This isn't a moral argument. It's a tactical one.
If you are a white vegan arguing with a carnist and that carnist brings up indigenous meat eating to associate veganism with colonialism, you may appear to be in a double bind. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to go on the attack without associating the vegan movement with colonialism and thus damaging it. But if you back down without fighting, then the carnist's point goes unchallenged, strengthening their position and weakening that of veganism.
That doesn't mean you don't have options, though. Think of the carnist's argument as a heavily fortified military strongpoint. You don't attack such a position head-on. You infiltrate. You hit it from its blind spots. You attack the weaker flanks and encircle it.
Instead of attacking indigenous people who eat meat, point out how cattle ranchers drove bison to the verge of extinction to force Native Americans to become dependent on their product. Talk about how commercial overfishing threatens the food supplies of coastal indigenous communities. Ask them about the vast portions of the Amazon being cleared for cattle grazing. Remind them of the exploited immigrants getting PTSD from their work in slaughterhouses. In short, confront them with the fact that carnism does far more to harm indigenous communities than veganism ever has or (owing to carnists having vastly more political power than we do) presently could.
All of this, of course, assumes that the person you're talking to is not indigenous. If they are indigenous, there's a good chance they'll already be sympathetic to some of your views. In fact, indigenous communities have actually been at the forefront of fighting some of the worst excesses of western carnism, such as when the Inuit got Canada and four other countries to ban commercial fishing in the Arctic. It's important to recognize that they're probably closer to our position than an average westerner, and that they're doing meaningful work to advance goals that align with our movement. No, most indigenous cultures aren't 100% vegan as we define the concept, but as Lenin said, you can't make a revolution in white gloves.
I personally think the focus of the debate should just be on the Factory farms and industrial livestock, not on what individual people consume. Don’t tell people they are immoral, but tell them about the poison of the meat industry in general. It’s much easier for a person to take and actually listen.
It’s the same thing with almost every issue in America. Talk about the man and always try to make the person you’re talking think you are on the same side. Leftists in the west have been so inundated with “individualism” that we force our arguments to be about personal morals. Unless you are hanging out with the people in power, even the worst person you know is a product of their environment.
Animal rights are a matter of human self preservation at this rate. The status quo is suicidal.
This is exactly what I am talking about. Regardless of you being correct, you are screaming into the void.
i just point out that the person arguing with me isn't indigenous and is using indigenous people dishonestly as a shield for their crimes. they'll inevitably say "no trust me bro im totally indigenous" and they never are. you'll dig into their post history and they're some rich white british asshole or something
are you saying rich english people are not the original indigenous inhabitants of britain?
ARE YOU SAYING JESUS' FEET DID NOT WALK UPON THE PREHISTORIC LAWNS OF ENGLAND?
the indigenous inhabitants of britain are the hobbits that came over from New Zealand read a fucking book dude
no.
on a morning, not very long after britain had first arose from the azure main, a festering steak awoke on a perfectly manicured lawn in the south of england. it looked around himself, and saw many of its kind still slumbering on the pesticide-coated grass. and so was grilling invented, because the first thing the first festering steak did was cook its own kind.
from it were born the first englishman and englishwoman and their descendants still sing upon the monocultural green deserts of their home.
The points you mention as possible responses are correct of course. But I feel it would make me sound like I'm trying to avoid answering an actual question. Assuming the argument was chiefly a moral one, the question could be, "are indigenous hunting practices morally wrong?". How would you answer this, without deflecting?
I don't necessarily see how it would hurt my position to say that killing animals is wrong, no matter who does it. If the pro-murder side accuses me of being a colonialist/settler whatever, it's easy to point out, that colonialist interference to stop indigenous hunting practices by force is also morally wrong, and the two positions are not mutually exclusive. As of yet, no vegan militia has encircled a native village anywhere in the world.
I can't speak much about US politics, but if we move to an argument about policy, I could simply agree that lobbying efforts should be focused on the curtailing or abolishment of commercial murder.
You're right. But I feel that very few vegans make this argument, and the ones that do are online and get yanked into a debate that they're not ready for. Basically every lib vegan org and big vegan streamer has publicly stated that indigenous can eat meat (for reasons that lots of people have already explained in this thread).
But sure, this is good advice for the vegans amongst us, because insisting that indigenous need to go vegan is wrong and terrible praxis.
In a conversation with white people, yeah I'd avoid this topic, because it's a stupid gotchya, and invoking it is just using the existence of Indigenous people as a reason to excuse their own behaviour. I'm sorry but their lives and traditional practices are not trump cards for you to play to win arguments. It'd be very easy for me to pull the uno reverse using Indigenous vegans as an example, but that's just as gross unless it's to make the point that, like all people, they have a wide range of approaches to this issue. It's telling that we all have to keep saying "Indigenous" as a catch-all for the hundreds of thousands of different nations around the world with widely varying traditional practices.
In conversations directly with Indigenous people, I've used the same approach I use with anyone* - open dialogue, no judgment, and a gentle but firm commitment to my own principles. I don't like to argue; I like to elaborate why I do what I do when people are curious or ask questions. People tend to respect you when you lead by example, stick to your guns, and aren't a dick about it.
*People can tell pretty quickly when you're patronizing them because of some weird guilt or fetishization of their ethnicity.
Nah. Meat eating is immoral no matter what. If some Amazonian tribe regularly sacrified people to their God, they wouldn't be morally absolved even if it's a part of their culture. Fuck off carnist apologist.
Maybe read the whole post and don't just react to the title lol
