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.