Pushing home our ideas

(Blog no. 500)

It’s like we, as vegans, have become strangers in our own land, having taken on a different culture linked with a different sensitivity. So we have to emphasise that we aren’t trying to draw attention to ourselves or show that we’re better than anyone else, we are just front line experimenters. We’re working on the difficult, initial, transitional stages of a switch-over - introducing a new idea to people.
Ours is a life-saving idea that will aid human development. However grand our goal may seem, however optimistic, we don’t stand on street corners shouting about it. We don’t need the ‘crazy’ tag! We simply need to be low key promoters and providers of ideas, helping people escape from their ridiculous eating habits as well as their enslavement to political corporations. Vegans generally want to help improve the quality of life. We believe we have a to save ourselves and the animals at the same time.
We are trying to persuade people to listen, because there’s a link between this issue (animal cruelty and human ill health) and all the other main issues facing us at the moment. Animal issues point very logically to the initial problems we have today.
We humans are probably now at the end of our most destructive phase and on the brink of a more positive realisation: that the universe is powered by what we know as ‘love’ which in turn rests on a bed of non-violent involvement with each other. At this root point we are in the process of deciding which way we go, so it’s not just dealing with the most urgent problems, like global warming, environmental protection or disease and diet, we need to fix our attitude to harmlessness first. Can we live on this planet relatively harmlessly? If we can, then the human race may face a very bright future. With non-violence as our rule no. 1, we can more efficiently and permanently tackle the other great problems facing us.
So, this is what vegans (or at least some of us) are trying to persuade others to think about - the possibility of maintaining a productive society without the use of domination or animal enslavement. Nothing will change if we try to fight violence with violence. But if we aren’t using violence then what do we use? Maybe we don’t have the word for it but we all know what it might feel like - pro-active non-violence or stirring the pot without spilling or challenging people without making value judgements – something along these lines is surely the way we’re heading. Most of us are so over war of any sort.
The war on animals is the first one we can stop, each of us can bring that to an end inside our own kitchens. Unless we display a non-violent (yet irresistible) approach there may be no other way of stopping the destruction … and so the consumer will continue to feel unwell … and so the atrocities against animals will continue. The world will continue to seem a very ugly place (which of course it is NOT!!). Our collective ‘greatest challenge’ is to find subtler and more persuasive ways of reaching one another. Sowing the seeds of ideas on willing ground without having drilling them in first.
Still compelled to using our disapprovals and judgements to show how pissed off we are, it’s also a strong statement to show how determined we are. But whether it’s ‘meat is murder’ or ‘death to Israel’, all slogans seem aggressive and tacky. It doesn’t have currency in the sort of world we’re stepping into. When we’re being aggressive, it’s in our voice and our body language. Our attitudes show how we believe. For those moving towards veganism our approach should reflect not only how we’ve given up meat but that we’ve given up the aggro personality or using violent or quasi-violent means to improve the human condition.