Does a vegan diet feed the ego?
The venerable Dayamati, aka Professor Richard Hayes, has a provocative post (“How to feed an ego“) about the tendency for vegans (and to a lesser extent vegetarians) to cling to a notion of “us versus them” purity that reinforces a sense of identity rather than weakens it.
After mentioning a radio program discussing factory farming, he goes on to say:
One of the observations that most caught my attention in these discussions was made by a woman who was a vegan for 20–30 years and eventually changed her diet to include some animal products. She observed that being a vegan is much more than deciding what to eat and what not to eat. It is also taking on an identity. It is carrying all the baggage of a persona that must be defended almost every time one picks up a fork. It is, in other words, to take on a practice that has exactly the opposite effect of what most Buddhist (and other spiritual) practices are designed to do, namely, to reduce one’s attachment to a particular identity.
And, said this former vegan, whenever one takes on an identity, one loses perspective and enters into a mentality that warps almost everything one sees, systematically refuses to look at evidence impartially, and enters into the epistemological vices of believing things for which one has insufficient evidence and not believing things despite having plenty of evidence.
Buddhists called these epistemological vices by the simple term moha, which means the state of being perplexed, confused, infatuated or fooled.
I recognize this. When I was younger I tended to be rather scathing of those who ate meat (or, when I was a vegan, animal products generally). I’d turn down a cup of tea with soy milk if the spoon that had been used to stir it had been “contaminated” by having just previously dipped into a cup of tea with cows’ milk. I was a bit obsessive (although always willing to let myself off the hook if I really “needed” (i.e. wanted) to eat something non-vegan.
At the moment I couldn’t call myself vegan. I eat a vegetarian diet, but once or maybe twice a week I’ll eat something that has cheese or eggs in it. But I do aspire to move in the direction of a vegan diet, and in fact I’m having some success.
While I agree with Dayamati’s point that our dietary preferences can become unhealthily clung to as an identity, I don’t think he sufficiently takes into account that it’s possible for us to live on a vegan or vegetarian diet without it distorting our identity. He does say, “Needless to say, there is no invariable causal relationship between deciding to be a vegan and becoming incapable of thinking carefully and impartially.” That’s welcome news.
I’m more bothered, however, by the following:
As long as one makes such decisions whimsically and realizes that the decision is a manifestation of sentimentality, everything is fine. It is only when one begins to think that there is something rational and righteous about the decision that one begins to get into spiritual (and philosophical) trouble.
I’m not sure quite what he means by making a decision to eat a vegan diet “whimsically.” If he simply means “with a lack of attachment” then that’s fine by me. If he means that we should only decide to eat a vegan diet on the basis of a passing irrational impulse, then I disagree. I think it’s possible to seriously consider the effects of our diet, and the sufferings that farm animals experience, and decide not to eat animal products. It’s only when I disengage my thought processes and refuse to consider these things that I can eat animal products. It’s when I surrender to the passing irrational impulses of hunger and craving that I find myself eating dairy products or eggs.
The suggestion that we should realize that “the decision is a manifestation of sentimentality,” leaves me puzzled. The word sentimentality implies that we have a disproportionate emotional response to a situation. Actually, our situation as a species is grave. We’re seriously messing up our world, and the problem is caring enough — our brains just aren’t well designed, it appears, when it comes to thinking about long-term consequences and the suffering or large numbers of beings. Certainly people can decide to adopt a vegan diet our of sentimentality, but they can also decide to do so out of a proportionate emotional response to the state of the planet, and the sufferings our dietary choices inflict on animals.
“It is only when one begins to think that there is something rational and righteous about the decision that one begins to get into spiritual (and philosophical) trouble.” This implies that it’s delusional to think that we can make a rational decision about our diet. Actually, I think there’s a point here: I think to be healthily vegetarian or vegan (and I mean emotionally healthy) it shouldn’t be either a purely rational decision nor a purely emotional one. If there’s just reason, we’re going to have to beat ourselves up to keep us on the straight and narrow path. If there’s just emotion, we’ll enter the realm of “them and us” and do a lot of hating. There needs to be, I think, a mature emotional response — one that’s been thought over, and that’s been examined for signs of attachment, hatred, and delusion. Rational self-examination purifies our emotions.
Someone deciding to eat a vegan diet on the basis of such a process of examination won’t see veganism as part of her identity. She’ll simply eat vegan, without thinking too much about it. My own practice of vegetarianism is like that. I don’t see vegetarianism as part of my identity any more than I see breathing as part of my identity. I just do it, and don’t think about it. I don’t hate people who eat meat. I don’t see myself as better than them (I used to eat meat myself). I don’t see vegetarianism as a form of ethical purity — it’s something I do because it lessens suffering. I don’t want to eat a dead animal because I don’t want animals to be killed.
There can be plenty of emotionality and judgment on the part of people who eat meat, incidentally. These attitudes apply across the spectrum of dietary habits, and don’t just apply to vegans and vegetarians. Here’s an extract from an article in a British newspaper by a meat-eating chef who was asked to eat vegan for a week:
I hated vegans. Really, I did. They’re farty bores, I used to say, with pallid skin and bad breath, and the cheek, the utter cheek, to lecture people like me about animal “welfare”, when their knowledge of wildlife extends no further than pulling tapeworms out of a house-bound cat’s arse (all vegans have a cat). What’s the difference, I would joke, between a vegan and a Malteser? Answer: some people like Maltesers.
There writes a man whose (meat-eating) diet is a large component of his identity. Is hiss attitude any different from that of the most militant vegan? I don’t think so.
“Righteous” — well, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be righteous about anything.
I’m not quite there with my veganism yet. There’s a conflict going on between, on the one hand, habit, laziness, and craving, and on the other, a sense of compassion and responsibility. I haven’t done enough of the hard work of thinking the issue through and of probing my emotions. I know that when I do I’ll be eating a vegan diet, just as I know that when I’ve developed more emotional maturity I’ll yell at my kids less. I think in fact that I would benefit from speeding up the process of self-examination because the conflict I’m in at present is painful. I do things that I know are harmful to others, and I don’t feel good about that because I know I could do otherwise.
I’m sure that when I do make the decision to eat vegan, I’ll do so in a healthy, non-judgmental way. I did it with vegetarianism, and I think most vegetarians I know have too.
5 Responses to “Does a vegan diet feed the ego?”
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You’re currently reading “Does a vegan diet feed the ego?,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying
Published: Jun 25 2010
In his book, Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer discusses this very same sentimentality vs.rationality debate. However, he concludes that vegetarians are acting from an examined, rational standpoint, whereas many meat eaters will shrug and say they don’t want to know about their meal’s origins, forgoing examination and reaching for a burger because it “tastes good” or is what they grew up eating – surely a sentimental approach if there ever was one!
It sounds like the radio program is getting sentimentality confused with compassion. But also, vegans can be pricks, at times – that part is true.
I don’t agree that the practice of veganism forces you to “take an identity” any more than any other practice does. It forces you to be mindful and aware, yes, but that’s in line with Buddhism.
The criticism that dietary choices feed the ego seems to come from a consumerist perspective. In this consumerist view, you are what you choose. The choice of what to eat is like a fashion choice–I saw a book called “No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey,” suggesting the author’s saying, “I’m not the kind of guy who eats tofu; I’m the kind of guy who eats beef.” So if you take this view, then criticizing the kind-of-guy-who-eats-tofu for being self-centered makes sense. But maybe the guy eating tofu is not doing so as a fashion choice; maybe he’s doing it because he believes it’s the right thing to do.
Does giving money to charity feed the ego? Does recycling feed the ego? Does riding a bicycle instead of driving a car feed the ego? Maybe, but the ego isn’t the most important question to a Buddhist. The point is to think about beings other than oneself. That’s hard to reconcile with killing them for food.
Ego is intrinsic in the statement, “I am a Vegetarian.” (or Vegan as the case may be). “I am a Vegetarian” makes a statement that you have chosen a set of rules to abide by. It means taking a stand. Better to say I don’t eat meat. Or better yet, because in most cases it is probably true, “I don’t eat meat unless I absolutely have to.”
I’d go along with you as far as saying that the statement “I am a vegetarian/vegan” is often expressive of clinging to an identity, and that such statements can (and often do) reinforce our clinging. And I agree it’s better to say “I don’t eat meat” or “I eat a vegetarian diet.” But I think a person who is not clinging to vegetarianism as an identity could still use “I am a…” language just as a habit.
Bodhipaksa, I agree completely with what you say in this fine essay. You manage to say much better than I what I was hoping to say. I also note that you and I have followed a somewhat similar trajectory, from a relatively hard-nosed scrupulosity to a non-dogmatic kind of non-attached vegetarianism. (Like you, I edge closer to veganism all the time, hoping I am ready now just to eat that way instead of taking it on as a cause to defend.
I can see that my use of the term “whimsical” leads to confusion. I simply meant “without any pretense at offering a rational grounding.” I really don’t think one can offer good reasons to be a vegan, other than one avoids doing what makes one uncomfortable.” But then, like that Scottish fellow David Hume, I do not believe there are any moral facts at all. And where there are no facts, there are no rational arguments. Therefore, I tend not to think there is any point in trying to reason about morality.
Some years ago I was attending a Chinese dinner at an academic conference, and the fellow sitting next to me, a very well-known philosopher, noticed I was passing all the meat dishes without taking anything from them. Finally, he said: “So, are you a vegetarian?” When I answered in the affirmative, he began to press me for reasons why I had made the choice to be a vegetarian. I hate to argue, especially at the meal table, so I told him the truth: “I am squeamish about seeing anything suffer. I used to work on a cattle ranch, and I know from first-hand experience all the ways that animals suffer before they wind up on dinner plates. Knowing that spoils my appetite. I don’t offer that as a principled defense of my diet, but as a frank description of my emotional state.” That ended the conversation on vegetarianism, which allowed us to move on to a spirited discussion of how excellent the broccoli dish was.