Don’t stand on ceremony, just help yourself

581:

Animal guardians (vegans) are persistent, because we’re in it for life. But also because we keep asking the same unanswerable question: “How can such terrible things be done to animals, and people not react?” As our incredulity grows into outrage and then on into anger we can feel a sort of power flowing through us. But sadly, there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s like lightening that doesn’t make contact with the ground. It doesn’t connect. For all our outrage, protesting and arguing, we notice nothing positive happens. The crazy, cruel things just keep on happening.

Humans know no other way of living that doesn’t include attacking animals. Most people are dependent on abattoir products. Regrettably, we animal activists have to get used to this. Animals are used because it’s easy to use them. And as for the caging and killing of them, there will always be someone to do the job for us. It’s likely the people employed to do the nastiest jobs at abattoirs will be those who can find no other employment. They know they’ll be paid and will be protected by the fact that what they do doesn’t break any law.

This awful reality stands as a brick wall to any progress on granting animals rights (to be protected). Animals’ bodies and their secretions seem to be regarded as ‘for the taking’, like pears from a pear tree or minerals from the ground. If it can be taken, humans will take it. That’s one characteristic attitude amongst humans that does us no credit. With all that we now know about human behaviour and disregarding the danger of it, vegans are not so much angry as incredulous.

Two stage break-out

580:

At the heart of our collective mind-set is the intractability of attitude about the treatment of animals. By keeping them as slaves it lets us remain omnivores. It’s a worry for many people but they can’t shake the habit of eating animal foods. The stuff is addictive.

Maybe the weight of worry we have isn’t just in the magnitude of the problem, but in the cover-up that goes with it. We’ve been tricked by the food companies into thinking that there is no ethical component in food. As soon as we realise there is, we try not to think about it too deeply, because if we did we’d start boycotting a few things and end up avoiding many, many things. The logic behind ethical boycott applies to innumerable food items. We fear that if we start along that road, soon enough there’ll be nothing much left to buy (in terms of comfort foods).

Everyone knows about the amount of animal exploitation going on, just by being exposed to TV footage about it. But the footage only goes so far. If we look deeper at the statistics, we find that an average Westerner eats twenty one thousand animals (in his or her lifetime). That’s a lot of executions weighing down on our conscience. Each death is an individual animal’s horror story which we consumers have been party to.

Just by writing this, I’m conscious of saying something highly unpopular! But I hasten to add that all of us, including present day vegans, are or were hardened animal eaters at one stage of our lives. We’ve all got blood on our hands.

Once we can acknowledge this ‘plain awful truth’, and then stop doing what we’re doing (and promise ourselves not to ‘go there’ anymore), we can start to repair, to atone.

But that’s just one thing. The next step is to get off our high horse, judging those who still aren’t vegan, because it’s a waste of time; our condemnations might make us feel better but they only serve to alienate people.

The disease of pessimism

579:

All the time we humans are still using animals we won’t get past being pessimists, and we’ll never shake the guilt of it all, and we’ll always feel like failures because of it. It mightn’t be the same for the exploiters themselves, since they probably don’t care enough to be optimists. Probably, nothing will stop them doing what they do since they’re pessimists who pretend they’re optimists. 

            But even vegans catch the disease of pessimism, not out of guilt but from harbouring negative outlooks. It’s the pessimist’s forecast, whether it’s coming from the exploiter, the consumer or the vegan - each in their own way they hold pessimism as some sort of protection against the shock of the inevitable.

            Optimists know that pessimism is just a trap to keep us away from change. We also know that change hinges on one’s state of mind, and the confidence of being in control of it. Stuff happens, but the optimist makes the best of it and even uses adversity to add fresh resolve.

            As vegans, we can be far more optimistic and up-beat than our omnivore friends, because at least we’ve made a practical optimistic statement, and to a very great extent we have defied convention.

            For us there’s a way out of the mess. But it’s no different for anyone else; for anyone there’s a way out. It just comes down to wanting it enough. Omnivores either won’t or can’t. And they don’t, mainly because they’re locked in to this terrible pessimism-about-the-future which comes from guilt (about the past), and particularly their compliance over what foods they’re willing to eat and how addicted they are to animal-based commodities.

            The reason we don’t want to change our lifestyle, diet, etc is that, being pessimists, we don’t think the world will alter very much, just because we might change our eating habits.

            If we do see the connections then it’s likely we’ll be able to see how a start can be made, by simply altering our food regime. But not everyone can see that yet. And it’s because these connections aren’t being made (because changing one’s whole lifestyle isn’t realistic) that the whole process-of-change is put on hold. During this time one’s outlook remains gloomy.

            An omnivore will probably not see that changing attitude or dropping addiction is something simple. For a start, especially for the not-so-young omnivore, there’d seem to be so much ground to make up. The starting line would seem too far away, and only serve to emphasise how far we’d slipped into convenience-living. The weight of so much moral backsliding holds us in our own deep cell, within Society’s prison, within all the conformities of mind - imprisoned, simply by the way in which we see things.

            For the pessimistic omnivore, becoming an all-or-nothing-vegan would be like going into free fall. Imagine hurtling towards the unknown (the not-using-of-animals). It probably feels profoundly unsafe, especially if we’re thinking of all those favourite, addictive foods we wouldn’t be eating any longer. Just by contemplating ‘losing’ so many yummy things, it would be enough to make one shut down on the whole of this ‘animal thing’, and stick with the safety of the status quo and all the pessimism that goes with it.

Absurd behaviour

578:

Oh, the absurdity! Can you imagine being inspired by money-making and dynasty-building? The by-products of wealth, from which wealth is produced are ‘items’ which we consumers consume. Of course the money making dynasty builders gaze upon us as an adoring parent might. Only their gaze is inspired not by the good they do us but the money they’ll make from us. We consume and we encourage them.

            You can hardly blame the profiteers for taking advantage of us. We’re gullible enough not to notice what’s they’re doing. We’re complaint. We sit through countless TV advertisements and respond in kind to their advertising. We barely listen to anything that might put us off spending our money on the stuff they produce. Via advertising, we are continuously told the pleasant story, which we all know is ‘sales pitch’ and yet we accept it.

            Take the food industry, on which we spend so much of our money, the big selling point here is the emphasis on treats and taste sensation. We are told, “Buy our cheese, buy our biscuits, imagine how happy you would be eating this ‘lobster-dinner-sitting-by-the-lagoon’. They assume we all have a primary, human-centred attitude that animals don’t matter and are here for us to eat.  It’s as if we are meant to have ‘an easy, cool lifestyle’ and to pleasure ourselves in every way possible.

            T.V. advertising ploughs like a tank through roses, past empathy for animals, past the unhealthiness of eating the foods made with them, and arrives at an easy acceptance of animals as merely objects-for-eating. The tackiness of these ads is obvious. They’re tedious and repetitive. But this is TV - all of us put up with ‘the ads’ to get to the entertaining stuff in between. We’re shown hundreds of products every night. And what we see is, more or less, what’s on offer. It’s all we know. We go along with it, we comply and cooperate.

But to a very large extent vegans don’t. We push one whole part of this tacky society aside. We deliberately disassociate from its most commonly shared activity – the cranking of the Animal Industry wheels. As one ingests bits of animals’ body parts, instead of actively boycotting what we would normally disapprove of, we sell our soul to the devil.

            Animal Rights is protest. And even if our protest reaches zero audience it must still be made, if only to bring some sort of hope to those who are still living in the ‘closed world’. Almost all people, whether educated or uneducated, see no way to escape the ugliness of their world. Their attitude is frozen in the grief of being in this mind-prison. “Why bother?”

            A vegan might bother, because he or she might have some optimism, purpose or reason to bother. For us ordinary vegans, we need to focus on ordinary people like us, who might weigh up the situation and decide for themselves, just as we did. As vegans we need to recognise the remarkable talent all humans have, in our ability to adapt and change, to suit each new situation as it comes along. And when the time comes, as it surely will, when change will mean the difference between survival and non-survival, then at that point our choosing will come down to having faith, not in gods but in people.

            Our talent, our enduring optimism and collective self-confidence must be used to teach that pessimism doesn’t exist ... well, that it doesn’t have to exist, anyway.

            Change comes hand in hand with optimism. Change comes from the creative spirit which we all have and which we should be most proud of. Creativity is born out of determination – in this case, to make pessimism disappear simply because it doesn’t need to exist; the reality of optimism is self-created, and the more we can convince others of this the more inclined people will be to listen to what we have to say about veganism.

            By giving up judgement, giving up gossip, giving up blaming, shaming and all the other sad and sour habits humans have, we automatically drop our gloominess of attitude … and thus avoid personal collapse and collective world disaster. Non-judgement lets us pick up on something far better.

The main reason we should drop pessimism is that there’s surely another, more upbeat reason for wanting to live. So, if we can’t get past our gloominess we won’t be able to let our imagination fly. We just won’t see how the process of change will never get a start on, if there isn’t enough imagination and optimism and determination and creativity. 

Absurd pessimism

577:

There’s good reason for us to have faith in people’s ability to change. After all, excluding the ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of today’s practising vegans have once been omnivores. And therefore we all once had a rather gloomy view on life, by way of our conformity. We were (nearly) all part of The System, and we can see now that it was a system that clearly couldn’t succeed. Being so much part of it, how could we have ever been optimistic?

            You don’t have to be an omnivore to be pessimistic, many vegans I know are just as doubtful about the future. We’ve all thought, things will never change. The human race is going to hell in a hand basket, etc. Pessimism holds us back. But do we see how infectious that is? What hope is there for others coming along behind us, who aren’t yet vegan, if our defeatism makes things worse? Especially if we are vegan.

            I’d suggest that we are simply avoiding taking personal responsibility for the way things are. And it doesn’t help if we are naming and blaming, in order to feel-better. Our own complicity with the Animal Industries or, if we’re vegan, our pessimism, dooms us.

            The more violent amongst us focus on revenge, shifting focus away from taking responsibility to blaming. We blame ‘the corporates’ because they’re easy to hate. “They are responsible. They’ve made us what we are, they’ve infected all of us”. And so we deflect personal responsibility away from ourselves and onto the big crooks, whose wickedness is so obvious.

            Most of us are, being humans, small time  crims who reckon we can be let off the hook by going for the big boys, the trans-national executives, the politicians, the rich … and the Animal Industries. We demonstrate our hatred of them and get brownie points for being active campaigners against them. But it often screens our own guilt. It lessens our own self-examination. It downgrades the significance of personal discipline. We get more interested in fighting the good fight than in self-development, all for very good reasons of course. We concentrate on bringing down the big boys, and when that doesn’t do a scrap of good, then pessimism creeps back into our soul to keep us company – “It will never work. Whatever I do it is nothing compared to the damage they do”.

            Because we aren’t rigorous enough with ourselves, we therefore can’t be rigorous enough in our activism. It turns full circle: we’re back to why we aren’t being rigorous, why we go for the easy option, why our activism can so easily deteriorate into a thirst for revenge. We’re hooked on making value judgements.

            But these judgements are so predictable. All we’re really doing is getting our rocks off. What we aren’t doing (although pretending to ourselves that we are) is engaging in the ‘most optimistic pursuit of all’ - raising awareness

Absurd-isms

576:

Veganism speaks like no other ‘ism’ because it outlines a structure for a future civilisation, no less! It lays the groundwork for a practical non-violent society held together by a single ethic of non-interference with sentient life forms. A human race no longer dependent on the animal kingdom, for food, for clothing or for anything. And who couldn’t be interested in that?

            There are many huge problems blocking our progress, pessimism for one. Pessimism seems to be associated with loss. At the very prospect of a no-touch-animal policy who wouldn’t feel uneasy? (Well, vegans wouldn’t actually!). Who wouldn’t be nervous about the loss of human privilege if they gave up animal products? But we have to weigh that unease against the uplift of a new optimism - in this single idea not only are animals liberated but for us there’s a new ‘reason to be’, a chance to caste off this millstone around our necks, and a chance for the whole of future civilisation.

            People love looking into the future. If we see good things are going to happen, that’s optimism, conversely the doom-sayers are attached to their pessimism. It’s all about how we imagine the future. A weak imagination would see veganism as a loss of human privileges and modern-day comforts … or as masochism. Dropping animal products would seem depressing and veganism threatening.

            But are vegans really a threat with their plant-based eating? Is the abolition of animal slavery and an egalitarian treatment of animals absurd? If so, why?

More on ‘escape’

575:

Escaping our own habits-of-convention is contingent upon knowing more about vegan principle, as opposed to merely eating more vegan food. Being vegan lifts us out of the imprisoned state by taking us closer to a more natural, freer state of mind. It has other benefits too numerous to mention - it isn’t only about slimming and health and food but also about appreciating what we didn’t appreciate before, namely the beauty of innocence, of perhaps one of the most beautiful things we know, animals. (Yes, kids are beautiful too but not as oppressed or helpless as the ‘food’ animal).

Our habits hold us hostage. We’re always attending to selfish needs at the expense of others’ needs. Humans want so much more than other predators, in  this predatory world. Our appetites, addictions and insatiabilities are the ruin of us. Wealthy humans (read Westerners) are always wanting, and this pain of ‘wanting what we don’t need’ brings us to longing for what we can’t have. And this brings us to the search for a means of escape.

            We have a warped perception of right and wrong perpetuated by those with a vested interest. We are so enslaved (by them) that we’ve become subservient (to them). We don’t even try to change that. We say to ourselves, “Why bother to protest, when things are so far out of my control”. The question for most people is surely whether one should put up with it or attempt to flee from it?

The pit is merely the state of mind which makes a Goliath out of what we see, and causes us to believe that ‘it’ is too big to do anything about.

As soon as you go vegan you start the upward climb out of the suffocating pit. It might be a long climb but the smell of freedom from it is exhilarating. Inevitably conditions apply - it’s a matter of facing certain facts; facing habits of ‘wanting’ and attempting to drop them … especially the most insidious, connected with animal foods and all the social conformities that implies.

Here at the heart of vegan principle is a diet. Yes, it’s good for slimming but it’s more than just food. It broadens out into a non-violent approach to life which includes a ‘no-touch-animal’ approach, which implies that humans are not to be trusted around animals. Vegans are proactive avoiders of all dealings with animals, as in the most vulnerable ‘food animals’. And as with paedophiles who must have no access to children, so it must be for all animal-eaters who should have no access to animals - “Beware of humans. They eat your babies”.

Once things are seen from the animal’s point of view, we can move towards a truly symbiotic, mutually-respecting relationship with them. 

Energy

574a

By being no longer guilty of compliance with violence, we give ourselves a better chance to use energy constructively, to balance the pushing-forward and the holding-back of energy, to produce energy by a most novel means.

By giving out energy (that is not draining it by doing shameful things, like exploiting animals) we get generous amounts of it back. Just in that one attitude of showing disrespect for all forms of exploiting and a gratitude for what we can have without using violence, there is a potential furnace of energy. And that type of energy, feeding back into whatever we do, helps us hold back ‘wanting’, for it’s the wanting that does so much damage.

This is surely the most noble state of mind - not wanting those things we shouldn’t want and not even contemplating using the ‘heavy human hand’ to grab it. If ‘un-wanting’ is close to contentment, it must be the main key to bringing about a transformed human. Surely anything which could relieve the mayhem of our present attitudes (made manifest in today’s human society) surely would be worth finding?

If an omnivore ever takes veganism seriously, ‘self denial’ will become a first consideration, and that means giving up all sorts of familiar animal-based stuff. When we first consider the pros and cons, self-denial is weighed against the availability of certain attractive things. Those ‘certain things’ may bring us pleasure but probably also represent ‘the pit’ from which we’d all like to escape. By dropping our dependency on animals we give ourselves the best chance to escape the pit. The pit is violence and waste. And it’s our prison, albeit an escapable one. To be vegan, and make vegan living work for us, is a lifetime’s project, aimed at escape.

Of course, there are other great projects, like raising children and caring for less able people, but if we aren’t escaping this particular pit all we are doing is improving prison conditions. It runs parallel with the attitude of improving the welfare of animals as opposed to liberating them completely.

If we can focus on the non-violent principle, we can escape prison and help others to escape too.

Escape

574:

We vegans should see our own ‘vegan-ism’ broadly, as being not only about health concerns or salving the conscience but about seeing the connection between food choices and escaping the ‘pit’ of blind conformity with social norms - rebelling against the most ugly aspect of our social system.

That ‘pit’, for us vegans, is to some extent escapable, whereas most people who aren’t yet vegan are held locked in by their belief that it is inescapable - it wouldn’t have occurred to them, that by merely changing something as mundane as their food regime, that escape could be possible. Instead they believe what they see on the surface as a vast breakdown of values in society, and that makes everything look rather hopeless. In the light of that, they might wonder what on earth it could have to do with food.

It’s addiction to damaging foods where people lose connection with certain important values (specifically, not being able to imagine life without animal products) means the farmed animal will always be exploited. People are imprisoned mainly by their belief that the human can not do without animal protein. This ties them to exploitation of animals and all the shame that goes with it.

As advocates of animal rights it’s difficult to get that one across, because most people haven’t yet seriously considered animals’ feelings, as if they mattered. And this leads them to supporting the animal industry and see veganism as nothing more than a church of horrible disciplines. They dig their heels in, and say “No way. Vegan, never!”

If they looked a bit closer they might see their ticket-of-leave for escaping ‘the pit’. This one simple idea (the non-violent principle on which veganism is based) eliminates the havoc caused by the dominance and destructiveness of the present human race. And for each one that leaves that havoc behind them there’s a chance to regain some level of innocence. And in the innocence is the escape.

Getting to know the animals, as ‘people’

573:

Most people don’t give much thought to enslaved animals. They might want to but they know, if they did, a thousand products would fall off the edge of their shopping list. That’s why, for them, veganism is so difficult to consider.

            They don’t think they’d have enough discipline for it, to stick with it out of empathy and to overthrow a whole lifestyle system, permanently. Probably, most omnivores think it best NOT to go down that road in the first place. They think it’s best not to know, and pretend not to notice the ingredients list on products, whilst pretending not to know about husbandry methods on farms, and pretending that the idea of ‘vegan principle’ doesn’t exist.

            To allow that to happen and to help ease the conscience, a number one aim might be to avoid contact with vegans and animal rights advocates altogether. To keep the flood gates shut one must remain ‘unsure’ or ‘unknowing’. But today, that’s almost impossible. Information flood gates are constantly being opened, so that to NOT hear about what is going on in our world is almost impossible.

            The more we hear horrible stories of caging, confining and routine brutality and killing, the more the ugliness of animal farming touches us, and the harder it is to ignore the bigger problem of trying to ignore it altogether. It’s as if we are, in our day to day habits, becoming a serial forgetters or doubters or ‘not-knowers’. And that in turn saps one’s confidence in the adult world where we are supposed to be old enough to determine the sort of life we lead. This is, ideally, what vegans are here to help with. 

Conscience

572: 

By staying well away from the grubby world of animal products, vegans can stay in touch with their own conscience. To some extent we have, by our twenties, actively suppressed conscience so that we can maintain our feeling of adult independence. We eat the same foods as almost all others do so that we can fit into adult society. But once we see through that, as soon as we ‘go vegan’, we regain the fighting spirit we might have had as kids; we are rebelling against the status quo. Here, as adults who can make their own decisions, we restart the engine of ethical conscience, and use conscience to guide us.

            Conscience is for our own welfare, giving us the capacity to live our lives without acting carelessly. That’s my point here. While vegans aren’t necessarily nicer people than carnivores, veganism gives us the opportunity to be so. We see the chance to travel a bit lighter on our feet. We don’t wear such leaden boots, and in that way we do ourselves a big favour’.

Doing without

571

For everyone, life’s hard enough. But for vegans it’s even harder, in one important way. We seem to bear almost the sole responsibility for persuading people of the wrongness of enslaving animals and the rightness of not using them at all.

            On one level that’s enlightening enough for us but on another level it’s a pit within a pit. We have to deal with our own everyday-participation (in this society) but we're forced to lead a double life, being in it but not of it; we’re true outsiders. But at least we don’t have the food baggage most people carry (which ends up looking bad on the scales and even worse in the mirror).

            The omnivore’s mental conditioning traps them into habits of childhood, the most dangerous of which is a fondness for Nursery Teas. We like to use certain combinations of junk foods remembered from youth, usually in the form of sweetened confections, cheesy concoctions and milky drinks. They’re tempting but they’ve lost their original impact as treats. No longer are they anything special since they’re indulged in so regularly. And every day too most people eat a meaty meal, again something very addictive and harmful to the body.

            As dangerous as these foods are, we indulge in them. On top of the junk food we indulge in a whole range of intoxicants, that fuzz up the mind and probably ease a grumbling conscience, helping us to enjoy the eating experience.     

            Science has been recruited to ensure that animal foods (and as main ingredients of processed foods) are ‘rich’ feeling, taste-pleasuring and stomach-filling. It’s their addictiveness which denies us any chance of easily escaping them, even for a short while. Their daily use keeps us umbilically tied to the norms of our society.

            Veganism takes us past that point. Once we’re vegan we usually never look back to that world again. We get so used to looking ahead, to that world of daily-discipline and boycotting.

The ‘little habits’ of dietary omnivores are hard to let go, especially when the alternatives don’t seem attractive (veganism would be perceived as extreme and a vegan diet therefore unattractive). Perhaps the big lesson here is that perceptions can be changed almost in a flash. Habits too. But ‘going vegan’ isn’t simple.

            Immediately, as soon as the brain says “give it a go”, we face a Catch 22, where herbivorous eating means limiting our choices. Our society is so heavily geared to the animal eaters’ interests that there’s not very much in the way of immediately attractive plant-based savoury foods; there are still relatively few products on the market which replace the addictive-products made with animal ingredients, unless we’re willing to pay high prices for imported goods. Mostly we have to make do without.

            On the face of it, this puts people off vegan lifestyles … but just in that ‘limitation’, with so much being off-limits to us, we benefit greatly. Avoiding animal-based foods prevents our being poisoned by it. And nor are we likely to put on weight, grow a paunch, slow our metabolism or develop diabetes. That’s the big advantage of this particular food discipline.

            Look at it this way. Going vegan helps us pass by certain shops. We just get used to never going into them. For example, nothing in a cake shop is ‘clean’ (of animal by-products), so commercial cakes are no longer something a vegan would indulge in. Now, all this ‘doing-without’ might seem like a big sacrifice to omnivores but to vegans it’s a blessing in disguise. We can’t be tempted by the ‘delights’ of edible or wearable or usable animal products, so we can’t be tainted by them or, in the case of food items, made fat or ill by them. And that’s the ultimate advantage. We don’t have to spend our latter years in the grip of ill-health, at least not because we have, in previous years, indulged in second rate taste-trips.

Imprisoned in ‘the pit’

570: Friday

As humans we’re subject to the human condition, born into a pit of cruelty and waste. People accept it because they don’t think they’ll ever get out of it. As vegans, we don’t maybe have quite the same trapped-in-‘the pit’ feeling. The first step we took, when we disassociated from Society’s routine waste and cruelty, when becoming vegan, was to leave behind a whole lot of thinking, food-wise, clothing-wise, attitude-wise. It relieved a lot of the pressure of prison-living. Me, being claustrophobic, I found life in the pit was that much less claustrophobic once I focused on the animals’ claustrophobia.

            Vegans understand that escape is possible, which lets us realise the importance of helping others to escape the human conditioning, brought on by being so mentally imprisoned.

            I’m bound to say a vegan diet solves many problems all at once. It’s good for the health of body and mind, obviously, but it builds other strengths too, not the least of which is becoming less self-obsessed, even dare I say, more altruistic? Working for the animals’ benefit has an efficacious effect on just about everything else we do. It’s certainly good for our ‘mental condition’, eases up a lot of spiritual things too but most spectacularly it hastens us forward, by steering us away from crap-foods and onto real foods. And that’s such a useful move towards our eventual escape.

            If we must live in the ‘pit’ (and most of us do), it’s knowing we can get ‘out’ that makes it less onerous. Part of the escape ticket is in the food we eat, but chiefly it’s the altruistic trend in other things we do. For vegans especially, it’s also about what we don’t do. Whatever all that amounts to, perhaps it allows us to tread more lightly on the land and tread more carefully in everything else we do, particularly when we’re putting ourselves out. It lets us relate to others more empathetically.

            In another way it comes back to our food, in that energy is such a crucial factor in life; we can only do things for others because we have enough extra energy;  we know we aren’t personally hooked on large amounts of energy-sapping junk. We avoid hundreds of available animal products and benefit gigantically from just that. There must be thousands of eating-items, which use appetising animal products, that attract most of us. By NOT boycotting them, and consequently NOT avoiding ‘animal’ commodities, we either lose energy through overweight or we become enslaved by them like an addict on other forms of ‘junk’. And with all this we give our financial support to the Animal Industries.

            Our ‘vegan habits’ largely protect us from the commercial food industry, simply by our avoiding hundreds of all-round-harmful consumer items. Boycotting is the ultimate act-of-escaping ‘the pit’.

Do yourself a favour

567:

We vegans could seem like a threat to people’s peace of mind, but since at the moment vegans are in such small numbers we’re still very ignore-able. (In most countries veganism is hardly known about at all). Here in Australia it’s rarely mentioned in the media and for most people the whole idea of animals having rights is a completely foreign if not laughable idea. Gradually things may change, who knows? At present though the general attitude towards veganism is either to find it incomprehensible or a vague threat to one’s own lifestyle. Possibly it’s even a subject that’s dangerous for impressionable young minds.

            Any threat vegans pose isn’t physical of course but we can be somehow disturbing all the same, because we touch on everything all at once; if we do make an impact we make it deeply. For example, we argue that animal slavery can be related to just about everything that’s going wrong today, illness, global warming, world starvation and many other central issues. We show how humans are being destructive and selfish for being-as-they-are; that we are collaborating with destructive forces by simply remaining omnivorous.

            The central question is about whether humans are nice or nasty, and whether being nasty can be justified.

            We live the way we do today in laboratory conditions of our own making. We’re almost desperate to find out if we, humans,  are worth saving. Does it mean that we, despite our brilliant discoveries, have gone too far? Have we destroyed too much to deserve to be spared?

            Vegans are presenting a principle that is shunned by the world at large. We think that we present an answer to the world’s problems. Its neatness is its incontrovertability (which is hardly a reason for people to be so hostile towards it, but people do so hate to be shown to be wrong).

            Compassion theory is obviously making its mark. We care about things we didn’t care much about fifty years ago. We care for trees and threatened species. We care about the planet. We care about taking children’s views more seriously, we show concern for worlds outside our own world, when they’re in trouble. But ‘compassion’ (heart-intelligence) isn’t always recognised gladly. For some it poses an obvious threat to the status quo. For instance, the herbivore is a threat to the meat eater, and when we accuse omnivores for their lack of compassion we make easy enemies.

            Our impact on people is a bit negative. Just one disapproving look makes it easy to dislike vegans, and to dislike them seems to be a prerequisite for dismissing them and therefore any of their criticisms of omnivores. Once dismissed, the omnivore, who hates being put on the spot, sets out to disapprove of us. They resent being forced to protect their dignity.

            Therefore vegans shouldn’t be too ready to make omnivores feel bad about themselves - indignant people will probably never listen to us, and that would be sad, to say the least.

On the subject of Animal Rights ...

566:

This subject causes indignation and embarrassment to most omnivores. They don’t like responding to it. But some do. They even turn vegan. Some, who’ve been vegan a while, try to start a revolution. Others don’t go quite that far. This subject, rejected or embraced, is quite hot. It stirs something deep in all of us.

            Excluding very few ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of us have, at some stage, been omnivores. We can’t get too high and mighty about our present views because, once upon a time, we each had our own ‘good reasons’ for resisting ‘arguments based on compassion’. We were condoners of the exploiters and we practised animal-eating. Then, one day, something happened and we made a move, leaving behind those who hadn’t. We were moving on despite our friends thinking we were mad to be turning into herbivores.

            The jump to herbivore is such a major departure. But after 70 years of research it’s been proved safe. Since back then, at the start of veganism (which incidentally coincided with the start of factory farming), so much has been discovered, and yet there are still pitifully small numbers of vegans and still large numbers of executed-animals being consumed by a vast majority of people.

            In reply to vegan arguments, most omnivores don’t, won’t or can’t agree with us. When vegans realise how reluctant people are we get frustrated. We lose patience. Our lack of patience shows and puts people off finding out what we’ve got to say. And that’s the tragedy. Our losing patience looks like losing faith in people who aren’t like us. Patience is a must because of the magnitude of what we’re attempting to pull off here.

            In our Western societies, even in UK where there are a lot of vegans, we can see no BIG change in public attitude. The papers aren’t supportive, the media in general is not making this into an ‘interesting subject’, teachers aren’t teaching it and priests aren’t preaching it. The concept of veganism, in combination with Animal Rights, is thoroughly ignored, even by the most educated and economically well-off people. That’s depressing ... but we can’t afford to get bitter or people-hating about it. Instead we need to enjoy acting constructively and persist with ‘what it feels right to be doing’. Hold that thought.

            I’ll forecast - it could go either way. There will either be a growth of violence in society or a growth of non-violence. It’s a big question. I’m optimistic for the latter.

            No one will actively welcome greater violence into our society but, by what we habitually do we accept, it probably ‘comes with the territory’ of the habitual use of violence-produced products. This is where most of our living expenses are, in food, where violence is concealed and where the cruelty behind so much of our food is hidden. The consumer can’t recognise the animal-in-the-food when clean, plastic trays of ex-sanguine-ated, headless, footless and de-gutted, animal body-parts are on show - there’s nothing visible to remind the consumer of the food’s real origin. And to help matters along, the consumer is fed the sort of propaganda which suggests that this food looks a lot better than anything a vegan ‘rabbit diet’ has to offer.

            Animal-based food, for omnivores, is simply a sensory matter. It tastes good, it smells good, it looks good. For the average omnivore there’s nothing quite like meat, cheese and eggs and all their derivatives.

            Okay, there’s not much more you can say about that sort of food, but the other problem vegans have, about it, is how we can get to discuss it, and how to avoid the taboo surrounding the discussion of it.

            Slowly the issues are emerging. Vegans are asking a few piercing questions. (So are vegetarians who are concerned about animal welfare, although it’s arguable that they have any right to speak about it since they still eat them or eat their by-products).

            The taboo, surrounding animal-use, protects people … including lacto-ovo vegetarians. But the question remains (and already haunts many animal-eaters) as to how cold hearted they’ve become. I imagine there are many vegetarians or even meat-eaters who ask themselves - how can I help to stop the terrible things being done to animals whilst I continue to enjoy eating them? That question has to hang in the air, unanswered.

Initiating discussion

565:

If we vegans insist on being Society’s judges we need to be prepared to weigh all arguments like a judge. We must even listen to the carnivore’s arguments in order to know precisely what they’re thinking, but mainly we should be listening out of respect for discussion itself.

            By showing how we value the process of discussion we give our own arguments a better chance of a hearing. Their argument might be that killing animals is within the law and so the killers can kill and the consumers can consume. Our argument might be that the law protects humans and doesn’t protect food animals. I’d suggest that these positions can’t change until the whole subject is properly discussed. The subject is crying out to be discussed, and until it is, fully and frankly and in a friendly way, agreement won’t be reached and boycotting won’t catch on. Really, what vegans are driving at is the need for agreement about acting for the greater good and not solely for one’s own comfort.

            Once there’s agreement about that all the rest will follow, or at least the rest of what we have to say will be taken seriously. If that altruistic slant isn’t emphasised by us then it’s doubtful if the rest of our arguments are going to be considered. To bring about even the most basic agreement, vegans must be seen as neutral if only because we can then be seen to be genuine as people who are not struggling to win kudos or plump up our ego. I think all vegans are genuinely wanting to be of service. If we can win respect from non-vegans, that will help when introducing any of our arguments. Omnivores won’t give us the time of day if they see peace-loving people looking like fanatics who just hate ‘meatheads’.

            If they want anything at all from us they want us to be ‘educational’ not ‘judgemental’. Personal identification with us comes before being impressed by what we say. We can’t win approval just because we’re protecting animals, because there’s a lot of suspicion around; we might be protecting ourselves more that the animals, we might be needing to be taken seriously so badly that we project an image of how we want to be seen, rather than how we really are. Probably most of us vegans want to be admired for making a stand. And that stand springs from another deeper need, to see progress in the movement for Animal Rights. Most vegans I know have a vision of the future, where animals are no longer exploited, and that’s a strong driving force for us to bring this about.

            If we want to allay the many suspicions about our motives, if we don’t want to be seen as self righteous, then we might have to back pedal on the high moral ground when we speak. It might seem like a contradiction to suggest that, but isn’t that usually why vegans aren’t given the chance to put their case? We can so easily be seen as sermonisers.

            Vegans are trying to reach those who seem to be so far away that they can barely hear us; maybe they don’t want to anyway. For their part, they can’t face the idea of a vegan food regime let alone face us in discussion about it. Our right-ness, our healthy bodies, our sharp minds and clear conscience can well be our greatest downfall. Omnivores don’t necessarily disagree with our facts and figures but they find our ‘glow’ a bit off-putting. We aren’t approachable when we foist our opinions on people. Whenever we do we’re seen as invasive ... to put it mildly! 

Mild manners or abuse

564:

Whenever vegan ideas are introduced to omnivores, as soon as the vegan is no longer around neither are their ideas. They evaporate like Scotch mist. Each vegan principle is forgettable back in the real world. What flew in now flies out. ‘Reluctant’ ideas don’t stick in that part of the brain or heart where there’s any sign of addiction or guilt. Unless there’s been something impressive about the manner of ‘the promoter of ethics’.

            If omnivores and vegans are going to discuss these matters there must be some semblance of equal footing. Each side must have something substantial to contribute, otherwise it turns into a rout. And that’s a long way from discussion.

            The vegan will fight as the ambassador for animals, judging the omnivore mistaken for eating them. The omnivores might judge the vegan unrealistic and object to their being judgemental of them. Both will be perceived as valid positions to take - the omnivore has a right not to be judged and the vegan has a right to be taken seriously. Each position has potential for making a valuable lesson-to-be-learnt. There’s value in pursuing each point of view. But if we slip into the personal push-me-pull-you situation, where ‘discussion’ can’t move along, then something has happened which needn’t have happened.

            Both sides have their arguments. And whether they are good or bad is immaterial, as long as each side respects the right of the other to have their chance to put their argument. (That means people like me having to listen and not to be so quick to interrupt).

            Discussion on this subject can be stimulating. It doesn’t have to descend into an excuse for personal abuse.

Veganism is forgettable

563:

Coming on heavy about the need to be vegan can work, but only with some. I think many more are put off, even put off for life, by that approach. In short, vegans who try to shame and blame waste their best chance to make an impact. We simply come across as being better-than-you. And if we blow it here, we also blow it for other activists. If we throw caution to the wind, if we’re willing to do anything, say anything, to make what we say unforgettable, that crude approach will be seen through. It makes us easily dismissible.

I suppose the truth is that out of convenience people try to make us as forgettable as possible. It’s the defence system used to keep us in reality, in the world of likelihood. It’s like going to see a highly emotional love story at the movies and then forgetting it as soon as we hit the street, when we plunge back into the real world where practicality and pragmatism are supreme. There is a part of the every-day-self which deals with being shocked, and we even enjoy being ‘wow’-ed. Surely we sometimes go to the movies for just that. We let ourselves be moved, shocked, inspired, carried away, but it isn’t meant to stick too securely. It’s just an ephemeral story and we forget the ‘universal message’ in it. On that same level most people regard the ideals associated with vegan principle.

People know that vegan diet is about food and animals, but beyond that their own un-interest stops them going further, to make changes to their present reality which they might regret later. We might look ahead and ask our self what it would be like to be vegan, but then not be able to see enough self discipline to maintain such a radical change. And on yet another level, especially if you’re older, you’ll concede that it’s “too late to change anyway”.

Trialling at home

562: 

The omnivore, someone who isn’t concerned about any of the ethical provenance of the food they eat, will go about their routines, trying to make their own life more comfortable. In the kitchen or out shopping it’s food that’s being mainly thought about - food for the week. Even if we’ve just been listening to a most compelling radio discussion, say ‘a very interesting talk with a vegan’ and been impressed by their arguments … even if we’re currently unhappy about our own eating habits, the dominant concern is to not rock the boat in our own life. There’s enough going ‘on’ in our lives without taking-on this one too. Soon enough the omnivore in us, the same-as-everyone-else in us, will pull back to where we were before ... that is, before hearing that radio program. We’ll go back to the comfortable, to the familiar habits which give us our feeling of safety-in-numbers.

            Whatever a vegan’s best intention, it’s getting others to agree that counts, and then after that it’s a private matter, testing the strength of one’s agreement and commitment. Only time and trialling at home can help to get past the blocks.

These are the sorts of personal tests familiar to anyone who has been through a rehabilitation programme, facing the end of one regime and the adoption of a new one. If vegans try to force people to agree, there might be agreement for a while but it won’t last. 

            The only person who should know and be able to comment on what one is eating or using is oneself. If we vegans take on the responsibility of commenting and advising, we have to be ready to fail, at first. And then, not to panic and rush in with recriminations. At this very early stage of Animal Rights awareness, if we place any pressure at all on others, we’re bound to be roundly ignored. The weight of the collective consciousness shouldn’t be underestimated – an individual standing alone against the conventional lifestyle, diet and general attitude is still somewhat of a rarity.

            What we can do is to sow seeds; we can stir the dragon of conscience. And because there’s so much cynicism and suspicion around these days, no glib one-liners are going to do the trick. All new ideas and causes are suspect today, so vegans have to be different; we have to come in strong but pull back strongly as well; we have to be able to allow space for people to find their own way, be ready for them if they need help but not be over-advisory. It’s a delicate balance.

Don’t make them squirm

561: Posted Friday 9th November

If you’re a vegan, have you ever looked inside someone’s fridge and found ‘evidence’, and noticed the look on their face when you shut the fridge door?

This very confronting subject of ours causes embarrassment and worse. They see us looking at them, taking note of things in their kitchen or what’s on their plate (or what they’re wearing), and you have to wonder how does that makes them feel?

The shock when they hit a ‘new awareness’, like realising the connection between ordinary food or clothing and animal cruelty, could be enough to jump-start a radical change in their life, but for most people it doesn’t. It’s likely that their unwillingness could mean they don’t care about the animals involved. Maybe, like almost every human on the planet they don’t care that much because they are too self serving and their concerns too species-specific.

If humans lose their sense of concern and try to forget what humans are doing to the animals, something much bigger is at stake. Once we allow animals to be routinely exploited we downplay the value of innocence itself - of children, of animals, and eventually of the innocence buried within ourselves.

By boycotting animal foods, we can restore much of the guiltlessness of our youth and, at the same time, shift away from anthropocentrism. If humans are in the process of making a major breakthrough in their own consciousness, than this shift is an essential start.

Once we’ve started to make that move in the privacy of our own lives (by becoming more discriminating about what we eat or wear) we might want some encouragement, to keep it up. It is, after all, an unusual thing to do, so we’ll want our friends and family to notice and acknowledge what we’re doing.

Then we wait and wait, and it doesn’t happen. We ask why. We feel resentful. We judge people to be less shockable. less sensitive or sensible, etc. We MUST get some sort of response. And if it doesn’t come spontaneously we might be tempted to force things. Tell them to wake up to the whole sorry background of the food they eat, etc. They listen, amazed. They see us trying to make them feel uncomfortable, and bite back with, “If you want to live uncomfortably yourself, that’s up to you. But why do you want me to live miserably too?” They just refuse to see the point.

Vegans want to dig deeper into the truth. Non-vegans don’t want to.

            Perhaps we think the whole world ought to be on trial. What is happening to ‘food’ animals is enough to make the vegan pessimistic and feel frustrated by people’s level of general unawareness. And so, for the millionth time, we ask ourselves how we might best stop the whole sorry crime against animals?

            I don’t think in the present climate we can stop it yet, not until we look much more carefully at our own approach to others. This will mean us being much more up-front about what is going on inside our own heads, and a re-examination of why we so much need to win our arguments at all costs.

I’m suggesting an entirely different approach to omnivores. Even though it seems to go against the grain, I think we’ll only get somewhere with them when we appreciate the difficulties they find themselves in, when we can find some sympathy for them, for their inability to defend their position, for their ever-growing fear of ill health, for their impotence in contributing towards a more compassionate human species, and of course their utter helplessness in the face of their evident addiction to crap foods, leather footwear and other ‘essential’ animal products. Our intolerance of any or all of this only makes matters worse and entrenches their attitude of turning-a-blind-eye.

Nasty vegan opens fridge door

559:

I’m round at your place. You’ve offered me a beer, “Get one from the fridge”.

            As I’m grabbing a beer, I also take a peek in your fridge. I see some horrible items there? But what right do I have to look? I might know how farm animals suffer, and think you should know too, at least enough to avoid buying this stuff. But this is a question of your right to privacy. You may not want me noticing, prying, interfering, commenting. Beer in hand, “I see you’re still buying sausages, then”.

            It depends on the nature of our relationship whether I’m just being cheeky or outrageously rude. However well we think we know someone, if I over-step the mark I ruin any chance of a real conversation taking place on the subject. Perhaps I don’t care what you think of me. Perhaps I want  to see you squirm, since I’m so angry at what’s happening to animals - you being a consumer, I’ll say what I have to. I want revenge.

            For some vegans, judging others can be satisfying. “They won’t forget that in a hurry!” but we judge others at our peril. By peeking into your fridge and then insulting you for choosing to eat meat, I wreck any chance of a useful or reasonably friendly conversation.

            It’s possible that you might want to give me a chance. You might show some interest. The trouble is, when the chance arises (to talk Animal Rights or Veganism) perhaps I grab the chance a little too hard, and my enthusiasm overflows the bounds of normal conversation. And that’s your warning signal. If I think I can push the boundaries, because this subject is so urgent and so neglected, I might even think you’ll be impressed by my passion. But any enthusiast, who knows their subject and loves to rave about it, once given encouragement, will bore you silly for the next half-hour. If you give a talkative vegan a chance to have their say it could be engaging on one level but if it goes on too long or gets too deep, it’s going to be irritating.

            Okay, well I suppose it’s obvious where this is heading. When vegans are ‘at their best’ they can also be at their worst. This can be where the real damage is done. This is where we sound most interesting but in reality most threatening, and where our ‘listener’ stops identifying with us. This is where they conclude that we are both righteous and predictable. And I think this is where they’re likely to shift across from a grudging acceptance to outright dislike. “I’m not sure I like this person”.

            After this, and probably for ever after, this vegan (and by association all vegans) will ‘smell’ so badly that they’ll be avoided in future.

            So, passion-driven talking should not go on too long and commenting on the contents of other people’s fridges is definitely not on.

Human nature in microcosm

558a

We have two opposing views in our society - there are vegans who see all the cruelty and barbarity in human nature and are trying to correct it, and we have those who accept or turn a blind eye to the inherent cruelty in human nature. As a vegan I’d say that the worst, most routine cruelty is practised against animals. But vegans are so few in number that no one is yet listening to us. Non-vegans are so vast in number that even the rampant cruelty against animals is okayed by them; they agree to ignore it, knowing that no one can touch them. No wonder vegans feel so impotent.

            A couple of nights ago, we saw on TV, here in Australia, footage of the most outrageous treatment of animals anyone has ever seen. Workers, at a Pakistan meatworks, using their mobile phones, recorded the massacre of thousands of sheep (exported from Australia), and not just a massacre but the half-killing of the animals and their being thrown alive and wounded into a pit. One animal was later pulled from the pit and ‘brought back to life’, just to prove that what the viewer could see, the twitching and shallow movements of some of these bodies, meant that they had been thrown into the pit alive. There was blood everywhere. Panic was obvious. There was no audio but the noise of thousands of terrorised animals forced to watch the massacre could be guessed at.

            I’ve no doubt the men attacking these sheep were ordered to dispose of as many animals as possible before anyone could witness what was going on. Thank god for mobile phones with cameras. It was all filmed and shown to Australian television audiences. The lucrative trade in the live export of animals won’t be stopped because the Australian government is too weak and unprincipled to stop it.

            We know this sort of barbaric treatment of animals happens, and we know it’s bound to happen again. And it reflects that part of our human nature which must have what it wants, at any cost. In modern abattoirs the killing and terrorising of animals isn’t as obviously barbaric as the massacre in Pakistan but it takes place nevertheless. Animals experience terror as they go for execution. We say they are killed humanely.. When we enjoy our lamb cutlets we think of it as ‘happy meat’, believing what we are told - “The animals do not suffer”. But this is just our human nature, allowing the fridge to be filled with bits of animals’ bodies without our feeling bad about it. Animal Rights is a fascinating subject if only because what we do to animals, whether ‘cleanly’ in the modern slaughterhouses or ‘uncleanly’ at meatworks in Pakistan, shows the worst of human nature in microcosm. We gather together and agree that nothing should be said about attacking innocent animals, so that we can fill our fridges with meat and eggs and milk. The animals from which these products are taken each die horrible deaths.

            This is why, when I see inside people’s fridges, I know they have tacitly agreed to go along with the worst part of their nature to ensure the supply of their favourite foods. They go along with the cruelty and barbarism of the animal industries who supply them. 

Vegans going in for the kill

558:

Vegans who judge an omnivore’s diet usually provoke anger. Provocation is a blunt instrument to get people to change. How else is it done, when this way seems the most obvious way?

            Provocation is a trap. Most omnivores aren’t stupid. They know precisely what we’re up to when we try to provoke them. If they aren’t ready to defend themselves straight away, they’ll surely be next time we try to provoke them.

            These days it’s unlikely the average Western-educated person is unaware of veganism, or at least that there is an ‘animal-rights’ perspective to consider, when dealing with ‘food’. If we vegans come along and spring a heavy message on a person, yes, we’ll have an impact. But we mightn’t get away with it a second time. People will wise up to us (as you do with Jehovah Witnesses knocking at the front door). They’ll be prepared and shut off.

            A kindly, non-quarrelsome omnivore might put up with what we’re saying, but only for so long. They may encourage us by saying a few nice things (perhaps just to shut us up). They may even think of us as caring and compassionate people, even tell us we’re kind or wise. They might come across as polite, friendly and interested. But inside their heads, what are they really thinking?

            When we point out something important - “Do you know that that meat you’re eating, it was once  …”, we don’t always realise how we provoke not only anger but fear. “You know it will destroy your health?”

            It’s so easy for a vegan, even with average public-speaking skills, to say what needs to be said and, in effect, make fools of people. And then, it’s not so difficult to go that one step further and corner them. If we try to force agreement the omnivore will try to wriggle out of it, by saying something indefensible, untrue or just plain foolish. And then we’ve got them ... or so we reckon.

            It’s similar to any attack, so there’s no surprise if a strong defence is mounted. The omnivore sees the vegan as ‘right’ (read obnoxious). They tell their friends, “If a vegan comes along and has a chat with you, watch out! Don’t say something really stupid. Beware. They can be nasty. They always go in for the kill!”

Going in for the kill

557:

Judgements shock, especially when we judge someone’s values. “You’re wrong doing what you do, eating what you eat”. It’s a criticism of the mindlessness behind the eating of every chocolate bar and every ham sandwich, eaten simply because it tastes good.

            We tell people, “You are wrong ...” and that, of course, is intended to undermine a person’s sense of being right. And maybe no one, before, has criticised what we eat, not from a moral point of view anyway.

            Along the way, most people have met vegetarians advocating healthier food and better animal welfare. We’ve all heard of battery eggs and the need to switch to free range eggs. But maybe never before have we been confronted about the wrongness of ALL foods connected with animals, including by-products.

            To almost everybody, eating is like breathing fresh air, it’s not something we think about. We’re brought up to ethically question many things, but not food. The foods we eat are what Mum and Dad fed us. It’s all one thing – it’s just ‘normal food’. How can food be ‘wrong’? How can almost every meal our parents provided for us be ‘wrong’? How can the traditions of every community on Earth (over countless previous generations) be wrong? If meat and milk is so poisonous why aren’t we all dead?

            Perhaps over a long period we have worn down not only our immune systems but also our greatest potential, and it being so incremental we just haven’t noticed it. It’s rather the same as getting used to war and hatred and lingering illnesses, as if it were part of normal life, as if it were unavoidable.

Soft we are, and not judging

553:

The hard-bastard human is not typical. We are mostly softies talking to softies. None of us, vegan or omnivore, would deliberately hurt anything. People are NOT violent by nature, none of us deliberately sets out to hurt for fun unless we’re psychopathically disturbed. It’s impossible for a sane person to inflict suffering on a sentient life form (animal or human). What would make us do such a thing?

            But this is where we are torn. We think we have to inflict hurt to eat. We attempt to ameliorate our guilt by having someone else do the hurting for us.

            What happened to humans?

            It must have started somewhere (maybe a couple of million years ago, maybe more recently), the brainwashing or manipulation of instinct that allows us to do the soul-crushing things we do to the animals we eat.             Worse, we let others do our dirty work for us, so that we don’t have to look at an animal’s frightened eyes, before its execution. So deep is our addiction to eating them that we go along with it all.

            Most people are softies at heart. And just as we can’t hurt creatures neither would we hurt people (unless in self-defence). Hunters do it and find pleasure in it, but these days, where it’s not done to avoid hunger it’s done for the rush the hunter gets from the kill. Most of us however wouldn’t find any pleasure in this. We may have some level of violence in us but at heart we’re soft, we’re wired up that way. Violence is appropriate to thunderstorms and earthquakes, not to human behaviour.

Advertising dead animals

552:

If we condone what the Animal Industries do then perhaps we deserve to be punished with self-inflicted guilt, for doing what we do. But weirdly, it’s a turn-on too, for daring to have a few ‘little weaknesses’. It’s the same as the overweight person giggling at the naughtiness of eating another slice of chocolate cake.

            Rich foods, mainly foods derived from animal products, are tempting. Physically, long term, they harm us, yes, and it wouldn’t be so bad if we were told the truth and could assess them properly and then take responsibility for using them, but the truth is never told about health consequences, nor the extent to which they involve animal misery. Imagine if, just for a start, ads told the truth about the animal-origins of the ingredients:

            “Doughnuts are delicious, inexpensive and available from your nearest store; on the downside, consider the hens who laid the eggs which were used to make your doughnut so fluffy and rich tasting”. 

            Advertising depends on our human weakness for certain foods or fashions, and whether we’re buying fur or cashmere or whether it’s meat or milk, the consumer is part of a support team. Each buyer of goods is supporting a branch of the Animal Industry, an organisation to which one normally wouldn’t give one’s seal of approval. Customers, in deciding to buy their stuff, help to deny animals the support they need from us. By following the crowd we forgo the chance to make a difference.

            We probably buy most food products without a second thought. In the Church of Convention the TV message shows us how to behave like ‘normal people’. In the TV ads, the actor is always good-looking and always fulsomely speaks in praise of the product, which we then go out and buy. We might wonder how a professional actor could help to sell stuff like this, and yet they do. In Australia everyone’s familiar with a certain local movie actor who is, these days, best known for dancing (literally) hand in hand with an ape … in praise of red meat. It’s incredible to see him doing it night after night … but he gets paid to do it ... and presumably many consumers enjoy the ad and like him for the imprimatur he grants to the products he’s spruiking.

Meat is good. TV tells us so.

551:

What can we do about it? It’s everywhere you look. We see it all the time on commercial TV. It comes at you, in your living room. The okay-ness of eating or using animals creeps into day-to-day behaviour, reinforced in stories, films, cooking shows and the ubiquitous sausage sizzle at every community event. But especially on TV, where honest-looking people talk as if they know what sort of approach to animals you will approve of.

Take the ads.. Good looking actors come on, like friends, sharing their meat-is-okay opinions with us. They talk about animal foods as if they were nothing to do with animals themselves. All this, over time, seeps into our psyche and into our habits. It addicts us and contributes to our sense of normality. Only ‘good’ is ever spoken of the items advertised - any drawbacks aren’t mentioned. But the consumer isn’t completely gullible, we know we’re not being given the truth. And yet ... even though we’re ‘telly-wise’, what we’re being told conforms to what we find acceptable  – we don’t necessarily believe what they say, but we take it in rather gratefully. And the ads work on a subtler level, getting us to engage with what’s being said, if only to make the ads pass quicker, so that we can get back to the programme we’re watching. We’ve learnt not to turn a hair. We’re half tempted by what we see and are being told, and half tempted to accept the lies. That’s just television. Even kids ignore the insult of them.

Anger

550: 

Vegans might privately feel angry, feel judgemental, believe all omnivores are stupid, etc. … but we must stop right there. We don’t need to show any of this just to prove we feel passionate about what we are saying - it’s just too easy to knock someone down with anger. At the time, it might feel good - it’s like letting off steam.  But it works against us in the end. The only thing that really works with omnivores is good natured exchange. (Don’t forget, we’re not trying to get people to sign the pledge here, just get them to see animals differently).

Our views, when being expressed, should contain some statements of tolerance and we should always be aware of not being a pain in the arse, evangelical-wise. Veganism is heavy medicine. It needs to be dispensed in small doses, at first.

As soon as we launch our case, we can expect suspicion, dismissiveness and even hostility. So, obviously, as advocates for animals’ rights or as representatives of vegan principle, we shouldn’t get hostile. We are supposed to be peace-lovers.

Probably every vegan today, at one time in their life, disliked what veganism stood for, even though at the time we might not have been fully aware of what the idea meant (apart from abstaining from ALL animal-based foods). For me it was like that. “Vegans are weird, spoilers, self righteous ...”. I distinctly remember that it was the same before I admitted to myself that I was gay. I was revolted by other gays. How strange! Of course, I don’t feel that way now! But I did then. How, when you get the full picture, perception can change.

As vegans we mustn’t ever act hostilely towards ‘non-vegan people’ because we were that way ourselves, once. (Almost all of us excluding those who were brought up as vegans). We need to keep a sense of proportion here. However good our arguments, we can still seem as if we’re up-our-selves. We can easily forget how we come across, as being righteous, being right, being highly self-disciplined, etc. We get a reputation for looking down on those who can’t cut it or who don’t agree with us. To shake that image (unfair though it may be) we need to get rid of that ‘shocked-surprise-raised-eyebrow’ look. We need to drop the anger too, even though anger can be okay, but it’s like the salt and pepper in food, it’s good for dramatic effect but too much spoils everything.

I doubt if animals use anger. And while we’re on the subject, it’s the same with judgement. I doubt if animals ‘do’ judgement either. Vegans think they can get away with showing anger because they have so much to be angry about – we being self-appointed ambassadors for animals (and there being so many animals being put through so much unimaginable torture). That’s worthy of getting-angry-about, surely? But, why waste all that emotional energy on anger. Why spoil good relationships by casting value judgements? It might make us feel good at the time but it’s not helpful for communicating our point of view. And it’s a sure-thing reputation-killer.