IDM Mailing Archive

1999-05-12 03:14BigKumquat@aol.com<< That statement, the part about "radical-vegan," is something I've never understood too

From:: <BigKumquat@aol.com>
To:: <mpoirier@virtu.sar.usf.edu>, <idm@hyperreal.org>
Date:: Tue, 11 May 1999 23:14:36 EDT
Subject:: (idm) vicarious vegetarianism

<< That statement, the part about "radical-vegan," is something I've never understood too well, the idea that veganism is radical. Yet it's phrased that way so often. >> My intent was not to comment on the degree to which veganism is radical, I was aiming to describe the political slant of Consolidated. Blast those hyphens - I knew they would get me in trouble! Perhaps I should have used "radical" in attachment to another word, like "radical-feminist." I wonder if that would spawn a similar objection. Certainly, I believe Consolidated hoped to appear "radical," although I sense that this discussion could degrade into a semantics game. << "I'm NOT going to pay for & eat corpses, supporting an industry that confines, tortures, manipulates, drugs, deforms, & canabilizes billions of feeling creatures every year, as well as severely speeding up the environmental destruction of the earth, primarily contributing to almost all health-related illnesses in affluent countries (about three-quarters of all deaths in the U.S.), & increasing the amount of malnutrition & starvation in poorer, undeveloped countries. No, I won't do that even though meat & dairy tastes good." THAT'S radical?>> Whew! Well, I can respect these points...although not a vegan myself, I have a friends who are, and I find myself being a "vicarious vegetarian" through them. I'm always the most shocked when they backslide and decide to have a bite of steak (warning: off-topic alert detector in effect). <<I'm not trying to be personally disparaging towards Fred Church & what he wrote above>> Oh, um, thanks. No worries. - Fred Church bigkumqaut@aol.com

1999-05-12 14:19Marc 3 Poirier><< That statement, the part about "radical-vegan," is something I've >never > understood

From:: Marc 3 Poirier <mpoirier@virtu.sar.usf.edu>
To:: <BigKumquat@aol.com>, <idm@hyperreal.org>
Date:: Wed, 12 May 1999 10:19:36 -0400
Subject:: (idm) Re: vicarious vegetarianism (was Consolidated)
Reply to:: (idm) vicarious vegetarianism

quoted 12 lines << That statement, the part about "radical-vegan," is something I've

><< That statement, the part about "radical-vegan," is something I've >never > understood too well, the idea that veganism is radical. Yet it's phrased > that way so often. >> > >My intent was not to comment on the degree to which veganism is radical, I >was aiming to describe the political slant of Consolidated. Blast those >hyphens - I knew they would get me in trouble! > >Perhaps I should have used "radical" in attachment to another word, like >"radical-feminist." I wonder if that would spawn a similar objection. >Certainly, I believe Consolidated hoped to appear "radical," although I

sense

quoted 1 line that this discussion could degrade into a semantics game.

>that this discussion could degrade into a semantics game.

Fred, Well, I admit that after I sent off the message, I realized that I sent it off a little prematurely, before fully addressing the idea of what's radical. Yes, on a social level (within human society), veganism is radical. It is confrontational towards what is the social standard in a very central social area, that of eating. It is directly working against an outrageously gigantic economic industry, that of animal-based foods. In these ways, there's no denying it's radical. But it's not radical with regards to non-human society. I'm sorry, I really should have been much clearer with that distinction. Had you applied radical to the other terms, yeah, I personally probably would not have written what I wrote. At any rate, trust me, I have no problem personally with the term radical. Some people do, & they take it with negative connotations. I've heard it used ESPECIALLY that way with regards to veganism in a way to make it sound "too extreme" & unapproachable by most people so that it can be disregarded as an important lifestyle change, more so than I think with most other social movements right now. That's what I have a problem with (& that's why I say that I only wrote something because the word was exclusively applied to veganism). Whether you were doing that, I have no idea honestly, & I tried to make it hopefully clear at the end of my post that I wasn't evaluating what you wrote so far as to come to a conclusion like that, but I just didn't want anyone else to. Gosh, I hope that was phrased better. I really hope you don't think I was judging some intent behind what you wrote, really I wasn't, in fact I appreciated reading what you wrote about Consolidated (who I'm not personally familiar with), I just felt that I wanted to make things clear in the context of the social atmosphere of today. Umm, did that make sense? Okay, maybe not, maybe I'll just stop now. Marc Poirier

(idm) Re: vicarious vegetarianism (was Consolidated)