Conscience

Friday 12th November 2010
By staying well away from the grubby world of animal products, vegans can better keep in touch with their own innate innocence. As kids we had it, admittedly without much life experience or freedom-to-pursue, but as adults we can regain it. Now, as ‘olds’, we have the freedom to play with and explore conscience. To some extent we have, by our twenties, had some experience of human society and the general lack of conscience. If we ‘go vegan’ we get back fundamental rights and wrongs, and in the tussle of conscience regain a fighting spirit we may have had as kids. By rebelling against the status quo we are restarting that neglected engine of ethical conscience. We can fight-back ... but, with adult confidence and maybe a touch of wisdom. By adulthood we rather need to know that our conscience is the friendliest organ in the body.
Conscience is there for our own welfare, serving the purpose of making us into nicer bastards than the other bastards (for bastards we are, as humans. We’re not nice. We’re not nice at all.) Do we have the capacity to be better? Not so bastard-ish? That’s my point here.
Vegans are not exempt from trashing both planet and their relationships, just as carnivores do. Vegans aren’t necessarily nicer people than carnivores but veganism gives us the opportunity to be so. Vegans travel a bit lighter on their feet. We aren’t wearing such leaden boots. We tread more softly. And in that way escape and, hopefully, incite others to, too.
In a nutshell we’re “doing ourselves a favour”.