Just like vegan bodybuilders are the retort to “Where do you get your protein?,” Donald Watson, the man who coined the word “Vegan” and founded The Vegan Society in 1944, is the proof of the potential for vegan longevity. Donald Watson was vegan for about two thirds of his 95-year life — a very good age, even if it falls somewhat short of the immortality that veganism promises.
Donald Watson’s obituary read, “Modest to the end, he said his biggest achievement would be ‘to die peacefully in sleep when my body is worn out.’” He intended his life to be the definitive answer to just one question: can a human being live a long, relatively illness-free life without animal products? His death of natural causes at 95 seems to provide a definitive “Yes!” But for me, Watson’s successful avoidance of animal products for six decades raises other questions. Most importantly: is such a life worthwhile?
For Donald Watson, it was. I’m pretty sure the philosophical satisfaction he got from being among the first official vegans, and for outliving his non-vegan friends, was greater than the physical satisfaction he’d have received from eventually inviting his animal friends to romp in his tummy. He had a legacy to protect, probably one reason he never wavered. Donald Watson leaving veganism would have been like Robert Atkins joining veganism; by banning animals from his life, Watson created a movement. If significance and influence are the signs of a life well lived, he couldn’t have done better.
Then again, it’s unclear how vital Donald Watson actually was to the creation of veganism. In one of his interviews, he points out that the time was ripe for it, and if he hadn’t come up with it, someone else would have.
What’s interesting about this comment is the recognition that around the time he became vegan (1944) is when veganism had to be invented. It’s no coincidence that this was the same time that factory farming became widespread. Watson’s switch is a marking point when human treatment of animals got so bad, abstaining from animal products altogether became a reasonable response. The timing of Watson’s choice is as good of an indication as any that it’s not animal products themselves that are the problem, so much as how they are produced.
Nevertheless, veganism is how Donald Watson made his impact. It’s unlikely that he achieved similar fame in the alternate universe in which he was a meat-eating carpentry instructor. Becoming vegan was undeniably a good move on his part. But anyone else who limits their diet in the same way now isn’t going to start a movement. They’re just going to be yet another vegan. In that context, is Donald Watson’s life really one that anyone should be emulating?
In 1944, he started The Vegan Society with a handful of other animal abolitionists. It must have been an exciting time. These were moral and dietary pioneers embarking on something that had never been tried before. Or if it had, they were going to be the first to document it.
The very first issue of The Vegan News is available online, and it’s an interesting read. In some aspects, the culture of veganism hasn’t changed at all (asking us to envision a grown man sucking on a cow teat is something vegans might have us do today). Their belief that veganism might have some otherworldly effects, however, has pretty much been discarded, except maybe amongst some of the more spiritual raw foodists. And few vegans would refer to non-human animals as “lower forms of animal life” these days.
What’s also interesting is that they didn’t seem even slightly worried about diving into an animal-product-free life. As far as they knew, nobody had ever tried to live without animal products before, but they were sure the results would be positive. Their approach wasn’t that of unconvinced scientists, but of already-converted believers:
Even though the scientific evidence may be lacking, we shrewdly suspect that the great impediment to man’s moral development may be that he is a parasite off lower forms of animal life. Investigation into the non-material (vibrational) properties of foods has yet barely begun, and it is not likely that the usual materialistic methods of research will be able to help much with it. But is it not possible that as a result of eliminating all animal vibrations from our diet we may discover the way not only to really healthy cell construction but also to a degree of intuition and psychic awareness unknown at present? …
We will not accept that adequate nutrition need violate conscience. … But we must be careful in making claims lest the world hears of us and expects to meet eight foot rosy cheeked muscular monsters who are immune to all ills of the flesh. We may be sure that should anything so much as a pimple ever appear to mar the beauty of our physical form, it will be entirely due in the eyes of the world to our own silly fault for not eating ‘proper food’. …
During the war eggs have all but vanished, and they can readily be dispensed with for good without any sense of loss if one dwells on the fact that they are for the most part nothing more than reconstituted grubs and beetles! The elimination of milk undoubtedly presents the greatest difficulty. Nut milk is a good substitute, but it does not go well in tea (therefore cut out the tea and add yet another ten years to your life!)
The theory of harmful “vibrational qualities” of animal products didn’t really pan out, but at the end of his life, Donald Watson was still somewhat mystical about the powers that one might achieve by abstaining from poisonous fats and proteins:
I wonder whether feeding for a long time on pure guilt-free food may make our bodies better “receiving sets” for whatever wisdom there is in the environment. Some scientists may ridicule this idea as it is not materialistic. They can hardly claim to be true scientists if they choose to limit themselves in this way.
Though Donald Watson liked to point out that he outlived all of his non-vegan friends, he also outlived all of his vegan friends. His wife Dorothy Watson, also a vegan, predeceased him, though information about her is scant. Sally Shrigley (aka Elsie Shrigley), the co-founder of The Vegan Society with Donald, died in 1978 after 33 years of veganism. Dr. Frey Ellis, who joined The Vegan Society in the 1950s, and eventually became the resident expert on vegan nutrition, arguing that it was as healthy as any other diet, died in 1978 at the age of 60. Jack Sanderson, a man who became vegan even before the word was invented (which I guess means he beat Donald Watson to it), died “suddenly” at the age of 72, while he was still editor of The Vegan magazine.
But they did last for a while. If Donald Watson and his vegan comrades had died in 1945 of malnutrition, there would be no vegan movement today, except maybe as a suicide cult. But of course they didn’t. Thanks to them, and plenty of current vegans, we know that it is in fact possible to survive without eating animals. Again, that doesn’t answer whether we would want to. Perhaps Watson would have said that it doesn’t matter whether one’s life is enjoyable or not — more important is that a life is lived morally.
But how moral is a life of avoidance? What exactly is the point of it? Is the absence of doing something to be lauded? Donald Watson ate meat until he was a teenager, and dairy long after that. He would have been a better vegan if his parents had miscarried him. I have to question any achievement that could best be accomplished by committing suicide or by never being born.
But okay, assuming we exist and would like to continue existing, and would prefer to live a decent life without causing a bunch of unnecessary pain… does a life abstaining from animal products accomplish this? Does it “save animals”? Unfortunately, we can’t ask the animals that Donald Watson saved. They can’t talk. And even if they could, they’re all dead anyway – slaughtered for human consumption. Or maybe they died of natural causes, were given a proper Christian burial and have “Saved by Donald Watson” engraved on their tombstones. I suspect not, but either way, they’re dead.
Is there even a single animal that is still alive through the eating habits of Donald Watson? I doubt it. And I wonder if there was ever was one. Since animals are not released into the wild as demand for meat decreases, if Watson accomplished anything, it was to keep animals living in miserable factory farm conditions for a little while longer. Either that, or he caused fewer animals to be born. But if the non-existence of an animal is preferable to its existence, he should have had no problem with slaughtering, which he certainly did.
So if Watson didn’t save any animals, what exactly did he do? Well, nothing. All we can say for him is that he didn’t directly benefit from the exploitation of animals by eating them as animal products. Instead of actually doing something about factory farming, he became a self-denying monk, punishing himself with every meal. He ate beans for our sins. And at the end of his life, what exactly was there for him to say for himself? “I did it! I didn’t eat animal products! The end.”
It is a meaningless accomplishment to those who don’t buy Watson’s premise. Most people don’t consider eating meat to be murder, yet even if they did, a murder-free life is no special achievement. A murder-free life is the least any decent person can do. From Watson’s own standards, he did the least he could possibly do. Of course, in his eyes, others do even less than that. But they at least accomplish their own version of a non-murderous life without all the extra effort and deprivation.
Watson left The Vegan Society behind as his legacy to the world. But what of more obscure vegans who follow his example? What will they leave behind? To be precise, they leave behind feces without a trace of animal products, other than their own.
I ask again: is this a life we want to emulate?
