The Greens

[Beorning]

Here's something I'd like to discuss, because it kind of makes my brain hurt.

For years, I've tended of think of various "Green" politicians and activists as progressive, reasonable and, in general, trustworthy people. I didn't vote for them, but they didn't raise any mental red flags for me. And I thought the issues they've been raised were noteworthy.

But.

Currently, there's a Polish member of European Parliament, one Sylwia Spurek. She's a member of EP's Green faction. And she keeps making statements (and actual proposal) that... I don't know, maybe I am ignorant in these matters, but... these proposal sound kind of fanatical?

For once, she proposes a total ban on any meat production. A complete stop - no meat would be legal in the EU. So everyone would have to go vegetarian (or maybe even vegan, as she claims that eating eggs is reprehensible, too). She also demands a ban on any kind of fishing - including recreational fishing by private people. Recently, she made a statement that all forms of horseback riding should be banned, too.

At one point, I tried engaging her and her supporters on her FB profile. And I learned that, according to her supporters, even owning a pet is morally unacceptable. If you own a dog or a cat? You are making a slave out of an "animal person". And "animal persons" should not be exploited and enslaved by "human persons" in any way. So, dogs, cats, cows, horses... they should just become free-roaming animals again. When I pointed out that many domesticated animal species just wouldn't survive on their own anymore, I was informed that it's not a problem: we should just stop breeding them. Basically, allowing dogs or horses to go extinct is more morally acceptable than keeping them as pets or domestic animals.

Seriously, am I ignorant... or is all of this just nuts?

[Dice]

There are morons on all side of politics, on the right you have White Supremacists and openly fascist nitwits. All you have done is found the lefts version. People who will support their rather moronic environmental policies regardless of it they make any sense.

We have one over here who is banned from entering Western Australian (A state of ours) for pouring blood on herself in supermarket meat departments. No one I personally know take them seriously.

TLDR, extremists are extreme.

[Beorning]

My question is, though: are these people extremists?

I don't know, maybe I am simply a caveman-minded person from a backwards country who cannot fathom something that's obvious to more ecologically-sensitive people.

I do believe in animal rights and I understand the ethical and enviromental issues related to industrial farming and meat production. I just don't think it's reasonable to make a jump from that to banning recreational fishing, horse-riding and pet-owning, as well as forcing everyone to go vegan. But what do I know..?

[TheGlyphstone]

That's the party line of PETA - the People For Ethical Treatment of Animals as they call themselves - over here in the US, and they're pretty much universally regarded as extremist kooks.

[Azy]

That's the party line of PETA - the People For Ethical Treatment of Animals as they call themselves - over here in the US, and they're pretty much universally regarded as extremist kooks.

This.  I'm all for animal rights.  I know meat demand has gone way up with the population and modern times, and so factory farming became a thing, but I think a lot of things that go on in those farms is inhumane.  People in California have been bitching lately because of a law recently passed involving the size of pig pens or something. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/pork-prices-california-animal-welfare-pig-farming-law-christensen-farms-2021-8

Even the articles themselves are bitching about being kinder to animals making prices go up.  I'm sure they'll rise some, but it usually never ends up being as bad as people crying it will.  There are of course also other factors than just this bill, but I digress...  I would support more of this.  While I support others having a choice of switching to a vegan diet, I'd really rather not.   

[Chulanowa]

My question is, though: are these people extremists?

Depends on how you want to use the word "extremist." if you mean "do they have extreme versions of ideas,' then yes. if you mean "Are they going to use extreme measures to enact their extreme ideas" then lol no.

What's going on here is basically the end result of a "purity parade." Basically these people join social circles of like-minded people (as one does) that slowly just sort of spiral tighter and tighter together, excluding other ideas. Then, when it's just a bunch of people who believe basically the same thing, they engage in a sort of contest of one-upmanship to prove their ideological and moral purity to each other. when they poke their heads out to talk to people who are outside this bubble, they sound like absolute lunatics. Especially since by this point they are completely unused to actually arguing their points or hearing criticisms of their ideas, and so are unable to do either in any useful way.

That this person ended up heading the Polish greens (if I understand you correctly?) just tells me that  the greens of Poland are a really ineffectual and disorganized lot.

I don't know, maybe I am simply a caveman-minded person from a backwards country who cannot fathom something that's obvious to more ecologically-sensitive people.

I do believe in animal rights and I understand the ethical and enviromental issues related to industrial farming and meat production. I just don't think it's reasonable to make a jump from that to banning recreational fishing, horse-riding and pet-owning, as well as forcing everyone to go vegan. But what do I know..?

See, the argument could be made.

Sport fishing - where you go out to catch a fish just for the enjoyment of doing so, and then release it back? That's honestly pretty unethical once you start thinking about it. it absolutely does hurt the fish (you just drove a spike into its face and are dragging it towards you by said spike) and can be lethal with some larger fish such as shark, marlin, or tuna (they fight so hard and lose heat so slowly that they end up cooking themselves.) And why? Just so you can go "wheee!," take a picture and throw the thing back? On the other hand, if you're reeling that sucker in because you absolutely plan to kill and eat it? By all means. Learn to do so humanely and you've got my endorsement. I 100% support subsistence hunting and fishing. Hell I've had to live like that before. This is where PETA gets a lot of well-earned criticism 'cause they have a habit of going after indigenous communities for their hunting, fishing, and husbandry.

Horseback riding is a weird one. I know that, left to their own, a horse just wants to put grass in one end and out the other all day. Which hey, that's totally fair. However, saddling one up and going for a ride isn't particularly bothersome so long as the animal is well-treated. It's also still one of the safest and most economical ways to travel, in many parts of the world.

And frankly, there are a LOT of issues with pet ownership. A huge amount of fish is dredged out of the oceans just so our cats can have cheap food. The "exotic pet trade" is hastening extinctions and environmental degradation all over the world, both through the capture of these animals, and their release into new environments. There' no real ethical argument that can be made for "dog breeds" - especially since many of them are achieved through truly egregious amounts of inbreeding and result in animals that live some pretty tortured existences. Same with designer cat breeds like the munchkin and scottish folds. And frankly the whole concept of treating an animal, a sentient living being, as property is... really messed up and leads to a lot of abhorrent treatment under the logic of "it's my property I'll do what I want." And then there's the people who just plain have no concept of what an animal needs , like... yanno... all the vegans who try to force their cats to be vegan too. There's a LOT of things wrong with the way we approach pets.

Doesn't mean I'm opposed to the core concept of having an animal for a companion. But that's what it needs to be. The animal is your ward and you're its caretaker, it's not your property and you're not its owner. Let animals breed naturally instead of forcing them to doink littermates just so you can "preserve" whatever the hell this is. we'll all have healthier animals as companions, and have healthier rleationships with 'em that way.

[Saria]

For years, I've tended of think of various "Green" politicians and activists as progressive, reasonable and, in general, trustworthy people.

I’m going to get to this woman’s claims, but before I do, I feel like I need to bust the myth that “Green” politics has anything at all to do with being progressive.

# Green politics are not progressive

Yes, it’s true: Green politics are not progressive politics. Green politics are not necessarily anti-progressive, and there are probably some progressive Green parties out there. But broadly speaking, looking across the global Green politics movement as a whole, it is certainly not a generally progressive movement.

For example, in Canada, the federal Green Party of Canada is actually a right-wing party… or, at best, centre-right. Some days, on some issues, the centrist Liberal Party of Canada is way left of the Green Party.

Even the OG Green party, the literal Greens (well, whatever “the Greens” is in German; I can’t be bothered to look it up right now), they are definitely not a progressive party. In fact, they are so tightly connected to the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (Merkel’s party) and the centre-right Free Democratic Party, there’s actually a name for the three of them collaborating.

I suppose it’s possible that Green politics used to be progressive, back when it was originally dreamed up in the early 1980s. I can’t say either way, because that was way before I was born. You see, it’s not that the Green movement has changed and become regressive (or, at least, not-so-much-progressive). The opposite is true, in fact. The Greens have more or less stayed the same since the 1980s… but the world has moved on.

When Green politics was taking shape in the 1980s—which is roughly when most Green parties were founded—it was still possible and popular to believe that capitalism and environmentalism were compatible, and possible to have a sustainable capitalist economy. Greens (generally) are not really anti-capitalist; they are just opposed to “short-term capitalism”: they believe that environmental costs should be factored in to economic calculations… but otherwise the formulas remain the same. All you need to do is regulate pollution and exploitation—put a price tag on those things—and everything should work out fine, the thinking goes.

Now, a few decades later, that thinking is widely understood (among actual progressives) to be helplessly naïve. Contemporary progressives have a consensus that capitalism itself is the problem, and either needs to be massively overhauled, or completely abandoned. But most Green parties are still stuck in that 1980s thinking: “If only we regulate enough, we can have both a healthy ecology and a thriving (capitalist) economy.”

Now, this particular politician sounds a bit extreme, but it doesn’t surprise me to find that kind of loopiness in a Green party. The Canadian Green party has been pretty loopy at times, too (mostly with stuff like pushing homeopathy… and their former leader was terrible… and their current mess… and so on). Green politics is not progressive; at least not anymore.

# The animal rights movement is also not progressive

Also, aside from Green politics, there is animal rights activism. Animal rights activism is a hotbed of inanity; it’s so pervasive, that there’s even a stereotype of animal rights activists being batshit insane.

This, too, is another field that is not progressive by default. It is certainly possible to be both an animal rights activist and progressive… but it is not as common as you’d think. The animal rights movement attracts a lot of wackos—it is very attractive to misanthropes, and it has a long and storied history of racist, eugenicist, and genocidal ideas. And, worse, it doesn’t really put any effort whatsoever to pushing those wackos out, or marginalizing them. Indeed some of the biggest organizations in the movement encourage ridiculously offensive, mind-bogglingly stupid rhetoric… I think someone in this thread already mentioned PeTA (the “e” is lowercase for a reason).

So, again, I’m not the least bit surprised to see an animal rights activist being so stupid. Animal rights activism has never been particularly progressive.

# This politician’s positions are not progressive

So let’s get to the meat (pun intended) of what’s bothering you here. Are this woman’s beliefs in any way representative of contemporary progressive thought?

No.

Is she an extremist? Absolutely, yes. But not a progressive extremist.

If you consider yourself a progressive, an environmentalist, and an animal rights supporter, yet you are baffled and disturbed by this woman’s positions… there is nothing wrong with you. I consider myself all of those things, and I am very much an active and engaged activist for those things (although, I don’t really do much animal rights work, specifically; I am very active when it comes to environmental activism, and many other forms of progressive activism… just not animal rights specifically), but I don’t think I could name any activist or organization that I’ve ever worked with that would support her positions.

Now, although she’s gone way off the rails, it is true that there are kernels of modern, progressive thought in her beliefs. She strikes me as one of those activists who does so well and works so hard in their thinking up to a certain point… then shuts their brain off and turns into a doo-doo-dum-dum from there on out. That, though, is the complete antithesis of progressive thinking: being a progressive requires constantly re-evaluating your beliefs, trying to suss out the places that complacency and privilege are clouding your thinking. As the saying goes, being progressive is a journey, not a destination.

So let’s focus on her specific claims (at least as you’ve described them; obviously I can’t go to the source, but I trust your framing), and see how the fail the smell test of progressive thought.

# Eating meat

Let’s start with the meat thing. There are plenty of extremist vegetarians/vegans who think all meat-eaters are murderers. There are even stereotypes about them. But they are not the majority, nor do they represent the consensus among progressive thinkers, animal rights activists, or… well, anyone other than extremist vegetarians/vegans.

Most progressives these days accept that humans are animals—the human/animal distinction is mostly artificial, to modern progressives; a social construct. And, yeah, animals eat other animals. To condemn humans for eating animals is thus absurd.

Furthermore, humans have been eating animals for as long as there have been humans; it is part of the heritage and culture of most humans. To tell an indigenous tribe that they’re monsters for hunting/fishing the traditional way their ancestors have passed down to them… that’s just the height of colonial hubris. And if there’s one thing modern progressives are sensitive to, it’s colonialism. Remember when I said the Green and animal rights movements have some nasty racist history? Well, I present evidence exhibit A. I don’t know what the indigenous situation is like in Poland, but if she were a Canadian politician, and she tried to tell indigenous people that they were immoral for hunting or fishing, she would be shouted down by a resounding chorus of over 600 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit nations, telling her to check her fucking privilege.

However…

Most modern progressives will also tell you that IF YOU CAN, you should try to cut down on your meat consumption, for a number of reasons:

• Factory farming (and most other industrialized farming methods) is ethically abhorrent, disgustingly unhealthy, and catastrophically unsustainable.
• Some of the animals we eat are at risk becoming endangered (mostly fish).
• Many of the animals we eat that aren’t at risk of being endangered are being farmed… and that creates other problems relating to more restricted gene pools, which means they are more susceptible to diseases, and that could result in them being endangered. (I can’t think of an animal example of where this happened, but bananas have been farmed to a limited gene pool to such a degree that the entire species could be destroyed by a single disease… twice: first the Gros Michel variety, and now the Cavendish.)
• Even if it is not murder to eat meat, killing an animal for food is still harming it, and we still have a moral obligation to do as little harm as reasonably possible. Since we’d die if we didn’t eat, and it’s extremely difficult or impossible in most places to eat healthy without some meat in the diet, the harm done by killing an animal for food is reasonable. But, y’know, be reasonable about it.

We do, as a species, need to cut back on meat/fish farming and consumption, for environmental and, yes, ethical reasons. So she was on the right track… she just went off the rails.

There are of course simple-minded buffoons in every movement, but most progressives—at least those who think seriously and hard about these issues—understand that ideological purity or perfection is bullshit. While it might be “ideal” in a perfect world to stop all meat/fish eating… it’s just not practical in the real world. But we don’t need to—and shouldn’t—try to be perfect. We should just try to do a little better, if we can. We should try to move toward more sustainable methods of meat/fish production, but so long as we’re not there yet, we should try to reduce consumption to reduce the damage being done. Practical incremental improvement is far better than impractical lunging toward “perfection” that probably won’t succeed anyway.

# Animal ownership

As for the whole “slave” thing… again, she’s starting from a widely-held, cogently-argued, ethically-justified, reasonable progressive position. Most modern progressives agree that the distinction between human and animal is largely synthetic; it’s mostly a social construct. Most modern progressives will accept at least some species of animals as non-human persons: usually most species of ape, maybe dolphins and porpoises, recently some species of birds, elephants, and a few others. There is also a movement afoot to give actual legal rights to non-human persons (and to nature as a whole, but that’s a whole other issue).

So it is not really peculiar, in progressive circles, to say that dogs or cats are people, with legal rights—not necessarily the same exact rights as humans, but at least the most basic rights.

But to make the leap from that… to “well, if they’re persons, then owning a dog is owning a person, which is chattel slavery”… that’s just fucking stupid. And fucking offensive to boot.

First of all, owning a dog doesn’t give you full rights to the usage of that dog in any way you please. “Owning” is just the colloquial term for it, but the truth is that the “owner” of a dog is actually the caretaker of that dog. A slave owner could—and frequently did—simply kill slaves, for punishment, or just for entertainment, and it was legal, because they were actual chattel. You can’t just up and kill your dog. Slave owners, quite famously, routinely beat the ever-loving shit out of their slaves, for whatever reason. You can’t beat your dog; that’s animal abuse. Slave owners also raped their slaves on the regular. Your dog is not your fuck toy.

So clearly a dog is not a slave, and owning a dog is not the same thing as owning a human was in the days of chattel slavery. You really have to be a complete idiot to think that. Plus, making that claim devalues what actual slaves suffered through. I can promise you the trip across the Atlantic on slave ships didn’t involve chew toys, belly scratches, and “who’s a good boy”s.

By making that claim, she is not marking herself as progressive. She is marking herself as ignorant, privileged, self-absorbed, and, frankly, probably a little racist. (I mean, she’s equating mostly African slaves with dogs, man. How cringe can you get? Maybe she didn’t mean that… but merely saying it betrayed that she’s never seriously considered the struggle of black people.)

(There are plenty of other practical problems with pets in the current system; Chulanowa mentioned several. Yes, those are absolutely serious issues, and they should be addressed. But I consider those peripheral problems; yes, they’re bad, but we could fix all those things, and it wouldn’t address the problem of whether having pets is fundamentally right or wrong.)

# Animal labourers

Okay, I’ve been focused on dogs… pets, really. But what about work animals. Aren’t they slaves? Or at least slave-like? I mean, they’re persons (at least to some degree) being forced to do labour they didn’t consent to. Slavery, right?

Again, no.

Again, that’s just simple-minded, black-and-white thinking… which, again, is the antithesis of progressive thinking. Consent is a huge deal to progressives, but progressives are not morons. They understand that consent—in the sense of complete understanding of a situation, and unambiguously and clearly communicated permission—can’t always be given, and sometimes has to estimated or even assumed. Like, seriously, what are you going to do if you find an unconscious person in a burning car? Leave them, because you can’t get their consent to touch them in order to save them? No, obviously not; obviously this is a situation where you cannot reasonably obtain consent, but simply giving up and walking away because you can’t get it is also unreasonable, so it is reasonable to assume consent. (See all the “reasonable”s in there? Progressives understand compromise, and they understand that there are greys, not just black-or-whites.) And what about raising kids? Kids can’t consent, so… what, the parents are paralyzed, unable to do anything with or for the kid, because they can’t get the kid’s permission? Come on.

Horses obviously can’t consent to being ridden in the way that I consent to letting people ride me. But horses can “consent” in a limited way. If they don’t want to be ridden, a horse will fucking let you know, my friend.

This applies generally. If an animal really doesn’t want to do a job… it won’t. It will resist, it will try to escape, and it will probably attack you if you don’t get the message. You could try to force the animal at that point… but we already talked about animal abuse being unacceptable. There was actually a situation recently where an Olympic horse flat-out refused to perform… and the coach punched the horse for it. That’s obviously unacceptable; I just mention it to illustrate that animals can communicate when they really don’t want to do something.

In practice, animals do need often need to be trained—they need to be coaxed into doing something, often in small steps building up to it. But that’s because we can’t explain to them what we want them to do or why. Instead we show them what we want them to do and incrementally reward them to encourage them.

And we do reward them. We give work animals shelter, food, medical treatment, and quite often we pamper them. Some may enjoy the work we make them do, some may not and will only do it for the rewards… but that’s the same for humans and their jobs!

So a work animal is a lot less like a slave, and a lot more like an human worker… with allowances for the limited understanding and communication abilities of the animal. We can’t treat them exactly like we treat fellow humans… because they’re not… but we can tailor the general idea of forming a contractual agreement to the communication and cognitive capabilities of the animal.

Once again, you just have to be reasonable about it. You should ensure the work the animal is doing is not too strenuous or dangerous, and you should reward it appropriately. You should pay attention to the animal and its signals: look for signs that it is unhealthy, unhappy, or stressed, and help it.



So, in summary, this woman’s positions are in no way progressive. It’s not even that she’s an “extremist”… her positions are straight-up contrary to contemporary progressive thought. (She may be an animal rights extremist… but she is not a progressive extremist; remember animal rights is not necessarily progressive (for example, when it is based on misanthropy).)

I have tried to show at least one flavour of progressive thinking on the issues she raised, but, of course, I won’t be surprised if other progressives quibble about the details. That’s fine; I like that progressives are constantly challenging each other. But I think the broad strokes I described are roughly universal among progressives, even if they might frame them differently.

[Beorning]

Okay, first of all - I'd like to thank everyone for opinions in this thread. I apologize for not replying - nevertheless, your input was enlightening...

Also... I must say that I just bumped into another case of bizarre Green views.

It was a Twitter discussion in Polish, so it's impossible for me to post it here... In short: one guy made a pretty awful post on how it's "in the interest of humanity's survival" to "eliminate the gene pools of families with learned helplessness" who rely on social handouts to survive. "Stop breeding the pathology!!!", he says.

This gets retweeted by a... a female member of Poland's version of The Greens. With the comment of "I agree. We shouldn't breed pathology and learned helplessness, as well as cause these things to consider bad traits and stupidity to be virtues". With "these things" clearly referring to *people*.

This caused some sh*tstorm on Twitter. And from what I saw, yet another female Green politician joined with a claim that "pathological families usually raise pathological children"...

This whole discussion really dripped (IMHO, at least) with contempt for the lower class people. The two politicians defended themselves by saying that they only referred to making sure that social services don't promote disfunctional lifestyle and helplessness... nevertheless, the undercurrent was quite ugly. And, as I mentioned, it started from a tweet that expressly mentioned the "elimination of gene pools"... Ugh.

[Chulanowa]

Okay, first of all - I'd like to thank everyone for opinions in this thread. I apologize for not replying - nevertheless, your input was enlightening...

Also... I must say that I just bumped into another case of bizarre Green views.

It was a Twitter discussion in Polish, so it's impossible for me to post it here... In short: one guy made a pretty awful post on how it's "in the interest of humanity's survival" to "eliminate the gene pools of families with learned helplessness" who rely on social handouts to survive. "Stop breeding the pathology!!!", he says.

This gets retweeted by a... a female member of Poland's version of The Greens. With the comment of "I agree. We shouldn't breed pathology and learned helplessness, as well as cause these things to consider bad traits and stupidity to be virtues". With "these things" clearly referring to *people*.

This caused some sh*tstorm on Twitter. And from what I saw, yet another female Green politician joined with a claim that "pathological families usually raise pathological children"...

This whole discussion really dripped (IMHO, at least) with contempt for the lower class people. The two politicians defended themselves by saying that they only referred to making sure that social services don't promote disfunctional lifestyle and helplessness... nevertheless, the undercurrent was quite ugly. And, as I mentioned, it started from a tweet that expressly mentioned the "elimination of gene pools"... Ugh.

Which brings us to another element sometimes found in green political circles, "Ecofascism." It's not really fascist, strictly speaking, more like organized misanthropy, but it carries enough bigoted, nationalist, and eugenics ideas that it's still a handy title.

Basically these are the environmental edgelords who sneer "humanity is the virus" or whatever, and really, REALLY love to talk about how much "third world overpopulation" is ruining the environment, and "those people" can't be trusted to manage anything. Tends to go around in anachro-primitivist circles too, with a very robust (and very uneducated) idea of "survival of the fittest."

[Thufir Hawat]

Seriously, am I ignorant... or is all of this just nuts?

Long story short, yes it is. Treat those that spout such ideas accordingly !