Monday, April 20, 2009

Becoming-Vegetarian

It has, clearly, been a while since I posted.

This weekend, while presenting a paper on the genealogy of the factory farm, I ended the paper on this paragraph:
" The next point is one that should not be tip-toed around but so often is. If you want to be opposed to machanic capitalism, forced biopolitical disappearances, and deading life, there is a necessary if not sufficient step to take: you have to enter a becoming-vegetarian. This is not another category of the saved and the damned, of the pure and the polluted, it is not a new economy of innocence. It is a process and a practice, as every becoming is. It is a process that cuts through the Gordian knot of first philosophy, as it is simultaneously a practice of subjectivity and an ethical relationship. It is not about prohibition, the vegetarian was popularized by the 19 century vegetarian society, and they chose the name not from vegetables, but the Latin word for lively, for that was how their diet made them feel. So, it is not a prohibition, but a production, an as-kesis of the self. A becoming-vegetarian is a necessary technology of resistance."

This is the first time I have even included the word vegetarian in a conference paper, much less a normative prescription. It didn't go over as well as it could have. I am curious on getting feedback on this concept of becoming-vegetarian.

I plan to write a post unpacking this more in the future, but I was curious if there were any questions? Criticisms? And more importantly, do you know of someone who already talks about vegetarianism in this way?