Post #1370451

2026-02-10 03:10 UTC

Being "militant" means that you don't curb your ethical viewpoint to accommodate the feelings of those who behave unethically, according to your viewpoint. An easy-going person who is anti-trafficking, maybe they will stay chummy with Epstein, let things slide, keep pleasant relations, be pragmatic, avoid abrasive confrontations, and all-around keeping social situations smooth, even when things don't adhere to their sense of morality. Maybe they will speak up when trafficking hits to close to home or in extreme cases, but will defer to the general vibe in situations where the audience is less receptive. Meanwhile, a militant anti-trafficker like Norman Finkelstein is going to behave differently: he will shamelessly bash Dershowitz, Epstein for their trafficking, social etiquette be damned. Harsh words hurl from his mouth and his abrasive sentiments disrupt what could have been a polite, pleasant interaction. He might even reject substantial material benefits ($$$) to castigate his hopeful associates. If you grew up, lived, and were were cultivated into one of the many historical societies where trafficking perpetrated by powerful elite was normalized, even celebrated (Genghis Kahn's empire, aristocratic society in Ancient Greece, ...) you *might* be the anti-trafficker minority in a pro-trafficking society. And you would, most likely, shut the fuck up and just let things slide: why make your own life hellish and unpleasant to make but a small dent in a sea of immorality? Are you going to tell off your local warlord over his harem of war-captured slaves? At the end of the day, you have to decide: are you trying to "spread awareness" of trafficking, or are you trying to end it? Temper it, or wholly eliminate it from the face of the Earth? > "It's offensive to compare noble, beneficial trafficking in Ancient Greece with the horrible exploitative trafficking of the modern day." -- Plato's Ghost > "How dare you compare the life of a precious American troop with a dirty terrorist" -- Donald Rumsfeld, probably > "My brain shuts off when people start talking mumbo-jumbo about o-rings" -- NASA administrators, presumably There is no evidence open sores on the skin of a chicken, pig, cow, dog, or cat feel less painful to them because they aren't human. No evidence being confined in metal warehouses for months feels more rewarding to those who lack opposable thumbs. At this moment, 34,000,000,000 land animals are experiencing such a life, brought into existence through human-controlled breeding, designed to produce unnaturally ripe bodies for the slaughterhouse, flesh for the human palate. The sheer scale of this massive project to exploit animal bodies has meant only 4% of mammalian biomass today is wild animals, while a staggering 62% of that biomass is in the bodies of the creatures we breed to exploit. "Climate change" could never hope to do a even a fraction of the damage we are already doing on an annual basis, to cause the amount of unmitigated suffering we are causing as par for the course. That's the truth, and any serious vegan who sugar coats it is doing so strategically, not because they "respect different perspectives on the issue".

Replies (1)

@HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 2026-02-10 06:07

I get it, I really do. I've read Peter Singer. I've gone through the arguments, the logic. You're not wrong....ish, in my opinion. The scope of harm is horrific. What is done to animals in industrial agriculure is indefensible. That being said, I find a lot of things indefensible. It's impossible to avoid being a hypocrite in any way at all times. So I'm a hypocrite. I eat meat, way way less than average but I do. I'm aware it makes me a hypocrite. But I'll never buy that it makes me a monster. And if it does make me a monster? Then Schindler was a monster for not saving every Jew? Or is a better way to look at it that he did the best he could and he saved a lot of lives, certainly more than the average person. I appreciate that vegans feel extremely strongly about animal rights. That's good, we need passionate people in lots of different areas, advocating for the right things. But you cannot expect everyone to apply the same weights to every part of the picture. You, in your specific circumstances, your environment, your socioeconomic status, your childhood trauma or lack thereof.....YOU have taken all of the information you've received in your life and run it through your circumstances and the result is a vegan. Someone else gets more of certain types of information, less of others, different circumstances, and you get a Greenpeace activist. A black panther. A doctor without borders. Throw all that away....at the end of the day, the cold hard logic your view relies on also makes something else clear: an individual aggressive/militant vegan likely causes more animal suffering than the average meat eater. By communicating in one dimensional extremes, you're basically guaranteed to alienate more people than you successfully convert. How many more plant based meals might some people have eaten if the vegan stereotype wasn't what it is? Think it through.

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