I tend to agree, in the long term there has to be a cultural shift and my point is only that the hyper-individualist approach to American veganism is myopic and focused on the wrong actions and for the wrong reasons, treating the act of putting animal products in the body as the biggest sin when the harms are primarily systemic and not best tackled through individual lifestyle changes. This is like thinking you can end capitalism by just buying from cooperatives or fix climate change by not using plastic straws and recycling.
Even in terms of individual-scope action, you could make stronger arguments for engaging in workplace organizing in Tyson factories, tax resistance, and collaborating with local vegan activists to stage protests or direct actions.
Not that I’m down on veganism, just that I think the portrayal of responsibility primarily falling on you, the average consumer, is emphasized too much and makes a convenient scapegoat for the ag corporations that are making all the decisions that create the atrocities we know about. Ultimately that scapegoating is not veganism, it’s a strawman, but it is maybe how most people think about vegansim, including many vegans I know - it’s all about individual lifestyle choices and taking individual responsibility while not participating or engaging meaningfully in collective action or analyzing the problem structurally.
I tend to agree, in the long term there has to be a cultural shift and my point is only that the hyper-individualist approach to American veganism is myopic and focused on the wrong actions and for the wrong reasons, treating the act of putting animal products in the body as the biggest sin when the harms are primarily systemic and not best tackled through individual lifestyle changes. This is like thinking you can end capitalism by just buying from cooperatives or fix climate change by not using plastic straws and recycling.
Even in terms of individual-scope action, you could make stronger arguments for engaging in workplace organizing in Tyson factories, tax resistance, and collaborating with local vegan activists to stage protests or direct actions.
Not that I’m down on veganism, just that I think the portrayal of responsibility primarily falling on you, the average consumer, is emphasized too much and makes a convenient scapegoat for the ag corporations that are making all the decisions that create the atrocities we know about. Ultimately that scapegoating is not veganism, it’s a strawman, but it is maybe how most people think about vegansim, including many vegans I know - it’s all about individual lifestyle choices and taking individual responsibility while not participating or engaging meaningfully in collective action or analyzing the problem structurally.