[Austin Vegan writes:]
I’ve been vegan for over 9 years and into environmentalism/ecology for even longer. Being in those spaces, I’ve interacted with many people on the left and far left while considering myself more “moderate” or “apolitical.” That said, my political leanings are not only considered “right wing” by the majority of vegans, but often far right, or even treated as if they’re akin to being a “nazi.”
The reality is, my views have remained largely consistent over those years. I’m still vegan. Still an environmentalist. Still an atheist. What has changed is the ideological climate around these spaces. The nature of this certain brand of leftism that has taken hold is to continually move the goalpost as to what is deemed “moral,” and of course acceptable. Views that would have once been seen as normal, nuanced, or just outside the dominant current are now framed as evil, dangerous, or beyond discussion.
I’m at the point of really trying to distance veganism from leftism as far as possible, even refraining from alluding to discrimination and speciesism in educating people. Not because those concepts are totally without value, but because they immediately pull the conversation into a broader ideological framework that I don’t think is necessary, and often does more to alienate than persuade. The case against exploiting animals does not require buying into an entire left-wing worldview, yet veganism is constantly packaged that way, to its own detriment.
In the context of comedy, leftism is virtually incompatible at face value. Comedy provides relief from the suffering in life. It makes light of the absurdity of reality. It plays with tension, contradiction, and discomfort in a way that allows people to process what would otherwise just crush them. A worldview that moralizes everything, polices tone, and treats irreverence itself as suspect cannot coexist comfortably with real comedy. Comedy requires room to breathe. It requires a tolerance for imperfection, for offense, for things landing badly sometimes. Without that, you don’t get comedy, you get sterile ideological performance masquerading as humor.
And what makes it worse is that these same leftist comedians will often feel emboldened to join in the jew-hate only when it aligns with the group-think of the day, “Israel bad,” “free Palestine,” and the like. Not because they arrived there through careful thought, principle, or moral consistency, but because it is socially rewarded within their circles. Their morality is shaped far less by independent reasoning than by mimicry, social pressure, and a constant need to remain aligned with whatever emotional and political consensus is dominant at the moment. Criticizing Israel is one thing. Sliding into outright hostility toward Jews because it has become fashionable in certain circles is another.
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[My reply, FWIW:]
Re: "I’m at the point of really trying to distance veganism from leftism as far as possible…" —there's a significant precedent in the rise and fall of New Atheism as an internet phenomenon. It's difficult to remember this now, but the people who identified as atheists (during a brief period of time when money and fame could be had through talking about atheism) really could not deal with the separation of atheism from Communism, specifically, and leftism, generally. I don't think this example has predictive power for what happens next in veganism, it's just an instructive example from the past. https://youtu.be/PjjiQDDQFZA
