According to the "theory of oppression," there are three basic factors of oppression: 1) economic exploitation/competition; 2) unequal power, largely vested in the state; and 3) ideological control. In terms of the oppression of other animals these three factors are: 1) the exploitation of other animals; 2) human supremacy; and 3) speciesism. Given these factors, veganism offers the basis for a theory of anti-oppression. (Read more...)
liberation
The Assimilationist Appropriation of 'Liberation'
Debates between the movements doing nonhuman animal advocacy often revolve around "welfare" and "rights." (I say "movements" because there are many different ideologies driving several divergent social movements.) I'm increasingly less interested in the welfare-rights debate. I think both welfare and rights are limited, although the former is more conservative than the latter.
One of the things I'm very interested in communicating with this blog is the difference between assimilation and liberation, and where veganism fits in.
One of the things I'm very interested in communicating with this blog is the difference between assimilation and liberation, and where veganism fits in.
Liberation and Vegan Revival
Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to post. But people like Royce Drake at Vegans of Color have been posting some great stuff. His post on "Rights or Liberation" makes an important distinction between liberation and rights discourse.
Veganism, Privilege and Liberation
In 1947, at the 11th IVU World Vegetarian Congress, Donald Watson, representing the Vegan Society, gave a speech on veganism where he said "that the vegan believed that if they were to be true emancipators of animals they must renounce absolutely their traditional and conceited attitude that they had the right to use them to serve their needs. They must supply those needs by other means."
This is an argument for liberation, as opposed to an argument for rights or equality. As a liberation-oriented approach, veganism addresses the structure of the oppression of nonhuman animals. (Read more...)
Veganism, Social Change, Solidarity
In the mid-1940s, when the founding members of the vegan movement organized themselves into The Vegan Society they set out a clear purpose for the movement that "seeks to abolish [humans'] dependence on [other] animals, with it inevitable cruelty and slaughter, and to create instead a more reasonable and humane order of society. Whilst honouring the efforts of all who are striving to achieve the emancipation of [humans] and of [other] animals." (Read more...)
Veganism and Anti-Oppression
Keeping in mind the centrality of exploitation to oppression, I think it is important to place the vegan ideal of non-exploitation firmly in the context of anti-oppression organizing. Viewing veganism as a broadly anti-oppression movement is not to redefine veganism as something new, but instead to "clarify the goal towards which the movement aspires." (Read more...)
Veganism as Liberation
veganism is not so much welfare as liberation, for the creatures and for the mind and heart of man [sic]; not so much an effort to make the present relationship bearable, as an uncompromising recognition that because it is in the main one of master and slave, it has to be abolished before something better and finer can be built.