Communicating Veganism: Challenges to mainstreaming its ideas across society
The communication of veganism is essentially a project of virtue epistemology: one that uses the tools of human psychology and cognition to ground an ethic in truths about the extreme exploitation of animals today, and what one should do about it. Over time, it is reasonable to expect a convergence of the social with the economic, leading to an increase of vegan-friendly consumption. Given this, there is a long and hard journey ahead to mainstreaming veganism.
NOAH J. WESCOMBE: Veganism, as both a philosophy and social movement, faces numerous challenges to the communication of its ideas across society. As a unique modern counterculture, it stands in contravention of prevailing anthropological discourses that dominate conceptual frameworks. This has led to difficulty in constructing updated virtue epistemologies that result in veganism as a logical moral conclusion. It is clear that new social discourses need developing, and that this is a primary concern for affirming moral agency…
An optimal, up-to-date approach to communicating veganism is one that considers, holistically, a wide range of philosophical, psychological, and informational features to today‘s society. In the interest of doing justice to the movement, and then ultimately for universal notions of optimal welfare, we must reconsider our approaches. If veganism is to be taken seriously as not only a cultural phenomenon, but also as an encompassing ethical movement, boundaries must be broken down, and mutual understandings fostered irrespective of individual background…
The communication of veganism is essentially a project of virtue epistemology: one that uses the tools of human psychology and cognition to ground an applied ethic in truths about the extreme exploitation of animals today, and what one should do about it. Over time, it is theoretically reasonable to expect a convergence of the social with the economic, due to virtue epistemologies constructed through these means, leading to increased uptake of vegan-friendly economic consumption. There is a long and hard journey ahead for veganism.
Given that food, in particular, is one of the most fundamental of human markets — and, as has been identified, is influenced by deep and complex social positioning — change here requires a gradual alteration of acceptable parameters for products, stimulated by free choice, so as not to cause social discontentment and cultural upheaval. This is a core feature of a systems approach to free markets that incorporates sociological and behavioural theory to bring economic activity into correlation with newly enriched social-individual features.
Though veganism has its urgentist policy proponents, who are propelled by disgust and a moral panic over the current system of animal agriculture, the philosophy as a whole is not at all totalitarian in its modern presentation. The exercising of individual rationality, in response to relevant information, is what the vegan movement puts its faith in and contributes the majority of its time toward. It is the outcome of this that is the most viable virtue epistemology to be generated — that which comes directly from the awareness and judgement of the informed individual.
The extents of ideologies is therefore of significance in balancing virtuous principles with social phenomena. Taken too far into radicalism, due to a passionate expression of convictions, veganism can suffer greatly, proportional to its current state of vulnerability as a minority viewpoint and culturally unaccepted ideology. If prudence is taken however, there is opportunity to rise beyond ―isms and carnist-vegan dilemmas, toward constructive information sharing and open dialogue in mainstream culture. In the modern context of the way information is distributed and interfaced with, such a theoretical approach is necessary to overcome corresponding hurdles and build meaningful conversation. SOURCE…
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