Why Vegan? - Ithaca Today

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Why Vegan?

 

by Michael Pal

1/23/01

 

 

We live, undeniably, within a meat-eating society. Why do I choose the

dissenting opinion and practice of veganism despite the dominance of meat-eating

in our culture?

 

Veganism provides a critical lens that allows you to subvert established ways of

seeing about more than just your diet. When you view the world through a vegan

eye you realize that most of our manners, customs, behaviors, and even ways of

thinking are socially created, not absolute, ahistorical facts of human life. In

the process of reevaluating your diet new meaning is created. A roast beef

sitting on a table carries entirely different connotations for the meat-eater

than for the vegan.

 

For one, the roast signifies a meal, merely food, meat. For the other, it

signifies a dead cow and a needless waste of life. The vast majority of us are

separated from the process of transforming living beings, like a cow, into meat

—the common act behind the opposing interpretations of the meaning of the meal

to the meat-eater and the vegan. We are removed from the act of slaughter

itself. We are at a distance from the experiences of the cow, both physically

and mentally. Few of us have ever witnessed the interior of a slaughterhouse and

our everyday language builds barriers between any acceptance of the consequences

of our desire for meat upon non-human animals. (Think of the different

implications inherent in the choice of language available to us - veal or baby

calf?) It is this concept of distance, which is central to my vegan

consciousness.

 

Allow me for a second to ask an absurdly large question: Why are human beings

capable of cruelty? Obviously, this is an age-old question, which allows no

conclusive answer. Indulge me enough to let me offer a partial one: It is

because, for whatever reason, human individuals are capable of dismissing the

suffering of others, be they human or animal others. In other words, we create a

distance between ourselves and the actual experiences of other living beings.

 

By extending the sphere of moral concern to include those most at our mercy,

non-human animals who are still capable of suffering, veganism is a way to

thrust the experiences of another living being upon your own self. Veganism

allows us to escape from our own subjectivity for at least a moment. Despite the

seeming inconvenience of a vegan lifestyle to us amidst a surplus of fast-food

hamburgers, regard for the experiences and capacity to suffer of another living

being is and always has been the basis of ethical, authentic relationships both

amongst human beings and between human and non-human animals. Exposure to the

suffering of non-human animals, made possible by a vegan perspective, compels

one to move beyond oneself in considering the consequences of our actions. Even

the most seemingly mundane parts of our daily routine, such as our consumption

of food, are included. We come to realize that concern and compassion are

emotions, which are developed, not given.

 

Once you do start to question your diet and expand your sphere of moral concern,

you realize your capacity to rearrange your life and priorities in a way that

challenges the dominant culture so ingrained into us by the media, family,

customs, and so on. Here is the key: the process can be repeated. Upon seeing

non-human animals as capable of experiencing suffering, and thus by extension

classifiable as an oppressed group, you ask yourself questions. How did I create

that distance between myself and the suffering of non-human animals in the first

place? Do I do this with other groups? Do I distance myself from the suffering

and experiences of some groups of humanbeings as well? Other races? The poor?

Women?

 

Maybe, then, we can be bold enough to ask how much of our questioning is about

" I " and how much it is really about " we. " Is it aspects of our particular

culture that create the distance between our individual selves and the suffering

of others? By what process? Within our culture, is there a common process that

legitimizes the oppression of non-human animals and certain human groups and

makes their suffering register as acceptable to us?

 

Then, finally, we can ask the most important questions: How can we subvert a

dominant culture of " distance, " and with what more compassionate alternative can

we replace it? A vegan diet is not characterized by depravation or loss, but by

gain. It is an articulation of an alternative to the dominant culture and when

we choose to speak in a vegan voice we bestow upon ourselves gifts of

immeasurable value: the creation of new meanings and an expanded consciousness.

 

 

http://www.ithacatoday.com/dispcontent.asp?id=1098

 

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