From Marc 3 Poirier Sent Wed, May 12th 1999, 15:25
From Marc 3 Poirier Sent Wed, May 12th 1999, 15:25
><< That statement, the part about "radical-vegan," is something I've
>never
> understood too well, the idea that veganism is radical. Yet it's phrased
> that way so often. >>
>
>My intent was not to comment on the degree to which veganism is radical, I
>was aiming to describe the political slant of Consolidated. Blast those
>hyphens - I knew they would get me in trouble!
>
>Perhaps I should have used "radical" in attachment to another word, like
>"radical-feminist." I wonder if that would spawn a similar objection.
>Certainly, I believe Consolidated hoped to appear "radical," although I
sense
>that this discussion could degrade into a semantics game.
Fred,
Well, I admit that after I sent off the message, I realized that I sent it
off a little prematurely, before fully addressing the idea of what's
radical. Yes, on a social level (within human society), veganism is
radical. It is confrontational towards what is the social standard in a
very central social area, that of eating. It is directly working against
an outrageously gigantic economic industry, that of animal-based foods. In
these ways, there's no denying it's radical. But it's not radical with
regards to non-human society. I'm sorry, I really should have been much
clearer with that distinction.
Had you applied radical to the other terms, yeah, I personally probably
would not have written what I wrote. At any rate, trust me, I have no
problem personally with the term radical. Some people do, & they take it
with negative connotations. I've heard it used ESPECIALLY that way with
regards to veganism in a way to make it sound "too extreme" &
unapproachable by most people so that it can be disregarded as an important
lifestyle change, more so than I think with most other social movements
right now. That's what I have a problem with (& that's why I say that I
only wrote something because the word was exclusively applied to veganism).
Whether you were doing that, I have no idea honestly, & I tried to make it
hopefully clear at the end of my post that I wasn't evaluating what you
wrote so far as to come to a conclusion like that, but I just didn't want
anyone else to.
Gosh, I hope that was phrased better. I really hope you don't think I was
judging some intent behind what you wrote, really I wasn't, in fact I
appreciated reading what you wrote about Consolidated (who I'm not
personally familiar with), I just felt that I wanted to make things clear
in the context of the social atmosphere of today. Umm, did that make
sense? Okay, maybe not, maybe I'll just stop now.
Marc Poirier