The Style in Conscience

1764: 

Conscience may call on morality as a reference point, but it’s not its driving force, especially since the idea of morality has so many ugly associations with god-botherers and goodness-preachers. Conscience works for the greater good and pesters entropy and indifference. Conscience has an independent, intelligent and instinctive role to play in forming our values. Where the private conscience is multidimensional, morality is more one dimensional - its doing 'good' smacks of insincerity and earning brownie points, which is not as interesting or constructive as it could be. Conscience is sophisticated enough to make 'good-doing' into a quiet and anonymous activity. In fact, overall, conscience has style. A vegan lifestyle, based as it is upon the dictates of personal conscience, needs a smooth operating style, where mind over matter comes easy, and where the body is functioning smoothly on clean plant foods and the brain is directing us away from the poisoning effects of abattoir products.

Our conscience lets us ‘do right’ more easily without the need for it to be noticed. The conscience is our higher self, happy to be in a gentle relationship with the environment, and just as happy if one's fellow humans are gentle with each other. The gentle nature of Conscience is able to hold back when necessary, not to be self-denying but to prevent any harm coming to others. A vegan lifestyle is the outward expression of a mature conscience, in that it allows us to step beyond the tempting world of those material commodities which necessarily cause harm. And the more sensitive our thinking and attitudes, the freer we are to develop a pleasing style. And with style comes a natural avoidance of all those grubby attitudes and guilts that prevail today. The benefits of taking on a gentler style are greater than any benefit we may draw from indulging in our favourite foods made by the Animal Industry. In this way, vegans are gentler people than the average, if only because they have less weight crushing the conscience and cramping its style.

Now, it's all very well to talk in these terms, but when vegans talk this way it sounds as though we are ‘up’ ourselves, whereas we are merely suggesting how it might be for anyone, to have a lighter conscience. If we are vegans and are advocating for animals, we are surely attempting to fix a certain ‘style’, rather than wishing to polish our own haloes. However developed our style becomes, we can't ever neglect the one dimensional values espoused by old fashioned morality. But we might do well to think of morality as a stepping stone to more interesting things, as well as to some basic rules, like the guidelines you have to have when playing a sport.

There are certain rules to keep us honest. The honourable sports-player plays a straight game and enjoys playing by the rules. But the problem, as I see it, is that sometimes the rule book can be swallowed uncritically, and stifle the free-flow of the game. Likewise, with some of our favourite morality-rules. These are beloved of evangelical preachers, who advocate an unvarnished morality, but in doing so kill all the enjoyment of life. Vegan principle might seem like a rule book too, but it confines itself to one principle - that of striving towards harmlessness. In this, it is really a passport to greater freedom, and one that is therefore universally attractive.

Morality, ethical upbringing, values, they can guide us in the right direction. But today we’re heading towards a sophisticated way of living that has a huge variety of choices and many opportunities for decision-making. And it's no longer enough just to spell out the obvious - “Thou shalt not eat meat”. Instead the mature conscience inspires us to “Lighten up and be vegan”, which is more attractive and just as moral.