The greater good & feeling good

1138: 

By avoiding animal products, by becoming vegan, it’s likely that we’ll come to feel good about our decision.  The stomach feels more comfortable, conscience lighter and brain sharper.

But this question of ‘good’, what is it?  And especially what does it feel like when we are doing things ‘for the greater good’?

We might be altruistically-intentioned, not acting for our self only. Maybe we miss out on some immediate pleasure that we want. But we’re sowing seeds that are going to flower later - however, working for the greater good might mean that the results don’t show up till after we are dead.

It might be like that with Animals Rights.  Perhaps it aims at an end-product, in the form of a set of changes taking place in the human psyche, and later being enacted on a mass scale.  Animals-being-liberated might not come about until certain other preliminaries are put into place. And it’s likely those will take time - again, perhaps after many of us are dead.

So, today is not about impatiently chasing change but about laying foundation stones for future change.  From the point of view of ‘The Greater Good’, it’s essential we act now for the sake of the future.  The altruistic element of that is both selfless and selfish, the latter, so we can start to ‘feel-good’ about ourselves from now on.

If we’re not interested in long term planning, it probably means that we don’t care about what’s coming (“I won’t be around to see it”).  We won’t be interested in the concept of altruism.  It will be meaningless.  Instead, self-image will be more important - seeming to be good.  We might think the show is the important thing. But it’s fairly obvious to the onlooker that by displaying ‘goodness’ at every conceivable opportunity we’re merely bragging.   

At the other extreme is a person with genuine humility who does, overall, a much better job.  But in the end, it’s the depth of our commitment (to being good) which will eventually be tested.  The safeguard is anonymity.  By not boasting we’re safer, but less visible.  That might not sit well with the activist, with their need to protect animals and make a show of their abstentions and passions.  They might choose to take a more antagonistic, direct approach.  Their passion is connected to deep emotions, like outrage, compassion, sensitivity, hatred, being right and being righteously confident.  But by taking the high moral ground, we can’t necessarily take ourselves out of the picture.  And that will be obvious to those we are trying to impress, and it’s likely that we’ll achieve the very opposite of what we want, to win their sympathy for our point of view.