The pleasure-heads

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Those who make a living out of animals aren’t likely to recognise animal rights. But for those who don’t, who’re simply held by food preference, there’s some hope ... and it’s from these the Animal Rights Movement potentially finds support.
If the hard-hearted animal abusers hate AR it’s because of the potential threat it poses to their livelihoods. They’re not only committed meat-eaters themselves but they get their wages from the Industry. Animals are economic concerns not ethical challenges. It’s bank accounts before moral accountability, pragmatics before ideals.
People who are more sympathetic to the liberation of animals, despite having a foot in both camps, are the ones we try to persuade. We suggest they boycott what the other lot sell. Change is very slow, but the tide is turning towards compassion for animals and better food. A better-informed, more sophisticated customer is less attracted to what’s on offer, because it’s looking dodgy on all counts.
Vegan principle and talk of animals having rights is not good for the Animal Industry, but it’s not only that customers are becoming more conscious of health and compassion, it’s that they’re getting weary of hedonism ... of using attractive-looking animal products. Today, as never before, we seek pleasure, but it’s a ‘Seconds-World’ pleasure. It’s as if we’re squeezing the last life out of the animal-machine, knowing it can’t last much longer, probably realising the time to change is fast approaching ... that ill-health and horror-stories about animal-torture aren’t going to go away. And if we don’t change for ethical reasons then surely economic and ecological factors will eventually force us.
So what have we got? There are vegans and there are ‘pleasure-heads’; while we’re mindful of what we eat, they still consume their favourite foods, undisturbed; we say what we say and they maintain a protective shield against it; they prefer their hedonist lifestyle and we can’t change that, which is why we must move on.
Our place is with those without vested interests, who’re more likely to listen to what we have to say, who’ll still think their food tastes good, but be more open to the suggestion … that other tastes and textures and richness exist in plant-based foods. On that basis alone they may be willing to listen, and once they know a few central facts, then it’s up to them to shop around and try new things.
It’s perhaps the first time the ethical dimension to shopping is considered. And when people realise, to their amazement, that non-animal foods are okay to eat ... or in fact better to eat ... they become open to eating ‘vegan’ all the time.