Morals

We have an animal rights movement with excellent arguments but we still think we can better persuade people by emphasising the horrific violence of animal treatment. It does seem the most obvious thing to do, and yet because almost everyone identifies their own habits with that horror they turn away. People will always find a way NOT to see themselves as monsters. But still the animal rights advocates persist in trying to shame people into becoming vegan. It sometimes works too, but mostly it doesn’t. We’ve been banging on about the horrors for thirty odd years and still only a very tiny minority of people have changed to vegan diets. We’re still a million miles from having a 50% support base. And without that we will remain utterly powerless to help any animals. Surely, if we want to succeed we have to have a better understanding of why people are not coming across to our way of thinking. We have to start thinking outside the circle, beyond the shaming and moralising. We have to go back to where the mind manipulation starts in order to find ways of making our arguments meaningful.
In a supposedly morality-driven world people are still juggling with the absurd notion that, whilst thinking themselves peace-makers that they can still afford to continue with a few violent habits. The example has been set by the double standards of our educational and religious institutions. They always advocate non-violence but come unstuck over this troublesome issue of animal exploitation. Our leaders know that it would be dangerous to encourage people to alter their food choices or to mess about with that one big resource at our disposal – animals! For them to advocate stoping using them, to liberate animals in fact, would threaten the stability of society, so the connection between animal cruelty and violence is underplayed. In fact they attempt to hide it from the public (especially kids who are rarely taught about what happens to the animals they’re eating). This shows up our society’s moral codes as decidedly dodgy. On top of this, the authorities are very ready to condemn certain harmless behaviours (like fornication) but are happy to ignore the immorality of routine attacks made on animals. That’s quite confusing, even destabilising. And for those who bother to think things through there is a general disillusionment with our society’s moral codes. It encourages many of us to go back to basics, to our own instinctive assessment of what is right and wrong. We can no longer trust people in authority for our moral guidance. So the very idea of an authority based upon tradition begins to look old fashioned and ridiculous.
It seems that most people do want to see themselves as ethical people. In most respects we may lead our lives ethically and feel pretty good about ourselves but, unless vegan, we will have to make an exception, when it comes to the part we play in the imprisoning, attacking and killing of animals.
If anything we do is written up as being morally acceptable one would think it has undergone scrutiny. But for almost all people, on this thorny problem of using animals, there’s reluctance. Morally and ethically speaking, attitudes to animals don’t stand up at all well. There is an attempt to brush it all under the carpet.