Vegan

"Vegan" conjures up the idea of difficulty, so it’s dishonest to say becoming vegan is easy. Our listeners aren’t fools – they can see veganism isn’t complicated to understand but is probably quite hard to carry out. It is based on a set of principles so simple a small child could understand it, but in reality it means a lot of giving-up of things. To contemplate giving up familiar and favourite food, for example, isn’t something we do hastily. Considering veganism, we bring on a taste bud revolt. It involves mainly food but not only food. There are clothing items, shoes made of leather, entertainments using animals, cosmetics tested on animals - the list is long. Then there are social factors involved in becoming a vegan, handling being a social misfit, being ridiculed by others, etc. But to get it all into proportion we have to remember that it’s a beautiful and mighty principle we, as vegans, are promoting. Surely, we can put up with the pain of being misunderstood, especially when we think of the advantages we get, of a clear conscience, a healthy body and the beneficial effect (of a plant based diet) making for a clearer mind and faster brain. Admittedly, it’s a discipline and therefore we have to work at it, but we are undoubtedly contributing not only to the ‘greater-good’ but to a better carbon footprint. And the plant-based diet we adopt, if taken up by large numbers of people would, in the end, lead to the eradication of world hunger, since most of the plant food currently being grown is still being fed to animals, so that they can be ‘grown’ to feed humans. Vegans cut out that whole wasteful process entirely. But the greatest advantage of veganism is in the significance of its disassociation with animal cruelty. Whatever hardships vegans might have to put up with, nothing compares with the suffering of the animals. So nothing is as important as boycotting products and sparing so many innocent beings from unnecessary pain and suffering. That is what ultimately cements vegan resolve and ultimately makes sense of what we say.
But veganism isn’t a breeze. It’s still difficult for people who want to be vegan, especially if they have a mental block about how to get past addictions to their favourite foods (especially if there’s a nagging belief that a plant-based diet might be unsafe). All the more reason then that we, as vegans, should realise where most people are at and why what we are saying may be frightening. And if we speak aggressively it can be both shocking and insulting. For example, the slogan “Meat is Murder” is really saying “You are a murderer” and for that reason alone vegans need to ease up on the invective. Accusing people of this is seen as an attack. Is it valid to attack like this? How careful should we be with our words? Surely it’s valid to point out the nasty side of human nature, even though we know people will turn away if we do? It’s always a toss up between need-to-know and wanting-not-to-know.
If it is valid to speak very openly then what exactly is this aspect of human nature we’re trying to draw people’s attention to? It is common to everyone, vegans included. For all of us ‘our shadow’ exists. It is that part of us we want to hide, not the gentle, generous side but the hard, mean-hearted side. Vegans may say things that shock and people’s reaction is predictable, but as soon as veganism is mentioned, something funny happens between people. As soon as, in a conversation, the penny drops that ‘animal rights’ is the subject and not health or diet, a defence shield goes up. If vegans decide to try to talk about animal rights, we must to decide beforehand how far to go and let intuition guide us by the moment. At times we have to talk openly and at other times pull back. By pressing forward we don’t know where someone’s breaking point is going to be, if they’ll see it as a personal attack or if they’ll be stimulated by our challenge.