Video

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If empathy energises us, it also runs out. We want to believe that things aren’t so bad and that if we have empathy it should be for all the beautiful things and not for the ugly. But what a shallow attitude.

Empathy runs out. It fades even as we’re wringing our hands with sympathy for the downtrodden. It needs feeding. It needs some self discipline to keep it focused. Empathy is selflessness and therefore can be hard work. And that hard work comes down to self-discipline. It’s hard work at the best of times, even when self interest is at stake, let alone when it goes beyond that. Should I eat that cream cake of not? And there are millions of people who struggle to resist the temptation of smoking cigarettes - we want something, we know we shouldn’t have it or even want it and yet we’re not used to denying ourselves things. We all struggle with ‘little weaknesses’ but when it comes to consequences of lacking empathy, that’s when we have to be strong, to build it up. Most empathy is needed when we’re doing something for the sake of another.

I want to see people I know, whether vegan or omnivore, friends or family, as purpose-driven strugglers. Amongst animal activists, I like the ones who do hard work on themselves, who struggle to understand the issues and the effect those issues have on people. And I don’t like to think of this as a competition either. At whatever stage we’re at, some not yet empathising with animals and still eating meat or wearing leather, and some doing all the right things - none of us is better or worse than the other, it’s just that we’re all at different stages of awareness. But, as I said, I like the hard workers who take themselves seriously and think hardest about what they’re doing. Amongst fellow activists I admire those who refuse to slacken off. They watch the video footage that shows cases of animal cruelty. As hard as it is to watch, it helps to feed empathy and resolve. It encourages us to work hard for the cause, especially since we know that humans are more likely than not to instigate further atrocities on animals or be ever more passive about cruelty by being money-spending customers.

The important thing to know then, is that cruelty and thoughtlessness are routine in our world. And in societies all around the world, the level of empathy for animals is practically zero. The treatment of animals, everywhere, is heartless. Farmers and their customers team up to hurt countless billions of sentient beings, right now, as we speak. To allow and support a society that does that, or for kind and intelligent people to go along with all this without protest, this is the reality we are dealing with. This is why empathy is so important, for us to be in constant touch with these animals, and for us to be encouraging that empathetic connection in people who are not aware yet.

Those horrible DVDs. I’ve watched them and gone into shock over them. I’m squeamish but I stay watching, to remind me of what’s happening behind those closed doors and to learn more about the sort of word I live in. It’s not for pleasure I study them (anything but!), it’s out of respect both for the victims and those who did the filming to keep us all informed. And, of course, it’s important for any advocate to keep up with the latest findings, to keep one’s finger on the pulse, as it were.

I imagine all vegans want to be well-informed so they’re in the best position to educate others more effectively. But I also want to get closer to the mind of the punter, to remember who I’m talking to, and to bear in mind that these are often sensitive people I’m speaking with. I need to keep reminding myself that we all have different levels of empathy and we’re all at different stages in our awareness.

Empathy bonding

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As we take up any conscience-driven, empathetic, cause-based way of thinking, so we can see more closely what something like vegan principle represents. It isn’t just about vegan food or just about animals on farms, it’s closely connected with other issues too; each cause calls for empathy, something uniquely needed and being strongly generated now.

Empathy is at the heart of vegan philosophy. Our vegan game plan, blue print or set of precepts, is empathy-guided. It’s out of this empathy-philosophy that the vegan-diet emerged, throwing up at first almost insurmountable problems. To be vegan is impossible, or so they once thought. The broad perception of ‘vegan’ was, and largely still is, that it is too demanding. Which then makes the advocate’s job, to address the practical problems of implementing a vegan lifestyle, all the more important to get right.

            But early days yet. Vegan consciousness has barely been born. We have a huge task ahead of us, to radically affect the thinking of whole populations, who’ve eaten and beaten animals for a million years. But then maybe that’s not what we are about, in being so specific. Perhaps our greatest contribution will be in influencing the growth of empathy.

Empathy has either been forgotten or become anthropocentric. To counter that (and to atone for it) we have to elevate animals to sovereign, irreplaceable status, just as we would a fellow human.

I’d consider it a main aim, to help refresh empathy; it slips away otherwise. (And one way is to regularly watch that video footage of what is happening ‘out there’ to animals). But empathy is its own reward. Strangely, the more attention I give my empathetic feelings the more it helps drive hard work. Perhaps you could call it the greatest energiser for the work of liberating animals. When you feel close to these beings it’s as if they’re no different than brothers and sisters. 

Empathy causes

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As vegans, with all this primal energy coursing through our veins, we should be generous with it, and see the common foundation of consciousness, focusing on environment, on animals, on kids, on education, all of which are great causes worth fighting for. Veganism isn’t threatened by them, indeed, the very opposite. We learn to see how ‘vegan’ points to non-violence and abundant energy but importantly it stresses empathy by taking the emphasis off the self-serving ‘me’.  Vegan principle empathises with the interests of others, especially with the interests of the weak.

We all live in a village now, and we’re experiencing family-like associations, not just with fellow humans but other beings too. This is the age of relationship-understanding. All around us is revolution in thinking. Because there’s so much opportunity to change to something we think is better, we can change today painlessly; the tree is laden with fruit. We have everything we need to mould a revolution in thinking, empathetic thinking.

We now have access to information and social networks. We’re taking on the big issues, we’re upping our empathy for non-human species, for environment and for victims of social injustice. There’s a heightening of sensitivity and a changing of lifestyle habits.

In every way, what we’re seeing today is a heightening of empathy, and being vegan, thinking vegan, supporting things outside our own immediate interest zone, whatever we do in these ways is good for the soul; in other words, it’s a good feeling being empathetic. I suppose it must be how parents can feel sometimes, feel parent-like when protecting the weak or the inexperienced.

In this Western world there are no weaker inhabitant than domesticated animals. Billions of them are standing there right now, on hard concrete floors or in wire mesh cages instead of freely moving over the earth and forest floor. The social injustice of that is mind boggling. That’s why Animal Rights is such a great cause to be involved with.

Great amplitudes of energy!

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Veganism, non-violent attitude, eating satisfaction, ‘being vegan’, these are all beneficial to body and soul, that is if we don’t get too cocky with it. “I’m vegan, you know”.

By ‘going’ vegan, I experienced a new sense of energy that I’d never experienced before. It comes with the food I suppose, and it occurs to me that if it’s so easy to tap into, why wouldn’t you? Perhaps vegans need a particular energy for personal growth, spiritually but they need it in bucket loads for ‘advocacy’; regularly having to face omnivores and facing the huge odds against us.

I think a powerful source of energy comes from living according to vegan principles. Energy is the one big reward for giving things up, namely by avoiding toxic animal food. Plants aren’t toxic in the same way meat and dairy is. By being a herbivore we optimise the fuel we use; the energy, strongly associated with nutrition values is probably better for it being ‘clean’.

Via  plant-based food, in one important way, we draw the best energy from the best source; when we’re feeding three times a day we can’t help ingesting optimum amounts of high octane fuel for making lots of energy. What plant-based-food-energy does for us on a physical level it does for the mind too. I believe plant food makes us clearer thinkers – and hopefully braver thinkers too. I like to think that a vegan is a free-ranging, freedom-loving and conscience-clearing individual, who look at all the broader issues and causes and isn’t too partisan in favour of one great cause. All the big issues of the day have common roots. 

More than a motivational energy

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High energy is something we all want. Kids have it in abundance. It’s something satisfying, and whether in humans or animals it’s very attractive, especially when it’s ‘busting-out’ with good feeling. Of course, actually, on one level, that’s precisely what you get with plant-based foods. Vegans have energy to burn.

            But what sort of energy? Is it a forcefully-driven macho energy, so useful in football games and warfare? Or is it a less familiar energy, one which combines and concentrates into pure motivation?

            A vegan diet is physically energising but it also has in this unique motivational energy attached to it. We are after all part of a cause to free animals, and the energy needed for that has to come from somewhere, mainly from the food we eat (and the rationale behind our choosing it). With such a good track record, the plant-based foods are noticeably eco-friendly, physically not-heavy, inexpensive to buy and make us receptive to a particularly good reason for being so active. With this sort of energy and motivation, there are no limits.

            This smooth running energy production, from a plant source, is a clean energy from a clear conscience. Against whatever’s put up against them, activists remain undaunted, and that’s down to being so efficiently energised by plants. 

            Let’s say, for example, I have this project. I’m afraid of running out of steam (motivation), enough to carry it through. I say to myself that perhaps it’s best not to start it at all. Maybe that’s how omnivores consider the vegetarian option or the decision to take up Animal Rights?

            But now, let’s say I have this project and my track record is that I always finish what I start. Being confident like that, sure of completing anything taken up, it’s that self-confidence more than anything else that will give me a sense of optimism. For myself and for my world. Now, Animal Rights is full of meaning and therefore the activist is motivated by this ‘meaning’. And isn’t that simply optimism? Isn’t that an optimism for a world with no animal-exploitation? For me there couldn’t be a better project in life. And what of this project? I want to give it my best shot, and I want to do it efficiently. I want my mind working smoothly, without sidetracking, without squandering energy, without making too many mistakes. Mostly I’m on the look out for momentum. I know this will help (no longer driving with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake). If we can find this momentum, this auto-pilot, perpetual motion type of energy, it lets the negativities roll off us like water off a duck’s back. Certainly we do have to handle criticism, ridicule and denigration as well as lack of support, encouragement or being taken seriously, but that seems so insignificant when you feel this highly energised momentum in you. 

Back on judgement again

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Value judgements - we make them frequently. As vegans we feel justified in making them, but we’re not as brave as our beliefs make us feel: we slander the omnivores (not often to their face), we rubbish politicians (when we gossip with friends) and we argue the issues vigorously (if only in our own heads or with fellow vegans) – we do it where it’s safe. If we want to be critical, be open to scrutiny, do it in public. It’s good for us. We have to be prepared to back up what we say and take any amount of flak. We need to answer questions. If we have to judge people then let’s do it courageously.

            We, as vegans, have a lot to say. If we can’t be vigorous and yet gentle at the same time, if we can’t resist having a cutting edge or showing our nasty side, then it’s best to keep quiet.

            You get the “Judge not, lest ye be judged also” from the old books. Perhaps it’s true. We dish it but don’t like taking it. We all fear being judged by someone else. It’s  the worst feeling, being disapproved of, especially if you’re being unfairly judged. Judgements are like minefields full of explosive traps for us.

            The safest judgement-target is a person who can’t fight back. The easiest target, a whole species who can’t fight back, and you don’t care if they hate you because they can’t tell you. But getting back to humans, it’s the damage we do with our judgements of one another, which account for the anger that leads to such shitty behaviour. Then we can come up with a comfortable judgement: “Humans are wicked, that’s why things are so bad”. Such a judgement is so amorphous that it means nothing and therefore no one gets hurt, but if we get more personal, where the accuser confronts the accused, then it’s explosive. Can we risk it?

            If we start to make judgements they leave behind so much destruction that, forever after, we’re looking over our shoulder for the consequences. Value judging is a black hole, an energy drain. It seems to solve something at the time, bit it’s like a plate of hot chips, satisfying, filling, but they dry you out. I’ve noticed that when I get riled up by something, I have a strong wish to blame someone. To judge. And if I do, then I get a reputation for it. I’m well known for saying the same things over and over again, hence the less people listen to me. And the more often I fail to communicate, the more often I look defeated.

            If you’re a doubter, if you lack faith in the way things will turn out it’s likely you’re a blamer. It’s not that vegans are doubting the position they take, but generally we doubt our ability to communicate that position, perhaps what we’re really after is the support from another person.

            You know what it’s like? You come away from an exchange with someone, feeling drained and annoyed. It looks like a battle fought and lost. Apart from all the bad feelings left behind, it saps everyone’s energy.

            The alternative to judgement is unselfconsciousness. Skipping on and off judgements as it they were ice about to melt. Yes judgements are helpful, they help support our own values, but they must melt as soon as they form. 

Food-like

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The tastelessness of the vegetables and the poisons sprayed on crops has moved people towards considering organic produce. Gradually it’s catching on, especially where the prices aren’t too high. The same will happen with cruelty-free items, which will prove to be healthier and yummier. However, today, right now, this particular ‘reason-for-buying’ is not widely considered yet.

            We comes back to ethics, always. We have to consider the matter of  many, many more people becoming ‘animal conscious’. There’s a double whammy here in that people aren’t fully aware of the plight of animals nor do they realise the support they give by being consumers.

            In the Animal Rights movement, if we’ve not yet been successful in sensitising people, it wasn’t because our hearts were in the wrong place but because our heads were. Our biggest fault is that however bravely we fight we still smell of defeat. Maybe we are, at heart, deeply pessimistic people, doom-laden activists. And maybe that’s why we keep being so judgemental. We doubt the purpose of investing so much energy into something that’s ultimately going to fail. Animal Rights doesn’t, in reality, seem to have much of a prospect. And some people think this way and they are understandably disappointed, but if we had a more realistic time frame which accorded with the gigantic lifestyle revolution veganism represents, we’d see our main job is to set things up for future generations. It sounds a bit too altruistic for you?

            In all honesty, we all want a bit of reward, instantly if possible. For going vegan. For taking up the cause of animal liberating. If only it were that difficult. Altruism is the easy bit. It’s the studying of issues which presents problems for people like me.

            The rough game-plan, the spiritual spark, all that might be worked out in our heads, but lots of information has to sink in, in order to have it to draw upon, when talking through the issues with anyone else. There are books to be read, videos to be watched and even hands-on experience with farm animals. There’s quite a lot of work to do just to get familiar with the main issues, but that’s not all.

            Emotionally we must attack our own selves with at least some of the horror. It’s been documented so that people like you and I can find out about it. That’s not easy in a lot of different ways. It’s hard to read the material and harder to watch the visuals. But let’s slip back to the matter of effectiveness. I suspect that some of us more angry people watch the footage and read up too, to stir up more and more anger within our own heads.

            Once you’ve seen or read about what’s being done to farm animals, heard the arguments and gathered enough information, you form a picture and from that one may draw answers, as if plucking them from a tree, when people want to know something, when they ask questions. We need to be ready with something informative or instructive to say, just in case we get the chance to say it.

            After reaching a point where we can talk about anything important or trivial (veganism and football) in the same breath (almost anyway), and for there to be hardly a flutter of judgement sneaking into our conversation, only then can we enjoy ourselves, in the talking. The Talking. I’m not referring to preaching or unimaginative lecturing but letting talk be a thing of itself where it we always take the creative approach. Let things arise in conversations as they will, almost unselfconsciously. That’s opposite to pushing-our-boat all the time, evangelising at the first opportunity.

            This is a soft revolution. It’s all voluntary. It’s all about cooperation. This is not a fierce, slogan-driven mob activity but a chance for education to happen. It’s not morality and “bad, bad, bad”, we don’t live amongst saints nor are we ascetics. We aren’t discipline junkies nor are we a religious cult. I hope we’re softies.

            But, as effective softies we must beware of this delicious-looking ‘high moral ground’. Watch it even in the tone of our voice. Ultimately, it’s our steering clear of disapproval and not being too free with our judgements, or our talking-down to non-vegans as if they were little kids, or stupid, or morally bankcrupt.

            An inexperienced teacher, when a student can’t understand something, puts it down to the student’s stupidity, rather than poor teaching. Perhaps we vegans don’t give others a chance or a challenge. We know we have ‘a better way of living’ but it’s likely others don’t know that. How could they? Perhaps we should only be telling people what they might need to know, rather than telling them what to do. And if someone wants to change they want to know how to make a safe transition. That’s where advice comes in. But at any early-stage interest, practical advice, nothing more. Importantly, people need time to weigh things up for themselves. To try new things out in the kitchen. To test the waters. What they don’t need are slogans, especially stale ones. Nor do they need pushing or shoving or being ordered around. Hurry slows things down, whereas self-hurry does the opposite. No one should hurry anyone over this very personal and private decision, to not use.

            Specifically, communicating Animal Rights, we haven’t yet worked out how to get people interested, let alone impassioned, let alone to actually to like us enough to want to … be like us!

This is where the blog ends, until after Christmas.

The time is right now

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Disapproval seems like a common weapon we use when we’re badly pissed off about something. Vegans don’t like what we see and we don’t like being silenced, and therefore we also don’t like the omnivore’s intolerance of us. In turn, we disapprove of them and, in return, they hit back ... and so it goes, in circles. Vegans have to break that circle, take a lead, hard though it be.

            I’m always disappointed, along with other animal activists, that we aren’t making enough impact. But as a body we’re divided along classical lines, as to how far we go and what to emphasise. Some want total- others partial-non-use of animals. Added to this, we’re divided over what approach to take, when talking ‘animals’. There are those who go in hard and there are those who favour the softer approach. The most outraged and bravest vegans initially go ‘hard-on’, mainly to impress their colleagues and show themselves how determined and committed they are. Later the cracks appear in the fabric of our ‘hard-on’ approach.

            But then how effective is the other way? How does it look to our co-activists, being a ‘softy’? Or how effective is it in the ‘attacking-of-sensibilities’ stakes? How effective do you think you are, that’s the ultimate question after all, how effective, whenever you get into the thick of this subject?

            Vegans know very well what they want from people, that The People will rise up against misinformation and dangerous food products. We want the Many Others to come to their senses. But most people aren’t in that sort of mood, just yet. They can’t see the bigger picture they’re part of, or drop the traditional foods they like to eat. Nor can they know at this time in their personal lives, that at each step away from a conventional mind-set there’s a subtle-at-first-but-later-so-obvious realisation, that from every point onwards discomfort lessens.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, things could hardly be going better for the purveyors of animal-based products, knowing that customers will always demand yummy foods.

            All we vegans can do is promote cruelty-free products ... and encourage people to boycott animal products. The odds are against us because of the high price of imported goods, which have to be brought into this country (Australia) because there isn’t a big enough market to warrant them being produced here. If you want a Mars Bar you pay $1 at Woolworths. The equivalent cruelty-free bar is four times the price. Cruelty-free products are priced for the smaller-market, and that’s the big problem for many of us on limited incomes. But little by little, as the cruelty-free companies grow and can reduce prices and sell more, the wheel will turn. In the meantime we have to keep pushing on and (small price to pay) learn to do-without, because of this on-going problem, finding that vegan alternatives simply aren’t available.

            Presently the animal industries are enjoying raking it in. They know what customers want and how much they’ll tolerate to get it. But as health concerns and moral outrage increases, so the idea of alternative food regimens might then come to be more widely considered. 

Lightness of being

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We are vegans. Is our view admired? Do people admire our passion? No, not necessarily. They often see us as masochists.

            Do omnivores want to agree with us? No, they certainly don’t, because they can’t see how life could never be fun, if you had to give up so many things, like Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate.

            Maybe vegans have a warped perception of the omnivore mind. Maybe we think they’ll listen to us if we push them hard enough. But it hasn’t worked so far. To date, few of them have gone vegan. Perhaps it’s the seductive ‘sin’ of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk that holds them back? And at this time of the year, Christmas, there’s so much traditional feasting on animals’ bodies and rich animal protein. And yet Christmas fare is irresistible.

            As a percentage of the population (in Australia), vegans are a tiny minority. Hugely tiny. Much tinier than in Europe and North America; but at the other end of the scale, in most countries vegans are almost non-existent. Perhaps things will stay this way for a while yet, till those with money to spend put specific ethical constraints on what they’re willing to buy. Once this notion is communicated to the wider community, social networked, then by boycotting certain things and the up-taking of a lot of other things, things will change.

            I doubt if we’ll start to see signs of permanent change though, until we are tuning into our own conscience. I think empathy is the portal-of-communication to use. And then it’s down to the animal advocate to initiate empathy on as many levels as possible (since we’re the ones trying to raise consciousness in the first place).

            The big difficulty we activists have is in dropping the first weapon to hand - dropping value judgement. This habit of shaming people to get them to see the light is one way, or we can talk carefully and calmly about the issues (concerning animal foods and animal exploitation).

            I believe we’re all angry, outraged, disgusted, etc., but that won’t help the animals. If we want to spring them from jail we have to find a way of impressing the general population, and changing their mind-set. I suppose all activist-vegans feel angry, at some stage. And by turning that anger outwards, to ‘get it out’, often involves making judgements, which in turn widens the gulf we’re trying to narrow.

            It’s hard not to be angry about what’s happening but            , in my own case, I eventually (reluctantly) found out how worthless anger is. It diverts energy from the constructive to its opposite. If we’re serious about getting people to become animal-conscious, we have to transmute the outrage into something like a ‘lightness of being’. The tide may take some time to turn. Patience and its calming effect is needed now more than ever before. The thing I like most about my fellow vegans is that they aren’t people who’ll settle for a ‘sensible compromise’ about animal treatment (whereas most others have done); for us to attempt to break a ‘settlement’ by using any sort of force is plainly ridiculous. Which is why calm patience has to become the main driver of this animal-liberating revolution, because it’s about humans using force.

            I’m sure the main human attitudinal problem stems from having a big brain and a big fist. We’re loyally wired into a heavy collective consciousness. Fashion is the big changer, and in this case an attitudinal fashion change will cut the wiring and strike out for something far less ugly than what we have today.

            I don’t think vegans are only after diet change, we’re surely wanting to help lift a cloud of impatience and restless intolerance amongst our fellow humans. Once a certain pulse of change starts in Society, I imagine it will alter on many attitude levels at once. This sensitisation that vegans are emphasising now will only be part of a much greater sensitivity.

Consolidating our advantages

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I think the art of talking about this subject is in looking a bit vulnerable. I don’t mean deceptively so, just as long as we don’t come across like a tank in the rose beds or a preacher in the pulpit. Even though we can’t stand the idea of murdering animals for meat, we have to accept that there are different points of view about this, and we ought to know what those views are before countering them. I think the omnivore thinks something like this:

It might take a very long time for cruelty to food animals to mean very much when it’s weighed against food sensation and its instant gratification. The taste-sensation, the stomach-filling, the crunch and bite and ooze, the salt, the blood-taste, the sugar-hit – they’re all connected with oral pleasure. It’s perhaps the most powerful external-internal interface we are familiar with. It’s not only associated with satisfying hunger and therefore easing the fear of starvation, but it’s also associated with rich living which eases the fear of feeling poor and worthless (not even worth feeding). Loving what we love to eat is not a casual time-passing activity, it’s what stays pretty much at the forefront of the mind all the time. Just one little twinge of feeling peckish and there’s a need to satisfy that slightly empty feeling, and indulge all the choices of taste sensation. Taste buds need appeasing, the body and mind need calming.

So giving up any of this instant pleasure would seem like unnecessary self-punishment. Why would anyone choose to do without what is so available? And all for the sake of animals? One would have to be crazy or masochistic. Apart from becoming healthier (and many young people feel immune to ill health) why would anyone give a plant-based diet even a moment of serious consideration? 

Bearing all this in mind, I’d suggest that high emotion should give way to steely determination, and urgency give way to patience if only because the omnivore is nowhere near ready to be led to our views yet.

Our frustration is a difficulty for us and yet we might need to get used to the absence of positive feedback, especially since they probably think we are “crazy or masochistic”. We need to be like the parent who everyday makes an effort to provide interesting meals for the family but who does not expect the child to compliment them on their cooking each day. The kids are fed and grow up well fed, no more expected, so it’s the same with our ranting and raving about animals. It sinks in on a subtle level. No need for direct agreement or approval.

As activists and advocates we might have to become more mature in order to realise what to expect. It’s surely about our having a better understanding of the scale of the change we want to see. To bring people across to our view that animals shouldn’t be exploited we have to realise it’s a bigger attitudinal change than anything ever aimed at before.

            To recap: animals are slaves and our aim is to bring that to an end. Angry we might be, but determined activists have to be in it for the long haul. We don’t need to fly any flags or keep hitting people with ‘the truth’. Our job isn’t to bore or lecture. We mustn’t go on about being vegan if that’s just going to inhibit people. We want them to hear what we say and then go home to consider things we’ve said. We mustn’t make them feel so uncomfortable that they’ll go home and open the fridge for a sludgy, creamy, sweet treat to make them feel better … to help them forget us.

When omnivores do agree with us they’ll often do it in the hope of shutting us up. The more praise they shower on us (admiring us for the ‘stand’ we’re making) the more they hope to calm us down only to be rid of us (before we ‘go too far’).

Whether for a good cause or a selfish one, the more we want admiration the less we’ll get it. When we seem to impress people by shocking them with the facts, we may not be impressing them at all. Their seemingly positive feed-back may just be politeness, and people won’t become vegan out of politeness.

The mind of the omnivore

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Maybe vegans are still so marginalised because we have no top professionals to argue our case. Has anyone ever heard of a vegan barrister, tirelessly defending the rights of animals, pro-bono? No, as yet these bright minds are engaged elsewhere ... or maybe they don’t exist. And career is valued above almost everything else these days; by defending Animal Rights they could do serious damage to their career prospects.

            Needless to say, the opposition forces are formidable. The ‘Animal Abuse Club’ has got it all over us. They have everything going for them. They have the power and the money, and they find it relatively easy to win the hearts and minds of the public. They’re simply selling or consuming products after all, whereas we’re trying to sell a whole raft of radical ideas; they simply want dollars and comfort whereas we want to shift a whole public attitude towards the using of animals.

As of today the rate at which attitudes are changing (concerning animal-use) is slow. For us, it’s disappointing that so few people want to hear what we have to say. Most people probably think we’re quite mad to expect otherwise.

Oh, the unfairness of it all! We feeling that we have a great case to argue, they so successfully stone-walling us. Is it any wonder we judge them in order to make it clear how much we disagree with them? But although it might seem harmless enough at the time (making us feel better), we often don’t realise how destructive we’re being.

The more we find fault or insult the general omnivore population, the more likely it is that they’ll dig their heels in. It might be less satisfying for us, but our job is to inform, help, serve, encourage and impassion. It’s a worthy aim, but maybe we can be a tad crafty too. We can be just a little subliminal with what we put out.

First up, it’s not necessary to defend our own position since there’s nothing to defend, whereas one notices that they, on the other hand, feel obliged to go onto the defensive. So we must never be insulting or getting uptight or scoring points – they’ll be super-sensitive to that. Even if we feel boiling rage (at what’s happening to the animals), to show it? … duh! It’s quite likely we’re heartbroken that decent people seem so insensitive ... but judge them? How will that help anyone? It’s likely that our ‘boiling over’ is simply a way of finding relief for ourselves. In our attempts to convert we often shoot ourselves in the foot. We risk our own reputation by spoiling people’s opinion of us, simply because we feel obliged to be quarrelsome over these issues.

So, there’s the danger. There’s the trap we walk into, when we present a clear, calm argument and then get upset when people quite unreasonably choose to disagree.

My getting upset leads to them to think they’re winning the argument. They won’t back down, which leads me to become aggressive back; in my way of thinking, if I choose NOT to go down that road, there’s a danger I’ll not sound strong enough about the issues.

How strongly people disagree with us, even though they don’t have good arguments to throw back, indicates how they feel. We might remember our own feelings once upon a time – many of us used to feel the same way they feel.

For me, I have a bit of a memory gap here, where I can’t really remember how one feeling progressed to the next and to the next, until I arrived at a point where I am now. All I know now is that I know quite a lot about a subject that most people don’t know about and don’t want to.

Fundamentally, I (we) have to realise that it’s impossible for omnivores to know what it’s like to be vegan. Therefore they have no idea how ‘being vegan’ feels. They can’t possibly know how empowering it is, to stand up for something as important as Animal Rights when very few others are yet doing so. We, and others like us, can feel okay about our commitment, there’s no problem with that. The trouble starts when we feel the need to proselytize. Somehow, we are looking to convert a whole attitude. But the danger is in the passion we show. We so much want people to see something important that we fail to realise what capacity our subject has to inflame some very unattractive traits in people.

What we are saying shows up the animal-abuser as being shallow and, by inference, all consumers who support them. But also, what we are saying affords us a chance to boast; so, when we speak, we are speaking to a shame-faced individual (who we imply is shallow), and they see in us a show-off, full of pride mixed with righteousness and selflessness. And we expect them to take up our advice? And no ordinary advice at that? It’s no wonder that we often evoke knee-jerk rejection.

Amongst one another vegans can get away with a little self-satisfied posturing, but amongst omnivores that’s not a good look. If we want to pass on ‘good’ advice urged on with a little hurry-up, it needs a deal of subtlety. If we engage in any moral arm twisting it could encourage people to drop us. Even with friends, especially with friends, your average omnivore might think it better to have no friend than a bull-at-a-gate preacher-friend.

Avoid the vegan message at all costs

595b 

Animal rights and vegan principle is the ONLY subject universally tabooed these days because it’s in everyone’s interest (at least, those who eat animal stuff) to keep quiet about it. Farm animal abuse is, after all, a huge covered-up crime. By keeping animal issues out of the limelight everyone can carry on as if nothing bad is happening. It lets them continue to eat animals and their by-products, and remain deluded by half truths, believing them to be complete truths.

            Take the average self-styled ‘vegetarians’ (who aren’t really vegetarian at all because they’re still condone the abuse of animals), they know full well that animals still have to suffer and die to provide them with their favourite foods even though the flesh of the animal is no longer being eaten by them.

            All animals get the chop, whether they lay eggs, secrete milk or grow wool. Every one of them ends up at the abattoir where they are brutally executed. Apart from kangaroo, non-farmed fish or other hunted animals, every ‘food’ animal is imprisoned for their whole foreshortened life in slum conditions. They are fed poor food or even toxic materials (which then go on to cause illness in humans who eat them). These ‘food’ animals have to live out confined lives and die ugly deaths simply because selfish humans want to eat yummy things and pay a low price for them.

            For obvious reasons then, it’s in the consumer’s interest not to get too interested in this subject. Better to keep a slack conscience than start to empathise with the animals because that would logically lead on to adopting a vegan lifestyle.

            So, you see what I mean? This is such a tight corner everyone’s in. Not only journalists but teachers, preachers, fathers, mothers - everyone, in every branch of human society, all implicated, all wanting NOT to know. No one wishes to talk about the matter of whether we should be ‘using or not using animals’.

            If our vegan arguments were to be given any weight at all in the media (presumably then, people would react in horror) what precisely would happen to our society? Probably not a lot because it points to the final humiliating disaster for humankind - that humans are, after all, not humane at all. This subject shows us for what we are; we have big brains but we’re not really kind, in fact we are much closer to being cold-hard bastards. And what’s worse, humans are predictably mired in double-think and able to use only part of their fine intelligence to see things as they really are. They surely operate a sort of ‘forgetting mechanism’, to block out the guilt of knowing something which they’ve seen (via mass media) and yet have done nothing about.

            The trouble is, that the crime is so obvious (even a three year old can see it for what it is) and the Animal Rights movement has woven such a tight argument about it that no one dares to face it, for fear of being shown up. The reason that the animal advocate might seem so dangerous is that our message is so simple, as if we have time bomb waiting to go off.

            From the authorities’ point of view this whole matter must be suppressed. The most repressive dictator couldn’t do a better job on ‘freedom of speech’ than we do here, in our so called free-world, in the way we gag this particular uncomfortable truth.

            That’s a rather creepy thought, wouldn’t you say? No one is actually admitting that vegans might just have a case to argue!

Don’t mention the ‘V’ word

595a 

Sadly, no one with any influence in our society will say veganism is right, probably because they think that even the mention of the word dignifies it; if it were to be taken seriously or given any attention, it could ignite empathy and protection for ‘the weak’.  This is surely why ‘speciesism’ must always remains a ‘non-subject’ - there must be little mention of routine cruelty (or, if possible, the health consequences associated with eating animal-based foods). If Animal Rights can remain a non-issue, it will allow food to be discussed only in terms of cuisine (and, on a fairly superficial level, nutrition). Then it’s more likely that the rights of the animals can be sidelined.

This is standard side-stepping strategy of the Animal Industries, to make a non-issue of animal-based foods and their methods of production. If Animal Rights ever became a subject regularly written about or discussed on TV and radio, the truth would soon seep out. Then, in true counter-attacking style, there would have to be frantic attempts to rubbish the subject. And that might just work, since the interests of a misinformed public coincide with the authorities’ view, with each trying to protect what they value most, the Industry their profits, the people their favourite foods.          The Animal Industries seek to keep animal rights issues tabooed by diverting attention away from the ethics of animal treatment to other concerns like the environmental impact of animal farming or even health issues concerning the over-eating of animal products. As bad as that might be for business it at least doesn’t open up the Pandora’s Box of ‘animal cruelty’.

Oh, what a glorious conundrum we have here. As vegans we must try to open up the subject whilst attempting to act as honourable animal advocates and yet still try to love our adversaries as if they were our own caterwauling children!

If our voices ever get to be heard you can be sure that, in response,  other ‘voices’ will attempt to silence us. But hey, we’ve just moved into the Information Age, where lots of secret things are coming to light, and where inevitably the ‘V’ word will gain currency sooner rather than later.

Covering-up Animal Rights

595:

Unfortunately, as important as Animal Rights issues are to us, they’re irrelevant to those who determine the way farm animals are treated. They pay the piper and they call the tune. They own the animals and they advertise their animals’ products. What we might have to say about the way they treat their animals is unimportant to them. But, to be on the safe side, they don’t denigrate us or dispute what we say. They simply ignore us altogether, reckoning that if animal issues are not discussed in public then there will be fewer people rocking the boat.

The Industry spends a lot of money on advertising and therefore has the power to discourage the media from looking too closely at the idea that animals might deserve rights. The power of the advertisers determines that the subject becomes a non-subject and is never considered news-worthy. Farm animal abuse is not a ‘turn on’ for the customer, and professional food columnists would probably lose their food industry sponsorship if they dared to suggest that ‘vegan is good’. And anyway, an omnivore journalist is hardly likely to sympathise with our case by arguing against their own lifestyle.

As yet, we don’t have vegan journalists (powerful or brave enough) to communicate the essence of this subject to their readership. A jobbing journalist certainly wouldn’t risk their reputation writing about it or risk exposing their own double standards. While they might pride themselves on exposing many other wrongs, this subject is different; it’s a journalist’s dilemma – to get to the truth ‘by sincere exertion’. But to deal with intensive farming and the mass slaughtering of animals would put them off-side with most of their readers. Worse still, they’d be lending useful authority to kids who could use what they read to confront their elders with the matter of animal-enslavement.

To stay safe, writers and readers, parents and teachers and elders all must conspire to silence; “Don’t mention it in front of the kids - if they knew (about abattoirs and farms) we’d have junior revolution on our hands”. And “whatever you do, don’t introduce your kids to any vegans”.

Our need to be unforgettable

594:

If we do get depressed by omnivores’ lack of response to what we’re saying, there’s no need to get judgemental about it. What a waste of time it is to sit in front of TV, abusing the actor promoting the meat, or the TV chef being shown roasting a leg of lamb. They’re just earning their dollars. They may be prostituting their culinary and thespian skills and not questioning their pay cheque but it’s not so very different to the un-questioning customer at the checkout; one isn’t much worse than the other.

Here, in front of the TV, we can vent our spleen, finding it easier to abuse the face on TV than attack the guys paying these actors to sell their goods for them. But our need to go on the attack brings us back to that unfortunate image we have acquired, which is aggressive and quick to judge.

When vegans get ‘hot under the collar’ we don’t impress or inspire anyone ... and so we’re easily dismissible ... and therefore what we say is easily forgettable. And that means we’ve squandered any opportunity to connect with people over the central issues.

I hate to sound overwhelming

593:

Yes, as vegans we know people should see what happens for themselves, even by watching video, even by seeing still-pictorial evidence. They should see the ‘horrors’ to know them. But deaf ears and blind eyes put us a million miles from wanting to see this.

If we don’t want to see it we won’t give our permission to have it shown. So, when someone like a vegan fronts up with facts and pictures it’s as if we are trying to damage their sensibilities. Even damage our friendship with them.

You can imagine the reaction. A fortress mentality develops to protect ones right to choose what food one eats.

As a vegan I might not realise the damage I can do whenever I heavy people over their food. The omnivore is doing their best on many fronts, keeping pace with various sensitivities. There are a thousand good causes to support.

But to me doing their ‘best’ is not convincing, if they’re still supporting the abuse of animals, condoning cruelty, etc. I’ve often thought that by imposing shame on people over this matter will eventually turn them to reform, whereas in reality most people have been lulled into a false sense of security about the food they eat and the acceptability of farming animals since that whole way of life is accepted by almost every other person around the world. If this is so, then why should anyone listen to what vegans are saying?

The odds against our view are overwhelming. And it seems the only way to get our point across is to shout louder than the din of popular acceptance – so we get pushy over this. And for that we are disliked.

Vegans are, however, just a minor irritation to be brushed away like a fly on the shoulder. And that means we may not be able to reach people directly, head on. Apart from being regarded by most people as weird, even if we could get people to take us seriously it wouldn’t get us very far, since we’ve been effectively silenced by the media. And these days if you don’t frequently read about an issue or hear about it, it fades in importance.

Vegans have never had the freedom to disseminate ideas. Since we’ve never had a stage to speak from it’s all the more galling to see how the Animal Industries have monopolised the media. They are the friend and the client of the Animal Industry who in turn use the media to continually pound home their point, that their products are satisfying and acceptable. We, as potential customers, are daily reminded in books, papers, TV and radio, that their products are both very available and nutritious. They don’t go into too much detail because their message is what people want to hear anyway. People become convinced they can’t do without it … and so business continues uninterrupted.

You’d think that the level of lies and nonsense couldn’t possibly last for much longer, but for the present, things don’t look too good for either the human or the animal. The Animal Industry’s message is constantly being freshened up with expensive promotions. Our message, on the other hand, gets no coverage and is therefore easily forgotten. They have all the advantages, we have almost none. To help them secure their advantage, they pay actors big money to promote their products (often glamorous and articulate celebrities). And this is successful, up to a point, since they are selling to people who want to believe in what they’re being sold. It’s comforting!

Do I find that depressing or what?, especially since I know that most of my friends have been so easily manipulated.

Big shiftings

592:

If adults go astray they lead their kids astray with them. With ten or twenty years of indoctrination, young people are hard pressed to adopt a truly compassionate personality ... and yet many do. An instinct in some young people tells them that their fellow humans could be wrong about some of the most fundamental things, like resorting to warfare to solve differences, like accepting violence done to animals for the sake of food.

The problem, as I see it, is that humans develop and entrench certain habits and then forget ever to question them. Young people, however, have a chance to make changes when they first move away from their parents’ dining table. But this is a time when they probably need most help, to give them enough confidence to change and set in new eating habits. They need practical advice on how to change to a plant-based diet.

For most others, they give up before they’ve started. They pass the stage of even considering a new ‘food’ idea, because there are too many normalities and addictive habits to forego. They won’t be able to take the idea of veganism seriously because it will change their whole life style.

Some young people (and even a few older ones) on the other hand, will rise to the challenge, and that’s where radical change can take place. In reality, if left too long, once a person decides to ‘settle down’ it might be too late; past a certain age, unless we’ve made our move early, it’s unlikely our ‘habit-self’ will allow us to go vegetarian let alone vegan.

How great is the gulf, then, between practising vegans and ‘non-vegans’? Probably enough to need a fundamental attitude change necessary, and for that maybe (in order to hit the ground running) one would need to be about two years old, not chronologically but in a person’s freshness of approach at the taking-up-of-new-ideas.

The principle behind the herbivore

591:

Animal Liberation has come on a long way since the 1970’s but nowhere near far enough to be even close to the liberating of animals. It’s great that the vegan movement has emerged but sad to see how slow it has been to catch on. Early ideals have faded away and hearts have re-hardened. Eating habits are so deeply entrenched that when the novelty (of the philosophy behind true vegetarianism) wore off, old eating habits were returned to.

            A friend of mine tells me that humans are naturally omnivorous, and that’s the platform on which she rests all her beliefs about animal food and clothing. She’s exemplary about her environmental habits and her political leanings but here, over animal issues, there’s a sticking point - she says it’s wrong to eat meat but ethical to eat animal products since the animal isn’t killed for its by-products (milk or eggs or wool). Oh no?

In that one misunderstanding (or obstinacy) one is able to justify the use of these products, which in turn allows one to justify the using of hundreds of food items using these by-products.

            This is where vegans are thorough in their avoidance of all items connected with animals because each animal that is used ends up at the abattoir and always leads a life of misery and/or confinement beforehand.

            The idea of a totally plant-based regimen is resisted more hotly by the lacto-ovo vegetarian than meatless diets are resisted by carnivores. The by-product-eating vegetarian resists veganism and is content with simply going half way, by moving away from the killing of animals for their meat.

            I use the identifier, ‘omnivore’, not to describe the whole person but as an important defining attitude in that person and in their daily lifestyle and habit patterning. The habits of one’s own life, especially after a few years into adulthood, are strongly laid down. As we get used to using animals for our convenience it becomes ever harder to stop, which is why a rather clumsy justification is adopted for the using of animal products.

As young people enter the adult world they seek to win acceptance. To be taken seriously, the young adult emulates his or her elders, not wanting to stand out as different in certain important social ways, as with their eating habits. And yet there might be a stronger force at play here; it might manifest as a rebellion against the ways of their elders or even their peers, replacing the habits of the majority with a growing empathy-driven compassion.

Whingeing at meat eaters is not the answer

589: 

At the moment it doesn’t seem that people are ‘interested’ in us. Yawn. The very mention of ‘Animal Rights’ makes most people want to switch off. At a rally, they pass by without even glancing our way. We’re astounded. We wait … and nothing changes. And so it goes on.

Perhaps we can’t think of another way of publicising animal issues when we’re on the back foot. Does our voice become shrill when we talk? Is the tone in our voice to earnest? Perhaps from being shocked by their indifference we don’t notice we’re almost shouting at them, as if we’re saying, “Hey you”, implying they’re asleep.

But of course they are NOT asleep, they just don’t want to be confronted. When they see us holding placards on the street their first thought is to try to get past us. We represent an uncomfortable truth.

Amongst ourselves we talk. We say how we feel. It makes us feel better. But if we talk the same way to omnivores our words explode in our face, which is why whingeing to meat eaters never works.

Their food almost defines who they are. And perhaps their clothing does too (women’s shoes, men’s leather jackets). So, they don’t take kindly to being put on the spot over their choices.

They can sympathise with vegans because they know we have a tough time of it, being excluded from a big part of their world. But it’s usually pity they feel at our stubbornness.

So, here we are, ‘vegans’, trying to talk about the most tabooed subject on earth and not even getting to first base. All I know is that omnivore-bashing isn’t the answer.

Omnivores are not stupid

588:

Can I be really honest here? Isn’t it true that we, as vegans, hit out at the omnivore consumer (that’s almost all adult people). We know that it’s the ordinary consumer who stands in the way of progress on this issue, so we want to pay them back a bit for supporting the Animal Industries as they do.

We’d like to give them a good shake, but can’t, because that would be assault. Instead we do it by showing disapproval. And even if we only raise an eyebrow, we show it. No one likes being disapproved of. We may not say it straight out but we imply scorn, and omnivores see it. It’s like being told, “If you eat anything ‘animal’ you’re as good as killers”.

When we (vegans) do this, we know exactly what we’re doing. We might make a bit of a joke of it, but they know we’re serious, and if we get into a real discussion of issues, it’s hard to argue our case generously or with any grace. It’s likely we try to trap them or force them to see things our way.

By wandering into our trap they know we mean to jolt them into awareness, and people don’t usually like being jolted. We, however, think we are justified in doing that, even though we employ a small violence in the process. I’ve seen myself do it and then think it’s okay. I argue to myself that if my intentions are ‘good’, fighting the ‘good fight’, etc, that I’ll be excused using rough tactics. But because there is such a huge weight of normality in human use of animals, my opinion, approach and tactics aren’t usually appreciated. And worse. We’ve all been ‘assaulted’ by religious evangelists who come to our door and most of us know how to handle them. It’s probably the same when handling vegans who get too enthusiastic.

We vegans may not knock on doors but we will try to bring the conversation around to the subject of animal abuse. And we often don’t do it very subtly, so we’re easily spotted, but we keep on doing it until we start to look a bit desperate. It’s probably going to be a long drawn-out business trying to repair our own previous proselytising and finger-wagging and disapproving, and convincing people that we don’t want to lose friends or take our revenge.

If people are willing to give us a chance to put our case, what a waste it would be if we blew it. What a waste, once we’d actually sparked an interest, to then seem either threatening or pathetic.

“I’m outraged!”

587:

Some decades ago “outrage” was powerful. There was even a saying in Australia, made popular after 1975 - “Maintain your rage”. All that heavy emotion, in the name of outrage, was effective enough at the time, but did it really achieve anything in the long run, and did our animal rights outrage really shift people’s attitude? Today, anyway, Animal Rights outrage is barely a whimper.

In the earlier days of the Animal Rights movement, anger made quite an impact. But that ‘shock-horror’ angle doesn’t cut it any longer – we discover what’s going on, there’s a moment of outrage and wanting to do something about it, then we calculate the impact on our own lives. Then we block it out. What we know, we pretend to others we don’t know. Being a well informed omnivore these days might be exhausting for the conscience but the alternative is unthinkable for most people.

Vegans propose a new way of life. But we don’t sell it too well, which is why it seems an ‘unthinkable way of life’ to non-vegans. Outrage doesn’t help these days, not because people can’t relate to outrage but because we vegan advocates are so predictable. We use the one weapon and it gets blunt from overuse. The heaviest club we hit people with are examples of ‘the horror’ of animal exploitation or the danger to health of eating animal products. We whip out the ugly pictures and frightening statistics. We quote quotes, tell the stories of our own encounters on farms and at abattoirs, or the rate of heart attacks and diabetes, and we even learn to tell jokes at our own expense, but often we go on too long, we go too far and we seem too right. We get a reputation. And then people only half listen and half digest what we say (in the same way we zone-out when politicians are electioneering). People are easily bored with ‘the message’ and find it easy to half reject it and half dislike the messenger.

Perhaps there is no neat solution. This is such a big issue and the resistance is so deep-set that even if there’s an encouraging positive reaction it might not be maintained for very long

. And this message requires not only a radical response but a long-maintained response.

If responses are, overall, disappointing, we surely have to get used to that. But clearly enough, what we have to deal with and how we do eventually come to deal with it is the make or break of “Project Animal Freedom”. At this early stage, progress is painfully slow. People are still so set in their ways, that a clumsy approach by us might entrench negative attitudes. The clumsiness happens most often when there’s been an ugly turn of atmosphere in an otherwise pleasant conversation. As soon as we feel we aren’t getting much of a response to what we are saying it’s likely we get impatient. And that must seem like making a value judgement, and feel like making a detachment, and this is what probably does most damage to our attempts at advocacy.

Life in general

585:

If animals need to be respected it’s part of a wider respect, for life in general. Surely the very life force should be respected if not marvelled at, if only because Nature is probably the most beautiful thing we know. Both animals and Nature need protecting from exploitative humans.

Because the numbers are so great I’m interested at looking at one side of ‘protection’ here, of the billions of sentient farm animals presently languishing in captivity. By protecting these animals we have a chance to restore the balance of Nature itself (perhaps by way of engaging our own repairing spirit). Slim as it might seem, there’s probably only one chance left for us, to show ourselves that we still have humanity in us. In a round-about way it’s the saving of these very animals that can show us the significance of developing a repairing attitude; we can start by looking at them differently and end by seeking their forgiveness.

The difficult patch humans are going through, transitioning into a deeper consciousness, touches on our potential for  symbiotic relationship with them (with any sentient lifeform we’ve exploited). We have the possibility now to be reciprocal partners. But there’s a way to go yet. Right now they urgently need our help just to get them out of jail.

If we want to become effective advocates for them, we need to present a picture of them to spark people’s imagination. I can’t think of a better way this is being done at present than in Jodi Ruckley’s DVD, ‘The Animals You Eat’, which is aimed at kids.

It lets the animals ‘speak’ as narrators in their own life stories. The film is available from www.ourplaceonearth.com. Since it is designed to appeal to school students, it’s watchable and doesn’t have any horrific visuals.

With images and words and even some humour, we can help to lift the leaden weight of today’s mind-set without too much emotional outburst. We need to point our empathy in the right direction but at the same time find good food as well as ‘hope-for-the-future’. It will be a revolution, of course, as abattoirs shut down but mainly it will be an emotional revolution where animal advocates will no longer be driven by sadness or self pity or anger, or feeling better than our neighbour because of what we eat or wear, or giving the omnivore a good laugh at our expense. 

Voiceless

584:

Animal Rights is the only protection from human exploitation that animals are ever going to get. It’s a noble thing for us to be protecting their rights. Vegans should feel rightly proud of the decision we’ve made by saying “enough is enough”, and to have gone for broke, and to be fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves.

There’s nothing better we could be doing because we know that no animal can do it for themselves. Against the human, their fighting teeth were blunted long ago.

It’s been a long time since humans were frightened of any other species (although we are terrified of small things like viruses which show their teeth in a very challenging way!)

For the time being humans are the dominant species and to prove it we’ve taken things to the ugliest extremes imaginable. And now vegans are sounding the alarm, saying that animals have rights and humans are crazy not to respect them.

Our aim is to grant animals their right to a life, without imprisonment and execution.

Rage and abandonment

583:

We say, “Look, will you, at what they’re doing to the animals. It’s absolutely disgusting”. We say, “Stop buying their stuff. Stop grabbing what they’re offering you”. But how often do we ever get a chance to say any of this? And even if we did say it, surely it’s the way we say it, to show we are concerned both for the animals as victims and for the humans as perpetrators.

            For those of us who are concerned, we find it hard to suppress our feelings. And I’m arguing that most times we should try hard to suppress, for the sake of a better outcome. This ‘concern’ we have is a double worry. We’re as much worried by what’s happening as we are about our own inability to stop it happening.

            I often think it’s like passing a house, looking through a window and seeing a kid being threatened by an adult and being entirely unable to help. It’s possible that it isn’t as it seems. We have to say to our self “Oh, they’re just having a scrap, none of my business”, and then walk on.

            It’s very difficult for the animal activist to imagine how any of this killing will be stopped. Lying awake at night I, like others, picture small animals, alone, frightened, and in a state of god-knows-what-unimaginable-hell. Lying awake, I think, “this is happening tonight, now, at this moment”. I might be deeply concerned but it doesn’t help any of them. And yet my imagination is showing me this suffering and I know that it’s happening just down the road, not so far from where I live.

            In these sleepless moments I might think we’re all doomed. I envisage the torment behind the production of each breakfast egg. That torment continues unheard, behind closed-doors. As I imagine it, it gets into my head. I can hear the animals scream and my heart goes out to them both for the physical suffering and the anguish they must feel, that nobody cares for them. And that they’re abandoned. But if I said any of this to you as you ate your breakfast egg you’d simply make me feel over-emotional, in order to shut me up.

            It’s as if some of us live on different planets to the rest of the population, or that we speak a foreign language, or that we are a voice that can be switched off like we switch off a radio. The greatest challenge we have is to find a way to make some small impression on those who are all too ready to switch us off.

Grabbing what’s on offer

582:

Has anyone ever asked the animals their permission, for taking things from them? Their secretions and, for heaven’s sake, their very lives?

            No animal has indicated in any way, that we may steal from them, and yet we do, and all the while we think it’s essential and (for we humans at least) efficacious. This is fundamentally why vegans get so angry and judgemental about the casual way omnivores conduct themselves in this respect.

            Now, if we really want omnivores to start thinking about ‘permission’ we need to see them as potential learners rather than blind consumers. They need to see us as teachers rather than condemners.

If we can’t stop our habit of judging them, then the bigger our raging the smaller our voice, and the more likely no one will take notice of what we’re trying to tell them. One of my main criticisms of the animal rights movement is that we only ever judge and condemn. We say the same things over and over again, hoping something will stick and hoping the penny will drop. We fail to see how this tactic never actually works.

Often we’re not very original in what we say. And if what we say is stale it might mean that we aren’t that interested in talking through the subject.

If we don’t really want to talk ethics with people, then what DO we want to talk about? Usually we don’t get much past health and cruelty issues, using a few well worn slogans and topping it off with a few moral judgements.

Wouldn’t it be better to simply give out useful information, without feeling a compulsion to show our feelings of disgust. Our feelings will be obvious anyway, without having to show them. They are life-grabbers we are talking to. They are used to grabbing whatever they want that’s on sale. Our job is to get them to grab us instead, and wring information from us. That is our real value.

Don’t stand on ceremony, just help yourself

581:

Animal guardians (vegans) are persistent, because we’re in it for life. But also because we keep asking the same unanswerable question: “How can such terrible things be done to animals, and people not react?” As our incredulity grows into outrage and then on into anger we can feel a sort of power flowing through us. But sadly, there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s like lightening that doesn’t make contact with the ground. It doesn’t connect. For all our outrage, protesting and arguing, we notice nothing positive happens. The crazy, cruel things just keep on happening.

Humans know no other way of living that doesn’t include attacking animals. Most people are dependent on abattoir products. Regrettably, we animal activists have to get used to this. Animals are used because it’s easy to use them. And as for the caging and killing of them, there will always be someone to do the job for us. It’s likely the people employed to do the nastiest jobs at abattoirs will be those who can find no other employment. They know they’ll be paid and will be protected by the fact that what they do doesn’t break any law.

This awful reality stands as a brick wall to any progress on granting animals rights (to be protected). Animals’ bodies and their secretions seem to be regarded as ‘for the taking’, like pears from a pear tree or minerals from the ground. If it can be taken, humans will take it. That’s one characteristic attitude amongst humans that does us no credit. With all that we now know about human behaviour and disregarding the danger of it, vegans are not so much angry as incredulous.

Two stage break-out

580:

At the heart of our collective mind-set is the intractability of attitude about the treatment of animals. By keeping them as slaves it lets us remain omnivores. It’s a worry for many people but they can’t shake the habit of eating animal foods. The stuff is addictive.

Maybe the weight of worry we have isn’t just in the magnitude of the problem, but in the cover-up that goes with it. We’ve been tricked by the food companies into thinking that there is no ethical component in food. As soon as we realise there is, we try not to think about it too deeply, because if we did we’d start boycotting a few things and end up avoiding many, many things. The logic behind ethical boycott applies to innumerable food items. We fear that if we start along that road, soon enough there’ll be nothing much left to buy (in terms of comfort foods).

Everyone knows about the amount of animal exploitation going on, just by being exposed to TV footage about it. But the footage only goes so far. If we look deeper at the statistics, we find that an average Westerner eats twenty one thousand animals (in his or her lifetime). That’s a lot of executions weighing down on our conscience. Each death is an individual animal’s horror story which we consumers have been party to.

Just by writing this, I’m conscious of saying something highly unpopular! But I hasten to add that all of us, including present day vegans, are or were hardened animal eaters at one stage of our lives. We’ve all got blood on our hands.

Once we can acknowledge this ‘plain awful truth’, and then stop doing what we’re doing (and promise ourselves not to ‘go there’ anymore), we can start to repair, to atone.

But that’s just one thing. The next step is to get off our high horse, judging those who still aren’t vegan, because it’s a waste of time; our condemnations might make us feel better but they only serve to alienate people.

The disease of pessimism

579:

All the time we humans are still using animals we won’t get past being pessimists, and we’ll never shake the guilt of it all, and we’ll always feel like failures because of it. It mightn’t be the same for the exploiters themselves, since they probably don’t care enough to be optimists. Probably, nothing will stop them doing what they do since they’re pessimists who pretend they’re optimists. 

            But even vegans catch the disease of pessimism, not out of guilt but from harbouring negative outlooks. It’s the pessimist’s forecast, whether it’s coming from the exploiter, the consumer or the vegan - each in their own way they hold pessimism as some sort of protection against the shock of the inevitable.

            Optimists know that pessimism is just a trap to keep us away from change. We also know that change hinges on one’s state of mind, and the confidence of being in control of it. Stuff happens, but the optimist makes the best of it and even uses adversity to add fresh resolve.

            As vegans, we can be far more optimistic and up-beat than our omnivore friends, because at least we’ve made a practical optimistic statement, and to a very great extent we have defied convention.

            For us there’s a way out of the mess. But it’s no different for anyone else; for anyone there’s a way out. It just comes down to wanting it enough. Omnivores either won’t or can’t. And they don’t, mainly because they’re locked in to this terrible pessimism-about-the-future which comes from guilt (about the past), and particularly their compliance over what foods they’re willing to eat and how addicted they are to animal-based commodities.

            The reason we don’t want to change our lifestyle, diet, etc is that, being pessimists, we don’t think the world will alter very much, just because we might change our eating habits.

            If we do see the connections then it’s likely we’ll be able to see how a start can be made, by simply altering our food regime. But not everyone can see that yet. And it’s because these connections aren’t being made (because changing one’s whole lifestyle isn’t realistic) that the whole process-of-change is put on hold. During this time one’s outlook remains gloomy.

            An omnivore will probably not see that changing attitude or dropping addiction is something simple. For a start, especially for the not-so-young omnivore, there’d seem to be so much ground to make up. The starting line would seem too far away, and only serve to emphasise how far we’d slipped into convenience-living. The weight of so much moral backsliding holds us in our own deep cell, within Society’s prison, within all the conformities of mind - imprisoned, simply by the way in which we see things.

            For the pessimistic omnivore, becoming an all-or-nothing-vegan would be like going into free fall. Imagine hurtling towards the unknown (the not-using-of-animals). It probably feels profoundly unsafe, especially if we’re thinking of all those favourite, addictive foods we wouldn’t be eating any longer. Just by contemplating ‘losing’ so many yummy things, it would be enough to make one shut down on the whole of this ‘animal thing’, and stick with the safety of the status quo and all the pessimism that goes with it.

Absurd behaviour

578:

Oh, the absurdity! Can you imagine being inspired by money-making and dynasty-building? The by-products of wealth, from which wealth is produced are ‘items’ which we consumers consume. Of course the money making dynasty builders gaze upon us as an adoring parent might. Only their gaze is inspired not by the good they do us but the money they’ll make from us. We consume and we encourage them.

            You can hardly blame the profiteers for taking advantage of us. We’re gullible enough not to notice what’s they’re doing. We’re complaint. We sit through countless TV advertisements and respond in kind to their advertising. We barely listen to anything that might put us off spending our money on the stuff they produce. Via advertising, we are continuously told the pleasant story, which we all know is ‘sales pitch’ and yet we accept it.

            Take the food industry, on which we spend so much of our money, the big selling point here is the emphasis on treats and taste sensation. We are told, “Buy our cheese, buy our biscuits, imagine how happy you would be eating this ‘lobster-dinner-sitting-by-the-lagoon’. They assume we all have a primary, human-centred attitude that animals don’t matter and are here for us to eat.  It’s as if we are meant to have ‘an easy, cool lifestyle’ and to pleasure ourselves in every way possible.

            T.V. advertising ploughs like a tank through roses, past empathy for animals, past the unhealthiness of eating the foods made with them, and arrives at an easy acceptance of animals as merely objects-for-eating. The tackiness of these ads is obvious. They’re tedious and repetitive. But this is TV - all of us put up with ‘the ads’ to get to the entertaining stuff in between. We’re shown hundreds of products every night. And what we see is, more or less, what’s on offer. It’s all we know. We go along with it, we comply and cooperate.

But to a very large extent vegans don’t. We push one whole part of this tacky society aside. We deliberately disassociate from its most commonly shared activity – the cranking of the Animal Industry wheels. As one ingests bits of animals’ body parts, instead of actively boycotting what we would normally disapprove of, we sell our soul to the devil.

            Animal Rights is protest. And even if our protest reaches zero audience it must still be made, if only to bring some sort of hope to those who are still living in the ‘closed world’. Almost all people, whether educated or uneducated, see no way to escape the ugliness of their world. Their attitude is frozen in the grief of being in this mind-prison. “Why bother?”

            A vegan might bother, because he or she might have some optimism, purpose or reason to bother. For us ordinary vegans, we need to focus on ordinary people like us, who might weigh up the situation and decide for themselves, just as we did. As vegans we need to recognise the remarkable talent all humans have, in our ability to adapt and change, to suit each new situation as it comes along. And when the time comes, as it surely will, when change will mean the difference between survival and non-survival, then at that point our choosing will come down to having faith, not in gods but in people.

            Our talent, our enduring optimism and collective self-confidence must be used to teach that pessimism doesn’t exist ... well, that it doesn’t have to exist, anyway.

            Change comes hand in hand with optimism. Change comes from the creative spirit which we all have and which we should be most proud of. Creativity is born out of determination – in this case, to make pessimism disappear simply because it doesn’t need to exist; the reality of optimism is self-created, and the more we can convince others of this the more inclined people will be to listen to what we have to say about veganism.

            By giving up judgement, giving up gossip, giving up blaming, shaming and all the other sad and sour habits humans have, we automatically drop our gloominess of attitude … and thus avoid personal collapse and collective world disaster. Non-judgement lets us pick up on something far better.

The main reason we should drop pessimism is that there’s surely another, more upbeat reason for wanting to live. So, if we can’t get past our gloominess we won’t be able to let our imagination fly. We just won’t see how the process of change will never get a start on, if there isn’t enough imagination and optimism and determination and creativity. 

Absurd pessimism

577:

There’s good reason for us to have faith in people’s ability to change. After all, excluding the ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of today’s practising vegans have once been omnivores. And therefore we all once had a rather gloomy view on life, by way of our conformity. We were (nearly) all part of The System, and we can see now that it was a system that clearly couldn’t succeed. Being so much part of it, how could we have ever been optimistic?

            You don’t have to be an omnivore to be pessimistic, many vegans I know are just as doubtful about the future. We’ve all thought, things will never change. The human race is going to hell in a hand basket, etc. Pessimism holds us back. But do we see how infectious that is? What hope is there for others coming along behind us, who aren’t yet vegan, if our defeatism makes things worse? Especially if we are vegan.

            I’d suggest that we are simply avoiding taking personal responsibility for the way things are. And it doesn’t help if we are naming and blaming, in order to feel-better. Our own complicity with the Animal Industries or, if we’re vegan, our pessimism, dooms us.

            The more violent amongst us focus on revenge, shifting focus away from taking responsibility to blaming. We blame ‘the corporates’ because they’re easy to hate. “They are responsible. They’ve made us what we are, they’ve infected all of us”. And so we deflect personal responsibility away from ourselves and onto the big crooks, whose wickedness is so obvious.

            Most of us are, being humans, small time  crims who reckon we can be let off the hook by going for the big boys, the trans-national executives, the politicians, the rich … and the Animal Industries. We demonstrate our hatred of them and get brownie points for being active campaigners against them. But it often screens our own guilt. It lessens our own self-examination. It downgrades the significance of personal discipline. We get more interested in fighting the good fight than in self-development, all for very good reasons of course. We concentrate on bringing down the big boys, and when that doesn’t do a scrap of good, then pessimism creeps back into our soul to keep us company – “It will never work. Whatever I do it is nothing compared to the damage they do”.

            Because we aren’t rigorous enough with ourselves, we therefore can’t be rigorous enough in our activism. It turns full circle: we’re back to why we aren’t being rigorous, why we go for the easy option, why our activism can so easily deteriorate into a thirst for revenge. We’re hooked on making value judgements.

            But these judgements are so predictable. All we’re really doing is getting our rocks off. What we aren’t doing (although pretending to ourselves that we are) is engaging in the ‘most optimistic pursuit of all’ - raising awareness