Style

Conscience may appear to us as a working team of ‘devas’, overseeing our every move. Even though they’re only in our imagination, they metaphorically represent a world where morality is a great force but isn’t the only driving force. These days the word ‘morality’ has such ugly conotations that it blurs the difference between good and bad, sincere and genuine. The ugliness of the godbothering preacher has made ‘being good’ a cheap play for brownie points. We need something more substantial in today’s truth pie. Perhaps we’re better off going for panache. We might do better following our own sensitivities and sense of style. And in our own style of life, our lifestyle, this is where discrimination truly forms. And of course, I’d say there’s no better place to start discriminating than veganism.
In a vegan lifestyle we see a smoother operation - the body itself is usually functioning in top form simply because it isn’t being daily poisoned by the animal stuff. Its interaction with the environment is gentler too. If you watch an average vegan cutting up vegetables you’ll see part of a gentler lifestyle happening. And a vegan who is truly beyond the tempting world of commodities, is free to develop a number of things not the least of which is style. Style comes more easily via a more sensitive thinking (and of course acting). Our thoughts, attitudes, tone of speech, manner, sense of purpose is almost palpable, if only because our lives aren’t jam-packed with guilt and grubbiness. For us personally as vegans this has to be the really great advantage of our lifestyle. The frustrating thing for us is that we aren’t able to commincate this without sounding up ourselves.
For vegans, if they’re not out there being advocates for animals, they’re simply setting ‘style’.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying no more old fashioned morality, it’s just that morality was always a stepping stone to better things. It is a reference point, like having ground rules to do with honesty. The evangelical preachers gave morality such a bad name because they made almost everything pleasurable sinful. They were moralists and ‘morality’ is now a words that is practically unmentionable. And yet here there is a basis for doing things in a finer way. Morality, upbringing, values, are all guides. They point in the right direction, but we’re all heading, whether we like it or not, towards a more sophisticated behaviour which is one consciously relying less on guile.