Out of Sight

1662: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Scenario: A fire starts backstage in a proscenium theatre. There are flames and smoke and panic. The fire curtain is in place to protect the audience in the auditorium. So effective is the curtain, that the audience is unaware of what's happening behind it. They are asked to leave their seats and move towards the foyer. Only when everyone is safe, do they hear that there's been a fire backstage. By then, however, most people are more concerned with getting back home than with what's been going on 'behind the curtain'.

Down on the farm, there's another sort of 'fire curtain'. It's between what the general public is made aware of and what is actually happening 'behind the scenes'. Unlike theatre actors who are paid to entertain the audience and create an enjoyable atmosphere; farm animals are there for human use and consumption (definitely not an 'enjoyable' atmosphere). There's a detachment between those delivering, those receiving and those just being used up. No one really wants to know how things happen. The same might apply to tourists visiting a beautiful city and being waited on by the locals. It's only when we want to experience things more fully that we look deeply and question the validity of an experience which might detrimentally involve others.

Whilst entertainment and tourism are occasional experiences; the experience of eating takes place many times a day, every day. This makes it important that we know what has to happen in order to bring certain 'foods' from the farm into our homes. Those who do want to find out must look behind the 'fire curtain'. Those who are willing to just accept the surface appearance of things, won't want to look behind anything. If it comes out as they expect, no other consideration is important. What then is the difference between a vegan and a non-vegan? You might think one is uninformed and the other informed. Or that one is taking things too frivolously and doesn't care and the other does care. Or maybe you think one is stupid and the other not! It all depends on where your views are fixed. 

Vegan animal activists are super-aware of the horror 'behind the scenes' on an animal farm. Nothing else is as important to us as stopping the cruelty! It's all-consuming. Animal abuse is something we refuse to be a part of. We'll even let ourselves sound fanatical or desperate, so fierce are we in our condemnation of what's happening to these 'hidden' animals. Non-vegans are either unaware, don't care, haven't thought it through, or indeed have deliberately not thought about it for fear of getting to know too much for comfort. Are they stupid or are we stupid? Maybe it isn't stupidity at all that marks the main difference. Maybe it's just a different perspective; perhaps the result of a different upbringing or an acquired attitude to life. One person may be highly attuned to the feelings of defenceless animals. Another may not be interested in beings who are not human. They feel no resemblance to them and cannot identify with them.

There's certainly a difference in empathetic connection here. As soon as a person has made the decision to avoid the products (mainly food) made from animals, they are then ready, willing and able to examine everything in more detail. They look at the conditions on farms and in abattoirs and turn their empathy into action in support of those innocent animals who undergo daily torture. When we see the suffering of animals, we also notice the desperation of the men and women who, by nature of their trade, keep one eye on getting animals to 'produce' for them and the other eye on the market price of their produce. Whether they're in the business of raising animals or killing them, their main focus is on staying economically afloat.

Vegan animal activists do whatever they can to bring an end to animal farming and animal killing. The last thing animal farmers want is for there to be any empathetic connection between 'their customers' and 'their animals'. They keep their business as secret and as out of sight as possible. If only animal farms and abattoirs had glass walls!