On Meat-eating

Antti Nylén in Eurozine:

There's a certain type of conservatism that takes on an almost elegiac quality in its statements on the ultimate inexplicability of the world. The myth of complexity is the salvation of the conservative thinker; it is the object of his love, his praise and his undying gratitude. When the background noise of the unbridled, indistinct, mystical "forces" of sin, nature and capitalism reaches a crescendo, the conservative can be sure of feeling at one with himself, serene on the uncomplicated foreground of the world at large. His affairs are all in order, because the rest of the world is in shambles. Or as Alain Badiou has it: "Our world is in no way as 'complex' as those who wish to ensure its perpetuation claim."

In fact, the most difficult things are those that are held to be difficult – in the sense of being "preserved" (Lat. conservare). Nobody's making us. It's a maxim that applies often, if not always.

Veganism, for instance, a practice commonly held to be blisteringly difficult, is actually ridiculously easy. To be idle while others act.

Then there are downright arduous things, like building the Great Wall or translating the Iliad, but I am not concerned with those.

An impossible thing is a phenomenon unto itself. You can no more transform yourself into a millipede than you can spontaneously grow an extra arm, because human nature is simple: it is physical. Therein lies the beginning and the end of any and all metaphysical significance. The world, too, is simple and physical; the world = the Earth.

More here.
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