Survival and addiction

167

“What’s worse than vegan food? Imagine just eating that. I can’t stand vegans with their self-righteousness ... somehow it’s easy to feel hostile. Vegans set impossible targets and feel superior to anyone who can’t meet them”.
“What’s worse than carnivore food? Imagine eating meat. It’s their self-satisfaction that’s so ugly, their dominant, meat-eating, cleverest-being-on-the-planet attitude”.
These two perceptions always clash but in a way, the whole subject of what we eat and why we eat it is a private affair. It’s no one else’s business ... and yet, speak about it we must. Well, I must. I must try to engage others in dialogue, try to say ‘no-touch-animals’ as carefully as I can (along with my reasons if anyone’s interested). And say, in effect, that humans are not to be trusted around animals - they always take advantage of them. My bait is laid, and it’s meant to be taken, if it’s not then I’d say to leave it there and take it no further.
My main problem, in making any sort of statement at all, is that I don’t scare people off. On this tricky subject, I try to speak without any judgemental tone creeping into my voice, no trace of denigration, etc ... and yet anything I say, about animals and how humans treat them badly, is always going to sound denigrating ... which leaves me sounding self-righteous.
So, I start by saying something good and genuine, give some positive reinforcement (see below*). It helps me mix in a few hard and it’s all eased along by a little harmless self-denigration, which make me seem less serious-serious. I’d like to be saying something important, but in a rolling-along-manner, sweeping away judgemental-litter as I go along ... and all this, even if I’m only allowed to get a couple of points across. Believe me, I’m willing to debase myself to get a response. I’ll do anything at all, name yer price, for any sort of dialogue ... whilst remembering to respect private spaces. We all keep our privacy carefully protected.
Here’s my view: I don’t think humans hate animals; I don’t think many people are innately violent; I don’t think we have a blood lust; I, like most of us, don’t think I want to be cold-hearted or hard-nosed. *That’s how I see myself and my fellow Australians, anyway. A farmer out West or a pastoralist up North might disagree - if they weren’t cold-hearted they couldn’t kill their animals and if they weren’t hard-nosed they’d be put out of business by their competitors. But that’s their problem ... I’m more concerned with the millions of customers of The Animal Industries, who might privately want more out of life than just meat, and who want to find out who they are and the purpose of their existence.
I suspect most people identify with being a helping-guarding type, something of the explorer, and identify this way because that’s what we know we’re best at. Humans are born rescuers, protectors and ‘explorers’. Primarily, at heart, we’re wanna-be farmers. Within my own nature, never even having grown a radish, there’s nevertheless a strong link to the land. It’s the ‘creative farmer’ in me, whose purpose is to provide food, make peace and discover things. Human are naturally creative discoverers. And what I’m naturally NOT is destructive. Humans aren’t jailers or procurers. The way things are with animal farming and animal consuming today, you’d think the humans were pimps for a bunch of enslaved prostitutes.
I suspect no one actually likes being part of an animal-destruction industry. Who’d want to make a living out of betraying an innocent, peace-loving being, and trick them into believing you care for them and then to put a gun to their heads?
On the other hand I suspect anyone could be drawn to ethical husbandry - to the provision of basic needs, whilst remaining protective and empathetic to Nature. That’s why Animal Rights appeals to me, it makes me want to empathise with the many animals who are presently in-trouble. It also makes me want to support anyone producing the food I eat.
Why are people so hostile towards the idea of respecting animals? Perhaps because it means losing the animals-contribution in our diet. Oh!, the pleasures I have associated with certain delicious dishes. Great salivations!
A vegan regime, in comparison, looks as dry as dust. To some it must seem close to a living death. The hostility towards Animal Rights may be coming from a sort of ‘fight or flight’ imperative. We have to keep our self-protecting, blind-eye shut whilst keeping the other, supply-safeguarding one open. “Damn these vegans who want to close down abattoirs and animal farms, leaving everyone without their primary ‘items-of-supply’”.
Our omnivorous society has to protect its animal food supply chain. Here’s a massive industry, millions employed and many more millions are customers. Everyone is attracted to at least some of their produce. Taste-wise it works. Perception-wise animal foods are still considered good for health. “Meat makes us strong”. Importantly, we’ve been taught that our human strengths keep us in the dominant position - we use animals, they don’t use us. And this nod to self preservation and comfort is reinforced at mealtimes, confirming in us a strong sense of normality, which protects us from feeling guilty ... about animals. We believe that animal-foods are natural and eating them is normal ... and there’s no need to talk about it further.
This subject holds taboo status for obvious reasons. Obviously the guaranteeing of food supplies is important ... and therefore there’s no need to be throwing too much light on farming practices? And why would anyone want to go around, pointing out the unhealthy consequences of eating animal protein? Even doctors have a vested interest in nutritionally misinforming their patients, otherwise they’d be having to prescribe plant-based diets.
And yet, today, in spite of all the obstacles, things are changing anyway. Many consumers are more informed and consequently not too interested in being poisoned. And that ties in neatly with inner cravings for peace, empathy and compassion. These days ‘being normal’ is getting dangerous. Our hospitals are full of ‘normals’, and they’ve never been fuller. I say to myself, “Avoid the normal, trust your instincts”.
In my early twenties I noticed some unexpected deteriorations in my body, and I put this down to lifestyle abuses. Particularly my crap diet, specifically my use of animal products. That was my instinct anyway ... which proved, forty years later, to be spot on. At the time I couldn’t admit it, that my eating habits could so cloud my judgement ... and now I see they did, particularly my instinct for good nutrition. But luckily I stumbled across macrobiotics, and that eventually got me away from crap food and led me into the non-poisonous, plant-based regime I have now. Whilst I was growing up, back then, I could feel my taste for this sort of food growing. I actually liked it more than I thought I would. As I got over my cravings for ‘nursery teas’ and rich dinners and snack treats I came to feel tremendous gratitude ... for ‘stumbling’ on all this at a relatively early age. These days much younger people are introduced to plant-based regimes and there are even kids who’ve been vegan from birth. Lucky them. But I appreciate my own early exploring, and that I didn’t leave it too late to realise that something, in my life so far, was being spoiled. Something of my vitality and sharpness, which I thought I’d once possessed, was being affected by the ‘ageing process’. Alarm!!
I was school-teaching at the time and many of the kids came from overseas (this was London 1968). I saw kids who’d suffered serious malnutrition and who’d lost confidence because of it. I saw them now being poisoned by crap Western food and too much of it. When their bodies bloated out it was another blow to their self-confidence. Then, as they learnt about animals on prison farms I suppose it added to their sense of shame. In a short space of time I saw children, honourable souls, go downhill - and all because they wanted to enjoy eating crap food.
Because of our attachment to animal foods, and for generation after generation, we’ve grown accustomed to using it and grown into the normal adult’s hard heart, hardening with every crappy mouthful. In the flush of adult independence we get used to our own indifference and addiction. To economically-challenged animal farmers the eatables they produce are good for them. If you’re not a producer then they’re bad for you, the food being the very worst ingestion-matter you could indulge in.
All of it eminently give-up-able.