There could be Veganburgs (small villages of vegans), Veganvilles (vegan towns) and Veganopolises (big towns/citys of vegans....all located in Veganlandia or on the planet VeganEarth.
Naming places aside, something I find missing in the writing and advocating and such around notions of ethical veganism are speculations about cultural or societal configurations that would/could evolve that are supportive of and/or maintaining and nurturing of the vegan ethos.
I have serious reservations (translate that to mean no way in hell) that "western" culture, capitalistic society, yada yada...whatever you want to term it or call it is conducive to living in a way that doesn't harm any living beings and/or doesn't destroy their living areas (habitats) and respects the planet and those that live thereon. Other brands of societies/cultures behave just as irresponsibly and destructively...I'm just more familiar with this one...I'm not excusing any of the others.
The default position in our society (or at least so it seems to me) is to consume, grow, build, destroy nature, grab, compete, win, have sex, be strong, be beautiful, overpower, excel, exceed, improve, be handsome, get rich, have kids, defeat your competitors, get richer, get better-looking, have more sex, get smarter, succeed (which, anymore, has devolved to mean get rich, no matter how), yada yada yada. All that stuff seems so trivial and demeaning and offputting and repulsive. And sad.
Think of all the thousands and thousands of tribes, cultures, peoples, nations, etc. that human animals have congregated in and lived in during the history of our species. We must have stumbled onto some good ways of being (by 'good' ways I mean vegan ways) during that time. What are they? Where are they?
By the way, when I searched for Veganlandia, only this and this showed up when I tried...a few other obscure things did but for some substance (small though it is), those two were it and there wasn't much to them. Probably some much spiffier term is out there but I haven't stumbled across it.
Earlier I wrote a post about Leavers or Takers and recently speculated a little about some aspects of a post-veganized world but that's only a tiny bit of what a world like Einstein referenced would look like. (pardon the links to my own writing, I'm doing so because this post is about poking around in my own thinking) I even have written that maybe the purpose of human animals is to serve as an example of how not to be/live. But I don't want to believe that, although we seem to be doing a damn good job of it...we can do better...can't we?
I would really like to hear some thoughts about what a vegan society might be like...I know some nifty folks sometimes visit here and what they think would beat the hell out of anything I could come up with.
For instance, taking advantage of, profiting from, using, exploiting, unjustly imprisoning, enslaving or harming other sentient beings...all those ways of behaving seemingly so near and dear to us would have to be avoided...quit...stopped...ended. Probably I most developed some of my thinking about this when I wrote about proxy morality part zwei...but I believe lots more (and better stuff) can be thought about and written about all this...and maybe needs to be. Or not.
A few quotes that I found somewhat relevant to what I'm attempting to struggle with here were located on a site called Why Cultured Meat.
" Animal liberation is the most difficult liberation struggle of all because speciesism is primordial and universal. Speciesism is arguably the first of any form of domination or hierarchy and it has spread like a deadly virus throughout the entire planet and all of human history. The problem is not limited to Western culture or to the modern world, such that there is some significant utopian past or radical alternative to recover. The problem is the human species itself, which but for rare exceptions is violent, destructive, and imperialistic. Universally, humans have vested interests in exploiting animals and think they have a God-given right to do so. To change these attitudes is to change the very nerve center of human consciousness. That is our task - no more and no less. "
~Dr. Steve BestThis excerpt by Norm Phelps was also thought provoking to me:
" Animal exploitation and murder are no more the result of a particular belief system, political system, or economic system than are human exploitation and murder. To think that they are is to mistake the symptom for the disease. The disease is selfishness, greed, arrogance, and a lack of compassion. As Lord Acton told us, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Human history demonstrates that whenever a system (economic, political, religious, whatever) is installed that is designed to end, or at least ameliorate, human oppression, it is fairly quickly corrupted into a new mechanism for the same old oppression. Communism, is one example, institutional Christianity another. Political and economic democracy slow the process by distributing power widely enough to prevent its concentration while placing a significant share of it in the hands of those most vulnerable to oppression. As Winston Churchill reminded us, "Democracy is the worst system of governance ever devised except for all of the other systems that have been tried from time to time." Radical social revolutions simply put a new class of oppressors in charge. I wish it were not so, but it is.
To put it bluntly, we enslave and murder animals because it is in our self-interest to do so and we have the power to get away with it, not because of capitalism, liberal democracy, the Judeo-Christian dominionist tradition, or any of the other reasons so commonly given. These are merely after-the-fact justifications. We enslave and murder animals because we can and we enjoy the results. Change the political or economic system, and that fundamental fact will still be operative, and the enslavement and murder of animals will continue unaffected except that it will now be justified by a different set of theories, one that is compatible with the new system. " ~Norm PhelpsSo, are the other animals (and us) screwed? Or can we move past our current horridness and behave veganly...and if we can what would it be like? I wonder.
