published
in Pro Natura, 1987
When I found myself face to face with the great proposal of
vegetarianism, I tried to agree to it several times but with no success. Yet I
could not eat meat “with a sort of mysticism”, as Furio Allori proposes in his
article on n. 133 of this Review, because I felt an unspeakable sense of guilt.
Only after aver a year of a stubborn trying, time and time again, I achieved my
objective: I have been completely vegetarian far seven months. This victory has
conferred to me a decidedly less selfish view and has led me to the perception
of myself as a more responsible citizen of the present age. I have found
sometimes tacit and other times manifest encouragements to reach the aim I have
set myself in the examples of the Gandhis and the Schweitzers, in contacts with
those who have been vegetarians far a long time and in this Review which has
featured articles about this very contemporary subject from a long while.
After achieving my goal I have wished to speak to as many people as
possible about the subject in question. A sort of sampling without any pretence
of casuistry just to know people’s attitudes towards the problem. From the more
superficial and not interested people I have heard definitions such as: “Vegetarianism
is a mere fashion” or “Vegetarianism is a diet to lose weight”. I have also met
people who are more attentive to the question but who shift the terms of it:
vegetarianism cannot concretely help to solve the problems which afflict our
society. Some time ago, for example, a friend contended that in order to be
less selfish you must do something real far the society (to work for the
handicapped, the old, etc.). With visible work of this nature, one feels
fulfilled, whilst vegetarianism would certainly not turn us into aware and
active citizens of our time.
In my opinion doing one’s utmost for sick, handicapped, or old people
gives more tangible and satisfying results because they are obtained in a short
time. Yet being a vegetarian does not exclude becoming available under other
labels. No, on the contrary, vegetarianism is one step on the ladder leading to
the indiscriminate love far all creatures and consequently to sentiments of
non-violence. Because if I feel tenderness for the lamb trotting still unsteady
after his mother or far the bird flooding me with his songs, so I must be
consistent. My love can not and must not remain a purely aesthetic love, but it
needs to be realized in a proof: not to kill (just in consideration of the fact
that man can live according to a vegetarian diet). Vegetarianism is a very slow
path, a long-term help, an armless struggle which proposes an ambitious aim to
itself: disarming man from selfishness and violence inherited from ancestors. I
do not know if “we shall all be there” in the end. If it is not like that,
perhaps we shall not be “satisfied”. Yet, we shall not have to question our
right to proselytize. In fact trying to get to the root of man in order to
extirpate violence and selfishness is a right cause. That is the point. The
good never gets lost and the effort to discover the existence of the Idea (even
if we could not attain it directly) will remain in the collective memory of the
future prehistory which will be involved in our own self-destruction or which
will start the journey towards the catharsis.