[298] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
vegetarianism and politics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (mjacknis@MIT.EDU)
Sat Dec 31 02:30:19 1994
From: mjacknis@MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 94 02:29:34 -0500
To: vsg@MIT.EDU
Based on the recent traffic on this list, I wanted to voice a concern:
There seems to be a confusion/mixing-up between vegetarianism and
politics. Specifically, there seems to be an underlying assumption that
vegetarians have or ought to have certain political views. The accepted
views are that of compassion and that of achieving compassion through
"progressive" or "liberal" philosophy.
This approach omits at least two sets of people: those who don't have
compassion but are vegetarians and those who DO have compassion but
don't think it can best be achieved by the progressive political
philosophy. I personally belong to the latter set.
As far as I understand it, everyone is welcome here at VSG. Please
continue to participate and offer your thoughts, and continue to send
suggestions of an administrative nature to vsg-request@mit.edu
It is certainly OK to discuss politics and pursue political activism.
However, we need to specifically identify when we are doing this, so as
to keep the Vegetarian Support (recepies/cooking/restaurants) distinct
from the Politics (letter writing/campaigning/animal rights), and not
establish implications or assumptions regarding "accepted" political
views that vegetarians have/ought to have.
I welcome further discussion on this matter,
Mike Jacknis,
VSG "vice president (whatever that means)"
MIT Libertarians (occasional) web maintainer
