Vegetarianism, which pretends not to eat meat, seems to portray them as a kind-hearted group, but in fact they are morally corrupt. Why do these people refuse to eat meat? It is actually their own pity for their impending doom. When they see animals being eaten, they think of their own fate in capitalist society, projecting themselves onto those livestock like pigs, cattle, sheep, and chickens raised and slaughtered by humans. Therefore, they behave like Confucius and others who promote “Gentlemen stay away from kitchens,” saying “I cannot bear to see them die after seeing them alive.”
On the other hand, they not only do not eat meat themselves but also impose this demand on others.
Hitler said, “It is truly regrettable to live in an era where the future is unpredictable. But at least I can predict one thing to meat-eaters: the future world will be a vegetarian world.”
But in reality, these people undoubtedly only act this way because they are detached from labor. The impoverished proletariat has no chance to eat meat, so how could they pursue vegetarianism? Moreover, these people pity animals being eaten but do not sympathize with workers suffering from exploitation by the ruling class, revealing their reactionary individualism.
The same applies to animal protection activists. The first animal protection laws were enacted in Nazi Germany, which even required lobsters to be treated with neurotoxins to prevent pain. In contrast, there were the laborers in concentration camps cruelly killed with poison gas by Nazi executioners. Additionally, Nazi Germany established nature reserves everywhere, which is exactly like today’s reformist policies—merely to prevent workers from exploiting natural resources. There have even been “strange news” in China about wild boars attacking people. Seeing Putin “loving dogs,” some say, “If Putin is so attentive to dogs, he must be more compassionate to the people,” but in fact, we know Putin is a representative of the Russian bourgeois oligarchs invading Ukraine. The monopolist bourgeoisie he represents has caused extreme harm to the working people of Russia and Ukraine. How can there be any talk of loving the masses? In China, there have been incidents where landlords persecuted a poor family to death over a single eagle, and now there are cases of vicious dogs attacking people without punishment.
It is evident that vegetarianism and animal protection are not super-class virtues but often reflect the resentment of the exploiting class against the people. 今天，普京和他收到的这只萌宠宝宝又刷屏了（视频）|普京|土库曼斯坦|萌宠_新浪新闻 山东故事“平鹰坟”：毛主席曾指示拍成电影 政治动员与话语构建:莒南大店 “平鹰坟”的故事_地主_群众_运动 恶狗伤人试问谁负责任，中修包庇装作无事发生。
Animal protection activists are only motivated by their self-consoling “compassion” to rescue animals, and in reality, they are not truly acting in the animals’ best interests. I once saw a case where a white-coated brown bear was mistaken by animal protection activists who didn’t understand animals for a polar bear, and then it was sent to the Arctic. When the bear was about to freeze to death, people from an Arctic research station returned it to its habitat and even dyed it brown to prevent it from being sent back again. After a while, due to sun and wind, the dye faded, and this white-coated brown bear was again sent by animal protection activists to a polar exhibit in a zoo to be frozen.
Previously, I also saw many animal protection activists criticize meat-eating behaviors. They feel sorrow when animals are slaughtered, but they continue to tacitly accept capitalism’s deadly oppression of the proletariat. Even if they extend their kindness to animals, they naturally do not see the suffering of impoverished workers.
Can you explain this paragraph in more detail? I don’t quite understand it.
Are nature reserves really just to prevent workers from exploiting resources? Isn’t this somewhat similar to the situation in the Rhine region during Marx’s time, where the aristocrats didn’t allow common people to pick up firewood?
It means that although they appear to pity animals, they are actually pitying themselves, feeling that they will also decline in capitalism just like these animals slaughtered arbitrarily by humans, which is a reality caused by petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie unable to see the future.
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Is it somewhat similar to the situation in the Rhine region during Marx’s era, where the nobility did not allow common people to pick up branches?
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Yes.
In that case, it seems so. The proletariat does not consider whether to eat vegetarian or meat; they often lack the ability to choose. People who have such compassionate thoughts towards pets and animals are basically petty bourgeois or bourgeois. But can it really be said that compassionate animals are pitying themselves? Does socialist society under the dictatorship of the proletariat have vegetarians?
Humans do not have innate compassion; certain feelings come from specific social practices and a sense of right and wrong. The bourgeoisie, due to their exploitative nature, treats animals as private property—on one hand, hunting animals like crocodiles and elephants to satisfy their luxurious desires; on the other hand, waving the banner of animal protection to prohibit workers from utilizing natural plants and animals. Their compassion for animals is the most hypocritical; meanwhile, petty bourgeoisie detached from labor, due to their unstable lives under capitalism, feel that the world is unpredictable and cannot adopt a correct attitude towards nature. They often associate natural changes with their own fate, lamenting spring and autumn, sighing endlessly. The proletariat and other workers do not place their spiritual reliance on animals or even inanimate objects; they can correctly understand and transform the world through labor, using everything in nature to serve production, and do not have unnecessary compassion. For example, if a pig farm’s pig gets sick and dies, they feel sad mainly because of the loss to their production, not because of any profound grief over the pig’s death. They also do not have so much time to lament spring and autumn. When workers see people abusing cats and dogs, they mainly feel anger towards the oppressors’ behavior. Socialist society is not purely perfect, but the broad masses of workers certainly would not engage in such practices.
I can understand the attitude of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat towards animals, but I still cannot fully understand the reason why the petty bourgeoisie pities animals. As a petty bourgeois intellectual, I also feel compassion when I see birds killed by cats in the campus; I also feel compassion when I see the carcasses of cats run over by cars. Is this also a form of self-pity?
Any relationship between humans and objects is always rooted in relationships between people; humans and objects cannot establish social relationships, and thus there are no social feelings. However, objects carry the relationships between people, just like commodities and capital. This kind of emotion can only originate from feelings toward other people, a projection of compassion or pity for humans onto animals. Even if not consciously done, it is spontaneously influenced by ideas such as animism. And even if it’s not pity for oneself, it is not an ultra-class pity for all people, but pity for those who are in the same class as oneself and share the same fate.
I understand. Just like some elderly people in rural areas have deep feelings for their pets because of the lack of emotional connection with their family members, which is the absence of human-to-human relationships. Taking the petty bourgeoisie as another example, they are in a repressed state and tend to project their pity for their own or their class’s fate onto objects.
Yes. The relationship between people and objects reflects human experiences and the worldview formed by them. However, in a class society, due to differences in practical experiences, the manifestations can also vary. For example, the petty bourgeoisie often sympathizes with cats and dogs, thinking they are ‘pitiful’ like themselves; but there are also many petty bourgeoisie standing on the oppressors’ side, believing that being oppressed means they should ‘draw the sword against the weaker,’ and may kill cats and dogs, etc.
Speaking of which, resource extraction activities in capitalist societies are led by the bourgeoisie, and even resources utilized by the proletariat are often exploited by the bourgeoisie. So, establishing nature reserves with the aim of preventing people from developing resources seems a bit like a futile gesture.
Because they want to turn these places into their own private estates, just like Japan. The Japanese shogunate once enacted a so-called animal protection law, the specific details of which I have forgotten. It seemed to prohibit laboring people from killing animals for meat, but in reality, it was just to allow large landowners to treat those animal resources as their private property, satisfying their own appetites.
Speaking of it, animal protectionists and animal abusers are actually two sides of the same coin, just as pacifists are actually only covering up for the imperialist world war preparation stage. Those animal protectionists do not care at all about the plight of the working masses. They say they protect animals, but in reality, they protect animals according to capitalist rules, turning animals into what they want them to be. For example, cats are a significant case. Originally, cats catch mice, but in the eyes of animal protectionists, cats should not catch mice; instead, they should be dressed up beautifully, lazing around all day, being held and played with by people. After dogs were domesticated by humans, they were clearly responsible for assisting the livestock industry, guarding homes, and hunting. However, these people either dress dogs up beautifully, making them lose all combat ability and incapable of guarding homes, or turn dogs into rude, irrational, crazed, and vicious dogs that bite indiscriminately.