Empathy

1549: 

Lamb: look at it now from the consumer’s point of view - when it comes to self gratification, this favourite meat isn’t easy to give up.  It’s like smoking or drinking or any other uncontrolled habit - indulging in it is all we’ve ever known.  We like the taste.  And even though we may know that there’s nothing self improving about eating lambs, we do it all the same.  For pleasure.  

Probably everyone looks for self-improvement in life, but it doesn't apply to improving our ethics concerning our food choices.  As far as the consumer thinks at all, about the rights and wrongs of their food choices, the thought is brief.  Our habits have been long in the forming. The habit of meat-eating is so automatic that there's no reason to waste time on the discipline of not-eating-animals.  Most people would consider it unnecessary, since abstaining from eating meat will neither make them richer or better thought of?  If social success is our main aim, then saving lambs from the slaughter isn’t relevant.

However, to feel successful we first need to develop self-esteem.  Our attitudes must be convincing to ourselves.  It might start out with personal self-development, we might be on our own ‘road to enlightenment’, but at some stage we might see that as rather self-indulgent.  It isn’t just about our own journey through life but our place in the lives of others, and that includes our place in the world we live in.

Perhaps that’s what veganism tries to point out.  To be fully rounded, to see beyond self-improvement, to see beyond the enlightened ‘good person’ in us, we need some solid compassion directed at those who have so much less than ourselves.  If we can empathise with another person’s difficult life-situation, we can use self discipline to start ‘thinking about others before thinking about ourself’.  And this is not so very unusual, anyway.  It might seem a bit idealistic, but most of us do exactly that, and do it often.  That’s far from self indulgence and giving in to temptation.  Which brings us to a point where vegans are suggesting that our empathy can extend to wherever it's most needed, and to include animals in that.

This brings us back to the terrified lamb, at the point where its throat is about to be cut.  Which is why we need to consider NOT helping to finance such acts of barbarity.  Which is exactly what vegan principles are about.  If and when we ever decide to become vegan, it's apparent that it's not so much about food restriction as self-liberation.  Food-wise it certainly means a healthier lifestyle but importantly, ethics-wise, it means we are now connecting with our compassionate self.  The liberation comes with simply doing the right thing, and knowing that in doing it we are generating enough energy to keep up the discipline.  The great advantage of being vegan is that, with some good nutrition and a much clearer conscience, we'll be able to keep our resolutions; to say to ourselves that we'd like to do something, then to do it, then know we've carried a difficult plan - and that 'carry-through' make us feel better about ourselves in a very important,  'self-esteem' way.