If not, would anyone be interested in starting one? Just a thought.
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If not, would anyone be interested in starting one? Just a thought.
I believe there is one in India.
I read something in Vegan Voice about a place in New Zealand, but I think that was more of a 'retreat' type of place, rather than a town as such. Bit scratchy on the details. I'd sure love to live there if one existed though!!
In heaven?
BTW, the NZ place is a vegan retreat at a meditation centre. www.ishwara.com, emails to maitreyacentre@xtra.co.nz - I don't have any personal knowledge of the centre.
Just looking at old posts and thought I'd comment on this one. I've always liked the idea of moving to a vegan community/village, etc., or helping start one up. :D If I ever do end up moving, I'll definitely consider what kind of access to vegan resources I would have in my new city/area of choice, and would consider starting something like this up with people.
It would be difficult to start such a thing (but don't anybody be put off trying simply because it's difficult!).
However, these intentional communities often incorporate ethical principles. Take, for instance, the initiative near Lancaster: http://www.lancastercohousing.org.uk/
Have a look at the website, it's comprehensive. They have put a lot of thought into it to try to be as inclusive as possible. The guidelines on food are interesting and would be acceptable to me, though my experience with meat-eaters tells me there would be hostility/conflict.
There's apparently an all vegetarian village in Israel, called Amirim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amirim
An all-vegan village sounds miserable. I'd refuse to live there.
I quite like the idea - as much as a social experiment as anything. Perhaps even as a kind of 'workshop' village with the emphasis on knowledge, sharing discoveries, education, somewhere where people can look for ideas and inspiration.Quote:
Sarah_
A kind of a living forum, in a sense.
The co-housing thing you posted a link to a few messages back, David, sounds OK - not TOO communal. But of course for me it would have to be in central London ;) Why don't you like the idea, Sarah, as a matter of interest?
The Farm in Tennessee is a vegan community that was set up in the 1970s and is still going:
http://www.thefarm.org/index.html
There were over 1,000 people living there at the time they published 'The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook':
http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Farm-Veg...0349743&sr=1-4
They have their own book publishing business, soy dairy, bakery, clinic, midwives and doctors, all vegan. :D
Can you imagine? All the harrumphing people will be doing in this village. One says it's good enough, the other says it's not good at all. Veganer-Than-Thou bits going all around, unwashed fellows meandering about town square, companion animals shunned because some call it saving and others call it enslaving. It'd be complete madness.
Then when the town is overrun with fleas, cockroaches and termites there will be a great civil war between those who choose to eradicate via lethal means and those who choose to live in peaceful coexistence with the bugs.
I think they would sort out their 'ground rules' when they first started coming together and if anybody was really unhappy with the rules and unwilling to change their views, they just wouldn't join. They'd carry on to the next vegan village where the rules are slightly different. I think I'd try the vegan-atheist-Amish-Yorkshire village first.Quote:
Sarah_
lv:smile:
Heh heh, that's a nice vision Sarah! I can see there might be problems over rules with any sort of commune actually. Perhaps it would work better if they went for a kind of lowest common denominator, e.g. everything strictly vegan in the communal area and do what you like in your own flat/house? Although that wouldn't satisfy everyone of course.
I vaguely remember reading about a vegetarian retirement home throwing some residents out after finding chicken bones in their bin. That's reasonable in a way but why were they going through their bin? :eek: Maybe I have remembered the story wrong though.
I remember reading something similar years ago, when a reporter went through Paul McCartney's bin and found something a bit "fishy". We all at some stage have friends and workpeople in the house and it's sometimes impossible to control exactly what they eat and also throw away.Quote:
harpy
lv
Quote:
kokopelli
Wow that looks really good, not had time to look through it properly yet but I quite fancy the courses they do.
I'm also very interested in the healthcare alternatives and how good they are. Healthcare seems to be an area where it must be very hard to break away from the 'system'. I could see myself getting out of the system but how to take care of one's health if faced with say a gall stone (for example) that needs surgery could be a problem that would send me begging back to babylon system.
I'm not sure how it could work, how a community could take control of medication without the police arresing them - for example a doctor can give a patient morphine for pain relief but if I was to give someone morphine for pain relief I'd be locked up. I'd be interested to see how a community could take back control of things like this.
I would also imagine an alternative community (that works) would be like a socialist country and so capitalists would be doing everything they could to destroy it (trade blocks, assasinations etc.) because a viable alternative to the 'system' could spell the death of the 'system'. The US government really has attempted to assasinate Castro!
It would be lovely to know that there were no bits of dead animals in the rubbish and never to have to smell the cooking, to be able to walk down the street without crossing the road and holding your nose when you pass a b*****r shop, but in the long run I think it may be rather too isolating.
Small communities in the country would be ok, I think, but a whole town would possibly be a bit excessive, but hey, who knows, it could work!
I found out about The Farm at first when I was pregnant, from their book 'Spiritual Midwifery', which is a manual for midwives and a collection of parents' tales of childbirth experiences. I was very impressed by their set up. They started out from San Francisco in converted school buses to move to The Farm they bought in Tennessee. Some women were pregnant and they couldn't afford the US hospital fees and anyway some of them had previous bad experiences with hospital births. At that time immobilising the mother to be, excessive intervention and medication were the norm. So some of the people trained as midwives and doctors and they created their own health service and fully equipped clinic, offering free care to people outside The Farm as well. Because they were fully trained and qualified, they had access to necessary medications. They used outside hospital services for situations they weren't equipped to deal with, but most births happened at home. Forty years on, Ina May Gaskin is now an internationally renowned expert and consultant on natural childbirth techniques.Quote:
Johnstuff
Maybe it's just as well that only qualified medics can legally give morphine, because overdose can be lethal and it's impossible for a lay person to obtain consistent strength medical grade.
As far as I know, there was no threat to The Farm from the government. My own opinion is that if you're advocating a peaceful, healthy, low-impact lifestyle, then logic and enlightenment will ultimately transcend paranoia and 'doing everything they could to destroy it' would be self-defeating.
I don't think the NHS is 'the babylon system'. We're really fortunate to live in a country with high quality, free health care. Also, you may be surprised by how many vegan and vegetarian health professionals are working in 'the system'.
I think it sounds like a great idea. The bugs might be a problem, but I suppose one would just have to get stuff that bugs don't like and clean with them. Or keep things pretty clean to begin with with things like vinegar or teatree oil or something like that. I would love to try to live in a vegan community for at least a week. I feel a bit isolated where I am from other vegans sometimes.
Living in a vegan community temporarily might be a bit easier to arrange as there are things like the Vegan Camp - that one is in the UK but I imagine there might be something similar in the U.S.?Quote:
RainInStarlight
I thought about this thread this morning when I woke up to find the smell of bacon invading my flat from the flat upstairs, ugh :eek:
Quote:
kokopelli
Ineresting, thanks for the info. I'm not saying everything about the nhs is bad just that there is a corporate/government control of healthcare. There are many things (like gall stones) that they can really help with. I just don't trust it all by a long way because of the corporate interest in selling drugs etc.
I'd be interested in a community that can provide healthcare without P&G or GSK, or will that link never be broken?
Perhaps I'm confusing the idea of a vegan society with a non-capitalist society, although in many ways I suspect veganism and capitalism are not really compatible.
In my mind one of the hardest things to 'replace' if you formed a non-capitalist/vegan society would be healthcare...
Johnstuff, what makes you think that veganism and capitalism are not compatible? Just interested in what makes you think that. Personally, I've been leaning towards socialism recently myself. The more I think about it, the more sense it seems to make to me as an economic system.
That said, I'm still a "baby" in my studies of economics (much of it is over my head... I really need a simple introduction to it, haha), but it does seem to me that, while consumers do have power in a capitalist system, to "vote with their forks" as we vegans are doing, to get all/most consumers voting "the right way" (which is what is necessary to get the capitalists to, say, provide only vegan products, if this was the only thing in demand) requires education. Considering all the ties between industry, government, mass media, education, etc. it's no small project to try to educate people to make the right choices.
There's also the problem that in some cases it's not enough to know how to make the right choices: you also need to be able to afford to do so. For instance, if my partner and I could afford it, we would buy organic every time it was available. Being at the bottom of the proletariat, we can't afford to make the choice we want every time, we can't afford to always "vote" as we want to.
Bearing that in mind, though, I'm not sure why a vegan capitalist society wouldn't be possible. Capitalists could still make significant profits getting us to produce and selling highly processed vegan foods, foods packed with salt and sugar, and other various junk foods we don't need. Pepsi and Coke are vegan, after all, as are Lays plain chips. Having a population of junk-food loving, sedentary, overweight vegans would also help sustain the drug industry, if not to the extent that a meat-eating population does at least to some extent. Drug companies would benefit from inexperienced vegans suffering disease from deficiencies, and supplement companies would benefit from more knowledgeable vegans who want supplements or fortified foods (which can be sold for more than ordinary foods).
This might be material for a new thread, LOL. :)
I can confirm the info on Amirim in Israel ;) I stayed there for almost a week in July, it's fantastic! Unfortunately it's not vegan but vegetarian, but all guesthouses, restaurants, take aways, etc have vegan options and it is delicious! Plus, the place itself is so beautiful and quiet, you can see the Galilee Sea and the Golan Heights from you terrace ;) If anyone ever considers holidays in Israel, Amirim is a must. It's also a great base for taking day trips to different parts of the country.
That's an interesting question...Quote:
Kimberlily1983
Well to me it seems capitalism is all about exploitation, exploiting the weak/vunerable in order to make a profit. Veganism (IMO) is about not exploiting the weak/vunerable.
I blame capitalism for a lot of the crap that humanity does, promoted by the corporate media that love to equate capitalism with freedom and any alternative as bad.
In your example of 'vegan' junk food being promoted I feel that it is not really vegan to promote things like that...it can be a grey area but if you are advancing yourself by harming others then I feel that's not a very vegan thing to do.
It could be human nature though. Perhaps whatever 'system' we have our own selfishness/fear will lead us to destuction. Perhaps if we were a more enlightened race/species then we would have no need of a 'system' because individuals would be kept in check by their own concience?
You know what? I'd love to live in a vegan village! Not only because Capitalism sucks and living with like minded people is so much better than constant conflict, but because vegans are normally more open to ideas about sexism, homophobia and rascism...although ofcourse not all but you could just kick them out if they didn't comply. :P
I like the idea of a nice peaceful village emzy but I don't like the idea of kicking anybody out. I would hope that dissatisfied people, but who were like-minded among themselves, would leave and form their own peaceful village. This is how the kibbutz I went to in 1969 was started. I've visited Amirim, the Israeli veggie village mentioned by saflett in an earlier posting and it was so relaxed and peaceful, it was unbelievable. I wasn't vegan then otherwise I would have asked if anybody there had ever put the case for adopting veganism totally.Quote:
emzy1985
lv:bigsmile:
We're talking city or town or whatever, right? Not a commune? I like the idea of living in a town that is primarily vegan, however it'd be hard to tell anyone that wasn't vegan to get out...and I'm not sure that I'd want to in some cases.
I often daydream of starting a commune, but I could only do that with close friends and I don't deal well with restrictions. I'm a personal and independent person and I sometimes don't want to be social or to have to follow any kinda social codes.
I think if there were a town/village that was primarily vegan maybe omnis wouldn't really want to live there anyway...As long as it didn't turn into some angry militant town that ends up waging war on the surrounding omni-infested (lol) towns and becomes a target for angry omnis who hate vegans (there are a lot of those around here).
Also, the way some responded to this thread makes it sound like a commune...like you'd be required to do business strictly in the "village". While buying completely local is admirable, I can't do it. In fact, I'm nomadic...if I have to live in one place for too long then I'll find excuses to leave frequently...("oooh, they only carry durian in that one city that is 4 hours away from here and I really want some..."
I've heard of some (almost) completely vegan village in Papua New Guinea ;) ... There is very fertile soil and in general great natural conditions to live eating fresh vegetables and fruits every day. My source says even people are much more open-minded than majority of Europeans. Sounds great:D
Vegan camp in the UK is a great way to experience living in an all vegan community for 2 weeks every summer. They should be updating their website soon to include details of where they will be going in 2011:
http://www.vegancamp.co.uk/
I'm definately considering this for 2011. My little sister has been vegan for about 6 months and I'd really like her to meet other vegan kids.Quote:
Angel of the North
this place in the himalayas :) http://www.veganforum.com/forums/sho...ht=vegan+tribe
In the half year + that I've been vegan, I've been thinking a lot about these issues, and have recently been thinking about the definition of veganism and what it entails. I've been thinking about how historically humans have been seen as different from, separate from animals, and how we should instead acknowledge ourselves as part of the animal kingdom. This sounds pretty straight-forward, but people rarely take it to its full conclusions: this means that animal liberation and animal rights INCLUDES human liberation/rights. Not only are these things not opposed to one another, one is a part of the other (the same way we could talk about chimpanzee rights, cat rights, rat rights, etc. being part of the larger category of animal rights). It means that buying clothes produced through human exploitation, for example, is just as unvegan as purchasing leather. So, I think you're right, such a world as we were talking about WOULD be unvegan. So long as capitalism remains, we will possibly get rid of all non-human exploitation, but human exploitation will remain (because, as you say, capitalism is built upon, reliant upon, exploitation; it is an inherent part of it). A world with human exploitation is not a vegan world.Quote:
Johnstuff
I also daydream about living in a commune, or just at least having more vegan friends. Maybe someday I'll try to start something up - if I do I will let you guys know. :)Quote:
cruelkitti
I'm also a very private person, cruelkitti; I need loads of time to myself, and have my own little routines. I don't generally deal well with sharing spaces too much, though I think I might adapt to it. So, yeah, a set up that took those needs into account would work for me. A mix of private and communal rooms...
As for militancy, I'm finding myself becoming more and more militant. I think this is a good thing: in general people don't seem to care enough about the causes they claim to care about. Certainly people need to figure out how to be effectively militant, though.
I like the idea of living with, or close to, a group of vegans/animal rights activists, and spending lots of time together, some of which would be doing activism together (protests, handing out leaflets, etc.) and some just having fun and supporting one another (because it's a cold world...), as well as plenty of time for reading and engaging in other quiet, non-group activities, etc.
I met an Indian lady at the airport recently ...
We got chatting and she told me that she had grown up completely oblivious to the fact that there was any such thing as a vegetarian.
Reason being that she had never encountered a non-vegetarian, or even heard that there was such a thing, in her entire life untill she moved away from where she had been born and raised.
Oh, wow. :D Yes, hopefully one day the word vegan will become essentially pointless in the same way, because everybody will be vegan and there will be no such thing as a non-vegan.Quote:
Cupid Stunt
:DQuote:
eve
If you needed to be a religious vegan to get in, I suspect that heaven (if it existed), would have a remarkably small population. :eek:Quote:
eve
lv
I'll take the first circle of Hell; anyone else up for that? :evil:Quote:
leedsveg