348:
I think the finding of truth isn’t about attempting perfection or seeking enlightenment or taking a ‘spiritual path in life’, it’s about getting used to change when circumstances demand it ... and being at ease with that need to change. Change keeps alive a questioning of those things others aren’t bothered enough to question.
For me, the most bothering thing I can think of is the routine abuse of sensitive and sentient beings. The reason it’s so bothering is that so many are so innocent and are so badly abused. As a vegan I want to expand my sense of responsibility over this matter, to raise my sensibility, to penetrate as deeply as I can the reason why fellow humans can be so careless and cruel, to such as animals. It makes me want to do anything I can to understand something which, on the face of it, is very confusing.
I think I know how to treat my nearest and dearest ... with love and affection. But why would I stop there? I have to ask myself if there’s any reason to stop anywhere, with humans, animals, environment, any of it. Is there anything that doesn’t deserve affection ... as it passes within range?
I see myself leaping to the defence of animals, because they so badly need defending. This is going to involve me in a long to-do list. My un-ease comes from being perpetually overwhelmed by that long list. In my attempt to shorten it I’m forced to prioritise my interests and to keep my goals achievable – I try to ration-out my reserves of ‘care’. And that’s how I end up being more partial than I’d like to be and therefore guilty of inconsistency.
On examining my own inconsistency and finding my to-do list overwhelming, what stops me from becoming drained by it all is that I have lifted the biggest weight of guilt from my shoulders by simply being vegan - what needs most care is cared about. That makes everything much more straight forward for me.
I know I’m a caring being, because I don’t mind how much inconvenience I’m put to, as long as I’m not dodging the issues. Facing the issues takes a lot of energy. There’s a danger that I’ll try to spread myself too thinly and succeed in pleasing nobody, least of all myself. Then there’s the danger of putting issues I know I should deal with onto the ‘back burner’ ... then I’m ashamed, and my guilt cancels out my best ‘brownie points’. I think I’m consistent until I line up my responsibilities ... and then I know I’m not.
I know how inconsistent I can be when I disregard the ‘homeless man’ on the streets at night - I see him and ask myself why should I care about him? I don’t want to take on another ‘responsibility’, so I pretend not to notice him. And in the same way, I pretend NOT to notice what I know I have noticed.
It’s the same with the way most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs are just like dogs and cats, yet they treat one as unlovable and the other as loveable. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend and yet I can ignore him completely. That’s an absurdity I have to live with. It just means that I haven’t developed enough yet, in much the same way as the collective human race has NOT made an agreement with itself, about regarding all sensitive and sentient creatures as of equal importance.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Doing without
347:
What a great asset this idea is, veganism, with its empathy-driven approach to day-to-day life. It checks my more violent and selfish instincts by the food it guides me towards ... or rather the food it makes me want to boycott. You can’t argue with the logic of veganism. Apart from avoiding the ‘cruelty-products’, it inspires a greater non-violence in other ways. Since I’m no longer quite so reckless in what I eat I’m less so in the way I think. And taking this to its glorious conclusion, it suggests that there’s logically not much difference between the sentient and the non-sentient, it’s all consciousness after all. It affects the way I drive a car or deal with the kids or handle the cat or respect the cow. When I considered becoming a vegan it was always going to be for reasons bigger than just avoiding animal food (life is more than food and clothes!!).
We are all consumers. We’re all users of resources and all adults should know that, environmentally, we tread heavily on the roses ... and I for one want to tread more lightly. Like many others, I want to value and better appreciate the power of things ... and to do that I have to first know that I have the power to transform myself from clod-hopping brute to sensitive, gentle adult.
I can either grab whatever I crave or be more constructive. It’s my choice. I can exercise some self control or be profligate. And once I’m less attached to ‘my stuff’ I can reduce the stress and dissatisfaction associated with it.
“Life is stressful and the cause of this stress is craving, or thirst”. Many of the things I would crave are simply no longer available to anyone who is vegan, so I have to learn to do without. And once I get used to that, a vegan lifestyle is very possible and very satisfying ... and fulfils my wish to be gentler with things without having to compromise principles.
What a great asset this idea is, veganism, with its empathy-driven approach to day-to-day life. It checks my more violent and selfish instincts by the food it guides me towards ... or rather the food it makes me want to boycott. You can’t argue with the logic of veganism. Apart from avoiding the ‘cruelty-products’, it inspires a greater non-violence in other ways. Since I’m no longer quite so reckless in what I eat I’m less so in the way I think. And taking this to its glorious conclusion, it suggests that there’s logically not much difference between the sentient and the non-sentient, it’s all consciousness after all. It affects the way I drive a car or deal with the kids or handle the cat or respect the cow. When I considered becoming a vegan it was always going to be for reasons bigger than just avoiding animal food (life is more than food and clothes!!).
We are all consumers. We’re all users of resources and all adults should know that, environmentally, we tread heavily on the roses ... and I for one want to tread more lightly. Like many others, I want to value and better appreciate the power of things ... and to do that I have to first know that I have the power to transform myself from clod-hopping brute to sensitive, gentle adult.
I can either grab whatever I crave or be more constructive. It’s my choice. I can exercise some self control or be profligate. And once I’m less attached to ‘my stuff’ I can reduce the stress and dissatisfaction associated with it.
“Life is stressful and the cause of this stress is craving, or thirst”. Many of the things I would crave are simply no longer available to anyone who is vegan, so I have to learn to do without. And once I get used to that, a vegan lifestyle is very possible and very satisfying ... and fulfils my wish to be gentler with things without having to compromise principles.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Good maintenance for the inanimate
346:
Many of my most treasured objects today are complex structures. Machines. And something special is involved in ‘owning’ one. Owning something suggests ‘caring’ for it – I’m automatically involved with its well-being as soon as I start to make use of it. I ‘care’ for my cat, care for my car. Car maintenance, aircraft maintenance, teeth maintenance, each highlight the risk of not attending to them - like the failure to maintain an aircraft ... and it all ending in catastrophe. But all this caring, maintaining, cleaning, etc. takes time and effort. Each application of care costs me something. The insurance industry encourages me to be parsimonious and indecisive, and profits accordingly (from my wobbling between ‘just-in-case’ & ‘it may never happen’). They offer me two choices: either I spend money and feel safe or I neglect my safety and save my money. That’s a nice dichotomy. Fear wins, scaring me into parting with my ‘hard-earned’ cash.
And so I get up each day, worrying and frowning, carrying a list of things to do, things to be maintained, and I feel ‘overwhelmed’ – all I hear is my groan at not being able to prioritise - a little care here, an insurance policy there … safety, safety, safety … but it’s never ending. I spend my life searching for the best insurance ... which eventually led me to veganism.
At first, this was my first thought. It was my best insurance policy (even though later on it became so much more). The food almost guarantees bodily health and some vegans are extremely health conscious, respecting their bodies as temples. Not me. I follow not-the-most-intelligent vegan diet, but it serves me well enough, physically. It ensures a clear conscience (cruelty-free foods, etc); it’s cheaper to eat this way too and obviously I soon enough realised that it’s less environmentally damaging. Over the years I realised it was building in me (a bit) better-disciplined character and, most importantly, it serves as my rock. It makes me feel safe.
That’s what makes me care so much for it. For that particularly. Like a well maintained bike or aircraft, I feel safe enough using this diet. Coincidentally it opens up my compassion ... for the poor tortured animals. It lets me into the depths of understanding this empathy-centred, vegan-principled-philosophy on whose tracks I can run a good part of my life.
Many of my most treasured objects today are complex structures. Machines. And something special is involved in ‘owning’ one. Owning something suggests ‘caring’ for it – I’m automatically involved with its well-being as soon as I start to make use of it. I ‘care’ for my cat, care for my car. Car maintenance, aircraft maintenance, teeth maintenance, each highlight the risk of not attending to them - like the failure to maintain an aircraft ... and it all ending in catastrophe. But all this caring, maintaining, cleaning, etc. takes time and effort. Each application of care costs me something. The insurance industry encourages me to be parsimonious and indecisive, and profits accordingly (from my wobbling between ‘just-in-case’ & ‘it may never happen’). They offer me two choices: either I spend money and feel safe or I neglect my safety and save my money. That’s a nice dichotomy. Fear wins, scaring me into parting with my ‘hard-earned’ cash.
And so I get up each day, worrying and frowning, carrying a list of things to do, things to be maintained, and I feel ‘overwhelmed’ – all I hear is my groan at not being able to prioritise - a little care here, an insurance policy there … safety, safety, safety … but it’s never ending. I spend my life searching for the best insurance ... which eventually led me to veganism.
At first, this was my first thought. It was my best insurance policy (even though later on it became so much more). The food almost guarantees bodily health and some vegans are extremely health conscious, respecting their bodies as temples. Not me. I follow not-the-most-intelligent vegan diet, but it serves me well enough, physically. It ensures a clear conscience (cruelty-free foods, etc); it’s cheaper to eat this way too and obviously I soon enough realised that it’s less environmentally damaging. Over the years I realised it was building in me (a bit) better-disciplined character and, most importantly, it serves as my rock. It makes me feel safe.
That’s what makes me care so much for it. For that particularly. Like a well maintained bike or aircraft, I feel safe enough using this diet. Coincidentally it opens up my compassion ... for the poor tortured animals. It lets me into the depths of understanding this empathy-centred, vegan-principled-philosophy on whose tracks I can run a good part of my life.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The inanimate
345:
By dropping the animals-are-useful model, I am stepping into a world of imagination … where there’s an animated soul in things, not just in humans, not just in animals, but in every thing. By imagining that there’s a soul (or whatever you call it) in every thing I conclude that everything is sovereign and worthy of respect … at least, worthy enough for me to grant it some of my attention.
One of the most beautiful objects anyone could aspire to own and use is a flute. A human can be ‘risen up’ by the wonderful flow of sounds produced by the flautist and this musical instrument. I like to think that this is an example of the inanimate becoming animate - flute responding to flautist. The object comes alive, not quite like an animal but in another no-less-convincing way. Objects can be beloved because we’re having what feels like a relationship with them - our car, cat, kids, even a mirror. Take a mirror for example. It responds to me by showing me my face and that makes a mirror a useful item, and seven years bad luck if you break it, ha, ha. Or other things we can get attached to, like my bike. The object speaks to me and if I fail to listen to it, to feel its workings, if I don’t maintain it properly, the brake cable quietly rusts away and snaps at the worst possible moment, and I suffer the consequences.
Our attitude towards our inanimate possessions is a template for how we deal with the sentient beings in our care or in the care of those we commend to the task of providing our food. If I’m careless about the things I own, it’s likely I won’t be too sensitive about the living beings in my care, be they human or non-human.
By dropping the animals-are-useful model, I am stepping into a world of imagination … where there’s an animated soul in things, not just in humans, not just in animals, but in every thing. By imagining that there’s a soul (or whatever you call it) in every thing I conclude that everything is sovereign and worthy of respect … at least, worthy enough for me to grant it some of my attention.
One of the most beautiful objects anyone could aspire to own and use is a flute. A human can be ‘risen up’ by the wonderful flow of sounds produced by the flautist and this musical instrument. I like to think that this is an example of the inanimate becoming animate - flute responding to flautist. The object comes alive, not quite like an animal but in another no-less-convincing way. Objects can be beloved because we’re having what feels like a relationship with them - our car, cat, kids, even a mirror. Take a mirror for example. It responds to me by showing me my face and that makes a mirror a useful item, and seven years bad luck if you break it, ha, ha. Or other things we can get attached to, like my bike. The object speaks to me and if I fail to listen to it, to feel its workings, if I don’t maintain it properly, the brake cable quietly rusts away and snaps at the worst possible moment, and I suffer the consequences.
Our attitude towards our inanimate possessions is a template for how we deal with the sentient beings in our care or in the care of those we commend to the task of providing our food. If I’m careless about the things I own, it’s likely I won’t be too sensitive about the living beings in my care, be they human or non-human.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Multidimensional energy
343:
That we believe animals (i.e. food animals) are low on our priority list, and that we think their treatment is not very important, reflects rather an alarming attitude in humans. And yet it’s probably coming from a very basic survival instinct, connected to saving energy. We are brought up to think that animal food is the best source of energy, and that in turn is linked to an attitude about energy itself, and where it comes from and how profligate we should be in its use.
I don’t believe that all energy is simply a finite resource like the finite quantity of fuel we may have in the petrol tank of a car. There are surely other sources and qualities of energy, other than food, as there are other energy drainers. But it’s precious stuff this energy. It’s not a good feeling to run out of it ... so many of us are led to believe that it’s essentially a physically-produced substance and that we should resist the begging-bowl pressures, to push ourselves too hard ... for fear of draining this valuable stuff.
I’m led to believe that if I go too far that way I won’t do anything, like taking the initiative or leading a new fashion. If I risk my energy supply and interfere with my long list of nagging responsibilities something will go horribly wrong ... so I think I’d rather keep what energy I have ... and not risk or waste it … but there again, this very energy might be drained by my being guilty about doing nothing. So, I weigh up my options. I think about my responsibilities - looking after things I own, things given to me, ‘things’ I’m in charge of, like table, bike, food, kids, house, friends, knowing that each will take a portion of my energy. And then, after that, will I really have very much energy left for things lower on my priority list? ... like protecting animals’ rights? Working for Animal Rights sounds particularly energy consuming.
If I do choose to act for them, promote their rights, work like a ‘guardian’ for them, what will that involve? Energy. But energy comes from various sources. I think a lot comes from knowing I’m doing what I believe in. I think by serving the interests of those animals in extremis I’m acting from love (a well known source of the highest form of energy) and that will be in sharp contrast to the much cruder energy-manufacture going on in the much harsher world, where animals are made to work for us and are drained of their life to provide some sort of energy for us.
We’re told that the farmer loves his animals, but in truth any care shown to them is given to protect human interests, not the animals’ - attending to their welfare means the animals will respond better and grow faster and, in theory, more will be gotten out of them the less we are abusive towards them.
Is that cynical or what? I don’t think energy is quite that one dimensional.
That we believe animals (i.e. food animals) are low on our priority list, and that we think their treatment is not very important, reflects rather an alarming attitude in humans. And yet it’s probably coming from a very basic survival instinct, connected to saving energy. We are brought up to think that animal food is the best source of energy, and that in turn is linked to an attitude about energy itself, and where it comes from and how profligate we should be in its use.
I don’t believe that all energy is simply a finite resource like the finite quantity of fuel we may have in the petrol tank of a car. There are surely other sources and qualities of energy, other than food, as there are other energy drainers. But it’s precious stuff this energy. It’s not a good feeling to run out of it ... so many of us are led to believe that it’s essentially a physically-produced substance and that we should resist the begging-bowl pressures, to push ourselves too hard ... for fear of draining this valuable stuff.
I’m led to believe that if I go too far that way I won’t do anything, like taking the initiative or leading a new fashion. If I risk my energy supply and interfere with my long list of nagging responsibilities something will go horribly wrong ... so I think I’d rather keep what energy I have ... and not risk or waste it … but there again, this very energy might be drained by my being guilty about doing nothing. So, I weigh up my options. I think about my responsibilities - looking after things I own, things given to me, ‘things’ I’m in charge of, like table, bike, food, kids, house, friends, knowing that each will take a portion of my energy. And then, after that, will I really have very much energy left for things lower on my priority list? ... like protecting animals’ rights? Working for Animal Rights sounds particularly energy consuming.
If I do choose to act for them, promote their rights, work like a ‘guardian’ for them, what will that involve? Energy. But energy comes from various sources. I think a lot comes from knowing I’m doing what I believe in. I think by serving the interests of those animals in extremis I’m acting from love (a well known source of the highest form of energy) and that will be in sharp contrast to the much cruder energy-manufacture going on in the much harsher world, where animals are made to work for us and are drained of their life to provide some sort of energy for us.
We’re told that the farmer loves his animals, but in truth any care shown to them is given to protect human interests, not the animals’ - attending to their welfare means the animals will respond better and grow faster and, in theory, more will be gotten out of them the less we are abusive towards them.
Is that cynical or what? I don’t think energy is quite that one dimensional.
Friday, November 25, 2011
My bike, my priorities
342:
I love my bike. We have a good time together. But to be truthful, I have an abusive relationship with it. I don’t look after it. I don’t clean it. I don’t even oil it when it squeaks! But I rely on it every day to get me around. I occasionally pump up the tyres and curse it when I get a puncture. My bike serves me well but I don’t really have feelings for it. It’s just metal and rubber. It isn’t sentient and I’ll probably run it into the ground and when it’s no longer rideable I’ll dump it and get another one. It wasn’t an expensive bike and therefore not worthy of much respect!!
The things I own and how I look after them reflects my attitude to them. Sure, I care about the look of them and the operation of them (if it suits me) but bikes don’t pose any moral question for me. I’m not scared of my bike. I am scared on one level though. I’m scared of abusing something because it might ‘bite back’. Neglect the brakes on my bike and it may fail to stop when I want it to.
Whether it’s a child, a car, a dog or a planet, it’s the same fear I have about them, that if I haven’t done the right thing by them somehow I’ll be made to suffer. My attitude is either one of respect or abuse, and it applies most obviously to my respect or abuse of other humans. But what about animals? Why should there be any difference in my feelings about them? And taking it a step further why can’t I apply similar feelings to objects? Is this going too far? Do I think this ‘attitude’ would take too much effort if applied too liberally? And is this the reason why I might adopt a blanket, easiest-possible attitude? And this is me, single, not many duties and responsibilities so I’ve got more time to be considerate. Most people have less time. Their time is not their own and, as it happens, it may not be animals they feel strongly about. They may not be prepared to contribute their energy that way since, after ‘work’ and home duties, there’s not so much energy left over to splash about on ‘fighting for the animals’. So, in our society animals generally are not given much consideration. Realising this, the Animal Industries know they can get away with almost anything, knowing they’ll not be criticised by their over-extended customers, whose priorities are elsewhere.
I love my bike. We have a good time together. But to be truthful, I have an abusive relationship with it. I don’t look after it. I don’t clean it. I don’t even oil it when it squeaks! But I rely on it every day to get me around. I occasionally pump up the tyres and curse it when I get a puncture. My bike serves me well but I don’t really have feelings for it. It’s just metal and rubber. It isn’t sentient and I’ll probably run it into the ground and when it’s no longer rideable I’ll dump it and get another one. It wasn’t an expensive bike and therefore not worthy of much respect!!
The things I own and how I look after them reflects my attitude to them. Sure, I care about the look of them and the operation of them (if it suits me) but bikes don’t pose any moral question for me. I’m not scared of my bike. I am scared on one level though. I’m scared of abusing something because it might ‘bite back’. Neglect the brakes on my bike and it may fail to stop when I want it to.
Whether it’s a child, a car, a dog or a planet, it’s the same fear I have about them, that if I haven’t done the right thing by them somehow I’ll be made to suffer. My attitude is either one of respect or abuse, and it applies most obviously to my respect or abuse of other humans. But what about animals? Why should there be any difference in my feelings about them? And taking it a step further why can’t I apply similar feelings to objects? Is this going too far? Do I think this ‘attitude’ would take too much effort if applied too liberally? And is this the reason why I might adopt a blanket, easiest-possible attitude? And this is me, single, not many duties and responsibilities so I’ve got more time to be considerate. Most people have less time. Their time is not their own and, as it happens, it may not be animals they feel strongly about. They may not be prepared to contribute their energy that way since, after ‘work’ and home duties, there’s not so much energy left over to splash about on ‘fighting for the animals’. So, in our society animals generally are not given much consideration. Realising this, the Animal Industries know they can get away with almost anything, knowing they’ll not be criticised by their over-extended customers, whose priorities are elsewhere.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Abuse of animals
341:
Farmers don’t recognise that animals have a life of their own, where human interests play no part at all. To any animal farmer the very thought of animals being anything other than a resource for human convenience is anathema … to build up a relationship with an animal is unthinkable. After all, you do intend to have it murdered.
So, animals are there for profiting-from. That they’re abused is incidental. Any docile animal, any useful thing is up for grabs - it’s a business opportunity, that’s all. To keep up with competition and to keep shareholders happy a few principles must be compromised. At that point the abuse starts.
Farmers don’t recognise that animals have a life of their own, where human interests play no part at all. To any animal farmer the very thought of animals being anything other than a resource for human convenience is anathema … to build up a relationship with an animal is unthinkable. After all, you do intend to have it murdered.
So, animals are there for profiting-from. That they’re abused is incidental. Any docile animal, any useful thing is up for grabs - it’s a business opportunity, that’s all. To keep up with competition and to keep shareholders happy a few principles must be compromised. At that point the abuse starts.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Objects
340:
An animal should never be just a dispensable, replaceable property. The difference between various consciousnesses - my table, the living tree, the sentient creature, the human being may be obvious but each level of consciousness deserves respect.
There’s a lot of difference between an abusive relationship and a loving one, between the parasitic and the symbiotic. It seems that we humans haven’t yet learnt how to be symbiotic with those animals which happen to be useful to us. And as for having consideration for other levels of consciousness, forget it.
Valuable resources and useful animals we take. We think - they are ‘there for the taking’ ... it’s all part of the rich bounty to which we’re entitled. And with a mixture of minimal respect, lack of appreciation for what we already have and greed for more, it leads us to never be satisfied. Anything we want we take. We use it up and keep wanting more ... so we graduate towards indifference, then abuse and then alienation.
The deadliest disease amongst humans is dissatisfaction. We open the box on Christmas Day, containing a beautiful puppy dog ... and six months later we’re off on our holidays and taking the puppy (now-dog) to the vets to be put down.
If we tire of something we develop a contempt for it so that we can distance ourselves from it, in this case the no-longer-so-cute dog. Any similarity between human and victims is downgraded so that we can dispose of it or abuse it with better conscience and justification.
As for so called ‘food animals’ we see no similarity at all between ourselves and them – they become so downgraded in our minds that we don’t have any need to consider them as beings at all. In fact they are merely alive in order to make them useful to us dead.
As addicts of animal products, like anyone addicted to anything, we must be assured of supply, so the chain of animal to farmer to animal-industry to shop keeper, is a line of service set up to maintain our lifestyle. One faulty link and it’s catastrophe - imagine, for instance, a shop being out of ice cream. Unthinkable!
An animal should never be just a dispensable, replaceable property. The difference between various consciousnesses - my table, the living tree, the sentient creature, the human being may be obvious but each level of consciousness deserves respect.
There’s a lot of difference between an abusive relationship and a loving one, between the parasitic and the symbiotic. It seems that we humans haven’t yet learnt how to be symbiotic with those animals which happen to be useful to us. And as for having consideration for other levels of consciousness, forget it.
Valuable resources and useful animals we take. We think - they are ‘there for the taking’ ... it’s all part of the rich bounty to which we’re entitled. And with a mixture of minimal respect, lack of appreciation for what we already have and greed for more, it leads us to never be satisfied. Anything we want we take. We use it up and keep wanting more ... so we graduate towards indifference, then abuse and then alienation.
The deadliest disease amongst humans is dissatisfaction. We open the box on Christmas Day, containing a beautiful puppy dog ... and six months later we’re off on our holidays and taking the puppy (now-dog) to the vets to be put down.
If we tire of something we develop a contempt for it so that we can distance ourselves from it, in this case the no-longer-so-cute dog. Any similarity between human and victims is downgraded so that we can dispose of it or abuse it with better conscience and justification.
As for so called ‘food animals’ we see no similarity at all between ourselves and them – they become so downgraded in our minds that we don’t have any need to consider them as beings at all. In fact they are merely alive in order to make them useful to us dead.
As addicts of animal products, like anyone addicted to anything, we must be assured of supply, so the chain of animal to farmer to animal-industry to shop keeper, is a line of service set up to maintain our lifestyle. One faulty link and it’s catastrophe - imagine, for instance, a shop being out of ice cream. Unthinkable!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Betraying future generations
340
I’ve just watched a programme on TV predicting two main things, a huge increase in population and a huge decrease in food and water. With the ability to avoid the main childhood killer-diseases there’s no longer any reason for big families. In that programme we saw how educated women (in India) with access to birth control chose to have only two children, indicating that this may be a breakthrough to the problem of world overpopulation. As to keeping people fed, we saw how food technology and water conservation was providing more food with less waste of water. But this is a stop-gap solution. The main problem lies elsewhere and isn’t being addressed at all.
It seems that humans will fiddle at the edges but never face up to the need for each individual to take responsibility for the whole - in this TV programme there was never a mention of the more permanent solution - the promotion and adoption of widespread plant-based diets.
The world of today is made up of omnivores who can’t seem to understand how wasteful it is to use crops and water to feed animals to provide meat and by-products ... when none of it is necessary. And still there‘s no mention of the animals’ part played in producing vast amounts of greenhouse gases.
Future generations will ask why the cruelty, why the waste and mostly why the conspiracy of silence against such an obvious solution to today’s feeding problems ... and they’ll have to conclude that humans of today could only be seen talking about solutions without actually implementing them. It seems we are incapable of facing the truth of cruelty and waste, and only ever concerned with the present and not with the future. And the reason for this - that those alive today will be dead before the world undergoes the worst of the consequences of today’s neglect. We are speaking brave words to the people of the future, but showing them that our care and concern and sophisticated thinking is a sham, and that we are really rather primitive and self-centred.
Even if the planet can maintain a zero increase in population growth, there is no way we can sustain our present seven billion on an omnivorous diet without causing harm to the planet and human health, not to mention animal welfare. The solution is simple but there’s a reluctance to bite the bullet. If there’s obscenity in treating animals like convenient food-producing machines then a worse obscenity is the avoidance of the obvious alternative.
Once you’ve acknowledged the simplest of solutions, concerning the use of a plant-based diet, but have then gone on to ignore it, you’ve adopted an ‘I’m alright Jack’ approach to life. If we shirk responsibility here we doom future generations to starvation.
I’ve just watched a programme on TV predicting two main things, a huge increase in population and a huge decrease in food and water. With the ability to avoid the main childhood killer-diseases there’s no longer any reason for big families. In that programme we saw how educated women (in India) with access to birth control chose to have only two children, indicating that this may be a breakthrough to the problem of world overpopulation. As to keeping people fed, we saw how food technology and water conservation was providing more food with less waste of water. But this is a stop-gap solution. The main problem lies elsewhere and isn’t being addressed at all.
It seems that humans will fiddle at the edges but never face up to the need for each individual to take responsibility for the whole - in this TV programme there was never a mention of the more permanent solution - the promotion and adoption of widespread plant-based diets.
The world of today is made up of omnivores who can’t seem to understand how wasteful it is to use crops and water to feed animals to provide meat and by-products ... when none of it is necessary. And still there‘s no mention of the animals’ part played in producing vast amounts of greenhouse gases.
Future generations will ask why the cruelty, why the waste and mostly why the conspiracy of silence against such an obvious solution to today’s feeding problems ... and they’ll have to conclude that humans of today could only be seen talking about solutions without actually implementing them. It seems we are incapable of facing the truth of cruelty and waste, and only ever concerned with the present and not with the future. And the reason for this - that those alive today will be dead before the world undergoes the worst of the consequences of today’s neglect. We are speaking brave words to the people of the future, but showing them that our care and concern and sophisticated thinking is a sham, and that we are really rather primitive and self-centred.
Even if the planet can maintain a zero increase in population growth, there is no way we can sustain our present seven billion on an omnivorous diet without causing harm to the planet and human health, not to mention animal welfare. The solution is simple but there’s a reluctance to bite the bullet. If there’s obscenity in treating animals like convenient food-producing machines then a worse obscenity is the avoidance of the obvious alternative.
Once you’ve acknowledged the simplest of solutions, concerning the use of a plant-based diet, but have then gone on to ignore it, you’ve adopted an ‘I’m alright Jack’ approach to life. If we shirk responsibility here we doom future generations to starvation.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Self deception
339:
Even if we don’t actually take part in the grisly act of murdering animals ourselves, we give tacit support to those who do, despite feeling sad for the whole sorry business.
It seems that some humans are able to hurt animals without a second thought, whilst others can’t. However, most of us ‘kind-hearted people’ can stand-by and watch-yet-not-watch - it’s a little like seeing the school bully beat up a small kid in the playground and pretending we’re not looking in that direction. I see an ugly news item on TV and see it as if it’s a fiction. I can’t afford to empathise too closely or I’ll be depressed for the rest of the day just thinking about it. Is it disturbing because of the pain of my empathy or the feeling of guilt in my being passive about it?
I can easily imagine the pig as victim of bullying - the pig at the slaughter house being pushed into a chute, for its life to be terminated, and apart from disgust I feel the nastiest prick of conscience if I try to look away. When I decide to do nothing my mind is saying to me “Stop, don’t go there” - I weigh up the advantages of doing nothing and the disadvantages of intervening.
Eating meat. Who’d have thought it? Such an ordinary event. And now, with a greater consciousness of the immorality of doing just that (because it’s involving animal-cruelty) everything should change, but it doesn’t. The surprise is that we can still eat meat and all the associated products and justify it, to lessen the guilt. But once we’re aware it seems pointless to dumb ourselves down ... when we know it’s insupportable.
When there’s nowhere that’s honourable to go, we have to retreat into self-deception. I wouldn’t be surprised if some horrible mental condition weren’t lurking in the background, ready and waiting like a monster to leap out and crush our spirit.
Even if we don’t actually take part in the grisly act of murdering animals ourselves, we give tacit support to those who do, despite feeling sad for the whole sorry business.
It seems that some humans are able to hurt animals without a second thought, whilst others can’t. However, most of us ‘kind-hearted people’ can stand-by and watch-yet-not-watch - it’s a little like seeing the school bully beat up a small kid in the playground and pretending we’re not looking in that direction. I see an ugly news item on TV and see it as if it’s a fiction. I can’t afford to empathise too closely or I’ll be depressed for the rest of the day just thinking about it. Is it disturbing because of the pain of my empathy or the feeling of guilt in my being passive about it?
I can easily imagine the pig as victim of bullying - the pig at the slaughter house being pushed into a chute, for its life to be terminated, and apart from disgust I feel the nastiest prick of conscience if I try to look away. When I decide to do nothing my mind is saying to me “Stop, don’t go there” - I weigh up the advantages of doing nothing and the disadvantages of intervening.
Eating meat. Who’d have thought it? Such an ordinary event. And now, with a greater consciousness of the immorality of doing just that (because it’s involving animal-cruelty) everything should change, but it doesn’t. The surprise is that we can still eat meat and all the associated products and justify it, to lessen the guilt. But once we’re aware it seems pointless to dumb ourselves down ... when we know it’s insupportable.
When there’s nowhere that’s honourable to go, we have to retreat into self-deception. I wouldn’t be surprised if some horrible mental condition weren’t lurking in the background, ready and waiting like a monster to leap out and crush our spirit.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Essential for life?
335:
Despite our great gains as humans, with a long list of brilliant discoveries and advances, we’ve nonetheless succumbed to a central piece of misinformation - that animals are essential to our survival. We’ve meekly accepted that we need to eat them to stay healthy. If this isn’t true, and obviously I don’t think it is, then the whole human race has invested heavily in one carefully constructed fiction.
Set against this, vegans are emphasising that plant-foods are perfect for humans to thrive on. Nutrition ‘experts’, in the employ of the Animal Industry and therefore of opposite belief, advise customers to “eat meat or you’ll die”. Few people feel confident enough to risk their own physical well being, let alone the lives of their kids, to find out if this is true or not.
But instinctively there’s something profoundly dodgy about animal food, something about the fact that we never see the animals we eat ... they being always hidden away. We only get to see them dead, as meat. And that would suit most of us if only because it’s the end ‘product’ we’re interested in, not its provenance ... unless its product-quality is involved. We don’t want to be concerned with the animal we’re proposing to eat.
At some stage in our adult life we consciously enter into a Mephistophelian contract - we trade compassion for lifestyle . According to this contract we may enjoy our food just as long as we publically recognise that vegans are wrong about the safety of plant foods, and extend this to suggest that such people as vegans are conspiring to kill us by imposing their plant-based diet on us. It can then be assumed that vegans want to spoil people’s enjoyment of their food because they are spoilers.
Despite our great gains as humans, with a long list of brilliant discoveries and advances, we’ve nonetheless succumbed to a central piece of misinformation - that animals are essential to our survival. We’ve meekly accepted that we need to eat them to stay healthy. If this isn’t true, and obviously I don’t think it is, then the whole human race has invested heavily in one carefully constructed fiction.
Set against this, vegans are emphasising that plant-foods are perfect for humans to thrive on. Nutrition ‘experts’, in the employ of the Animal Industry and therefore of opposite belief, advise customers to “eat meat or you’ll die”. Few people feel confident enough to risk their own physical well being, let alone the lives of their kids, to find out if this is true or not.
But instinctively there’s something profoundly dodgy about animal food, something about the fact that we never see the animals we eat ... they being always hidden away. We only get to see them dead, as meat. And that would suit most of us if only because it’s the end ‘product’ we’re interested in, not its provenance ... unless its product-quality is involved. We don’t want to be concerned with the animal we’re proposing to eat.
At some stage in our adult life we consciously enter into a Mephistophelian contract - we trade compassion for lifestyle . According to this contract we may enjoy our food just as long as we publically recognise that vegans are wrong about the safety of plant foods, and extend this to suggest that such people as vegans are conspiring to kill us by imposing their plant-based diet on us. It can then be assumed that vegans want to spoil people’s enjoyment of their food because they are spoilers.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The bite-back
333
Food is sensory not spiritual, so it’s usually just a case of ‘eat, drink and be merry and be careful of your weight’. There isn’t any other dimension to it. But when it comes to animal food, a stomach full of meat is a mind full of murder.
We put our very sensitivity on the line when it comes to indulging in animal-eating. Both compassion and intelligence are compromised by the use of animal foods, specifically by our conniving with the enslaving and killing of animals for food.
We aren’t out there hunting them or risking our safety since they don’t fight back. Everything has been made easy. The wild of Nature has been tamed – ‘food animals’ are docile and we imprison them to make sure they remain so. But the animals do bite back in a subtle and unseen way. The eating of their bodies and secretions is a creeping damage - after eating them continuously we often put on weight and suffer the ill effects of diabetes and heart disease. If we are tied to animal-based cuisine it will slow us down and in a subtle way weaken our affectionate nature, so that we no longer care for the beings for which we’d otherwise feel great affection.
The bottom line here is that we can’t resist eating them. So many delicious foods are animal-based. Why should we deny the enjoyment of them to ourselves?
Because animals represent such rich pickings for humans, it would seem like madness NOT to take advantage of them. But by choosing to use animals we bring out the worst in ourselves. The guilt or shame might be heavy enough, but being addicted to animal products, spending so much money on them, the chronic conditions they bring on, all adds up to a ‘slow-down’ ... our self development is held back by mindlessly consuming what must surely be the most ugly products on the market.
The Animal Industries are happy to do our dirty work for us, rearing and killing and presenting the end product, just so long as we don’t make a fuss about it. The deal is that we do our best to turn a blind eye to the horror while they conceal as much of it from us as they can - we conspire together to objectify the living being.
Over the years we’ve executed billions of animals, none of whom have ever been guilty of any crime. This wash of cruelty and destruction has forced us to pretend to ourselves that what happens to animals doesn’t actually happen ... and to then believe about ourselves that we are not cold blooded killers, when we know that isn’t so.
Food is sensory not spiritual, so it’s usually just a case of ‘eat, drink and be merry and be careful of your weight’. There isn’t any other dimension to it. But when it comes to animal food, a stomach full of meat is a mind full of murder.
We put our very sensitivity on the line when it comes to indulging in animal-eating. Both compassion and intelligence are compromised by the use of animal foods, specifically by our conniving with the enslaving and killing of animals for food.
We aren’t out there hunting them or risking our safety since they don’t fight back. Everything has been made easy. The wild of Nature has been tamed – ‘food animals’ are docile and we imprison them to make sure they remain so. But the animals do bite back in a subtle and unseen way. The eating of their bodies and secretions is a creeping damage - after eating them continuously we often put on weight and suffer the ill effects of diabetes and heart disease. If we are tied to animal-based cuisine it will slow us down and in a subtle way weaken our affectionate nature, so that we no longer care for the beings for which we’d otherwise feel great affection.
The bottom line here is that we can’t resist eating them. So many delicious foods are animal-based. Why should we deny the enjoyment of them to ourselves?
Because animals represent such rich pickings for humans, it would seem like madness NOT to take advantage of them. But by choosing to use animals we bring out the worst in ourselves. The guilt or shame might be heavy enough, but being addicted to animal products, spending so much money on them, the chronic conditions they bring on, all adds up to a ‘slow-down’ ... our self development is held back by mindlessly consuming what must surely be the most ugly products on the market.
The Animal Industries are happy to do our dirty work for us, rearing and killing and presenting the end product, just so long as we don’t make a fuss about it. The deal is that we do our best to turn a blind eye to the horror while they conceal as much of it from us as they can - we conspire together to objectify the living being.
Over the years we’ve executed billions of animals, none of whom have ever been guilty of any crime. This wash of cruelty and destruction has forced us to pretend to ourselves that what happens to animals doesn’t actually happen ... and to then believe about ourselves that we are not cold blooded killers, when we know that isn’t so.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Do something about it
332:
Perhaps as consumers we are not only brainwashed by misinformation but bedazzled by the abundance of commodities in our shops. Steaks, rich dairy foods, soft woollen jumpers, elegant leather jackets plus many other affordable items, too numerous to mention. It’s all so attractive. It’s like an Aladdin’s cave which we can’t walk by without going in. We can’t pass up the chance to go in and buy them, these products, these co-products and by-products of animal origin. None of us wants to miss out on the treasure trove, so we don’t look too closely at the fine detail. We let the horror story of animal cruelty go unremarked.
But what goes on in the privacy of the human mind, regarding the wrong of it all? We tell ourselves that we don’t want to see it. And if we do take notice we might admit that “Something has to change ... but let it not start with ‘me’ ... I’ll join you once you’re up and running - I don’t want to start the ball rolling”. But the ball has been rolling for some seventy years and still not many are ‘joining’.
An example: my ‘vehicle’ is lying in a ditch. It has broken down and obviously it isn’t going to repair itself. It will lie there until I do something about it.
If something needs to be done in this world of ours, surely I need to start doing what needs to be done, and what you choose to do is none of my business. It’s a matter between me and my conscience. And I know that the less I take notice of my conscience the weaker my central safety mechanism is ... until I get to a point where I’m no longer effectively in control, where I hand the controls to those who are only too eager to take them up.
As I might mindlessly wander into a shop and spend my money on questionable products, so I might have done something I will regret later. If I keep on doing it there’ll come a time when I’m helpless to put any of it right again. Recently when the full impact of killing cattle was shown on one of our most popular TV current affaires investigation programmes, it didn’t require much of a leap of imagination to see how any beef-eater is implicated. We were shown ugly scenes of how cattle were being killed. I heard a lot of talk about that programme, from meat-eaters, who were perhaps trying in vain to absolve themselves from what they were witnessing ... and by now regretting.
Perhaps as consumers we are not only brainwashed by misinformation but bedazzled by the abundance of commodities in our shops. Steaks, rich dairy foods, soft woollen jumpers, elegant leather jackets plus many other affordable items, too numerous to mention. It’s all so attractive. It’s like an Aladdin’s cave which we can’t walk by without going in. We can’t pass up the chance to go in and buy them, these products, these co-products and by-products of animal origin. None of us wants to miss out on the treasure trove, so we don’t look too closely at the fine detail. We let the horror story of animal cruelty go unremarked.
But what goes on in the privacy of the human mind, regarding the wrong of it all? We tell ourselves that we don’t want to see it. And if we do take notice we might admit that “Something has to change ... but let it not start with ‘me’ ... I’ll join you once you’re up and running - I don’t want to start the ball rolling”. But the ball has been rolling for some seventy years and still not many are ‘joining’.
An example: my ‘vehicle’ is lying in a ditch. It has broken down and obviously it isn’t going to repair itself. It will lie there until I do something about it.
If something needs to be done in this world of ours, surely I need to start doing what needs to be done, and what you choose to do is none of my business. It’s a matter between me and my conscience. And I know that the less I take notice of my conscience the weaker my central safety mechanism is ... until I get to a point where I’m no longer effectively in control, where I hand the controls to those who are only too eager to take them up.
As I might mindlessly wander into a shop and spend my money on questionable products, so I might have done something I will regret later. If I keep on doing it there’ll come a time when I’m helpless to put any of it right again. Recently when the full impact of killing cattle was shown on one of our most popular TV current affaires investigation programmes, it didn’t require much of a leap of imagination to see how any beef-eater is implicated. We were shown ugly scenes of how cattle were being killed. I heard a lot of talk about that programme, from meat-eaters, who were perhaps trying in vain to absolve themselves from what they were witnessing ... and by now regretting.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Conscience
331:
A numbed conscience lets us get away with things. A troubled conscience casts a dark light on what we do. Does conscience prick when we eat a steak? Does it sleep when we want it to NOT notice?
Either sub-consciously or consciously, we presumably suffer ‘conscience pain’ ... unless we can switch it off. But if it can be switched off then the habit might grow until we lose sensitivity altogether, and that means we can only ever be half awake.
It seems that a big part of human development relies on our seeing things very clearly, but another part requires that we should close our eyes, for fear of being blinded by what we’re looking at. When it comes to food we’ve learned how to desensitise. With animal-eating we say, “Everyone does it so why shouldn’t I?” ... and just to help us along we have ads on the TV to help us normalise animal-eating ... and cooking shows always use lots of meat ... and it’s always a big part of travel and holiday programmes.
Promoting animal foods is big business. Animals are always portrayed as being here for our benefit. The messy or cruel side of animal life is never shown, only the ‘end product’ - we never know them as live beings only as dead food products. Even educated people convince themselves that, because they haven’t personally been involved in torturing or murdering animals that they can’t be held accountable for what goes on behind the scenes. Conveniently, we dumb down over all this, pretending we know nothing even though we know enough ... we know, for instance, that we support the Industry with our dollars.
We try not to see ourselves as the cold-hard-bastard. We try to let our untroubled conscience sleep on. And in this climate of acceptance, where meat and animal secretions are ‘just normal’, the only time we might be disturbed is when we meet up with one of those ‘damned vegans’, who ask how we can possibly go on supporting the Animal Industry.
A numbed conscience lets us get away with things. A troubled conscience casts a dark light on what we do. Does conscience prick when we eat a steak? Does it sleep when we want it to NOT notice?
Either sub-consciously or consciously, we presumably suffer ‘conscience pain’ ... unless we can switch it off. But if it can be switched off then the habit might grow until we lose sensitivity altogether, and that means we can only ever be half awake.
It seems that a big part of human development relies on our seeing things very clearly, but another part requires that we should close our eyes, for fear of being blinded by what we’re looking at. When it comes to food we’ve learned how to desensitise. With animal-eating we say, “Everyone does it so why shouldn’t I?” ... and just to help us along we have ads on the TV to help us normalise animal-eating ... and cooking shows always use lots of meat ... and it’s always a big part of travel and holiday programmes.
Promoting animal foods is big business. Animals are always portrayed as being here for our benefit. The messy or cruel side of animal life is never shown, only the ‘end product’ - we never know them as live beings only as dead food products. Even educated people convince themselves that, because they haven’t personally been involved in torturing or murdering animals that they can’t be held accountable for what goes on behind the scenes. Conveniently, we dumb down over all this, pretending we know nothing even though we know enough ... we know, for instance, that we support the Industry with our dollars.
We try not to see ourselves as the cold-hard-bastard. We try to let our untroubled conscience sleep on. And in this climate of acceptance, where meat and animal secretions are ‘just normal’, the only time we might be disturbed is when we meet up with one of those ‘damned vegans’, who ask how we can possibly go on supporting the Animal Industry.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Conscience, today’s attitude problem
328:
Not caring about what’s happening to all these animals is simply part of the predominant carelessness of humans. The reason we have to alter this attitude is that animals are not inanimate. They feel, move and have many life-functions similar to us. So, why do we give the farmer the nod to enslave them? Perhaps it’s because, for the majority of humankind, there is a belief in the need for animal foods, spurred on by taste addiction for them and an economic attraction for these highly subsidised, ‘bargain’ food products. For that we condone a cruel system of animal husbandry.
Being blasé about animal treatment - why does it matter? Simply because we’re side stepping something we wouldn’t normally be proud to be part of. By supporting cruelty we’ve sold our hard won humanity, which has been largely achieved by way of following our sophisticated conscience. We’re the inheritors of brilliant and beneficial human discoveries. Not only have many of them been useful but mostly they’ve conformed to conscience … but the development of animal husbandry methods and the making of foods based on animal ingredients ... don’t conform to conscience one little bit. We can’t be proud of what we’ve discovered here. The modern farm, where they practice mutilations and confine animals, is the perfect example of what is patently outside the bounds of conscience.
Not caring about what’s happening to all these animals is simply part of the predominant carelessness of humans. The reason we have to alter this attitude is that animals are not inanimate. They feel, move and have many life-functions similar to us. So, why do we give the farmer the nod to enslave them? Perhaps it’s because, for the majority of humankind, there is a belief in the need for animal foods, spurred on by taste addiction for them and an economic attraction for these highly subsidised, ‘bargain’ food products. For that we condone a cruel system of animal husbandry.
Being blasé about animal treatment - why does it matter? Simply because we’re side stepping something we wouldn’t normally be proud to be part of. By supporting cruelty we’ve sold our hard won humanity, which has been largely achieved by way of following our sophisticated conscience. We’re the inheritors of brilliant and beneficial human discoveries. Not only have many of them been useful but mostly they’ve conformed to conscience … but the development of animal husbandry methods and the making of foods based on animal ingredients ... don’t conform to conscience one little bit. We can’t be proud of what we’ve discovered here. The modern farm, where they practice mutilations and confine animals, is the perfect example of what is patently outside the bounds of conscience.
Monday, November 7, 2011
The inanimate
327:
If I think the animal thing is sad and another person doesn’t, it says a lot about perception. I might know a few more details which makes me closer to the animals involved but today almost every adult knows essentially how bad things are in these gulags they call farms, and in slaughterhouses. And yet it seems that I see things one way and someone else another.
How I see it: animals are not so very different to us, they’re sentient, they feel pain and suffer as we do when their well-being and life are threatened. But as ‘non-sovereign beings’ their treatment, by their owners, is no one else’s business - property is sacrosanct. That’s the law.
However, according to moral law the way we treat them shows us how careless we’ve become. Finding out what’s actually happening to them (care of the Animal Industries) has got to be a huge wake up call ... or so you’d think. But most of us are still swayed by our rights as owners.
One of the most useful things I possess is a table, my desk, a place where I sit and eat and write. I love my table - I made it. I’m proud of ‘my’ table. I chose the wood, paid for it and did the carpentry. I didn’t grow the tree but I feel I have the right to call this table ‘my’ table. It’s my property. I can look after it, abuse it, even chop it up. I don’t have to wonder how the table is feeling, or what it thinks about my ‘owning’ it because, of course, objects can’t ‘feel’ or ‘think’. Does that mean I can treat my car, my bike, my table in any old way I please? Legally I can.
This must be how farmers think about their ‘right’ to treat what’s theirs, in any way they choose, not only their tractors but their ‘stock’ . Essentially it’s carte blanche - we can do what ever we like - because animals are considered property (like my table or my bike) they can be loved and nurtured or they can be exploited and even destroyed. We deal with property as we please, with impunity (and legal immunity). Farm animals are regarded, to all intents and purposes, as inanimate: not without life but without the right to life.
If I think the animal thing is sad and another person doesn’t, it says a lot about perception. I might know a few more details which makes me closer to the animals involved but today almost every adult knows essentially how bad things are in these gulags they call farms, and in slaughterhouses. And yet it seems that I see things one way and someone else another.
How I see it: animals are not so very different to us, they’re sentient, they feel pain and suffer as we do when their well-being and life are threatened. But as ‘non-sovereign beings’ their treatment, by their owners, is no one else’s business - property is sacrosanct. That’s the law.
However, according to moral law the way we treat them shows us how careless we’ve become. Finding out what’s actually happening to them (care of the Animal Industries) has got to be a huge wake up call ... or so you’d think. But most of us are still swayed by our rights as owners.
One of the most useful things I possess is a table, my desk, a place where I sit and eat and write. I love my table - I made it. I’m proud of ‘my’ table. I chose the wood, paid for it and did the carpentry. I didn’t grow the tree but I feel I have the right to call this table ‘my’ table. It’s my property. I can look after it, abuse it, even chop it up. I don’t have to wonder how the table is feeling, or what it thinks about my ‘owning’ it because, of course, objects can’t ‘feel’ or ‘think’. Does that mean I can treat my car, my bike, my table in any old way I please? Legally I can.
This must be how farmers think about their ‘right’ to treat what’s theirs, in any way they choose, not only their tractors but their ‘stock’ . Essentially it’s carte blanche - we can do what ever we like - because animals are considered property (like my table or my bike) they can be loved and nurtured or they can be exploited and even destroyed. We deal with property as we please, with impunity (and legal immunity). Farm animals are regarded, to all intents and purposes, as inanimate: not without life but without the right to life.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
The starting line
323
Vegans want to be thought of neither as missionaries nor as being too mild mannered to speak up. We want to be taken seriously and have what we say considered constructively.
Whatever I say is said on a ‘suggestion only’ basis because I don’t want to sound dogmatic and do want to show respect for the integrity of the person who is willing to listen to what I have to say. I don’t need them to agree with me, in fact I’d be surprised if they did but more importantly I don’t want them to go home and forget what they’d agreed with and slip straight back into old habits. You may nod at what I’, saying but I don’t need to be humoured, I’d rather have disagreement than polite accord. I’m going to welcome robust debate, encourage devils advocacy and try not to sound high and mighty with the uninformed. I stress that I’m not out to win converts but to get people thinking afresh. The trick, as I see it, is to tread a fine line between informing and maintaining an essential equal footing - never me know-all, you know-nothing. I want to guide information along what I expect will always be a very rocky and resistant road.
But however smart my approach, however slick my arguments, however nice a person I seem to be, I know that I just represent just one side of the debate (which is, of course, to my mind, the right side!!). There’s always something valuable to be learnt from listening to the other side of the argument.
Since all of us want to be right, does that create an obstacle? It’s a bit off-putting to meet and talk with someone who thinks they’re right all the time. Over these animal issues and nutrition issues, I suppose I must admit that I feel very right, about the non-use of animals. But my feeling right doesn’t give me ‘the right’ to earbash anyone, and if I’m given the chance to put my point of view I should, our of respect to a listener, be short and sweet. Initially, there’s no need to go into great detail. I imagine that as much as someone might want to hear something about veganism they also want to know how a vegan behaves - are they fair, unfair, interesting, boring, dogmatic?
My aim would be to show a launch pad with a rocket full of ideas, but latent, un-fired-off. I want to make sure, at first, that one things is understood - that I don’t ‘touch’ animals. This is the start of it all. If it doesn’t start there then it’s just a vegetarian diet with something extras thrown in, but without a strong and broad philosophical basis.
Vegans want to be thought of neither as missionaries nor as being too mild mannered to speak up. We want to be taken seriously and have what we say considered constructively.
Whatever I say is said on a ‘suggestion only’ basis because I don’t want to sound dogmatic and do want to show respect for the integrity of the person who is willing to listen to what I have to say. I don’t need them to agree with me, in fact I’d be surprised if they did but more importantly I don’t want them to go home and forget what they’d agreed with and slip straight back into old habits. You may nod at what I’, saying but I don’t need to be humoured, I’d rather have disagreement than polite accord. I’m going to welcome robust debate, encourage devils advocacy and try not to sound high and mighty with the uninformed. I stress that I’m not out to win converts but to get people thinking afresh. The trick, as I see it, is to tread a fine line between informing and maintaining an essential equal footing - never me know-all, you know-nothing. I want to guide information along what I expect will always be a very rocky and resistant road.
But however smart my approach, however slick my arguments, however nice a person I seem to be, I know that I just represent just one side of the debate (which is, of course, to my mind, the right side!!). There’s always something valuable to be learnt from listening to the other side of the argument.
Since all of us want to be right, does that create an obstacle? It’s a bit off-putting to meet and talk with someone who thinks they’re right all the time. Over these animal issues and nutrition issues, I suppose I must admit that I feel very right, about the non-use of animals. But my feeling right doesn’t give me ‘the right’ to earbash anyone, and if I’m given the chance to put my point of view I should, our of respect to a listener, be short and sweet. Initially, there’s no need to go into great detail. I imagine that as much as someone might want to hear something about veganism they also want to know how a vegan behaves - are they fair, unfair, interesting, boring, dogmatic?
My aim would be to show a launch pad with a rocket full of ideas, but latent, un-fired-off. I want to make sure, at first, that one things is understood - that I don’t ‘touch’ animals. This is the start of it all. If it doesn’t start there then it’s just a vegetarian diet with something extras thrown in, but without a strong and broad philosophical basis.
Friday, November 4, 2011
There’s hope yet, but not quite yet
321:
I, like many other vegans, am trying to inform people whilst taking care of myself at the same time - I know that vegan principles can enlighten anyone and yet this much valued veganism can be isolating. For myself, I know it’s my own source of inner clarity, it shines a revealing light on so many questionable aspects of human life, but at present I often feel alone and effectively silenced.
Vegans are more alone than others since we’ve taken it upon ourselves to upturn the status quo. Plus we encourage others to leap into the void with us … which makes people afraid of what we want them to think about.
I’d like people to be thinking about how truth is being manipulated. And while, on the face of it, the truth of animal exploitation is so obvious, the Animal Industries are pushing in the opposite direction. They encourage less thinking and more spending. Not surprisingly they are winning, since they’ve been building their networks for many decades and indeed thousands of years. They’ve cornered the market, which means they’ve addicted most people to the things they want to sell them. If people were better informed and therefore better united they’d rise up against the general world of crap commodities, food or otherwise ... but we’re each in our own corner. Few of us are willing to take the lead.
Using unscrupulous methods, the Animal Industries get what they want because they know the customers are united in favour of their products ... hooked on a wide variety of animal products which are bought over and over again. But as new information comes to light and the penny drops, sooner or later we’ll come to realise why so many people are becoming so chronically unwell. On a physical level animal foods are a slow poison but on a spiritual level they gnaw at our conscience about the way our animal foods come to us. And whilst that can’t be proved I doubt if anyone is unconcerned at the part they play in animal cruelty.
Vegetarian foods and diets are already being tried and as the ethical dimensions become more obvious, alongside health rationales, more people will move that way and then, logically, step towards veganism … and, once that happens, a change in what people are thinking about will show up.
I, like many other vegans, am trying to inform people whilst taking care of myself at the same time - I know that vegan principles can enlighten anyone and yet this much valued veganism can be isolating. For myself, I know it’s my own source of inner clarity, it shines a revealing light on so many questionable aspects of human life, but at present I often feel alone and effectively silenced.
Vegans are more alone than others since we’ve taken it upon ourselves to upturn the status quo. Plus we encourage others to leap into the void with us … which makes people afraid of what we want them to think about.
I’d like people to be thinking about how truth is being manipulated. And while, on the face of it, the truth of animal exploitation is so obvious, the Animal Industries are pushing in the opposite direction. They encourage less thinking and more spending. Not surprisingly they are winning, since they’ve been building their networks for many decades and indeed thousands of years. They’ve cornered the market, which means they’ve addicted most people to the things they want to sell them. If people were better informed and therefore better united they’d rise up against the general world of crap commodities, food or otherwise ... but we’re each in our own corner. Few of us are willing to take the lead.
Using unscrupulous methods, the Animal Industries get what they want because they know the customers are united in favour of their products ... hooked on a wide variety of animal products which are bought over and over again. But as new information comes to light and the penny drops, sooner or later we’ll come to realise why so many people are becoming so chronically unwell. On a physical level animal foods are a slow poison but on a spiritual level they gnaw at our conscience about the way our animal foods come to us. And whilst that can’t be proved I doubt if anyone is unconcerned at the part they play in animal cruelty.
Vegetarian foods and diets are already being tried and as the ethical dimensions become more obvious, alongside health rationales, more people will move that way and then, logically, step towards veganism … and, once that happens, a change in what people are thinking about will show up.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Consistency
316:
I’m aware (and maybe you are too) of the scale of animal exploitation in our society. Commercial interests normalise animal abuse by concealing the truth of it.
All through my formative years there was never any suggestion that keeping animals captive and killing them for food was wrong ... and since it was food, and pleasurable food at that, I never questioned it. There was never a strong enough base of compassion from which that sort of questioning could arise. And today, there’s still not a sufficiently strong ethical base to stir people ... so, almost nobody questions ‘the use of animals for human consumption’. So nothing changes. And it will never change unless some people can enlighten others to the truth. And that may come about simply by showing others that life is possible without resorting to using animals for our convenience.
If any of us are going to escape the outrageous brain washing our societies put us through, if we can ever escape a lifetime of normalising animal-eating, then it will start by re-examining what we do - our habits, our attitudes and our addictions ... and with a touch of altruism too. And that means we must do it not only for ourselves but for the sake of the animals. By focusing on them we ignite our own empathy. That’s something we’ve had numbed in us (and we’ve complied with) for the sake of acceptance of meat and dairy in our diets.
When I eventually considered vegan principles and started to see life through more compassionate eyes and then went on to apply boycotts to all sorts of animal-based commodities, my life did change. It got a bit uncomfortable, at first. But soon enough I looked up and saw what I’d been doing. I saw that I was living in a carnivorous, violent society, and the thought of leaving it behind was a very comfortable thought. But if I wanted to help to change my society there’s be a price to pay. I’d have to face the fact that Society might remain as it was, even for a long time ... which would mean, for me, that I’d be on the outer for a long time. As uncomfortable as that thought was I could still hope, and that hope could sustain me ... and empathy could do the rest, to hold me together for ‘that long time’, knowing how bad things are for the true victims in all this. It’s a million times worse for the billions of animals (at this very moment of time) who are on death row, in prisons all around the world, who have no reason to hope.
If I and many other vegans try to ameliorate this discomfort I think we can best do it by being grateful that we don’t have to suffer as much as the poor creatures. We may have been born into a violent and animal-abusing world but we do have some chance, however slender, of escaping it. The animals were born with no chance of escape whatsoever. If we can hold that thought it may help us withstand the degradation we feel, being part of this unholy human species.
What better thing is there for any of us to do than set a new fashion in compassion ... and to let that fashion translate as style. It’s not about being ‘cool’ nor even solely about being ‘vegan’ but about being consistent in our conduct, in all our daily activities. And if we aspire to consistency we do it to set an example, which others may or may not choose to follow. I don’t think we’re here to enjoy the experience of simply living as free beings in a human-dominated world but to offer reasons for radical attitude change which will, down the track, lift humans out of their subservient, violent and weakened state to become the angels of mercy we were meant to be.
I’m aware (and maybe you are too) of the scale of animal exploitation in our society. Commercial interests normalise animal abuse by concealing the truth of it.
All through my formative years there was never any suggestion that keeping animals captive and killing them for food was wrong ... and since it was food, and pleasurable food at that, I never questioned it. There was never a strong enough base of compassion from which that sort of questioning could arise. And today, there’s still not a sufficiently strong ethical base to stir people ... so, almost nobody questions ‘the use of animals for human consumption’. So nothing changes. And it will never change unless some people can enlighten others to the truth. And that may come about simply by showing others that life is possible without resorting to using animals for our convenience.
If any of us are going to escape the outrageous brain washing our societies put us through, if we can ever escape a lifetime of normalising animal-eating, then it will start by re-examining what we do - our habits, our attitudes and our addictions ... and with a touch of altruism too. And that means we must do it not only for ourselves but for the sake of the animals. By focusing on them we ignite our own empathy. That’s something we’ve had numbed in us (and we’ve complied with) for the sake of acceptance of meat and dairy in our diets.
When I eventually considered vegan principles and started to see life through more compassionate eyes and then went on to apply boycotts to all sorts of animal-based commodities, my life did change. It got a bit uncomfortable, at first. But soon enough I looked up and saw what I’d been doing. I saw that I was living in a carnivorous, violent society, and the thought of leaving it behind was a very comfortable thought. But if I wanted to help to change my society there’s be a price to pay. I’d have to face the fact that Society might remain as it was, even for a long time ... which would mean, for me, that I’d be on the outer for a long time. As uncomfortable as that thought was I could still hope, and that hope could sustain me ... and empathy could do the rest, to hold me together for ‘that long time’, knowing how bad things are for the true victims in all this. It’s a million times worse for the billions of animals (at this very moment of time) who are on death row, in prisons all around the world, who have no reason to hope.
If I and many other vegans try to ameliorate this discomfort I think we can best do it by being grateful that we don’t have to suffer as much as the poor creatures. We may have been born into a violent and animal-abusing world but we do have some chance, however slender, of escaping it. The animals were born with no chance of escape whatsoever. If we can hold that thought it may help us withstand the degradation we feel, being part of this unholy human species.
What better thing is there for any of us to do than set a new fashion in compassion ... and to let that fashion translate as style. It’s not about being ‘cool’ nor even solely about being ‘vegan’ but about being consistent in our conduct, in all our daily activities. And if we aspire to consistency we do it to set an example, which others may or may not choose to follow. I don’t think we’re here to enjoy the experience of simply living as free beings in a human-dominated world but to offer reasons for radical attitude change which will, down the track, lift humans out of their subservient, violent and weakened state to become the angels of mercy we were meant to be.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The easy approach
315:
There’s a lot going on in the world ... so, is it any wonder, with the present high awareness of issues, that some of the most uncomfortable problems are pushed aside? We say, “No time to deal with everything” … and so, that’s it. There’s no time for contemplating ideals and as for listening to vegans … get real!!
As animal advocates vegans are supremely ignorable. What we say doesn’t cut it, while conventional attitudes sit more comfortably with people. The world of plenty, promoted by the Animal Industry, is attractive. They seem like admirable people. They don’t preach at us, in fact they seem to have a certain sense of fun about them.
It’s therefore not surprising that veganism is dismissible. We are disliked for our high moral tone. Other urgent issues will always trump animal concerns. Omnivores are happy to use a few ‘naughty products’ and not feel too guilty. They believe that, otherwise, things are fairly okay and so there’s nothing much to worry about.
However, for the thinking person this sort of acceptance of how things are doesn’t wash. It’s because the whole mess of animal abuse is kept secret, behind closed doors, that one should be very suspicious. That we are hoodwinked into believing the conditions under which animals are kept is acceptable, that we are fooled into believing animal foods are healthy - all that concerns one’s brainwashability. I’m constantly amazed that otherwise intelligent people fall for it.
There’s a lot going on in the world ... so, is it any wonder, with the present high awareness of issues, that some of the most uncomfortable problems are pushed aside? We say, “No time to deal with everything” … and so, that’s it. There’s no time for contemplating ideals and as for listening to vegans … get real!!
As animal advocates vegans are supremely ignorable. What we say doesn’t cut it, while conventional attitudes sit more comfortably with people. The world of plenty, promoted by the Animal Industry, is attractive. They seem like admirable people. They don’t preach at us, in fact they seem to have a certain sense of fun about them.
It’s therefore not surprising that veganism is dismissible. We are disliked for our high moral tone. Other urgent issues will always trump animal concerns. Omnivores are happy to use a few ‘naughty products’ and not feel too guilty. They believe that, otherwise, things are fairly okay and so there’s nothing much to worry about.
However, for the thinking person this sort of acceptance of how things are doesn’t wash. It’s because the whole mess of animal abuse is kept secret, behind closed doors, that one should be very suspicious. That we are hoodwinked into believing the conditions under which animals are kept is acceptable, that we are fooled into believing animal foods are healthy - all that concerns one’s brainwashability. I’m constantly amazed that otherwise intelligent people fall for it.
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