(A few notes before the paper:

An article by Thomas E. Hill Jr. really struck a chord with me, resonating with a lot of my associations and reasons for certain choices (like abstinence).  I highly recommend looking into his work, especially the piece in question: Ideals Of Human Excellence And Preserving Natural Environments.  I gotta give an excerpt from the end of to bit I have of it, which is needed to fully understand the "grand finale" that I mention in the paper I made for Bob Gillis (below).  I find Hill's summation in the work to be one of the most beautifully stated little arguments that I've had the pleasure of spinning in my head (though I'm just a pitifully average, early 20s, pretentious nobody so what would I know).  As I explain in the paper, it could / can easily be transposed into a number of other contexts outside of cerishing nature.  It reads thus:

"When a person takes joy in something, it is a common (and perhaps natural) response to come to cherish it.  To cherish something is not simply to be happy with it at the moment, but to care for it for its own sake.  This is not to say that one necessarily sees it as having feelings and so wants it to feel good; nor does it imply that one judges the thing to have intrinsic value.  One simply wants the thing to survive and (when appropriate) to thrive, and not simply for its utility.  We see this attitude repeatedly regarding mementos.  They are not simply valued as a means to remind us of happy occasions; they come to be valued for their own sake.  Thus, if someone really took joy in the natural environment, but was prepared to blow it up as soon as sentient life ended, he would lack this common human tendency to cherish what enriches our lives.  While this response is not itself a moral virtue, it may be a natural basis of the virtue we call "gratitude."  People who have no tendency to cherish things that give them pleasure may be poorly disposed to respond gratefully to persons who are good to them.  Again, the connection is not one of logical necessity, but it may nevertheless be important.  A nonreligious person unable to "thank" anyone for the beauties of nature may nevertheless feel "grateful" in a sense; and I suspect that the person who feels no such "gratitude" towards nature is unlikely to show proper gratitude towards people."

Enjoy!)

Thomas Hill presents his “ideals of human excellence” as a possible answer for why we have feelings of the natural world being something more than resources for human beings.  One of these ideals is humility; the overcoming of self importance and the realization and learning that there are things that matter besides one’s self.  Hill couples this with the idea of self-acceptance; the ability or realization or learning to not over or under estimate one’s self, but to simply see and accept one’s self for exactly what they are.  With this in mind, Hill says that anyone who has the traits humility and self-acceptance must clearly see the connection between human beings and nature.  Hill encourages anyone who is still missing this connection to go out into nature, where it will hopefully be observed and become clear that humans are a part of nature, sharing attributes such as “living, growing, declining and dying by natural laws.”  “We share many of the needs, limits and liabilities of animals and plants,” says he.  Therefore, it is suggested that ignorance or indifference to nature and non-human things reflects self-importance, which is a no no. 

But he’s not through because he has further extensions to make.  He claims that care for nature leads to other human excellences.  For example, when we see a bounty of foliage shredded and replaced by asphalt, many of us would think “How ugly!”  Hill says that this is an aesthetic claim; that we are clearly finding a natural sight to have more aesthetic value than an artificial sight that came about through the destruction of a natural sight (which may be all artificial sights, given the definition of the word “artificial”; may depend more on how “sight” is defined).  An aesthetic sensibility is a moral virtue given both its ingredients (open mind, interest in variety and order, etc) and the way in which we use this sensibility to interact with other people and hopefully with non-sentient things.  In Hill’s words: “Unresponsiveness to what is beautiful, awesome, dainty, dumpy and otherwise aesthetically interesting in nature probably reflects a lack of openness of mind and spirit necessary to appreciate the best in human beings.”  And non-sentient things, I assume he’d add.

And this begins to wrap up Hill’s point.  In finding beauty in something, and establishing an aesthetic value upon it, a person will come to cherish that thing.  With this cherishing, stemming from the placing of aesthetic value, no one in their right moral mind would want to see this thing wither or die; they’d want to see it grow, survive, flourish, continue or what have you.  A person might not have this feeling because that which he or she cherishes has intrinsic value, but simply because some kind of beauty they’ve recognized in it has enriched their lives in some way.  Hill calls this gratitude, and he calls it out as a virtue.  So to sum up Hill, and the immediate question, the virtues he lists include humility, self-acceptance, aesthetic sensitivity, and gratitude.  I’m sure he wouldn’t argue these are the only virtues, the key virtues for all things, or an all around exhaustive list of the ways to be a good person, though he could argue that many or all other virtues fall under those he mentions.  For instance, honesty could fall under self-acceptance, but should be considered also a virtue in its own right.  He calls these things ideals of human excellence because they’re good things to have and they’ll definitely set any person on the right path as far as being an all around good person goes. 

While it’s not asked, I have my own opinions on Hill and his writing.  It’s generally good.  I feel that inside and outside of the argument he’s making for nature, his idea of simply cherishing certain things for the enrichment they can bring to one’s life is most excellent.  Yet, he presents it almost quaintly in that, although it’s the conclusion to his argument, it’s very short.  He wastes few words or space, which protects it in some ways to certain criticisms, one possibly for being overly sentimental.   But I feel that there’s a certain weight and profundity to it that Hill gives short shrift to.  His big finale is almost like a footnote, and the ideas he flings are trapped behind the wall of their own brevity.  Still, I think that the ideas shine a lot of truth upon not only humans but all things, whether they know it or not.           

A problem I have with Hill’s piece overall is his role of the anti-environmentalist.  Although the things this fictional villain argues his part well, and in a way that helps Hill progress to his final point, it has some problems.  I don’t think that even the CEOs of logging corporations are anti environment.  Environmentalists may piss them off to no end, but I don’t think they reason they do what they do is because they’re on a mission to eradicate the natural world.  I think their position is that they value other things above the environment.  They probably value comfort and good living as well as economic prosperity.  And most people have that in common with them.  If I may be so bold, anyone who isn’t trying hard at all to stop those that pillage the environment has that in common with them.  These days, in a world so densely populated and in a country as decadent as the United States, easy and comfortable living can only come at the expense of the environment.  People like to have a house, or some kind of shelter with a roof and at least four walls, with heat and food.  Probably the majority would call it a necessity of theirs.  So when the “anti-environmentalist” in Hill’s writing argues what he does, I fear his arguments may be moot as their unrealistic; simply straw men Hill invents as a means to his end.  It’s a kind of dehumanization very similar to the disassociation that Hill claims an anti-environmentalist might have.  Perhaps if Hill interviewed a wide range of people, from the CEOs of those logging butchers to average folks like you are I, he might have a much harder time in making the clear cut argument that he does.  But such is the way these things are written.  I don’t feel that this hinders his final point on cherishment and gratitude, because, as I said, I feel it’s quite good outside his argument.  As a statement in itself, I find it very meaningful, and I have only a wish that it was expanded and possibly thought over a little more to be made bulletproof and diffused into the public as common thought.

(Afterthought:

I did a mediocre job in asking the question regarding people's choices.  Does anyone really choose that which is bad or evil?  Or are they really doing what they think is best in any choice they make?  Might be hard to realistically answer with all the psychopaths out there.  But I invite you, whoever you are, to try and answer.

Happy Holidays!)

Feinberg argues that future generations that don’t presently exist do have rights by saying that their existence is inevitable.  “Our collective posterity is just as certain to come into existence ‘in the normal course of events’ as any given fetus now in its mother’s womb,” he says.  He is quite sure that not only will they exist, but that their interests will be roughly the same as ours.  That is, they will need clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, real food to eat, etc.  Their inevitability, with our present condition being a species that’s inclined to reproduce, gives them rights now.  Another way of saying that though, which I think is easier to swallow and doesn’t lead as easily to any argument over nonexistent people having rights, is to say that future generations should be taken into moral consideration.  And with that in mind, the land must be taken into moral consideration in the interests of our children and our children’s children.
 

            Thinking further on it, the rights of nonexistent people raises for me questions of abortion and rights of a fetus.  If future generations that don’t yet exist have rights, or should have rights, then should single individual fetuses not yet out of its mothers’ womb have the same treatment?  I’ve come to a tentative conclusion that a mother (and ideally with input from the father) have the right to decide whether the conditions that they’re bringing a child into the world are right or wrong.  Multiple factors should obviously be considered, some more obvious than others; for example, if the child is a product of rape or incest, or if it is economically unfeasible for the parent(s) to raise the child.  Thus, that will affect future generations in a certain way, but through a thought-out decisive process hopefully with an ingredient of compassion.  Destroying the world, or at least making it “a much less pleasant place for our descendants” I feel is more akin to a mother who knows she’s pregnant drinking, drugging and doing other things that she knows will harm the child.  She knows the very high likelihood of having a child like every human knows the high likelihood that there will be future generations.  However, with patterns of pollution and lack of care for the environment continuing (analogous to the mother drinking and drugging), the chances of the future lives being of an optimal state of quality dwindle, and with enough of the poisoning, they could indeed drop to zero – IE they will not come kicking and screaming into existence.  It is possible for me to conceive of agreeing with the idea of every human being coming to the consensus that it would not be right for humanity to continue into future generations and making efforts to completely cut off human growth.  It could be analogous to a parent or two making the same decision for their unborn child.  Feinberg even brings this up near the end of his piece, and indeed agrees that once you’ve absolutely negated the inevitability of future generations, you’ve taken away their rights.  With a zero percent chance of coming into existence, they needn’t be morally considered.  The part where I would agree to doing such a thing could only possibly come if it was a mutual decision amongst all humans, very well thought out and deemed to be done for Right, Good and compassionate reasons.  But 100% of humanity could never, ever agree on that, so it’d just be impossible anyway.  And maybe if I was actually faced with this situation, I’d chicken out and change my mind and disagree on it.  Maybe I’m over thinking it all.

I’ve only been vegan for about two whole months now.  I’ve dabbled with it just to see what it was like for about a month around December of 2005, and on and off a little bit a few weeks at a time in between.  The reason I stopped was partially out of laziness, and partially because my living situation – in a tiny dorm room with no kitchen – made it incredibly hard to live with such dietary restrictions.  If I said it was difficult for me to eat meat and dairy with the knowledge that I was taking part in an immoral practice, it’d be a lie.  It’s incredibly easy, and more than that, it was often very enjoyable.  A train of thought that made eating meat and dairy more acceptable to my sensibilities was from Terry Tempest Williams in The Open Space Of Democracy.  In it she spoke of being at one with the animals, the plants and even the rocks of the earth, and to acknowledge the life of that which we eat.  To view eating in this way while still holding the knowledge of the immoralities and injustices in the meat industry seemed to make taking part in it easier.  But I knew I was kidding myself since I rarely ate in a way that was reverent to the animals, in practice or in thought.

It was one night a few days after Christmas in 2007 that I was sitting with my mother at the dinner table.  She was eating some sort of pork dish leftover from another night.  I personally love pigs to death.  I used to say that god made pigs perfect in every way (including taste).  I did eat pork occasionally; mostly in the form of ham because for some reason I associate the word “ham” less with pigs than “pork.”  When I order ham, a tinge of guilt for the death of some cloven-hoofed, pot-bellied pig doesn’t lance my gut like it does when I order pork, or sink my teeth into it.  But as I sat there with my mother, and she ate and I didn’t, that old song by The Smiths – “Meat Is Murder” – snuck into my head.  I began reciting a few lyrics for her, such as “The flesh you so fancifully fry is not succulent, tender or kind.  It is death for no reason and death for no reason is murder.”  It didn’t stop her from eating, but it sort of gave me a moment wherein I shrugged and figured they’re right.  And I decided that with the way I feel about it, there’s no point in not being a vegan.  I believe it, I dislike cognitive dissonance and I’m happy to drop my convenience or pleasure in living modestly-while-eating-meat in order to live more modestly and not eat meat.

When telling people that I’m going to go vegan, they’ll either laugh or get uncomfortable.  Most of the laughs come from the fact that I’ve dabbled before and I have to say “I’m going vegan again,” to which they say, “Right, we’ll see how long he lasts this time.”  The uncomfortable aspect has come in two forms, in my experience.  The first, mostly from my parents, is the idea that veganism isn’t healthy.  That I’ll not be getting my necessary irons and amino acids, that I’ll not be getting the proteins found only in meat and dairy, etc etc.  I’ll get tired or depressed and not know why.  My school work will suffer.  I’ll look like death and be generally unhappy.  My immune system will fail.  I’ve no doubt that they have either seen this firsthand with other people, or (more likely) they’ve heard about it and fear the worst.  I don’t really care though.

For me it’s a sacrifice: I’m giving up a good amount of the things I can plausibly eat without a kitchen.  I’ll have to start paying more for things if I want to eat anything more than peanut butter and jelly.  All I ate before when not dining out were sandwiches of cheap lunch meat and frozen burritos.  I can’t imagine why anyone would say that switching to a vegan diet could be worse for me than that.  But if it is something that isn’t good for my health, then so be it.  I don’t have a problem with taking myself to a certain point of unhealthiness – if I do indeed reach that point – and then either beginning to take supplements or even eating meat and dairy for a week or two to try and nurse myself.  It doesn’t seem that immoral to me – regressing back briefly to stay healthy.  But if someone told me it doesn’t work like that and I should just stop it all together, I’d shrug.  I don’t love myself enough to be a murderer for the sake of my health. 

The other form of discomfort I interpret from people is when they feel the need to grill me on why I’m a vegan.  I tell them that it is for the immoral aspects of the food industry, the meat in particular.  But I state my belief that if one is going to go vegetarian in the name of the immoral treatment of animals, they’re missing a big part of the picture.  The part where there are other animals held for the purpose of being kept alive in order to be milked or provide eggs or whatever in a dreary, merciless, one dimensional existence.  Recently, I got into it with a work colleague whose husband used to be a vegan.  He stopped because “they couldn’t go out at night to eat,” or something to that tune.  Sounds like a pretty American reason to me.  She stated that she thought veganism was phony because, among other reasons, the people who claimed to be vegan weren’t really.  So if people let things slip through the cracks, then not only are they phony but veganism as an idea and practice is phony.  Sweeping generalizations and conclusions that make no sense – again, very American.

After only being a vegan for two measly months, I will admit that I’m not that stringent and there are things that I do knowledgeably let slip through the cracks.  Bread is a good example.  The bread I buy is 99 cents at Safeway.  The next step up is about 1.99 and from there a loaf is in the range of 3.99.  The cheapest brand that I buy says in the ingredients (under the part titled “May contain 2% or less of the following products”) that it contains whey.  In January, when I saw this, I was bummed out since I’d already bought two loaves and vowed to investigate further.   When I did, I found I’d have to be paying about four dollars a loaf for bread that was vegan, and it should be mentioned that this more expensive loaf is shorter than the 99 cent loaf.  Fuck that.  I’d rather give Safeway less money for more bread that’s slightly less vegan.  So that’s what I’ve been doing, and I’ve been scheming for the sweet day (hopefully this summer) when I won’t be shopping at Safeway at all.  When I’m shopping I’m a stickler for ingredients, but when dining out, I can’t be.  So I’ll order things with no meat, no cheese, no eggs, no sour cream when I can, but if some product was made with eggs (like bread on a sandwich, for instance) then what can I do?  I’ll read through every ingredient on a box or bag at the store, but I think asking every server if there are dairy products in their company’s baguettes is overkill. 

Does all this make me a phony, or make veganism as an idea or practice phony?  Who gives a shit.  The idea isn’t to be so much of a stickler that I’m either asking for the list of ingredients in everything I eat from people who probably don’t know.  Nor is it to spend close to $10 a week on bread, seeing as that will add up fast and put me out of business really quick.  The idea, or my idea, is to be aware of the immoralities of the industry and to do the best job I can of not being a part of it.  I’ve tried to diminish my patronage of places that are big on selling meat, while still offering vegetarian items like Subway and Chipotle (which may or may not be owned by McDonald’s) to more sustainable places like Hot Lips or straight up vegan places like Veganopolis.*  And I’ve definitely cut 98.25% of the meat and dairy out of my diet.  Are there cracks in my logic that whey, lard, and chicken broth can still seep through?  Probably, but I’m not too concerned.  I’m doing the best I can, and probably will be doing better in not too long.  And what’s more: it’s far better to be doing something than nothing at all, and bullshit to be criticized for doing something, even if it’s not everything, by someone who’s doing nothing at all.
*hot lips is local portland pizza and veganopolis is now closed :(

My confrontational work colleague managed to ask me a question that seemed fair, after a stream of cringe-worthy arguments.  First she asked, “Why be a vegan?”  I answered something to the tune of what I’ve already stated: “Bad industry, immoral treatment, love animals.”  But I tried to add a point of “working for social justice.”  She pointed out that by myself, I don’t get much accomplished.  She was right of course, and I answered that doing it myself is only part of the equation, the other part (or another part) is to inform and enlighten.  All I can do is to say I’m a vegan, present my reasons plainly, and defend them to the best of my ability against the inevitable attacks – the two forms of discomfort people present.  Seems about right to me.

The problem with veganism (I think it’s more a tragedy than a problem really) was then brought up by this work colleague.  She gave me a rap that I’d heard even when I wasn’t a vegan.  It’s that she, and so many others, hate people who are vegetarian or vegan, or who drive a hybrid car, or who work for social justice in general, because “they’re all so self righteous.  They all think they’re so much better.”  She was sure to be polite and say she wasn’t talking about me.  It’s indeed a problem, because in bringing up the reality of the industry and what can be done to change it; it can come off that way.  But it also is the perception of the other person, I feel (especially this girl, who exquisitely is biased to her own interests).  Some people don’t like to hear about the problems in the world, and they don’t like to be told by someone who’s trying to change those problems that they too can try and make those changes.  But there are definitely some who come off as self righteous.  I don’t know if I can blame them too much. 

Even when I wasn’t a vegan, I could still see clear as day that the problems they were working to change were true and real and severe.  Is it wrong to press the issue?  And when you’re in the right, is it really so bad to act right?  People get offended when they’re told they’re in the wrong, especially when being in the wrong is an aspect of everyday living – the plight of the American citizen.  I wish that people would have the open mind to question things like that.  I wish that if they don’t need to question it, because they already know they’re in the wrong, that they’d do something about it.  I think whether it’s about the meat industry or the arms industry or the prison industry or anything, I wish people would shy away from cognitive dissonance.  Terry Tempest Williams (in a quote I actually could find) says in The Open Space Of Democracy that “It is the passivity of cynicism that has broken the back of our collective outrage.”  I’d think cognitive dissonance also plays a part.  Perhaps they’re coupled, cognitive dissonance and cynicism… or perhaps one leads to the other. 

It strikes me that in this capitalistic environment, with the clutter of advertisements and marketing trying like hell to get my money, it’s difficult to differentiate.  When one is literally bombarded by the prospect of a product – on the street, in the home, at work, in a car; just about anywhere you can go – it’s hard to tell when something comes along needing your support that’s actually good, virtuous and has a longevity that should be taken into account.  These people on the street and in the park blocks working for Green Peace, Save The Whales, Children International, OSPIRG, etc are all doing good.  But the problem with their plight, one that almost defeats their purpose, is that in this society of cluttered advertisements, they’re part of the scenery like anything else.  Not so different from one of those blokes who stands on the corner with the sign trying to get you to buy a mattress.  They used to be passive, asking “Have time for saving children today?” and now they seem to have a new, much more annoying and invasive strategy of shaking your hand and trying to get to know you.  I could plainly see that if every advertising campaign were to try and stop me in my tracks, shake my hand and get me to give them business, it could be only mere days before I went on a mass killing spree. 

I’m meandering; the point is that I truly believe people are confused.  They’ve been turned to consumers, and when presented multiple times per day with giving money to something actually good – but – something that won’t offer any tangible or immediate product or gratification, they can’t help but pass it up.  The capitalistic culture we’re a part of isn’t of a kind where giving money and not being immediately filled makes sense.  And with that in mind, I’m not so certain if giving money to certain groups does make the most sense.  After all, while the company may be striving for something good, you don’t really know where the money’s going or who’s skimming off the top.  I think a better, more productive way to instigate change is to try and inform with the objective of changing certain ways or even overall lifestyles, which sort of brings me full circle.  Anyone can give to a charity and not really care – they donate one day in a year, or one day in a month, or more, but then live a lifestyle that negates that donation all the other days.  For instance, it’s easy for someone to give to a charity trying to eradicate child labor, sweatshops, and all that only to buy certain brands of clothing that just happen to be produced under such conditions.  It’s harder to donate to a charity to eradicate such things, but be involved enough to know who makes what, or gets what products from where, and boycott those that are plainly and unapologetically immoral.

It’s easier for me to live a lifestyle that appears to be righteous, backed up by strong facts, and to try and inform people about it and why.  I can’t tie people down and force them to live a good life.  The best I can do to veer away from self righteousness is to not make it about me.  In talking to someone, after informing someone that I try to live a vegan lifestyle, trying not to mention it too much more unless asked.  To simply state as many facts as possible.  To some I’m not a vegan, I’m a vegetarian.  I just decide to round up and call it veganism.  Will I remain a vegan forever, or will I lapse in a few weeks?  I doubt I’ll lapse in a few weeks.  I feel pretty set right now will stick with it for as long as possible.  In the future, I may have more money, and I may opt to shop at local farmer’s markets to buy free range meat with no artificial additives.  I’m for that, in fact; it’s the most moral way I can think of to eat.  But it’s more expensive for me than simply not eating any meat or dairy at all.  If I am not vegan in the future, will I still preach of its benefits and righteousness?  I can only hope.  I think it’s better to have someone informing others of strong, evident facts, even if they aren’t practicing themselves, than having no one informing of the facts at all.

This is stolen from Steve and AJ.  Join the party, everyone

10. Pabst Blue Ribbon
9. Rolling Rocks
8. Black Label
7. Carona
6. Carlo Rossi
5. Budweiser (Select, natch)
4. Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve
3. Pyramid Ale
2. Sapporo
1. Jose Cuervo

Lately I've been living in a niche of a room that smells of cigarette smoke and douche bag, masturbating twice a day (getting completely naked every time) whilst falling behind on work, yet feeling supremely confident that it'll turn out pretty good.  I occasionally get irked by people and their stupidass opinions when they're not around, which I'm fearing more and more each day is not something a normal person does.  I'm making new friends, fewer enemies, people are planning on leaving or staying, and I don't know how I feel about it.  I'm single, thoughtless but occasionally enjoying life, the sun's out and that's a plus, it's like a sunny wonderland.  I'm playing a show tomorrow with this electro band The Immoralist and I hope that goes off without a hitch.