Violence Mark II

If a submarine can’t withstand the pressure, and it can’t be taken down deep enough to reach the sea bed, another machine has to be built to go down deeper. For us, trying to get to the bottom of people’s thinking, we have to have a subtler and stronger machine. An approach full of creativity and engagement. We’re not converting the heathens we’re simply attempting to get to the bottom of this warped attitude about animal-use in our society.
Omnivores hold animals in contempt …
“What? I love animals! How dare you say I hold them in contempt?”
The omnivore sees animals as inferior because they can’t feel or think as we can and can’t defend themselves against us. How this impacts on animals isn’t important – they deserve our ‘contempt’. Perhaps deep down we humans have contempt for any weakness, like the inability to defend oneself, like the animals. Would that be a typical predator attitude warped by humans? Have we leapt from the pastures of survival to the palaces of cushions and did the spring in our step come by way of violence? (that’s the warped-by-human variety, the ‘violence mark II’ version of violence, which came about after the mid 1940s in the West.)
The holding of animals in contempt allows us to exploit them in order to enjoy all their good-to-eat qualities.
This warping of the basic predator instinct may be the result of a very deliberate flouting of rules. Gassing Jews and caging hens happened at about the same time and is a good example of Mark II violence. There was a major outcry when people learned about the Holocaust. At the same time what was beginning to happen to farm animals was so diabolical that it alerted early vegans to risk all to prove the point - that we need no animal products to survive and therefore we can make our peace with them.
Vegans did, and still do, mark that switch from how we felt as kids to how we feel now as adults. (As kids we use naked love to relate and as adults we use contempt to get what we want). This solid attitude barrier is put into place, it’s our passport to adulthood. It’s an initiation which is deep-set throughout the whole of human society.
Those who break this culture, vegans, might approach omnivores with some trepidation. We may seem to come in as outsiders who’re trying to be a good influence – who need to be sharply turned away. People are not stupid; they know how to push us away. (They may be mad enough to be omnivore but they aren’t completely daft). Whether we’re talking about kids being in danger from weirdos or adults being alert to dangerous ideas, all people, whether adult omnivores or children, know when they’re “being approached in an inappropriate way”. If vegans come on too strong they’ll be pushed away. This is why we, as vegans, should try to communicate “animal rights and veganism” as if we’re offering up the keys to the kingdom. We hardly need to come on with the attack approach.