Conforming

288:

The exploiters, brain focused on self interest, know their customers can be relied upon to not-want-to-know-what’s-going-on. Most importantly, they know most people are subservient to a system which is tightly controlled.
When I first noticed the restrictions, as a kid, I accepted them as from people who I considered were lovingly protecting me. I learnt what ‘normal behaviour’ meant. I learnt how to conform.. My habits were formed, guided by my parents and Society, especially concerning my choice of food (no one had ever heard of vegetarian, let alone vegan food). Once I was beyond parental care and control I was able to decide for myself, and that involved decisions based on discrimination and disapproval ... and it wasn’t long before animal issues had to be looked at. Soon enough I realised I’d have to be involved in some sort of boycott, because there was no doubt that I disapproved of animal exploitation and therefore meat products. Later, as I thought more about it, it had to include all animal by-products.
If young adults today reassess things they were brought up with they could probably follow a similar path of logic and eventually arrive at something like the same vegan principle I arrived at. They’ll associate two forms of liberation - the freeing of the subservient human mind and the liberating of animals. They’ll weigh slavery against freedom and choose one over the other.
By chance, as a teenager, I took up running and the only teacher who showed any interest in my athletics was my history teacher so, in return, I showed an interest in his subject ... which I went further with. In studying history I found that slavery and the human struggle to escape it figured large. Humans had been forever trying to win their freedom and discover more intelligent value systems which would be better aligned with human progress. Now, basking in our freedom these days, we (in the relatively free West) no longer have to struggle on our own account and can now afford to look at what slavery signifies, and do something about it ... become advocates for the enslaved, some of whom are undoubtedly humans. But by far the most and worst enslaved are animals. Unlike their human counterparts they have no chance to organise on their own behalf (having no power to do anything about human oppression). Unless human advocates step in on their behalf they have no chance of being released from slave status.
My present freedom allows me to be an animal advocate but it comes at a price. By uncovering certain truths and speaking about it in public I find myself getting off-side with people. Animal advocacy upsets almost everyone.
But no worries (I think to myself), it won’t always be that way. There are obvious chinks of good sense in what we say, that will become apparent, eventually. I hold onto that, especially when I’m on the brink of despairing of my fellow humans.
Vegan principle and anti-slavery make sense if only in terms of human health. We, as vegans, wish to weaken the ‘exploiter’ influence on Society by keeping people away from animal foods and therefore out of hospital, and safe from premature death. We encourage people to un-poison their bodies and minds and of course to no longer be part of the obscenity that amounts to 150,000 animal executions a minute. Until we move away from so much gratuitous self-harm and this daily holocaust in abattoirs all over the world, nothing can possibly go well for us personally or collectively.