Veganism is losing the battle on the Semiotics front
Veganism will not save the world. On the contrary, it might make it a worse place than before. The main problem does not lie within what you produce and eat. It is how and how much you produce and consume. You might not enjoy this piece, but I hope you read it.
Culture shapes the market, and the market influences the culture in return.
Let’s begin with how the market dynamics affect a cultural shift. Whenever there is an emerging cultural shift, the market aligns with it. Because whatever the people are sensitive and excited about, the brands will associate themselves with those concepts and ideas.
Moreover, new products, brands, and businesses emerge around that cultural space, which later grows to become the speakers and leaders of that field, defining the space through marketing and communications. Those brands will turn the cultural space into a marketing space. So, we can say that nothing worthy of mass attention can get away from the grasp of market dynamics.
Any cultural shift that emerges to change the system will eventually become a part of that system. And that is not a criticism; that is simply a fact. And one needs to acknowledge it living within this system. Otherwise, it is like criticising gravity.
Vegan ‘meat’ is a semiotic trap for which we are eager to fall.
This brings us to our next topic, where the market influences vegan culture to produce “plant based food that tastes, smells and feels exactly like meat.” Vegan burgers, vegan sausages, vegan meat and vegan chicken… Unquestionably, these are innovative and valuable products, but are they really what vegan culture represents? Like meat, but not meat?
The market influences the culture to tap into your patterns and propensity of our traditions, habits and affinities. They use the meat culture’s symbolic power and semiotic prevalence to construct a new market space replacing one type of food with another. Unfortunately, by buying into the vegan ‘meat’ idea, vegan culture fails to resume the cultural shift it started.
Because if vegan culture wants to change the world, they need to begin with cultural signs, symbols and meanings. That’s what nations do in all political revolutions. Also, remember all those slave owners’ statues toppled down in recent years.
Keeping the meat culture alive, they help the meanings attached survive simultaneously. And that would create the same problems with a different colour, the same calamity with other victims.
One can say that vegan meat is good because it is a gateway food for adopting a plant based lifestyle. Yes, that’s true, but when it gains the dominant market share, in return, it defines the essence of the culture. So, it is a tough battle to fight.
For veganism to make a substantial change in the food culture, they need to construct new meanings, symbols, and types of food to define a new cultural space, which the market will follow, rather than impose a replica of the existing food culture. Building on top of existing culture also carries the current symbolic power and power relations. It will eventually become a plant-based Zombie at its best.
It is about how and how much it is produced.
Finally, I think we are deviating from the focal point of the global environmental problem with the plant-based revolution. Humanity repeatedly makes a common mistake throughout history: we focus on the outcome, not the process. (I also do this quite often.) This is the worst mental model that Western positivism imposed on the world, and we continue to suffer from it without even acknowledging it. Because owning it would not be ‘convenient.’
Let’s take almond milk as an example. We say “almond milk is the future”, “vegan milk will save the world”, and such grandiose statements everywhere. However, the almond milk industry in the USA is overgrowing: 1) they utilise a great deal of land for almond trees, which then 2) require bees to pollinate and 3) needs much water.
These three issues are the same problems people complain about in the meat industry. The amount of land exploited, animal welfare (bees are as much living beings as cows, pigs and lamb) and water use. The Guardian reports that “50 billion bees — more than seven times the world’s human population — were wiped out in a few months during winter 2018–19.” And this number continues to increase annually as the almond milk industry grows.
The environmental argument about plant-based products does not make sense. Be it almond milk, other plant-based milk or dairy milk, as long as we try to deliver enough for billions of people with the capitalist growth mindset, it will create a similar problem. The source of milk is not the main problem. The growth mindset is the problem.
The world does not have enough resources to feed the whole world with the same product simultaneously. Therefore, we need a systemic change that creates an equilibrium in resources and products. We can neither have animal nor plant based products in excessive amounts. If we produce from each source prudently, we can make everything by implementing sustainable and circular production principles. But in a limited capacity.
We need a balanced production; we need new regulations about providing food and limiting the size of products businesses can produce from those resources. In short, we do not necessarily need to change what we eat; we need to change the way and the amount we produce.
Are discrimination and judging okay when it comes from an ethical standpoint?
That is different if one chooses not to eat animal products for ethical reasons. However, the moral nature of this case is not my concern in this article. So, therefore I do not comment on that part. And anybody can choose what to eat and what not to eat, but there is nothing moral about lecturing, judging and pressuring other people about their food preferences.
The world is going through a new Renaissance, where we learn not to discriminate and abuse, to respect and empathise with one another and the world. We cherish diversity, equity and inclusion in social life, the workplace and other parts of our lives. We respect people’s preferences, orientations and ways of being and defining themselves. People’s colour, body shape, and physical challenges are no longer stigmatised. We are learning to coexist. However, when we impose our food and nutrition preferences on others, we can quickly become discriminatory and judgemental. How does that happen?
You are what you eat vs you support what you buy.
Consequently, we can say that Vegan culture is another cultural movement that fell into the lap of the capitalist system and turned into a marketing space, similar to what is happening with greenwashing around ecological awareness. Unfortunately, it is far from changing the world in its current state, but we can clearly say it is changing the marketing ecosystem.
In a way, it fits well with the current state of post-truth existence in our lives. We want to buy food that looks and tastes like meat, but it is not. Even if it is made of more straightforward raw materials, we are willing to pay more. Because it has a social and cultural capital value on a symbolic level, it is a title one can attach to themselves.
Who benefits from this situation? Us? The world? Animals?
Enjoy the vegan burger.
