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half measures and empty symbolism - CLICK HERE for the Cooking Forum Index
Leif Erikson
"veganism" is a succession of empty symbolic gestures
and half measures. One might be a full-fledged
"committed" "vegan", yet have no measurably lower
impact than someone who ravenously wolfs down meat at
every meal.

The best way to see the emptily symbolic aspect of
"veganism" as a practice is to observe that being
"vegan" does virtually nothing to stop the wholesale
slaughter of animals throughout the western societies
where "veganism" is (nominally) practiced, but that
doesn't stop the "vegans" from claiming moral
superiority. "vegans" like to try to compare
themselves favorably with anti-slavery abolitionists,
but the comparison falls flat: those abolitionists had
a measurable and meaningful impact in the intellectual
fight against slavery, while "vegans" have had ZERO
impact on their societies.

One can see the half-measure aspect of "veganism" by
contrasting it with a similarly symbolic gesture of
refraining from consuming animal-killing vegetable
produce. "vegans" pull out all the stops in trying to
extirpate the last microgram of animal parts from the
foods they consume ("the irrational search for
micrograms"), but they're not willing to make the same
effort to get all the animal CD-causing vegetables out
of their diet. Why not? Because it's vastly more
difficult to do. Eliminating meat from one's diet
won't stop the consumption of meat by others, and
eliminating high-CD vegetables from one's diet also
won't stop others from consuming those veggies, but
"vegans" are willing to engage in one emptily symbolic
gesture and not in the other. The reason: they don't
like hard work.


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