What is the philosophical history of veganism/vegetarianism? Who were some famous vegans/vegetarians?

What is the philosophical history of veganism/vegetarianism? Who were some famous vegans/vegetarians?

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Pythagoras, he cool

animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/tolstoy01.htm

Tolstoy's Essay "The First Step" as far as modern vegetarianism

I'm a vegetarian myself, though not vegan. I have plenty of vegan friends. I don't say what I am about to say directly to them though, because I don't want to crush their dreams (aka end our friendship), but I believe thinking about what you eat and consume is a completely wrong way to tackle it. Not because there is any difference in opinion about ethics and animals, but because I think they don't intersect that with politics and capitalism.

Being vegan and thinking you are doing anything to the world is just giving yourself too much importance. I've seen vegan restaurants open in neighborhoods with lots of vegetarians, but I've never seen a butchery close because of that. I don't believe in boycott as a good strategy for any structural shift, because it's a hysterical position, you are trying to take on companies but you also allow them to readapt to the situation and make it even worse by disguising the problem. I think we will see a world in which McDonalds will sell a bunch of veggie options and people will think that's progress, but McDonald's profits on a veggie burger will go to building new stores and produce more meat. The same applies on wider scales.

A few years ago there was a crisis in meat industry, I don't remember why, in which meat was so cheap it was not worth selling it. Some farmers than just slaughtered their cows and threw their bodies away, just like it usually happends with any other crisis. So think about it, suppose the initial strategy works, suppose we wake up tomorrow to a world in which no one wants to eat meat anymore, so much so that affects its production financially. Similar things would happen.

If you want to end men's exploitation of animals, being vegan or not is irrelevant. I honestly think you can eat meat and be an animal right's activist without being a hypocrite. This is something I can only say as user, because meat eaters think I'm a fag and vegetarians think I'm a cruel monster for it. I have no hopes that people will buy into this idea easily. I think communists with iphones are perfectly fine, I think that if you want to arrange an anti-facebook meeting you should create an event on facebook for it and this is not in anyway contraditory. Because you are using the tools available to fight your cause and the idea people have that using that thing is "supporting that thing" is erroneous. Your use of an iphone to arrange your anti-apple lecture has an effect that is extremely tiny to the world compared to the effects of your lecture (even if it is a small lecture with no direct consequences as of the moment, your idea was spread).

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I think the logic that most people have is "at least I'm doing my part" and "now I can say it, because I've taken my cause from theory to my actual life". But I think that doing only "our part" is not simply not enough, but it also disguises the problem and harm the cause. It's like when you buy a product from a megacorp and they say part of their profit goes to charity, so you can sleep tight. You are supporting the megacorp more than the cause, obviously.

Back to animal cause, it's also a fucking privilege to be vegan. This is something that vegans love to boast about: that it is much cheaper than meat or that they made a very good recipe with cheap cereals and things like that. But in the real world it is very hard to remain in that diet if you are a wage slave like the majority of people, eating just what you have around you. The cheap cereal the vegan cooked had to be bought on a distant neighborhood and had to be cooked at home and so on. Therefore, it's not really cheap, there are side costs to it. Even more so if you are talking about strict vegetarianism in a world in which every food is premade and companies are huge conglomerates with a tentacle on vegan products and another on animal exploitation.

There is also a dimension of the debate which I find ridiculous which is to find "the ideal human diet". Vegetarians trying to prove meat does you harm, meat eaters trying to prove meat is necessary, etc. People who discuss teeths in monkeys are pathetic. We were not "meant" to eat anything because we were not designed for a purpose. Just like any animal, we eat what we can and we are omnivorous. If it didn't kill you, you can eat it. If people can live 80 years and be vegetarians or meat eaters or those stories of fatties who survive decades only on fries and hot dogs, then I think that settles that this is not the point at all. Each is responsible for eating what they like and feel good about in a deeper sense of paying attention to your own health, but not because there is an ideal to be met, but because you are listening to your own body.

Another thing is that death is part of life. I think it's no joke that we ought to respect a piece of lettuce like we respect a cow, and a cow like we respect our pet cat. I think we should even respect lifeless rocks. But what exactly does that mean? I don't think people should be discussing whether animals feel stuff or not, we already know they feel things anyway and suffer. A lettuce doesn't suffer in this way, but I think it's still very selfish to assume that the sensation of pain ought to be the ultimate parameter to our ethics. A cow screams louder than carrots, that's all. A rock doesn't show any opinion about whether you throw it or you leave it be, but even so, listen to it. Anyway, this is more of a spiritual argument I have that is much more complex.

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And there is the dimension of scale and industrial age too. A man by the river fishes his meal, then he shits in the bushes and the circle of life keeps moving. That's very different from a large ship taking a billion fish out of the ocean and throwing it to the other side of the world. It's very different to squeeze your pet cow's tits to get your morning milk than to have a machine pumping that milk continuously, with anesthetics to make them not realize how they are hurt and hormones to continue to produce milk and stuff. A slaughterhouse is literally hell on earth, go visit one. That's why I also think it's stupid when vegans will turn to that fisherman and be mean to him because of it.

I'm a vegetarian because I had ethical questions at a given point in my life and challenged myself to do it, thinking that if I return to eating meat, at least I'd be more certain that I need it. I truly was expecting to become a weakling faggot and fail after a few weeks, but I honestly felt better than before and got really used to it. I was surprised and recommend it, but I also understand those who eat meat. I don't eat meat in 4 years, apart from a few occasions where I was at another person's home and respectfully ate their meals without questioning (it was already made, what good does it do to the world for me to refuse my gf's grandma's special chicken recipe?). I was full vegan for 6 months and also felt quite good, but I had a lot of difficulty in keeping with that routine.

tl;dr be a commie with an iphone, eat whatever you like, rocks deserve respect, refuse to do your part in charity and fight for revolution instead

peace

Hitler, who also believed in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Hitler was not a vegetarian though, that was propaganda to make him seem nice.

Hitler most certainly did not believe in Hinduism and Buddhism

good post

somewhere down the line people got as i like to call it "pussyfied" and began to care more (to a fault -see probelsm with self esteem) about other to the point they cared for animals

some great men have been veggies for sure, but it doesnt originate with some important figure. it's just the human brain. sorry man.

t. vegetarian unless there is ever a time i can afford to raise my own animals and hunt ethically

what's wrong with caring for animals? legitimate question

Typical Vegetarian, OP asks for literary recs and he takes it as an opportunity to begin his narcissistic veggie diatribe. tl,dr, stick a carrot up your ass. Pescatarian master race reporting in.

It turns you into a socialist you fucking soyboy

Because it's a symptom of turning away from humanity

What makes humanity so invaluable?

No

You should have asked that user why does it turn away from humanity in the first place, because it doesn't

>What makes humanity so invaluable?

The same reason "humanity" can damn a species to a pseudo-life in the industrial slaughterhouses. How stupid are you?

that too

>Who were some famous vegans/vegetarians?
Adolf Hitler

hitler was a vegetarian, but vegans keep saying it was propaganda because they don't want to be connected to the alt-right at all.

That could be true and your argument is logical. But nevertheless, he still wasn't and it is still propaganda.

I don't think most vegetarians/vegans expect to change the world or anything, they just don't want to doublethink and do things they believe to be amoral

Descriptions of him after the war describe him as vegetarian, including a cook or something who hated his vegetarian diet and apparently snuck animal products into his food(an absolutely subhuman thing to do btw). They also had gardens specifically so he would have something to eat. Also Germans were just as much meat eaters then as they are now, if not more so, so it wouldn't exactly work as propaganda.

Vegetarians, maybe. I know a lot of vegetarians who don't, including people who simply never liked meat ever since they were children. But not vegans, because to be a vegan means exactly to be militant about it.

The diets are either ovo-lacto-vegetarian (or just ovo, or just lacto) which means they eat dairy or eggs. Or simply vegetarian, which means no animal products at all(also know as strict vegetarians to differentiate from ovo-lacto without the fancy words).

Veganism is not a diet. They are all strict vegetarians in their diet but they also don't wear any clothes from animals, they don't use cosmetics from companies that test on animals, they don't go to the zoo or rodeos, etc. They want all of that to end and it's about fighting for animal rights.