lawns, etc with gardens and leave wilder remnants to heal until things are more in balance. With exceptions such as foraging colonizer introduced aggressive species as a means of restoring ecology.

Adam: Francisco – Not with agriculture we can’t. Vegans tend to be oblivious to the level of harm plant ag causes to wildlife or speciesist to the point where they don’t consider invertebrates — by far the greatest victims of plant ag — animals. Plant ag is responsible for vastly more deaths of wild creatures than the dairy and egg industries cause to cows and hens.

Eeton: I second Francy… why do I keep seeing veganism (as if a monolith) being equated with human supremacy/agriculture? There are many openly self-identifying anti-civ vegans openly critical of agriculture. 

Adam: Eeton – Honestly? Perhaps it’s a matter of semantics, but I see “anti-civ vegan” as an oxymoron. Veganism has through it’s entire history, promoted the notion that animal-based foods are products of exploitation, but the products of plant-agriculture are humane, cruelty-free, eco-friendly, sustainable, etc. I can respect veganism as a sort of lesser evilism vs. industrial animal ag and industrial fishing, but I don’t see it as having anything in common with an anti-ag and anti-civ perspective.  “Anti-civ veganism” feels so fundamentally at odds with the message that veganism has spent the last seven-plus decades promoting — one that looks at globally traded, capitalist agricultural production and mass produced factory created foods, a food system of pesticides, plantation land clearing, fish-killing chemical fertilizers, labor exploitation, managed bee exploitation, imperialism, biological warfare (deliberately introduced diseases, predators, and parasites euphemistically called “biological controls”), shooting, trapping,  wanton destruction,  displacement of wildife and indigenous communities and calls it all “cruelty free” and “ethical” and outright lies with slogans like “no animal had to die for me to eat.” 
Vegans tout veganism’s extension beyond food as one of its strengths in comparison to vegetarianism, but that only makes its omissions even more egregious.  How is it “anti-specieisist” to not actively condemn paper and wood and rayon  production? Human rights groups consider human home demolitions an atrocity. Why is this any less true when we destroy animals’ homes — particularly considering that many of them die horribly in the felling, milling, chipping, and pulping of trees. If veganism is truly committed to animal liberation, where is its condemnation of mountaintop removal, road creation, oil extraction, open pit and strip mining, the use of vehicles that collide into animals, habitat-destroying sprawl, etc? Why does it not have a critique of packaging and a commitment to zero waste?
It used to be the norm for veganism to be considered a form of vegetarianism. Vegans would often just call themselves vegetarians, because veganism wasn’t a well-known word. But newer vegans, people who have become vegan in a world where veganism is a widely known concept, tend to reject this frame. They refuse to be placed under a broad umbrella that leaves room for the consumption of eggs, dairy, and honey and for wearing wool and down by not explicitly rejecting them. They do not accept that vegetarianism can encompass lacto-ovo vegetarianism plus veganism, because they feel that to take no position on the horrors of dairy and egg production (etc.) is to suggest that these things CAN have legitimacy, that they are not beyond the pale. 
I’m suggesting that we should take the same position on veganism — that it should be judged as much by what it allows as by what it restricts and condemns. And I feel that a truly holistic anti-oppression position, one that actively rejects all the ways that civilization and agricultural society harms the planet, animals, and our fellow human being is so far from veganism that it warrants entirely different words. I’m not a big fan of creating labels and group identifying terminology, and I get that “vegan primitivist” and “anti-civ vegan” are attempts to bring together two things in a way that speaks to what’s missing in both, but I feel that what we are advocating is so far from the illusions that veganism promotes that it feels absurd to me to stick to that term. 
And anyway, I think veganism’s emphasis on animal body consumption vs. minimizing harm misses the point. Personally, I have no desire to consume a chicken’s leg, but I think it’s far more ethical, for example, to eat animal products from a dumpster than to buy agriculturally produced plant foods. My only moral concern about foraging roadkill or other carrion is the risk of harming animal parasites who might be happily living on those carcasses. I think vegetarianism/veganism’s dogmatic fixation on avoiding body/secretion consumption comes at the expense of a holistic focus on minimizing harm to animals, the planet, and other human beings. They’re absolutist about one tiny sliver of the problem — even where their actions contribute not at all to oppression —  and then ignore everything else. 
I thing veganism may have its place as a pragmatic lifestyle reform movement, but primitivism/anti-civ is hardly a pragmatic stance; it’s a radical, visionary position and thus aligns poorly with veganism. I think challenging anti-civ/primitivist communities by identifying as anti-speciesist primitivists or animal liberationist primitivists or whatever makes sense, but I think we’re much better off without all the baggage that veganism bring along with it.

Jack: Adam – Lotsa great perspectives you express. Yup, most vegans stop at the low-hanging fruit, and fail to take the fundamental message of it to its logical extensions. As do all the other -isms that have good intentions but stop short, in a protection of what they hold near and dear- the addiction to civ and its spoils. Yet, what we broadly brush as veganism only speaks to the mainstream of it. I want to think that authentic veganism does go exactly to where we say it needs to go, and that there are plenty who do, like most in this group here. The mainstream of it is no different from the mainstream of many burgeoining movements struggling in good faith, but failed vision, to bring about a healed Earth. They all have their cutting edge, but dull centers where most reside.

Adam: Jack – I look at it this way — the practice of veganism long precedes the Watson’s invention of the term. The dairy-free vegetarians has long had a place within the Vegetarian Society, to the point where Donald Watson’s original idea was to have a section for them in the Vegetarian Society magazine rather than to start a separate newsletter. By creating the word vegan, the Watson’s made it clear that they were embarking on a new and distinct project, one that was an extension of vegetarianism, but also in many regards distinct, a game changer. I think the gulf between what us and vegans is more vast that the distinction between lacto-ovo vegetarians and vegans and thus do not feel “anti-civ vegans” does justice to that vast paradigm shift any more than “dairy free vegetarians” does justice to veganism.

Jack: Adam – I guess we need to redefine the word, into what it expands to, rather than give it up to those who limit its meaning.

Adam: Jack – Why not just come up with new language that better expresses our views?

Eeton: Adam, yes honestly, and no disrespect but I think you interpret “anti-civ vegan” as an oxymoron because you have very little experience with anti-civ vegans off the internet? That is my guess? There are far more leftist anti-vegans in direct response to the fact that many anarchist vegans are anti-civ. I can’t help but think your interpretation of veganism is solely dictated by mainstream veganism – which does not represent anti-authoritarian vegans. I am not accusing you of this so please don’t take it the wrong way but based on my experiences debating many anti-vegan anti-civers, there seems to be a fixation on veganism being equated with mainstream liberalism. And I find myself repeating the same thing: Yes, there are vegans who are critical of agriculture and civilization because we recognize that it is in fact perfectly easy to sustain a vegan diet through foraging etc. From a logically consistent point of view, veganism/animal liberation requires the destruction of civilization in order to ensure genuine earth and animal liberation. I know plenty of vegan anti-civ anarchists personally offline, which is where I spend the majority of my time. 
In response to this “I feel what we are advocating is so far from the illusions that veganism promotes that it feels absurd for me to stick to that term”, to each their own. Personally, for me, I feel it is absurd to surrender a word that has the power to wreck normalized traditions and cultures centered around animal exploitation and consumption. I feel it is absurd to surrender a word simply because a majority does not extend veganism to the logical conclusion of anti-civ. It isn’t my fault so many haven’t come this far. But this is also a trap of identity politics. The “vegan movement” is not a monolith. Never was. Nobody *owns* the word vegan. So why would I surrender it to them as if they have a monopoly on it? I used to be a liberal vegan. I used to be pro-civ. I no longer am, partially because an anti-civ vegan friend helped me understand the necessity of civilized collapse. And that was about 10 years ago. 
Could you honestly say liberal vegans are incapable of coming to the same anti-civ conclusion? People are not *fixed*. They grow and learn. This group is an example of vegans who most likely have come from that experience. So no, I remain defiant as a vegan, in the face of liberals as well as in the face of anti civ anti vegans lol
In response to your comment on veganism being dogmatic, I hear that alot from people who miss the fundamental point of veganism: it is not a diet. It is not just an ideology. It is the *acknowledgement* that other animals are *not* food items to consume. They only are due to the civilizing conditioning that portrays them are objects. Veganism, at its most basic meaning, is the rejection of that commodity status imposed on non-human animals. Either you acknowledge they are not food, or you don’t. Either raping someone is ever Ok, or it is not. Either discriminating against someone based on race is ever Ok, or it is not. Personally, as a nihilist it is less of a morality and more of an understanding that control and domination is the root of oppression. And given the choice to participate or not, I refuse. I reject those practices – including viewing other animals as mere objects for my control and domination. Civilization is the prisoning embodiment of control and domination, and therefore I reject it. And I personally give no fucks about what the “majority” of vegans think or do because I am also an individualist. I am capable of deciding and acting for myself regardless of what “the group” thinks. 
Last but not least, I personally enjoy that vegan anti-civ makes anti-civ non-vegans or liberal vegans uncomfortable. The struggle is called a struggle because its not easy. Anarchy is not easy because it requires the inter-reflection and personal emancipation from the comfort awarded to authoritarian conformity. The only “baggage” I see with veganism is the idea that we, as anti-civ people, must allow liberals a monopoly on terms. Why? Should I allow leftists to take from me the word “anarchist” since I am embarrassed by their fixation on the spanish revolution, refusing to get with the times and recognize industrial collapse as a form of revolt? Naw. I am an anarchist vegan openly and joyfully against civilization, agriculture and any and all excuses that justify the control and domination of other animals 🙂

Adam: Eeton – “Adam, yes honestly, and no disrespect but I think you interpret “anti-civ vegan” as an oxymoron because you have very little experience with anti-civ vegans off the internet? That is my guess? “
No. It’s because veganism from its inception never included a commitment to ending human supremacy. It’s unclear to what degree veganism ever really was intended as a radical rejection of the commodification of animals, but it never was a rejection of the settler-colonial project that is agriculture and civliization. It never viewed roads cities, energy production, commodity production, farms, cities, etc. as inherently violent, as evidence of 10,000 years of conquest. It never envisioned a struggle to liberate the world from the empire of totalitarian agriculture and civilization. Donald Watson never in any way indicated that through vegan eyes, London was a forest waiting to grow anew, that every inch of stolen land should be returned to the biotic commons in time. 
To try to call this project veganism, even with modifiers, feels akin to describing anarcho-primitivism as anti-civ liberalism. Yes, classical liberalism was an advance over feudalism, but the scope of vision and objectives of our project is many light years beyond that advance that it feels absurd to try to hang onto to terminology that has outlived its usefulness for us. 
It’s not that consumerist, pro-capitalist liberals came in and corrupted veganism. There may be some truth to that, but really veganism was never all that radical in the first place. Yes, it was a step forward, but so was vegetarianism over meat eating. 
Vegans don’t call themselves anti-dairy vegetarians because they view their project as fundamentally different than vegetarianism. They are not only rejecting killing animals and eating them, but also commodifying and exploiting them. 
Similarly, calling our project anti-civ veganism attaches us to terminology that doesn’t acknowlege the radical step forward our perspective represents. We aren’t just rejecting the commodification of animal bodies. We’re rejecting the commodification of the biotic community and the land base, asserting that animals have a right not only to not be exploited, but to live freely on their own terms within living communities not distorted to our advantage, that they have the right to live in a world unchained, a world where pavement no longer chokes the life out of the land, a world where one rapacious species no longer wounds the planet in search of consumable resources.  The vegan project leaves human supremacy intact, but merely suggests that we should not take prisoners along the way. Our project is the destruction of human supremacy, as both ideology and material reality.

Eeton: So do you come up with a new language for everything? Because whether it is “anarchist”, “vegan” or “anti-civ” there will always be those who don’t arrive at their logical conclusions. Why do all that extra work? Just own it. And when people make the assumption you are a liberal, use that as an opportunity to explain the difference. Why let them hold a monopoly on “vegan”? I get the sense that you just don’t like the word “vegan” because it is too controversial or confrontational with “anti-civ” non-vegans (the ones who would call you a liberal since they fundamentally misunderstand veganism). I could be wrong though, maybe you just don’t wanna be called a vegan. *shrugs* 

Eeton: “I guess we need to redefine the word, into what it expands to, rather than give it up to those who limit its meaning.”
Exactly. Nice and simply put Jack!

Eeton: Adam, veganism from its inception held the position of refusing to view and treat other animals as objects to exploit and consume. Just because the creator of veganism didn’t, in his limited time on the earth, have the foresight to recognize civilization as an equal enemy of other animals doesn’t mean that individuals like you and I can’t. So here we are. The foundational purpose of veganism doesn’t change, does it Adam? It is on us to see and extend the concept of veganism to its logical conclusion. We are at war, are we not? Why surrender a weapon rather than improve it? Why surrender a gun rather than extend its full potential? 
It seems to me the reason you struggle to acknowledge the anti-civ project as a vegan one is because, similar to identity politics, you *fix* veganism in place. You have fundamentally *essentialized* it with liberalism. And so therefore, you disallow yourself to accept veganism as anything than liberalism…
Speaking of all that radical, does anything you identify with *begin* as “all that radical”? Should we reject “anarchist” too since it failed to acknowledge industrial civilization as an enemy? This is why there is anarchism and “green anarchy” or anti-civ. But “anarchy” defined as *anti-authoritarian* does not change does it? We, anti-civ weirdos, merely extend it to its logical conclusion. Am I incorrect? And as a matter of fact, veganism is pretty radical lol. Have you read the story of Donald Watson? The Vegetarian Society literally rejected him and veganism on the basis that it was viewed as “extreme” and “anti-social”. Not to forget that veganism challenges the root of animal exploitation and consumption: their social status as mere “commodities”. You don’t consider that radical? Veganism: the rejection of other animals as food items and Anarchy: the rejection of all authority, are almost one in the same. They both lead to the same logical conclusion 🙂
Speaking of radical step forwards, am I the only one here who considers anarchy including veganism a radical step forward? When traditional anarchism includes ecology is that not a “root” step forward?
I almost agreed with everything in your last paragraph but it ends with the same problem I have been pointing out: “The vegan project leaves human supremacy intact” – that is a sweeping generalization lol. It *continues* to assume veganism is stuck as merely a liberal concept. No, it is not, as clearly seen and demonstrated by anti-civ vegans in this group. 
Yes, I whole-heartedly agree – “Our project is the destruction of human supremacy, as both ideology and material reality” – veganism is the materialized practice of rejecting the enslavement, exploitation and consumption of other animals. This is why when I hear anti-civ non-vegans ironically speak of “praxis” or “anarchy in practice” I giggle. Veganism is the most basic, individualistic form of rebellion against white supremacy…the building blocks toward total liberation!

Adam: Eeton – “Why surrender a weapon rather than improve it? Why surrender a gun rather than extend its full potential?”
In what way is veganism a weapon? I think you’re fetishizing and romanticizing the term. It has no special power. It’s not inspiring. It was pretty much a nonsense word invented as a placeholder. Now, animal liberation is actually powerful language. It’s evocative. It conjures images. It challenges us to envision a future. It demands action. “Vegan” is just: “What should we call it? I dunno, what if we just shorten vegetarian?” 
Also, I think you may have a distorted sense of veganism’s original intent. It really wasn’t all that radical: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTx_d8pau3c
http://vegansociety.today/

Adam: Veganism speaks to a particular fixed praxis, one that is obsolete. Animal liberation, by contrast, is expansive. It is much more adaptable. Vegan is at this point what people call Impossible Whoppers. We aren’t going to be able to reverse that and we shouldn’t try. Besides, mass adoption of veganism is not a bad thing. It has some value as harm reduction. But it is not the project of ending human supremacy.

Ria: Adam Eeton – If Donald Watson were here today and read this thread, how do you imagine he’d reply?

Adam: Ria – Interesting question! I’m not sure, though I suspect if Donald Watson went into vegetarian groups today and tried to introduce the idea that vegetarianism contributes to chicken and cow exploitation, he’d be denounced as a “carnist troll”, told that vegetarianism is about doing what’s practicable and possible and it isn’t practicable and possible to not eat eggs and dairy,  and told that he’s just saying these things to justify all the meat he eats. That’s been my experience for years every time I try to address the harm to wildlife in agriculture, industrial production, and all other aspects of civilization that do not involve direct use of animal products in vegan groups. The fact that I probably became a vegan decades before the people calling me a carnist troll trying to justify all the steak I eat never seems to matter.

Jack: Adam Eeton – I LOVE this convo and both of your super articulately written perspectives! Find myself laughing and thinking of a TV commercial from the fifties…Two people arguing-“Certs is a breath mint”, “No, Certs is a candy mint”, to which the voice comes in “Stop! You’re both right”. Tho I do tend to think more along Eeton’s view that veganism is is breath mint, while you tend to dismiss it as mere a candy one. But agreed…at its inception, via Watson, et al, it remained mostly limited, in the practice it advocated, to animals, and specifically farmed animals. yet the seeds of its expansion were infused into the further writings of those seeking to explicate its deeper connections, that attempted to articulate the ethos that spoke to the roots of the why of it. And as Eeton said, it was not a fixed position but an evolving one. And many many have since further expanded its meaning to connect all the dots, to, as Eeton speaks of, its logical conclusions. I can’t see abandoning that momentum and throwing out the word just because it has been co-opted and compromised by mainstream. Additionally, the term and its thrust was a refreshing and radical departure from the humanism that dominated most or every other movement in human history. Even early, and also present, anarchists movements, seems to me, remain(ed) mostly humanocentric. As has the conventional vegan mvmt remained mostly pro-civ. But where would anarchist phil’y be without some of the concepts and words introduced by veganism? – Speciesism, human supremacy, hierarchal thinking, commodification of the other, objectification, linearization, etc.  Sure, anarchist thinking probably also conjured them up, but it was veganism that insisted they be applied to fellow animals. And, by extension, to the Earth. It’s true Watson, etc did not go that far, but we can and do. To say that the term “animal liberation” is, by contrast, more expansive, is, IMO, the opposite. A contraction of where the concept of veganism is trying to go. just seems to me that veganism, as a word and as a conceptual framework, is a anchor that comes closest to offering that foundation from which we can articulate the whole shebang, including the anti-civ one. Plus, it goes to the shop of the heart.

Adam: Jack – “To say that the term “animal liberation” is, by contrast, more expansive, is, IMO, the opposite. A contraction of where the concept of veganism is trying to go.”
How so? Nothing about veganism obligates ending civilization and abolishing agriculture. Animal liberation is IMPOSSIBLE without ending civilization and abolishing agriculture.

Jack: Adam – IMO, everything about veganism (as a fundamental philosophy and its logical and heart-based extensions) obligates ending civ. As does the term animal liberation, but society has to dig deeper into the term to see that it also does so. (Tho, of course, society has to dig deep into veganism to get to it, also). But, on the face of it, an lib implies a focus “only” on N-H animals. Kind of another single-issue campaign. Just seems to me the concept of veganism has lended way more to the development of articulation of where both need to go.

Adam: Jack – I think society sees veganism as a diet and an obnoxious subculture. I don’t think it conjures notions of liberation or is in any way seen as a holistic justice ethic. Why would it be seen that way? “Vegan” is the fake meat burger you can order from the minimum wage worker at Burger King and a  21 day diet celebrities use to lose weight. Veganism is associated with insufferable scolds. The focus on vegan lifestylism over collective action short circuited the growth of animal rights into a mass movement — its trajectory in the 1980s. Veganism is seen as a growth market for venture capital investments in new food technologies by people like Bill Gates, not as irreconcilable with the capitalist system. And honestly,  I don’t see this as a corruption of veganism’s original intent — I don’t see anything in what I’ve read by Donald Watson that would suggest he would have any problem with that.
Again, the only segment of the vegan community that I perceive as effective at couching veganism within a broader concept of food justice is the Black vegan movement, and I’m not in any way suggesting that they drop language that is working for them.
This, I believe, is the consequence of an emphasis on liberal  individualistic lifestyle scolding over mass organizing for collective action for system change:https://www.psypost.org/2021/09/moralistic-impressions-help-explain-the-reduced-social-attractiveness-of-vegetarians-and-vegans-61889?fbclid=IwAR29rKG74T03vrgpcYobpKHMbTsPhuUSBFZ-eZfHxDpcVnCGfMOrWit9XSc

Eeton: Donald Watson would ask Adam to review his life and how his personal revolt against animal consumption served as a wrench in the gears of human supremacy. 
Adam, how do you know what power veganism has when you tip-toe around anti-civ non-vegans? You don’t even have the courage to openly proclaim yourself as a vegan – how can you possibly know its impact or influence on others? Animal liberation and veganism are not mutually exclusive. They are one in the same: veganism liberates other animals from the prison of dietary commodification, animal liberation liberates animals from the prisons they are held within for the purpose of dietary consumption. Here you are continuing to deny this fundamental connection. The fact that you conflate veganism with vegetarianism demonstrates your fundamental misunderstanding of veganism. 
Anyone who claims to be an animal liberationist but lacks a personal revolt against animals as food items is just as impractical as liberal vegans who refuse to challenge civilization. 
Btw, it is obvious you are not reading my responses (or at the very least comprehending them thoroughly?) because yet, you again, repeat yourself about veganism not being radical from inception. Nobody is disputing that. What I AM disputing however, is the idea that veganism is *fixed* as a liberal concept when vegans today have clearly demonstrated veganism from an anti-civ practice and perspective. Are you paying attention to what I am communicating to you? 
Veganism is as much a project of ending human supremacy as identifying as an “anarchist”, or “animal liberationist”. The difference is that veganism is *action* taken against the social norm of consuming animals. Next time you hang out with your anti-civ non-vegans friends, tell them you don’t eat meat, dairy or perceive other animals as commodities for consumption. Watch your friends lose their shit. Next time you go to a family reunion or dinner, tell them you refuse to eat meat and dairy. Watch the waves of disappointment come crashing. Romanticizing? Fetishizing? Damn right! I am a vegan. I say it loud and proud in the face of everyone who fears that word, and fears my criticism of their defense of human supremacy. Mwahaha! 
I’ll tell you what Adam, you go ahead and tread lightly around non-vegans. You go ahead with your tail between your legs make them feel comfortable with your passive “animal liberation”. That is your choice. It is for this reason, your theory of abandoning the word “vegan”, that I have it tattooed in huge black and green lettering on my leg (wanna see it? 🙂  ). 
I don’t care what liberals think. I am not vegan for them or their pro-industrialization. I am vegan for the animals.

Adam: Eeton – “Adam, how do you know what power veganism has when you tip-toe around anti-civ non-vegans? You don’t even have the courage to openly proclaim yourself as a vegan – how can you possibly know its impact or influence on others?”
I don’t tiptoe around anyone. I don’t “lack the courage to call myself a vegan.” I simply don’t identify with a movement that posts endless memes about how pesticide sprayed commodities are “cruelty free.” It’s not my movement. It doesn’t speak to me. Insects were a huge part of what drove me to action decades ago. Knowing that quadrillions of them are being deliberately killed for products that vegans tell the world were produced without animal suffering and death ENRAGES me. I was a vegan for years before I stopped identifying with that label. The more I learned about how agriculture harmed animals, the more veganism felt to me like a movement that was CONTRIBUTING to animal abuse by rendering it invisible, a speciesist movement that valued the lives of chickens and cows and mink, but not boll weevils and aphids and slugs — or even field mice and orangutans, so long as their bodies don’t end up in the finished product. I stopped buying food when I was 17 and tried to buy as little as possible of anything else other than second hand stuff. Meanwhile CENTERS buying stuff — vegan food, vegan clothes, etc.: “cruelty-free consumerism.” Even the so-called “radical vegans” constantly mock the slogan “no ethical consumption under capitalism”, viewing it as nothing more than an excuse for non-vegans rather than understanding that it correctly diagnoses how inseparable this economic system is from exploitation and destruction. My experience with vegans and veganism has been as an apologist ideology for capitalism, civilization, industrial commodity production, and agriculture — just so long as no animal ingredients are used. I can appreciate that there’s some value in that — I really like how the Black vegan movement, for example is working veganism into food justice activism — but I don’t relate to it and it doesn’t describe my worldview or praxis at all.

Adam: For awhile I called myself a freegan, but ultimately decided I didn’t feel the need to label myself in relation to my consumption praxis.
While I identified as a freegan, I wrote this: 
https://freegan.info/freegan-philosophy/freeganism-and-animal-rights/why-i-went-freegan-for-the-animals/

Ria: Adam – yeah, too many vegans think black & white cherry picking what’s most comfortable for them, lacking nuanced understanding. Under civ, going all the way would be a rare opportunity, so until then we’re all left cherry picking I suppose. Bottom line might be most people who abstain from eating animals have the compassion earth needs, just frustrating they can’t/don’t open their hearts even bigger to wildlife.

Eeton: Jack, I don’t know how much longer I am going to debate lol. It’s not fun anymore because there is no new information being introduced. Adam keeps repeating the same line “vegan isn’t radical vegan isn’t radical” and how many times have I responded to that, picked it apart and suggested Adam expand his interpretation of veganism beyond that tired, old fixed “liberal” position. 
I don’t think he wants to. He wants to keep in the club of anti-civ non-vegans who have no constructive argument against veganism other than pigeon-holing it as liberal. Clearly, veganism means more than that, today, as does “anarchist” and “anti-civ”.
ONE more poke at Adam before I go!: “Animal liberation is IMPOSSIBLE without ending civilization and abolishing agriculture”
Animal liberation is IMPOSSIBLE without rejecting their commodity status on an individual level. Because as long as people continue to view them as food and consume them, animal liberation is nothing more than a hypocritical bad joke. Hence, behold the power of vegan anarchy! 😀
I will let someone else ride this roller coaster. Good night and thanks for the debate!

Adam: Eeton – The assumptions about my motives and biases are unwarranted and frankly just off. I deal with far more vegans than I do anti-civ folks. I experience far more frustration dealing with vegans who make endless excuses to defend violence against wildlife in vegan commodity production than I do with Lierre Keith types, who I frankly have very little use for and don’t even bother interacting with.

Eeton: I couldn’t ignore your response. You seem to have had some awful experiences with liberal vegans. That sucks. I have had my share as well. They just don’t get it – more agriculture (whether vegan or not) can never lead to genuine animal liberation. 
For what it’s worth, there are many, many anti-civ vegans in the world. More than ever. Some (like me) used to be a liberal vegan. Some were anti-civ before becoming vegan. But anti-civ veganism is everywhere. And growing like a wild fire. Cheers!

Jack: Adam, Eeton, I’m having trouble with this conversation descending into a dichotomous polemic. Isn’t it a both/and rather than an either/or? But, at the same time, I am digging this back and forth between you two. And Adam, your last comment spells out nicely the hypocrisies of the mainstream vegan perspective. Thus, why we are here on this site.

Ria: Adam Eeton – Fuck you two. Damn fine show. For me, despite obvious limitations of word meanings and applications, ‘vegan’ is at its core my wild repulsion to animal suffering, which includes harm to their homes. I’m madly frustrated with others in touch with this repulsion but who stop short of taking it all the way to actual conclusions, at least in their desire if not action, due to what appears to be their indoctrination to grasp firmly onto humans’ supremacist culture. In my battle against cultural identities such as vegan, I challenge them to expand toward anti-civ anti-speciesism. Veganism has many deep interconnections, so it’s entertaining if not important to play gadfly and challenge vegans to see and overcome their hypocrisies. Doesn’t it feel like we here are fundamentally in agreement on what matters most? And we’re all battling vegans to get their compassion in logical alignment. So what next?

Eeton: Can someone please explain why on earth veganism has been pigeon-hole equated with agriculture?…I mean yeah, some vegans are ok with agriculture. What about the vegans who forage? Is that somehow less veganism lol. 
Correct me if I am misunderstanding this but it seems that someone has suggested that:
1. Veganism as a whole (despite complex varieties within that label) promotes agriculture and therefore…
2. Someone wouldn’t identify (or be?) vegan based on that incredibly narrow interpretation of veganism.
Am I understanding this correctly? Maybe I am just half asleep …zzzzz…
Personally, even though labels are limiting in their ability to fully represent complex individuals, identifying as “vegan” is fun because it encourages dialogue that challenges the commodification status of non-human animals. And one can do this while *also* criticizing agriculture as the primary foundation for an anthropocentric, industrial civilization. The earth can provide plenty of (vegan) food without the systematic destruction of agriculture.

Danny: This oppressive world CULTure wants to pigeon hole anything that threatens it. Anarchy and veganism are the most mocked and demonized because if humans decided they don’t need governments or to rule over nature & other species, their oppressive systems would come crashing down quickly… I’m in agreement with Eeton. I don’t really care what Adam chooses to call himself. If he’s living vegan and against the bullying that human civilization is doing and explaining to people why, that’s good enough for me. He’s right that a lot of people get stuck in a vegan rut and don’t take things to their logical conclusion. A lot of movements do that. I didn’t become anarchist until I was vegan 2 years, but it didn’t take much once I had an intelligent conversation about it with a well respected FB friend. A lot of atheists aren’t logical in a lot of areas of their lives. A lot of anarchists can’t seem to wrap their minds around anti-speciesism. Most humans can’t wrap their minds around anti civ, anti natalism, or what justice really looks like. Most humans are inconsistent and their inconsistencies should be called out.

ADAM:

“Why I Went Freegan for the Animals”

There are lots of great reasons to go freegan, but it was animal rights that brought me there in the first place.
I’d spent years trying to live more ethically, trying to limit the violence towards animals in my lifestyle. I went veg, then vegan, then shifted to eating only organic, mostly raw food. I was concerned about all the animals killed by pesticides in conventional agriculture–including the insects and other invertebrates who are too often ignored in the animal rights community.
As I learned more about organic agriculture, though, I came to realize that even organic wasn’t perfect. I found an article in Animals’ Agenda magazine called “Organic: Better, but Not Benign, ” by a garden talking about how even using organic gardening methods, she was still killing lots of insects. I started reading organic gardening magazines and learned that killing animals was a commonplace organic gardening method (and common in non-organic gardening, too.) Shooting, trapping, poisoning, and drowning are used to kill all manner of creatures from tiny insects to large mammals like deer. Even a form of biological warfare is used– because organic farmers cannot use petroleum pesticides, many release live bacteria to destroy insects.
Around this time, a high school teacher made a comment about how animals are chopped to bits and crushed in the process of harvesting corn made me increasingly aware of the impact that tilling soil and harvesting crops have on the enormous numbers of animals that live on farmland. This point was actually the focus of a recent study at Oregon State University ( Click here for a media account of the study) that examined the impact of farming on wildlife and concluded that eating pasture raised beef would actually result in LESS animal deaths than eating a standard vegan diet. While another study has disputed this conclusion, Davis’ point that, ‚”vegan diets are not bloodless diets”, remains.
Hunting writer Ted Kerasote raised additional questions about the cruelty-free nature of a veg*an diet. In Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt “What exactly does “the least harm possible” mean? Does it mean becoming a fossil fuel vegetarian — those people who with a clear conscience buy vegetables at the supermarket, never realizing that America’s factory farms, intensively subsidized by petroleum from the wellhead to the combine and on to the interstate highway system, inflict an enormous toll on wildlife as they grow and deliver such seemingly benign products as cereal, bread, beans and milk? Or does doing the least harm possible mean becoming an organic farmer, growing everything one needs alongside one’s house? Could it mean hunting and gathering the animals and plants of one’s bioregion?”
Of course, as animal advocates, we reject both the raising of beef on pasturelands and hunting. But if indeed our lifestyles are even MORE destructive than these practices, then we are obligated to question whether their isn’t some other alternative, one that is better than hunting, better than pasture raised beef eating, and better than what Kerosote calls “fossil fuel vegetarianism.”
From reading about a very unusual system of agriculture called “veganic gardening,” a system which uses plant matter for fertilizer, I learned that the vegan crops that we eat are grown in animal ag by-products like manure and ground animal bones (a.k.a bonemeal). And this is especially true on organic farms, since they don’t use chemical fertilizers. So by being a vegan consumer, I was actually creating more profits for factory farmers!
Finally, when does our responsibility over the impact of our dollars end? I don’t remember if I thought of this at the time, but I recently read in an article about a person who was freegan because he disliked that the dollars he was spending on vegan food were going to pay for meat for the nonvegans he bought the food from.
By replacing retail consumerism with wild foraging, small-scale gentle gardening using no-till and veganic methods, and urban foraging/dumpster diving, we eliminate support for ALL the ways that production of the commodities we use exploit animals, not just those few that have been the focus of traditional veganism. We are pioneering a gentler and more careful relationship with animals, as we build a new culture based on sharing, cooperation, and respect for the earth and each other.

Eeton:

Vegan Means Attack 
Fomenting A Wildfire Against Speciesism and Moral Anthropocentrism

My veganism exists as a nihilist confrontation against the existing moral fabric of anthropocentrism and speciesism. Here on this landmass called “america”, the moral justifications for consuming the flesh and secretions of non-human animals go hand in hand with the industrialization of their enslavement and reduction to commodity status. This is a reflection of capitalist society reducing chaos to order, animal bodies from wild to domesticated, and the marketing of bodies that are socially recognized as mere products for consumption. My veganism is defined not only by an individualist refusal to internalize, validate and reinforce these authoritarian social values, but also by consecutively attacking them as well.

My anarchy rejects speciesist civilization, not from a “return to the hunter-gatherer” perspective, but from a point of constant hostility towards arbitrary hierarchies, authority, and governance that take form pre- or post-civilization. These include the restoration of traditions or cultures that attempt to resurrect anthropocentric, hierarchical values and worldviews. My focus is not a re-establishment of a past existence. My focus is the creation of a joyous life, here and now, through destructive confrontation with any governing elements that attempt to maintain hierarchical power. I am hostile to all who view non-human animals and the wild as mere raw materials for anthropocentric exploitation and consumption.

For real though, it amazes me to see self-proclaimed anarchists fulfill the anthropocentric role of consuming non-human animals – roles assigned to them by capitalism, tradition, and cultures throughout childhood upbringing. Fulfilling the roles of being “Human” and embracing a morality which standardizes the roles of control and domination over the wild. How long does it take for contemporary “anarchists” to notice the battery cages, the open-air prisons of fenced enclosures, the exhibitions of zoos, the concealed brutality of slaughterhouses, the speciesism of consuming some non-human animals but building relationships with others? Or the interconnected ways society views non-human animals as the lowest common denominator to compare those of the oppressed category to? How the fuck does anti-authoritarian praxis stop at the commodification of bodies – human or non-human (but in this case, non-human) – who are objectified to justify their enslavement, murder, and consumption?

As far as prisoner support and prison abolition, where is the acknowledgment of – and the solidarity with – the millions who remain imprisoned in slaughterhouses with death sentences, justified by the mere demand for their mutilated, neatly-packaged corpses? The acknowledgement of their existential struggle against prison and domination is limited by human supremacy. When anarchy fails to include liberated wildness beyond the limited scope of human supremacy, it is mere human-centered reformism which falls short of destroying the very logic of control and domination. Society is death by design. Death and disregard for non-human animals are built into the design of highways, railroads, agriculture, and every other form of structural anthropocentrism. I advocate its total collapse towards the emancipation of the wild. Domestication is a process of internalized self-automation, conditioned with a sense of superiority to wildness which manifests itself institutionally with human-over-animal thinking. I reject this way of thinking along with its assumption that non-human animal bodies are mere food products for hunting and consumption – an assumption that disregards their own individual interests and bodily autonomy. I reject humanism, its authoritarian roles and traditions and its assigned identity which limits my potential to explore my own animality beyond civilized domestication.

There is a war to be waged against society, alongside the non-human animals who refuse domesticated subservience, and who are evicted from their homes due to mass deforestation, human development and technology. Veganism burdened by the millstone of liberalism, fails to critically acknowledge capitalist, industrial civilization itself as the massified, embodiment of anthropocentric domination. Anarchism that fails to challenge speciesism on an individual level reproduces the internalized authoritarian values of human domination. Since speciesism is pervasive in society, it is insulated and well preserved by a comforting normalization – a normalization that aids cultural indoctrination and apathy. Confrontation is necessary in unsettling the socially established comforts and moral order of non-human animal domination. My vegan anarchy embodies solidarity not just with dietary intake, but also armed with attack; attack defined by the material actions of an incendiary desire to destroy the social manifestations of human supremacy.

-Flower Bomb