I do believe that individual human beings can elect to behave non-violently. This can't be legislated for, it has to come from within. Veganism is a significant component of this for me.
However, I think when you start considering policies such as attempting to convert carniverous species to veganism you've adopted the role of their steward which I find arrogant and inevitably prone to disaster: either the animal would eat you or, if by some chance you were successful, the other species which benefit from their activity (e.g. carrion) would suffer.
All human notions of material progress - and many ones of moral progress - are self-defeating because they inevitably undermine the ecological foundations upon which we all stand. I think we know enough about ecosystems now to understand the proper limits of our interventions with other species. This should be limited to reversing some of the stupid stuff we've done previously. Any notions of progress or evolution, however well meant, are contrary to this understanding.
27 June 2005
19 June 2005
Forget politics - let's change the world
The facts regarding climate change in particular, and environmental degradation in general, will be over-familiar to many people by now. You cannot turn on the radio without hearing another feature about ‘the environment’. Paradoxically, and despite the best efforts of the Green Party and the usual pressure groups, ‘green issues’ had little or no presence within the recent general election campaign in the UK. The Green Party’s results were, to be charitable, patchy and showed little prospect of the requisite, urgent quantum leap in electoral performance. When confronted with the real prospect of irreversible and ecological (and therefore social and economic) calamity within the next thirty years, it is surely time to urgently review our approach.
All environmentalists are exasperated by the intransigence of government and corporations when faced with the demands of ecological crisis. Why can’t they act, even in their own interests? Perhaps we are failing to recognise that that such institutions, as products of industrial society, are intrinsically deleterious to Nature, hence their present paralysis. They cannot be sufficiently reformed without transforming them completely.
Understandably, this has encouraged a view that we must take control of the situation. Unlike socialists, we cannot attempt to coral the working class to do our dirty work for us (although I suspect quite a few die-hard socialists have mistaken our radical agenda for their own) so we have entered into the fray of national, adversarial politics. The problem is: environmentalism is, by it’s nature, neither adversarial, national and, I will suggest, political in any conventional sense. I feel the utopian ideological misapprehensions that suggest parliamentary democracy is capable of delivering change, or that other political parties might be amenable to our influence, has lead us into a political cul de sac and has allowed green thinking to become marginal rather than fundamental. Nature has become ‘the environment’ (something out there, remote) and her crisis mere ‘green issues’. Our present course runs the risk of merely confusing, exhausting and demoralising our core support. It may be unpalatable, but I have to suggest to you that green politics isn’t working.
To revive it, I believe we must unravel our present philosophical and ideological contradictions. Not to be clever or purist but to ensure that our personal/natural resources are used with maximum efficiency. That means not using party politics as a substitute for real change. We must engage with people’s real selves not their political prejudices. As I’ve already indicated, conventional politics thrives upon finding someone to blame. Or identifying someone, anyone, to be the agency of social change. Except oneself. The real news is that the agency of change from our environmental perspective is, unavoidably, oneself!
Let’s set aside the fact that engaging in parliamentary democracy may not just be ineffective but profoundly retrograde environmentally. What case can be made for personal change as the agency of meaningful social change, or to paraphrase Gandhi, being the change you wish to see in society? I think we must start by recognising that there can be no meaningful distinction between the individual and nature. Conventional conceptual barriers like our skin, or the walls of our homes are fine if you want to, say, bury your waste ‘out there’ and forget about it, but are dissolved by ecological understanding. This explains why your mental and physical health are not contingent upon the environment, they are the environment.
These observations give some idea of how much traction exists between you and the environment. The way you conduct your life is, therefore, not only important, but hugely transformative. For example (and I realise these are contentious examples) if every Green Party member gave up their car(s), air travel and became vegan tomorrow I would suggest that the net environmental benefit would, overnight, outweigh everything achieved by the Green Party to date. Moreover, our arguments for real progress would be hugely more convincing if we were radically walking the walk as well as talking the talk. We could develop a transformative community which demonstrated the enormous personal and social benefits of living as part of nature: it is no coincidence that industrial society has gone to great lengths to disrupt the simple but potent synergy between human beings and nature. I suspect we all know what we need to do – this is the time to act. Politics should be the cart not the horse.
All environmentalists are exasperated by the intransigence of government and corporations when faced with the demands of ecological crisis. Why can’t they act, even in their own interests? Perhaps we are failing to recognise that that such institutions, as products of industrial society, are intrinsically deleterious to Nature, hence their present paralysis. They cannot be sufficiently reformed without transforming them completely.
Understandably, this has encouraged a view that we must take control of the situation. Unlike socialists, we cannot attempt to coral the working class to do our dirty work for us (although I suspect quite a few die-hard socialists have mistaken our radical agenda for their own) so we have entered into the fray of national, adversarial politics. The problem is: environmentalism is, by it’s nature, neither adversarial, national and, I will suggest, political in any conventional sense. I feel the utopian ideological misapprehensions that suggest parliamentary democracy is capable of delivering change, or that other political parties might be amenable to our influence, has lead us into a political cul de sac and has allowed green thinking to become marginal rather than fundamental. Nature has become ‘the environment’ (something out there, remote) and her crisis mere ‘green issues’. Our present course runs the risk of merely confusing, exhausting and demoralising our core support. It may be unpalatable, but I have to suggest to you that green politics isn’t working.
To revive it, I believe we must unravel our present philosophical and ideological contradictions. Not to be clever or purist but to ensure that our personal/natural resources are used with maximum efficiency. That means not using party politics as a substitute for real change. We must engage with people’s real selves not their political prejudices. As I’ve already indicated, conventional politics thrives upon finding someone to blame. Or identifying someone, anyone, to be the agency of social change. Except oneself. The real news is that the agency of change from our environmental perspective is, unavoidably, oneself!
Let’s set aside the fact that engaging in parliamentary democracy may not just be ineffective but profoundly retrograde environmentally. What case can be made for personal change as the agency of meaningful social change, or to paraphrase Gandhi, being the change you wish to see in society? I think we must start by recognising that there can be no meaningful distinction between the individual and nature. Conventional conceptual barriers like our skin, or the walls of our homes are fine if you want to, say, bury your waste ‘out there’ and forget about it, but are dissolved by ecological understanding. This explains why your mental and physical health are not contingent upon the environment, they are the environment.
These observations give some idea of how much traction exists between you and the environment. The way you conduct your life is, therefore, not only important, but hugely transformative. For example (and I realise these are contentious examples) if every Green Party member gave up their car(s), air travel and became vegan tomorrow I would suggest that the net environmental benefit would, overnight, outweigh everything achieved by the Green Party to date. Moreover, our arguments for real progress would be hugely more convincing if we were radically walking the walk as well as talking the talk. We could develop a transformative community which demonstrated the enormous personal and social benefits of living as part of nature: it is no coincidence that industrial society has gone to great lengths to disrupt the simple but potent synergy between human beings and nature. I suspect we all know what we need to do – this is the time to act. Politics should be the cart not the horse.
It has become apparent to me that the necessary changes to people’s lives in order to salvage our future on this planet could never be imposed from above without creating a monstrous, Stalinist regime. This would obviously be completely self-defeating. If we can reveal the future through our lives today, there is still the prospect of our own freedom and meaningful social transformation.
Vegans and companion animals
I'd suggest there are two popular attitudes to nature:
1. Nature and other species are a resource to be used as and when humans please. I guess all omnivores subscribe to this, knowingly or otherwise.
2. We are animals just like other species, they experience emotions just like we do. They are, therefore, entitled to the same rights as we are.
I think most vegans probably see things the second way. When it comes to pets/companion animals they are best treated as we would wish to be treated ourselves.
I'm in a minority of vegans who don't quite see things this way. I think each species is sufficient unto itself. I think it is narcissistic to look at other species and see ourselves: to project our own image, values and emotions onto them. A dog is (or should be) a dog, not a trainee human being. A cat interacts with us for its own benefit and then gets on with being a cat.
To see animals as like us or part of us is narcissistic - we are so enraptured by ourselves that we see our own image everywhere. We seek interaction with them on our terms e.g. by talking to them, or expecting them not to eat us, adopting them as quasi-children, instead of respecting them simply for what they are. By the same process we invest nature with the powers of a strong (wo)man God who will sort stuff out. Nature won't do a damn thing in accordance with what we want. It is the combined energy of millions and millions of interconnected organisms we are merely a big piece in an infinite jigsaw. Nature is disinterested - in the true sense of the word: 'she' doesn't have a vested interest in this, or any other, human affair.
There is a vestige of omni self-importance in vegan thought which is most obvious in the way we cling to our pets through compassion but deny them freedom in the long term. Much better the symbiosis of, say, our relationship with earthworms. They are busy being worms and happen to contribute massively to the soil fertility for our crops. Do I want to take one home to look after? I do not: I spread mulch on the soil, leave it to its own devices and respect it deeply.
In this, and all things I think we should attempt to minimise our impact, of any sort, on fellow sentient species. My veganism is merely an expression of this. The problem with domestic animals is that our interference is locked into their genes. They are stuck in a kind of Groundhog day of neither animal or human experience. I think it behoves all vegans to look after those pets we've got, then free future generations of this man-made suffering.
This is why I support the extinction of pets through mandatory sterilisation.
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