Veganism as a new idea

1410: 

Vegans seem preposterous.  Even to family and friends our ‘behaviour’ seems either like bad manners or a play for attention.  People rubbish vegan lifestyle and cite negative health consequences as their main reason for thinking that vegans are taking things too far.  The way humans use animals is neither considered unethical nor something even worth thinking about.  Farm animals are too unimportant.  It's absurd to grant them any sort of 'rights'.  But they don't actually say this, since the subject is hardly ever discussed in any depth.

         

The vegan's extremely opposite view creates a them-and-us separation, not much different to when racism emerges amongst those who think they have a superior skin colour.  Each side disassociates from the other. With opposite views comes separation.  And separation is everywhere, in those who are financially well off feeling superior to the poor, between those who are intellectually well endowed and those who aren't, or between those with attractive facial features and those without.  We stand aloof from our 'inferiors'. It goes without saying, that humans feel superior to any animal.  But it works the other way too, so that if I think I’m better than you because I’m vegan or because I’m a responsible environmentalist, I might make you feel ethically inferior, and you'll think I'm being intolerant of you, being ethically less advanced than me.

         

If we are going to make things better for our world, separation attitudes have got to be dumped.  Thinking of others as equals means we get out of the habit of looking down on others or letting others look down on me.  And why should it not cross the species barrier?  By extending this non-separation principle to other species, we will start to consider our fellow sentients as worthy of respect as much as fellow humans.  How can anyone argue that one is entitled to own an animal as a slave or that the animal is less entitled to a life without being violated by the human?

There’s no valid reason to treat farm animals any differently to our dogs and cats at home.  But, for most omnivores, there can not be equality between species.  These people may be referred to as being ‘speciesist’.  In contrast, those who no longer make any use of animals, vegans, refrain from the common habit because they see animals as irreplaceable, sovereign individuals.  Vegans don't regard animals as exploitable objects.

         

Traditionally, the human breeds animals for human use.  Animals are seen as a replaceable part of an amorphous mass - you cut them down and then replace them.  Most humans either see animals as companions or as dinner.  Or if they interfere with the smooth running of human life, they are regarded as 'pests' to be eradicated.

         

To bring animal slavery to an end, these separation attitudes must go.  Hubris, superiority, exploitation and killing have to go too before we can see the need to rehabilitate and protect the existing farm animal in sanctuaries.