634:
Let’s say that billions of people know what they do when
they eat any animal product - they realise what must go on behind the scenes
before the milk or meat can arrive in a shop. They’d be very naive or
ill-informed if they didn’t. Let us say that, nonetheless, they continue eating
them. Why don’t they stop? The question could be put another way: why would
they want to?
Let’s now imagine something which
is probably not even true yet, that there is one percent who are vegan or
moving that way. It’s a tiny fraction of the world’s population that sees the
world substantially differently. To this minority animals aren’t the same as
carrots. Unlike carrots, animals have a sense of their own identity and can, on
an individual level, feel emotion and will walk away from danger. We can surely
assume that they don’t want to suffer and so are unhappy being the slaves of
humans. So, how could we ignore that and how did we come to accept this, and
how did we lose our connection with them and start to misuse them?
Well that question must hang in
the air – human progress from hunter-gatherer to the farmer as captive breeder
marks that disconnect - we decided to separate from animals, and went from
hunter/predator to jailer. Somewhere along the line we said, “Animals shall not
matter”.
Vegans believe that animals are
‘individuals’, no less than any animal at home. If people want to believe that
animals are amorphous and incapable of feeling, or that they’re not
individuals, then one must ask where that notion came from. I’d suggest this
has become a mental health issue – that humans are concerned about ‘me’ to the
detriment of ‘the other’. We know potentially that we are mentally stable
because we can feel sympathy, even empathy, but we don’t see our mental
stability strengthened by considering the safety of unknown animals. In
addition we think that ‘animal’ food strengthens our brains and bodies - mental
health can look after itself once the brain-body is strong … and that has led
us to the worship of fast-thinking and the admiration of physically powerful
individuals, who are no strangers to violence.
Vegans are suggesting we test our
own mental health by challenging our dependency on animal products. That even
though the dangers are clear we’re really dealing with addiction here, two
addictions in fact. The first is a belief that one’s mental stability will be maintained
in spite of one’s addiction to poisonous foods, the second that we can retain
our sanity despite making unethical choices (purchases).
If this double sided addiction is
challenged it falls like a house of cards, because once the poisons are draining
out of the body, the craving lessens, and as days go by the need for
self-discipline is no longer an issue (giving up foods which we once thought we
couldn’t do without). Once this addiction problem is dealt with we can start to
see animals as close friends. They’re sentiently close to humans. They’re not
‘un-persons’ in that way the Negroes or Jews were once seen.
Is it not in the very nature of
addiction that we shield ourselves from what we see for the sake of ensuring
supply; it’s a give and take deal we strike with the Animal Industries, and
that complicity has brought about a vast assault on animals. It’s probably the
most insane thing we do to ourselves – to give up so much of our birthright for
so little. “I can’t imagine life without milk in my coffee”, “My dear, life
without lobster …”. Strange to think that our sanity and general health will
let us ‘get away’ with this attack on our body and conscience every day.
Is it that we think our mental
health depends on what others think of us and not what we think of ourselves?
Perhaps the opposite is true. Other people, including ourselves, might well
think highly of anyone who confirms our own lifestyle – ask yourself why would
we forgo their approval for the sake of making a radical change of lifestyle?
Answer: it’s likely to isolate us socially.
We all fear for our own mental
health if we’re alone … and everyone knows there’s not much kudos in being
vegan, or even vegetarian, but added to that, being alone ... it’s frightening.
If the omnivore is complacent
about their own mental health, or down plays the guilt factor, or ignores good
sense and conscience, they may not get far past where they are now. Their
habits, which at worst are barbaric are at best mindless.
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