Communicating compassionately

Friday 28th May 2010
Vegan principle needs to be spelt out if only to stop the rot amongst omnivores. If we can overlook something as obviously wrong as factory farming (immobilising animals to make them work more like machines) then this needs deconstructing. Vegans might seem like people snatching the chicken nugget out of the hands of children. So we need to turn that around. From snatcher to attracter, we need to show how the alternative can be so much more fulfilling, breaking the attachment to the ubiquitous chicken nugget.
‘Not-wanting’ is a long step away from ‘addictive-wanting’ especially when guilt is so heavily associated with the wanting, of say chicken nuggets. The omnivore will want to keep quiet about the wrong of it, and will do almost anything not to have to face facts. If we look at any damage we do to others (something we may want to do and someone else wants to persuade us NOT to do) we’ll avoid looking, if we can get away with it. Vegans themselves avoid certain truths too and this helps us to understand ‘avoidance’. For most of us our vegetables and fruits come from a monoculture that is destroying the land but we want these products and want them cheap. These vegetables must be produced by ‘intensive means’, by farmers who want to stay in business. Competition is the main reason intensive methods are used, so whether it’s animal farming or arable farming, these operations provide us with our food and our very energy and life. If we move away from the standard food product (whatever it might be) we enter a world of ideal conditions and high prices. At sometime we’ll have to deal with the ‘wrong’ of it. That may mean vegans themselves have to eat less so that they can buy better, which means changing habits and denying what we want. All this helps us to understand omnivores better. If we can experience what they are facing we’re in a better position to help. And that involves a compassionate communication of vegan principle.