452:
Vegans have made one or two quite dramatic changes in their lives. For a start, they’ve replaced many of the items in their fridge. They’ve changed their lifestyle from one they’ve always known. (Now, of course, the exceptions are ‘lifers’, who’ve been vegan from birth).
Vegans may have made certain changes but there’s still a need not to be afraid of further change. Change breathes life into creative self-discovery. As vegans we need change to keep us on our toes. We have a determined, clever, vocal ‘opposition’ out there, and we need to show we’re not sitting on our laurels, complacent or afraid to change ourselves in accordance with our wish to be ‘fair’. We need to find out what the differences are between omnivore-mentality and vegan-mentality, that stands in the way of human development. Change is the key here, not always a dramatic change but a bubbling sense-of-change, which should be going on all the time, an opening up of the receptors to whatever is coming in.
Vegan animal advocates have the responsibility not only to promote plant-based products but to advocate change, if only because there’s such a deep rooted fear of it. Everything benefits from the heat of change. But it’s not an easy sell. Opinions, which have been formed and rehearsed over our lifetime, solidify and get stuck, and often it takes a dramatic illness or near death experiences to jolt us into change … and then it’s done reluctantly.
It can also take vegans a long time to realise their own need to keep moving on. We can be so focussed on food as to think there are no other dimensions to veganism … like the practice of non-violence in our general day to day behaviour. I’ve found I can be so busy putting the world to rights that I forget that I’m not separate from it just because I eat a certain type of food and have certain attitudes about animals.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Change - I can hardly wait!!
450:
If there’s something I want to see change, something big I’d like to see changing in my self and, by extension, in our society, I’d like to know what I’m getting into.
Change can mean having to go the long way round, being patient, thinking along the lines of “better to prevent than cure”. Ideally change would be motivated by a sense of great-improvements-to-come. It would be something I’d enjoy doing at the time, and enjoy it because I’d marked it with a stamp of my own personality (the style-merchant doing something important but with some style). If I’m going to be making changes I want to feel optimistic, creative and enthusiastic about it. Then, as far as I can see, nothing much can possibly go wrong. I’m wondering though if everyone would see the prospect of change that way.
I know I’ve often made changes in the past out of fearing-for-the-worst, having a compulsion to change, gritting my teeth, being full of determination. The potential enjoyment of change has been spoiled by procrastination, especially when a deep-set habit is involved. Changing certain types of habits is daunting. They feel unchangeable. Even the intention-to-change depends on my being in the right mood. But it isn’t always like that! In another sort of mood I might only consider changing habits to save my own skin. (Like giving up red meat after suffering a heart attack).
Whatever my mood or motivation I should be asking myself if I think change is attractive or a turn-off? It depends on what it is that I’m changing, but say it’s one of the classic habits, the addictive habit or a rigid attitude. Changing these habits is hard despite the promise of good returns in the future.
All this crosses my mind when, after becoming vegan, I wanted to sell it to others. In the vegan drive towards ‘humanising humans’ I was wanting to persuade others about the importance of change, but then I realised how important it was for me to be absolutely clear about what I was saying. Anyone can understand the message I am trying to put out but it’s the ‘how’ of saying it that tips the balance - if I can do it firmly but gently it might just catch on. If it does impact, it won’t be because of any finger-wagging or make-‘em-afraid approach. So how do I get it across?
All I know is that the prospect of becoming a more humane human should make the necessary changes to habit seem attractive. Ideally, the very idea of enjoying a ‘vegan-principled life’ should make such a great contrasts to the rut most people are in that they’d welcome the chance to change. Oh, if it were only that straight forward!
If there’s something I want to see change, something big I’d like to see changing in my self and, by extension, in our society, I’d like to know what I’m getting into.
Change can mean having to go the long way round, being patient, thinking along the lines of “better to prevent than cure”. Ideally change would be motivated by a sense of great-improvements-to-come. It would be something I’d enjoy doing at the time, and enjoy it because I’d marked it with a stamp of my own personality (the style-merchant doing something important but with some style). If I’m going to be making changes I want to feel optimistic, creative and enthusiastic about it. Then, as far as I can see, nothing much can possibly go wrong. I’m wondering though if everyone would see the prospect of change that way.
I know I’ve often made changes in the past out of fearing-for-the-worst, having a compulsion to change, gritting my teeth, being full of determination. The potential enjoyment of change has been spoiled by procrastination, especially when a deep-set habit is involved. Changing certain types of habits is daunting. They feel unchangeable. Even the intention-to-change depends on my being in the right mood. But it isn’t always like that! In another sort of mood I might only consider changing habits to save my own skin. (Like giving up red meat after suffering a heart attack).
Whatever my mood or motivation I should be asking myself if I think change is attractive or a turn-off? It depends on what it is that I’m changing, but say it’s one of the classic habits, the addictive habit or a rigid attitude. Changing these habits is hard despite the promise of good returns in the future.
All this crosses my mind when, after becoming vegan, I wanted to sell it to others. In the vegan drive towards ‘humanising humans’ I was wanting to persuade others about the importance of change, but then I realised how important it was for me to be absolutely clear about what I was saying. Anyone can understand the message I am trying to put out but it’s the ‘how’ of saying it that tips the balance - if I can do it firmly but gently it might just catch on. If it does impact, it won’t be because of any finger-wagging or make-‘em-afraid approach. So how do I get it across?
All I know is that the prospect of becoming a more humane human should make the necessary changes to habit seem attractive. Ideally, the very idea of enjoying a ‘vegan-principled life’ should make such a great contrasts to the rut most people are in that they’d welcome the chance to change. Oh, if it were only that straight forward!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Enjoying creative change
449:
I want to say something about change. Is it worth all the effort? That’s what I asked myself some years ago
This is what happened. How I began to argue the case to myself. If I saw something wrong with animal farming I would have to pull out all stops to do something about it, and first up I’d have to stop supporting it. When I found out what was happening to animals on farms I suddenly I saw the need to change a whole heap of food habits. Already a vegetarian, now I saw there’d be no more eggs, no more milk or cheese or anything with milk in it, otherwise I’d be supporting something I didn’t agree with. That would mean an enormous change.
I liked all those foods. I’d been raised on cream cakes, chocolate and yoghurt and a million other yummy products. Most meals were made tasty with cheesy or creamy additions. For an adult deciding to no longer eat all these familiar foods, that would be quite a change. It would have been better if all this had been fixed up when I was much younger. I hadn’t realised how addicted to all these foods I’d become. Mars Bars – how could I live without them? I did change. It was a long time ago.
Recently I suggested to a friend who was putting on weight that he might consider changing some of his eating habits. “It’s a bit late now” … and I heard this from a 25 year old! Already he weighed too heavily, but already in his own mind his habits were too fixed.
The great advantage I had had was that my change was sparked by ethics – I had an ethical reason for change, not a cosmetic one. I was concerned for the animals. My friend was more concerned by the bathroom scales.
He reckoned that the effort needed to change was greater than the results he expected to get for all his efforts. In his case it meant giving up favourite foods, it meant problems socially when eating out. There was a long term health issue too. If he failed to change it would show up his lack of resolve. And even then it is quite likely that he underestimated the scale of change needed to lose weight. For me too, change was daunting. But I had inspiration on my side. I was standing up for a principle, to uphold an ethic, to take on a great challenge. For him it was just about weight and maybe his overall health, for me it was all positive, passionate and to do with how I wanted to be.
But the process of change, for whatever reason, tests our resolve. At whatever age we try to change, it can improve things, but often it’s too little and we expect too much too soon. There’s a whole unreality about how change works. With food habits being changed, from omnivore to vegan, if we do leave it to adulthood it feels like one great uphill struggle. There’s a lot of undoing to ‘do’, a lot of replacing foods. There’s the impact on routines of lifestyle including our social life, where we are used to eating with others, what others eat.
To counteract the difficulty we might do a ‘go-mad’ change, that is a change that’s so radical that we don’t stand a chance of keeping it up. Because we regard self development as a competitive sport, success becomes important - it kills the actual enjoyment of change. We never feel the full sense of achievement, especially if we do succeed by sheer willpower.
There’s so much competing going on in every field, not just over diet - we race against each other to be more special, more wealthy, more well known, more revered, and so on. We’d like to think that the process of change could be enjoyable but instead we believe it is just a matter of teeth-grindingly hard self discipline. If that can be turned around we stand a chance to change and not be traumatised by the difficulty of it.
Change keeps us creative and on our toes. It gives life edge. The best change always recognises mistakes and misjudgements, and lets us be less judgemental and more forgiving of ourselves and others. If ‘creative change’ is our best teacher it teaches us patience, enough to appreciate even our smallest movements forward. It lets us never take ourselves too seriously or grieve over mistakes or backslidings. Change and creativity energise us whether we succeed or fail. If we are capable of embarking on a course of change, especially one that is based on ethical principle, and if we can get into the habit of making-change, we’ll get more used to the reality of experiencing Life’s biggest events. We’ll feel the satisfaction of true self development.
I want to say something about change. Is it worth all the effort? That’s what I asked myself some years ago
This is what happened. How I began to argue the case to myself. If I saw something wrong with animal farming I would have to pull out all stops to do something about it, and first up I’d have to stop supporting it. When I found out what was happening to animals on farms I suddenly I saw the need to change a whole heap of food habits. Already a vegetarian, now I saw there’d be no more eggs, no more milk or cheese or anything with milk in it, otherwise I’d be supporting something I didn’t agree with. That would mean an enormous change.
I liked all those foods. I’d been raised on cream cakes, chocolate and yoghurt and a million other yummy products. Most meals were made tasty with cheesy or creamy additions. For an adult deciding to no longer eat all these familiar foods, that would be quite a change. It would have been better if all this had been fixed up when I was much younger. I hadn’t realised how addicted to all these foods I’d become. Mars Bars – how could I live without them? I did change. It was a long time ago.
Recently I suggested to a friend who was putting on weight that he might consider changing some of his eating habits. “It’s a bit late now” … and I heard this from a 25 year old! Already he weighed too heavily, but already in his own mind his habits were too fixed.
The great advantage I had had was that my change was sparked by ethics – I had an ethical reason for change, not a cosmetic one. I was concerned for the animals. My friend was more concerned by the bathroom scales.
He reckoned that the effort needed to change was greater than the results he expected to get for all his efforts. In his case it meant giving up favourite foods, it meant problems socially when eating out. There was a long term health issue too. If he failed to change it would show up his lack of resolve. And even then it is quite likely that he underestimated the scale of change needed to lose weight. For me too, change was daunting. But I had inspiration on my side. I was standing up for a principle, to uphold an ethic, to take on a great challenge. For him it was just about weight and maybe his overall health, for me it was all positive, passionate and to do with how I wanted to be.
But the process of change, for whatever reason, tests our resolve. At whatever age we try to change, it can improve things, but often it’s too little and we expect too much too soon. There’s a whole unreality about how change works. With food habits being changed, from omnivore to vegan, if we do leave it to adulthood it feels like one great uphill struggle. There’s a lot of undoing to ‘do’, a lot of replacing foods. There’s the impact on routines of lifestyle including our social life, where we are used to eating with others, what others eat.
To counteract the difficulty we might do a ‘go-mad’ change, that is a change that’s so radical that we don’t stand a chance of keeping it up. Because we regard self development as a competitive sport, success becomes important - it kills the actual enjoyment of change. We never feel the full sense of achievement, especially if we do succeed by sheer willpower.
There’s so much competing going on in every field, not just over diet - we race against each other to be more special, more wealthy, more well known, more revered, and so on. We’d like to think that the process of change could be enjoyable but instead we believe it is just a matter of teeth-grindingly hard self discipline. If that can be turned around we stand a chance to change and not be traumatised by the difficulty of it.
Change keeps us creative and on our toes. It gives life edge. The best change always recognises mistakes and misjudgements, and lets us be less judgemental and more forgiving of ourselves and others. If ‘creative change’ is our best teacher it teaches us patience, enough to appreciate even our smallest movements forward. It lets us never take ourselves too seriously or grieve over mistakes or backslidings. Change and creativity energise us whether we succeed or fail. If we are capable of embarking on a course of change, especially one that is based on ethical principle, and if we can get into the habit of making-change, we’ll get more used to the reality of experiencing Life’s biggest events. We’ll feel the satisfaction of true self development.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Radical change
448:
How can radical change work for us? The thought of making big changes in our life, especially when they may not be understood by others, frightens us. Ethics frighten us. Our habits and addictions frighten us.
I grew up taking no notice of the animal body parts I was eating, yet I knew the sausages and ham and chops were once part of a living, breathing animal. Even as a child I knew they’d been killed for food for me ... but I decided to ignore it. Everyone knew it and everyone ignored it. We all ignored it together.
Ethical principles, when they become important, make short work of our old behaviours that we grew up with. Over the years I, like everyone else, acquired habits that made life easier and more pleasurable. The shops sold meat, cheese, chocolate, socks, shoes, jerseys, ice cream, hamburgers ... the list goes on and on. As far as I was concerned the ‘cost-to-me’ was all that mattered - was it too expensive, was it unhealthy? It never occurred to me that there was any other expense - that it all came at huge expense to the animals who were losing their lives, so that their bodies could be made available to humans, by way of humans persecuting them and executing them.
Even as a child I knew that it was all unethical but I did it, I ate them. I hid behind the fact that I didn’t know much detail. But when I did know the detail I still did it. I valued lifestyle above everything. I knew the theory - that there were no human-survival reasons why everything on that long list could not be dropped. But I wanted more than survival, I wanted a varied lifestyle. And that, by definition (I knew) was unethical. Giving up all of that would not be easy. I could either live unethically or with difficulty.
Now that difficulty was specifically a radical alteration of a daily habit, especially a habit concerning three-times-a-day food plus the doing-without very many items of daily use. That would need determination because there are just so many useful and wonderful things I’d be avoiding. Projecting how it might be - it’s almost as if my whole idea of pleasure must be sacrificed, as if only a dull life could be ethical. And yet these animals (I would say to myself) - can I let the atrocity continue?
But I still wobbled. “By going vegan I will probably fail, and can I afford to take that risk? For a start, I don’t think I’ve got the self-discipline to voluntarily kick a favourite habit. Truth to tell, I probably don’t want to kick it, I prefer to continue being as I am, especially since no one is pushing me on the matter”.
The human will project, hedge bets, try to play it safe. One day when things start to go wrong with the body we think about change. We remember way back, when we said to our self, “When the time comes I’ll change. I will change … but in my time”.
As our body fails and we see, for instance, that our eating habits are making us ill, even then we’re still reluctant to change. It’s the pleasure-association we can’t let go of. The body fails nonetheless and we wonder what we’re facing for the rest of our life? Not only can we not ignore symptoms (of the ageing body) but we can’t face the upheaval of ‘change’ and we have a nagging toothache-of-a-conscience which keeps telling us that we should have changed long before things got so out of hand.
How can radical change work for us? The thought of making big changes in our life, especially when they may not be understood by others, frightens us. Ethics frighten us. Our habits and addictions frighten us.
I grew up taking no notice of the animal body parts I was eating, yet I knew the sausages and ham and chops were once part of a living, breathing animal. Even as a child I knew they’d been killed for food for me ... but I decided to ignore it. Everyone knew it and everyone ignored it. We all ignored it together.
Ethical principles, when they become important, make short work of our old behaviours that we grew up with. Over the years I, like everyone else, acquired habits that made life easier and more pleasurable. The shops sold meat, cheese, chocolate, socks, shoes, jerseys, ice cream, hamburgers ... the list goes on and on. As far as I was concerned the ‘cost-to-me’ was all that mattered - was it too expensive, was it unhealthy? It never occurred to me that there was any other expense - that it all came at huge expense to the animals who were losing their lives, so that their bodies could be made available to humans, by way of humans persecuting them and executing them.
Even as a child I knew that it was all unethical but I did it, I ate them. I hid behind the fact that I didn’t know much detail. But when I did know the detail I still did it. I valued lifestyle above everything. I knew the theory - that there were no human-survival reasons why everything on that long list could not be dropped. But I wanted more than survival, I wanted a varied lifestyle. And that, by definition (I knew) was unethical. Giving up all of that would not be easy. I could either live unethically or with difficulty.
Now that difficulty was specifically a radical alteration of a daily habit, especially a habit concerning three-times-a-day food plus the doing-without very many items of daily use. That would need determination because there are just so many useful and wonderful things I’d be avoiding. Projecting how it might be - it’s almost as if my whole idea of pleasure must be sacrificed, as if only a dull life could be ethical. And yet these animals (I would say to myself) - can I let the atrocity continue?
But I still wobbled. “By going vegan I will probably fail, and can I afford to take that risk? For a start, I don’t think I’ve got the self-discipline to voluntarily kick a favourite habit. Truth to tell, I probably don’t want to kick it, I prefer to continue being as I am, especially since no one is pushing me on the matter”.
The human will project, hedge bets, try to play it safe. One day when things start to go wrong with the body we think about change. We remember way back, when we said to our self, “When the time comes I’ll change. I will change … but in my time”.
As our body fails and we see, for instance, that our eating habits are making us ill, even then we’re still reluctant to change. It’s the pleasure-association we can’t let go of. The body fails nonetheless and we wonder what we’re facing for the rest of our life? Not only can we not ignore symptoms (of the ageing body) but we can’t face the upheaval of ‘change’ and we have a nagging toothache-of-a-conscience which keeps telling us that we should have changed long before things got so out of hand.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
We’re mad for plenty
443:
We probably all dream of having plenty, indeed that there should be plenty for all. We dream that eventually humans will fix things up for the planet and all our violence and oafishness will dissolve like Scotch mist.
Ironically, this is more or less the justification for today’s bad behaviour, in the convenient tradition of ‘being cruel to be kind’. By becoming truly dominant over lesser life forms (including lesser ‘human’ life forms) we see ourselves as the ‘benevolent despots of Planet Earth’. Call it evil, call it crazy, it matters not a jot since dominators always self justify according to their end-aim (it being to ‘save the world’ or to ‘save our souls’).
It all goes wrong since too much happens along the way that we don’t bargain for. We’re seduced into cutting corners and outsmarting the opposition. We practise violence because it brings us a certain type of advantage with which we can win things and get what we want. It’s too easy to forget when we cross the line in our rush to establish our position of humans-staying-in-charge. We have to do it - violation, violence, stealing and exploiting. It all seems straight forward and legitimate since the world seems ripe for the picking. There seem to be no adverse outcomes … so, we put on hold our lofty aim of saving souls or saving the world and instead enjoy being on a roll. It’s only later that the awful consequences of what we’ve done become apparent, and by then it’s almost too late!
You look at almost anyone, at dinner, tucking in to the muscle tissue of a dear sweet executed animal. There’s not a thought given to that animal, anymore than any mass murderer thinks about his victims. And yet we have the capacity to think about the whole sordid process of bringing animals to their death so that lump of tissue can rest on the dinner plate. The human is superior to other animals, we are the dominant ones and we believe there’s no need to consider our victims.
The people responsible for great empires have always thought they were God’s chosen people. The belief that we are superior gives us our right to rule. Each empire fails and it’s central weaknesses show up in the endgame, when they collapse. Humans who’ve ‘made it’ don’t learn from the past mistakes. We think we can only learn by re-experiencing the whole cycle of ‘succeeding then failing’, so we go through the same lessons, lifetime after lifetime, until eventually we learn. But only eventually.
We probably all dream of having plenty, indeed that there should be plenty for all. We dream that eventually humans will fix things up for the planet and all our violence and oafishness will dissolve like Scotch mist.
Ironically, this is more or less the justification for today’s bad behaviour, in the convenient tradition of ‘being cruel to be kind’. By becoming truly dominant over lesser life forms (including lesser ‘human’ life forms) we see ourselves as the ‘benevolent despots of Planet Earth’. Call it evil, call it crazy, it matters not a jot since dominators always self justify according to their end-aim (it being to ‘save the world’ or to ‘save our souls’).
It all goes wrong since too much happens along the way that we don’t bargain for. We’re seduced into cutting corners and outsmarting the opposition. We practise violence because it brings us a certain type of advantage with which we can win things and get what we want. It’s too easy to forget when we cross the line in our rush to establish our position of humans-staying-in-charge. We have to do it - violation, violence, stealing and exploiting. It all seems straight forward and legitimate since the world seems ripe for the picking. There seem to be no adverse outcomes … so, we put on hold our lofty aim of saving souls or saving the world and instead enjoy being on a roll. It’s only later that the awful consequences of what we’ve done become apparent, and by then it’s almost too late!
You look at almost anyone, at dinner, tucking in to the muscle tissue of a dear sweet executed animal. There’s not a thought given to that animal, anymore than any mass murderer thinks about his victims. And yet we have the capacity to think about the whole sordid process of bringing animals to their death so that lump of tissue can rest on the dinner plate. The human is superior to other animals, we are the dominant ones and we believe there’s no need to consider our victims.
The people responsible for great empires have always thought they were God’s chosen people. The belief that we are superior gives us our right to rule. Each empire fails and it’s central weaknesses show up in the endgame, when they collapse. Humans who’ve ‘made it’ don’t learn from the past mistakes. We think we can only learn by re-experiencing the whole cycle of ‘succeeding then failing’, so we go through the same lessons, lifetime after lifetime, until eventually we learn. But only eventually.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Life in the countryside today
441:
Animal farming is just about the only reliable source of income for people who live in the countryside. They use the ‘resources at hand’. They farm animals, sometimes because the profits are better than from growing crops and sometimes because the land can only support animal grazing. The more marginal the land the more cattle or sheep will be ‘run’ on it.
Converting the land’s energy is the name of the game. When the primary ‘converter’ is an animal it is regarded merely as a machine for ‘making good use of the land’. The fact that a ‘farm’ animal is a sentient being with individual needs like any other animal seems to be ignored by the human exploiter, who tailor’s the animals’ lives to suit human convenience.
The cruelty factor has exponentially increased over the past 60 years owing to ever fiercer competition for market share and the vast explosion of (hungry) populations in urban concentrations that have stimulated it. The threat of competition has made intensive farming inevitable. For example, a chicken farmer who might have had hens pecking around the farm yard now has to do unspeakable things to thousands of hens, caging them in sheds under artificial lighting, or he’ll go out of business.
The countryside, the land, the peace and beauty of it, Nature itself, has become a location for indoor factories housing animals which are being kept like factory machinery for mass production of meat, milk, eggs and skin. That’s the only way today that people who live in the country can earn a living and stay on their farms. If they refuse to intensify their operations then, short of moving to the city to find scarce work, they will go out of business and face financial ruin. There are many rural suicides connected with farms going bust.
Like many other highly destructive pursuits, like deforesting by foresters or denuding the land by miners, animal farmers have to destroy the beauty of the countryside they love, just to stay alive. We the consumer can’t mine copper or cut down timber or make food. We’re dependent on these primary producers. We feel we have to support those people who can bring us the products we want, to maintain our rich-living lifestyles.
If we decide NOT to support exploitative industries it means we’ll have to forgo many items ‘needed’ by us ... and without them we believe we’ll go mad.
Animal farming is just about the only reliable source of income for people who live in the countryside. They use the ‘resources at hand’. They farm animals, sometimes because the profits are better than from growing crops and sometimes because the land can only support animal grazing. The more marginal the land the more cattle or sheep will be ‘run’ on it.
Converting the land’s energy is the name of the game. When the primary ‘converter’ is an animal it is regarded merely as a machine for ‘making good use of the land’. The fact that a ‘farm’ animal is a sentient being with individual needs like any other animal seems to be ignored by the human exploiter, who tailor’s the animals’ lives to suit human convenience.
The cruelty factor has exponentially increased over the past 60 years owing to ever fiercer competition for market share and the vast explosion of (hungry) populations in urban concentrations that have stimulated it. The threat of competition has made intensive farming inevitable. For example, a chicken farmer who might have had hens pecking around the farm yard now has to do unspeakable things to thousands of hens, caging them in sheds under artificial lighting, or he’ll go out of business.
The countryside, the land, the peace and beauty of it, Nature itself, has become a location for indoor factories housing animals which are being kept like factory machinery for mass production of meat, milk, eggs and skin. That’s the only way today that people who live in the country can earn a living and stay on their farms. If they refuse to intensify their operations then, short of moving to the city to find scarce work, they will go out of business and face financial ruin. There are many rural suicides connected with farms going bust.
Like many other highly destructive pursuits, like deforesting by foresters or denuding the land by miners, animal farmers have to destroy the beauty of the countryside they love, just to stay alive. We the consumer can’t mine copper or cut down timber or make food. We’re dependent on these primary producers. We feel we have to support those people who can bring us the products we want, to maintain our rich-living lifestyles.
If we decide NOT to support exploitative industries it means we’ll have to forgo many items ‘needed’ by us ... and without them we believe we’ll go mad.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The end is profit
440:
Ending animal farming. It won’t come about over night but it will happen if the public has the guts to stand up for non-violence. Until that happens farmers are going to feel fairly safe, with a steady market demand and with promises of protection-from-prosecution for their cruelty to animals.
Knowing that ‘what you do’ is safe from prosecution and therefore a safe way to generate money helps people do things they shouldn’t. Animal farming has now, more than ever before, become a cruel practice. It is now bigger and grubbier than ever, but it’s still in the business of feeding the population. Its husbandry practices are overlooked out of ignorance or excused as being ‘part of tradition’. The blind spot people still have about cruelty is that it isn’t wanton or sadistic but essential to the cost-cutting that fends off competition. And that means food is home-grown and capable of being sold to us at a low price ... and that’s the justification.
Ending animal farming. It won’t come about over night but it will happen if the public has the guts to stand up for non-violence. Until that happens farmers are going to feel fairly safe, with a steady market demand and with promises of protection-from-prosecution for their cruelty to animals.
Knowing that ‘what you do’ is safe from prosecution and therefore a safe way to generate money helps people do things they shouldn’t. Animal farming has now, more than ever before, become a cruel practice. It is now bigger and grubbier than ever, but it’s still in the business of feeding the population. Its husbandry practices are overlooked out of ignorance or excused as being ‘part of tradition’. The blind spot people still have about cruelty is that it isn’t wanton or sadistic but essential to the cost-cutting that fends off competition. And that means food is home-grown and capable of being sold to us at a low price ... and that’s the justification.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Concern for the downtrodden
I’d like to dive into the warm waters of altruism but not just to glow with goodness but to float in a nice mix of both selfish and unselfish reasoning. To float buoyantly in the knowing of the reason for my concern. I’d like to know that this ‘mix’ could be a valuable source of strength which I’d need to maintain my concern. And that would be always there as a springboard for my decision to act. Yes, concern for animals enslaved, yes, concern for myself in my intent to support them. It’s a reciprocal scheme - they provide me with a celebrated cause and in return I provide them with whatever support I have to offer. So, behind any act of altruism is my own need to feel the power of it in me. I want to show my concern by doing something quite dramatic, extreme and radical, something inconvenient but ultimately challenging.
It sounds pretty good doesn’t it. But how do I know I can keep up that mood, that drive, that intention? Some days it’s possible that I might NOT want to dive into these ‘warm waters’ but just carry on as usual, with no act, no reason to act, no change in my life.
Where am I now? Am I feeling advanced and self developed or untouched by all that? Surely there are two sides of me - the side which identifies with the ideal, the other side aligned to the do-nothing in me. I fluctuate between these two sides all the time, some days feeling very empowered other days bored by that goal - optimistic one day, pessimistic the next.
Overall, the warmth of the waters of altruism are attractive, not in terms of being ultimately good but in the cure-all of altruism, the mix-form of it, balanced between the selfish and unselfish. It’s worth trying out. I know in the past I’ve behaved badly and still do perhaps. Unless I consciously move away from bad behaviour my imagination will never be sparked and nothing will happen. As soon as I decide to act, to move myself along, I might just see how others have decided to go that way. I look at those involved in environmental consciousness raising. It’s led them into new daily habits that seem to feed back to help them grow, even very rapidly. And that’s percolated down to all of us, so that we all, these days, are thinking ‘environment’ much more than we ever used to. They’ve empathised with the beauty of the environment and want to conserve it. That’s how many of us feel about the beauty of the animals.
Awakening that consciousness might seem slow, perhaps because most of us are still not near enough to the starting line. Some, however, have poked their noses out of their burrows and noticed the need for a big change of outlook. They’ve rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and a determination has formed, to move away from the old attitudes, to not continue doing whatever one feels like doing. To move away from feelings of entitlement. To move away from being destructive and dominating. To have the courage to ignore competition and stop trying to outdo other advantage-takers. To look at life altruistically, for the greater good, but with a nice mix that doesn’t preclude selfish needs.
It sounds pretty good doesn’t it. But how do I know I can keep up that mood, that drive, that intention? Some days it’s possible that I might NOT want to dive into these ‘warm waters’ but just carry on as usual, with no act, no reason to act, no change in my life.
Where am I now? Am I feeling advanced and self developed or untouched by all that? Surely there are two sides of me - the side which identifies with the ideal, the other side aligned to the do-nothing in me. I fluctuate between these two sides all the time, some days feeling very empowered other days bored by that goal - optimistic one day, pessimistic the next.
Overall, the warmth of the waters of altruism are attractive, not in terms of being ultimately good but in the cure-all of altruism, the mix-form of it, balanced between the selfish and unselfish. It’s worth trying out. I know in the past I’ve behaved badly and still do perhaps. Unless I consciously move away from bad behaviour my imagination will never be sparked and nothing will happen. As soon as I decide to act, to move myself along, I might just see how others have decided to go that way. I look at those involved in environmental consciousness raising. It’s led them into new daily habits that seem to feed back to help them grow, even very rapidly. And that’s percolated down to all of us, so that we all, these days, are thinking ‘environment’ much more than we ever used to. They’ve empathised with the beauty of the environment and want to conserve it. That’s how many of us feel about the beauty of the animals.
Awakening that consciousness might seem slow, perhaps because most of us are still not near enough to the starting line. Some, however, have poked their noses out of their burrows and noticed the need for a big change of outlook. They’ve rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and a determination has formed, to move away from the old attitudes, to not continue doing whatever one feels like doing. To move away from feelings of entitlement. To move away from being destructive and dominating. To have the courage to ignore competition and stop trying to outdo other advantage-takers. To look at life altruistically, for the greater good, but with a nice mix that doesn’t preclude selfish needs.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
We don’t need to be such oafs
437:
What is it when people behave badly, that lets them NOT think ill of themselves? Why aren’t we fearful or even superstitious about what we do? Perhaps we’re born with a conscience but it’s voice is silenced by us as we grow up. Perhaps we’re victims of a slow, almost imperceptible process that moulds normality into the shape of how things have always been done - I’m okay because I’m doing no worse than others.
Is it arrogance that makes us feel special and privileged, as if we humans are the ultimate saviour of the planet – and is being collectively ‘messianic’ not so very different from being barbaric?
Are humans meant to be the dominant species? Are we the ones who have a role to play in taking primitive life forms and making them into more sophisticated beings? It’s as if humans have swallowed a sci-fi fantasy of this dominator-creator role, to conveniently let us remain the way we are. We’ve tried to mould the landscape to our design, dominate Nature by extracting food and energy from it, and we’ve always done it with a heavy, brutal hand.
We’re dazzled by some of the really wonderful things humans have achieved but we’ve conveniently forgotten the price we paid for our achievements, by collectively damaging the very beauty we sought to improve. On the level of personal ambition we’ve been driven by the ‘me-first’ principle, saying “I must succeed. I have about seventy or eighty years of life in which to do it and if I fail I will be unhappy”.
This sense of hurry leads us to shortcut what should never have been shortcut. We’ve betrayed the greater good and neglected long-term purpose.
The Vegan Animal Rights movement has embarked on a long struggle which could end overnight but it’s likely that the time isn’t yet ripe for mass change. So all we can do for now is to lay foundations for another generations’ sake which is probably the main reason why people don’t seem to be embracing vegan principles - perhaps we aren’t yet ready to be part of a collective drive, to bring the consciousness of humans to a point where we cooperate to transform our species. That process is a conscious changing towards altruistically motivating ourselves.
Once our chief interest is in the moulding of a new type of human, with different motivations, we’ll no longer be brutes but more like angels, guardians, protector spirits, healers and repairers. We’ll be more contemplative, less concerned with surviving, procreating and slowly evolving and more interested in the need for transformation.
If all this sounds rather grandiose it may be because in so many ways we are still crude versions of a much more sophisticated and intelligent being to come.
What is it when people behave badly, that lets them NOT think ill of themselves? Why aren’t we fearful or even superstitious about what we do? Perhaps we’re born with a conscience but it’s voice is silenced by us as we grow up. Perhaps we’re victims of a slow, almost imperceptible process that moulds normality into the shape of how things have always been done - I’m okay because I’m doing no worse than others.
Is it arrogance that makes us feel special and privileged, as if we humans are the ultimate saviour of the planet – and is being collectively ‘messianic’ not so very different from being barbaric?
Are humans meant to be the dominant species? Are we the ones who have a role to play in taking primitive life forms and making them into more sophisticated beings? It’s as if humans have swallowed a sci-fi fantasy of this dominator-creator role, to conveniently let us remain the way we are. We’ve tried to mould the landscape to our design, dominate Nature by extracting food and energy from it, and we’ve always done it with a heavy, brutal hand.
We’re dazzled by some of the really wonderful things humans have achieved but we’ve conveniently forgotten the price we paid for our achievements, by collectively damaging the very beauty we sought to improve. On the level of personal ambition we’ve been driven by the ‘me-first’ principle, saying “I must succeed. I have about seventy or eighty years of life in which to do it and if I fail I will be unhappy”.
This sense of hurry leads us to shortcut what should never have been shortcut. We’ve betrayed the greater good and neglected long-term purpose.
The Vegan Animal Rights movement has embarked on a long struggle which could end overnight but it’s likely that the time isn’t yet ripe for mass change. So all we can do for now is to lay foundations for another generations’ sake which is probably the main reason why people don’t seem to be embracing vegan principles - perhaps we aren’t yet ready to be part of a collective drive, to bring the consciousness of humans to a point where we cooperate to transform our species. That process is a conscious changing towards altruistically motivating ourselves.
Once our chief interest is in the moulding of a new type of human, with different motivations, we’ll no longer be brutes but more like angels, guardians, protector spirits, healers and repairers. We’ll be more contemplative, less concerned with surviving, procreating and slowly evolving and more interested in the need for transformation.
If all this sounds rather grandiose it may be because in so many ways we are still crude versions of a much more sophisticated and intelligent being to come.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Tempting towards exploiting
434:
If there were one great goal for humans it would surely be to stand up for the truth, no matter what the consequences. If we are a mixture of good and evil, love and fear, then we are equipped to smell the ‘ugly’ and in the ‘bad’ and move away from it. That means resisting temptation when it’s going to lead to harm, not just for ourselves but for anything. When it comes to hurting animals you either think according to vegan principle or you’re at the opposite end, and you hold a ‘to-hell-with-it’ attitude. And that brings you to exploitation. At first it’s difficult but the more we do it the easier it gets until we don’t notice doing it at all.
We each try to ease our load in life, and that leads to a me-first attitude. Life’s made easier with slaves and taking advantage of the weak. If you could get away with it why wouldn’t you have a slave to clean your house. Or maybe you’d pay someone, or maybe you’d have machines to help. Despite any harm we’re doing to the atmosphere by pumping pollution into it why wouldn’t we own a car if we could? From slave-owner I’ve come right across to something almost all people are, car owners. If we wanted to clean up our act on any level whatever, from where would our restraint come? Why would we consider restraining ourselves from taking part in Society’s abuse of animals?
If we have no system of personal restraint it’s likely we don’t care about behaving badly. If we see no REASON to be restrained it may be because we don’t expect to be confronted about what we do. If what we do is done discretely, so that we don’t draw attention to ourselves unnecessarily, it’s possible to behave badly, with only the minimum of judgement from others.
Religion tells us that God notices and that may be superstition but it is one form of restraint. Superstition itself is possibly another, perhaps even stronger. What we sow we reap, etc. Good and bad karma, etc.
Of course none of this matters if we already have a system that prevents us making fools of ourselves. I think it’s having a philosophy. And the philosophy behind vegan principle may be difficult sometimes but it won’t keep us awake at night.
If there were one great goal for humans it would surely be to stand up for the truth, no matter what the consequences. If we are a mixture of good and evil, love and fear, then we are equipped to smell the ‘ugly’ and in the ‘bad’ and move away from it. That means resisting temptation when it’s going to lead to harm, not just for ourselves but for anything. When it comes to hurting animals you either think according to vegan principle or you’re at the opposite end, and you hold a ‘to-hell-with-it’ attitude. And that brings you to exploitation. At first it’s difficult but the more we do it the easier it gets until we don’t notice doing it at all.
We each try to ease our load in life, and that leads to a me-first attitude. Life’s made easier with slaves and taking advantage of the weak. If you could get away with it why wouldn’t you have a slave to clean your house. Or maybe you’d pay someone, or maybe you’d have machines to help. Despite any harm we’re doing to the atmosphere by pumping pollution into it why wouldn’t we own a car if we could? From slave-owner I’ve come right across to something almost all people are, car owners. If we wanted to clean up our act on any level whatever, from where would our restraint come? Why would we consider restraining ourselves from taking part in Society’s abuse of animals?
If we have no system of personal restraint it’s likely we don’t care about behaving badly. If we see no REASON to be restrained it may be because we don’t expect to be confronted about what we do. If what we do is done discretely, so that we don’t draw attention to ourselves unnecessarily, it’s possible to behave badly, with only the minimum of judgement from others.
Religion tells us that God notices and that may be superstition but it is one form of restraint. Superstition itself is possibly another, perhaps even stronger. What we sow we reap, etc. Good and bad karma, etc.
Of course none of this matters if we already have a system that prevents us making fools of ourselves. I think it’s having a philosophy. And the philosophy behind vegan principle may be difficult sometimes but it won’t keep us awake at night.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Conspiracy
432:
I see conspiracy everywhere when it comes to humans using animals. I prefer to call it a ‘conspiracy’ since animals are so easy to conspire against, simply by ignoring them or downgrading the importance of them. Their ‘issues’ have always been downgraded by vested interests, and we ‘bleeding hearts’ and ‘lettuce leaf eaters’ are duly denigrated for being on the animals’ side. Central to the conspiracy, doubly insulating it, is the ridiculing of the anti-meat lobby. It’s as big a part of the promotion game as TV advertising of chicken nuggets.
Conspiracy theories often raise a smile. But some of them are such serious perversions of truth that there’s no other word to describe them. In this instance we have health issues not being linked to animal food, animal farming having a benign effect on the environment, unfair food distribution being unconnected with malnutrition. The links are obvious enough once you dare to look at this particular conspiracy to pervert the course of truth.
Is this too much to take on board? Too overwhelming an idea? That animals are our meat and not much more?
Easy-to-see-through conspiracies attempt to conceal what’s going on? Animal use is nearly always exploitative yet legal by dint of Society’s sanctioning of violence. If you do see all you can do is disassociate yourself from it. And then perhaps speak out against it.
This is what many vegans are doing. From our perspective so many of the major issues of the day can be closely connected to violence or the unthinkingness of going along with what the next person does. And when it comes to the abuse of animals, mainly in their use as food, it is always about violence.
If we Earthlings were to be seen by an outsiders, we’d come across as cold, hard and cruel, if only because we condone routine cruelty perpetrated on millions of captive animals.
It’s useful to see our Society through the prism of violence, as a thread that links the rape of the environment with the rape of animal life with the destruction of bodies and minds. By developing habits of non-violence we can counteract or at least minimise our negative impact on the planet. And that starts in the kitchen, with food change. By boycotting animal products we atone for what humans have done to the animals. Who could deny that domesticated animals are not the MOST abused and damaged of Nature’s children.
I see conspiracy everywhere when it comes to humans using animals. I prefer to call it a ‘conspiracy’ since animals are so easy to conspire against, simply by ignoring them or downgrading the importance of them. Their ‘issues’ have always been downgraded by vested interests, and we ‘bleeding hearts’ and ‘lettuce leaf eaters’ are duly denigrated for being on the animals’ side. Central to the conspiracy, doubly insulating it, is the ridiculing of the anti-meat lobby. It’s as big a part of the promotion game as TV advertising of chicken nuggets.
Conspiracy theories often raise a smile. But some of them are such serious perversions of truth that there’s no other word to describe them. In this instance we have health issues not being linked to animal food, animal farming having a benign effect on the environment, unfair food distribution being unconnected with malnutrition. The links are obvious enough once you dare to look at this particular conspiracy to pervert the course of truth.
Is this too much to take on board? Too overwhelming an idea? That animals are our meat and not much more?
Easy-to-see-through conspiracies attempt to conceal what’s going on? Animal use is nearly always exploitative yet legal by dint of Society’s sanctioning of violence. If you do see all you can do is disassociate yourself from it. And then perhaps speak out against it.
This is what many vegans are doing. From our perspective so many of the major issues of the day can be closely connected to violence or the unthinkingness of going along with what the next person does. And when it comes to the abuse of animals, mainly in their use as food, it is always about violence.
If we Earthlings were to be seen by an outsiders, we’d come across as cold, hard and cruel, if only because we condone routine cruelty perpetrated on millions of captive animals.
It’s useful to see our Society through the prism of violence, as a thread that links the rape of the environment with the rape of animal life with the destruction of bodies and minds. By developing habits of non-violence we can counteract or at least minimise our negative impact on the planet. And that starts in the kitchen, with food change. By boycotting animal products we atone for what humans have done to the animals. Who could deny that domesticated animals are not the MOST abused and damaged of Nature’s children.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Example-setting
431:
Vegans are example-setters, standing up against a Goliath opposition. The opposition isn’t only over food but the myriad issues facing the world, each of which usually take precedence over compassion-for-animals. The issues, in a line of given importance, include global warming/climate change, third world starvation/malnutrition, deforestation/pollution of aquifers, the nuclear threat/nuclear power, abuse of women and children, unemployment ... the list goes on. Each issue gathers passionate support and occupies the minds of the worrying, thinking person. Animal issues don’t impact on people in quite the same way, since there isn’t the same level of obvious, immediate threat to our own lives or the safety of the planet ... although of course vegans would argue otherwise.
The significance of the Big Issues is flagged in the media and is generally acceptable in the way they write it up. So, when it comes to Animal Rights, there are so many other issues to worry about that it isn’t difficult to push it into the background or drop it into the too hard basket.
For those of us who see it as THE main issue we have to come to terms with the reality of the common perception. It isn’t seen that way by most people owing to the fact that they don’t WANT to see it so, and vested interests, namely the Animal Industries, definitely don’t want to see it so.
It’s therefore down to the animal advocates to establish the importance of animal issues and to illustrate how these issues impact on most other problems facing the human race today. Our climate would benefit, our health and food problems would be dramatically alleviated, non-violence would be taken more seriously, etc, if .... but, let’s face it, reasoned argument isn’t quite the point here.
People in general are overwhelmed by that long list of problems. We humans built the problems and now we’re chipping away them. Any single improvement of one of them doesn’t seem to impact on all the others. It seems we can only mouth our concern. It seems we can make a gesture or two but then just get on with our lives. And if we get too worried about being ineffective, hypocritical or misguided we’ll have to deal with that, maybe by cutting another slice of cheesecake and trying to calm down. Mentally we mustn’t be brought down by the weight of all these global unsolve-ables, otherwise we’ll be in danger of losing control of our daily lives. Maybe we’re already in danger of falling into something we dare not think about.
Where will all this worry lead, for those already concerned about their own mental stability? If they were to listen to vegans they’d feel all at sea, changing food one day, going organic next, then raw the next, health issues, animal issues, environmental impacts ... where does it all stop? Can any of us afford to spread our concerns that much?
I suppose it comes down to the way we look at things. When I get a flier through the mail about the latest tragic event, asking me for a contribution, it feels like I’d be plugging a hole in a leaky bucket. I also say “Where does it all stop?”
But why not start? Slipping a fiver in an envelope won’t solve the world’s problems but it’s a start, and every gesture helps. Starting to think about the animals we’re eating, that’s a start. What we do will be largely anonymous, unremarked and even personally inconvenient. But in doing something we are example-setting. Can I do it? Can I resist the pressure, which is always on us to conform, to take the easier way, to go the cheaper way. Can I re-direct my own consumer habits? These are central questions.
Our involvement in waste is as regular as our involvement in cruelty. Being profligate with paper, being party to the ruin of the land or the caging of hens - abuse and cruelty and taking advantage stem from the same attitude ... not reckless, wanton, selfish violence but simply a belief that we do things that we don’t believe we can STOP doing. We don’t think we are good example-setters.
The trick is surely not to be overwhelmed by all the issues but to do something about that which we feel most strongly and about what we feel comfortable doing. In the ‘doing’ comes a certain sense of achievement, and by broadening our concerns, by going deeper, we understand the issues better. I know that I get something valuable out of what I’ve better understood … especially about myself.
Vegans are example-setters, standing up against a Goliath opposition. The opposition isn’t only over food but the myriad issues facing the world, each of which usually take precedence over compassion-for-animals. The issues, in a line of given importance, include global warming/climate change, third world starvation/malnutrition, deforestation/pollution of aquifers, the nuclear threat/nuclear power, abuse of women and children, unemployment ... the list goes on. Each issue gathers passionate support and occupies the minds of the worrying, thinking person. Animal issues don’t impact on people in quite the same way, since there isn’t the same level of obvious, immediate threat to our own lives or the safety of the planet ... although of course vegans would argue otherwise.
The significance of the Big Issues is flagged in the media and is generally acceptable in the way they write it up. So, when it comes to Animal Rights, there are so many other issues to worry about that it isn’t difficult to push it into the background or drop it into the too hard basket.
For those of us who see it as THE main issue we have to come to terms with the reality of the common perception. It isn’t seen that way by most people owing to the fact that they don’t WANT to see it so, and vested interests, namely the Animal Industries, definitely don’t want to see it so.
It’s therefore down to the animal advocates to establish the importance of animal issues and to illustrate how these issues impact on most other problems facing the human race today. Our climate would benefit, our health and food problems would be dramatically alleviated, non-violence would be taken more seriously, etc, if .... but, let’s face it, reasoned argument isn’t quite the point here.
People in general are overwhelmed by that long list of problems. We humans built the problems and now we’re chipping away them. Any single improvement of one of them doesn’t seem to impact on all the others. It seems we can only mouth our concern. It seems we can make a gesture or two but then just get on with our lives. And if we get too worried about being ineffective, hypocritical or misguided we’ll have to deal with that, maybe by cutting another slice of cheesecake and trying to calm down. Mentally we mustn’t be brought down by the weight of all these global unsolve-ables, otherwise we’ll be in danger of losing control of our daily lives. Maybe we’re already in danger of falling into something we dare not think about.
Where will all this worry lead, for those already concerned about their own mental stability? If they were to listen to vegans they’d feel all at sea, changing food one day, going organic next, then raw the next, health issues, animal issues, environmental impacts ... where does it all stop? Can any of us afford to spread our concerns that much?
I suppose it comes down to the way we look at things. When I get a flier through the mail about the latest tragic event, asking me for a contribution, it feels like I’d be plugging a hole in a leaky bucket. I also say “Where does it all stop?”
But why not start? Slipping a fiver in an envelope won’t solve the world’s problems but it’s a start, and every gesture helps. Starting to think about the animals we’re eating, that’s a start. What we do will be largely anonymous, unremarked and even personally inconvenient. But in doing something we are example-setting. Can I do it? Can I resist the pressure, which is always on us to conform, to take the easier way, to go the cheaper way. Can I re-direct my own consumer habits? These are central questions.
Our involvement in waste is as regular as our involvement in cruelty. Being profligate with paper, being party to the ruin of the land or the caging of hens - abuse and cruelty and taking advantage stem from the same attitude ... not reckless, wanton, selfish violence but simply a belief that we do things that we don’t believe we can STOP doing. We don’t think we are good example-setters.
The trick is surely not to be overwhelmed by all the issues but to do something about that which we feel most strongly and about what we feel comfortable doing. In the ‘doing’ comes a certain sense of achievement, and by broadening our concerns, by going deeper, we understand the issues better. I know that I get something valuable out of what I’ve better understood … especially about myself.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Communicating compassionately
430:
Vegan principle needs to be spelt out if only to stop the rot amongst omnivores. If some people can overlook something as obviously wrong as factory farming (immobilising animals to make them work more like machines) then this needs to be pointed out by us. Vegans might seem as if they’re trying to snatch the chicken nuggets out of the hands of children … so, we need to turn that around. We need to show how the alternative can be so much more fulfilling, breaking the attachment to the ubiquitous chicken nugget, aiming for people to no-longer want them.
‘Not-wanting’ isn’t a self-disciplined, teeth-gritting, temptation-denying impulse. It’s a moving-on-from, a disinterest-in or even a repulsion towards that which we once loved.
I notice smells. Beef cooking, fish grilling, egg frying and to me it’s something I want to get far away from as if one is sniffing burning rubber. However to those who eat these things, these smells are delicious and salivation-inducing. ‘Not-wanting’ is a long way from denial-of-wanting - it’s a reaction to that which we once wanted which we now distinctly don’t want anymore. Maybe in relation to certain popular animal foods there’s an ‘addictive-wanting’, where our guilt is involved in making the object of desire more seductive, like chicken nuggets.
The omnivore animal-eaters will want to keep quiet about the ‘wrong’ of animal abuse and they’d do almost anything not to have to face facts. Vegans might break into a sweat when they consider the cruelty of animal farming, knowing that we’re different from those who don’t think it matters because they can get away with it. Conscience can be so pliable.
Vegans themselves might avoid certain truths too - that our vegetables and fruits come from a monoculture which destroys the land, and yet we buy these products because they’re cheap. These vegetables, produced by ‘intensive means’, are grown by farmers who want to stay in business. Competition is the main reason intensive methods are used, and whether it’s animal farming or arable farming these operations provide us with our food and therefore the very energy of life. If we move away from the standard food product (whatever it might be) we enter a world of ideal conditions and high prices when, for example, we buy biodynamic and organic or buy speciality products.
At some time we’ll have to deal with the ‘wrong’ of certain aspects of food production, and that might mean vegans themselves having to eat less so that they can eat better … which means changing our habits and denying what we want (namely, low prices).
Here’s a dilemma for us perhaps, but all this helps us to understand omnivores better. If we can experience a little of what they are facing we’re in a better position to be of some help. And that involves a compassionate dialogue which in turn allows better chance of communicating vegan principle, even when resistance is already high.
Vegan principle needs to be spelt out if only to stop the rot amongst omnivores. If some people can overlook something as obviously wrong as factory farming (immobilising animals to make them work more like machines) then this needs to be pointed out by us. Vegans might seem as if they’re trying to snatch the chicken nuggets out of the hands of children … so, we need to turn that around. We need to show how the alternative can be so much more fulfilling, breaking the attachment to the ubiquitous chicken nugget, aiming for people to no-longer want them.
‘Not-wanting’ isn’t a self-disciplined, teeth-gritting, temptation-denying impulse. It’s a moving-on-from, a disinterest-in or even a repulsion towards that which we once loved.
I notice smells. Beef cooking, fish grilling, egg frying and to me it’s something I want to get far away from as if one is sniffing burning rubber. However to those who eat these things, these smells are delicious and salivation-inducing. ‘Not-wanting’ is a long way from denial-of-wanting - it’s a reaction to that which we once wanted which we now distinctly don’t want anymore. Maybe in relation to certain popular animal foods there’s an ‘addictive-wanting’, where our guilt is involved in making the object of desire more seductive, like chicken nuggets.
The omnivore animal-eaters will want to keep quiet about the ‘wrong’ of animal abuse and they’d do almost anything not to have to face facts. Vegans might break into a sweat when they consider the cruelty of animal farming, knowing that we’re different from those who don’t think it matters because they can get away with it. Conscience can be so pliable.
Vegans themselves might avoid certain truths too - that our vegetables and fruits come from a monoculture which destroys the land, and yet we buy these products because they’re cheap. These vegetables, produced by ‘intensive means’, are grown by farmers who want to stay in business. Competition is the main reason intensive methods are used, and whether it’s animal farming or arable farming these operations provide us with our food and therefore the very energy of life. If we move away from the standard food product (whatever it might be) we enter a world of ideal conditions and high prices when, for example, we buy biodynamic and organic or buy speciality products.
At some time we’ll have to deal with the ‘wrong’ of certain aspects of food production, and that might mean vegans themselves having to eat less so that they can eat better … which means changing our habits and denying what we want (namely, low prices).
Here’s a dilemma for us perhaps, but all this helps us to understand omnivores better. If we can experience a little of what they are facing we’re in a better position to be of some help. And that involves a compassionate dialogue which in turn allows better chance of communicating vegan principle, even when resistance is already high.
Monday, March 5, 2012
The vegan sell
429:
What happens to the people who make their money off the backs of animals? Or take advantage of any other resource against the best interests of the ‘greater good’? Perhaps they suffer for it in their own way but this is the story of the human race, where we use resources in an unsustainable way, not to mention sometimes in a cruel way. The arguments for restraint and acting for the ‘greater good’ don’t seem convincing. It seems that ‘bad’ might just works better for us.
But laying all that aside for the moment, if we are one of those people who want to drop our own use of animals and want to persuade others to join us, we have to sell the alternative. A vegan approach is not perfect but at least it deals with non-violence and doing things for the greater good rather than out of self interest, and that in itself is an inspiring position to take up.
A vegan diet doesn’t solve everything, for instance it doesn’t address how plants are being grown and how arable farming, in the form of monoculture, destroys the land, but it’s a start. It’s a jumping-off point for better systems of horticulture, for better types of eating and preparing foods and getting more nutrition out of plant-based foods. It’s pioneering in so many important ways. It lays the foundations for a different lifestyle and for a greater respect for Life. But at this early stage, it is a statement of disassociation with the unthinking conventions of exploiting the weak by the strong. Vegan principle ends the one-sided war between humans and the animals.
What happens to the people who make their money off the backs of animals? Or take advantage of any other resource against the best interests of the ‘greater good’? Perhaps they suffer for it in their own way but this is the story of the human race, where we use resources in an unsustainable way, not to mention sometimes in a cruel way. The arguments for restraint and acting for the ‘greater good’ don’t seem convincing. It seems that ‘bad’ might just works better for us.
But laying all that aside for the moment, if we are one of those people who want to drop our own use of animals and want to persuade others to join us, we have to sell the alternative. A vegan approach is not perfect but at least it deals with non-violence and doing things for the greater good rather than out of self interest, and that in itself is an inspiring position to take up.
A vegan diet doesn’t solve everything, for instance it doesn’t address how plants are being grown and how arable farming, in the form of monoculture, destroys the land, but it’s a start. It’s a jumping-off point for better systems of horticulture, for better types of eating and preparing foods and getting more nutrition out of plant-based foods. It’s pioneering in so many important ways. It lays the foundations for a different lifestyle and for a greater respect for Life. But at this early stage, it is a statement of disassociation with the unthinking conventions of exploiting the weak by the strong. Vegan principle ends the one-sided war between humans and the animals.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
The animal farmers and their customers
428:
If we were strangers to the ways of this world we’d see a farmer as an unkind gaoler who tortured animals for a living. There’s no kinder way we could possibly see them, unless we also saw the equally cruel people who urged the farmer on so that they (the customer) could benefit.
We are not strangers to the ways of farmers, in fact every child on the planet will be made aware of the role these people play in ‘bringing food to our table’, an obviously useful and essential service to the community – thus, the child thinks well of the animal farmer and probably will carry that opinion on for the rest of his or her life ... and therefore never think ill of themselves for using what the farmer provides them with in the way of ‘animal food’.
This is their ‘living’, the business which animal farmers engage in, at the expense of their animals. The animals are their property. They own them and are free to use them to make a wage for themselves, especially in country regions where there are few other employment opportunities. If living off the land is difficult it’s even more so on marginal land where crops won’t grow profitably enough, where the farming of animals is the only way to make ‘a living’. It seems that human survival will always be more important than considering the welfare of animals, even though we know what we put them through is hateful, even though what we do to them eventually impacts badly on human health.
If we were strangers to the ways of this world we’d see a farmer as an unkind gaoler who tortured animals for a living. There’s no kinder way we could possibly see them, unless we also saw the equally cruel people who urged the farmer on so that they (the customer) could benefit.
We are not strangers to the ways of farmers, in fact every child on the planet will be made aware of the role these people play in ‘bringing food to our table’, an obviously useful and essential service to the community – thus, the child thinks well of the animal farmer and probably will carry that opinion on for the rest of his or her life ... and therefore never think ill of themselves for using what the farmer provides them with in the way of ‘animal food’.
This is their ‘living’, the business which animal farmers engage in, at the expense of their animals. The animals are their property. They own them and are free to use them to make a wage for themselves, especially in country regions where there are few other employment opportunities. If living off the land is difficult it’s even more so on marginal land where crops won’t grow profitably enough, where the farming of animals is the only way to make ‘a living’. It seems that human survival will always be more important than considering the welfare of animals, even though we know what we put them through is hateful, even though what we do to them eventually impacts badly on human health.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
It’s there, it’s for sale and I want it
426:
Vegans are out there being different. I, for one, want to communicate to people why.
This is not something too many others do. It’s not how they spend their time. The way a vegan thinks is so radically different to how most people think. I think a lot about those poor helpless animals in prison, and I’d do anything to stop what we humans are doing to them. This is contrary to the way Society has always regarded the usability of farm animals and also contrary to attitudes about using animal foods.
When I start to speak to anyone face to face, about an ethically driven diet-change, a curtain falls. I’m met with un-interest or worse, a casual dismissing of the whole subject. But despite this, or rather because of , I know I need to work out how to move ahead, to communicate despite the collective resistance.
I think people in general have been got at. I like to emphasise that, and show the blind ‘following tendency’ humans have - that we basically do as we’re told as kids and never actually grow out of that obedience. I would stress that we rarely reflect deeply enough on what appears to be our benign eating habits, for if we did we’d soon enough see how we’ve been duped.
Just look at the obvious: eating animals, wearing them, using them - we do it so much. Our voracious appetite for their products is encouraged by the Animal Industries, and we the customer spend so much of our money on their products. We do it even though we know it’s wrong (that is, wrong for the planet, for our health and of course for the ‘health’ of the animals themselves). Nevertheless we do it.
The Animal Rights movement has tried to swing people over, by pointing out the cruelty and health angles, but it doesn’t work … and we need to understand why. But in the meantime, vegans need to present themselves as a solid resource, a service to those who are ready to wake up to the trap they’ve allowed themselves to fall into – a trap made almost invisible by the volume of traffic passing into it. The fact is that almost every human on the planet has been lured into a state of unawareness. Vegans are the wake-up call, and we’ll always be there in the community, applying pressure on people in whatever way we choose to do it.
But, for some activists, we need to foresee how things are going to change. We need to see the sequence of things and where the tipping point will be likely reached. To see where what we’re on about is going to be finally grasped. It really is simple, almost too simple for people to even notice what’s in front of their very eyes.
Why is animal cruelty happening? Why is there this mad addiction to animal products? Why are good hearted people with fine minds immune to what is really going on?
It’s possible that they feel there’s really no choice – it’s all there is ... in reality. It’s what we do to make energy, to keep warm, to maintain dry feet – we use animal. These are the habits of a lifetime, it’s how we eat, it’s the food that’s on sale, it’s how Society operates.
Our habits are fed into the common psyche, from birth. We only know of those products which are promoted, which are very often rich with government subsidy. The foods are made to taste good or, in the case of clothing, look good. They’re hard to resist and not easy to replace.
In almost all countries core foods and core items of clothing are made from animals - the non-animal choices are negligible. In all cultures affordability has been the determinant of what can and can’t be purchased. If it’s legal and we have the money for it we are brought up to assume there’s no other obstacle to having what we want. Our pockets are full of expendable cash, and we are so used to getting what we want we buy whatever’s on offer. It never crosses our minds that there is an ethical component to shopping. We don’t give a thought to the wrongness of supporting the Animal Industries. By buying their goods we encourage the producers in what they do ... and since they’re economically driven, they just can’t help inflicting cruelty on animals, to keep pace with the competition. Profit takes precedence over ethics, and it always ends up that the customer is the patsy.
Vegans are out there being different. I, for one, want to communicate to people why.
This is not something too many others do. It’s not how they spend their time. The way a vegan thinks is so radically different to how most people think. I think a lot about those poor helpless animals in prison, and I’d do anything to stop what we humans are doing to them. This is contrary to the way Society has always regarded the usability of farm animals and also contrary to attitudes about using animal foods.
When I start to speak to anyone face to face, about an ethically driven diet-change, a curtain falls. I’m met with un-interest or worse, a casual dismissing of the whole subject. But despite this, or rather because of , I know I need to work out how to move ahead, to communicate despite the collective resistance.
I think people in general have been got at. I like to emphasise that, and show the blind ‘following tendency’ humans have - that we basically do as we’re told as kids and never actually grow out of that obedience. I would stress that we rarely reflect deeply enough on what appears to be our benign eating habits, for if we did we’d soon enough see how we’ve been duped.
Just look at the obvious: eating animals, wearing them, using them - we do it so much. Our voracious appetite for their products is encouraged by the Animal Industries, and we the customer spend so much of our money on their products. We do it even though we know it’s wrong (that is, wrong for the planet, for our health and of course for the ‘health’ of the animals themselves). Nevertheless we do it.
The Animal Rights movement has tried to swing people over, by pointing out the cruelty and health angles, but it doesn’t work … and we need to understand why. But in the meantime, vegans need to present themselves as a solid resource, a service to those who are ready to wake up to the trap they’ve allowed themselves to fall into – a trap made almost invisible by the volume of traffic passing into it. The fact is that almost every human on the planet has been lured into a state of unawareness. Vegans are the wake-up call, and we’ll always be there in the community, applying pressure on people in whatever way we choose to do it.
But, for some activists, we need to foresee how things are going to change. We need to see the sequence of things and where the tipping point will be likely reached. To see where what we’re on about is going to be finally grasped. It really is simple, almost too simple for people to even notice what’s in front of their very eyes.
Why is animal cruelty happening? Why is there this mad addiction to animal products? Why are good hearted people with fine minds immune to what is really going on?
It’s possible that they feel there’s really no choice – it’s all there is ... in reality. It’s what we do to make energy, to keep warm, to maintain dry feet – we use animal. These are the habits of a lifetime, it’s how we eat, it’s the food that’s on sale, it’s how Society operates.
Our habits are fed into the common psyche, from birth. We only know of those products which are promoted, which are very often rich with government subsidy. The foods are made to taste good or, in the case of clothing, look good. They’re hard to resist and not easy to replace.
In almost all countries core foods and core items of clothing are made from animals - the non-animal choices are negligible. In all cultures affordability has been the determinant of what can and can’t be purchased. If it’s legal and we have the money for it we are brought up to assume there’s no other obstacle to having what we want. Our pockets are full of expendable cash, and we are so used to getting what we want we buy whatever’s on offer. It never crosses our minds that there is an ethical component to shopping. We don’t give a thought to the wrongness of supporting the Animal Industries. By buying their goods we encourage the producers in what they do ... and since they’re economically driven, they just can’t help inflicting cruelty on animals, to keep pace with the competition. Profit takes precedence over ethics, and it always ends up that the customer is the patsy.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Nudging un-realism
425:
What sort of people are vegans speaking to when they do get the chance to speak? We always hope people will be compliant or, better still, eager to learn all the stuff we want them to know … but it’s likely they’ll be bogged down with other priorities and reluctant to listen.
We have to consider that many people DON’T feel badly about behaving badly. For instance, if they do know about the suffering of animals it might not matter to them, and therefore eating these animals won’t concern them.
What would get people to pull back a bit on their animal eating? I’d suggest that such a radical move only ever happens if people want it badly enough for themselves. What? For their health? For their conscience? Their reputation? At first, does it matter what sort of ‘wanting’ it is?
As vegans we need to appeal to this deep sense of wanting, if it exists. If people aren’t ready to change, we can appeal to their sense of right-behaviour, to their health or to their compassion and get nowhere. We have to be realistic. If they aren’t ready they’ll resort to saying, “If it’s legal and if most other people do it there’s no argument in the world that will persuade me to change”. If they’re not ready they won’t even let their minds rest on the subject of Animal Rights let alone change their diet. They’d say to us: “This is my favourite food we’re talking about here. No way am I going to give up the pleasure of a Sunday roast” (and the social tradition attached to it). “Giving up meat and ALL the rest of it is out of the question”. But who knows, maybe some concession will be made, and that’s a start.
It’s such a powerful substance, food. It’s the one consistent and familiar strand linking all the days of our lives, right up to the present day (we say “I am what I eat”). To expect we can alter any part of that might seem unrealistic. To attempt to alter it though, even though we fail, might add a jot of forward-moving.
What sort of people are vegans speaking to when they do get the chance to speak? We always hope people will be compliant or, better still, eager to learn all the stuff we want them to know … but it’s likely they’ll be bogged down with other priorities and reluctant to listen.
We have to consider that many people DON’T feel badly about behaving badly. For instance, if they do know about the suffering of animals it might not matter to them, and therefore eating these animals won’t concern them.
What would get people to pull back a bit on their animal eating? I’d suggest that such a radical move only ever happens if people want it badly enough for themselves. What? For their health? For their conscience? Their reputation? At first, does it matter what sort of ‘wanting’ it is?
As vegans we need to appeal to this deep sense of wanting, if it exists. If people aren’t ready to change, we can appeal to their sense of right-behaviour, to their health or to their compassion and get nowhere. We have to be realistic. If they aren’t ready they’ll resort to saying, “If it’s legal and if most other people do it there’s no argument in the world that will persuade me to change”. If they’re not ready they won’t even let their minds rest on the subject of Animal Rights let alone change their diet. They’d say to us: “This is my favourite food we’re talking about here. No way am I going to give up the pleasure of a Sunday roast” (and the social tradition attached to it). “Giving up meat and ALL the rest of it is out of the question”. But who knows, maybe some concession will be made, and that’s a start.
It’s such a powerful substance, food. It’s the one consistent and familiar strand linking all the days of our lives, right up to the present day (we say “I am what I eat”). To expect we can alter any part of that might seem unrealistic. To attempt to alter it though, even though we fail, might add a jot of forward-moving.
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