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The tao of veganism
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Taoism: Compassion, moderation, and humility
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We civilized humans are obsessed with doing. The tendency to constantly be doing and changing the things around us is so habitual, ways of doing which ultimately harm a cause create a better impression on us simply for the reason something is being done.
Taoism (pronounced "dow-izm") teaches of a philosophy called Wei Wu Wei meaning "doing without doing." This philosophy is exemplified in the verses of the Tao Te Ching ("Dow-day-jing") here translated by Stephen Mitchell:
...the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever. (2)
Wei Wu Wei is not meant to be an all-encompassing philosophy for life. Taoism does not suggest we live a life of inaction. Rather, "not doing" embraces the multitude of changes and cycles of nature which allow things to grow, be, and retreat. While we human beings are capable of so many great things, this overconfidence causes us to believe we must be influencing and controlling the world around us in order for it to work in harmony.
The inactivism of animal rights activism
The appeal of exploited animals raised "humanely"
Recalling an earlier statement, The tendency to constantly be doing and changing the things around us is so habitual, ways of doing which ultimately harm a cause create a better impression on us simply for the reason something is being done. For an example of this, look to the campaigns and Facebook protests which answer the desire to respond to injustice by signing a petition or forming a group. The participant is hardly interested in the entire course of the response, whether or not the petition will be noticed, let alone what the petition or group will actually do. He just wants to show himself in that cause. He wants to do.
Some of my readers may be saying to themselves "of course not all responses will work but at least something is being done. How would inaction be any better?" However, Wei Wu Wei does not mean "doing without responding." Of course, we should respond to injustice but we should be ready to turn down measures which will only create an illusion of progress or end up helping the very injustice to exist in the first place. In other words, there is a difference between a reaction and a response; A reaction is merely an act which happens out of the influence of the injustice. As a vehicle owner might kick his car when it breaks down, a reaction need not actually fix or seek to fix the problem. A response is just the opposite, a response is meant to come to a resolution regardless of how showy or pleasing the act of responding may be. Indeed, sometimes reactions do respond. Otherwise, reactions react.
Reacting vs. responding
"Free range eggs" chicks killed routinely for being male
To an animal rights advocate, welfarism is such a reaction. Here, I am referring to welfarism in terms of politics. Everyone is for the idea of welfarism at its very root. We tend to do things we like for ourselves and treat the ones we love with kind thoughts and actions. Welfarism allows us to exercise empathy in responding to the needs of ourselves and our loved ones in times of poor health, sadness, and the like. With this in mind, political welfarism, or animal welfarism, wouldn't look so bad.
Indeed, we should take care of animals and their being treated better is better than them being treated worse. Who could disagree with that? However, merely legislating and campaigning for the better treatment of animals who are slaves in this world (for food, labor, clothing, entertainment, chemicals...) has serious detrimental effects in the long term. Welfarism often rejects "doing without doing" techniques like abolitionism and veganism in place of regarding vegetarianism and/or supposed "conscientious" use of animals as a "gradual step in the right direction." While a movement to veganize culture and abolish the use of animals completely would gradually end the use of animals for any purpose, the mere regulation of animal use causes the public to feel better about killing and using animals which actually increases the rate of exploitation of animals.
For someone who cares deeply of the plight of animals, to vote or be against any measure which seeks to offer birds more space in their cages or space to roam would seem counterintuitive. However, this individual who truly cares for the plight of animals, who takes animal rights seriously would no doubt think through the implications of such reactions. An animal advocate should be critical of welfarism in the same way so many consumers were opposed to the antibacterial craze when antibacterial products were so good at killing bacteria, they drastically disrupted our body's ability to cleanse and strenghten our immunity in the absence of antibacterial products. The very act of doing inflated the original problem.
Improving cruelty (rather than ending it)
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So an animal advocate should say "if this would cause animals to have roomier cages, what else would it do? What difference would this really make?" They should also wonder if legislation really does do what it appears to do or if it's a manner of fancy wording. They should wonder what those resources could otherwise be doing and how a change would impact the public. Despite these warnings, consumers are now observing the failure of welfarism today. Movements originally meant to respond to the suffering of animals on farms are now being exploited to sell the parts of animals who are still slaughtered, genetically manipulated, and raised as property as "better" versions of cruelty.
So the essence of abolishing the use of animals through vegan education is doing without doing. Animals can earn their right to be free of unnecessary harm by...well, being left alone. A movement to better the life of a farm animal shows a very glossy surface of a dull coin. Why is the animal on the farm at all? How better could we treat an individual whose very existence is meant for death and exploitation? In light of a culture who has defied cultural norms, stereotypes, racism, and political ideas only in the past 200 years, animal rights advoacy holds the very pessimistic view that culture will no longer change, that the small percentage of vegans existing today will forever be a small percentage. This pessimism forms a self-fulfilling prophecy.
...We shape clay into a pot,but it is the emptiness insidethat holds whatever we want.....We work with being,but non-being is what we use. (11)
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