There are few more thrilling encounters than a red-blooded spat between vegans and carnivores, rich as it will be in anthropomorphism, compassion, welfare, health concerns, wellbeing and a generous leavening of bile.
Last week was no exception. A resumé. Priestlands school in Lymington, Hampshire, runs a pig-rearing programme and allowed four female piglets that were destined for the abattoir next month to be cared for by pupils. A newly vegan parent disliked the scheme and started a petition against it, which has had more than 50,000 signatories. Chris Willsher, the school’s executive head, decided to return the piglets to the farm from which they were borrowed. In a statement, he said: “We will consult the school community, send a letter to all parents and give them an opportunity to have a say…”
“School community”? Exactly when did community become the add-on of choice? In this case, it wouldn’t have taken much longer to say “interested parties”. Yet the word is clamped on to very many things. Take “the Muslim community”. In the aftermath of the atrocities last year, out this phrase was trotted, with what seemed like an implicit accusation that every Muslim was in some way complicit in these barbaric acts. What nonsense. It’s about as valuable as any other “community”, which, in its casually broad-brush application, seems wilfully to ignore divergent constituent parts.
I fear, though, that the damage is done and the wretched construction is now so deeply embedded in lazy thinking that it is too late to eradicate it. Mind you, it is a word that also often gives me much innocent pleasure in its more ludicrous applications – for example, the star-gazing community, the Hells Angel community, the settled community (that’s non-Travellers, I am reliably informed), all real. Then, there’s my all-time favourite – the corkscrew collecting community. Now I’ll drink to that.
