Communicating compassionately

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Vegan principle needs to be spelt out if only to stop the rot amongst omnivores. If some people can overlook something as obviously wrong as factory farming (immobilising animals to make them work more like machines) then this needs to be pointed out by us. Vegans might seem as if they’re trying to snatch the chicken nuggets out of the hands of children … so, we need to turn that around. We need to show how the alternative can be so much more fulfilling, breaking the attachment to the ubiquitous chicken nugget, aiming for people to no-longer want them.
‘Not-wanting’ isn’t a self-disciplined, teeth-gritting, temptation-denying impulse. It’s a moving-on-from, a disinterest-in or even a repulsion towards that which we once loved.
I notice smells. Beef cooking, fish grilling, egg frying and to me it’s something I want to get far away from as if one is sniffing burning rubber. However to those who eat these things, these smells are delicious and salivation-inducing. ‘Not-wanting’ is a long way from denial-of-wanting - it’s a reaction to that which we once wanted which we now distinctly don’t want anymore. Maybe in relation to certain popular animal foods there’s an ‘addictive-wanting’, where our guilt is involved in making the object of desire more seductive, like chicken nuggets.
The omnivore animal-eaters will want to keep quiet about the ‘wrong’ of animal abuse and they’d do almost anything not to have to face facts. Vegans might break into a sweat when they consider the cruelty of animal farming, knowing that we’re different from those who don’t think it matters because they can get away with it. Conscience can be so pliable.
Vegans themselves might avoid certain truths too - that our vegetables and fruits come from a monoculture which destroys the land, and yet we buy these products because they’re cheap. These vegetables, produced by ‘intensive means’, are grown by farmers who want to stay in business. Competition is the main reason intensive methods are used, and whether it’s animal farming or arable farming these operations provide us with our food and therefore the very energy of life. If we move away from the standard food product (whatever it might be) we enter a world of ideal conditions and high prices when, for example, we buy biodynamic and organic or buy speciality products.
At some time we’ll have to deal with the ‘wrong’ of certain aspects of food production, and that might mean vegans themselves having to eat less so that they can eat better … which means changing our habits and denying what we want (namely, low prices).
Here’s a dilemma for us perhaps, but all this helps us to understand omnivores better. If we can experience a little of what they are facing we’re in a better position to be of some help. And that involves a compassionate dialogue which in turn allows better chance of communicating vegan principle, even when resistance is already high.