I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the interesting and thoughtful post that MLC put together recently over at a handsome little sum. I've been trying to formulate a response to what he's been talking about, and I think I'm ready to put some ideas down in a committed way.
The biggest issue that MLC and his partner have been undertaking lately is veganism. I am aggressively not vegan, and not simply because it is one of the many things that White People Like. I think that there are good reasons that people have for going vegan. Reasons that are defensible in many ways. For me, those are the ways that vegans are uncomfortable with the byproducts that their putting into their bodies when they eat meat or other foods that contain meat byproducts. I am not one to question these beliefs any more than I feel comfortable being anti-choice. To me, the same moral and ethical issues apply. But this is not the reason that MLC is suggesting here. He says that he's committing to veganism because he feels that meat, in all its myriad forms, is in some way bad.
There are a couple things that I'm uncomfortable with here. The first is that the best way that we define ourselves as individuals in society is as consumers. Really? I like to look at my role in the greater landscape and impact through what I create and return to the society in which I live. I do far more as a teacher and an artist than I can as someone who only buys tofu and chickpeas week after week. It's only when one fully gives up on the commitment to return to society does one begin to believe that their greatest impact is in what they can take from it.
My second real departure from MLC is the impact that he apparently believes his decision has on the marketplace. If the heart of this decision is the commitment to a more ethical lifestyle, isn't the more impactful decision to commit to pay a little more (and then consume a little less) for responsible, sustainable products? I understand this isn't a commitment that everyone in the world can make, but that's one of the great virtues we have being born into positions of privilege. If we are really committed to examining our impact on the demand side of the chart, surely the impact would be greater not to remove ourselves from the marketplace, but instead to shift our purchasing priorities to those products that we feel are ethical. Although the marketplace has supported ethical farming and ranching enough so that there's national (largely) distribution for these products, any decreased market share for industrial meat production will be felt more if there's a corresponding uptick for sustainable production. The economy only feels shifts in market share; there's no pressure for change if the consumer just removes themselves from the equation altogether.
My final issue with veganism has to do with the moral qualms that many vegans express with using these animals as "means to an end." I'm not sure I totally understand the underlying assumption of this argument. There's no question that animals used for industrial production have no hope of existing in a natural environment. 21st Century cows, chickens, and pigs are as much a creation of humans as the Prius, frisbees, or hemp shorts. It's the same with corn or soybeans. I'm not sure that I understand the moral or ethical imperative here. I understand that cows and pigs would prefer to be alive, but so would the mold that creates penicillin. Should we forgo antibiotics?
My really final issue with the outward-looking veganism of MLC is that in order to be serious, it must be evangelical. If one truly believes that eating meat or using animal products is so detrimental to the human experience that it must become taboo, it is not possible not to try to impress these views on others. Just as it's impossible for someone who truly believes that abortion is murder to abide a single instance (even in cases of rape and incesnt), so also must the philosophically serious vegan be unable to abide those around them eating meat or wearing leather in their presence. Even if the vegan is able to watch a companion devour a delicious kobe beef burger, the implication to the companion is obvious: you are not as pure and uncompromised as I.
What I found particularly interesting in MLC's post though was the latter part, in which he describes his and his partner's living philosophy as being "radical decency." I'm not going to critique this philosophy right now, because I feel like I've already kind of taken a dump on their beliefs too much already (although it's meant in love and to challege the seriousness of one's intentions). But it has gotten me thinking about my own governing assumptions.
I think that what I have been living under for the past few years has been the philosophy of the title of this post. And I don't mean this is any Ayn Rand bullshit. That kind of philosophy leads to alienation and distrust. I know, because my mother-in-law is a scary fundamentalist libertarian.
What I generally mean is that over the past year or so I've become more aware of the limits of my own body and mind and genetics. That being said, I have been living in the hope of reaching the limits of the material with which I've been provided. The human mind only has the capacity to focus on three or four things at a time. But we are also creatures of habit. As I work to perfect one part of my life, that becomes habit, and integrated into my everyday experience. Once that goal is maximized (although never achieved) it becomes part of the lifestyle, and the mind has space to move on to the next project.
My current projects are generally rolling. Every year I work to become a more perfect teacher, whether it is through greater discipline in grading essays in a timely manner, or becoming more forward-looking in planning, or (most lately) in becoming more involved in the campus community and working for students outside the classroom. I'm always interested in pursing perfection in the body, and part of this was making the decision that I will commit to working out six days a week. That's a committment that I've been able to keep, and has allowed me to continue to push my physical limits. I've worked to become a more perfect member of the ecosystem by taking small steps like bringing bags to the grocery store to limit the amount of waste that we use. In a step that drives Leah crazy, I have maximized my fuel efficiency by coasting into red lights and making sure that I'm stopped as little as possible when I'm driving.
Is part of this meant to be a role model for others? Of course, but that's not the focus. The understanding is that when everyone is constantly striving toward their own perfection, then the goals, because we are all members of a society, begin to diverge creating a better world. This is the idea that I try and pass on to my students.
The funny thing about working with 18- and 19-year-olds with modest ambitions is that they're more than happy living with the status quo. There is an inertia that has been built up by at least the last four years of high school and maybe more. I try and teach them that nothing of value comes without struggle, and then requre them to struggle in order to succeed. There's virtue and value in that struggle.
As long as I'm struggling, I feel like I'm moving toward the perfection of self.
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Ben, your critique of our choices really illustrates a lot of the attitudes that I was trying to single out as problematic. While I know you offer these thoughts move the conversation forward, I think you're missing a few of the important points we're trying to make.
ReplyDeleteMost glaringly, your ardent opposition to our choices is problematic in a number of ways.
First, and most obviously: if you're opposed to any sort of evangelizing, then you should re-evaluate the "aggressive" part of your "aggressively not vegan" stance. We've been clear that we're making this choice because it's something we think that we'll be able to do that will have some sort of positive impact, not because we want to hold ourselves up as some sort of example for others. We've never said this, nor have we implied it. I also don't think we've ever said that "meat is bad." And I'm positive that the tacit disapproval of others is imaginary. By your own logic, clearly you hate everyone who does not coast up to red lights and you must disapprove of everyone who drives a car that gets worse gas mileage than your own. If you're not anti-choice, then you should respect our choice as our choice and not imagine us sitting in silent judgment of everyone around us. I promise you, this isn't the case.
Second: we haven't said or implied that we are, first and foremost, consumers. What we have said is that we make choices as consumers and that these are choices with consequences and that going forward we are holding ourselves to a new set of criteria when evaluating the choices that we make.
Third: We haven't removed ourselves from the market. We still eat. I promise you we do. As people who still eat and who still buy food, we are simply doing exactly as you say: we have "shift[ed] our purchasing priorities to those products that we feel are ethical." Our choice to stop buying and eating animal products is exactly the same as you going to Whole Foods and only buying the products that meet your ethical standards.
And last: your "aggressive" italicizing of partner and your "aggressiveness" in general is exactly what I mean about simple acts of decency being radical. If our being thoughtful and scrutinizing the decisions WE make FOR OURSELVES is seen as transgressing the social norms, then the society that maintains those norms is clearly a hostile environment and needs to change.
I offer these clarifications with the hope of moving the conversation further still, but I hope that you realize that we're really arguing for the same things. I hope you can see that, and I hope that you can understand why mocking some of the choice we make (choice that are not easily come to) is offensive and illustrates exactly why we feel these choices are important for us to make.
Let me clarify a bit:
ReplyDeletethe critique of veganism = not offensive and a welcome conversation;
the italicizing of "partner" = offensive and clearly an attempt to poke fun at what we feel is an important and inclusive term.
That's all.
I'm no vegan, but most of what I was going to say was captured in MLC's response. I think your defense of your own individual right to decide what is ethical is undermined by your offense at being confronted with ideas different than yours. Even if your assertion that veganism *were* evangelical in nature, it hardly prevents you from exercising your own choice.
ReplyDeleteAlso, whether you like it or not, you are a consumer. I am afraid that your role as "a teacher and an artist" replaces far fewer resources than you expend by simply being another human on this planet. Unsurprisingly, both you and vegans have reached a similar conclusion: I need to revise my consuming ways, and redirect them in more sustainable paths. It is a mystery to me why eliminating meat from someone's diet sticks in your craw so.
"[19 year-olds are] more than happy living with the status quo. There is an inertia that has been built up by at least the last four years of high school and maybe more."
Isn't is because, generally, their worlds are smaller, and maybe they have an exaggerated sense of self in their perspective? I doubt you have little reason to challenge the status quo when you have such little power to affect it. Most of the people who land in your classroom have been under the thumb of parents and state institutions their whole lives. Were you blessed with such desire to self-improve and challenge norms at 19?
Argh.
ReplyDeleteEven if your assertion that veganism *were* evangelical in nature, it hardly prevents you from exercising your own choice.
should read
Even if your assertionwere correct that veganism *is* evangelical in nature, it hardly prevents you from exercising your own choice.
MLC: Please don't confuse me not agreeing with your and your partner's reasoning with being opposing to the choice. As someone stridently in favor of choice, you can do whatever you like; it doesn't hurt me in any way. I'm not even inconvenienced. I'm just trying to work through your reasoning.
ReplyDeleteYou might not be literally saying that "meat is bad," but how is your decision not implicitly saying that? By saying that you cannot ethically abide your own consuming of meat (which you do say), what else is the underlying assumption there?
Were I to invest in a book titled "Coasting With a Vengance" or began a movement called "Coastingism", I think you might have more of a rhetorical point.
On the point of consuming, I'm not sure that you have effectively replied to my main point: if your project is to "in some way" effect change through your purchasing priorities, is that effect greater if you remove yourself from the meat market altogether, or if you instead invest in ethical ranching practitioners? If the understanding assumption is that there *are* no ethically positive options for ranching, then we are back to the question of whether you belive that "meat is bad."
On the final point: W/R/T italics, I would think that you made the decision to use "partners" in hope of highlighting the disproprotionateness in representation for homosexual couples. Wouldn't the point be to highlight this decision? That was my intention. If you take offense, I'll happily change the italics.