Vegetarianism as Utopian Figuration

Abstract Vegetarianism functions as utopian figuration in neoliberal capitalist society, but not in a productive or radical sense. It is instead reduced to a lifestyle politics, expressed in personal consumer and ethical choices that reify the status quo. However, this does not mean that the idea of vegetarianism as utopian figuration should be abandoned. Working from Herbert Marcuse’s critical theory—specifically, his discussions of animals and also his analysis of utopia—in combination with Miguel Abensour’s notion of persistent utopia, vegetarianism as utopian figuration is reimagined as an anticapitalist politics of radical vegetarianism—one that refuses the animal death embedded within capitalism and holds open the possibility for the nonviolent and cruelty-free world that capitalism denies.