‘Active’ vegans

Passive vegans eat what they eat and speak modestly, according to their principles. ‘Active’ vegans attempt to win people over, which is a noble enough pursuit as long as they don’t punch holes in people’s parachutes. When they threaten the safety of one’s private world, touch home habits, breach etiquette, it comes as a shock. It seems like bad manners. The force with which a judgement can be hurled shocks and frightens. No one likes that, nor wants to be familiar with it. It’s unlike any other sort of criticism, from anyone else. And it’s noticeably different from the advice we receive from our own inner voice, conscience, when it’s talking to us, because we feel we have some sort of control over whether we listen or don’t listen. Whereas with a live adult person standing in front of you, barring the way, one has to take notice and take some sort of defensive action.
The worst shock is the emergence of a new fear - the fear of the Moral Police. It happens unexpectedly. Here I am (every day) at breakfast, perhaps reading the paper, half acknowledging the presence of others at the table. And there’s this vegan, about to make a witty comment (judgementally) about my omelette. And bang! Right out of the blue comes an attack. An intrusion not dissimilar to me walking into your bedroom or bathroom and finding you naked.
If you’re a vegan, have you ever looked inside someone’s fridge and found ‘evidence’, and then noticed the look on their face when you shut the fridge door? They usually excuse what’s inside.
What is on their mind when they react? They’re wondering what we saw in there. They’re embarrassed. And this may be one very good, if subconscious, reason why they don’t ask us around again, for fear of our looking too closely at their private life.

At party nasty vegan opens fridge door

The nasty vegan searches every opportunity to judge, in the spirit of “never wasting a good judgement”. And on top of the value judgements they’ll pile enough righteous indignation to stymie any real chance of a conversation on this subject. They find any excuse to launch a full-frontal-attack-cum-diatribe. The worst of them are nasty preacher-types, who like to see the omnivore squirm. We do like a nice bit of ‘revenge’!
For the very, very, nasty vegans, judging is quite a thrill. It’s intoxicating. But, like being pissed all night and hung over the next morning, we may realise too late that we’ve slipped into sermon-mode. So much for conversation when the resident vegan turns it pear shaped.
The trouble is, talking deeply about something like Animal Rights or Vegamnism is rare. When there’s a chance we grab it a little too hard. And that enthusiasm shows and it’s a waning signal to all, that a conversation is turning into a diatribe. It’s probably the same with anyone who knows their own subject and loves to rave on about it. Take a parson on religion or an engineer on bridges, it’s almost guaranteed that if you give them an inch they’ll take a yard, and bore you silly. Worse if they’re funny. Jokes act like fly-trap glue, intended to ‘hold the audience’; give a talkative vegan a chance to have their say and they’ll often be witty or cutting. Delicious on one level, sharply painful on another.
Okay, well I suppose it’s obvious where this is heading. When vegan are ‘at their best’ that’s also where the worst damage can be done. This is where we sound most interesting but in reality where our ‘listener’ stops identifying with us. This is where they conclude that we are predictable ... where they graduate towards “not being at all sure if I like this person”.
After which, and for ever onwards, this vegan (and by association all vegans) smell so badly that they’ll be avoided in future.

Going in for the kill

Judgements shock, especially when we judge someone’s values. “You are wrong doing what you do, eating what you eat”. It’s a heavy judgement that implicates both meals and snacks, every day. It’s a criticism of the mindlessness of every chocolate bar eaten, every ham sandwich and anything else making use of animals. It’s eaten because it tastes good.
“You are wrong ...” - to hear that hurts. It undermines a person’s sense of being right. Vegans, who judge out loud, cause some shock. Perhaps up to now “no one has ever spoken to me this way before”. No one, before, has actually criticised what one routinely eats, from a moral point of view.
Along the way, maybe we’ve met a few vegetarians who’ve advocated healthier food or better animal welfare. We’ve heard of battery eggs and some people switching to free range. But never before have we been confronted about the wrongness of all foods connected with animals, including by-products.
To almost everybody, eating is like breathing, it’s not something we question when young or when older. The foods we eat are what Mum fed us. How can they be “wrong”?
Vegans who judge an omnivore’s diet usually provoke anger. Provocation is a blunt instrument to get people to change. How else do we do it? It seems the most obvious thing to do.
It’s a trap though. Many omnivores aren’t stupid, and they know precisely what we’re up to when we provoke them, and if they’re not ready for us immediately they sure to be next time. These days it’s unlikely the average Western educated person will be unaware of veganism or at least that there is an ‘animal-rights’ angle. If we vegans come along and spring a heavy message on a person we’ll have an impact, but we might not get away with it for long. People will wise up to us (as one does with Jehovas Witnesses knocking at the front door - we see them and shut the door straightaway perhaps). They’ll shut off.
A kindly, non-quarrelsome omnivore will put up with what we’re saying and even say some nice things (perhaps to shut us up). The may reckon we’re caring and compassionate, even tell us they think we seem wise, and do so because they want to come across as polite, friendly and interested … but inside their heads – what are they really thinking?
When we point out something important - “Do you know that that meat you’re eating, it was once a …” - we don’t always realise how we provoke not only anger but fear.
“You know it will destroy your health? …”
It’s so easy for a vegan of even average public speaking skills to say what needs to be said and in effect make fools of people. And then it’s not so difficult to go that step further to corner them. Then the omnivore tries to escape by saying something indefensible, untrue or just plain foolish. And then ... we’ve got them. It’s similar to any attack and therefore a strong defence is not unexpected.
Is this the way omnivores see vegans, as “right” yet obnoxious? I think they probably do. And they’ll tell their friends, “If a vegan come along and has a chat with you, watch out! Be afraid of saying something really stupid, and beware the (nasty) vegan, who’ll seize it, amplify it and then go in for the kill!”

The vegan advantage

It’s probable that our most productive days in-public are yet to come. In the meantime our making value judgements about others is like setting light to a whole box of firecrackers at once. We get one big bang and then nothing. Judging the values of others is a waste of time. Why bother? What’s the use of all this moral judgement and nagging anyway? Why judge someone’s dinner? Why criticise their shopping? … unless we’re sure why we are wanting to criticise. Mixed motives are in the very least confusing. Could it be that some of us have another agenda alongside our more noble agenda? Could it not be beyond-the-bounds-of-possibility that we like attacking? Don’t we all like a bit of battle? (You can see why omnivores get nervous when we’re around!). But this ‘judging’ of ours, it’s not so much wrong as a waste of good energy and, for vegans addicted to judging, it’s a bit of classic trap, where we lose our best advantage.

What’s happened to discussing things?

Just by way of our diet and clothing choices we engage in violence – omnivores violate animals at almost every meal they eat. The softie in them must question why they are helping to kill so many animals?
That question must hang in the air … because we’re not in the pulpit but down on the ground, face to face, trying to make sense of things, knowing that ‘the truth’ is sometimes too raw. If we are trying to initiate discussion of animal-use we need to be able to bring up certain matters without blowing the fuse (short circuiting a person’s defence shield). Imagine if we went around speaking frankly (on how we feel about animal-eating), we’d lose all our friends. We’d put everyone off especially if we have a devil-may-care attitude to what we’re saying. We probably like to be daring with our words, as if we’re taking on the entire world, but we have a long way to go before making any serious challenge. So, in the spirit of cutting our coat according to our cloth, if we do make accusations and get caught out, we have to know we can recover without losing the whole argument.
Now to a tricky moment - the urge to cut in. If we don’t cut in, cut across what someone is saying it may look as though we haven’t got a solid answer to what they’ve just said. If we don’t interrupt, it looks as though we are taking too much time to answer because we aren’t sure how to answer. But interrupting causes anger and the discussion goes pear-shaped. From here on in it’s all emotion, ego and being ‘right’.
Stirring the emotional dragon with friends and family is bad enough but if we try to railroad reporters we’ll bring down the wrath of the press on ourselves. Then we’ll see how quickly things can turn against us. The media can be vicious, damning us if it suits the story they’re after.
If we must value-judge omnivores let’s do it in-house, during a whinge session with fellow vegans; we can say what we like in private but in public we have to be more staged, and whatever we do say said with some technique.

Vegans making an impact

Omnivores are mindlessly co-operating with vested interests in the animal trade. It could be the greatest catastrophe of our age. It’s the very opposite of boycotting, which is the only thing a vegan can do, to rebel against this one terrible convention - the industrial scale abuse of domesticated animals. A vegan is poles apart from a conventionalist in this way. Our ‘violence-filter’ sieves out about half of all marketed items each of which contain some animal product. In that way we’re ‘clean’ in the same way an alcoholic gives up booze or a recovered heroin addict is clean. The total absence of abattoir products in our lives makes our lifestyle seem painfully restricted, even self-denying. But of course, it’s not. Yes, one might have difficulty in dropping some old fixations, as I do with missing Mars Bars but (get a grip!) it’s all a matter of perspective.
Amongst vegans there’s a familiar topic of conversation: a discussion along the lines of “How can they do it?”, cave into their weaknesses each day, and not be able to say “No” to things? We never get very far with this except that it reminds me of fundamental values parents might have taught us when we were very little. I suspect vegans remember this advice. It’s very strong in them anyway and is therefore probably the epicentre of our vegan tendency - a regard for being kind. All to do with teddy bears being our own children and treating them with more respect ... and in this way the whole message of being kind imprints. I suspect those who move towards being vegan are that way imprinted. And this is our luckiest trait.
However there’s probably a serious downside to being vegan, in that not too many people feel that way lucky. In consequence vegans are still a minority and as with all minorities the most common feeling we have is one of being alienated, in a vegan’s case from their whole society. We hold such different views on this one important matter. Is it important? Is the matter of not using animals important? That’s to be dealt with later ... here we’re looking at why vegans don’t communicate their message very well. And I think that might be because we feel so marginalised. We are Society’s “left-outs”: we respond to that by nurturing feelings of separation (between us and them), and friends are drawn from the like minded. We’ll talk our heads off but still only be preaching to the converted. Instead of promoting discussion of first principles.
The other big downside of being vegan is a disappointment in people we most admired - the ladies and gentlemen of the Press. We learn to our cost that animals are not served by the interests of the reporter. We need to steer clear of mass media since the majority of reporters can’t be trusted. They are, after all, story-makers, writing readable stories, ‘media-feeders’ who make fiction be truth and facts be superfluous.
Face to face, in everyday conversation, is probably where we impact most, where someone’s mind is free to consider new ideas and feel free to follow their private thoughts, come to their own conclusions and do it in their own time. They know they’ve got to be thinking about the factors pressing down here: taste bud revolt, stomach protest, upsetting the family, economic considerations, health factors, the pin-prick effect of personal change, etc. It’s a big step changing. You’d have to consider changing shopping lists and habits, reading ingredient lists and boycotting, and then after that finding replacements-for. It’s a big step, so I suppose the most useful help vegans can offer is to suggest ways it can be done. Like doing a weight-loss programme, or any rehab process. We introduce little-by-little-swop-overs. That’s basically what it comes down to, in the move from animal-based to plant-based products.
We come back to freedom of choice, freedom to move at one’s own pace. Children are always being hurried, but as adults we must be and can be less so. That lack of hurry helps in the change over. And then it’s down to the individual to do what they will, and if they do change they’ll feel the benefits straight away on all sorts of levels. Mainly, if unhurried, they’ll notice how their new buying begins to reflect ‘the better side of themselves’. They can have a front row seat, to watch their whole life turn around. Just because of that one decision-to-try.
I suppose I’m just sounding like a typically evangelistic vegan here! But just one more sentence ... it all starts by listening and learning (preferably from a vegan) how to safely make some daring, radical changes to one’s lifestyle.

Advertising dead animals

Monday 25th October 2010
If we condone what the Animal Industries do then perhaps we deserve to be punished for being weak. The punishment is guilt about doing what we do, but weirdly, it’s a turn-on too ... our various ‘little weaknesses’. And they wouldn’t be so bad if indulging them didn’t involve another’s misery - how about an ad that said:
“Donuts are delicious, inexpensive and available from your nearest store; on the downside, consider the hen who laid the egg which was used to make your donut so fluffy and rich tasting”.
Advertising depends on human weakness, for certain foods or fashions, and whether we’re buying fur or cashmere or whether it’s meat or milk, the consumer is part of the support team. Each buyer of goods is supporting a branch of the Animal Industry, an organisation to which one normally wouldn’t give a seal of approval. Their customers, in deciding to buy their stuff, help to deny animals the support they need. By following the crowd the chance to boycott is not taken.
We probably buy most food products without a second thought. In the Church of Convention the TV message shows us how to behave like ‘normal people’. In the TV ads, the actor is always good-looking and speaks in praise of the product, which we then go out and buy. We might wonder how a professional actor could help to sell stuff like this, and yet they do. In Australia everyone’s familiar with a movie actor who is, these days, best known for dancing (literally) hand in hand with an ape … in praise of red meat. It’s incredible to see him doing it night after night … but he gets paid to do it ... and presumably many consumers are supporting his gig.

“Meat is good”, honestly.

What can we do about it? It’s everywhere you look. We see it on commercial TV. It comes at you, in your living room. Honest-looking people, talking as if they know you intimately, as if they know what you like best, and what sort of friendly approach you like. It’s plain old prostitution and it’s everywhere, in the ads. Actors come on like friends, sharing food with us (mainly dead bits of animal) and tell us about the product. They talk about it as if it were nothing to do with the animal from which it came.
All this over time percolates into our psyche, into our habits and makes up our sense of normality. Only ‘good’ is spoken of the items advertised - any drawbacks aren’t mentioned. But the consumer isn’t completely gullible, we’re telly-wise now, we’re used to it – we don’t necessarily believe what they say, but we do engage with the ads if only to make them pass quicker … to get back to the programme we’re watching. We’ve learnt not to turn a hair. We’re used to the lies. Even kids ignore the insult of them.

Don’t look so surprised

Saturday 23rd October 2010
Vegans might privately feel angry, feel judgemental, think all omnivores stupid … but we have to stop right there – we shouldn’t show our feelings too readily … because it’s so easy to knock people down, that’s the very reason we shouldn’t be tempted to do it. The only thing that really works here is good natured exchange (foreign to many!!). It starts with tolerance and then moves on to NOT being a pain in the arse. Obviously vegans pontificate but if we do it we’ll be shut out if we seem people-haters or too intellectual. If we are going to be hated let it be from mistaken identity. However good our arguments it’s not necessary to seem too cock sure of ourselves. To shake that complaisant image (unfair though it is) we can try listening, (even they speak rubbish or they’re obviously misinformed). To shake it further we can drop that standard ‘shocked and surprised’ look. Further - skip the anger … no, not totally avoid it but just add it like salt and pepper to food - good for effect, for adding some drama, but give too much and everything is spoilt. Anger looks cute in kids but sad around grown ups. Animals don’t feel the need to get angry except with offspring. They just aren’t like that, so why do we have to be? Anger and judgment - I once heard the worst-ever indictment of judgement - that it (value-judging) was nowhere to be found in the universe, except here, amongst humans. Angry humans.
Who needs anger? If we can’t keep it in our pants we’d be better off keeping quiet, staying indoors … we can’t do too much harm if we’re calming down with a nice cup of tea.

Taboo

If omnivores have no time for all this ‘vegan nonsense’ and show it by their uninhibited eating of animal foods, it trivialises what vegans consider is probably the most important consideration of life - cutting out the endemic violence of attacking animals. So, between the omnivore and the vegan we have attitudes which are poles apart. To us this particular attitude of theirs is perhaps the most insensitive characteristic in them we know, and by extension it’s the same insensitivity of the people we don’t know. If pressed they’d probably all say veganism is nonsense. Naturally that makes vegans feel alienated. We aren’t even being taken seriously, and that’s what each of us want most of all ... and so it goes on from there ... we feel miffed ... we start to think negatively ... towards omnivores ... and we proceed to fuel a fire which is already burning hot.
By upping the ante, on this question of animal rights, bringing the matter up, we may think we are playing the game of ‘getting the juices flowing’. We want to get a good argument rolling. But at what cost? The damage caused when ‘the game’ is not mutually permitted makes it a no-game.
Because this subject is tabooed in our society (almost everyone happy to accept it as a taboo, to protect favourite foods, mainly) unwilling participation is off limits. If the discussion of Animal Rights is not exactly welcome then a vegan tirade isn’t going to help matters; not when omnivores believe vegans just want to make them feel like cornered rats.
No permission - big rap over the knuckles, for crossing the boundaries. It’s like sexual assault - we have ‘touched inappropriately’. The omnivore is so confident (in their majority attitude about eating animals) that they can laugh, knowing their ‘joke’ will be shared by fellow loyal omnivores. Group derision is the main punishment here ... for simply crossing the taboo lines. And it’s therefore where trouble begins. From this point everything deteriorates. Some daring ideas, some abusive words - whatever we say in anger leaves everyone feeling angry and wanting to retaliate.
However, that all changes when a serious question gets asked. But even a question can be deceptive. We still have to gauge it carefully. And make it short and sharp. I’d even suggest changing the subject, away from animally, diety things, purposely, to discover if it’s a genuine question. Ultimately we need to know if a person is interested or just being polite. If there is a genuine question, a sort of permission is being granted by it.
Not a permission for sermonising. It’s usually meant as a specific or fairly superficial, casual query, requiring a similarly to-the-point answer. Vegans tend to divert. We’re eager to go on interesting tangents (“Did you know ...”), rambling on with uncalled for facts. With each ‘fact’ we mean to inspire and educate but with each fact we also know we’re trying to hammer in another nail ... in the coffin of the omnivore’s lifestyle. And therefore we take advantage. We go on longer than we should.
But, if there’s genuine interest, a genuine need to ‘get to the bottom of this one’, we can engage in a subject which never really gets a proper airing, mainly for reasons noted above.
Once we have a discussion going, and we’re clear about what we’re talking about, then we embark on a serious discussion and it has a subject-heading almost. Then we are at a chess board, each giving as good as we get. It’s a stouch, a disagreement, a fundamental difference in attitude. Perhaps it’s even an extreme difference of opinion we’re unleashing. But it doesn’t matter how extreme our differences ... as long as it’s done with personal respect, mutual respect. Without that there’s no real discussion going to take place, on any subject at all. Without permission from each side, for the level of discussion we are willing to engage in then it’s only an ago game, and with every word we utter doing incomparable damage.

How we see ourself

Thursday 21st October 2010
We’re creatures of perception - we don’t perceive an evil countenance when we look in the mirror, we see the very best there is to see in the familiar face that looks back at us. We each like ourself in so many ways - we’re perhaps our biggest fan. We and everything on this planet thinks they are magnificent (and why not?) ... until we see a crack in the mirror, which distorts perception and makes for delusion. Our sense of grandeur will not be bruised. But it happens though. It comes with the territory - life as an adult. Ego-uppers, ego-downers and the greatest indignities we don’t like and avoid ... and that causes so much problem down the line. What about this as an example. Humans are superior to other species. It would be very hard to admit this is delusion. We use it as a rock to stand on. It helps us face life. Life is hard. Having some sort of sense of superiority, delusion though it may be, is what we believe we must preserve. Our sense of self is daily underlined by our lifestyle ... now if life for most people today is hard then the LAST thing we need are vegans telling us what we should and shouldn’t eat ... based on moral grounds. The adult omnivore has to have this attitude set in - an ‘attitude’ about veganism and animals being no longer used by humans, to see themselves in the mirror.
Self image doesn’t want the cracks to appear: vegans represent those cracks. Delusion is preferable.

Anger on Main Street

Vegans might privately feel angry, feel judgemental, believe all omnivores are stupid, etc. … but we must stop right there. We don’t need to show it - it’s too easy to knock them down with it ... which is why we shouldn’t get angry. It may feel good, like letting off steam, but it doesn’t work. The only thing that works with omnivores is good natured exchange. (Don’t forget, we’re not trying to get people to sign the pledge here, just get them to sign-over a few thought-responses on behalf of animals)
Preparation, for vegan-advocating, starts with tolerance and moves progressively towards trying not to be a pain in the arse, evangelical-wise. Veganism is heavy medicine. It needs to be dished out in small doses. At first.
At first they’re wary, suspicious, dismissive ... they may even hate us. So, obviously, as representatives of veganism we ourselves shouldn’t ever be people-haters. If they hate us then perhaps a wee problem it is, for them not us. If they feel threatened by vegan ideology (the effect on society, the effect on the economy, the effect on children), we don’t need to amplify that threat by being aggressive, pushy or unfriendly. Every vegan today once hated vegans. Now that’s a bold statement but nearly true. We hated what they stood for. Almost all of us did. It was weirdly the same before I admitted to myself I was gay, I was revolted by other gays. Not now!!! As vegans we mustn’t ever act hostilely towards not-vegan people. I put it as strongly as that. We need to keep a sense of proportion here (as in ‘we’ miniscule numbers of vegans amongst ‘them’ humungous numbers of not-vegans!!). If we are going to be hated let’s be hated for good reason. It’s such a pity to waste a good hate!
However good our arguments we can still seem as if we’re up-our-own-spout. To shake that image (unfair though it may be) we need to get rid of that ‘shocked-surprise’ look, drop the anger and stop feeling superior. Mind you, anger is okay, but it’s like the salt and pepper in food - good for dramatic effect but we overdo it at our peril. Too much spoils everything. I doubt if animals use it. And while we’re on the subject, it’s the same with judgment. I doubt if animals ‘do’ judgement ... in fact, I’ve heard that it can’t be found anywhere else in the universe, except here, amongst the angry humans.
Vegans think they can get away with it (showing anger) because they have so much to be angry about - there being so many animals, being put through so much unimaginable torture, every day - that’s worthy of getting-angry-about, surely? Sure, but I believe we should try our level best to hold it in, hold the energy of it, transform it to @#** perhaps. But there couldn’t be a more efficient waste of beautiful emotional energy than using it up on anger. Anger is dead. It comes from before. Now there are more powerful and less destructive ways of communicating ... than by getting violent with our words and vibrations. We don’t need it.
If we can keep it in our pants all the better. If we can’t it’s best to stay indoors. Make the tea for our family of demonstrators, for when they come home from Main Street. All that shouting will have made them thirsty.

The stouch

Tuesday 19th October 2010
If we get the ‘go-ahead,’ from someone were speaking to, to put our case forward, it implies they’re listening. We have their attention, but we might not have it for long. Permission, attention, it amounts to much the same thing. It’s different if their ear is willing. Then we can talk to them about what’s happening. And if we have to struggle with them over the details, all the better to get the grey matter moving. If permission is granted, if they enter into the spirit of the thing, we can go for it and give as good as we get. This, in Australia, is called a ‘stouch’ (fighting without personal aggro). And yes, there’s tension and disagreement ... but never even a hint of personal disapproval or dislike. Never any to-the-death damage.
(Oh, the Australians, don’t get me started on these beautiful, egalitarian people.)
Elsewhere in the world, and here too, there’s anger. “But”, you may say, “Anger Schmanger ... there’s nothing wrong with anger as long as you don’t mean it”. Yes. True. If we’re acting out anger, as parents do sometimes when they’re corralling the kids, it can work like a treat ... but only if the kids know where they stand with their relationship with the ‘angry’ parent. It’s the same with adults, we can say what we like to each other as long as we have an egalitarian starting point. That means having some genuine, mutual regard. Without that key element all bets are off. We can lose all round if we insist on ‘bringing light to the omnivore’.
Once a good stouch is set up though we can give it all we’ve got and get it back too. Shouting and screaming, interrupting and conceding, making room for ferocious points-of-principle - all put into balance because, at the same time, we are still be looking for some point of empathy. To make progress through so much undergrowth and disagreement there has to be something. Something we can find, to praise or recognise in the other person. In that way our stouch never deteriorates into quarrelling because we keep confirming our kinship. We’re all fellow travellers here. Probably we each feel marginalised in some way, perhaps even in a similar way, enough to form a bond, on some level.
Why bond? because when we do we leave ourselves no room to get personal or become value-judging. Unless we’re in control of our anger it will be in control of us. The Australian stouch is something to behold! But unfortunately, if aggro emerges to kill off the stouch it brings an end to conversation. It’s never productive.

Permission withheld

If there’s no question asked, no “Please explain what vegan means”, then why volunteer an answer? Why set up a quarrel? Why screw up an otherwise friendly conversation? I suppose we do it ‘cos we’re bored, with fatuous conversing. I suppose vegans are always gunning for a dust-up. Bring the matter up. Bring it on. For omnivores, when they notice something going ‘wrong’ in a conversation, as if an “unfriendly” barb has been fired to stab them in the back ... and feelings get churned up ... and mood changes ... there’s ALARM. When we get alarmed everything pleasant, a few moments before, begins to fall apart. Nice chat, thanks for letting it deteriorate into warfare!
Past a certain point, once the Rubicon is crossed, there’s a devil-may-care smell in the air. Once you get a whiff of retaliation, conversationally the game is dead. It can end whole friendships!! One tiny thought wave! One expression.
If, on the other hand, a conversation flows with trust, with open-ended permission, it can be anything we like it to be. It’s a gloves-off affair. The way is cleared for taking a few risks ... now, that’s real conversation! But we mustn’t be deceived ... the permission must be real and mutual, and if not necessarily admitted to in so many words, sensed. Life on this level is very intuitive, yes no?
Vegans always hope to engineer real conversational events and, to be honest, they do sometimes happen. But usually only in safety zones, with close friends or family. Outside one’s circle, as strangers or just not-well-enough-known, how much trust can we expect? There’ve been so many evangelicals raving at us before, so, it’s always a calculated risk, not to slip into the proselytizer role. Essence here is in the liking ... will they like me? Or will they get uptight and run away, sometimes in tears, and be unable to face me ever again?
I’ve got a coffee mug at home, and written on it, it says: “Risk. Take calculated risks. That’s quite different from being rash”.
Being rash (as we are often, with each other) is basically not caring how you feel, or in this case ... what the bastard omnivore thinks. Now, that’s rash. And, from an animal advocate’s point of view, just sloppy tactics. It’s like rushing at the door without a pass. However, if by some magic fluke we’re allowed in (as in, permission to broach this subject) - EASY.
There’s a corner of almost anyone’s heart that’s winnable. (Unless rigid addiction prevents consideration of change).
You may say, “Don’t be ridiculous. Omnivores will never let you talk to them. Not openly, not frankly, not about any of this”. Why should they when there’s no pressure coming from any other quarter. Not from science, church, university or counter culture. “Why listen to a bloody vegan, for chrissakes? I’m okay with ANY other subject, but not this one - I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of denigrating my dinner!”

Don’t tell the kids

The quiche we eat, a biscuit with coffee, and many other thousands of brand named items taken for granted, are not benign. They connect back to the ugly event of animal abuse. The connection between that quiche and the creature who laid the egg is devastating enough to make us choke on our quiche. It’s simple enough for a three year old to comprehend. It’s why vegans are vegans.
Comprehending the connection isn’t the problem, it’s the habit of ignoring it that’s the problem. It isn’t hard to grasp what vegan principle is, it’s just too hot to apply to daily life. By NOT applying it we can eat delicious quiche. We are used to doing delicious things (quiche is delicious). Having no-quiche is self-denial. And for what? A chicken? A creature whose body we eat anyway, on a regular basis?
To think it through, from egg to quiche, from imprisoned animal to dinning table, is a process a three year old child could understand IF they were told ... about entombing hens in wire cages, egg dropping to fill cartons like the one in the fridge. They’d object if it were explained to them, but whoa! That would mean one huge hassle for parents making breakfast. If the kids got wind of it they’d refuse the meal on the table. So, parents use “a small deception”. They withhold information. This is one farmyard story they don’t tell. It’s not lying, just omitting a crucial factor in the forming of values, and kids may be confused but there’s nothing they can do. They have zero power. They aren’t free to ask a simple question and expect a truthful answer.
Keeping the kids in the dark, over this matter anyway, is convenient for parents and teachers. If children start to get ethical about food, life could become complicated. They’d drive you nuts, refusing food. Parents fill their fridges with handy, ready-to-go foods, which works well with the kids. Eggs in all their many forms, mainly used as ingredients for composite foods, work wonders, as do most meat and milk products.
Okay, well you see where I’m going. This isn’t a tirade about cruelty and cages and thoughtless parents, but our reaction to it all. We come back to our own fuming and spluttering anger, about people who “back the bastards who do the caging”. We fume because we can’t do anything, because it’s still legal to buy eggs!! Out of frustration, we force the issue, and consequently vegan-to-omnivore talk ends up in grief. Listening to this talk, if you spoke another language and couldn’t understand the English words being used, you’d have no trouble understanding each person’s feelings. Especially the invective. If our words are “meant”, it’s likely they will be intended to make the opposite party feel like a cornered rat.

I don’t want to go there

If we think badly of omnivores we fuel a fire which is already burning hot. We don’t need more heat. We can stir them up, sure. We can get their juices flowing. But at what risk do we get a good argument?
On this particular, unlevel playing field our arguments can be devastating. We know that. If we are to have an exchange on this subject it’s easy to feel cocky with our answers. They know that if they have to listen to us they’ll want to scream. They’ll want to pull down the shutters, fast. So they fix that familiar look on their face - it means, “I don’t want to go there”.
Volunteering answers to non-existent questions looks a bit desperate. It’s the kiss of death to any pleasant chat. It’s as if Solutions are out there looking for problems - vegans understandably search out omnivores for conversion. We set out to solve your problems ... but if there’s no problem in the first place (“I’ve got no problem with the food I eat”), if there’s no questioning there’s no opening ... for any of our arguments. No requests for solutions. Do manners step in here?
By bringing up the matter of problems and ‘solutions’ (connected with animal-usage) animal-people are seen to be deliberately attempting to lecture. We seem to turn a chat into a church. We barge our way into a conversation because we see no other way of ‘bringing the matter up’. Animal Rights, as a subject, is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest taboo in our society - most people observe the rule that “animal-usage” isn’t to be spoken about.
Like street traders, vegans have a good stock of very fine answers on display. We stand around with our hands in our pockets, waiting for some interest in what we’re selling. The omnivore is locked in the stream of traffic passing our stall. They show no interest. In fact their interest hardly extends to the problem let alone the solution.
If we try to draw people into unwilling dialogue, we’ll find the welcome-mat whisked from under our feet. For most omnivores this isn’t even a valid topic of discussion. They don’t see any ‘writing on the wall’. Whereas we do!

Hysteria and bastardry

Friday 15th October 2010
Imagine what happens when someone first hears about vegans and ‘vegan food choices’. They fall to the ground in fits of hysterical laughter, and during their unstoppable mirth they promise to themself life-long-loyalty to eating animals and to laugh at all such nonsense in the future.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we vegans are thinking to ourselves … “Huh, and you think it’s just food choices? And then some ... you arrogant bastards!”

Why talk to vegans?

Vegans try to mop up some of the damage they see about them. They try to dig everyone out of their ruts, try to repair cracks. But try as they might, they’re seldom trusted enough to be listened to. Their authority and advice is doubted. They are deemed ridiculous. Vegans are made to feel uncomfortable. But we are on a mission, so we’re not easily putt off.
We so much want to smooth the surface of the mirror, let people see themselves more accurately, etc. We try to get people to follow our advice. We want them to see their potentials in this mirror ... mirror metaphor almost over! Essentially mirror-polishing is what vegans are good at.
Early in our lives all the attractions and delusions seem interesting. We chase them fearlessly. We start out with all the best intentions. We are our own world and as part of that we search for improvement. Self-improvement ... but we don’t always get what we expect. We might discover what we don’t want - disillusionment, disappointment and dullness - but how to avoid it? Ugliness, being so prominent, spoils the whole life experience for us. “Ugh”. We question, “What else is there?” ... and we become old and grey from the futility of never finding it. Light. We become convinced that nothing will ever really change. The disappointment of that translates as “It will never happen for me”.
You’d agree that this is a truly tragic state of mind? We eventually ‘come to know’ improvement is unlikely. We say, “We want to be good. We want the best for our kids, but WOW! What hope is there?”
We start to believe that no good can come from any decision we make. We therefore reject ‘solutions’ because they seem too confronting. We see the theory, as with veganism, but the pain! The necessary personal change-making! “Life’s hard enough without some vegan telling me what I can and can’t eat … based on some animal-defendy-moral principle. Life’s hard enough without all that. No more extra attitude, thanks”. And it’s this very attitude that stops us being ‘vegan’. It’s a prospect that horrifies most people. Being vegan mean starving to death and/or social suicide … and who needs that? One’s ‘attitude towards veganism’ is deeply set in reasoning. Meeting a vegan: we rehearse our words. So, when someone tells you they’re vegan you know exactly what you’re going to say. You’ll say anything in fact, to stop them telling us what is “right”, and having to defend our own lifestyle in front of them.
Why trust a vegan? They always try to make omnivores feel uncomfortable when you talk to them. The whole trust-a-vegan thing, in the flash of a single thought, kicks in. When talking to a vegan.

Advisors

Our main mistake, as I see it, is that in our quest for self-improvement we’ve let ourselves be seduced by vested interests without really noticing it. From when a person first becomes discontent, even as far back as being little kids, the delusion starts - we are led to believe that we are not ANYTHING enough, so we set off on the self-improvement trail. Being good, good at things, etc. And somewhere along the line our delusions dance to the tune of ‘wise and nice people’. We fall for the oldest trick in the book - we allow ourselves to believe their “truths” and that they are ‘true’ people. (Ah, the search for the perfect parent figure - huh!). Over the years we follow both advice and advisors. And we seem to be going along just fine, chauffeur-driven almost ... until, with some shocking, eleventh-hour realisation, we see the danger of letting someone else drive for us. A major part of our life is now in their hands.
What if all along they were not true? What if we’d been deluded? What if they, well-spoken, revered by Society, were themselves deluded (rather like finding our chauffeur is a drunk). What a shock. We see a crash coming but it’s too late, for us. We ‘give-in’, we go with the flow and decide NOT to stand out.
The inevitable crash happens, you survive. Either you may lick your wounds or this could be the ‘give-way’ point, acceptance, shift to driving our own life, making our own decisions and NOT letting vested interests drive us. Maybe we do learn to change. We do stand up for things. We do well by it ... but still, we feel deluded or duped? We now drive for our self but there’s still a circular choice-making going on, as if covering other choices we’re still reluctant to make.
We’re going along just fine, albeit circularly, until we encounter a busy-body, interfering vegan. Another advisor! What then?

Hubris before breakfast

We’re creatures of perception - what we see, first thing in the morning, we believe. We don’t perceive an evil countenance when we look in the mirror, we see the very best there is. A familiar face looking back at us. Often we like what we see or at least something in us, looking back at. We like our self in so many ways. We’re our biggest fan. If anyone else loves us, then it’s for this. We like to see it and we check it’s there, every day. In the pool’s reflection every sentient creature recognises its own image. For that reason alone, “I am”.
We, and every living thing on this planet, know we’re magnificent (and why shouldn’t we?) … that is … until we see a crack in the mirror. If our self-image distorts then perceptions distort too. They tumble into disorder and, if you’re a human, you’re likely to become deluded (particularly when vanity and arrogance call the shots). In our culture we believe that human is grand. Our grandeur (clothed in hubris) hates indignity. So we let the mirror tell us “This is you”. This is how you look.
But recently that’s taken a knock to the head ... today we have a different mirror which tells us different things. For the first time ever the vidoecam lets us see another person, one we’ve never seen before. In this new mirror we see another “me”. We see ourselves as others see us, a reverse to the image we’re used to in the bathroom mirror. Take a close look. We start to see differences in what we always saw in the mirror – we were deluded. It happens easily. Humans are easily hoodwinked when it concerns vanity.
Many other delusions we suffer from. We keep them well hidden. Usually from our self. Now, strangely, we start to see them, more obviously, in this ‘reverse’ image. That’s video-caming for you! But the delusions, if we can be easily hoodwinked by a simple reflection in a mirror, even a cracked one, they’ll start to multiply. Delusions work best when we aren’t aware of them being there, of course.
No one likes admitting they’re deluded. And yet there’s a clue, a door into reality, by making the connection between vanity and violence, between what we think we see in the mirror and the mistakes delusions inspire. We can see how we look, in mirrors or videocams, but the big danger is in the obsessing about our own public image. And in related ways we’ve let ourselves be deluded into making some fundamental mistakes. The delusion kicks in when our mistakes don’t look like mistakes since everyone else is making the same one. Everyone is making certain types of mistakes connected with hubris and vanity. Mistakes have been made by humans being arrogant. We’ve earned a terrible reputation for it - there’s pollution, cruelty, inequality and speciesism, racism, homophobia, sexism and ageism. Each is driven by vanity and hubris, dulling the brain and exciting revenge. That humans have these violent and violating attitudes is sad, but sadder still, we’re like that without realising it.
We humans have either knowingly or unknowingly created delusion to comfort and cushion our lives. Now we’ve used up our credit and it’s time to settle accounts. And when you think of it, there’s no better time than now to do it, now we’ve reached an age of unimaginable stupidity and luxury.

Theatre @ vegan

“Welcome to Dreamland”, which could be a Cloud Cuckoo Land or it could be a reality we dream into existence. Could a society of herbivores ever exist?
“Ya gotta be dreaming”, and yet … and yet who knows what will happen and why, in the future?
Today none of us has any excuse for doing nothing; vegans strike out and hope to draw others along with them. At this stage, ‘going vegan’ is an unusual thing to do. In the future it will so ho-hum it won’t be at all self-conscious.
When we promote veganism we’ve got to seem almost light hearted about it. Certainly not threatening. We have to take our cue from the theatre - never threatening, confronting maybe but never insisted upon.
The lights are dimmed, the audience gingerly take their seats. They’ve come for a show, hoping the actors aren’t nervous. They want to see something new. They want us to suspend their disbelief, convince them, make them laugh a bit even if the joke’s on them. They’ve come to see what we make of non-violence and how we expect to make change happen without it.
In this vegan theatre we show a flow of slow water. ‘Powerful-slow’ we’d say, but powerful-effective. Attrition is part of the power of flowing water. We present a similar flow of slow information, working like water’s attrition, gouging valleys through hubris-peaked mountains, melting snowy peaks and chilly attitudes, clearing paths for the stream to flow down to the sea. Slowly we have to wear down opposition to plant-based diets and animal exploitation - it’s all done by attrition. I suppose benign attrition and veganism amount to much the same thing?

Theatre @ omnivore

Serious this subject is. Not really suited to a light-hearted chat, although ironically vegans must make it seem so. It’s serious simply because we talk about the crime of gratuitous violence (against ‘food’ animals) perpetrated on a daily scale, right across the planet.
Our position of disassociation comes close on the heels of harmlessness, as an alternative core value. That’s veganism. Our main concern is that crime is legal - we are allowed to harm animals and feed children with dead bits of their executed bodies. We’re allowed to tell kids “It’s all okay”, and they have to do as they’re told. Eat what they’re given. They have to ingest all sorts of animal secretions and body parts, in the gruesome three-meals-a-day process of living, without any realistic say in the matter. They have no power to choose (choice in this regard being something which we adults take for granted!).
What are vegans about? Perhaps the overwhelming sense of empowering childrens’ choices (of the foods they are eating) is probably as important as liberating the animals themselves. It’s all linked. The power game. Power-establishing is the hobby of humans. It comes with attitude attached, one which is as unnecessary as it is grim, and that’s enough to inspire vegans to do what they do. And we will do whatever we can do, to stop it. And the way we do that is to ...?
Perhaps we need to visit the theatre, but which one? Perhaps we need to reinforce or renew our view on things: theatre helps to enlarges on life, and show aspects we mightn’t notice. On Main Street are two we can visit. We have a very small theatre down the road and the main one further along. In the main theatre, the Omnivore Plaza, they’ve been running the same show for a long time. People find comfort inside - and vegans, players in the small one down the road, who’re animal advocates and rights activists, hope to divert them. Down the road ... where we’re obviously showing up, sending up, the drama currently playing at the Plaza. We’re spruiking the anti-show show. We’re telling people they’ll see nothing there, but for humans attacking animals.
Their show plays continuous sessions, daily. There are three scenes. The first is about humans having to have top billing and how we can run the whole show, skim the profits to empower us to determine the destiny of whole planets. It shows how Nature makes it all available, makes everything work ... for us. She runs it so we ruin it by risking everything for short term gain. Scene one at the Plaza shows us how it all works, the nuts and bolts of it. Scene two shows how we use energy and where to find big supplies of it, for power, especially for developing intellect and dexterity. It all evolved that way. And now where are humans up to? Scene three shows we’re at today. The unknown.
You have to transmigrate down the road for the denoument. At vegan theatre we show the point in human development where we’re having to now test our ethics, almost to breaking point. Specifically, over the way we treat energy. Particularly when the source of energy is animals.
Because of the animals, and the unspeakable things we do to them, we vegans stand up. We can’t block the omnivore’s path, but we can attempt to spruik our theatre. Our job isn’t to stop them ‘going in’, but simply to discourage their addiction to war, their voyeuristic enjoyment of war (in the enjoyment of another’s misery: schadenfreude, etc). Vegans discourage that. There’s something better going on elsewhere.

Hubris

Having a discussion with an omnivore about football is easy, about veganism more difficult. The main gates may be shut. The approach road may be long. The great stronghold of Normal Behaviour (which most certainly includes eating animals) is almost unreachable. We’re only able to get in by sweet talk, nah, let’s call it ‘discussion’. If they won’t be sweet-talked, if entry is refused into their omnivorous stockade, then we end up stuck out on the open road, immobile. It’s enough to put anyone off. In fact vegans get so pissed off by this shut-out mentality that most often we want to retire back to our enclaves ... “and fuck the world outside”.
How to get past this? Could we look at it this way? We stand before the world, unnoticed but upright. We know who we are, in as much as we base our life on the application of a central universal principle. Others might too, who stand up for great causes. We may have that in common - feeling marginalised. But the difference here is that it’s likely they enjoy some notice. We enjoy almost none … and naturally so, because we stand at the farthest extreme of all extremes. We point to a future unimaginable. Veganism, as a future modus operandi, is beyond the reach of most peoples’ present consciousness. For them to recognise us would mean they recognise the wisdom of acting beyond self-interest.
Why do vegans do what they do? They act, live and work for abused animals, not even abused humans. Most peoples’ primal species-loyalty act as their chief barrier to ‘considering animals. Most people have never felt cross-species empathy.
Some people, however, are now defining their lives by their non-speciesism and because of that they get nothing but bewildered looks from people. For this reason vegans can’t possibly expect to be noticed or admired. Perhaps it’s true to say that people do not actually condemn us but we are socially set aside.
Vegans have to be able to handle this. We reside on ‘the fringes’. We are the lepers from Outsiderdom. For us, in these present times, being outcast is unavoidable. That’s a given. On the up-side, vegans can take great comfort from being immune to hubris and therefore from inevitable failure, since it’s always hubris that scuppers any good idea. For that reason alone vegans are destined to succeed. And more importantly animals are destined to be freed as a result of our success.

Main stream

In our attempt to get this subject mainstreamed, the decision to ‘go-unfriendly’ (whilst discussing it) is amazingly counter-productive. We ‘do’ anger at our peril. In this free-willed world, a vegan can easily end up being a person not worth talking to. People can actually dislike us, not just because we represent something totally antagonistic to their whole way of life but because they can’t identify with us as people to look up to. If we’re unfriendly types we pose a threat. And it’s so unnecessary too.
If we feel marginalised, isolated even cast out from the normal going-on of our society, because we’re vegan, oh that’s a rotten feeling. It’s a bit like being sent to Coventry, not being spoken to or in our case not having our lifestyle recognised as valid. Yes, vegans are made to feel like weird outsiders, “Who probably suffer from some inexplicable condition that makes them the way they are”. To make ourselves feel better we denigrate the omnivore, and so on. But this isn’t one way traffic. They suffer from us. We know we don’t feel guilt about abattoirs any more, and they do. We tell them that. And that makes many omnivores feel terrible. “Good”, we say, “That will teach them”. And we half believe that all omnivores are and will be cast as ‘evil-doers’, mainly because of their food choices.
The ill feeling between the two ‘sides’ is preposterous of course, and it’s only there because we’re cowards – we’re unwilling to ‘bring it on’. We’re afraid of talking about it. So, there’s no discussion. Vegans won’t do their homework so their hearts are full of compassion but their heads are empty of detailed facts and interesting arguments. And because we won’t settle down to our studies we choose to ‘get out there’ and show the bastard omnivores what shits they are.
Is it any wonder that omnivores are scared of us. Or they would be did they not hide behind the skirts of disinterest. All we can do is revert to the tactics of our forefathers and go to war with each other. And we all know where wars take us!
My belief is, and I sincerely hope I’m out of touch and therefore wrong, is that vegans are intelligent enough to be vegan yet not intelligent enough to do their homework, to read the subject, to plan their own personal approach to Animal Rights … the upshot of this being that we vegans are not able to discuss our own subject, adequately to convince some pretty brainwashed but nevertheless pretty bright cookies who still ‘do’ the animal thing. We aren’t sure of our case.
Maybe we’re bewildered as to how to proceed. We’d like to bring up the subject and get practice at talking specific issues through with people. But there is no theatre available for rehearsals, and that’s because no one dares to talk to us. Ideally we vegans would like to talk abot our subject just as evalhgelical Chrisians want to talk about the Bible, heck we even want to be able to bring it up casually as one would bring up the weather, but it doesn’t happen. Why? Because we’re still tuned into judgement.
The relaxedness of one’s conversation is the mark of a good one. They say “Never talk sex, drugs or politics”, and we could easily add “Animal Rights” to that list. You know what it’s like discussing politics, it gets heated. It gets into the policies of opposites and party loyalties. It’s the same but more so with ethical debates. Especially when we come to our most private and individual decision of the day, what we will eat. So this huge ethical question of animal-use is a seriously serious subject. How casual can we be talking about it? How unlike a fundamentalist evangelical can we appear to be? Vegans try to find the right casual tone for their voice then they try to apply it to the details of their argument. So far so good. But we stop. Vegans stop there and can’t lighten up. We don’t disassociate from serious moral tone, and we could if we spoke calmly with confidence and a secret glow that we DID read the whole of “that book” or watched the whole of that DVD. We can lighten up whilst still talking seriously, keeping it short, letting a friend know what you have just been reading or watching. That’s all. No sermon, Just wait for the questions. And they will come if we don’t hurry them. With the question comes permission. Then we can start teaching. Discussion with omnivores is possible.
Or is it?

Open discussion

If an omnivore finds ‘hirself’ up against a vegan, (s)he would be afraid of being shown up. If vegans are seen as a threat to a person’s own arguments (about animals-use) they’ll defend their view in any way they can. For them any defence they use must be effective. If all else fails we all of us fall back on the old standby - we go hostile. The option of going ‘unfriendly’ is the ultimate weapon to fight vegan capability for annihilation with just one word, or even one look. If they are attacked they’ll defend, and being in the vast majority they can out-shout any prosecution case we dare to put up. Once we see them playing dirty we do too; we counter with moral judgement … and so it goes on. If we push a conversation, about animal use, towards the precipice we can guarantee an aggressive response: “Oh, so that’s what you reckon do you?”
Where either side can go from here is anyone’s guess.
Aggro can flare up in the middle of a sentence. The synapse movement in the human brain can be fast and furious - all smiles one minute and World War Three the next. The attacked omnivore is forced to the edge only because we (often with some violence) leave them nowhere else to go. And who’d think that was productive?
As vegans, by not wanting to attack omnivores we avoid getting involved with a primitive converstaion in which anger plays a part. With that component dropped we don’t need to show judgement, and if we inadvertently trip over it we restore balance straight away. In this talk-together, whether ardent omnivore or animal advocate, if we keep focused on the idea of being our planet’s guardians, we can ride that particular wave all the way into the shore. Somewhere on our way in we’ll find a common purpose with most people - we’ll surely agree that the human brain is too significantly unique for our true purpose not to reveal itself to us. Surely anyone can imagine humans as ambassadors. Our argument is that now we can fulfil that role quite substantially simply by boycotting products we are unhappy about.
Concerning food, a major bought product, now that we know we can be exclusively plant-eaters, and that we can survive happily and healthily as such, our job is clear. To repair – it’s what ambassadors do. They help to make things run smoothly. And a sustainable planet can only work if we’re clear about this role humans may play. To be consistent in our basic philosophy (harmlessness wherever possible) we must be open books for anyone to pick up and look into. What we say, what we believe, how we behave, all of it must be evident in the way we conduct our lives - by our own lifestyle. The attitude (in the West) concerning animals-being-used (should they or shouldn’t they) is the testing ground. Guardians who engage in cruelty are no guardians at all … but, as one keeps saying: that NEEDS TO BE DISCUSSED?
The astounding thing is that it isn’t being discussed. Does that smell like a cover up? Assuming that you don’t like cover-ups, you’d have to agree that it’s all rather strange that the third estate will not cover this subject. Of course it’s not funny-strange at all. Not when you consider how tightly the media is controlled and how few maverick (vegan) journalists there are.
So it’s down to we amateurs. Advocates, activists, writers, teachers we’re all that stands between a beautiful future and a rampant surge of destruction evident just now. We must do our best to edge this subject into the limelight. Make it a main aim. To promote animal rights and veganism may look like an uphill task and not for the faint hearted, but the rewards can’t be ignored. Not only may we eventually show a way of repairing the current mess but once that ball starts rolling, the arguments will have to be discussed.

New slogans on Main Street

We don’t need to wash our dirty linen in public. Anger flapping about in the wind is not a pretty sight and rehearsed anger twice as ugly. The standard angry approach from vegans puts people off, and although the shouting of slogans feels empowering and the slogans themselves often witty or wicked, nothing much is achieved if the sloganeers look angry. If they seem confrontational, if they have a bring-it-on look about them, it will probably raise a smile, that’s all. It’s unlikely we’re a throng that’s threatening public stability. It’s more likely we’re three or four passionate demonstrators, and so it’s no wonder we sometimes seem ludicrous … which is convenient really, since we demonstrators act as valuable counterpoints – being opposite to the type of person one wants to be like. Vegans, supposedly peace-makers, when they show anger show a thinly disguised contempt for all omnivores and that is often heavy enough to sink the ship. There’s nothing like contempt to disadvantage us in our attempt to do something useful.
By looking like unloving types, vegans lose out big time. If I’m disliked I’m (basically) stuffed - getting a reputation for it sucks us into quicksand, along with our ideology. That allows everything we stand for to be conveniently dismissible.
When we’re dismissed as crack pots or we’re just ignored it hurts. It’s an insult. It makes us angry ... and there’s nothing worse that that ‘look’ we give, showing how insulted we are. Inscrutable we are not. Our reaction to being rubbished doesn’t have to show. And if we must show it, our display should at least be kept in control. We don’t need to match aggro for aggro. Their hostility doesn’t need be our problem. It’s the same as with bullying - it’s a bigger problem for the bully than for the bullied, in the long run. Maybe hostile interaction is merely part of the rough and tumble of this age. Out there, in the adult’s playground, there’s fierce competition between new ideas. Many vie for attention. We shouldn’t be surprised if veganism is rejected, not necessarily all of it and not necessarily for all time, but being rubbished vegans are used to. (Which we should welcome - it’s better than silence). However, if we’re being dismissed and alienated from our society, we’ve got to get over it. Even if we’re humiliated, even if we’re cold-shouldered.
That’s the point of all this writing (blogging), to highlight a few things that might help, especially from making fools of ourselves. Our role (and lets not be too coy about it) is clear enough - we argue for animal liberation, we take it upon ourselves to act as advocates for the oppressed animals.
As such we become half survivor, half performer - in small drama, preparing for a bigger drama to come. We can barely imagine it being a main topic of debate, just as much as future generation will barely be able to imagine it not being so. But right now, whilst it is so heavily tabooed, the public is timid and indeed so are we. When we talk about animals having rights we wobble; one half of us is on stage, ‘talking’ about it, the other half warns us, from the wings, not to ‘blow it’.
As part of the collective, none of us should be blowing it for our colleagues. Animal Rights awareness is at a delicate stage. We vegans are still discovering our own ways to relate to this subject, and get it across WITHOUT turning people off and WITHOUT any taking-of-umbrage.
Picture the most insensitive comments: “They’re only animals” or “What you need is a good steak”. Like our own slogans these are part of a collection of one liners, intended to scuttle us. Marching down the High Street, we should be shouting a new slogan (not that it would be understood!): “We WILL NOT be scuttled”.
Hey, but here’s an idea. We don’t need to confront people anyway, better to let them have their say. And be generous about it too. Ease up on that faux-amazed look every time they say something we disagree with. Give them some real, non-judgemental space, to speak. And listen (what we can find out is invaluable here), and don’t interrupt. We shouldn’t be afraid of losing some space or want to interrupt to show how quick our response can be. If we listen to them, they won’t be so afraid of losing their chance to defend themselves from the hefty accusation implied in everything we say.
A simple conversation, on this difficult subject, is not unlike a trial, where each side has an equal chance to put its case. Evidence is gathered, references are at hand and everything is done according to accepted practice, before any judgement is passed - everyone may then feel justice has been served.
For vegans, whatever we say has to be said without a sense of moral superiority over the person we’re talking with. If we can drop that then we’re at the starting-point, whereas if there’s any disdain showing, any contempt, any look-down-your-nose or “I tolerate you but disapprove of you” looks – we won’t have even got to the starting line yet.
Heck. We just don’t need to add fuel to an already roaring inferno of mutual disgust, for that it what it is. If they dislike us it’s because they can guess what we’re up to - how dare we suggest no more lobster, ever? And never again to eat crab, prawns, lamb roasts, chicken nuggets – all, never to be tasted again.
From our anti-omnivore point of view, we obviously don’t like their ‘I-don’t-care’ attitude. For their part they hate being reminded of it. So, these are the stakes we’re playing with. As vegan communicators we hardly need to go out looking for more trouble - we don’t need to give anyone a chance to justify their being unfriendly towards us.

The charging rhinoceros

Tuesday 5th October 2010

When things get too uncomfortable for the vegan activist and the disinterest of the omnivores brings out our anger (… and in consequence we blow it), that’s the moment we show ourselves to be amateur. The pro will use the same anger but in a different way. Acting-out the role of angry parent or angry teacher may be totally non-threatening because it’s so obviously under control and not aimed personally.
I had a teacher once who was always angry and was the most loved member of staff amongst the kids. She was always honest, she was trusted and you knew where you stood with her ... and her anger was measured carefully to be effective and to show a real sense of caring for her charges’ welfare.
It’s a different story when personal dislike is attached to the anger. This sort of anger usually erupts faster than we see it coming. So, the trick would be to spot stop it in its tracks. There’s no advantage in showing it - we need to keep it private (assuming one is an active vegan/Animal Right advocate). We have enough on our hands when speaking in public, about this difficult matter. We need all our attention focused, for spotting the other guy’s anger brewing, to forestall it if possible. Once out, the anger is hard to retract.
Anger sours the atmosphere straight away. So, we need strategies to stop that knee-jerk reaction (like mentally counting to ten). When it comes, it shows immediately - the voice goes funny, it even screeches, our body language says the rest. It’s an art to conceal our blood boiling and to not seem like a rhinoceros about to charge.

Boasting about being vegan

Vegans often want to make a big deal out of the fact that they’re “vegan”. It’s worn like a badge of honour. Sadly the motive for doing this is mixed; on the one hand we want to appear brave and ridicule-proof (proud of being vegan) and on the other hand we want admiration for being vegan.
Boasting is our big problem. Like bullying, no one likes it. Being vegan isn’t about being “who I am”, it’s about communication. We have this vast untapped subject, and obviously we like talking about it, especially by breaking a few barriers in omnivores. We obviously like to reach them, about this ‘animal thing’. And if we’re not using it as a platform for boasting we can’t possibly fail in our mission. But quite how? That’s the question. How to make contact when on this subject? Whew! That’s the BIG one.
How are omnivores seeing us (whether as vegans or generally as reps for veganism)? They’re either hostile or blasé. We, of course, notice precisely what they are. We see how it appears on their face … if the subject arises. Sometimes it’s ill-concealed, sometimes subtle, and yet in the mind of the omnivore (if she or he is in touch with their feelings, whether hostile or don’t-care) it is precise. It’s clear to them where they stand. In this regard they accept the status quo. They actively support a barbaric and cruel industry, and because it is so bad no one talks about it. That’s why we are so resented when a vegan dares to bring up the subject.
We meet someone new, who is a balanced, social-justice-aware person, educated, possibly ‘intelligent’. It only needs a short time with them, maybe a few hours, to notice what they eat – and that tells you what they ‘accept’ about their world. It tells us what they think about commodities from “barbaric and cruel” backgrounds. Soon enough certain core attitudes show through, by what a person is eating.
The temptation is for vegans is to try to convert people to vegan diet. But I think the real work in Animal Rights is to help set a trend in attitude and not just emphasise food and health because it might win people over. A more attractive feature is in recognising the ethic of ‘the greater good’.
Being vegan is about what food we ingest but mainly about animal liberation. I don’t think ‘vegan’ will ever catch on unless this is made clear. That means talking about it. Obviously we can’t persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded. But how can we tell whether a person is anti-us or just not-yet-ready? And because we have no way of knowing and no evidence, then no value judgement can be made, and we have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. We have to give everyone a chance to make amends .
First, we should let them know it ISN’T just about being kind to your stomach and about making your face look good at forty. Second they kneed to know what else is involved. The difference between a vegan and an omnivore is that we have certain information and they probably don’t. This information isn’t terribly complex but it has been hidden for a long time. Our job is to find a non-threatening way to pass some of it on, hopefully sparking an interest. At present almost every omnivore is blocked from it and a million miles from thinking about it. As a subject veganism is as foreign as pig husbandry.
Our general unpopularity may just be the tip of the social-pariah iceberg, but our ‘outsiderdom’ might have to get worse before it gets better. We’ve a long way to go yet before the masses are even considering the attractions of seeing their plates meatless and seeing the cage doors opening.
Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot (at the outset of this global Animal Rights Consciousness Movement) by boasting, neither to people who’re willing to listen nor to people who won’t.

Don’t waste your breath

Sunday 3rd October 2010

I’m an advocate of animal rights (obviously!) but I wouldn’t necessarily tell that to anyone. Why should they know? For them, this subject is as off limits as atheism is for Christians. And anyway, why do I need them to know that about me? I don’t need their approval for being vegan … but it’s likely I do need their approval of me as a person. So, I want them to see me as an open person and likewise, from my point of view, I’d like to be sure how open they are. I’m not after grudging tolerance of closed minds.
If you take your clothes off and lay in the sun, you are open to the sun’s rays (for better or worse). Vegans need to be less interested in people “knowing I’m a vegan” and more interested in them knowing I’m empathetic. On all fronts. Interested in how people feel. As vegans we need to know … about where others are on the spectrum between hostility and affection. How they feel about me. How they feel about this subject.
If you meet an open soul on your travels, ‘the subject’ might arise naturally, and it might be one of many things you talk about. If you meet a person who is adamantly closed-off on this subject, if you’re pushing rocks up hill, the more talk the more antagonism - and much breath wasted.

The peace show

Saturday 2nd October 2010

We have a tricky subject here. Everything we believe in must be reflected in our daily lifestyle otherwise we’ll be seen as false … because we’re watched; it’s what people see; it’s how a genuine person can make an impact. If someone’s interested in veganism they’ll first look at any vegans they know, and ask if they’re kosher. The personal example illustrates the point – we represent ourselves as ordinary, acceptable people, who one might want to know. We also represent a cause.
For instance, being homosexual one supports the aspirations of fellow gays … but one doesn’t have to like ‘nasty queens’. Likewise being vegan one doesn’t have to like the nasty ones just because they eat the same sort of food. But it’s likely when we do see nasty people, they’re not going to be people we want to emulate. For such a cause as ours, it isn’t hard to let ourselves down. We do it all the time. And then we drag the cause down too. Some of us don’t represent the movement adequately because we’re still dealing with our own ‘aggro’ agenda.
The big problem with ‘nasty’ types is that they don’t or can’t or won’t take control of their hard (unattractive) side. They usually resist open discussions because they’re afraid of their own lack of control. Nonetheless they’re keen not to be seen to be backing out of discussing this subject. What they do, I observe, is attempt to capsize our arguments, to save their face. That’s their m.o. Not for them any interest in being open. Likeable is usually impossible so they go for being intellectually admirable, clever. They aren’t into being open … to increase understanding or increasing personal closeness. They’re too busy showing their ‘nasty’ side.
Once the ‘game is up’, once our nasty side has been spotted, there’s a drop in the affection we feel from others, hence a drop-off in their confidence in us. We’re seen to be using crude techniques to get what we want. (As two-years olds in a tantrum). If one holds on to the ‘hard-nose’ attitudes and loses one’s friends in the process, one is also actively helping to maintain the status quo. (The whole system is based on force). Conventional-ites have a horror of new ideas, especially those dealing with heart.
Although some of us certainly do have a nasty side to our character (a contemptuousness that’s difficult to keep in control or to improve upon) we might be making the attempt - to deal with it. And THAT ATTEMPT makes all the difference. It shows us to be vulnerable, yes, but willing to learn, willing to admit mistakes and willing to ‘work’ on them. It’s this willingness and intention, this sense of contributing regularly to the greater good, that let’s people take comfort from us. We, like them, feel alone, but we’re up to showing them they aren’t. We are (unselfconsciously) nurturing affection, are we not? Every day of our hum drum lives? Instinctively each one of us knows this – that we are capable of giving others hope in us, as people. We see potentials everywhere, don’t we? When we do I think it lends confidence to what we are saying … and through that comes the chance for a proper discussion (of this subject).
The more vulnerable we are the more likely we’ll be to empathise with the even more vulnerable, namely the domesticated animals. Empathy is the key here. It’s the interface between ‘me’ thoughts and thoughts about another, entering the world of egalitarian co-operation. The vulnerable look a bit weak to our eyes, since we’re so used to the presence of force in our society, but something else is in the wind. And lots of people seem to sense it and act on it. They discover their vulnerability with some pride, not shame. It’s, damn it, the very opposite of the weakness-look. Instead it is at the heart of our interconnective empathetical awareness. A strength indeed if we can access it. The vulnerable seem to be the trend setters of the future. The future is soon not to be led by the hardened carnivores. Their views are painfully on the way out.
We all might feel trapped by our own hard-nosed-ness: and we’ll probably stay that way, if only to keep rationalising the status quo. In turn the system allows us to manifests our ‘nasty side’ without our seeming odd. Specifically, for omnivores, it justifies the use of animals: it allows omnivores to be comfortable about having animals on their plates. It allows a contempt for animals and allows one to experience a certain comfort from eating them.
If vegans are similarly trapped it’s by another sort of hard-nosed-ness. Then they (we) too have our work cut out. Hard-nose thoughts, actions, meals, even clothes – heck, hard nose is everywhere you look. It seems. Whereas being soft-nosed is persona non grata, denigrated. In our society life’s difficult for softies. So the softy, sickened by being put down, attempts to win kudos elsewhere. They try to achieve. And then cream them by boasting their achievements. To the outsider it’s very off-putting! It’s such a big turn off. (In Australia we have a rule number one of never ‘big-noting’ ourselves). Boasting looks desperate. It’s almost like violence, since it shows a similar lack of self-security … which always impels us to deliberately attract attention and then force approval (i.e. milk a compliment). Our need for others to praise us isn’t much different to the greedy landlord demanding rent from the tenant who can’t pay. Force, whether blackmail or persuasion, is hopefully the predominant element just about to walk off the stage. I don’t think any of us have rights to enter another’s heart or their brain. We can’t even attempt to go there if we don’t have their approval. Righteous self justification is not a ticket to enter. And yet many vegans stand behind the skirts of the Animal Rights message and poke fun at passers by. If we vegans are ever to amount to anything, beyond food and vanity, it will be for their peace-making abilities.

Bullying our way to power

However long we’ve been vegan, all of us are fighting our own demons. The strength we need to do that may come from our latest passion, even if it forces us into a marginalised lifestyle. Understandably we like to flex our muscles if we get the chance. Show off our passion. It’s fun to do that and, best of all, it shocks people out of their rut. It even gets people staring at us with incredulity.
It’s great to get passionate about animal liberation, but there’s a fine line between being passionate and being offensive. In order to get people to trust us (enough to listen to us) we surely need compassion flowing through every bone of our body, both for them and for the animals.
Our first loyalty though it to the victims. We need to radiate compassion so hard that others can’t fail to recognise ‘it’ in us. We need to show that it has made us into nice people. It costs a little self sacrifice putting this huge emphasis on liberating animals.
Showing it by what we eat and what we don’t eat, being vegan may not be enough to persuade. We need to show the omnivores just how easy it is to be vegan but also how easily we can argue our case. We don’t have to work hard to get people to agree with the basic premise - that animal cruelty is wrong. We are, after all, herbivores. We’re vegan for no other reason but to show how seriously we are taking our own argument. But also we’re showing it involuntarily - we’ve probably got more energy and sparkle than non-vegans have. But perhaps the most impressive feature of this lifestyle is that it has the classic double bonus: we benefit ourselves by being vegan and it’s not just for our own benefit that we’re vegan.
Being vegan because of others (specifically for ‘food’ animals), we live by our arguments and sometimes for them. No more needs to be said about these benefits to us, because they are reward enough. But the negative impact from omnivores does put lead in our balloon. If people can’t see the passion in us (our sense of purpose) they’ll misinterpret us entirely. They won’t trust us and, furthermore and worse, they won’t like us … and that’s just a stone’s throw from disliking what we say. Which fits in very nicely to the status quo.
Vegans must set the example here and it’s a difficult example to set, especially if we are already seething inside. We need to be professional, civil and interactive. That doesn’t mean getting ‘pally with the enemy’ it merely means making the communication-machine work for all concerned ... so that we can leave it in good condition for those who’ll be operating it in decades to come.
The fight, the argument, the grabbing of people’s attention, they each smell like aggro and therefore very open to misinterpretation of our intentions. So, if only for that reason, it might be better to find an alternative ‘approach’. All of us vegans, we do love a barney with people (who are misguided) but we have to resist getting our rocks off just to gratify this urge to hit out. We have to concentrate on laying the foundation stone for dialogue. A bit boring, but a bit essential.
The Big Realisation (about using animals) has got to happen. At some point it will happen, yet no one knows when. So, we vegans would be doing everyone a favour by NOT dishing out value judgements to win our arguments. Their perception of us being smart alecky only adds to the way they already see us as moral bullies, and no one likes a bully.
If we can dispel that then it could all alter, and discussion could become healthy, open and intelligent. Have you ever heard of this sort of discussion taking place, on this subject? I haven’t.