The gulf between vegan and omnivore

Saturday 25th September 2010

We live amongst them, we talk to them, we hope to win them over, but is there a big turn-around in vegan attitude needed, from confrontation to a true sympathy and compassion? That’s worth discussing. My view is that we all (vegans) have to get over being ‘insistent’. Even though it’s a significant issue for us (and also for the animals themselves) it seems that perception rules, especially mass perception. Human beliefs can be as change-proof as reality itself … things are as we believe them to be, so many would say, “life without hamburgers is no life”.
To carry someone across this wide gulf, between that last statement and where we say instead “hamburgers are poison and I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole”, is a massive challenge. Their wanting their favourite foods clashes with a dissatisfaction with themselves on another level; the popular animal foods represent two distinct horrors, that of the poisoning effect on one’s health and the poisoning of conscience, over the animals who suffer because of our own wanting.
Intuitively vegans know reversing this in the omnivore is going to be difficult. Even if we can persuade them, we know they can’t stay vegan for long if they’re hankering for something that’s ‘off the list’. It’s the ‘list’ of things not being allowed which seems to represent the torture for omnivores. And yet they might suspect that it could be worth it, for it might be a light at the end of the tunnel.