The Animal Rights position

If we want to advocate for animals then we must be committed to vegan eating, clothing and commodities. If that isn’t in place we won’t be taken seriously, but once that is secure and we also appear to be healthy, then people are likely to consider our diet to be not such a bad idea.
But however convincing we are, there are always going to be those who hold onto old attitudes in order to avoid making a radical diet change. Among them are people who insist vegan food isn’t safe and who want to discover dangers in the diet so they can be convinced that vegans are foolish to eat that way, or that they have dubious motives, or that our compassion is not genuine or that we are lying about what is happening to the animals. If they can dismiss us, it makes us no better than them, and that means what we are saying can be dismissed. But there are lots of people who just don’t care about animals or diets or ethics, who are deliberately ignorant or they presently make a living from the animal industries and actively influence people to buy animal products and ignore anything connected with animals having rights … and so it goes on. As challenging as that might be, we can’t waste too much time trying persuade the unpersuadable. We must move on without getting everyone’s approval.
If the cause of animal rights isn’t recognised as urgent and essential it will always be left on the backburner. As vegans we must keep the issues in high profile, to maintain this need for consumers to make vital shopping choices each day. Alongside this we need to encourage a wide variety of cruelty-free commodities onto the market, to make it that much easier for replacements to be found. If many people operate product boycotts they will be effective in encouraging businesses to reinvent themselves to accommodate a new market demand.

Public Speaking 3

Having done quite a few of these ‘gigs’, may I offer a few hints about public speaking on this trickiest of all subjects?
Ostensibly we might have been invited to speak, but in order to speak freely and say what we want to say fully, we need to get past the defence barriers and the offence barriers, and feel permission coming from the audience to open up the taboo areas. Talking about abattoirs and meat eating is relatively straight forward, the audience are likely to be interested in vegetarianism, but as soon as we start to talk about dairy cows, people think we are going to attack their ice creams and milk in coffee, etc. This is where I think it’s a good idea to preface what we are going to say by explaining that most people are unaware of what happens on the dairy farm; that they believe dairy is good nutritionally; that almost all people use milk products. Then it is for us to gently explain the realities behind ‘dairy misconceptions’.
We need to keep our voice even, almost neutral, if only to draw out questions and encourage discussion, and that means looking into the audience to spot anyone wanting to say something.
Speaker to audience, face to face, is potentially powerful, so body language is everything. Our tone of voice never needs to be shrill and we must maintain eye contact at all times. (so that rules out making frequent reference to notes. The thread of the talk should therefore be largely remembered).
Unlike a book, which one can put down and picked up again later, direct interaction with people who are willing to listen to us (but who might be feeling nasty reactions rising up from within) means we must show allowance and not be severe. When we’re promoting animal rights it’s best if we keep ourselves out of the way and become almost like a book, advisory, never finger-wagging or threatening. We need to show understanding of the other person’s struggle, preferably by referring to how it was for us when we were on the listening end; how our own change-over period was not that easy and how we made mistakes or took backward steps. A speaker who is vulnerable, instead of holier than thou, is more approachable. And in order to be in touch with the way things are today we should consider this: that the same change-over that we made perhaps some years before, may be harder now, because of the many competing pressures on people to change. Self-development has become an industry and animal rights is one cause amongst many causes, fighting to make its impact.
When advocating for animal rights our biggest mistake is to be seen to care less about people than the suffering of animals. It may look good on paper but in the human-relationship world it’s easy to ignore how important the human factor is, to win over our fellow humans and therefore win our best chance to change things for the animals. The customer plays a paramount part: we need many, many ‘customers’ to take seriously the principles of veganism and animal rights. We need big numbers so that enough pressure will be put on legislators to pass laws to bring an end to the abuse of animals. To pull this off veganism needs to be seen as attractive, significant, meaningful and the way of the future. Vegans must therefore have high standards of behaviour as a role model to identify with.

Public Speaking 2

I think it’s important to tell it like it is, not pretend that becoming an activist for animals or taking on a vegan lifestyle is very easy or too difficult. Honesty about this particular matter is appreciated – to get an idea about what one might be letting oneself into. Whoever we are talking to, whether it be meat eaters about their shopping choices or farmers about their animals, or teachers or students about veganism, everything we say should eventually come back to our relationship with animals (and we all have a strong connection with them whether we eat them or try to protect them). For our part, vegans need to talk about animals as if we want to come to know them, as we would a human. In that way we can talk about animals as if they are different to us but equal to us, in terms of their deserving a right to a life.
Most people don’t think too much about animals, and here we are, at a public event, talking about them as if they really mattered. How do we bring a listening audience round to this attitude? I think we can get them to respond to our line of thinking, by never speaking down to them and by giving them the green light to interrupt what we are saying, to recount their own stories and give their own opinions. If we let them ask questions we make our talk less of a lecture and more of an open discussion. And this needn’t continue indefinitely but at least, at some stage in the talk, it gives people listening the impression that the speaker is keen to listen as well as to be the speaker. It may be a hall full of people but the atmosphere should be one of a group of people sitting around a table discussing – because this is an intimate subject, full of contentious issues and a subject crucial to the future of us all.

Public Speaking 1

If we are speaking about animal rights in public, we need to establish how the audience is - hostile or warm. We need to be ready to adjust our tone accordingly. They might be friendly at first and then go cold on us if we start to become boring or start haranguing. Or they’ll be hostile at first until we can show we are friendly and with something useful to say, and not there to lecture them.
If we want to win an audience over and hold their interest we need to encourage them think seriously about what we are saying, and to do that there’s nothing better than showing we’ve spent time preparing the talk, using video, pictures, examples and stories, and having a variety of approaches to the message we’re trying to get across. Our first aim is to make it impossible for the audience to be bored - this being a subject which is difficult and confronting, our information and ideas should move along at a lick. Importantly, there need to be examples of how we personally have experienced the transition to veganism and animal rights. We lose no face by admitting personal difficulties we might have had, the same as those being envisaged by an audience listening to us.
The content of the talk might consist of information about animal exploitation and information about the implications of a vegan lifestyle on those who want to become advocates for those exploited animals.
If we want to hold an audience’s interest, even though the subject is difficult, they need to know how long we are going to talk. By keeping the talk to 20-30 minutes and reminding listeners that questions and comments are going to be asked for, and by keeping a timer ticking to remind ourselves how much time we have left, the talk is never allowed to become an open ended ramble.

Danger of over-saucing the pudding

Non-vegans represent the vast majority of humans: vegans represent a minuscule percentage. Numbers of vegans are not increasing rapidly enough to make veganism fashionable. Vegans don’t stand out enough as being smarter, kinder, more powerful, more creative or more persuasive than anyone else, not noticeably anyway. We come across almost as conservative and unimaginative as the next person. There’s nothing much, other than appearing more healthy, that looks attractive. If we have fewer self-destructive habits or better ethics they don’t stand out enough to catch people’s attention.
If vegans want others to be drawn to their principles they need to be able to talk inspiringly, that is, use arguments that are watertight. We must be beyond reproach ourselves. We have to be squeaky genuine and we don’t need to go around telling everybody that we are ‘vegan’ either. That’s not because people don’t need to know but because it looks as though we are fishing for compliments. If vegans can play down this side of themselves they’ll be in a better position to have some useful things to say about ‘the animal question’ but still seeming to be people who don’t press their point, like door-knocking evangelists. We must resist the temptation to try to convert people. Unless we are asked to say more we should say little. We shouldn’t volunteer too much information at once. Our answers should be specific to the questions asked. By easing up on the hype we stand a better chance of winning people over.

Genuine

Talking about goodness is dangerous. People think we have tickets on ourselves if we do. Nothing uglier than a do-gooder. Veganism can so easily seems like self punishment in order to appear good, and that never looks attractive. So vegans have to be careful not to let the focus on liberating animals veer around to highlight our own wonderfulness.
I remember a famous actor coming to a rehabilitation unit for wayward teenagers, to present them, on behalf of the Actor’s Union, with a new mini-bus. His smile was as warm as toast – but he was passed off by one of the kids as “fake as a Chiko Roll”.
If animal rights advocates want to promote a high ideal they have to earn respect. They have to try to do nothing that makes them seem fake, like boasting about their vegan principles or criticising those who are ‘unprincipled’. If we do it usually triggers hostility. Somehow we’ve all got to find a way of involving ourselves with people, listen to what they are saying, and let them want to discover what we have to say. If they give us some respect they may also give us the benefit of the doubt. Even listen to us. Even try out what we suggest. If we seem unfriendly or fake we’ll fail, because initially people would much rather take the easy option. They’ll be wanting to dismiss us.
If we give them the excuse, to believe we are do-gooders and are so dazzled by our own righteousness that we can’t see anyone else’s reality, then we’ll give them the excuse to rubbish vegans and rubbish our arguments.

The Greater Good & feeling good

By avoiding animal products, by becoming vegan, we undoubtedly come to feel good, good about our decision, good about how our stomach feels, and good that we’re somehow lighter, less dense and mentally sharper.
This question of good. What is it? And especially what is the greater good? We do things which make us feel good on many levels. But the overall feeling of feeling good is generated mainly from having altruistic intentions. Knowing that we’re not in it for ourselves only.
We get a lot of good feelings by being actively involved in non-violence, which includes seeing the best in others rather than looking around for their bad points. We get it by not wanting to be in judgement of them (when we really like someone, all their virtues are great and all their bad points insignificant). If we want to sow seeds that will flower later, that’s a positive, that’s working for the greater good … and it’s likely the results of our work will not necessarily be seen in our own lifetime. Animals rights, for example, might not come about until many of us are dead, but if we want to lay the foundation stones today, it is not only essential that we do it right now, but right now it will make us ‘feel-good’.
If we don’t care about what’s ahead ‘after we’re gone’, (“I won’t be around to see it”), we’ll have neither an interest in long term planning nor any interest in the concept of altruism. It will be meaningless. However we might still want to have a good self-image and for that we need to seem good. But just seeming good doesn’t guarantee we’re going to be liked, especially if we go around displaying our ‘goodness’. No one likes boasting whereas everyone likes ‘genuine’. The depth of our commitment (to being good) is tested when we aren’t being recognised for what we do and when we’re acting anonymously. For some, that would be enough to turn them off being good altogether.
Vegans experience this sort of ‘come-down’. They may boast and then suffer for it; they may wrestle with altruism and fear they’ll never be rewarded for it. ‘They’, I mean ‘we’, we all go down that path, surely? And it’s a big lesson we all have to learn.
When taking the high moral ground, we have to keep ourselves out of the picture. Otherwise everyone’ll think we’re up our self.

Non-vegans falling back

If we don’t steer clear of animal products we must disqualify ourselves as true peacemakers. By this one daily action of shopping for and eating of animals, we encourage the assault on them. We waste our best chance for future happiness, whether for us-personally or us-collectively … and, in doing that, we waste that same chance for animals too. We are their only hope and if we aren’t willing to defend them they are lost. By supporting violence, and indeed taking part in it on a daily basis by buying slaughterhouse products, we become part of the slaughterhouse process.
The seemingly benign egg comes to represent the worst violence.
Here’s what happens. I buy a packet of biscuits the ingredients of which include egg, that is egg from caged hens. As a biscuit eater I don’t want to know about egg-laying hens and their circumstances. I just want my biscuits. But whether I know the ingredients’ backgrounds or not, the fact is my biscuit contains something that can’t be justified, eggs, which come from the battery system. Biscuit makers don’t go around looking for ethical raw materials.
Who approves of this system? Probably none of us would do but we still buy egg-containing products, all the same. In doing so we compromise what otherwise makes us good people. It seems pathetic to be seduced by a biscuit.
If we want to feel good about ourselves there is no system of guilt-trading to make us feel any better – all we can do is stop doing it.

Vegans starting out

If we decide to do something, to protest, to speak out, to become vegan, the first thing we’ll notice is the effect on our own self esteem. It receives a boost, and obviously that feels good. It’s something we feel so strongly almost straight away, that we believe others will notice it in us and want it for themselves too. But no. It isn’t necessarily true that if we feel it that they will. Just becoming vegan is all we can do at first - do it, then start to show it and patiently wait for others, for the penny to drop.
Direct action is effective for rescuing animals but there’s no direct action we can carry out to forcibly change people’s minds. Our only weapon is to convince people of the benefits of making a voluntary choice and then letting them come to their senses in their own time.
The reason why vegan thinking and vegan eating and vegan clothing are so important is that it is an alternative way of physically surviving. And those who have tried vegan diets have unexpectedly found an improvement of health and well being … after a while. At first though these experiments may have a few glitches. Our body needs to readjust and, on a social level, our relationships need time to acclimatise. We need to work on various levels simultaneously, until things are running smoothly. It isn’t a complete panacea. It doesn’t necessarily bring us closer to love or non-separation, but it does install a measure of non-violence into our lives. In what we do about animal food, as we steer clear of nasty products in our lifestyle, it keeps us clear of the nastier side of our nature.

The comforts of carnivores

On this matter of using animals, so many people today don’t seem to be able to make that great leap forward, towards herbivorous-ness. Like paedophiles who keep on assaulting children we’re forced to continue assaulting animals. We can’t control it and we can’t reduce it, and so we take risks with our own ethics, health and our relationship with the world. We risk our very conscience for the sake of comfort food. None of it is actually necessary on any level whatsoever and none of it un-replaceable with plant-based alternatives or if clothing synthetic alternatives. And yet it continues because we aren’t in control of our choices.
This is a heavy price to pay, to keep the conscience quiet, to give up the feeling of being okay but still hoping to feel safe. This seems to be a huge risk to take. It makes us have to rely on some very flimsy safety nets. It means relying on mere luck, or hope, or superstition, or even an eventual rescue by some benevolent force from who-knows-where. In other words we give over the very controls of our life because we can’t knock off the pop-foods (the ones the evil empire people are churning out by the bucket-load). On this we spend our ‘hard-earned’.
We eat animal foods and hope to ‘get away with it’, in the comfortable belief that animals can’t hit back. And it’s true, they can’t. Well, not head on anyway. Not in the same way as we attack them … but then, of course, we suspect they all have a sting in their tail. We know they do hit back, by way of the toxicity of their edible body parts, and the god-knows-how-much adrenaline-infused contaminants entering the muscle tissue at the abattoir (their presence down to all the fear and terror going on there). It’s Montezuma’s revenge. If we eat animals and feel good, and we keep on eating them, it’s likely we’ll end up NOT feeling so good. And I suppose you could say, speaking generally of humans, that this would then be a just return for all the appalling treatment the animals have undergone - the penalty people pay for pretending NOT to know about the animals, who then who leave it too late to become aware, and who then realise they’ve been at risk all their life (largely over eating animal products).
Being largely unaware, until recently, of the dangers of eating animal foods (both ethically and health wise), humans have exploited animals, as an available resource, for hundreds of generations, since the beginning of written history. So we have no evidence that people ever related to animals in any other way. Certainly not non-violently.
Since we began recording our existence, the human species has always been very utilitarian, taking advantage of everything that couldn’t fight back. Since animals have always been easy pickings - we have always caught them, kept them captive (and now today almost always cage them), and we use the most scientific methods to efficiently breed them, and then we take what we want from them, And just to prove how much we don’t-give-a-fuck, we then have them killed in specially designed execution chambers so that we can (for chrissakes) EAT them. What sort of relationship between fellow travellers is that, one wonders?

The way animals are treated, their story is so sad that most people refuse to think about it. And thinking is the key here. It’s the lack of it that leads most poor suckers to the doors of the abattoir to buy things. We want: we get. And we ignore how much of our money is extracted from us, by the animal industries. And so every day we go to them until we go somewhere-else … we go, with our baggage of diseases and disappointments, like lambs to the slaughter, to our untimely or ugly death. And so too do may vegans. But the difference is that, to quote Dylan Thomas, they “do not go gentle into that good night”.

Survival and addiction

What makes most people hostile to animal rights argument may not be down to their innate violent streak or blood lust, or greed or cold nature or lack of concern for animals. It probably comes from a ‘flight or fight’ instinct which is based on a combination of believing animal foods are necessary along with the need for us to maintain our dominant position over animals. Along with this is a need to maintain the smooth supply of animal foods to our shops. It’s a self preservation instinct which we reinforce every day at mealtimes. It confirms our normality with every meal we eat and helps to balance the guilt we feel about animals being enslaved. Over our adult years, familiar foods which are animal foods come to be seen as natural. Farming (and killing) practices are hardly noticed. And likewise, we fail to notice those deteriorations in our own bodies brought about by the continual use of animal products. We don’t see how our eating habits cloud our instinct for good nutrition. Instead of maturing our taste for healthy foods we continue to enjoy our ‘nursery teas’ and rich dinners and snack treats. Eventually, usually too late, we realise something valuable in ourselves has been spoiled - the vitality and sharpness we once had is gone. And we even get used to that. We call it ‘the ageing process’. Out of this come other disasters - we lose confidence in ourselves physically, we are ashamed of ourselves spiritually, we lose sight of the honourable part of ourselves. Because of our attachment to animal food we allow our hearts to harden and however we try explaining it away, we always have to come back to our addiction to thousands of familiar eatables which we’ve grown accustomed to over our lifetime.

Shopping for food

It’s in the shopping aisle where we make our biggest decisions – either to stick with the usual food choices or switch to a more ethical eating pattern. This is where we decide how to use our money – to withdraw it from certain products so as not to give oxygen to the producers … or continue sponsoring them so they can continue supplying us. When we give in to food seduction, to foods that trigger “biochemical effects not unlike those of addictive drugs” like sugar, chocolate, cheese or meat, we do so without giving it a second thought. We let our taste buds do out thinking. Our salivation says it all. We savour certain foods on the way home from the shops, visualising the meal for which we’ve just bought the contents.
When we deliberately go cruelty-free shopping it’s another story. We decide to replace animal-based foods with plant-based foods (and that also means replacing leather and woollen goods with non-animal footwear and fabrics). What items we boycott is pretty much straight forward, it’s just a matter of reading the fine print on ingredient lists and then switching over to the alternative products.
If we choose NOT to change, we remain locked into a habit pattern which prevents us from making any genuine contribution to animal rights … we are faced with an ethical dilemma. We either shop with animal rights in mind or we continue to do as we’ve always done, to ‘screw the animals’; we either do the right thing or we do what others do; we either think for ourselves or we refuse to even discuss this subject, treating it like a taboo. Who’d have thought every-day shopping could put us to such a test?

Taste buds and will power

If we do decide to dip our toes into ‘chillier waters’, by putting soy milk on our corn flakes or cooking with tofu or falafel, our taste buds protest. At first. Then we need will power to get over the initial glitches to get ourselves used to new tastes … and who hasn’t been there? Who hasn’t, at first, disliked unfamiliar tastes and turned back to more familiar foods? After a life time of cultivating our tastebuds, here we are, trying to re-educate them overnight. We can’t expect them to ‘roll over’ to vegetarian replacements without a struggle. This is where patience is a real virtue.
It’s a short lived struggle usually, surprisingly short, but one wouldn’t know that until one starts. So at first we need will power, something extra to push us on, a self discipline based on a ‘no-touch-animals’ policy, something strong enough to overcome the bright coloured packaging of familiar foods. Something strong enough to override memories of favourite foods or the easy associations with foods we know with our friends. We consider, we conclude, we take steps to put our favourite foods behind us . . . and prepare to take on the new regime as bravely as we dare. As we venture forth changes happen. A subtler food experience unfolds. Not so sugary perhaps, nor as salty, nor as blood-soaked, nor as fattening, nor as rich - instead new flavours, new textures, coming through.

Decisions, decisions

Young people especially are more savvy these days. They find animal rights attractive and convincing, and are drawn to adopt ethical attitudes towards food. Alongside this they don’t want to be poisoned; healthier eating, high energy foods and foods for low body weight are attractive to the young. But for many in this ‘gentler generation’ it’s animal cruelty that really hits home. It’s the clincher. The horror of finding out what happens on today’s animal farms is connected to what food and clothing we are buying, and then where necessary to boycotting unethical products.
Thinks …would I deliberately eat second rate food? Thinks …would I deliberately hurt animals? Thinks …would I want to support a whole industry that is dedicated to hurting animals and pumping out junk? But this is an intellectual position. It’s not necessarily connected to what we end up doing, buying and eating. Our food and clothing choices are largely a private affair. Food choice is almost sacrosanct - to be defended from outside interference at all costs.
Where food is concerned we want to forget where it comes from, if it has animal origins. Food is closely connected to habit, and habits connect with stability. We like foods that are more-ish. We’re attracted to rich, tasty ingredients. In the traditional Western diet, with about 70% of our food items containing animal ingredients, it means there would have to be a lot of boycotting. And that makes life difficult. Such a broad boycott requires conviction. It’s easier to give in to our weaker side even when we know we’re helping to hurt animals when we do.
So this sensitive subject of animals and the eating of them sets off explosions in the conscience. Either we don’t give a stuff about animals (and continue buying whatever we feel like) or we care about them and boycott the lot.
Knowing about intensive farming, as most of us do these days, makes us react to information – we either decide to act or we don’t. Core values, learnt from childhood, about rights and wrongs either move us or they don’t. Do we consider our habits, test our food addictions and start to avoid certain things? When we can’t find suitable replacements do we also consider doing without? It’s quite a test!

The animal industries

As soon as they run an ad on TV, they seem desperate. The animal industries are trying to sell something that has always been staple, like milk, eggs and meat, that once, never needed to be advertised at all. Now they have to use all sort of advertising gimmicks and dress up their products to be convincing, although, bottom line, they always know they have a powerfully addictive product on their hands.
These days the social acceptability of their products is coming into question. Animal products are on the nose ethically and health wise because conditions on farms are both unhygienic and uncaring. (Pharmaceuticals fare no better, since they are often closely associated with vivisection.) All this is becoming a big turn off to many customers.
Most people want to do the right thing. Most of us would like to think well of ourselves and we want to be seen as intelligent and humane, but that clashes with the ugliness of the animal products we’re consuming and the stupidity of letting them make us fat and ill. Our suspicion about them is only heightened by over-the-top advertising. We like to believe in our autonomy and discrimination but, against this impression, we still buy the food we know we shouldn’t buy. We can’t help it, because it’s addictive. It always comes back to our own decisions – we know that no one tells us the truth about these foods and the industry is allowed to push it as hard as they like. If we eat animal foods there a chance we may be dicing with the threat of future illness but certainly we are dicing with our ethics.
Whenever we buy an animal product we give the nod for the industry to get away with murder, literally. It’s always been so … until recently where the levels of awareness have become far greater. Now there’s a growing number of well qualified scientists pointing out disease associations with animal foods, and this, along with TV footage of the grim conditions on factory farms, has had the effect of making vegetarianism more attractive. For instance, in UK amongst young adults, vegetarianism has risen from less than a few percent two decades ago to over 25% now. And in Britain, parts of Europe and USA, veganism isn’t uncommon, and the up-front labelling on food packaging saying “suitable for vegans” is familiar to most shoppers in those countries.
If the writing is on the wall for the animal industries and they’re beginning to feel the pinch, they are showing it in their expensive advertising campaigns. Current and former customers are more likely to see the nervous approach of the ‘industry’ and gravitate towards plant-based products. And that might mean that veganism isn’t so very far from being the fashion . . . and then to become just the normal, accepted diet for savvy people.

The majority

Where animals are concerned, a minority seems powerless to convince the free-willed majority to think compassionately about animals used for food and research, mainly because the majority loves the food it’s used to and believes in the safety of animal tested drugs that doctors prescribe. The majority prefers to believe that animals must be sacrificed to make food available and life safer. Hence it will not see things from the animals’ point of view. Nor support the liberationists. The majority would rather see the animal activists as part of a whacko cult and their protesting simply as a temper tantrum against the majority society which they can’t fit into.
Anyone who does debate the issues (to put the case against animal rights) easily wins majority support because most people want to see animal rights arguments put down, the better to maintain supplies of ‘normal’ foods and medicines. It seems depressing that so few of the majority are in sympathy with vegan principles.
But there are some distinct advantages. The majority, by turning a blind eye to the way animals are treated, also turns its attention away from what the animal rights groups are doing, letting us go about our business, and since we are largely ignored we seem to keep out of sight of the media too. Because we’re almost unnoticed, we haven’t yet been widely rubbished or ridiculed. No one wants to draw any attention to us or to what we are saying - the media don’t want to high profile this subject because they are keen not to offend either their advertisers and their majority customers. There are very few interviews with animal activists because the interviewers themselves are unsympathetic and won’t touch this subject for fear of having their own double standards shown up during an interview.
But as the movement grows we can expect things to change. The whole subject of animal use isn’t presently discussed, either around the private dinner table or in the TV studios, because animal products represent a vast market and a vast advertising revenue … but slowly and surely the majority customer is wising up. The persuasions of the animal industries are becoming less and less convincing. People are less able to avoid animal rights arguments. All the more reason why activists should come across as reasonable, intelligent and well informed information imparters.

In yer face

The eternal question for animal rights activists is how to touch people. It sometimes seems impossible to find a way to make an impression, and as each of our attempts fail we can become more desperate. Scarcely able to conceal our rage the protests we organise can come across as aggressive and even violent, often seeming to have a why-can’t-you-fuckin-well-listen approach. It’s not a good look. People are put off by it. What ever good will they might have had to our arguments disappears when they see how ugly we look, shaking our fists and waiving our angry placards. For our part, we feel justified in making strong statements – that’s our perception. Their perception comes from the first impression of angry people shouting about something. They don’t get as far as finding out what that something is.
Our in-yer-face approach plays right into the hands of our detractors, The authorities are pleased to label us agitators or even, when there’s violence, terrorists. However justified we may feel at the outrageous cruelty perpetrated on animals, if we want support from large numbers of people this aggressive image is probably a mistake. We mean well by trying to ignite a sense of guilt in people, which we want to stimulate a sense of responsibility and get them to agree with us. But it probably doesn’t work that way for the majority of onlookers. We need to be more subtle, less crude, more persuasive. Because we are so few in number we have to find more inspired ways of persuading.

Behind closed doors

Some activists break into vivisection laboratories to rescue the animals there. Judging by what they have to do to get in and what they find when they get inside, their actions seem both commendable and brave. It’s understandable enough that they not only want to rescue the animals but want to film what they see and show it. But people don’t like to look, they don’t want to know. Our society gives tacit approval for what goes on in these places because, for selfish reasons, people have been led to believe scientists will discover cures for major diseases through animal research. The public like to think of vivisectors being altruistically determined to rid the world of the scourge of disease, and some may be doing just that, but it can never be justified if innocent creatures are going to be tortured and sacrificed in the process. That’s where good intention steps over into madness. The scientist is dishonest too, when they talk about their ‘work with animals’, as if they have some sort of cooperation, where the animals are voluntarily putting themselves forward for testing, in their zeal to help the human race with their problems.
If the public are sold on the idea that pharmaceutical safety must involve animal testing, then it is no surprise that they condemn the animal rescuers and praise the vivisectors. By giving them the go ahead to use anything (including animals) to fight disease, vivisectors can satisfy their insatiable need, that people with clever minds have, to win good reputation for their work, whilst hiding details of what that work involves. Details of experiments are not published. Animal laboratories are closed to public scrutiny. And these days the public are not allowed entry into intensive farms or abattoirs. Obviously in these places there is so much to hide.
It’s not hard to see why animal rights activists get annoyed at the lack of support from the public. Whether it’s the cruelty of farmers or scientists, the need for the liberation of animals still hasn’t registered in most people’s minds. It is infuriating when people don’t respond to the stories they hear about animal treatment, whether in abattoirs or farms or in animal research centres. Their indifference makes them appear both hard hearted and selfish.

Up against a wall

The reason a vegan might feel angry with the world is because people are so reluctant to change. But there is also a sense of futility in this - we expect fellow humans to be more than they actually are. The constant disappointment over others can make us want to withdraw, to fall out of love with people, not just because they seem oblivious to the suffering of animals but because they continually miss the opportunity to change. They continue to eat rubbish foods, continue to get ill, continue to hold violent attitudes. It seems such a waste of personal potential and so, for many vegans, it is more like exasperation than anger - a general inability to understand the workings of the mind of their fellow human beings, at how much of the present m.o. they accept and how slowly they seem to want to grasp the need for change.
Vegans who are active in the animal rights movement invest their free time in a great cause and just when they think they are getting somewhere they find no one is taking a blind bit of notice of what they are saying, even close friends. And then when the braver activists try to go into the public arena and speak up, they get knocked down, or worse, they’re made to look like fools.
Everything we stand for - the principle of plant-based diets and animal rights and non-violence - is given minimal press coverage and if we try to bring it to public attention we’re prevented. We have to stand by and see misinformation moulding the minds of people. It’s difficult to see momentum building or any real sign of people questioning what they’re told. Not surprisingly we get nervous for the animals who can only rely on the good nature of humans to save them. The hope that there is in people a good nature struggling to get out wears thin when we see slavery, captivity and killing as practiced by the animal industries and consumers supporting it. And then it wears thinner still when we realise how many animals are suffering at the hands of sadists or scientists, who use animals for experimentation.
Are vegans being unrealistic to expect more of people than they are capable of? Are we unrealistic to think that humans can’t also be monsters? For example, the vivisector?
Perhaps it’s easy to see them this way when you think of vivisection and the live cutting of an animal. White coated creatures of one species objectify a living, breathing, feeling creature of another species. They experiment on them as if they had no feelings. It does seem to be monstrous. When you think of a rabbit, for example, being used to test a shampoo for eye safety, by restraining its body, taping open its eye lids and then squirting corrosive chemicals into its eye. This action must be just about the most terrifying experience any sentient being could undergo, unable to defend itself or escape. It has been made to experience torture.
Whether the suffering takes place on a vivisector’s slab or in the killing shed at an abattoir, the coldness with which it is inflicted by the human isn’t merely frightening, it is so much worse in that it’s a terror no sentient creature should ever have to know. No human should be capable of devising or carrying out such acts. Nothing can justify it. The perpetrator is not only insane to do it but dangerously insane by influencing others to think it acceptable.

Consistent approach

If we take on a vegan food regime, not only will the animals’ lives be saved but the health of human populations will be saved also. By following a vegan diet we act altruistically, not initially out of self-interest but eventually very much in our own interest. By acting for the greater good, for animals and for the endangered environment, we save resources used for animal rearing which can be diverted to feeding malnourished humans (it’s bizarre to think that overfed children suffering from obesity can live right alongside children suffering from starvation). As we recognise the absurdity of popular food habits and make necessary adjustments to our lifestyles we can leave behind the insanity of the modern day world. Thence to start the recovery process.
How it all came to be this way is not as important as how it may all be repaired. Nothing can be left to chance. Everything has to be done thoroughly, so, for instance, the loving, protective attitude we have for our own kids in our own family must become the standard of protection for other human members of the world family. And that same standard extended to other beings. It’s a consistent approach to life in all its forms, whether a son or daughter, a cat or dog, a pig or cow, a tree or river. It’s not a matter of exercising willpower or spreading ourselves too thinly, it’s just knowing that it can be done and responding to cries for help outside the home. Any cry.
That’s why vegetarians should try to become vegan, because the vegan diet is the beginning of the peace that can feed back into our closest relationships with everything. To refuse to eat meat but then to exploit animals for their by products falls far short of a consistent approach. And that’s also why vegans should stop being so warlike against those who don’t agree with them. They should eat and behave consistently. By getting into peace making we have the best chance for happiness and effectiveness.

Original thought

If original thought frightens most people, it’s probably because it means questioning things once thought watertight. And then, as soon as we start to re-examine one thing, a whole lot of other things come into question. This is why the animal question stirs up so much fear – where will it all end if animals are no longer there to eat or be used? What will happen if we start to respect them and recognise their individuality? If we give them the same right to a life as we grant to our own species it will be a crime to assault them in any way.
Many of us do see animals this way. And certainly we wouldn’t condone anyone hurting them, because they are peaceful and they represent perhaps the most benign sentience on the planet. The cow, the chicken, the pig, the goat, the duck, they are all quite harmless. They have a no-damage-no aggression approach to life. For those of us with eyes to see, it’s not difficult to appreciate their inner beauty. Animals appear dignified, perhaps because they aren’t corrupted or guilty of anything, whereas the same can’t be said of humans. Is it possible that we can’t tolerate anything that puts us in a bad light? Or that we can’t bear the idea that animals are more highly evolved than us, in this respect.
So what do we do? Admit our shortcomings and atone? Not likely! Instead we go to war with them and make their life a misery. We execute them and then EAT them! And to show even greater contempt for them, some well respected people like research scientists are capable of even worse acts. Our ability to abuse animals to satisfy some strong urge in us is not unlike the powerful urge of the sexual predator against vulnerable women and children.
Because we’ve done so much damage to animals we should study and emulate them. For a start we should alter our food and commodity buying habits which exploit the animal population, and get used to living from plant-based foods as they do. (Almost all animals we exploit for food are herbivores). And then we should set up safe havens for those animals presently kept captive.

Taking the initiative

As individual vegans we should obviously have a no-touch-animals policy – keeping it simple and understandable. From this stems the principle of harmlessness, and then all the other arguments for attitude change.
This principle manifests in the foods we eat and the relationships we have with one another. It starts at home, in personal behaviour. If we want to be independent thinkers we have to set our own standards. We can’t rely on others to set them. No one else is going to make the big decisions for us. For example, no government is ever going to close abattoirs. It would be political suicide if they did. Short of a catastrophe forcing their hand, it is surely never going to happen that way. We need to make changes for ourselves and let others be turned on by what we have done … until there are enough harmlessness-inspired vegans to demand change.
That may be a slap in the face for politicians, academics, spiritual big shots and the media, who will have missed their opportunity to become inspiring leaders, and then it’s up to them to fall into line with the current trend. Change will happen only when ordinary people begin to think for themselves and gather together to make their feelings felt.

Useful, practical help

Specifically vegans need to offer help, especially to those who want to change yet who might think changing is too difficult. Our advice should be given with no strings attached. We shouldn’t expect too much in return nor expect to mould opinion.
First up, we need to be concise and interesting, never proselytising or seeming to want to recruit a following. Animal Rights doesn’t need followers, it needs individuals who have come to their own conclusions, who are able to be their own judge and jury. If they consider animal rights, it’s up to them if they want to then advocate for animals.
So that this process is given the best chance to succeed vegans need to be exemplars of non-violence. When we get a chance to speak out for the animals we have to set the example of not trying to clobber our opponents, especially if they make it easy for us. We shouldn’t seem like bullies. Even the most ardent opponent of animal rights should be regarded as a potential colleague, presenting a valuable challenge. Despite opposition, we should try to reach everybody. We’re not merely after thousands of supporters but billions of them, so it’s best not to fall out with anyone, unnecessarily. We might want quick results but it’s likely to be a long journey.

Check the talk

In any conversation on serious issues such as animal rights we should automatically check all the time, to be sure we aren’t becoming too volatile, or that the conversation isn’t becoming too one sided (too much of my stuff and not enough of yours). If a person is left out they’ll feel put out, like they’re being lectured at.
Conversation needs to be interesting and worthwhile, disagreements notwithstanding. Most of us like to explore the pathways of one another’s thoughts and beliefs and, wherever our discussions take us, in the end we need to leave one another on a positive note. So we can resume at a later date.
For vegans, animal rights may be a deadly serious subject but it can give us a great deal of satisfaction and put meaning into our lives. But to get the most out of ‘talking about it’ we need to get good at it - learn details, become knowledgeable, be informative, and then there’s a chance we can jolt others out of their long held attitudes. But there’s a danger when we think we are right. We get careless with our arguments by leaning too heavily on the moral imperative. We think we can shock people into conversion, with stories about the horror conditions on animal farms and slaughterhouses. And sometimes it tips the scales and gets people thinking. But often the resistance is so fierce when people are not ready for a moral battering, that we need to let it rest and not try to go in even harder. Then we can live to fight another day. By not becoming too rabid about our subject we’re more likely to be seen as a selfless advocate, someone who is not in it to win personal kudos but simply to represent the need to protect animals.
However careful we are at presenting as animal guardians it won’t always sit well with everyone, and that can be a tough lesson to learn for vegans. If others don’t understand us we must nevertheless try to win their respect for what we are trying to do - to save animals and not ourselves. They may not agree with us but we need to keep on side with them, if only to show how reluctant we are to leave them behind.

Embarrassments over dinner

What is the art of talking? Isn’t it something to do with the free flowing, unselfconscious ease with which we toss ideas about? Keeping ideas interesting and entertaining? Perhaps the problem with most animal rights ideas is that they don’t have much ‘toss’ in them and they aren’t meant to entertain. They are the very opposite of interesting. If vegans are talking about animals they can be embarrassing because they always come back to animal slavery and that points to abolition – it’s pretty much an absolute position. The ideas are not at all fluid. There’s really no middle way. The reason this subject is so contentious is that vegans are on one side of the fence and non-vegans are on the other, we’re either involved and outraged or largely uninterested in the subject.
Animal eaters aren’t usually thinking about it at all. Every time they go food shopping or eat a meal, they pointedly avoid thinking about animals (as beings worthy of consideration) - a non-thought connected to a daily practice. If there’s a vegan present at dinner time it’s much more difficult to sustain this non-thought when different food is being eaten. The meat eater, the non-vegan, can easily feel judged or even feel vulnerable to attack, and who wants that at dinnertime? It’s outrageous if vegans make any comment about the food being eaten. They are resented for bringing into focus what is normally never thought about or spoken about, in order that the enjoyment of eating is not spoiled. Whenever this subject is approached, whatever is said, especially the way it is said, it is probably going to be remembered until the next time we are together. Meat eaters don’t like inviting vocal vegans around to meals. In fact there’s no time when the meat eater wants to run the risk of being assaulted by vegan views. So if we are ever discussing animals with omnivores we need to think about the art of talking. The art of discussing animal rights is to keep things lively without getting personal or threatening, so that when we do meet again we’ll still be on speaking terms with each other.

Engaging in conversation

When we suggest to people that they should stop eating animals it is no small thing. We’re proposing a major change in lifestyle and eating habits, implying that animal slavery is morally wrong and animal food is crap food. That’s one powerful statement which non-vegans, on the defensive, would NOT want to hear or talk about. But that’s what vegans do want to talk about.
So, that’s what we are doing, stimulating debate, encouraging others to discuss these issues. Which means we have to be doubly careful that our motives are genuine. If any discussion gets going, we shouldn’t be in it for any self aggrandisement or to get a few clever sound bites across. We should be trying to engage people on this subject for their benefit alone.
It’s not a win-win game. We aren’t trying to get the first punch in. We don’t want to force a submission. Quite the opposite, we’re trying to listen to people’s genuine concerns and beyond that, to establish how to talk matters through without the use of high emotion. In that way there can be a free flow of ideas and opinions, each one developing out of the other (which is how a stimulating conversation develops whatever subject we’re discussing). So, if we’re ‘discussing’ animal rights we are all learning. Which means we’re all benefiting from each other on different levels, helping to understand one another’s way of thinking, refining our own thought processes as we go along. Importantly we’re learning how to listen.
Since it’s not a win-win game it’s not about watching for mistakes, or getting to that point where we can prove the other person is wrong. And it’s not about pretending to listen just waiting for openings where we can jump in again with what we want to say. Even if we are feeling a bit marginalised, as minority vegans in a sea of omnivores, even when we’re feeling out-gunned by the majority, we still shouldn’t want to crush the opposition view. If we try they will fly. It means not being too pushy even when we are given a golden opportunity to say something irrefutable. It’s so subtle, especially when we’re talking to a friend who might already have a pretty good idea where we’re coming from.
Our normal everyday conversations are usually largely unselfconscious, in as much as we are merely speaking spontaneously. In ‘serious’ conversations we’re much more likely to have our own agenda, and if we have opposing views (which act as the stamp of our identity), by expressing them too hard we can easily put a strain on friendships. And it works in the opposite way too. If we’re afraid to offend friends it might inhibit our freedom of expression, and then we find ourselves walking on egg shells, and nothing useful is achieved. Which is a bit like parents of adult children having to hold their tongues to minimise any strain on relations with their over-confident offspring, who are now all grown up and over confident. If an argument arises and the younger person’s defence barriers go up too quickly, the parent ‘smells’ danger so they feel obliged to back off. It’s rather the same with talking to the uninitiated about animal rights or vegan diets - vegans are likely to find themselves in a delicate position, and we need to know how to defuse a situation before it flares up. I’m only mentioning all this because things can seem to get dangerous when discussing animal rights.

Communicating with a gentle touch

When advocating animal rights, we need to speak up as strongly as we can but with a soft enough body language so as not to frighten anyone off. One hint of a sneer and we’re done for! Through our face and by the tone of our voice we can show we are NOT there to win arguments, only to engage with others. By establishing these preliminaries it shows we aren’t evangelists, effectively promising there will be no sermonising.
If we can come across as nice people, talking freely and saying almost anything we want, there’s no threat. If we aren’t trying to humiliate or frighten anyone, we’ll seem trustworthy. And then we can talk our hearts out! We can show, by the way we handle this subject, that we realise how sensitive it is but make our point, all the same. We need to show that we are prepared for differences to come up, and that we can deal with them calmly. Putting people at ease is what it’s all about.
Animal rights is the most difficult of all difficult subjects. Once we start talking about it people begin to get edgy. It’s not as if we are talking about the weather, this can get very personal. We’re getting into the very heart of the moral code by which we, as a society, operate.
We can expect extreme responses. And our adversaries are likely not to be so delicate in their words about us as we are trying to be about them. They’ve had less practice. And they’ll be less familiar with the arguments, less used to having to be carful with volatile reactions. They’ll be reluctant to agree to too much because they have so much more to lose if they do (“so if you agree, why aren’t you a vegan, etc”). In terms of arguments we hold the best hand. We have the greatest advantage. We don’t need to rub it in their face.
This is not about advocating a clever strategy, it’s about being concerned for a whole sorry mess. It’s incidental that they disagree with us about animal rights and that they are almost certainly still animal eaters. Our concern for them (and of course for the animals they are eating) gives us a strong need to talk things through with them. It may be that we may have something to add to the quality of their life. They for their part have something of value to us, by helping us to understand better how they think. Vegans are always on the lookout for clues to explain the reasoning of resistant people.

Non-judgement

Establishing a non-judgemental space is useful before discussing specific issues of animal rights. Then we can come closer to each other, trust each other more, even though disagreeing in principle. Affection stops a disagreement turning into a quarrel. It’s not a bad idea to throw a small display of manners. It sets a standard of mutual regard, and that’s a sufficiently powerful persuasion in itself. Vegans need to be the best mannered people on earth - powerful, outrageous, daring, but always affectionate, always insisting on respect, because this is a peace movement when all is said and done. It’s up to us to introduce the whole idea that both humans and non-humans deserve respect. Vegans are in the ideal position to how peace works, on all levels.

Veganism

Meaning no harm to animals is the essence of veganism. This is the central principle that determines so many daily activities and thoughts of vegans, so going vegan, at first, seems like a huge step. But most vegans I've met wouldn’t consider dropping back to being non-vegan again, not because they’re extremely disciplined but because the benefits are too good to let go of. It isn’t just about food, it's the whole lifestyle and thought process. What Jeff Masson calls “a somersaulting-forward process”, opening up to an entirely new experience. But that’s just on the personal side. The experience we have in our own lives also has world-wide implications for global health and harmony. Veganism doesn’t necessarily make things easier for us socially - we may not connect with others too well or feel any less frustrated, but the significance of being a vegan is like living amongst the angels, flying high alongside some very great ideals and ethical principles - going vegan is immediately inspiring. But … there’s always a ‘but’.
We always come back. We have to fall to the ground with a thud, flung back into the reality of being vegan in a non-vegan world. The hardness of people, their intolerance of us, we try to change them and they react badly, we dislike that, we condemn them. They hate that. They call our whole ‘new attitude’ aggressive. We counter attack by making value judgements back. We attack them for their hypocrisy… and so it goes on. We the tiny minority make attacks on the vast majority, it really puts people’s backs up. All too soon we find ourselves in the middle of a war zone, but as ever, on the back foot.
So vegans have to be careful, like a card player, not to use all our trump cards too soon. If provoked we don’t need go on the attack and waste any advantage we have. Our job is never to try to change people’s minds anyway, that’s something they must do for themselves. Our aim is to get useful information across without being offended by any poor response. All it is (we are doing) is preventing life-threatening dangers. It’s like telling a story, the details of which are both fascinating and memorable, and whether it warns of danger or promises peace it’s the sort of material you consider when alone. But we won’t get this far, of even starting to tell the story if we come on too strong, too soon. We have to bear in mind the subtlety of resistance, the need not to be confrontational, not to induce guilt. And never to get personal. Whenever we talk about these matters, our adversaries are on the look out for our withdrawal of affection towards them, a sure sign we have a nasty side. Just the slightest whiff of judgement stops people wanting to listen and therefore to change their view of things.

Humans are more important

This sense of separation has become so deeply ingrained that we hardly know how to escape the belief, that we humans are the most important beings on earth and have dominion over the rest. For us it means we can do what we like with animals … which means we can behave badly, like putting animals in cages, mutilating them and generally controlling absolutely everything in their lives. We do it because it’s to our advantage to do it. It’s more profitable to keep them in slums than in palaces. And when we kill them we justify it with fancy philosophy, like when we suggest that “animals lack self awareness and have no explicitly future-directed preferences, whose death seems less of a tragedy than the death of a self-conscious being who does have such preferences. Basically we treat them badly because we know can get away with it, because they can’t fight back, because there will be no repercussions. We even justify cruelty by believing that we experience things differently. So, for instance, drowning ants in the kitchen sink or crushing cockroaches under foot is of no consequence because these creatures show no sign of suffering (which is hardly surprising since they are so small and silent). We consider it’s not even necessary to think about it, or if we do then it becomes an act of pragmatism – these are irritating ‘pests’ which need to be destroyed.
That same sense of separation is also there with fellow humans but in a less direct way. Racism makes us feel separate to our coloured neighbours. There’s an overwhelming compulsion to establish superior status over them, to see them as potential pests. We don’t have to be too obvious about it because we guess they’ve experienced racism before in their lives - we only need to signal how we feel by being pointedly not too friendly. We don’t have to spell it out to make them feel uncomfortable.
Once again, the separation we display shows we are not interested in ‘inferiors’ as individuals, that in fact we are turned off just by their audacity in assuming they are equal to us. We maintain our advantage over our inferiors, whether animals or humans, by making them feel inferior. They may be useful to us perhaps, but never social equals.
Racism stinks of course but speciesism is no different. Vegans, who don’t want to be part of this and choose to make a statement of non-separation from animals refuse to enjoy any advantages from exploiting them. The vegan attitude may be compared with that of a person who walks through a forest in awe of the beauty and only wants to preserve it, as opposed to another who sees the forest of trees as log-able items. With animals, as with our own children, it comes down to having a single response, one of marvelling at their innocence and beauty and certainly never meaning them any harm.

Sanctuary

If the next logical step is to provide animals with sanctuary, this would be a departure from reality in most people’s eyes. It’s an entry into the world of idealism – the move away from animal foods, the closure of animal farms and the building of sanctuaries for farm animals. This might be an ambitious plane but it wouldn’t happen overnight. It would happen gradually with a drop in meat sales, a consequent reduction in breeding, a retirement plan for ‘working’ animals, leading towards an ultimate human/animal relationship based upon non-violent coexistence. The ‘realists’ would consider this goal both unattainable and impracticable, and not even open to serious consideration. But the idea must be considered, since veganism is growing rapidly and ‘farm sanctuaries’ are already being set up. Some in USA have been in operation for two decades.
The idea of granting sanctuary to captive animals would be unpopular because it would be costly but also, with collapsing animal industries due to people swapping over to non-animal eating, something disturbing to the whole economy. For most people the idea is a non starter and wouldn’t even be considered seriously. But what if we don’t consider it?
We might continue to support the animal industry with our dollars, voting in leaders who will maintain the legality of animal farming. But as individuals, if we follow what everyone else does and follow our leaders, we’ll be caught up in all sorts of polluting and wasteful activities, the result of which is the destruction of everything we hold dear. By maintaining the status quo we guarantee some level of personal comfort but we hand on big problems down the line, to others, to future generations and of course to the exploited animals themselves.
So to turn this around, to think about the future, to think how we can make things right for the animals and for ourselves, we surely have to consider what it would mean to establish animal sanctuaries. They would be expensive to set up because there are still so many animals alive who need taking care of, but as the ‘domestic’ animal population decreases by operating a deliberate non-breeding programme, so the expense will become lower with the reduction in numbers of animals. Sanctuaries may be the only way to provide safety for animals, but it presupposes a great input of altruistic energy.
Those who are not going to be altruistic about this will continue in the same old way, with things getting ever more seriously out of hand, with consumers becoming more exploited themselves and the meat/animal-product industry becoming ever more desperate in their struggle to stay in business. Advertising in the form of misinformation will tell us to “Eat more meat because it’s good for you” and when people realise it’s all lies the industries should in theory collapse more quickly. At present they are holding their own, simply by ever increasing the range of products using animal products, to tempt us with new taste sensations along with false promises of the benefits to our health or the safety of their products. Never is there a mention of the ‘exploitation of animals’. The customer spends blindly without it ever occurring to them what they are participating in - leading the animal to their terrible deaths at the abattoir. Their conscience is soothed by the collective conscience which okays the killing, so all is justified. We believe that the human is more important than the animal and deserves the perks of being the superior species.
Those who choose to become more altruistic will adopt a non-speciesist attitude to animals, moving their support from farming to sanctuary and from killing to caring.