To A Leftist
Young socialists have limited agency.
Effective political action - which brings about change - seems relegated to the future. Unemployment prevents action through trade unions. Organizing clubs and societies, participating in protests, or charitable endeavors amounts to insignificance.
Frankly, being young and Left amounts to disappointment, to disenfranchisement, and typically to an inexcusable (near-pathetic) state of inaction. (Assuming one disavows violence.)
This need not be the case. The young Leftist can take up agency through one conversion: They can become vegan. Socialism, in all its forms, intrinsically compels one to take up the cause of animals, no matter what fuels one’s ideology. Environmentally, capital production of meat and animal products competes with petroleum for the most sordid, hellish conception of an industry one could conceive.
The meat industry produces an estimated ~15% of greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation for ranching emits at least 340 million tonnes of CO2, and the majority of global deforestation goes towards the production of meat, or animal feed.
Philosophically, there is no empirically verifiable reason why empathy should end at the species line. All systemically perpetuated suffering is morally repugnant. Anatomy, perceived capacity for communication, or intellect are irrelevant when the question is murder for meat, forced impregnation for milk, flaying for leather, or any other extraction.
Personal apprehension against a change in habit cannot prevent one from accepting the equity of creatures. On the political front, industries which extort or murder non-human animals, particularly mistreat (human) workers, have lower rates of unionization and higher rates of industrial accidents and mental health disorders.
On the economic front, the animal industrial complex robs workers of surplus value like any other capitalist industry. Psychologically and historically, segregation, chauvinism, discrimination, and inequality derive in part from humanity’s unquestioning adherence to speciesism. Our enemies in war are ‘animals or cowardly mice,’ the poor live ‘like dogs,’ subjugated races are ‘beasts’. Examples are innumerable: - US soldiers in Iraq placing dog leashes and parading with prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib prison, former Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Galant stating: ‘We are fighting against human animals.’ Nazi propaganda comparing the Jewish to ‘rats’ in the film ‘Der Ewige Jude’.
The term ‘dehumanization’ is particularly baffling. To disregard a person’s worth and rights, is by our definition, to make them non-human. Even in the dictionary, humanity assumes animal mistreatment is natural when it is abhorrent and has no justification.
A leftist should feel particular shame in their inaction. If a conservative cannot summon empathy for the disenfranchised human, not much ought be expected in the way of animal rights. But if a socialist, fighting for the ideological outgroups of society, who throws down mental systems of oppression, who searches earnestly for greater avenues of empathy towards the Other, and yet refuses to surpass the species line, their inconsistency would reveal itself proper.
Liberation cannot rely on the fingers of one’s hand. Veganism is not a colossal moral leap. Nor does it entail a life-altering change in behavior. The vegan diet is cheaper, better for the environment, costs less cooking time, is equally if not more healthy, as well as morally superior. It is not difficult to adopt — any excuse against veganism crumbles after any attempt to search for empirical evidence.
Yet the young leftist might argue that all around them engage in murder in their diet. They may argue there is no social consensus that veganism is as radical as this article describes it. In the face of this incredulity, one should think back to history. Is there a greater moral stain or evil by the Georgian states of the West than slavery? Have America, England, Spain, France, Portugal, and other perpetrators truly answered for the history of this institutional crime?
Any white European socialist today, if born in the Georgian period, would either defend or perpetuate slavery. They would read texts defending the practice, or be taught its righteousness at the dinner table or at church. And yet we do not try to defend this unjustifiable injustice.
It is apparent thus that our successors will not defend our crimes. They will not defend our racism, our classism, our sexism. But chiefly, they will mourn that we let ourselves allow industrial murder, slavery, and torture to be perpetuated on defenseless fellow creatures, mutual inhabitants of this common resource called Earth. The scale of the animal industrial complex is such that it toes the line in which martyrdom meets rationality.
If a million humans were slaughtered a day, sacrificing oneself in pursuit of their freedom and safety would seem completely moral, even heroic. Yet the young socialist cannot even change their diet. Despite appearances, and anti-vegan rhetoric, veganism is not a post-industrial invention. Vegan practitioners have existed in every period of human history, even prehistory. It has always been possible and accessible to be vegan. In some societies it was preferable, even prescribed.
The intrinsic hypocrisy in being progressive, socialist, communist, or anarchist, and eating meat, is blatant. There is no excuse.
Indulge me. Take a moment to imagine the amount of suffering being inflicted and experienced, as you read this, on innumerable non-human animals around the world. Where does a calf’s shout differ from a child calling out for her mother? Where does the rising cacophony of suffering, auditory disarray and deafening pleas end? Does it end at the tip of your fork, as it pierces flesh? Does it ring at the grocery line? Do you hear it when you cannibalize your fellow creature?