This one has been on the back-burner for some time. But the subject of veganism and similar dietary and even religious ideologies presents a ripe opportunity to trace the nature of ideology and its vectors of change as it unfolds in space and time.
A common reason given for veganism and vegetarianism is that it is more healthy, which seems to imply that there were health concerns that arose when meat became a regular and abundant part of one's diet, and that perhaps meat production itself became subject to health concerns.
As an ethical philosophy, veganism is partially described as an ideology that "rejects the commodity status of animals", a clear reaction to the ongoing growth and movement of industrial capital. And perhaps not just industrial capital but the machinations of a large and complex resource-intensive culture. We see the emergence of veganism and vegetarianism not just in industrial England, but in ancient Greek culture, ancient Arab culture, and in the form of ahimsa in Hindu and Buddhist cultures.
But if one rejects the commodity status of animals, why not plants? Why not the microbes noted by Jainist philosophy? Why not the commodification of anything at all? Why stop at animals?
Of course one does find radicals in this vein, but the radicalism itself always exists on a spectrum of degree; its intensity and breadth diminishes as the ideology itself spreads, which we'll elaborate on shortly.
More interesting is why a given swathe of life is delineated for protection, and why this delineation manages to hold, and where does it come from in the first place?
After all, many indigenous cultures had no problems consuming animals, and even felt close to these creatures and grateful to them as they did so. There were often strict guidelines for doing so: nothing should be wasted, and the utmost respect should be afforded to the fallen. Health concerns were less apparent, though there were other threats to take account of.
Here in the West, we look on and we are horrified to see the treatment of animals in industrial farms, perhaps as part of a blooming cosmic consciousness in which we become aware once again of the value of other life systems besides our own, a development in consciousness that must situate itself in opposition to a non-reflective imperial consciousness that treats the earth and its inhabitants as mere objects.
Yet more reactions, yes. And the nascent ideology produces reactions of its own as it ages and disperses.
The ideology is birthed and then it disperses as it generalizes to the greater population, increasingly becoming a general instrument for buttressing one's status in certain circles; its meaning and power is diluted.
You do see this regularly at work. All the time you see the more dogmatic vegans sneering down at their fellow meat eaters, tsk-tsking at how barbaric and harmful it is, while disregarding the reality that the benefits they derive from industrial agriculture - no matter how organic or vegan it is - still results in the deaths of animals, and ecosystems for that matter, and that their very lifestyles are often antagonistic to poor communities.
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Anyway. This is to say that ideologies and their movements live and die. It is the nature of things. This tendency provides the impetus for rebirth, or revitalization, and of course the birth of new ideologies and movements, as the values are modified, inverted, or re-inverted due to the reactions to old values corrupting.
Veganism and its more extreme expressions found in Jainism can be seen as manifestations of a historical feeling, of power vertigo or horror. Participating within a violent empire, one becomes too intense of a presence, and one seeks to diminish oneself, by seeking to preserve those vulnerable forms of life beneath oneself, and horizontal to oneself for that matter, if the ethics are truly to be borne out.
But follow that logic to its conclusion, and suddenly one is faced with annihilation, as is the case with a radicalism without end. One is to protect animals. Well, why not plants? Why not the microbes? Why not the colonies of bacteria one destroys as one washes one's hands? Even the Jains acknowledge for the most part that plant life must be destroyed so that their own lives can continue.
As a living thing, one must carve out a space that demarcates oneself, with respect and compassion for the universe. This realization is what provides the tolerance for other ideologies and movements outside of oneself, so long as those ideologies and movements are just and its members are doing the work. Otherwise one's ideology is instrumentalized to emulate righteousness, and to consolidate one's own power by putting down others who may very well be doing good work themselves.
This then may be a glimpse into the general phenomena of corruption: the increasing diversion of public fruits into private ends, private ends that go beyond the necessities required to sustain the individual.
Taking all of this together, an even more general glimpse into the movement of Western culture is afforded. We see that various radical ideologies are produced as reactions to some symptom of imperial expansion. Are they to acknowledge their own limits, linking up with other radical movements in love and respect, so as to form a mass with the strength to affect systemic and structural change?
Or are the movements more likely to seek expansion out of love of their own power, setting themselves against other movements and dividing externally and internally in turn, doomed to mimic the expanding and dividing empire they are reacting to? In truth we get a constant mixture of these two possibilities, set against constant change over long periods of time. And we are indeed running out of time.
