From Crisis to Peace: Rhetoric of Non-violence in WesternVeganism and Its ContemporaryRelevance

Abstract

Vegetarianism has enjoyed a long history in the West. As early as the 6th century B.C., Pythagoras, one of its notable proponents in Classical Greece, first offered an intellectual argument for abstinence from meat. Vegetarianism, albeit never widely practiced, has been an undercurrent throughout the Western history. In comparison with Vegetarianism, the idea of Veganism came rather late. The word ”vegan” was first coined by Donald Watson, the founder of the British Vegan Society, in 1944, and later included in the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition. From its inception, Veganism aimed not only to abolish human's exploitation on animals, but to establish a world where humans and other animals can co-exist and flourish, and to create an optimum condition for a possible world peace. In the beginning of the 21st century, where crises and disasters threat our own existence, the idea of Veganism carries significant importance to our age. This paper first discussed the massive violence human beings inflicted upon animals, and the inevitable environmental destructions it entailed. Next, the paper argued that the source of current crises may lie in human's alienation and estrangement from other sentient beings. Then, the discussion went further to explore the idea of non-violence inherent in Vegan rhetoric, and its contemporary relevance for peace.