Intelligence of Love (How Montessori and Veganism Can Save the World)

Intelligence of Love is a unique examination of values shared by both veganism and Montessori philosophy. Compassion, respect, and care for all living beings (especially the most vulnerable); environmental stewardship; universal justice; and peace are at the heart of these movements. Together they could transform the world.

Veganism and Montessori? Compassion for animals and a revolutionary pedagogy. What could they possibly have in common? Actually, they share many deeply held values: 

• Universal justice 
• Human flourishing 
• Environmental stewardship 
• Compassion for the most vulnerable 
• Reverence for life
• World peace

Intelligence of Love explores these shared aspirations and an invisible barrier to achieving them. How we view and treat animals, especially those we use for food, creates a barrier to our dearest values and keeps us from achieving our highest goals. Carnism and speciesism are invisible biases that allow humans to rationalize treating animals as objects rather than as the sentient beings they are. And these biases impact more than animals. Animal agriculture inflicts devastating harm on our environment, on vulnerable human populations, on our health, and of course on the animals it kills. Treating animals as objects also limits our capacity for compassion and love. Veganism provides an antidote to these harms and shows us the path forward. 

Drawing from Maria Montessori’s writings and lectures on peace, justice, and education, Intelligence of Love shows how the values of love and compassion, respect for the natural world, and the obligation of each human to all humankind are foundational to her ideas and how today veganism is a natural extension and expression of those ideas in action. Martha Readyoff uses her own experiences as a Montessori teacher and former Montessori student—as well as current research and theory from people like Jane Goodall, Martha Nussbaum, Melanie Joy, and Aph Ko—to begin the conversation between these two transformative ideologies, Montessori and veganism.

Intelligence of Love inspires the Montessori community to embrace veganism in order to create a pathway to global transformation, “a new world for a new humanity” that Maria Montessori dreamed of.