The repair-quality of altruism

1123: 

Here’s an extreme thing to say – but perhaps it doesn’t have to be dismissed out of hand, at first glance. Altruism is the answer to almost every problem facing us. 

Perhaps this sounds too simplistic and too unrealistic, but that’s what is behind veganism – putting aside our own needs and wants and instead thinking about ‘the other’. As vegans, we aren’t giving in to our own cravings nor abusing the body, but instead we’re simply eating better food. We aren’t conforming with the mindless majority, or like children are forced to do, following the dictates of their elders. We are instead siding with the animal victims.

‘The other’ might not seem so important. It might not occur to us immediately, but ‘the other’ has to climb over all the more immediate, more obvious self interests, in order to reach the best part of us. ‘The other’ isn’t immediately appealing, but it serves to draw out the deeper, more intelligent self. This ‘self’ is more closely connected with the ‘soul’ of us. It lies in-waiting as life-experience ticks off the rights and wrongs of everyday behaviour. It confirms the more mature, emerging self.

This altruistic self is like a sleeping intelligence, fixed on finding the best way for all concerned, self, un-self and the other.

         

Put simply, we want to do our best, and be able to look ourselves in the eye. By resisting our society’s pressures which daily pull against this instinct, we can come to know how to avoid being corrupted. In this present context, we’re working to lessen the damage to the world we live in, and prove ourselves to be beneficial to things like animals and environment and human health.

The vegan diet can’t help but directly contribute to making us act more altruistically. If you’re vegan it’s very difficult not to act altruistically, and therefore act intelligently. Being vegan can’t help but make you more happy, simply by way of not being the cause of so much daily damage - the more people who are ‘vegan’, the more resources are saved, and particularly the more food (no longer reserved for animal fodder) which can be diverted to feeding underfed humans. If we aren’t breeding huge numbers of animals destined to be turned into human food, we can put more energy into growing plant foods which are so much more efficient for human-feeding. Then, these ‘food-animals’ aren’t taking up energy; and even if one can’t feel for the plight of these animals, one can still wish for human starvation to be lessened.

The exotic and excessive eating habits of mainly wealthy Westerners sit uncomfortably with the wretchedness of malnutrition in the ‘third world’. Our indulgent eating habits are an obscenity when put against their food shortage. How bizarre it is to think that overfed children in one society live alongside children who are starving in a neighbouring society. How bizarre for their parents to be working in the fields to produce exportable animal fodder instead of growing essential crops to feed their own families.

Iniquitous food habits probably stem from fear of starvation and that isn’t helped by today’s food-overindulgence. On many levels, this can be changed by adopting a plant-based diet - there are fewer seductive foods, less need to over-eat, better energy from the food we do eat and of course less guilt because we’re not animal-killers. As soon as a vegan lifestyle is taken up, an immediate recovery process has already started to take place.

Where did our hunger-fears spring from? Why are we in a constant state of agitation about food? How did it all get so bad with humans? How did we lose our moral compass regarding the exploitation of animals? Perhaps these questions are not as important as learning by what means things could get better and where the repair process should start.