Signing back on to this blog

Altruism and veganism

87:
Vegan principle
I’ve got a friend overseas I write with and he dislikes the idea of veganism - the ‘ism’ bit he hates. Perhaps he’s right. Isms sound religious and really ‘vegan’ isn’t anything other than a principle which combines wisdom with compassion. Vegans leap at the chance to introduce all this, to want others to have access to what we’ve ‘picked up’ - it isn’t a wish to boast ... but that’s the trouble here ... in how we perceiving new things - non-vegans see going vegan asall discipline and hardship, whereas to us it’s just benefit.
It’s very hard to shine a light on something without looking glitzy yourself. If what I do looks like altruism I’m necessarily showing off, because it nicely contrasts with selfishness, which is always ugly. It’s very hard not to look smug ... about combining wisdom and compassion. The omnivore will giggle at the strictness of it all. And dismiss it. Vegans and people considering it may look at it quite differently, seeing satisfying food plus a more interesting goal-for-life - looking out for others, and not only other human beings. Again, does that sound smug? Difficult? I suppose it’s boredom with self interest and ‘the soft life’ - a greater interest forming in life becoming more robust and adventurous. And ... there’s the added bonus of inadvertently making others’ lives better by practicing harm-reduction.
Maybe being vegan life is a bit edgier. We push ourselves at a greater pace for learning on a more multidimensional scale. Smug again eh? At some point the tip-toeing over the perception misnomers has to stop. And if ‘altruism’ sounds corny, let it sound corny ... and if we ever get a chance hasten to redefine it.

88:
Relative altruism
If we are vegan and can’t understand why others are not, it may be worth considering why vegans are willing to give away a lot of benefits in life for the sake of saving animals. Well in fact they don’t ... they’re the same old selfish bastards as everyone else is. They do it, we do it for ourselves, eat serious food instead of crap, stop associating with social norms which are unethical and feeling good about that. There’s nothing more selfish we do than feather our own nest - in some ways like me, by not getting married and having children, being able to stamp my own principles on my own life without having to consider other people having to live like me because I’m vegans, that level of self-determination could be very selfish. But, it is about the animals and there’s no denying the sacrifices vegans are willing to make, for them.
Why do vegans think so seriously about animals and then translate that concern into their daily lives? Is it because vegans are more altruistic or because they’ve found something more interesting than anything they’ve previously found?
Is altruism relative?
Altruism is beyond reproach, because it considers other (peoples’) interests before one’s own. But I’d agree with Nietzsche, that this definition is demeaning. More particularly, it’s unrealistic because it is the kind of purity no one can keep up. We’re survivors - we have to be selfish thinkers and self-interested … we have to look after our own first. Charity starts at home, etc We can extend our love to others ... afterwards.
Selfish is good. As survivors we are trying to be better at surviving to stop being squashed. We don’t need saints, or goody-two-shoes ... but we probably do need a modifying factor, something to stop crashing into shameful selfishism. Perhaps we need some relative altruism.
We like life? Life likes being lived - we should be able to enjoy unashamedly. And it may just be that one often feels good inside when one is doing something for others. It’s especially good-feeling if being generous without blowing a gasket.
There’s a lot of giving-out needed today. Give here, give there, I get a phone call most nights ... to ‘ give’. All the more reason why we shouldn’t neglect our own interests which, let’s be honest, we all think about often.
Selfish is like incoming energy. It seems opposite to altruism (which traditionally is giving energy away) so the balance is arrived at when altruism feels most self rewarding. If it isn’t ... well then, why deplete yourself for it?
Doing good all over the place, without getting some recognition back, forces us to boast. We badly need praise. Without it we become resentful. I give a birthday present, I expect a thank you, it doesn’t appear, I’m less inclined to bother buying you anything next birthday.
Whatever we do, even if it’s a paid job, we need something extra, a lubrication for our altruism to work. It’s vital. It makes us want to give more, to recapture that feeling, being generous … better than being pinched. I need to feel energetic and energised rather than giving the bare minimum expected.
You know what it’s like … at work … you’d do everything high-quality if you could but that won’t turn the profit, there’s another ethic which makes money and makes the cogs of life go around. But there’s no more satisfying work than adding quality to it. We all like the feeling of ‘doing’ quality. At work, especially at home, we like giving quality to our relationships.
By being vegan we give quality to our own life and at the same time to the lives of the animals we save from being reared and killed and eaten. No ones trying to be Mister perfect here. Just living a life of relative altruism.