MEganism: A hi-tech religion

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22steiner.html?_r=1&ref=opinion


To me, veganism is a religio-science not to mention a doomed cult. Here the vegan gives us the one simple answer to the puzzle of human ethics. Simply abandon the use of any animal products entirely and human society will bloom into a pacifist utopia. All six point whatever billion people on the earth will be fed only the best genetically modified grains and legumes. These industrially produced plants will require the use of chemical fertilizers on a massive scale because of course we won't be using those primitive indigenous methods that were so idealized in an earlier era.

It occurs to me how science as a philosophy is tantamount to religion at the base of its assumptions. The main assumption being that human values will dictate the course of the universe. If mankind perfects itself the trajectory of the universe will straighten itself out and there will be no more conflict or imbalance or unpleasantness in the future.

In a clear vision of a vegan world, human society will be highly organized putting all the centuries of militarily developed technology to good use. Efficiency will be the order of the day and all our needs will be met without any ethical challenges.
I'm not sure if there will be property rights nor do I know if there will still be cultural/national identities with all their attendant conflicts. Come to think of it I can't imagine where all the undomesticated animals will go. We can't live with them can we? Will our houses be filled with ethically treated vermin. Will the term vermin be outmoded? Will I still be able to fly to Isle Mujeres or Goa at a whim?

Seems to me the vegan vision is extremely foggy. Could it be that veganism is just another industrially enabled social posture? A greedy and facile bourgeois scramble for a morally superior position while obliviously consuming every other good and service brought to you by Cargill, Monsanto, ADM, Exxon, Pfizer, the Bureau of Transportation, Lucent, and Northrop-Grumman.

It's always a small group of concerned millenarian narcissists that develop shortsighted and useless non-solutions that at their essence necessitate and create greater conflict than they purport to solve. That is why the vegan has no friends. The vegan is the prophet of vegan wars and vegan doom.

Statement of purpose

Apparently there is compelling evidence that social estrangement can be seriously detrimental to one's long term health. Seeing as how estrangement is perhaps my greatest talent I should probably devote myself to some kind of mental activity in order to preserve whatever neurological health I have left at the age of 42.

So, with hopefully some anonymity preserved, I will hereby endeavor to grouse into the bandwidth ether and perhaps some fellow travelers might stumble upon my statements and sacrifice some time to comment on my facile statements.

My aim is obtuse but the most immediate subjects for me will deal with the complexities involved with achieving a morally pure identity in a hi-tech industrialized society. And how we define our values to support our social identities. In other words this is just going to be a stemwinding ramble down a misanthropic shitslide.

I can already feel the last endorphin burning off.