And so, some students I know claim to be devout members of the Jain faith, which rejects any food that may cause harm to all living creatures ā including small insects and root vegetables. The students I know who claim to be Jain (but arenāt) spend their meal money at Whole Foods instead and enjoy freshly made salads and other yummy dishes, while the rest of us are stuck with college meals, like burgers made partly from āmushroom mixā.
I was reading about Stanfordās accommodation culture when one detail stopped me cold. Some students, the article noted, claim to be devout Jains in order to escape the mandatory meal plan. Jainism, one of Indiaās oldest religions, forbids harm to living beings. That includes insects. In many traditions it excludes root vegetables, because uprooting a plant kills it. It is an ethic of extreme restraint, discipline, and care. The students claiming it, by the authorās own admission, are not Jain. They are optimisers. This is not a small lie. It is a revealing one. Continue reading When Even Jainism Becomes a Hack