@AdrianRiskin @ambiguous_yelp Indeed. Animals and humans cohabitate, and have formed cooperative and, yes, mutually beneficial relationships. There is no cycle without others to fill the niches in ecosystem we cannot fill, and the vegan standpoint that it is immoral for anything to die by our hand is illogical, as is the "speciesist" stance (though they kill untold trillions of microbial lifeforms each and every day in the movements of their lives) that it is speciesist to decide whose life is supported by the life of another. It is a viewpoint which is strictly linear and hierarchical, and cannot fathom a lack of hierarchy and the kind of mutualistic web that we exist within or that land-connected peoples have understood for millions of years. And truthfully it is only the product of colonialism and global food systems: only contemplative disciplines ever practiced veganism historically, and it was with willing regard for life and cycles and the knowing that they were denying themselves. Veganism is not a culturally viable practice for many, and dogmatic and prosyletizing veganism stands in ideological opposition to food sovereignty in many instances. Its morality is also philosophically quite flimsy, but it makes its adherents feel good about themselves, and therefore it is quite a tempting stance to adopt.
We cannot avoid killing microbes, we can avoid treating chickens bodies like machines that are here to produce *for humans*
To suggest that because all ways of living cause some harm to non-humans invalidates the whole vegan position is a form of appeal to nirvana fallacy. Just because the perfect cannot be attained doesn't mean we shouldnt avoid obvious exploitation wherever we can
Actually antihierarchy is a foundational part of veganism, I'm a veganarchist, for me extending fundamental rights to non-humans is part of a wider anarchist project of dismantling systems of supremacy. When you put "food sovereignty" above other creatures right to life you are perpetuating a human supremacist hierarchy. You are saying that our human ambitions excuse exploiting their bodies.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "culturally viable" but any culture that necessitates unnecessary death and exploitation is not an excuse for exploitation its just a self serving rationalization for continuing to benefit from the subjugation of other species
From an anarchist perspective what it comes down to is this, for most of human history humans have leveraged their immense power over other species for their own ends with varying degrees of consideration to their wellbeing. As the population has gotten larger the demand for animal products has skyrocketed and now farming them has become incompatible with continued life on earth.
But the whole time there has been an implied consensus that other animals were here for us to use. That by way of us being able to kill them we were justified in killing them, and when self imposed limits were placed on hunting etc it wasnt for the non-humans benefit, it was to allow their continued exploitation forever
And the veganarchist position is this: that this supposed right of humans to kill other animals for our own purposes is a power hierarchy, and its an incredibly violent hierarchy that needs to be dismantled for the sake of the vast majority of creatures on this planet. So the claim that as a vegan I inherently justify a hierarchy of other species is unfounded.
