I’ll admit that I committed a strawman in the last comment. I’ll take the L on that one.
But I do not agree that this entire thread is based on a strawman, because my original question was in response to seeing OP taking a purist stance other places. We can see that OP answered this question with a purist take.
From what I can see, OP refused to answer the question because it’s a hardly relevant edge case. Could you link the comments where OP took the purist stance your original comment is a response to, and where OP responded in a purist way?
Though to answer the question you pose for myself, I would say it’s up to Inuit to find a way to evolve their culture to become vegan while preserving the things they care about that don’t involve brutalizing animals. Cultures evolve all the time; the horse wasn’t native to the Americas but was happily adopted by nations across the North American and Argentinian steppe. This isn’t loss, it’s improvement. You aren’t entitled to hurt others just because it’s traditional to do so.
And if some people refuse to let their culture evolve, and in some distant future activists have nothing better to do, and the ecosystem is at least as balanced if the animals aren’t killed1, and all less violent ways to apply pressure have been exhausted, then at some point it would be right for people to defend animals from hunters with deadly force, whether those hunters are Inuit or anything else. What those hunters want to do other die trying to kill others is up to them.
Consider how rhinos are currently being protected with deadly force from poachers. There are lots of traditional cultures that want to hunt and kill rhinos for their bodies, but local governments have decided that the continued existence of rhinos as a species is more important than those rituals and the lives of those who want to enable those rituals.
Do you think the people that are willing to kill traditional hunters to protect those rhinos are wrong?
Though sad as it is, Inuit likely won’t have a choice. The ecosystem that relies on seasonal ice coverage and the necessity of cold adaptation is being undone. Climate change will drive most species Inuit traditionally hunt to extinction, or at the very least drive them north much further than the places Inuit have traditionally lived and reduce their populations below the point people (or other predators) can sustainably hunt them. Inuit culture will have to evolve or die without any person getting between them and animals they might hunt. So why not evolve into veganism while they’re at it?
1: I personally don’t see a moral difference between predators of different species hunting animals to kill them and eat their flesh. Deer likely don’t care whether they are killed by buckshot, spear, or a wolf’s bite. For thousands of years Inuit were part of a balanced ecosystem as an apex predator, competing with polar bears, orcas, and birds of prey, and they were no worse than them. But in an ideal world, there world be no predators and no overpopulation of the animals they prey on.
One day, when this is the most pressing issue, and we know there is a predator species that can’t be kept alive with a vegan diet and whose ecosystem can be balanced without them, I would be okay with letting that species go extinct rather than let prey animals suffer and die to feed them. Hopefully we can find better options, though.
Without climate change, it would be quite possible that Inuit hunters turning vegan would destabilize the ecosystem by creating a surplus of herbivores that cause a collapse of populations lower down the food chain, or that it would end up with just as many animal deaths as other predators fill the ecological niche and there is just as much suffering. But now, polar bears are at risk of extinction in the wild, and the ecosystem is getting unbalanced in ways Inuit tradition never had to encounter.
By the way, looking over the post with new eyes I realize that I overlooked the title of the post “Veganism is leftism”. Feel like it is worth pointing out given that it changes the context of the image text. At the very least this insinuates
You are not a proper leftist if you eat meat or animal products.
Or maybe you disagree with this. If so, then I guess I’ll leave it at that.
I’ll admit that I committed a strawman in the last comment. I’ll take the L on that one.
But I do not agree that this entire thread is based on a strawman, because my original question was in response to seeing OP taking a purist stance other places. We can see that OP answered this question with a purist take.
From what I can see, OP refused to answer the question because it’s a hardly relevant edge case. Could you link the comments where OP took the purist stance your original comment is a response to, and where OP responded in a purist way?
Though to answer the question you pose for myself, I would say it’s up to Inuit to find a way to evolve their culture to become vegan while preserving the things they care about that don’t involve brutalizing animals. Cultures evolve all the time; the horse wasn’t native to the Americas but was happily adopted by nations across the North American and Argentinian steppe. This isn’t loss, it’s improvement. You aren’t entitled to hurt others just because it’s traditional to do so.
And if some people refuse to let their culture evolve, and in some distant future activists have nothing better to do, and the ecosystem is at least as balanced if the animals aren’t killed1, and all less violent ways to apply pressure have been exhausted, then at some point it would be right for people to defend animals from hunters with deadly force, whether those hunters are Inuit or anything else. What those hunters want to do other die trying to kill others is up to them.
Consider how rhinos are currently being protected with deadly force from poachers. There are lots of traditional cultures that want to hunt and kill rhinos for their bodies, but local governments have decided that the continued existence of rhinos as a species is more important than those rituals and the lives of those who want to enable those rituals.
Do you think the people that are willing to kill traditional hunters to protect those rhinos are wrong?
Though sad as it is, Inuit likely won’t have a choice. The ecosystem that relies on seasonal ice coverage and the necessity of cold adaptation is being undone. Climate change will drive most species Inuit traditionally hunt to extinction, or at the very least drive them north much further than the places Inuit have traditionally lived and reduce their populations below the point people (or other predators) can sustainably hunt them. Inuit culture will have to evolve or die without any person getting between them and animals they might hunt. So why not evolve into veganism while they’re at it?
1: I personally don’t see a moral difference between predators of different species hunting animals to kill them and eat their flesh. Deer likely don’t care whether they are killed by buckshot, spear, or a wolf’s bite. For thousands of years Inuit were part of a balanced ecosystem as an apex predator, competing with polar bears, orcas, and birds of prey, and they were no worse than them. But in an ideal world, there world be no predators and no overpopulation of the animals they prey on.
One day, when this is the most pressing issue, and we know there is a predator species that can’t be kept alive with a vegan diet and whose ecosystem can be balanced without them, I would be okay with letting that species go extinct rather than let prey animals suffer and die to feed them. Hopefully we can find better options, though.
Without climate change, it would be quite possible that Inuit hunters turning vegan would destabilize the ecosystem by creating a surplus of herbivores that cause a collapse of populations lower down the food chain, or that it would end up with just as many animal deaths as other predators fill the ecological niche and there is just as much suffering. But now, polar bears are at risk of extinction in the wild, and the ecosystem is getting unbalanced in ways Inuit tradition never had to encounter.
I thought I had answered you earlier, but seems like my answer was unposted. Anyways here is the link to OP’s answer.
https://lemmy.ml/post/46931241/25560113
By the way, looking over the post with new eyes I realize that I overlooked the title of the post “Veganism is leftism”. Feel like it is worth pointing out given that it changes the context of the image text. At the very least this insinuates
Or maybe you disagree with this. If so, then I guess I’ll leave it at that.