On the outside

535:

This is the idea we propose - that the one, generally accepted mainstay of lifestyle, our dependence on animals, is not necessary. To most people it is a preposterous idea. How can we do without animal foods? Why should we do without animal products like leather? Why not have pets and watch animals performing to entertain us?

            What is behind this idea is that animals are available to be used by humans but that we shouldn’t use them, since they have no say in the matter. Humans, being the dominant species and knowing that animals are only a convenience not a necessity, could become the guardians of  the animals instead of their oppressors. Humans have taken advantage of them, treated them badly and spoilt our relationship with them. Vegans seek to redress the balance.

Because what we are attempting to do (desisting from exploitation) is unpopular, our views are ignored or resisted. We base our life on the application of this one principle – to not take advantage of powerless animals.

Others, who stand up for other great causes, might also disassociate from certain human habits of lifestyle. They too might feel marginalised by the stand they take, but the difference is that they enjoy some support from the majority, whereas we enjoy almost none … because we stand at the farthest extreme. We point to a future, beyond the reach of most peoples’ imagination. We try to act beyond self-interest.

Why do vegans feel so strongly about this, so that we act, live and work on behalf of abused animals? Why do we adopt a cross-species empathy? Perhaps because this is a frontier never before crossed. All great causes before this have been about human disadvantage, but this one deals with our shared sentience; to hurt animals on the scale we do serves only to hurt our own advancement as a species.

Some of us now define our lives by our non-speciesism. Since most people haven’t ever thought too deeply about this we receive bewildered looks from them. Perhaps it’s true to say that people do not actually condemn us but we are socially categorised as being far too weird to be easily understood.

Vegans have to be able to handle this. We live on ‘the fringes’. We are the messengers from Outsiderdom. Being socially outcast is unavoidable. But on the up-side, vegans are immune from hubris and therefore likely to succeed in the end, and eventually what we are saying will make sense and animals will be freed as a result of our stand.