Weighing the odds

The foundation of our sense of freedom as individuals within a society makes slavery incompatible with any intelligent value system. Throughout history, it’s the freeing of humans from bondage that has marked progress, and now it’s the turn of animals to be released from that same slavery. Only then can we mark a break through. But it comes at a price. In uncovering certain truths we set ourselves in opposition to our elders and most of our peers. And we certainly make a point of opposing every 1%’er. Getting off-side with so many people over one central issue may not seem like such a good idea. It’s obvious that living a vegan lifestyle upsets almost everyone. But we shouldn’t despair. There are chinks of light ahead.
In this narrow corridor of mutual understanding our boycott makes sense if only in terms of health. We, as vegans, can identify with most 99%’ers who have made or are making or want to make an attempt to escape the pit. The common wish to weaken the1%’er influence may be strong, but by supporting their system for so long it’s been like a marriage. In it we’ve all been abusive. We’ve all been involved. If we’re still involved, it simply means that, by eating animals, we’re participating in a 150,000 animal executions a minute game. Until we move away from this, we are in no better position than anyone else. Until there is a personal statement of disassociation from the daily holocaust at abattoirs, nothing can possibly go well for us personally or collectively.

Conforming

1%’ers, with their brains focused on self interest, are safe in the knowledge of ‘probabilities’. They know customers. They know they can be relied upon to not want to know what’s going on. They know most 99%’ers are happy to stay in the pit and accept their state of captivity. It stems from being born in captivity and therefore learning how to be not-free.
When restrictions were first put on us - to protect us - as kids, as we grew older we came face to face with authority, with models of what “normal” behaviour and beliefs were. We found out how they help us to conform. They bind us into the collective mind. Habits form in keeping with others’ habits. And the most damaging habit in amongst a whole range of other destructive habits, is our choice of foods. They aren’t “vegan” foods!

If we are free enough to choose our own values and if we choose solely plant based foods, we create a massive rift between ourselves and almost everyone else around us. To inexperienced young people, the implications of this may not be obvious at first.
But once beyond parental care and control, once independent, then personal/individual decisions can be made about what food to eat and what enterprises to support (or withdraw support from). Withdrawing support is our only way of showing the extent to which we disapprove. We hope that disapproval will, like a cloudy day, break out into sunshine and positive ideas for life improvement. But at first the boycott is everything, disapproving of the 1%’ers and their exploitation, their use of slavery and their meat products. If young adults question everything, reassess things and eventually get as far as veganism, they’ll see two liberation flags flying, one for us and one for the animals.

The exploiter class

Making a start, cleaning up the mess of today, thinking about pollution and animal slavery, being aware of the modus operandi of 1%’ers, all this is about leaving ‘the pit’ behind us. Vegans, by releasing themselves from the ‘1%’er grip’, are making a start by liberating animals, because that’s where the biggest, ugliest 1%’er game is being played out today. By ending this slavery and harnessing our innate rebellious energy to the work of compassionate repair (yes, it does all sounds very idealistic) we begin our own escape from the deadly grip of the 1%’ers, whose first priority is to successfully feather their own nests.
“Charity starts at home” – 1%’ers do what they do in the name of providing “a better world for our grandchildren”. They care nothing for the community in which they live unless it’s to sweeten their customers, they know nothing about being motivated by ‘the greater good’ and they can’t justify what they do.
I was listening to a hunter on the radio trying to justify the pleasure he got from pulling the trigger on a moving animal. He couldn’t say what it was, except that it felt ‘natural’ to him. He’d always done it since he was a boy!! Basically he was saying that he’d never really thought about it.
It’s natural for a 1%’er to exploit. That’s how they make their living (and/or get their kicks!). It’s literally ‘in their blood’. They are born to find opportunities and, if necessary, take advantage. The 99%’er sees a forest in terms of beauty, 1%’ers see them as lumber.

Our main fears

Being vegan doesn’t protect us from everything - we can have the same fears as anybody and suffer just as much as others do, but it’s significant that we probably suffer from different things. Vegans perhaps fear and suffer from being isolated within their community, because of their unfamiliar beliefs. 99%’ers fear guilt and ill health and may have cause to fear both. 1%’ers, materialists, feel most insecure because they’ve abandoned their sense of guilt and used their money to pay for hospitals when they inevitably get ill as a result of their rich lifestyle. Their main fears is the withdrawal of the ‘retail’ dollar - they accumulate money to protect them from such an eventuality and acquire property to make them feel safer. As representatives of the ‘straight’ world they fear rebellion, not by violent insurrection but by customers becoming better informed and taking their dollars elsewhere. These are dangerous times for 1%’ers. They’re at odds with Nature for a start and with their customers too, owing to their record of misinformation. They’ve grown fat on lies and now, out of the blue, their whole way of life is jeopardised by public access to real information. 1%’ers, who invented misinformation, are now seeing their world beginning to wash away, and that’s down to the Internet where useful information is making its impact.
As 99%’ers learn more from reliable information, they gain more control of their lives. If they can rely on friendships and networking to avoid personal isolation, then material insecurity can be largely played down. In the place of material security we can develop a greater faith in Nature, in the sense that any of us can come closer to the model Nature intended for us. It reminds us of our need to survive (safely) but it might also feel like being-at-home IN Nature. And that mightn’t mean going native or living in a forest, but simply being more streetwise and less vulnerable to the 1%’er influence. Our closeness to animals, even the most domesticated one, lets us experience to some extent how it is IN Nature. Without the trappings of rich living life is uncushioned and we naturally develop survival skills. Perhaps by living in a more Nature-oriented world we are, like the wilder beings, living off our own wits. Life regularly testing our metal. In that way we can explore our own individuality as we liberate ourselves, as we help liberate the whole of our human species. A transformed species would have far fewer self-imposed limitations. The sky would be the limit.

Rebel’s view of things

(Last blog, as I’m off line, till 28th Dec)

The changers, the rebels, are fighting against a HUGE popular trend. They need fuel to be solo fliers who are trying to be conscious of what they do. Good food yes, but other fuels too. We might start by dropping bad habits and replacing them with better ones, and maybe, after that, get used to flying on auto pilot, make flying a breeze … in order to better relax into rebelling.
This deliberate act of being “more aware” might sound a bit scary at first, as if we’re losing our life-long carefree spontaneity. But somehow we have to find a way to boycott that of which we don’t approve. We need to drop our support for the 1%’ers. By questioning the 1%’er system, by increasing consciousness rather than reducing it, we can start to break free.
But it’s a mixed bag of opportunities and fears. If fear stops us from becoming vegan, that’s very unfortunate. Admittedly living a vegan lifestyle might be, initially, an uncomfortable experience. At first we need to prove to ourselves that we’re really breaking out of ‘the pit’. We have to be sure we’re not intimidated by anything, like missing our “favourite" foods or missing being just like others. By giving up the enjoyments that others “enjoy” we can, to some extent, emerge from the pit. As we leave and slough off our old skin, we’re really shuffling off the hardened element in ourselves. Thus putting behind us our ‘service’ to the world of the 1%’ers.
However (going vegan) doesn’t guarantee complete protection but by rebelling against the conspiracy of silence surrounding animal abuse in our society, we start moving towards vegan consciousness, towards being ‘the rebel’. And immediately, from that point on, we’ll be able to see the connections forming between various modes of thinking … thence to see ALL the big issues in a somewhat different way.

Hammering in the nails

The big worry today isn’t about being in the pit, it’s whether we’re conscious of it. Like sex starved teenagers who’re losing their virginity, we adults lose our acuity. By forfeiting fine minds (bursting with full consciousness) we settle for any old ‘pleasure experience’ we can lay our hands on. Instead of opening doors of consciousness we close them. Maybe not voluntarily but nonetheless we justify our closing them with that cheap cut: “Everybody does it so why shouldn’t I”?
By our being so easily seduced by safety in numbers we’re able to get over our guilt simply by going with the crowd. Even if we suspect we’re swimming against the tide of the coming age, we’re still in step with the march of the day.
If we’re not so easily seduced we may have jumped ahead already and be changing fast. If we also work it all out for ourselves, logically, then we’re also moving towards veganism and our own disassociation with the crowd mentality. Understandably any such ‘unauthorised change’ is a threat to the 1%’ers, who’re aware the world is approaching a more expansive age. Do you think they ever get horrified when they realise the coming age may be “vegan”, may eschew gratuitous violence and overall be a more aware, more intelligent age. Not good for arms shares and not good for animal industry profits.
Today, this “expansive awareness” still seems a million miles away. We’re still poisoning ourselves with the corpses of animals, still at war and still carrying the weight of huge bodies, huge egos, double standards and hubris. Vegan food doesn’t eradicate this entirely, but it helps to dissolve the ‘lump’ of it. It breaks open the belief that we eat meat for strength or that we can kill fear by being semi-conscious all day. By being vegan we can at least be alert. We can even wake the rebel in us. Trouble is constantly being silenced.
The rebel stands up to the 1%’ers by asking tricky questions in public. If we let that rebel in us stay sleep we’ll be allowing these frightening (and truly frightened) people to carry on controlling our world. If we aren’t sapping their strength by boycotting their commodities (mainly animal food and clothing) then we’re only boosting their spirits. When we open our purse or wallet to them, we also open our hearts to them (rather as we do in worship). We do it in the name of non-awareness - by pretending we aren’t aware. We tip them the wink and turn a blind eye to our own involvement. We let our dollars ‘hammer in the nails’.

Second class pleasure

Ordinary people, almost all people, are controlled by, shall we say, the remaining 1%. We’re (most of us) controlled by the carrot and stick method, only that for humans the ‘carrot’ bit is mainly in the form of animal products. Our love of them keeps us controlled. It’s a neat system.
Everything that comes from the animal industries is meant to be pleasurable but usually it’s ‘second class pleasure’ – cheap thrills, ice creams, chocolate, nursery teas, that old favourite, ‘meat’ and all the little luxuries we equate with enjoyment. We’re given almost anything to keep us ‘sweet’. It’s a sort of ‘seconds world’ of cheap and cheerful commodities, to keep us working and consuming. It’s like that now in Australia but it was like that half a century ago, for me growing up in England.
When I was a child I had a friend who lived a dull life in our exceptionally dull town, forty kilometres down the river from London, an hour’s train trip away. He used to go up to the ‘bright lights’ on a Friday night for the purpose of ‘having a laugh’. London for the poor is an exceptionally dull place, no laughs there. But just getting away from an even duller town for the night was some sort of enjoyment, some sort of relief from life “in the pit”. (Our fathers worked ‘down the pit’, in cement and paper factories situated in ugly depressions cut out of the chalk cliffs along the River Thames). We did have our indulgencies which made life bearable but they were strictly second rate, often to do with ‘treats’ made from animal stuff. It took our minds off the awful trapped feeling of living in this inescapable ‘pit’. The deal was that if we came to terms with life there, we could have plenty of indulgent ‘treats’. Obviously to many people living today, in this sort of cheap-thrill world, they’re tempted by the very same tawdry pleasures.
In order to socially engineer the lives of people, it makes sense to hold people in ‘the pit’, keeping them happy with a few miserable ‘indulgencies’. As ordinary people (I’ll call them “99%’ers”), we don’t have to deliberately indulge in evil activity to get what we want, it’s done for us. Neither do we have to be aware of acting compliantly when we’re trying to find relief, because we do so many things in a state of semi-consciousness (we gigglingly call it ‘indulging’). I suppose I’m rather obviously pointing to one of the most popular activities, that of eating animals. It’s an example of acting semi-consciously – that is, eating indulgently but keeping what we’re doing away from our full consciousness. It’s evident at meal times, that if we didn’t reduce awareness of it (when eating animals) we’d be in trouble – with ourselves. If we couldn’t “detach” from the guilt of what we were doing, it would cripple us. In order to conduct our day to day lives we, reluctantly, have to do some things semi-consciously. The dull town I came from was almost entirely, and probably still is, full of people who act semi-consciously. And yet these same good hearted people, trapped as they may be, are still capable of true feeling. They know the feeling of guilt and temptation and they learn how to enjoy the simpler pleasures of life. This is in sharp contrast to the rich (I’ll call them “1%’ers”) who control others’ lives but who keep themselves immune to any sense of their own wrong doing. For a start, the 1%’ers don’t ‘do’ guilt whereas the 99%’ers do!!

Enjoying money

Friday 18th December

It’s hard to enjoy hearing about the daily unreported massacre of animals. It’s very hard to take any comfort from our own responsibility for it. By pretending we’re NOT engaging in the act of hurting (hurting ourselves, hurting animals, hurting the planet, etc) we enter double-think and delusion. Our logical self tries to escape the inner eye by NOT seeing what’s going on. It’s laughable to think we can kid ourselves when we’ve already thought it through in our mind. As consumers we are party to a 1%’er’s reckless and juvenile projects for making money. We know they have to do it because they’re insecure and they have to find “safety” wherever they can. Because they consider “money” = “security” they are practically immune to the gentle heart approach to life. They expose and ridicule this very approach by calling it “bleeding” hearts of people who will get sloshy about something as insignificant as an animal. Reality is not a vegan life but a moneyed one.
Which brings us to money itself. Whether we are elite 1%’ers or amongst the 99% left over, we’d all jump at the chance to have plenty of money - to cushion our fear. It isn’t just the wicked who believe this. All over the world humans fear poverty and being forced to “live without”. So we try to get hold of as much of it (for security) as we can get – ‘high’ living - food, sex, intoxicants, anything to relieve the fear of insecurity and the tedium of living as a poor person. With money we can spend indulgently, to make life safe and in the everlasting search for enjoyment. Get rich, get smashed, get “out-of-it”, get fed, get bedded - enjoy.

“To do”

The wicked 1%’ers do know what they’re doing; however they ‘do’ without moral constraint. They know the consequences but do it all the same. They act wickedly because their fear of standing alone is so great whereas 99%’ers fear the guilt. They fear doing things wrong. Maybe it’s a superstitious fear of being clobbered by karma or by God, but it comes down to a dread of feeling guilty. For 99%’ers self-punishment of guilt is worse than being homeless.
1%’ers are cold, hard bastards so there’s no problem being ‘wicked’. For them failure to make big money is the important sin. They say “if it works, go for it, whatever it takes”. They don’t have dilemmas about morality and certainly not with regard to using animals as a resource. There’s no indecision concerning the way money is made. For 99%’ers it’s not that simple. It is a “moral” struggle. We often use food products to relieve the monotony and stresses of life. We can’t afford to look too closely at our “comfort” foods, not too consciously anyway, and that very blurring compromises our chances for achieving personal growth. If the contents of our foods doesn’t wreck our bodies then the avoidance of the ugly origins of our foods will play havoc with our sense of reality, concerning our part in the massacre of the animals.

“Wicked”

I’d be very surprised if even 1% of humans are truly “wicked”. To be wicked one would have to be so chronically frightened of life as to sell one’s soul. Those who take advantage of others and amass money and power in order to avoid vulnerability, could be said to be “soulless”. To ensure this level of “safety”, moral constraint must be abandoned and this opens the way to acting wickedly.
For the remaining 99% of us it’s different. We may be scared but not chronically frightened. We put limitations on what we are willing to do to ease our fears. We wouldn’t sell our soul just to feel safer. Would we? All of us probably have a few really deep fears – fear of failure, fear of poverty, fear of abandonment, fear of death etc., but 99%’ers don’t have the monster gene. We might flirt with the devil sometimes, but we aren’t held to any contract, we aren’t trapped. But we may be less than fully conscious of what we do, maybe purposefully underachieving or deliberately not knowing something that is easily knowable to ease our consciences without actually “selling our souls”.
With everything that’s known about animal husbandry today, you’d have to be pretty unaware and insensitive to carry on eating the poor creatures and not feel something. So we act blind sometimes, as if we don’t know. Apparently that’s what JC said when they were hammering in the nails … “They don’t know what they’re doing”.

The wicked

The way the entrepreneurs have made money out of animals is both diabolical and clever. The things they’ve done to animals make their work truly diabolical but the way they’ve manipulated their fellow human beings is just down right clever. Not too many people will admit their connection with all this, but it’s obvious who is spending on it and who is being rewarded from it. The ‘rewarded ones’ control the whole environment through the subjugation of humans, by way of the subjugation of animals. By addicting humans to eating animals and coming to depend on their secretions they have built a guaranteed market with guaranteed permission to provide for that market in whatever way they sought fit. The animal industries have garnered their support from generations of customers comprising almost every human that has ever lived on this planet. They’ve provided what’s been needed at the survival level and catered for every taste right up to the luxury level. Their influence is everywhere - in many of our clothing industries, in most food industries and absolutely all shoe companies. The animal industries control us by controlling our main spending habits. They seem to offer a service, by providing what seems like a reliable, safe, economic and fashionable source of supply (and when they offer a new line in food or clothing we all jump for it). They give us what we want.
This albeit small percentage of the population have an insatiable appetite for money. And that mightn’t be such a wicked thing if it were not for the fact that they have no scruples about telling untruths. We ordinary people, comprising the 99% bulk of the population, won’t believe they can be such rogues or that they are made up of rather a lot of people, who’ll stop at nothing to shore up their own bank accounts.
As if bank accounts could allay the deep fears life contains, as if selling your soul for money was even a vaguely good idea.

Brave

To stand up for animals you have to be vegan, and to be vegan you have to be brave. Not grim, bitter or angry, just quietly brave. No tickets on yourself, no sense of being better than anyone else, just calmly brave, but it’s not for the faint hearted.
Often vegans have to say “no”. No to animal slavery, no I won’t go with you to the zoo, no to a simple ice cream on a hot day. To us it’s plain straightforward why we say no, to others it’s not wanting to join in, a stand offishness. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot socially, and soon enough we get a reputation. We get invited round to dinner and knowing the problems it will cause we say “No”.
People don’t always mean what they say, when they say they admire what we stand for. “Well done”, “I wish I could do it myself”, but beneath the praise an alarm bell rings – “Avoid this one, he/she’s a tree-hugger (or whatever name they give us) … after a while the dinner invitations dry up. Why would anyone want a vegan to come round for dinner, the problems of cooking special dishes but worse, the danger of them embarrassing everyone else by trying to discuss the principles behind a plant-based diet.
So yes, brave. But it isn’t masochism. That’s the point here, why we say “no’ when we’d like to say “yes”, knowing that if we agree to go along with the carnivores it will confirm that they are right and we are ornory. You can’t put a positive spin on that.
By standing up for animals we must go it alone, we can’t expect cows and chickens to encourage us. It must all come from within ourselves. We have to be able to withstand people’s lack of sympathy but also the market’s lack of suitable replacement products. Food and clothing depend so heavily on the animal industries that alternatives often don’t exist. So vegans have to search for their products and often have to pay more for them because there is such a small market demand for them,
On top of all this, vegans need to support the efforts of other vegans who are trying to raise public awareness. And that’s a problem. The pressures of society are so great that just to be vegan is hard enough without other vegans needing support. Those who have got on top of their diets and clothing, who have learnt ways to withstand the heavy pressure from society to conform have usually begun to persuade and encourage the non-vegans to consider making the break with conventional habits, but they themselves need help. The sort of help that can only come from fellow vegans.
This is why veganism has got to embrace a few disciplines and values that will get things moving. There is little discussion here in Australia about moving away from animal use. Animal activism is generally concentrated on the worst abuses of animals on factory farms and in vivisection laboratories. It doesn’t address the wider problem of fundamental attitude change. And yet if this were established, if it became the fashion to boycott anything coming out of the animal industries, we’d see everything else follow; with veganism established the markets would accommodate the demand, the abattoirs would close and the animals farms would go bust, the animal labs would be defunded and the zoos would be shut down. But at present we have a very piecemeal approach to the problems. There are still too few people willing to rally to the call for a thorough uprooting of animal exploitation. And so everything is weakened because of this.

Vegans have the bottle

When vegans are the butt of a carnivore’s joke our response shouldn’t be to make them more frightened than they were when they considered making ‘a joke of it’. The aim of a sharp edged joke is to attract attention. If the joke calls for a response and none comes, then what? If we withdraw does that necessarily mean we can’t come up with a sharp enough retort? For vegans it’s all a bit ho-hum. It’s this sort of ‘joke’ that always sparks a bun fight. It’s the sort of debate you have when you’re not having a debate. It’s a simple heated exchange.
These are still early days for Animal Rights. We’re building foundations and encouraging new attitudes towards animals. We’re outlining law reform that will illegalise abattoirs. There’s so much call on our energy that we can’t afford to waste it on local skirmishing. Maybe “the lamb” jibe needs to be let through, if only because jokers and ‘people with vested interests’ are still in the ascendancy, and they’re busting to put us down if they get the chance. And that’s the trap. We don’t need to be provoked and then appear as the snarling activist. Discretion might be the better part of ‘going in boots and all’. Discretion lets us withdraw instead of fight.
Our compassion for animals is right, of course it is, because it’s the logical outcome to the anti-slavery movement. It feels right.
Just like veganism and eating brown rice and having a sense of humour, it’s the healthiest and most logical way to be. It’s the most viable position. It can withstand a withdrawal. It can handle a heckle or two. It’s ridiculous to wage war over a puff of smoke. We don’t need to take on every red neck we meet, or parry every joke or even be intimidated by what the political corporations have to say. We don’t have to be afraid of any of them because we must never forget one thing - none of them have “the bottle” to take us on in serious debate.
The world’s at a funny stage at the moment. Too many questions still haven’t been asked. For instance, how is it that some of us are passionate advocates for animals and others are indifferent? How is it that vegans are enlightened and meatheads are so backward? The fact is the differences aren’t really that clear yet. Vegans are probably not that much brighter or kinder or healthier but we do have more self discipline because we do so much boycotting. We’re more used to questioning and arguing our case and that makes us stronger in our views and a little frightening to our opponents. It’s their fears we have to try to allay.

Table attack

Vegans are used to people trying to have a go at them. Usually it’s a very half-hearted attempt to make our “over sensitivity towards animals” look foolish. In company an insulting comment levelled at a vegan is often enjoyed by everyone, confirming their image of the vegan stereotype. To deny them their enjoyment means we have to tweak our image a bit. We shouldn’t let ourselves be provoked. We don’t need to show outrage, and we do need to be sure of our arguments. We must be able to ride out these minor annoyances and allow ourselves to be open to cross examination without losing our cool.
Meat eaters, from their safe majority position, always like to put down the righteous vegan. They want to show how easy it is to make us angry. Actually it isn’t a sadistic thing they do, it’s just self defence. They want an excuse NOT to have to listen to what they don’t want to hear. Our anger at them gives them the excuse to shut the door in our face. We’re fair game for attack because we dare to question their most private lifestyle habits. Most carnivores don’t care about animal suffering and don’t want to talk about it. Others want to take us on. So, as vegans, we need to be ready for ‘the dinner table attack’ and use the occasion to show how we can handle anything they say.

Getting caught up in arguments

When we meet an adversary and discuss our opposite views concerning the eating of animals, we are at a disadvantage because we hold such a minority view. It’s almost impossible to win our argument if our opponents feel supported by the dominant culture and feel the need to establish their position.
For those of us not blessed with brilliant wit, if we try making hasty responses we usually blow it. We see an attack coming out of left-field, it’s distinctly personal in tone and seems like a challenge. In other words, there’s no indication that a fair-minded debate is about to start, quite the opposite in fact. A simple comment couched as a joke shows a clear intention to be humorous. And since the whole point of a joke is to be in and out in a flash, there’s no prospect of a detailed discussion starting up.
This comment, fired off at ‘joke’ level, is sharp and not to be shrugged off. But it’s difficult to respond without giving an aggressive reply … and in that split second, as we bite back, we know we’ve been trapped. We’ve been manipulated – it was really our aggressive response that was meant to be the coup de grace of the ‘joke’. That’s what ‘turns’ the atmosphere. It’s us (vegans) who are made to look bad, as if we took things further than necessary. It’s they (the joking carnivore) who are outraged at the thought that their comments could be taken so personally. “It was meant as a joke”. “You’ve no sense of humour”.
By taking umbrage, by turning a bit of light hearted banter into something offensive, we show how ready we are to quarrel over this issue. It’s proof (to carnivores) that we’re not really compassionate people, nor socially cool, nor as non-violent as we say we are. We look like losers, who seem to have gentle views about animals but not about people. They win!!

Defending our position

This friend who is eating lamb is also wanting to justify it and put down anyone who disagrees with her right to eat what she wants.
“Skirmishing over the Lamb” - good title for a book? This whole subject, jokes included, evokes anger, frustration, a need to put-down-the-righteous (as happened to me over tea!) and a great reluctance to shift one’s view. Try convincing a vegan to take up meat again and, when they stop laughing, they’d simply say “NO WAY”. It’s easier to convince a carnivore to move on, but it’s nearly as laughable, especially with the older ones. They’re usually set in their ways. At some point in their lives this whole matter has been settled (about eating animals and they have promised themselves, family, friends and colleagues that it won’t be talked about, thought about or acted upon. That position is held firm by frequently making tasteless jokes about it, to show their contempt. The position gets stronger as one gets older – there’s more to lose if we change sides. But the greater problem is in losing friends over these ‘issues’. What happens when a friend puts up some opposition? For instance, during a conversation an animal issue arises and people take sides – they take their positions. Do we stay out of it or do we wade in? If we’re put on the spot, do we say what we want to say; and if we do, are we sure we can control our language? What happens if our words don’t flow smoothly? It makes us look foolish, as though we haven’t thought things through. This powerful change we’ve made in our own life now has to be defended. Can we put our defence into powerful enough words?
These situations can happen suddenly. We respond by defending both ourselves and the issue at hand. If that feels uncomfortable, we might be tempted to bite back. And then there’s no end to it. I decided this was one of those times for withdrawing.

Committed to making a stand

My friend tells me ‘jokingly’ how she enjoys eating lamb.
As the joke goes along it gains momentum, volley by volley. Hers is the first comment, mine comes next and it goes on until someone “wins”. “The lamb” is pitched as a joke but really it’s a challenge, a jibe, a quick in-and-out. To any long-time vegan, this sort of sniper attack is tediously familiar, but strangely, predictably, we vegans always rise to the bait. Meat eaters probably enjoy the outrage on our faces and even enjoy watching us trying to take control of our reply.
This sort of joke is a winner because meat eaters can be sure that a vegan’s sniffiness (about animals-being-eaten) will be aroused just by mentioning “the lamb”. It could be any animal of course, but we use the same word –lamb - for the animal as well as the cut of meat, so this word (this animal) is sure to trigger reactions. By admitting to eating a young sheep, a meat eater ill certainly provoke outrage in a vegan.
My friend’s daughter, having known me for the past thirty five years, knows I always defend the rights of animals. The way I do that, depends upon to whom I’m talking. Sometimes I’ll withdraw. That’s why I’m writing this down, not just for my own sake, but for the interest of both sides of the debate. If we all have anything in common, it’s our interest in the present and in predicting the future. Most everyone these days is aware of headline issues. There’s a tipping point with every one of them, and particularly the eating of animals. Once we tip one way or the other, we seem to be committed to a certain stand. It’s noticeable that even though carnivores are less adventurous, their stand on eating meat makes them feel cocky because of their “safety-in-numbers”. They love to win an argument with people like vegans.
They usually initiate a joke to wind us up. It’s a show-off position and they intend to win. But more importantly it’s grist to the mill. By having a real “head-on”, we give ourselves something to talk about with friends later. These carnivores, what bastards they are … but vegans do exactly the same, making fun of meat eaters amongst ourselves. We don’t like to let our side down.

The cuisine excuse

My friend who likes to eat lamb and advertises the fact, she represents the meat-eater interest.
I’ve known her since she was a child and have followed her views for over 30 years. From the beginning she was sensitive to animals and familiar with vegetarianism. In later years she became interested in cuisine and now she’s making a stand for eating meat, hence her mischievous joke about “having the lamb”. Knowing me and knowing my stand, was she meaning to be unfriendly? She was obviously making a point about the eating of animals. Her having the lamb was a throw-away line but meant to attract attention. It rather changed the mood of our little tea party. Whatever could I say in reply that wouldn’t land us in hot water? I’m always up for discussing these things but I don’t quarrel to win my point. Some like a good slanging match. Maybe she wanted one. I don’t know her well enough, these days, to be sure of her affection. She’s intelligent and sensitive and doesn’t like letting things go.
As vegans, we’re not only up against lazy no-brainers, but also bright people who put up opposition. By deliberately provoking me, by rubbing it in about having “the lamb”, she knew it would get under my skin. Here I was having a cup of tea with my friend and suddenly ‘BANG’, out of nowhere things turn “heavy”. (My elderly friend, incidentally, was unaware of this conversation as she has a profound hearing disability). The three of us talked about the birthday dinner, the restaurant and the enjoyable evening had by all, then we get onto what each person ate … and then we came to “the lamb”.
I think she meant to tell a joke, at this precise moment, but this sort of joke, like most jokes, is at someone else’s expense. I suppose it was aimed at me, at how foolish I am to take these things so seriously. For her it’s almost mandatory that a joke is made, to counteract my stand on Animal Rights. For her perhaps it’s important that whenever ‘animal-eating’ comes up in a conversation, it needs to be joked about. It shows people like me how unattractive and un-cool it is, to get sniffy about cuisine.

The lamb

The following blogs are about two different attitudes at the heart of the animal debate. On the one side there is often a boiling anger felt by vegans, towards people who brag about their meat eating and who don’t give a damn about the animals who die for them. On the other side there’s a discomfort felt by people who feel they are being forced to consider animals when they don’t feel they need to. There’s a gulf between people over the subject of animals - not the cute, cuddly ones, the “edible” ones. Until a couple of decades ago it didn’t get a mention, but then it all came out - how animals were being treated on farms and what was going on in abattoirs.
In the early eighties The Animals Film and the book Animal Liberation shocked people. We realised for the first time how much of our food relies on animals and what actually happens to the animals themselves. Slowly this information seeped into public consciousness, then, surprisingly, it came to a standstill. At least it did in Australia. Why? It has been a matter for some discussion on vegan websites and magazines but nowhere else. In the general community there’s a reluctance to face up to animal issues - probably because we feel too guilty to think about it. In private, if there’s any talk of it at all, it’s argued without much intellectual rigour. We like our animal food too much to want to put it down. We’re addicted to it. The matter of eating animals is just usually the butt of jokes.
Recently I was visiting an elderly friend of mine and her youngest and eldest daughters were visiting at the same time. The younger one ‘needed’ to joke with me about her choice of food at her sister’s birthday dinner in a restaurant. She let everyone know(particularly me), that she had had “the lamb”. This was her way of saying “up yours” to me, a reminder of how much her views differ from mine.

Judging the vulnerable

Take a different example, the arsonist. Even if he or she is a child, an arsonist is easy to judge. They are responsible for burning the forest, causing mass death. A teenager, old enough to dream up this plan, may not be old enough to foresee the damage the fire will cause. So when they light the grass and an inferno ensues, how deliberate is the intention? The arsonist may know but no one else knows, unless under close questioning we can really find out all the reasoning behind such an act of destruction.
But in a million living rooms that night, how does each person think, when watching the fire on TV news. We feel the loss, we mourn the loss of bushland and the loss of life and property. We might feel impotent rage. We might want revenge. We might become judge and jury when we say out loud, “Hang the little fucker”. It is surely much rarer to think along the lines of finding out why it was done. And even rarer for anyone to admit to being thrilled at an exciting story in the news or having an excuse to get angry at someone we don’t know. It could be something that lifts our otherwise dull day, giving us pleasure in the misfortunes of the victims. But of course we keep all this well hidden. We hide it behind our judgements of the evil of it. The evening’s news fertilises the judgemental mind.
Our judgemental feelings are far closer to revenge than we’d like them to be, and usually a long way from any wish for the rehabilitation of the wayward teenage arsonist. I mention all this because it has parallels with the same bubbling up anger that many of us feel towards even our friends and family when they waste the lives of the animals they eat.

Judging

Saturday 5th Dec

Making value judgements of others is a big waste of time, but we like wasting time. Most of us procrastinate the use of our time to avoid using it for more productive purposes (difficult tasks), which we try to put off. Instead we indulge in judgement as a sort of entertainment. I often catch myself passing a judgement on this or that to fill an empty space in my mind? I suppose that most others do that too.
If this is a popular ‘sport’ it may be spurred on by a sort of schadenfreude impulse, where other peoples’ behaviour makes ours look better. It’s where we might try to step into the affairs of other people, and try to clean them up. Maybe we try to throw a rug across other people’s dirty floors, so that we can step towards them without getting our feet soiled.
One of our harshest judgments is reserved for peoples’ routine un-thought-out habits, actions that aren’t self-directed but largely directed by others, or copied from other people’s behaviours. Take for example my reaction to the routine eating of meat or wearing of ‘animal’ clothing. Maybe I don’t believe it right to eat meat or wear leather but how justified would I be in judging you for still doing that? If I, as a vegan, am judging you wrong, I think it’s best to keep quiet about it. Because if I approach you and express my judgement of you, you’ll know immediately that I intend you to feel my disapproval. I’d be using it to get you to agree with me, to get you to throw out the meat and toss out your shoes. In my reckoning, if you do this I will release my judgment of you, start to form a better opinion of you, and we can all be friends again. This may sound absurd but it’s close to what many of us do to each other on many counts where we have different views.

Victim and victimiser

The arsonist lights a bushfire. Great judgement rains down on this act and its perpetrator. The act and the person are as one. And we might say “but there’s a difference between the one who is guilty and the other who is not”. But it makes no difference. Most of us have lost our sense of fairness, we judge with a knee-jerk reaction and without careful consideration, and therefore without fairness.
To judge is a weighty business. The professional judge and the judicial process can spend months and cost millions of dollars, just to get to a decision, namely the judgement of a person’s guilt or non-guilt. So much depends on this sort of judgement (the possibility of taking away their freedom). The result of the amateur judgement may result from us being too quick to condemn. It’s the negative value judgement that can be so damaging, so whether I am an arsonist or a meat eater or doing something you disapprove of, I’m given no chance to defend myself because you have given yourself no time to make sure your judgement is fair.

Dangerous judgements

Meat is symbolic of strength and it’s symbolic of the rich, successful life (despite the fact that most people in the West can afford to buy it). This is the problem for vegans when they are trying to communicate on this subject. Meat, rich animal foods (even luxury leather shoes) seem to be regarded as ‘quality goods’. They are attractive to our ‘trained’ tastebuds and expensive enough to make most people associate them with good living. Quality consumer items appeal to those who “appreciate the good things in life”. Vegans seem to want to deny people their pleasure because they deny themselves, acting in a ‘fox and the sour grapes’ way. And so if vegans show dislike of meat eaters and make them feel like criminals, that will be reciprocated; people will dislike vegans and the food they recommend.
As a part of the ‘vast majority group’ people do what most others do, and their conformity leads to stereotyping and the need to make judgements about others. For example, those unfortunate people whose facial features aren’t considered to be beautiful probably know that almost everyone who has ever seen them agrees that they are ‘not good looking’. It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, and it certainly isn’t fair to be making that sort of judgment but we are probably (privately anyway) in common agreement about facial beauty. And there are other things we all agree about it, and in agreeing we show our judgements are like others’ judgements, and that makes us feel ‘normal’. By expressing a judgement we show others in our group what our values and standards are.
I say someone is “ugly”, others agree. It might help us to dislike that person and give us an excuse for not being friendly with them, almost as if they deserve to be ugly, along the lines of bad people are ugly: ugly people are bad. That’s how unfair and damaging a crude judgement can be – notably for the facially challenged. For example, their whole life can be spent thinking they are ugly and being disliked and avoided because of it.
This extremely unfair judgement is one of the worst we make, and yet one that most of us are capable of making. We may say what we are thinking and, out loud, most of us would condemn that approach as being uncharitable. But inside our own heads we decide to avoid the ugly person, avoid the bad person. Or we agree with others when they make a joke of this person’s looks. We’re all capable of making unfair judgements. Ultimately these become our downfall.

Good intentions

Being offended by vegans (who are up front about their diets) is a favourite defence of the omnivore. It’s the justification they most often use for ‘not listening’. But some are listening and taking what we say seriously. They may be deciding to alter the food they buy. But for what reason? Do they change because we’ve nudged them, or is it a naturally awakening compassion? Is it a wish for political correctness? Intentions not only test ideas but test resolve. If there’s any enthusiasm to become vegan can we marry it with real action. Becoming vegan comes down to a matter giving up favourite things and eventually giving up our MOST favourite things.
Intentions are interesting things, we all have them and we all know what a failed one feels like. It’s like when one sneaks in a sly hamburger or pretends not to notice the animal content in some delicious food. It’s not much different to having a smoke behind the bicycle sheds when we were kids. Stolen fruit tastes the sweetest - there could be an element of that in continuing to eat meat, as if stopping doing it would be giving in to the passive side of oneself.

Vegan police

Tuesday 1st December

Whenever we gate crash the party, we act like the moral police force, or at least that’s how it looks to people who consider what they do, eat or wear to be quite okay. In their mind there’s no obvious damage being done (!!) when they’re only doing what others do … and which is anyway legal to do. Vegans may want to win points for being brave and forthright but our behaviour is always being measured against our current image.
If we go around opening fridge doors and pointing out that we disapprove of a cut of meat we find inside, and if we mention this, then we’re no better than peeping toms. We are stepping over the line, or more importantly we are showing a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom-of-choice: and some of the free-choosers will understandably react badly if we start to mention the contents of their kitchen. Perhaps they’d be too polite to object to our face but later, privately, they might be getting quite upset about it. And that’s the feeling that becomes associated with the self righteousness of the vegan activist who tries to barge their way into people’s private lives.

Free-will

Everyone, each of us, has reasons and justifications for what they do. Everyone is capable of change but we cling on to our free will, not wanting to compromise the hard won freedoms of adulthood. From our earliest years as babies we struggle to assert ourselves, and at each stage of childhood we’re insisting on older kids’ privileges. We refuse to be treated as we’ve been treated up to now. We demand more freedom, more pocket money, later times to bed, then later, it’s about going out late, having sexual relations, indulging in mind altering substances. What ever is won has been hard earned. Whatever freedoms we have they let us do things on a grander scale. The initial freedoms granted us as teenagers fuel our fire, the main one being money. As we get closer and closer to being able to earn serious money we equate that with being able to enjoy adult privileges, especially all the extravagances of ‘free will’.
Now we can drive, so we can choose a car (or dream of owning one), we’re old enough to get involved in politics because we have a vote, we can eat what we like, dress how we like, entertain ourselves how we like. Temptations galore … when we come of-age. From total captivity, having been locked into childhood and obedience, now, with free will, we have a get-out-of-jail card. We can determine things in our own way. We can even avoid listening to people we don’t have to listen to. As the song says: “School is out for ever”.
If vegans are up against anything it might be an obstinacy that comes from prizing free will. This badge we adults wear lets us eat and drink what we want, and we can’t be told differently by our mothers or for that matter anyone, which includes vegan proselytisers, speaking with enthusiasm but no authority. Omnivores are determined to protect their ‘right-to-choose’ and being in the comfortable majority they have no wish to persuade vegans to be like them, whereas vegans, being so few in number, are keen to persuade omnivores to change. It’s not just because we want company but because we are convinced that everyone should be acting for the ‘greater good’. However it doesn’t gives us the right to put pressure on people to change diets, clothes, cosmetics, etc. We have no chance of succeeding that way, anyway.

A tricky balance

Vegan’s might have principles concerning their eating habits and their attitude to animals but do we fully apply the same principles when relating with each other? Some vegans are not forgiving of people who hurt animals. But this includes almost everyone in the human race. Judgement-making, when it’s about morality and values, is a slippery slope – by disapproving of almost everybody, then almost everybody feels the dislike and returns it. If we say that every person is involved in animal crimes it’s simply because they are still eating them.
People are implicated by using their money to lend financial support to animal industries. In our present society we have consumer-sponsored attacks made on ‘fellow beings’. So the question is are we, as vegans, capable of broadening our harmlessness to living without judgement, over these big issues involving aggression?
If vegans do make a value judgement about certain human behaviours it can be poison because of the personal-dislike element. It’s as if we are willing to play Russian Roulette with our relationships along the lines of “if you aren’t with us, you’re against us”. It’s easy to make enemies of non-vegans. If we, as vegans, are trying to set the standard of non-violence, we have to show generosity by looking for the best in people, and giving them the benefit of the doubt. If that sounds a bit Polly Anna the other side to this balancing act is far too dangerous. The aim is surely to be ‘on-side’ without okaying what we know they (the meat easters) actually do. We only have to separate the deed from the person. We are teachers not preachers. Vegans should investigate what makes people tick. We need to keep asking the same question - why aren’t people impatient to become vegan, and why aren’t they concerned about ‘the animal problem’? We need to put our fellow humans under the magnifying glass, to see why they go along with the routine murdering of animals, or even why they enthusiastically support it.

Home rules

If killing animals to eat them is condoned by the majority, then as vegans we need to step away from all that, yet be upfront about it by not trying to hide our boycott. In our own mind we know that we live in society but are, in some important ways, not part of it – because we don’t condone violence and specifically violently extracted foods and commodities. In that way it makes us very different to almost all other people. Our decisions are coloured differently in so many ways, not just with food and clothing but in the very way we see our world – we don’t take on the role of dominator but that of equal participator with other species.
The way that we’re particularly different though is that we have our particular rules about food. Anyone who is part of a any discipline, whether in sport, religion, academic study or personal relationships, has self-imposed rules. We devise and adopt them not just to make our own life more difficult but because it’s generally beneficial. So those who practice a ‘discipline’ (as it may be called) are very familiar with home rules.
Take the Quakers. They avoid war and don’t let themselves be conscripted. They believe disagreements can be best handled by dialogue rather than confrontation. For many years in the eighteenth century in Pennsylvania, they maintained friendly relations with the indigenous Americans and governed a whole state on the basis of non-violence. Their government eventually collapsed because people preferred the use of violence and force for solving problems, but maybe the Quakers were doomed by their own inconsistency – they hadn’t embraced the idea of being non-violent towards animals since they still killed and ate them. But they still represent today a precept of acting non-violently and perhaps also non-judgementally, and we can all appreciate the value of that. I’d like to see them become vegan because of the valuable groundwork they’ve already done regarding all humans as being on an equal footing.
Vegans and Quakers each offer an important principle to the world. One discipline, from one group, could benefit the other group in a sort of principle-exchange.

Strategy

Animal Rights needs a communication upgrade! As vegans we have our own weaknesses and they need to be addressed as much as the general public needs to address theirs, if only to keep our judgementalism in check. But speaking of the animal-eating masses, their habit of condoning killing and eating of animals is a weakness and that’s all it is. Vegans need to be able to show it for what it is, but ONLY that. No rancour, no disrespect and no value judgements. We don’t win long term commitment by inducing guilt or fear in people, only by showing we respect them and are interested in their welfare. Then we can keep them on side. Apart from wanting to be warm with people, it’s of strategic advantage to be warm. Warm translates as willing to help.
Let’s say we are together, you and I. If you look at my face, you’ll pick up all the essentials as to how I’m feeling – either I’m relating to you non-judgementally (I’ll be giving off a signal: I like you or I accept you) OR I’m being judgemental (signalling disapproval or mistrust). I might not want you to see ‘judgemental’ in me and I may not want to be judgemental, but all that’s overridden by my wanting to show off. I may want nothing more than to show my high standards. I may even be prepared to risk our relationship for the sake of this. By letting you know that I disapprove of something you do, I gamble on you finding my honesty valuable. And that shows you I’m not trying to deceive you about how I feel. But for the onlooker this may not be what they see at all – rather it will be seen as ‘covering our tracks’, blocking any opportunity of you disapproving of me.
If I’m being judgemental, it is all about values, mine and yours. It’s about me needing to establish my credentials, showing I have something to say and establishing my right to say it. If I express a moral judgement (aimed at you) you may take offence. If it’s the other sort of judgement it isn’t the same thing at all. For example, to judge the fire as hot. No one disputes that. The heat is evidence-based. That fire burns is self evident. But when I assess your values, that’s a subjective statement about my values being better than yours. My judging may not necessarily be fair or carefully researched, but because I feel it is right, I’m impelled to make my position clear. I relate my values to yours. I take it as my responsibility to impress you with my values. I may even think to shock you. What I say to you, I hope, will ‘wake you up’.
A judgement or a disapproval lands us in all sorts of deep water. It’s as clumsy an interaction as when you insult me and I punch you in the face. I do it without thought almost. I react before I’ve thought it through, and the damage is done and can only be undone with a lot of effort. This is a powerful moment, my punching you in the face. My judgement is quick, clear and almost primeval. I dislike you and I am showing it decisively. I act speedily to keep my advantage, before I can give myself time to make more considered response.
Acts like this are automatic for those who are afraid to think. Each day we make decisions without taking the trouble to consider more carefully. Perhaps that’s because we don’t have enough time or patience to consider anything much. We think and act almost simultaneously, instinctively, impulsively liking or disliking. When it comes to straight talking it might not be such a bad thing, if our friends come to know us as speakers. But if we haven’t thought carefully about it we may use the shock and attack approach and not care about their feelings or setting off a whole train of insensitivity ending us as a grand mistake. So where does that leave us? Perhaps strategically needing to be very careful about making value judgements.

Being non-judgemental

When we’re talking animal rights we use words, and it’s impossible not to expose our inner feelings when we speak. Try as we might we can’t take the judgement out of our voice if it’s already in our mind. Our words can sound benign, but if we harbour any negative personal feeling it will show in the tone of our voice, and be picked up. Anyone thinking any sort of judgement about someone’s moral values can be smelt from a distance, and be regarded as hostile. “Avoid, avoid”. So, for vegans talking animal rights, it’s almost impossible for us to win the hearts of people if we are in judgement of them.
If we wear the badge of the ‘animal liberationist’, owing to our general reputation for proselytising, we’re immediately recognised as potentially boring. So somehow we need to win people over in order to get them to stay with us long enough to listen to us. How do we do that? I would suggest by proving to them, first and foremost, that we aren’t judgemental, and if necessary to say so. To do that we first have to BE non-judgemental, truly so. We must be convinced of the futility of making moral judgements, whether it’s about the abuse of animals or about anything we consider wrong. Instead we need to see it in much the same way a doctor sees a disease, without rancour or disrespect but simply as a fault in the system, which needs help and hopefully correction. A doctor will look for a remedy to counter the destructive element, and so should we.
They say there’s cancer in everyone’s body and we have to stay healthy and keep our immune system robust to prevent it taking hold. In much the same way we need to keep a healthy resolve, to not make judgements.

Forced into peace

There’s little comfort for vegans in any stories in the media. All we hear about is how conventional food habits are flourishing. Cuisine, making full use of animal body parts, is all the rage. It’s only ever about taste experiences, variety and freshness. The TV cooks are oblivious of the animals whose bodies they use. And their use of abundant quantities of animal products is made to look like the extravagance we all deserve. There’s never a thought to the harm their rich foods do to human health let alone the harm to the animals who produce them. They are agents of indulgence and in the pay very often of the animal (and allied) industries. There’s benefit all round.
Our society is careful to elevate the chef. They do nothing to endanger the acceptability of animal produce. Vegans, on the other hand, want retribution. But our sack is empty. We have nothing coercive to fight with. This is why we seem to be silent, busting but silenced.
For those of us who are less impatient we see this to our advantage, as a movement. At this early stage we can act more effectively by not drawing attention to ourselves.
We’re in no position yet to morally browbeat. We can’t expose, we can’t ridicule, we can’t do anything of this sort to help our case, simply because our minority views are up against a vast majority attitude. Frustrating as it may be for us it’s nevertheless good training for not being too ready to judge, even in our most private thoughts. It forces us to take on total non-violence. Only by completely rethinking our attitude to those who disagree with us can we make any headway with them.

Pessimism

Pessimism is connected with things going badly wrong psychologically (some negative attitude or hatred or resentment which sours our life). It’s our pessimism making it impossible to agree to anything that might make matters worse for ourselves.
In this state of mind just holding our life together is more immediate than entertaining new ideas; dancing off into the sunlight on some adventure, exploring the human connection with … animals. Struggling to survive - in this state of thinking it’s likely we’re less receptive to sound advice. “Go away” thinking is justified by our own not-liking or trusting the person with the ‘new idea’.
When vegans take on the role of advisor, to offer what we know, we forget we need permission to come in. We need to win some trust. If we’re really compassionate, passionate and patient, we’re more likely to do just that. Then trust is established. To get to that point we need to be listening to all their reasons (for not being vegan) whilst being the compassionate all-rounder ourself. Not their judge. Trust is there if we don’t judge.
Coming back to the arsonist, judging them goes some way to satisfying the need for revenge – the wish to simply punish. The arsonist acts illegally and immorally and therefore provides a perfect excuse for everyone in the community to come together on this one matter. And because we can all take part in this judgement, we are justified in being uncharitable.
Which is what vegans sometimes do, when they hear about the latest coronary heart disease statistics. They like what they hear, because this statistic is so useful for our arguments concerning the eating of meat. Those stats do help our argument to be taken seriously but our mistake is to forget to express concern for the people with heart disease. If we ignore their tragedy we seem callous. And then our motives won’t seem trustworthy.

We want thinkers not agree-ers

If we are attempting to convince the majority that what they do is wrong (eating animals) and that they should listen to the tiny minority of vegans, we need to have something very attractive on offer. And maybe that’s what we have - without a doubt we can show the way to get off unhygienic, disease-ridden and appallingly unhealthy foods and replace them with something far better. And we also offer a way to escape involvement with horrendous animal crimes, which all consumers are part of. But there’s more. Alongside these attractions there’s the self respect in pulling away from brainwashed habits (attacking animals who can’t fight back).
Veganism stands against bullying, that’s all. It’s merely an attitude against the dominion of humans over animals and our turning them into commodities. Vegan lifestyle is cheaper, kinder, more intelligent and original – eat at a vegan household and you’ll experience food preparations, new tastes and new dishes, and the cuisine will probably be a surprise, that such food can be made from plant based ingredients.
But these are the ‘me-centred’ advantages of veganism. More significant is the attraction of advocacy, being conscience-free to act of the animals’ behalf and having no double standards weighing our arguments down. As potential activists, for the first time we are kosher. Free to speak out about the repairs needed, that could transform our species … THAT IS if enough of us take up vegan eating, etc. By moving towards being vegan (no one is totally vegan) and eventually becoming vegan, we can join a growing band of people who are concerned about the planet’s future. The same people who don’t see any form of violence playing a part. In other words by becoming vegan we allow ourselves to take a brave stand.
Vegans are brave in what they do, in their private lives and maybe also in public. Some decide to speak out, enjoy the battle despite hostility and ridicule. Other vegans choose to do it the other way, by trying to be useful and showing people their good natures. Whether we are screaming “vegan” from an orange box or arguing our case or setting an example, in whatever way we choose to express vegan principe we are doing it in the cause of the greater good. It’s something worth considering.
In terms of communicating our message and winning respect, this approach allows vegan thinking to chew over this niche idea and see it becoming the main market force. With veganism we are, effectively, selling a job-lot, including a new ‘product’, a new attitude, another whole awareness. It has to be upbeat since most people have never really thought about (and won’t want to unless it is).
More importantly, it’s a long-term set-up. Veganism is aiming at long term change. We aren’t trying to get people merely to agree with us but to think things through for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions.

The blunt instrument

The idea of Animal Liberation rescuing and liberating animals is right, and what it communicates, about the horrors of the animals’ lives in captivity, is right. And it is right to condemn those people who still continue supporting the animal industries. It’s right but does it work? Who’s left? No one is left. Everyone in the community is condemned. And therefore no one can take it seriously. It might make us feel good but it won’t work – the arsonist will continue to light fires because they’re still angry at society and the meat eating community will not be bullied into giving up their meat eating habits.
Vegans can be seen to be and very often are bullies. Even amongst one another we have vegan police types, who aren’t backward in coming forward in their criticisms of their not-quite-high-enough-reaching colleagues. So, overall, the ability of the Animal Rights Movement to carry theory into practice hasn’t worked very well, and I’d suggest that this is because we are still using the blunt instrument of judgement. And as yet, we haven’t even touched on the importance of ‘communicating with the enemy’.
We’ve found, over the years, that for all our judging and condemning it hasn’t worked quite as smoothly as we expected. There hasn’t been a mass-conversion to vegan eating or the principle of animal rights. So, can our communication failure be put down to the highly unattractive judgements we’re making? How do we come across with our harsh words and even invective?
My point is that any amount of outrage, especially from a small group of people, is largely ineffective. It’s just too easy for people to ignore us. Hence, for the vast mass of people, they can remain blissfully unscathed by protesters’ judgements. Without the support of the law (and indeed the opinion of the vast majority of ordinary people) our protest and judgement appear to be simply the ravings of a bunch of weirdos. Animal activists are deliciously ignorable. However the challenge remains and is, for some of us, a delicious prospect.

Judgement and arson

As we swelter in a heatwave, the bush (as usual at this time of the year) is burning. Houses have been lost. It was on the news. No mention of the non-human inhabitants of the bush or the domesticated animals trapped behind fences. They say the current fires were deliberately lit. There’s public fury about this and much praise for the brave fire fighters, who risk their lives mainly to save property.
The main players on the stage though are the bystanders. Fire is ugly but so are the double standards of some of those who are morally outraged by this event. Their outrage is reserved for those who deliberately light fires. Most people feel safe to speak up about this. We are selective about what outrages us - we can afford to be loud on this one but quiet about other equally atrocious crimes.
It’s interesting what fire brings out in us. As an example of a common fury, fire and arson are ripe for judgement. It’s almost exciting to have a fire so we can have something topical to talk about, where we can feel safe to judge those responsible, who are often the types of people we most dislike anyway - arsonists in particular. We’re proud to feel strongly and speak up in defence of certain victims of the arsonist, fellow humans, but humans only.
In a hot dry country like Australia, where bush fires are common, there’s no one so detested as the arsonist. They’re often juveniles with pyromaniac tendencies who are neither in control of their own impulses nor aware of being judged. They’re probably seeking recognition through destruction and perhaps they don’t fully understand what risks they’re taking, by setting fires. They cause great suffering and many deaths, mostly tragically sentient animals not to mention plant life, not to mention threats to humans. When caught the community want them severely punished, to be judged by a professional judge.
At a trial every angle is covered, witness statements, motives, background, record, mental illness, even the arsonist’s relationship with their companion animals. A judgement is made and a sentence passed.
But amateurs want to be involved – each of us wants our opinion known. Our judgement is much clumsier than the trial judge’s – ours isn’t interested in details but on justifying our thirst for vengeance. Here’s a crime that anyone can get a safe handle on and speak strongly about; our own moral outrage feels healthiest when it concerns things like arson. What’s to argue about? … the saving of lives, the saving of property, the reckless threat against both, the heartbreak over the loss of non-human life. All that outrage is expressed at a time of fire. But for another equally horrendous crime there’s silence.

When something isn’t illegal, like the killing and eating of animals, the only thing to stop it is an animal activist, making a judgement. They’re coming from their own morally outraged position, this time against those who procure animal materials. This activist is intent on shaming them (and that includes just about everybody!). They take on this responsibility simply because there’s no one else to do it. There’s no professional judge or law to protect animals, not ‘food animals’ anyway. Activists use heavy judgement about this because no one else seems to be even vaguely disturbed by the crime.
But judgement still always fails. At first glance it seems okay to have formed a judgement in the form of a strong opinion (the public’s of the arsonist, the vegan’s of the meat eater) but judging isn’t as thorough as understanding; we make judgements without enough evidence, so they’re unsupportable. Nevertheless we make them - these are relatively safe judgements, they are safe ways of venting rage, in this case against the arsonist, for lighting fires. In the same way it’s easy for vegans to justify their judgements of meat eaters, for their willingness to let animals suffer to satisfy the palate.
The meat eater is the pyromaniac’s double. They each need urgent help to cure them of similar urges - to dominate, to violate and to do it all with not a care in the world. Our judging them won’t help. It won’t help them change and it won’t do our image as Animal Rights advocates much good either.

Not letting the side down

All of us are trained from childhood to make judgements of other people - if someone seems bad or stupid or weak our judging of them makes us feel better about ourselves. We like to feel superior. It’s a god-on-my-side feeling. But by being vegan we are also trying to win recognition of the principle. It should never be about me and my enlightened position but about the crime of animal exploitation and the abolition of enslavement. Therefore we need to get a lot of people on side. We certainly shouldn’t be judging others, since we might damage the whole animal rights movement if we do. If we think we have right on our side we may make ourselves unpopular - as vegans we represent others’ interests. It’s not just our own reputation we have to think about but the reputation and safety of all concerned. By judging those who aren’t like us, it puts them off us. It turns them away from a particular way of thinking that they might have come round to in time anyway.
Memory plays tricks on us if we think that we’ve always been vegan. Apart from a very few who’ve been vegan from birth we all came from another viewpoint and along the way we’ve changed. Is it possible that we might NOT have become vegan if we’d met up with a judgemental vegan, who seemed too unattractive to identify with.
Feeling safe as a vegan should cancel out any need to be judgemental. The violence in our society is a reaction to being thought of as inferior, so we mustn’t encourage that if we don’t want to add to the problem. Violence comes out of a wish to make others feel inferior. Why would we want to do that? We’ve been taught that a dose of violence keeps people in their place or it can drag people up to our level – we presume others need improving and that we don’t? And all this is based on judgement, aggression and a disregard for the non-violence principle.

The judgement trap

Just about everyone knows how vegans view the world but how do vegans view themselves? Perhaps we think being vegan is pretty much how everyone should be, morally speaking and healthwise, but the danger is that vegans will seem as though they’re looking down from a height, perhaps boastfully, as if we are better than others. And if we think that way we might feel entitled to judge others who don’t think that way. And if we can’t get people to agree with us voluntarily we may use value judgement as a weapon against their obstinacy. If we resort to this sort of moral force, it can be seen as a subtle form of violence or aggression. It’s as if we are violating the freedom of choice, when that choice is regarded by almost everyone, the law included, as acceptable.
From an outsider’s point of view there’s something about a holier-than-thou person that is distinctly unattractive and needing to be ‘brought down to size’. Anyone who thinks themselves better, whether cleverer, wealthier, better looking or more righteous, is unattractive, simply because they seem so self satisfied.
If vegans refuse to be judgemental it changes everything. We may well have a quality which others can admire, and that counts for a lot, despite it seeming to us as too passive. Vegans often feel that if they aren’t up front that they’re being apologetic about being vegan; we’re more used to the stridency of putting our arguments into circulation, causing a disturbance to attract attention and ‘laying it on the line’. But that’s all been done before and it hasn’t built any useful momentum. Animal rights has a reputation of exposing the truth but not changing people’s minds. We have to ask why. Is it perhaps that the vegan extreme is more than people can take on board? And are we giving people a ready made excuse to avoid the truth we present by letting them think badly of us as judgmental evangelicals?
For us there are two positions to think about here: can we afford to be a benign presence who isn’t a threat or an embarrassment to others? And can we handle that self image? Surely, as vegans who knows our own strengths, we don’t need to prove anything about our self to our self. We are surely stronger if we have a completely non-violent image. As insignificant as we might be to others, we must know that our vegan principle is our own inner strength. It is there to support us when we don’t seem to be making much impact, and it can only weaken when we feel the need to boast about it. In other words being vegan allows us to remain positive and strong … as long as we never think of others as being ‘below’ us.

Exploding the myths

Vegans will always have their work cut out, persuading people to change radically. But for us it’s not just about persuading reluctant people, it’s surely also about caring for them and being useful to them, just as they are, even if they don’t appear to listen to what we say. Underneath all our anger and frustration and aggressive thoughts towards our adversaries, we have a job to do, to break the myths people are attached to and help them see things as they really are, and go on from that point.
We need to stress the same things over and over, until the penny drops – that some home truths are not as true as people believe. Many people still believe meat (and therefore animal farming) is essential for human survival, and that testing drugs on animals is the only way to have safe pharmaceuticals. People are so locked into these beliefs that we, as vegans, need to explain a different view of safety and survival, all the time emphasising compassion and the reliability of instinct in these matters. We have to persuade them to do what instinctively they know they should be doing, always within a context of non-violence.
But whatever we can get across we have to make sure we aren’t preaching, just advising. We are all hypersensitive to being criticised or being judged. We none of us like being pushed around by people who think they’re right.

World problems

There are plenty of other idea-schools contending for attention on the great issues of the day - global warming, environment, world hunger, animal welfare, and each is significant so none of them can be sidelined. But vegan mentality is the only logical starting line to all of this new approach to issues. And that is too much to handle for many people, who are already overwhelmed by world problems, and that’s before we ever get to the personal ones. Each ‘problem’ needs to be solved, one by one or preferably all together! In what ever way the problems of the world are to be solved depends a lot on attitude - do we say, “too hard, too hard” or “another day, another day”? Is there a feeling we’ll never find the answers? Are we reluctant to go beyond our mindsets to find answers? Is it all too big and too difficult?
If we do think this way, nothing will change and we’ll head straight for our own destruction.
We can’t expect politicians to fix things up for us. We need to lead the way and make our own steps forward. Small changes won’t help. Radical changes may help.

Stepping Out

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice goes looking and finds a bottle inviting her to drink. She follows the instruction, “Drink Me”, and takes a risk. She steps into the unknown. She enters another world, and her first instinct is to make friends. She meets all sorts of interesting characters but they don’t acknowledge her. She shows acceptance but they don’t reciprocate because they inhabit another world. In that world, unlike ours, they accept things as they are, undemonstrably. Theirs is not a world of change (whereas ours is). In Alice’s wonderland her characters don’t see the point of befriending her or listening to her advice. Very rude, thinks Alice. They see no purpose in following her example, and I suppose that’s a metaphor for human obstinacy.
In our world, on our ‘learning planet’, we’re given as many opportunities as we could wish for, so that change can flourish. But we hate stepping out of the familiar and into what we’re NOT used to. The “Drink Me” instruction on Alice’s bottle is not followed - kids might risk it but most of us adults wouldn’t, we’d be too set in our ways and too suspicious of entering any radically new world, even to find a new slant on our problems. I guess we’re reluctant because the new and radical seems unrealistic or even ridiculous.
But for people like vegans, we’re taking on something beyond our comfort zone. As we step away from the familiar dimension, it’s like buying a new house off the plan – it needs a leap of faith from idea to commitment. For vegans it’s a matter of boycotting commodities, and applying the idea to see what it has to offer, and then to hope for something amazing. And once found not only is it amazing but of course it’s relevant to one’s whole life, not just one part of it.
For those new to it all, looking towards vegan principle as a guide, we examine all the good arguments. Then we make an assessment. If we step onto that bridge that carries us over to a beyond-the-present world it isn’t an escape route, but it will settle us safely away from the predominantly carnivorous society. This is no holiday bridge, it’s a way across to a positional place fro which to work. By being outside, looking in, we can point to ways that our society is fundamentally flawed and repairable.
At the heart of repair is the simple principle of non-violence. To vegans harmlessness seems highly significant. But to non-vegans, who haven’t looked that far, it doesn’t represent a universal principle and so it isn’t significant enough to apply it to one’s life.
And there, between the vegan and the non-vegan, the great difference lies.
No one wants to waste time on trivial matters and veganism, to non-vegans, may seem utterly trivial in the greater scheme of things. So, vegans need explain why it isn’t. If we get a chance we have to communicate why vegan principle is significant – that it’s linked to the universality of non-violence.
Although we know what we’ve found has transformed our own lives, for others nothing like that has happened, nothing significant in their life has been transformed. For them, it’s likely, there remains a belief that no one simple principle is capable of making transformatory changes.
Vegan arguments, logics and statistics can help to turn that view around, but we need to translate everything into a language that can be understood by anyone, kids, grandparents, aunts or uncles. We have to continually return to the basics, to emphasise the importance of not being hard in our attitudes. And never cold, especially in this matter of animal treatment. Our feelings of warmth towards exploited animals is about not being cruel to weaker beings. That’s simply an anti-bullying, anti-exploitative stand. It’s at the core of what vegans need to be talking about.

Self focus

Self obsession stands in the way of self-development, so we might think to put some energy into things outside our own self interest. Maybe we do charity work, become an environmentalist or a vegetarian. But the bottom line is how much self focus there is in what we do - as in ‘my’ development, ‘my’ road to enlightenment or ‘my’ happiness. Perhaps that’s what veganism tries to point out - to be fully rounded, to see beyond self-improvement, we need another strong magnetic pull, towards empathy and compassion, the ability to ‘be with’ another, co-enjoyment, being involved with another’s problems. The more energy we put out the more impact we have and the more comes back, and yes, yes, all this has been said before, but it’s a queer turn of logic and bears mentioning yet again, that it’s a paradox: we might get more from representing another’s interests, because we can see how theirs is more important than one’s own. It requires imagination and that thing grandparents can be so good at, thinking about their grandchildren more than themselves. The pleasure they get from the children is an enjoyment combined with a particular type of self denial. One can see them being this way and marvel – they make it look so easy, to be thinking about others before thinking about themselves. Now if we apply that exquisite pleasure to earning a good reputation with the animals that brings us straight into the arms of vegan principles.
If we decide to become a vegan we have to see it not as a restriction but a liberation – it’s “the privilege and pleasure … we treasure beyond measure” that counts in the end. Veganism isn’t just about abstaining from eating certain foods, it’s about developing something all-round better. Food-wise it means healthier food, ethics-wise it means compassion, and yes, yes, that’s all very good, but what about ‘my happiness, my development’? That’s where most of us are now. tangled up in too much self and not enough un-self.
The main purpose of our lives is to succeed. Success is golden, especially when we reach our own goals. That makes for quite a lot of happiness. So, it seems logical that we need to find happiness in taking on responsibility to do the right thing … and then making sure we have enough energy to keep it up. With good nutrition and clear conscience we can work miracles. At first we make resolutions and then we settle for the ones we have a pretty fair idea we can keep.

Lambs to the slaughter

Here in Australia we’re coming up to summer. The male of the species take this season very seriously. Throughout the summer months males practise their culinary skills with Sunday BBQ in the Park, or wherever. During the cremations otherwise nice picnic spots are made uninhabitable for non-meat eaters. The smell!! Surrounded by trees and birds and all nice things the Male practises for “D” Day on January 26th (a national-pride day, when everyone gets pissed and eats lamb chops). It’s called ‘Australia Day’, or by some of us ‘Invasion Day’. It’s a day where celebrations takes the form of roasting meat over flames. This is The Great Ozzie BBQ.
A popular victim of these celebrations is the sheep. Humans’ taste for cooked young flesh means they eat the lambs of sheep. (They’re executed very young – for tender purposes!). Salivatingly, Australia Day is a day to-be-looked-forward-to. It’s celebrated by a back-to-nature fire ritual, roasting lambs over open flames. Disgusting as it may sound it’s a habit. Nobody has to think about it since it’s just the way things are done. “We’ve always done it – eaten lambs – and we like doing it and have done it so often we don’t notice what it is. And what’s more we can’t stop – we’re addicted to the taste and excited by the smell of it being cooked”.
And this is just one of the many ugly habits we have. Especially when it comes to ‘animal’ we can’t contemplate giving it up.
What troubles some of us is our own lack of self-discipline. We can’t give up smoking, can’t kick the bottle, can’t stop eating those cutlets, and if we meet people who’ve kicked their addictions it makes us feel twice as bad. We might call them ‘the self-improved’, and when ‘they’ don’t seem like us we dislike them and it’s likely we’ll come to dislike their ideas and in the end dislike the whole idea of ‘self improvement’.

But that’s not to say we don’t want any sort of self-improvement. We’d all become self-improved if it meant being rich and famous. Why waste time on being disciplined about not eating animals. Why bother, especially if it only means saving a few lambs from being executed?

Their eyes glaze over

Vegans are familiar with that look. Often too polite to tell us, but to themselves it’s “I don’t have to listen to this crap”. Most people are alert to the lead-up vegans use to get a point across, subtle means whereby we edge around to talking animal stuff. To the listener it’s not difficult to spot – when someone mentions something (that will establish the difference between one viewpoint and another “…but should we be eating animals?”) that they intend us to listen to. It’s often dripped into a conversation. One knows what’s coming and prepares to ignore it.
Certain things we learn not to be aware of. My grandparents lived on a train line, and when I was young I sometimes stayed with them and the noise of steam engines passing the window was deafening, but after a while I could sleep at night as they roared past. This switch-off ability is the same one that’s used to avoid hearing what we don’t want to hear, in this case what a vegan might be saying.
So, for us, trying to get our message across, is infuriating. All we see is a blank look, a resistance. We try to get through it but often fail … and what happens next is understandable but may be the reason why we are having so little impact on people, because we are not as battle-hardened as we could be.
It’s so frustrating that so many people simply tune out …so, we become exasperated … we try to barge past their defences …go for the jugular … dig right into people’s guilt or fear, in the hope we’ll bring them around by force. If only!
Health talk and fear of personal illness works on some level, but it doesn’t magically lead to a respect for vegan principles or an enthusiasm for animal liberation. Trying to change people’s attitudes by making them feel guilty or afraid is a sure fire way to make them run away. It’s a tactic that might have worked a hundred years ago (if there had been vegans around then, which there weren’t) but it won’t work today … because there is such an overwhelming number of omnivores. Amongst the young especially, few seem to be suffering from the foods they’re eating. They don’t seem to be consumed by guilt. For them, things seem to be working and …if it works why fix it? People identify with their peers as well as those people with attractive personalities, and so it’s easy NOT to identify with animal activists. We often seem frustrated, exasperated and aggressive. Amongst any group of people, of any age, the norm is still meat eating and switching off compassion when food’s on the table. What people do have a problem with is confrontation, especially over moral issues, where their own ethical values and self-discipline are being questioned. Free-willed people don’t take kindly to being told what to do or what to eat.

See no evil hear no evil

When vegans say “change to plant-based food” it’s about the most troubling advice anyone could be given because, on the one hand it sounds right but, on the other it goes against the grain. Veganism touches the most sensitive nerve in our body, personal survival. We’d rather live the life we know than risk a journey into the unknown.
However much vegans promise good times ahead, however fit and energetic and calm-minded they seem, basic survival instinct nearly always kicks in. It rules our head, overrides logic, compassion, the lot. At this crucial point between stage three and stage four (thinking about it and thinking about doing it), it’s only will power that keeps our minds clear enough to weigh our options - ideally, theoretically, the vegan regime seems right but in practice it means leaving part of our present life behind. Going vegan is like a second weaning.
People do hear what we say but they don’t process it, for fear of how it might affect them. When they purposely forget what they hear, it’s like tuning out the radio or closing the book. We avoid unpleasant information, and it’s easy to avoid because most others do.
Any time vegans are successful in getting others to listen, we assume more willingness on their part than they may feel. We think we’re communicating something valuable to them. They, on the other hand, simply hear a vegan speech. And they know they don’t have to listen to it, so they glaze over. It’s like when the ads come on TV and we switch our attention to something else.
Because the information is about animal suffering the whole experience of listening can be unpleasant. That’s why it’s our job to use imagination, to gauge how much unpleasant stuff we can let out, and balance it by mentioning the uplifting aspects of vegan principle.

Why people resist

The theory and practice of veganism are at odds here. Ideally and logically our arguments are very clear and attractive … to us. But the perception of them by others can be quite different. A communication wall exists between how we see it and the way others do. The logic goes something like this: we have, within vegan principles, the most inspiring statement of non-violence anyone can make, just by the sort of food we choose to eat and therefore the philosophical statement we choose to make. At every meal we prove that we’re no longer in league with the animal industries, and that qualifies us to say something groundbreaking about food and about ethics. But that’s not the same thing as having something universally interesting to impart or being invited to speak about it - what we have on offer may not be the currency that other people are familiar with. So, it isn’t just a case of announcing the arrival of a unique eating regime and automatically inspiring the meat eaters to roll over. Ideal conditions we don’t have. People are not queuing up to hear what we have to say.
So, we have to keep returning to the drawing board to ask ourselves what it is we are really dealing with? It’s not just stubbornness. It’s not only that people don’t want to be told what to do by us. It’s probably much more to do with the difficulty people are having in admitting to themselves that they are eating particular foods three times a day which ethically they should not be eating. And none of us should have been eating them, ever. But in the West we eat the wrong food and have done so at the rate of about a thousand meals per year, for every year we’ve lived. In other words no one wants to admit they’ve been wrong for so long. To restore the balance, to make things right, we’re not just suggesting that people change an occasional token item on their shopping list, but forgo favourite foods (as well as other commodities) for the sake of a higher principle, and move on into another world of plant based foods and non-animal clothing. And never look back.
Put that way it seems like a massive undertaking. For people to agree with this might seem unlikely, however the argument logically holds up. The principles vegans suggest are the best ones to live by can serve us well. Immediately they overturn an addiction to dangerous foods, and as with any addictive substance getting ‘clean’ is always going to be attractive and daunting at the same time. It’s as exciting as breathing fresh air after almost suffocating. And yet we tend to stick what is familiar. Our resistance is solid. It’s reinforced everyday in the media, in food shops, in advertising, in the nutritional advice we’re given and just by the common usage of these foods. It’s doubly reinforced by the fact that no one speaks against animal foods or farm animal treatment even though they purport to be our spiritual or educational advisers, and that’s because they are users themselves.

Solo exploring

Each of us may feel highly inspired, and perhaps we think we don’t care if no one else understands us, but in the end we will have to care enough to condense everything we believe into one single thread from which all our ideas will spring: veganism, animal rights, non-aggression, health and happiness, each one stemming from the idea of working with Nature rather than against it. The human race has been struggling to dominate Nature for a long time, and this is the cause of so many of our most serious problems. We need to find a way of going back to a more natural lifestyle. We don’t have to revert to primitive living, but just find a way to use our present sophisticated human systems and base them on vegan principles of harmlessness. Working out how to do things this way is likely to be what future discovery is all about, and the more we discover the more we will want to communicate it to others.
To do that requires a morale strong enough to overcome the odds against us. As people have found out (who’ve pursued non-violent methods, including those who’ve become vegan) there isn’t much support from family or friends or the general public or even vegan colleagues. So much of it has to be worked out on our own, and kept together without much outside help. Those of us who’ve decided to devote our time and energy to promoting animal rights have taken on this sort of challenge … perhaps with a will. There are still very few pro-active vegans in number and they are widely dispersed. Rather like foreign ambassadors, feeling very alone, unsupported, vulnerable and at times depressed by this surprising lack of support. And yet what we’ve been inspired by is of such importance that, come what may, it’s essential to maintain momentum. Animal Rights is no contemplative order. It isn’t based on prayer or wishful thinking but on the active search for solutions and a search for break throughs of attitude. It isn’t only about doing one’s duty to help animals or trying to convert people but about making the hard work we’ve taken on enjoyable; deriving pleasure and satisfaction from everything we do. And from that our solo explorations can take on a momentum of their own.

Transition stages

Feeling part of the Animal Rights Movement is just the beginning of the advantages a vegan lifestyle offers. It also helps us to develop the skills we need to communicate compassion, trust and a certain lightness of being which makes people less afraid of us. And if people aren’t afraid we’ll do a Jeckyl and Hyde on them - friendly one minute, hostile the next - non-violence is all they will see. As long as we can maintain that ‘working trust’ with people, we’re helping them get to (stage 3) where they are now open to suggestion, and willing to take this subject seriously. (See Blog 505, Persuasion, October 27th – stage 3 and 4)
The next stage (stage 4) is the first stage of being vegan, remembering how it was to be non vegan. It’s the start of knowing that it works for us and wanting others to try. And it’s perhaps the first time of realising how difficult it is to talk about this subject. It’s at this point we gather new arguments with which to change the world!

Passionate talking

Sunday 8th November

If vegan activists are in the business of talking about animals it all adds up to a great personal challenge, which can become, in itself, our main reason-to-be. The whole animal rights thing has to be one of the greatest challenges we can possibly face, whether we are struggling to change our eating habits or struggling to get the vegan message across. Unless we can deal with these struggles and find them meaningful we’ll never be able to discuss this subject with people who are still oblivious to it. The subject is broad, its implications touch every branch of life if only because the human condition is always darkened by our resorting to violence to solve our problems. There is hardly anything we do, involving others, that is not in some way improved by considering non-violence.If we try to make Animal Rights/Veganism just an ethics or health issue we will be selling it cheaply. It is all that, but so much more. It opens the inner human eye to another world in which we can find peace of mind. Vegans are, after all, developing a compassionate instinct which sends a sense of body-health and clarity-of-thinking shimmering through our very soul. But all in all, this subject gives us the chance to enjoy serious conversations which have nutritional, environmental and ethical implications, that are always more interesting than discussing the latest house prices