Back in the Freedom Forest

1558: 

Animal Rights has the reputation for exposing the truth, sure, so then why is it we hold little currency in the public mind? Probably it’s our old friend the defensive survival mechanism kicking in, which helps to protect us all from the difficult and the extreme.  Thinks: "Veganism - it’s just too difficult to take on board, and vegans are hard to identify with especially when they are judgemental". But if vegan food and vegans' principles of non-violence can't be rejected for being 'too difficult', then the omnivore can only reject what we are saying based on an identification difficulty - because they can't identify with us, on the basis of our reputation for evangelical 'conversion-speak'.  They will avoid considering vegan principle not only because they are ill informed, but because vegans always seem to spice information with guilt-making?

For vegans who are active in the Animal Rights movement (when it comes to animal abuse and unhealthy food diets) there are two positions to think about: is veganism a private matter or a matter of public concern?  For vegans, can we remain, privately, a benign presence in other people’s lives, and yet still think of ourselves as activists?  Isn't there a requirement for activists to be actively involved?  And might that mean us being obnoxious, threatening and embarrassing to others (guilt-making) if only to earn one's place as a 'true' Animal Rights activist?

For us, as vegans, this might be a problem of self image, not wanting to appear too quiet or too loud; being seen to be serious about our veganism whilst retaining a completely non-violent image.  But there are more important considerations here, quite apart from our own self-esteem.  Surely we are here to help others.  If we lead an ethical life, we don't need to show off about it, to make ourselves feel stronger.  By conforming to vegan principle, we can draw all the strength we’ll ever need from that single principle.  It will support us when we don’t seem to be making any headway with others, even though it is obviously so very different from other people's principles (which are not free of violence because of their animal-abusing lifestyle).

We can see it this way: we all live at the edge of The Free Forest in which there’s no gratuitous violence, but very few dare to live there.  Having an admiration of non-violence is one thing, but subjecting oneself to the laws of non-violence is another. It's quite a big step away, abiding by the ways and laws governing such a great freedom, where Nature is in control of all the forest's inhabitants. In the Free Forest, the trees and creatures are governed by Nature, just as the human could be if they dared to live there. That is very different to the 'principles' almost all people are used to. Instead, humans have designed their own rules, to keep us as the dominant species, following rules which allow for violence and the use of force to maintain dominance. By drawing away from Nature, we've forfeited Nature's freedom.  Of course, we're now realising that our position is unsustainable, but we now can't initiate a return to Nature, to a vulnerability which we've long since tried to overcome. By becoming vegan, we start to have important insights into the role gratuitous violence has played in the human downfall.