The left needs a vegan moment
Compared to what seems like a united right, the so-called left appears in disarray. Perhaps it can learn a lesson from veganism.
Vegetarianism is a fairly nebulous term, allowing people to incorporate some dubious foods like milk and even seafood, as long as the diet is mainly plant-based. Such confusion has stymied food industries from really moving to providing vegetarian food because they cannot be sure of what their target market is or really wants. Then along came veganism with its very clear philosophical basis and criteria of totally excluding animal products and exploitation of them. This enabled the food industries, even those formerly only producing meat, to go all in on veganism.
Veganism provides a clear benchmark with no fuzziness to confuse consumers, and it is something they can feel good about because it is naturally cruelty-free. Even the pharmaceutical industry has clearer criteria about what supplements people might need, whereas with vegetarianism, that can vary considerably, depending upon what their diet actually consists of. Pharmaceutical chains make their generic medicines vegan-friendly because then they will only need to make one product that no one will have any issues with. Veganism makes everybody's choices a lot clearer.
The left is rather like vegetarianism, in that in broad terms it has appeal, but what does it actually mean when it comes to policies. The left is too ill-defined to be sure of what someone who claims to be leftist actually stands for. This is where the clarity of veganism can provide an answer, and perhaps be a clearer alternative. The vegan option for the left, or for everybody, is humanism. In other words, does a person stand for the dignity of humanity and work for bringing all of humanity out of starvation and suffering, and providing myriad opportunities to live fulfilling lives.
This is a clear clarion call and set of criteria. It is for people what veganism is for animals. Cruelty-free policies that benefit all of humanity and allow them maximum agency in the running of their own lives, free from an imposed ideological pedanticism backed up by threats of state violence. Currently, many who call themselves left are supporting a blend of neoliberalism with social support. That is nowhere near properly supporting people as those positions still support mass exploitation and huge wealth inequality. They are like carno-vegetarianism which is patently contradictory.
Humanism has evolved over time, but essentially puts us at the centre of our own lives. It should not include mandatory atheism as that is essentially a religion, and thus what each of us should be freely able to choose whether or not to believe, but not form part of the rules limiting societies, just like any religion shouldn't. Their precepts can inform our choices and actions, but should not codified into law verbatim. Conversely, humanism doesn't preclude us pursuing spiritual aspirations, as long as we don't try to force any damaging dogma or activities upon others.
We need to have clear guidelines for running our societies, but not the current exploitative regimes that favour the already powerful and implore us to live in perpetual stress, while bombarding us with propaganda promoting rampant selfishness. Humanism and veganism provide a way of living cruelty-free, and that should free us from much of the latent guilt that weighs upon us. We don't have to look at life as zero-sum, but as a mutually beneficial cooperative.
Conflation to confusion
△Treating the left as somehow being on the same page leads to a lot of confusion.
This section was prompted by Jessie Gender's YouTube video Zionism,
While many groups opposing exploitation may class themselves as leftist, to be humanist they would have to not discriminate against other groups fighting their own battles against their own exploitation. Many leftist groups are not humanists, just like the Israeli leftist parties were not humanist, simply because they too were willing to eradicate Palestinians, albeit in less violent ways, but still genocide in legal terms of trying to eradicate a culture and force them off their lands.
Probably almost all self-proclaimed leftist groups, parties or organisations would not be considered humanistic, just because they have a limited scope of membership, affiliation or dogma. It can seem hard to deal with serving the needs of the membership without pursuing goals that may conflict with the needs of other groups or individuals. It takes a lot of clear-headedness to keep the broader focus that being humanist requires while dealing with members and factions that are more selfish.
It comes down to not seeing such a humane view as competing for limited resources, but an opportunity to pool resources with other groups so all can relieve themselves from discrimination and exploitation. Getting success with a narrow self-focussed agenda is more likely to generate discriminatory outcomes, leading to other groups being created to get their own share of the cake, while still allowing others to wallow in exploitation.
After the Magna Carta recognised the power of the barons in relationship to King John, many emerging groups over later centuries used their collective power to do their own What about me?
moment to get their share of the power pie, but only for them, and not anyone they considered lesser than them. This is why the Magna Carta is considered a foundational democratic document in England and its former colonies, but it would not have taken centuries if the barons and later had been far more eclectic in who they were standing for, and not stopping until they were included.
Despite the founders of the US still being hamstrung by a dependence upon slavery, its Constitution contains a far more eclectic language that speaks of true universality of rights, which still comes back to bite them with its failure to be implemented. Sentiment is not enough, as we know from the thoughts and prayers platitudes sprouted after every mass shooting, while the obvious solutions are actively opposed by wealthy vested interests. In a way, the word Left is just another platitude, simply because it is vague enough to avoid serious scrutiny of its effectiveness as a supposed movement.
Like veganism, humanism implies and demands a much higher standard of rigorousness of application, because it is so easy to point out how it has failed to be applied. While it does require more effort to fulfil, that it is has such a clear definition makes it conceptually easier to implement, resulting in a greater likelihood that it is implemented correctly, and without fuzzy interpretations sabotaging it.
We are being exploited until no one is free, just because those doing the exploiting are clouding us with propaganda to blind us to the exploitation, and so making us unwittingly complicit in the exploitation. Humanism allow us to bypass the propaganda and demand universal freedom.