No umbrage taken

Blog 800
Our fellows (perhaps almost all humans!) denigrate the practical application of non-violence (for obvious reasons). Overall they see it as a weakness (big insult to vegans!!). This is where vegans need to be super tolerant, even of the silliest attitudes. Where a bit of extra humanity is called for.
The befriending of people with opposite attitudes is hard for us; they eat what we don’t eat, wear what we don’t wear and they have an attitude about animal-use that we don’t share . That covers a lot of ground. How are they going to view us, setting an example for them? In order to protect themselves they have to oppose us. How do we deal with this?
If they see us as whingeing, tree hugging, pacifist, lettuce-eating, bleeding-hearts, then we get offended. Of course we know it’s all spin but it hurts. The trick is not to show it, then not even feel it. It’s not ordinary people’s faults that they think this way. They’ve been got at and we have too. We’ve been done like a dinner by the professionals employed in the ‘maligning’ department of the Animal Industry. We’ve been sold to a gullible public as weaklings.
That information outlet, through its allied business branches (comprising every vested interest, from abattoir to grocery, each has an interest in planting images of us; we who’d have them OUT of business in a flash, given half the chance. Potentially for them we are enemy, thankfully still small in number.
We, as vegans, have to deal with their spin on us. We have to see it as part of the rough and tumble of being a vegan activist.
If we can cope with their denigration we can cope with anything. They may be many but their hold is weak. Our only job here is to make sure we’re strong with what we say, disprove their arguments and disabuse them of our false reputation. We can do that best by our bearing, but also by showing off a bit … just for the entertainment value, you understand.
By deliberately withstanding the ice in people’s attitudes (whether they relate to us or to animals) we show we have nerves of steel. If we can hold them for one brief moment, if we can keep our nerve, they might come round … mainly because they’ll see us as real people (as distinct from rabbits). And what if they don’t? Well on one level it doesn’t matter, because before anything can move on anyway we all need to know where we stand with each other.
Once we can declare our principles everything else slots neatly into place - issues bring up attitudes and these square off with our own need to be loved and respected by others. A struggle between global issues and personal image, which would be just fine if we humans hadn’t gone overboard on image lately. We’ve veered to one side (allowing all sorts of cruel and destructive things to go unnoticed) and we are presently readjusting our focus. It’s just that recently, our thirst to outdo the competition and the need to be approved of by others has swept us away. It’s blown us into the hands of ‘the bastards’. The producer: we consumer.
The humans, as a race of individuals (acting co-operatively), would only need to look outwards at the greater good to become less attached to climbing social ladders. If these ladders go nowhere it’s because they aren’t relevant to today’s issues, most of which need urgent action. Social standing may be important but it fades to nothing compared to issues concerning the very survival of our society, our species and our planet.
Before anything can move on we must fix up the mess on the floor. The damage caused by misinformation and money-grabbing has made life into a race for advantage. It’s like the pyramid-selling scam always ending in tears. Unless we turn it around, co-operating instead of competing, things can only get worse.
We’ve accepted some bad advice. Our punctured membrane needs repair, before we can move on. For vegans, who’ve done massive repairs already, everything can be a downhill-run, an enjoyment of love-generated, motivationally-inspired, enthusiastic, passionate, life-sacrificing energy. In fact it can be enjoyable, this repairing, if only because it promises to expand our energy exponentially, on a self-perpetuating basis. “The more you put in the more you get out”.
Ah, yes, this is what dreams are made of, made for, but we’ve got more than dreams going on here. Once we use this self-perpetuating machine (this balanced selfish-unselfish principle of real altruism) wemust take care not to slip on our own self-aggrandisement.
Idealism, motivated by love, may be good for vegans who love animals, but it applies just as well to anyone who is primarily motivated to be protective.
With this in mind, “protecting”, we can concentrate on the work in hand. And that way we’ll be far too busy to obsess about our image or our political progress or the state of our (compassion-driven) enlightenment. We’ll be quite content to act simply as a service. We are, after all, nothing more than ordinary people who’re enjoying taking the piss out of omnivores.
On a more serious note, to end this blog, I think most of us love the voluntary nature of our ‘work’. The work for vegans is to impart information. We aren’t here to restore our image or listen to wagging tongues and we’re certainly not here to take umbrage!!