Veganism

There is an old story about Abraham Lincoln. Back when he was a lawyer and with a few fellows had to constantly travel from town to town he once came upon some baby birds. Their nest had fallen out of the tree it was in. Lincoln made the group stop and others to help him put the baby birds back into the nest and the nest back up in a tree. His fellows made fun of him for his "sentimentality". Lincoln simply said he could not have slept that night knowing he had left those baby birds to die on the ground.

His roommate at the time, a young teacher called Görlitz, later recalled that Van Gogh ate frugally, and preferred not to eat meat.[21][22]..."...he would not eat meat, only a little morsel on Sundays, and then only after being urged by our landlady for a long time. Four potatoes with a suspicion of gravy and a mouthful of vegetables constituted his whole dinner"—

"As told by Kafka's close friend Max Brod:

Suddenly he began to speak to the fish in their illuminated tanks. "Now at last I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore."

Eating Meat, Jonathan Safran Foer, pg 36.

In his later years Tesla became a vegetarian. In an article for Century Illustrated Magazine he wrote: "It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarous habit." Tesla argued that it is wrong to eat uneconomic meat when large numbers of people are starving; he also believed that plant food was "superior to [meat] in regard to both mechanical and mental performance". He also argued that animal slaughter was "wanton and cruel".[97]

Three or four ways to suffering:
1. The lack of a sufficient over I (super ego) to stand back and pay attention and judge your actions and whether or not they adhere to whatever moral laws you've made for yourself.
2. How much forethought, how far into the future you were looking when your 'I' (ego) established it's personal moral laws. Less forethought means less seemingly altruistic behavior and thus more causing harm towards others.
3. How good or bad you are at discernment. DO you demonize everyone around you?
4. Once you perceive someone is performing an action which causes 'unnecessary suffering' do you try to use force to get them to change their ways?

To me eating meat is symbolic that this world is pretty much hopeless. While there is much suffering that it is complicated to fix, eating meat is very straightforward and yet, still, people just don't care.

I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer this last week. It is primarily about the evils of factory farming although touches on the rest. Driving home from the airport with my wife I was thinking about how a sizable percentage of animals are skinned while still conscious and even have their legs, etc cut off while still conscious. Was thinking about this and feeling depressed and furthermore much more depressed that I live in a world where all of this is obvious enough to everyone but they just don't care.

I mentioned this fact about factory farming to my wife, about how they often don't successfully even render the animal unconscious before they start skinning, etc it.

Some of what she does in response:
Claims its awful time to bring it up. Why right now?

But no matter what time I bring it up it's an awful time. If she's in a good mood, why would I ruin it by bringing such a thing up? If she's in a bad mood, then I'd just be a sadist to bring up such a thing. So it's gone for years. It's always a bad time.

This though ties into the fact that indeed for ever thinking about such things period, yes I'm am some kind of sadist/masochist. Why would I ever think about something so negative?

This is the positivity cult. My wife is a member. Perhaps we're all members to some extent.

I try to point out how incredibly negative it actually is, to try to avoid ever thinking about anything negative. That it means you believe that nothing can ever be done about any negative thing and instead it's best just to pretend that such things don't exist.

It may be some kind of wisdom to take such an attitude to some extent. (Please lord grant me the courage to...) But going too far with such an attitude is incredibly negative. To instead at times face the horrors around us and try to be better, at least try to not contribute to them is courageous...

Then it's bad for one's health. How can she think that when her husband has been a very near vegan for 6 years and is pretty healthy? She thinks I'm a freak of nature. But still she could research the matter online very quickly. Or believe I'm being honest when I cite the literature at least....

Then, no really it's just about me trying to control people. I want to control her. I point out that this is demonizing me. Actually when two people disagree about something there's a decent chance one of them is wrong and the other is right. Why shouldn't they discuss the matter and give the reasoning, the facts behind their opinion?

To the best of my knowledge I've never caused a single person to become vegan or vegetarian. It does depress me. I work in a hospital even, a place where you might think people would care more about the suffering of others... Even my wife is completely closeminded, simply refuses to think about the subject at all. It does symbolize to me how hopeless the human race is, as what could be more obvious? Incredible suffering to those whom can't defend themselves, while also even hurting ourselves in the process and still almost everyone does it.

vegan propaganda article

Regrettably, the “angry vegan” image is based in reality – thanks young Matt! My self-righteousness gave many people a lifetime excuse to ignore the hidden realities of factory farms.

Again, I want to point out that as a reaction to what goes on in factory farms and slaughterhouses, revulsion and fury are entirely justified. Although understandable, being ruled by our rage does little to help animals and move society towards being more compassionate. If we take suffering seriously, we must deal with our anger in a constructive way.

It is not enough to be a vegan, or even a dedicated vegan advocate. If we want to maximize the amount of suffering we can prevent, we must actively be the opposite of the vegan stereotype. The animals can’t wait until we get over our despair. We must learn “how to win friends and influence people.” Regardless of the sorrow and outrage we may understandably feel, we must show everyone we meet that we are a joyful person leading a fulfilling and meaningful life.....

If I claim that I can’t be happy because of the suffering in the world, I am saying I am not in control of my own life. If I can’t be happy as a vegan, how can I expect others to be interested in veganism? Just as we want everyone to look beyond the short-term satisfaction of following habits and traditions, we need to move past our anger to the meaningful action of optimal advocacy.

I think this is a problem of most activist movements; that they think they have to slap a happy face on. It's the fake face of activism where everyone pretends they're like the Brady Bunch. They must make sure they're not dismissed as unhappy and thus just some person with issues, they must make sure they're not dismissed as some fringe weirdo. And so except for some pet cause like veganism and/or socialism, etc, they try to show how utterly "normal" they are, well adapted and happy, happy, happy in this great little society we've cooked up.

It's very very rare, (and that's why I bothered to point it out) that someone actually comes out and openly asserts the need to do exactly that. Few people actually come out and say it. But I wonder how many along with Matt Ball are doing it?

It's not a good thing to be doing; feeling it's not enough that you're vegan, now you're constantly on show, constantly doing a good or bad job representing veganism. Spending your life worried what 'norms' think of you, thus letting them control who you are is not a good thing.

This isn't to say one should be like this person was in their early years either of course. But I do think someone should really address such issues; that indeed, as a vegan living in the world today, there IS a lot of reason to feel alienated and isolated (I guess unless you're living in a large city running a major vegan organization, then apparently you know thousands of vegans.) But I don't see anyone doing so. Probably because at heart people are doing to an extent what this guy is openly asserting.

I don't believe vegans or any other minority belief should be full of anger, etc, but squashing it down for the sake of presenting the proper (dishonest) image is hardly a good idea. Instead what one has to do is learn to better understand others. Understand why they don't share such a level of compassion, etc. It would be good if we tried to help one another cope better with being such a minority instead of doing what is being advocated here in this passage from Ball's article.

Not quite so far out on the chopping block lately but so busy. I've talked of veganism lately just because it can serve as a simple analogy. I don't want to appear to actually be being interested in talking about veganism. For some reason I really want to avoid writing vegan propaganda. It is just meant as an analogy for moral questions in general.

Hell analogies somehow work a bit for me and I've more on paper than in this journal. They circumvent my issue with pitting people against one another in this attempt at a somewhat escapist creative outlet. But why exactly? And will it last? Analogies end up becoming ridiculous as they go too far. Too many things end up needing analogized. And also they are just misunderstood anyway. Like Kafka's Max Brod; his very good friend who even wrote 30 books himself and thought so highly of Kafka yet, hadn't a clue that The Trial was something other than a statement against fascism.

The analogy is supposed to help us understand a thing better. To help us change ourselves. But knowing that the majority of people who read it won't get it...

Why do I want to avoid writing what might even be misunderstood as vegan propaganda BTW? Is it just because vegans are so disliked? Or because in it's most simplistic form as a moral question it's too obvious? Too beyond the pale?

Before I wrote music I thought when I finally did I'd write some songs about vegnaism. I never did and now the idea strangely disgusts me.

It is amazing how little I know myself. It is scary in that I'm pretty damm sure most people are trying a lot less to know themselves, thus they most likely know their selves even far less. And this means being a slave to our unconscious. It means being machines; automatons. It means potentially causing lots of harm. It means existing less.

One more time, but with feeling!



I listen with microphones and a 20 pound mini puma from thighs to ear adding his loud purrs to the music.

Holding a cat is like holding a sophisticated amoeba. It's like holding a piece of our roots; remembering the animals that to a large extent we still are. This one acts as if he's got siamese in him. But I bred him because his dad was so smart. (Yes, I know the proper vegan stance on breeding but among other things (don't entirely agree with it) I wasn't vegan back then.) I picked out his dad from a litter because he sat there looking so intelligent. It is an ability we have from an evolutionary standpoint to be able to see to some extent what people are and this cat looked so smart. And most certainly one can (or at least I can) look at an animal and tell about how smart they are. I guess (apparently) not everyone is as good at this. I love to do it. Seeing and contemplating the intelligence in the eyes of animals gives me a strange thrill. Why? (The mystery? Love of intelligence. Love of our animal roots, etc.)

This one (Loki) is so talkative and loving. Loki loves his cat tv (bird feeders) and tries to talk to the birds just like his dad did. He loves hard and then leaves you alone.

I love how he and his mom and sister remind me of our distant roots. But I hate that they're carnivores. Vegan cat food just isn't perfected yet. As of now cats do need meat to survive.

I've chased chickens around a coop to be slaughtered. They know to run. I remember clearly looking a caught chicken in the eyes. It was afraid. That's enough to know. Cows and pigs much more so than chickens. They have personalities. They feel pain.

I think about what I'm doing when I eat. The less you think, the less you exist. I ate meat for 30 years ridiculously thinking it was necessary for good health and that whole time I felt a little disgusted with myself. I know full well what it is to be a meat eater. It's about not thinking. The key to it is to be oblivious, to be stupid, to simply have a big blank spot where your understanding would be. And that blank spot is more disgusting and revolting than the corpses touching your lips. When I realized I didn't need to eat meat or boob juice or chicken periods I was so happy. There was no, "Gee, this might be hard, better make it a gradual process." The process was instant and permanent. (Well except for a bit of boob juice here and there in chocolate etc as being 'pure' would be a pain in the ass where I live.)

It is still the most happiest thing in my life. I don't have to kill anyone (well OK bugs here and there incidentally, etc) in order to continue living myself. How wonderful. How awful when I thought otherwise. I literally had the anguish as in the Anne Rice vampire books.

But still I must turn a piece of my mind off too; as I don't know a single vegan in my real world. So focusing on just how empty people's minds are would just be torturous; especially when they see me, when they see that not only do I not look like I'm about to keel over but that I most likely could kick their ass with one arm tied behind my back. Like politics, it is ultimately beyond the pale.

In politics you can be shocked and morally outraged over and over and over again and eventually, what are you accomplishing?

What makes a Chomsky continue on?

Morals are ultimately utilitarian/consequentialist in nature. IMO they are self interest with some degree of long term forethought. We attempt to predict the future. We attempt to foresee the consequences and on that basis we decide the most moral action. But then of course it's impossible to actually predict the future. The biggest problem of all is knowing how much future there will be. Furthermore actually calculating the most moral action could be very complex from day to day so although the basis of our moral codes are consequentialist, in our day to day living we end up following what looks more like an absolute code.

And with respect to this absolute code, when we 'do the right thing' we can then feel pride with ourselves for having done so. We can feel good about ourselves. We can feel that we've played the game well.

Someone like Chomsky must feel such pride in himself. And so he just keeps repeating the same stuff over and over again. Not much has actually been accomplished but as he sees it, there's not much else he can do.

If I were prominent as political gadfly like Chomsky perhaps I'd do the same. But some of these other people with their little leftist blogs which I skim here and there. It's harder to see what keeps them going. What keeps them so shocked and all. At some point I would think they ought to stray back to consequentialism... instead of being 'deontologial'. All that being shocked isn't changing anything. People keep on treating each other with the same indifference as they do to animals.

Keeping it deontoligical I guess you can continue to feel pride for 'doing the right thing'. Step out to the bigger consequentialist picture and the only reason left I can think of is just feeling pride about being erudite and knowledgeable.

Neither does much for me. But although I'm curious why they bother and don't do so myself and thus (obviously) think it wrong (but not closemindedly), I'm still glad someone is. Personally talking about imperialism in whatever it's guise has become beyond the pale to me though, for the most part.

Beyond the pale in the sense of being a moral outrage overload I suppose. I prefer to be morally outraged about things that aren't so obvious. Because with being less obvious you can at least entertain the hope that people just haven't yet understood it, and once they do, then instead of the indifference they've shown with veganism and politics (veganism just straight up indifference for the vast majority and for politics, too indifferent to ever go beyond the TV and other media owned by the billionaires to hear a different point of view) then maybe (not!) they'd actually change.

Morality = potential long term self interest

On the face of it for most people morality is just a set of rules/laws they follow and if done well they feel pride that they're a good person. But these rules have a basis behind them. This basis can be described as mutual self interest or potential long term self interest.

In other words morality = self interset + altruism, where altruism is really just potential long term self interest. So the thing is that people have very different ideas about what is the proper length of the long term. A "true atheist" at 20 ought to have a different idea than one at 80. People who believe in some vague afterlife ought to have a different idea than people who don't.

The issue is that people say they believe one thing and show through their actions that actually they don't. Ethical vegans who claim to be atheists are one such glaring example. There is no self interest in not killing a chicken if you think you're just going to cease to exist upon death. It would take having a hugely long term scope of potential self interest to possibly give a whoop about a stupid chicken. And that is exactly what it is taking. Vegans don't what to be in a hell because that isn't a happy place. A place where we're killing other creatures mainly just because we easily can is such a hell. They feel it's in their self interest to not live in such a place and thus they don't kill the chickens. They do their tiny part... why was it again? It's like voting. Your own personal vote doesn't matter. Partially at least pride. The made a set of moral laws based on an extremely long term self interest and now are simply feeling pride to follow it. The original moral laws though were made in terms of thinking of the extreme long term.

And some people just aren't smart enough to think in such long terms.

I think, therefore I am.

To the extent you don't think, you aren't. You don't exist. These people who don't think in such long terms exist less. They are less alive. Which brings us back to the original point somewhat. Chickens exist less. They do matter less than humans. Still unnecessary in so many ways to kill them.

If nothing else, I haven't had a cold or flu in 5 years and deep kiss my wife while it appears she might have bronchitis.

Rambing ugly post which very much goes against all of what makes a "good blog post". But gimmicks and dishonesty aside, still has more meat than any blog post I've ever read or just about anything I've ever read period.

...ok well that's not quite true. Haha. I lost the train of thought at the end... Damm. Will try, try, try again later.

The mystery writing gimmick taken to the ridiculous:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122489468502968839.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Not using quotes to designate that which is spoken outloud.

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lockedupwv.com

Unfortunately all the criminal pictures aren't online. A copy of the whole thing was at work. Such beautiful people. Their stories are almost leaping off of their mug shot photos. The pedophile page was the least interesting by far. The others would be very useful for sparking writing.

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Got a cute picture of one of my cat shelters in use. But then he didn't eat his food at all last night and isn't around today. And it looks like big dog footprints in the snow around his shelter. Or is it just the melting snow making his feet look bigger?

I enjoy worrying about this cat. Reminds me of my old (artificial) pond at my last house. Twas so beautiful. 60 colorful large fish (reproduced over three years) that I fed two or three times a day and helped pushed me to wonderful veganism. (To just lay in the swing and read Proust...) But my one partially crippled (wobbly) cat fell in and ripped the liner thus I came out one day and the water level was a foot down! With much work I fixed it but then ever after (till we moved and the person who bought it had the beautiful pond filled in) I had endless "nightmares" about leaky ponds with fish flapping around as they die on the empty bottom. But, with each dream I created a beautiful pond. 50 level ponds with waterfalls, crazy aqueducts systems, etc. Such beautiful dreams, well worth the worry.

Had a great nightmare last night which I can't remember now... Oh yes, didn't finish some crucial school assignment and was thus ruined forever and ever. Before that a vampire nightmare due to my wife's reading that new low brow vampire series.

Yesterday was crazy. Scary hour drive to work through bad snow covered roads. Running in to clock in just in time and pulled to bone marrow for 4 hours, then pulled elsewhere for another 4 hours, then finally back to normal workplace for 4 hours, then boss gives yearly job evaluation, (I hate 'The Boss' just as a matter of principle... but she's so likable and kind of sexy... and knows stuff like Klinger's hometown baseball team... and likes me) then an online quiz at home all in a nice little 17 hour day. Finished off with a nightmare about my life being ruined.

And... my eye has been twitching for the last month and is just getting worse. Just staying in a permanent twitch at times now.

Eckhart Tolle

The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness. -Eckhart Tolle

I don't agree with Tolle's main idea which seems to be a repackaging of the old eastern idea of meditating about nothing thus losing sense of self. I'm really against not thinking. Don't think it's quite so easy to turn it off and on in a useful way. I could be wrong though.

I do agree with this Tolle quote though. It is the moral thing to do. (To recognize, to really get to the heart of this dysfunction.) Without Tolle's main idea though, it's maybe kind of dangerous (selfishly speaking). It means seeing this world as a hell. And probably being very alone in doing so. (And I say that from the POV of looking at socialism, veganism, atheism/deism as just baby steps.)

And if a panglossist is wrong to be a panglossist, then what of the opposite? Someone purposely looking so hard for things to be critical of?

The pangloss is causing harm, usually. The opposite is surely one hell of a wet blanket. Some balance again. Coming back yet again to the fake smile versus truthseeking.