Article 3. Vegans Not Using Animals

Let us say that millions of people realise what they do when they eat animals and yet have decided to continue. Why don’t they stop? Why are we allowing such a vast assault on animals to take place right under our noses? Certainly not to ensure good nutrition. Animal foods are the chief destroyers of health. No, we allow this to happen wantonly. We kill them and eat them mainly to titillate our tastebuds and because we think we will experience painful withdrawals if we don’t. We get hooked, unable to stop eating animal products (and the many items using them in their ingredients). These meals and snacks, comprising meats, cheeses, eggs and fats, not only implicate the consumer in animal slavery but are the main cause of our ill health. But still we continue what we are used to doing because we don’t think we have enough willpower to alter the habit. Neither logic nor ill health, guilty conscience, environmental impact of animal farming, the chance to feed a new plant diet to the starving millions - nothing will convince us to stop.

This is where the idea of the "complete repair" comes in. Logically, if the world were to stop eating and farming animals, many of our major problems would disappear. On a personal level, where it must begin, there is a chance to make a break with one set of habits and to set out towards eventually restoring our damaged selves. The decision to "go-veg" is the essential first step in repair. By withdrawing our support for the animal industries and freeing ourselves from the addictive grip of their products, we do a repair job on ourselves and help liberate the animals at the same time. And since this boycott and consequent lifestyle-change flies in the face of traditional social behaviour, this is a badge we can wear proudly. It makes us more attractive to ourselves and provides the motivation we need, to go forward and make many, much needed repairs, including those to the big three: human starvation, animal exploitation and environmental destruction.
But this habit-switching is no light matter. If we give up eating meat one day, the next day we’ll be questioning the whole ethical basis of animal farming and nutrition! So what starts out as just a change of diet, now opens up some big-time changes of attitude. Many people see the advantages of a plant based diet but they’re fearful to take the first steps towards change. The idea of change may be exciting in theory but in practice the changes look scary.
If we do want to make the move, we must be ready to surprise ourselves, by getting passionate about it. Going vegan is a bit like falling in love! The greatest thrill is in the idea itself. In this case "to not make use of animals". there’s a two-way bonus - liberating animals and strengthening ourselves at the same time. We need courage and commitment to carry it through, but by doing it we develop the very courage and commitment we need. Once we are established in this direction, it’s a piece of cake. When the pieces fall into place we see how this habit-change contributes so neatly, in the greater scheme of things, to both the future of the planet and to the betterment of ourselves personally.
If, right at this minute, we’re not yet vegan, then much of what follows will be an introduction to vegan principle. So for the record it needs to be simply stated that: vegans don’t use animals. This means vegans avoid thousands of products which society has become accustomed to using. We have to avoid, boycott, do-without and replace. It isn’t always easy and the replacing-products aren’t always available, but any difficulty we encounter is nothing compared to what the animals are going through. The suffering they endure makes any lifestyle difficulties we have pale into insignificance. Whatever we encounter, it’s hardly worth a mention if we are focusing on the grandeur of an eventually repaired system. Our difficulties might be overcome by using the power of the "idea of repair".
Everything the human race has so far achieved has grown out of "ideas". They fall into our heads, they explode, they feed our imagination and only after we’ve developed and implemented them do we see if they work. Only time will tell if they have been of any benefit. Sometimes they really do work and we benefit from them always. But sometimes ideas seem to work only for a time and then end up doing more harm than good. Like the internal combustion engine, which was such an asset at first but, a century down the track, is now heavily contributing to the death of our planet.
But good or bad, ideas have power and they can run out of control. A combination of these "out-of-control" problems makes us afraid and pessimistic. The future looks grim. It is all the more depressing to know that we, individually, are still cranking up the machine by our own daily habits. We are still too obstinate or too impotent to change, to listen to the warnings and then to act accordingly. We don’t want to make our living conditions any more uncomfortable than they already are … and we know this is all very selfish of course … but we keep the same lifestyle going and wait for others to do the changing first … after which we intend to follow suit! We follow fashions, we don’t lead them, and that has become a dangerous habit in itself.