Veganism is Prefiguration

I'd like to start with something that's becoming decreasingly controversial: factory farming is evil. It involves brutally torturing and killing countless sentient beings. If animals are worth anything, this should be seen as one of the most despicable things we do as humans.

This doesn't just include the meat industry, but also the dairy and egg industries, which involve keeping animals in horrible conditions to extract eggs or milk from them. Even if it's theoretically possible to avoid this, the way food production is currently set up makes it impossible to avoid these horrific consequences.

This means every animal product we currently eat is produced through mass exploitation. But is this inherent to animal products or just how we make them?

The vegetarian is correct when they say that meat is produced in a way that is inherently unethical. However we might want to try and justify it to ourselves, most animals don't want to die, even (or even especially) if they were raised exceedingly well. If we care about ethics beyond just our own species, the ethical approach of vegetarianism should be obvious. However, this only applies to the killing an animal for meat. It doesn't apply to cultured meat or even eating animals after they have already died.

What about animal products more generally? If we've abolished the animal agriculture industry, could we still milk cows and gather eggs?

I contend that any production of animal products that involves enslaving animals against their will is wrong by any standard we also apply for killing. I don't believe it's possible to produce animal products on a mass scale without such exploitation. It may be ethical to use some animal products here and there, but as a society we need to find other primary food sources if we want to abolish the exploitation of animals. Treating animals humanely while using them as resources will never suit large-scale production in any form.

What does this mean for us as individuals? Are we obligated to change our eating habits? Do they really make that much of a difference?

If you wish to minimize your personal contribution to animal suffering now, veganism makes sense. The same companies produce meat and dairy. Both are produced through torture and brutal killing. Dairy cows are later killed for meat. Their calves are often used to produce veil.

A popular understanding of veganism is that it's a consumer boycott: that stopping eating meat will eventually cause industries to stop producing animal products. Anyone with an understanding of capitalism beyond the propagandized versions taught since our youth will understand that it's not as simple as this. Corporations are powerful, and will do anything in their power to keep existing flows of revenue moving.

But veganism can be more than just a consumer boycott. Veganism's ethics can be applied much more broadly, and I think that's where it really shines as a philosophy. Veganism is about cultural prefiguration, about building a new paradigm within the shell of the old. If animal agriculture were to vanish tomorrow, people would still be accustomed to diets and habits involving consumption of animal products.

Dietary veganism works to prepare a way for a future without animal products by experimenting with different lifestyles and diets in the here and now. People are learning how to prepare vegan food, determining what they like and dislike, and sharing that knowledge with others. Some people are even figuring out how to make cultured meats. These forms of prefiguration are vital if we ever want to see a world without mass animal exploitation.

This is also why I'm not disappointed, as some vegans are, when people adopt a "veganuary" or "meatless Monday." Sure, those actions seem to do little by themselves, but they normalize a way of living that will be essential in the world we want to create. A person going 100% vegan is also marginal in the bigger picture. We all have different needs and capacities to contribute.

I'm not going to expand on this too much, but there's also a psychological component to this. The greater a perceived sacrifice of an action, the more another person is willing to take that action seriously. We see this extensively in religion. If someone is willing to radically change their diet around an issue, people are more likely to lend it credibility.¹

But what are we, as individuals, obligated to do? I think it's obvious that we should work towards animal liberation, but I think the specifics have to be determined by us as individuals. We're not all in the same situation, especially when it comes to our food.

If you learn to prepare certain vegan dishes, you're making steps towards a world beyond animal exploitation.

If you adopt a vegan diet, you're prefiguring a better relationship with animals and showing people how serious this is.

If you liberate animals from farms, you're directly impacting an animal's life for the better.

If you sabotage industrial food animal production, I salute you.