Cruelty and temptation

705:

If you are an animal eater, you support animal cruelty, whether you like it or not! If one is at all concerned, then one has to balance personal wants against the cost to the animals themselves. If we don’t care about the feelings of these animals then it’s likely we shouldn’t be trusted around any animals at all, since the use and abuse of them is always going to be too tempting. We’re always going to be considering our own interests before theirs. Even the most beloved companion animals at home may prove this point. When their medical treatment incurs high veterinary bills some can’t pay and some can but won’t, and have their animals’ lives brought to an early end for their own convenience.

            Perhaps it’s here that we’re most sorely tested – the animal we say we love presents us with a difficult choice between the outlay of a considerable sum of money and the saving of the beloved animal’s life. For some it will always be compassion that decides. For others even the kenneling costs whilst away on holiday will convince them to have their animal put down, to be replaced by another on their return. And if this can apply to those we call ‘companion animals’, then when it comes to those animals that are used for food, they are entirely beyond our consideration. We  allow ourselves to feel no responsibility for what happens to them. As long as we don’t know too much about their living conditions or the manner of their death, we can enjoy the ‘benefit’ of them. Since almost everybody eats them, there’s hardly anyone left to put pressure on Society to change.

            These farmed, faceless animals are not only very available for food (when dead), but as everyone knows, their bodies are so tasty to eat and a good source of protein. Surely, we might argue, we’d be mad not to accept Nature’s generous bounty? Since no animal can match a human’s strength or brain power, we know there’s no danger of them fighting back. They make easy prey for us, and once we’ve enslaved them, they become rather like food-on-tap. We control their lives and the timing of their deaths, and therefore make efficient use of them, to the fullest extent. Most people have never considered the possibility that this traditional use of animals is wrong.

            Those of us who are more kindly disposed towards animals must avoid all animal food. It doesn’t mean we will starve or become ill by not eating meat or animal by-products.

            Up until the middle of the last century, it was believed that animal protein was (nutritionally) essential; without meat our health would be compromised; we’d become anaemic, lack physical and mental energy and our children would sicken. By the second half of the twentieth century this belief was exploded by a few brave people who experimented with avoiding all animal protein, finding that the human body actually thrived on a plant-based diet. From that point on, everything began to change for those who adopted a vegan diet; there was no danger to our health by not eating animals. Indeed, we were at last realising that humans do not need to depend on animals for anything - transport, clothing, entertainment or food. We would be able to regard animals as sovereign, irreplaceable individuals and allow them to live out their lives without human interference. And yet as free-willed human beings, we still had the ‘choice’ and it seemed that for the overwhelming majority, making use of animals was still too tempting to give up.

Cold kill

703:

The death at any abattoir, of any sentient creature, is a long way from predator-killing-prey in the world of Nature. In the slaughter house, the animal is immobilised and made completely helpless. How it feels we’ll never know but the ugliness of the whole process should make us feel ashamed. This dear, sweet-natured animal has been imprisoned all its life, kept in slum conditions, transported under frightening conditions, arrives at a death-smelling building, encounters a lot of rough handling and is finally put to death ... and none of this need be so;  neither the cruelty nor the killing nor the captivity. However, it is so, in every country of the world. The killing continues at the astonishing rate of 150,000 animal executions a minute, every day, all across the planet. Nowhere is there any regard for the feelings of the animals themselves.

            Since most people benefit from animals being killed for food, no empathy is felt towards these animals, and whilst people are normally hungry for new knowledge, they prefer to know as little as possible when it comes to learning about the way animals are put to death. Conveniently for everyone concerned, the killing is done behind closed doors, most often by men or women who can’t find any other employment and who have to work quickly and harshly because they dare not fail to keep up their killing quota, for fear of losing their jobs. They have to adopt a conveyor-belt mentality. Each animal passes along the line, to be killed, to make way for the next, and the next, with no one to care how either the animal or the animal-killer feels.

            And yet many people these days do care. They go out of their way to show how much they care for these millions of animals, enough to work hard to establish rights to protect them.

            Whatever we say about animals that are used for food, it comes down to one question - Does pragmatism outweigh tender hearted feelings? Once upon a time the question was about how humanely animals were being killed. Now, because we know it’s unnecessary to eat animal products, the question is about whether we should kill animals at all?

            There are many reasons why we shouldn’t kill or even use animals. Certainly health reasons present a powerful case, and the environmental implications of animal farming do too, but the ugliness of animal treatment on farms and in abattoirs is in a league of its own.

Killing

702: 

Not many of us would have the nerve to deliberately end the life of an animal unless we were starving. Most, if not all of us, have never known starvation nor are likely to. So what is this mass murdering of animals all about? Why are we condoning something done by others which we could not do for ourselves? Why are we passive proxy killers? Perhaps most people haven’t really thought about the act of killing an animal. If you don’t actually get to see the act of killing you don’t have to think about it - perhaps it’s upon that basis that our society indulges in all this slaughter, and very few make any murmur of dissent about it. So, let’s look at the act itself.

            We see lots of killing on TV but it’s often seen in the form of a drama; a quick bullet fired from a gun and the victim falls down dead - clean and easy. An elderly friend of mine wants to die of a heart attack – “nice and quick”, she says. Killing is bathed in euphemism; we cull the kangaroos, the faithful family dog has to be ‘put to sleep’. If we have to think of death, we like to think of it as a smooth transition. But there are terrible deaths; lingering, painful and frightening experiences. I dread it for myself and can empathise with an animal facing slaughter. A condemned prisoner on Death Row would probably think about all this, but do animals premeditate their own end? Do they ever realise what fate awaits them? Certainly when the day comes and they are transported to the abattoir, they show all the signs of great agitation. It’s likely they can smell death which triggers their terror, even if only at the moment when they’re being restrained and positioned for execution.

            No one is made to see killing. We live in a sanitised world where such things aren’t even talked about. But recently, the brutal killing of cattle was shown on TV and there was great public outrage afterwards. This was animal slaughter in its ugliest and most terrifying form, and because it received a lot of publicity it made a lasting impression on many people. At an Indonesian abattoir, cattle were seen being dragged to the floor, kicking and screaming, to have their throats cut, without pre-stunning! Animals Australia filmed the whole gruesome business and the National ABC TV network televised it on the popular Four Corners current affairs programme. It transpired that this was not an isolated incident but a routine practice involving hundreds of thousands of animals every year. How could anyone not feel empathy for these beautiful Brahmin cattle and not then feel angry on their behalf? Yet most people eat meat and whether our animals are pre-stunned or not, the killing is always ugly. The cruelty shown towards such animals is always undeserved since the animals are innocent and have no way of understanding what is happening to them. But most people have an over-ride mechanism within them which lets this happen, which lets them enjoy eating these animals’ bodies. Perhaps people just can’t think this one through for themselves. I doubt if most people are really cold hearted bastards who couldn’t give a stuff.

To change attitude

701:

Attitude can be turned around by the sheer power of love, but that sounds too slushy for most animal activists so they go the other way, settling for second best; they try to swing attitudes around with ‘fear’. “Stop eating animals or you’ll die a terrible death” ... “vengeance will be upon you”, etc. But whether or not we use that dubious sort of encouragement, the fact remains that we, as vegans, do enjoy a certain immunity from the day-to-day fear of being brought down by common killer diseases. If one is constantly afraid of putting on weight or clogging arteries or raising blood sugar levels or blood pressure, then one is going to be too preoccupied with personal concerns to direct much energy towards ‘the other’. Empathy will take second place and concern for ‘food’ animals will be displaced.

            I wonder what is lost when we grow up? Perhaps we lose spontaneity, lose the rebel in us and concentrate too much on personal problems. Do we accumulate too much emotional clutter and in the process lose our earlier ideals? Self-obsession perhaps prevents us from noticing the love being leached out of us, as we lose sight of some very important animal issues.

As a vegan, I do feel heartbroken for the ruined lives of farmed animals, and this more than anything drives me to want to work on their behalf. But others have their own private reasons to make a lifestyle changes which may not be driven by compassion for animals; it might be more to do with keeping their figure trim or avoiding heart disease, and that might not lead to greater compassion. And therefore such a change will never be powerful enough to inspire others to change, since it will merely seem like a sensible life choice; it won’t necessarily help to stop others using human advantage at the expense of non-humans.

            Perhaps it seems to the omnivore that ‘not-using’ animals for food is about self-denial. But it’s much more a step towards altruism and perhaps towards a shift in our motives for doing the things we do. The idea of working happily and energetically for someone other than our own self and for the benefit of the less advantaged, can be deeply satisfying. Instead of the rape-and-pillage mentality of the more primitive human, many people today are taking on a more inspiring role, that of the human acting as guardian, protector and carer, wherever needed.

            If we humans are consciously taking part in the transformation of our species, it won’t be for our own self edification. It’s more likely we’ll be taking on a whole new attitude to equip us for repairing the world we’ve damaged. At this pivotal point in our history, humans may be coming together to transform the Earth into a safer and happier place, and needless to say, the first step would be to resist the temptation to use animals for food.

Availability, voluntary refusal and personal ambition

700: 

Slowly we are moving forward in our awareness of animals, the part they play in our everyday life, how we humans exploit them, and how much we like the end-products of the Animal Industries. Many reforms are being made but we are still a ‘million miles’ from addressing the whole problem. We need to see why we like the idea of something like non-violence but don’t want it badly enough to put ourselves out about it. We need to get to the root of why we want something noble but aren’t disciplined enough to bring it about. There are many analogies. We want peace but can’t abandon nuclear weapons. We want a safe climate but want lots of electricity to support our lifestyle. We want paper but don’t want to fell trees. Is there another element muddying the waters? If we look at ourselves, as animal activists, are we fighting for the rights of animals but still need reward for our hard work? Do we have ambitions to be at the forefront of the next great social revolution? If so, are we sure we won’t tread on each others’ toes in our race for personal recognition? Can we be sure that our motives for being animal advocates will remain true? In other words, will we be able to keep enough integrity to carry us through the lean years to come, before this great attitudinal ship can be turned around? Any one of us, vegan or non-vegan, might have high ideals but can we carry them through into practice, until they become just good habits? Or will we be stymied by our need to show off and look more advanced that we are? 

Conscious of non-violence

699: 

Being conscious of Animal Rights doesn’t stop at dietary change because it suggests the need for all-round non-violence. The way we treat animals, the way we treat each other – violence and violation have always been used for a quick-fix. We see a forest and think of the timber we can take from it - no regard for the inhabitants of the forest. We fish out the oceans, dump poisons in rivers, plant ugly pylons in the landscape– we justify it by believing we need the fish, the timber, the electricity. Perhaps we can boycott fish by no longer eating it but we can’t easily boycott timber and electricity. If we did, we’d be the only ones to do it, and we’d be resentful about that.

It’s almost impossible not to have double standards, or to be a non-violator. Even if you try to boycott just the animal cruelty products you run into trouble. The Animal Rights Movement is still a very young grouping, comprising people who aren’t always clear how to act - be a strict vegan, be a hard-working activist, run an animal shelter, be a nice person? We have vegetarians who still can’t take on a vegan food and clothing regime. We have dietary vegans who can’t let go of their leathers. We have sincere animal lovers who take on the care of a carnivorous companion animal (albeit rescued) for whom many other animals are killed to feed it. We are seen to be preaching one thing and doing another. This Animal Rights consciousness is new to all of us and is the testing ground for the deeper practice of non-violence.

Fashion, normalcy and unthinkingness

698: 

Despite a certain wave of change taking place today, it is still fashionable to be unaware of the conditions in which farmed animals live and die. Fashion says it’s okay to eat meat, to wear wool, to buy fashionable shoes made of leather, to eat eggs for breakfast and take cow’s milk in our coffee. But what about the big food temptations, the salivation stimulators, the rich foods, the treat foods and exotic foods like lobster or wagyu beef? Or simple mouth-watering confections which contain cruelty-based ingredients? By deciding to buy any of these tempting items, we implicate ourselves in cruelty and even atrocity.

At that most private moment, standing at the shop counter, imagining the taste of an item we’re about to buy, it’s likely we won’t deny ourselves something which we can afford to buy. For children, denial is often imposed; many of these items may have been too expensive or unattainable without permission. But as we grow up and those restrictions disappear, we’re faced with something else – a fear of ‘missing out’. We like to have whatever we want, so it would seem strange to deny ourselves on ethical grounds. But this is what people are now doing. They make a conscious decision not to buy. But we are tricky with ourselves. If we want something badly enough we’ll ignore the impulse to check ingredients. We eat what we disapprove of because we avoid knowing. And no one is checking up on us. In our society today, with no pressure to ‘do the right thing’, it’s only conscience that can call the shots.

Conscience is up against it. There is so much to object to that conscience often becomes a weak, barely heard voice that we can easily ignore. It’s been trained to be weak. Which is why vegans have to spell it out so strongly, stressing the importance of implementing a ‘non-use-of-animals’ rule. We have to speak loudly, to counter the majority’s safe haven of normality, to get people to start thinking for themselves again.

Why the reluctance to change?

697: 

I’m always going to find it difficult to get the idea of empathizing with farm animals across to unwilling listeners. Most people won’t necessarily see things how I see them. They won’t willingly give up meat and eggs, let alone leather shoes or woollen blankets. They won’t extend the same kind feelings they have for their children towards animals that provide them with those things. And they won’t make the connection, that boycotting will help end the exploitation of animals.

            Whether there’s some reasoning or none at all, almost every person will resist our arguments fiercely.  They won’t ‘be told’. They won’t be easily persuaded. They won’t voluntarily ‘do-without’. This is why I think the key to liberating animals can only be found in our approach. It has to be a sort of ‘whispering’, like talking to a nervous horse. Somehow each of us has to find our own way to earn trust so that we won’t be pre-empted, so we can put forward our case without causing them to feel too judged or too threatened.

            Animal advocates are essentially information impart-ers. So far, to a certain extent, we’ve done a good job by making information available, through our campaigns, literature, web sites, video footage, and in our personal conversations and exchanges of ideas. Today there’s no excuse for not knowing about farm animal abuse. But any number of facts won’t necessarily alter feelings, which reflect a distinct lack of interest in animals, notably farm animals. In fact, there is mostly an absence of feelings which allow the conscience to be free to enjoy eating such things as meat and fish, chocolates and creams and other rich foods laced with milk products. Without the nagging of any conscience there’s no incentive to find non-animal alternatives.

            The lack of concern for ‘food’ animals means there is nothing strong enough to spark radical dietary change or go anywhere near even discussing the subject. So we animal advocates can rant and rave till we’re blue in the face, but we live in a free society where everyone knows they are free to do as they please. And the ‘authorities’, the media, the parents, priests and teachers, none of them speak up for the animals, and that gives people the green light to NOT have to listen to what Animal Rights people are saying.

            All the time the majority of customers accept the status quo there can be no real progress made towards liberating animals.

The low empathy quotient

696:

My first instinct is to leap to the defence of animals, because they so badly need defending. Then I realize it involves a long ‘to-do’ list on my part. There’s the rub. I realize I’m setting myself up for a fall. Giving up items of food and clothing because of the animals. And if I can do without, how long for?

By being perpetually overwhelmed with such a long list I can’t decide what needs most attention, what to give up and what to retain. Or rather, I ask myself the question, what is achievable? How can I ration-out my reserves of ‘care’ without completely depleting myself and then giving up the whole project?

The Animal Rights Movement is all about maintaining high ideals. Many of us become drained by trying to achieve them because just by facing the issues it takes a lot of energy. So, which issues do I take up? For animal activists there’s always a danger of spreading ourselves too thinly and pleasing nobody, least of all ourselves. But in prioritizing there’s a danger of putting too much onto the ‘back burner’, and then letting some issues become permanently forgotten about. So while I want to be consistent, knowing that no animal is more important than any other, it grieved me to think how inconsistent I could be. Most of the animal welfare and animal rights groups specialise on one or two main issues and ignore ‘lesser’ issues.

It isn’t only a matter of taking up animal issues, there are people involved here, at the production end and at the customer end. To deal with animal issues we have to deal with people issues at the same time. Perhaps it’s most important to understand other people’s difficulties, concerning their own use of animals. For us, we need to see how the whole ethical confusion is a worry to many people, about the use of animals in our society.

For me, understanding others lack of empathy starts with looking at what empathy involves. If I wonder why others are inconsistent I have to look at my own inconsistency. For example, when I see the homeless man on the streets at night, I tell myself that I’ve already got plenty to care about, so I don’t want to take on more. I pretend not to notice him; I pretend NOT to notice what I know I HAVE noticed. It’s the same with the way most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs suffer badly, but they also know they are just like their dogs and cats at home, that they have the same sorts of feelings and suffer the same pain when it’s inflicted, yet they treat one as unlovable and the other as loveable. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend and yet I’m able to ignore him completely. Is that just one of the absurdities I’ve got to learn to live with? Charity starts at home, but it often stays there! The fact is that our fellow humans don’t yet regard all sensitive and sentient creatures as of equal importance to each other or, of course, to humans. They favour some with an abundance of kindness and care, and totally ignore others and support their exploitation. 

Understanding the minds of others starts with the mind of myself

695: 

When I considered becoming an animal activist, I soon enough also became a vegan. I knew that would involve me in much more than just avoiding meat and dairy. I’d experience shortages and unavailabilities. I’d be cutting myself off from ‘normal food’ and therefore seeming to be NOT normal. I’d have to get used to doing without; there’d be no more cheese, no more cakes from the cake shop, no more honey, quiche, waffles, and the list goes on. No more being-invited out to dinner because of the complications of my eating habits. No more discussion of food with people because talking with me leads inevitably to animal issues. But it wasn’t ever solely about food or my social life. There were other important principles at stake worth perhaps more than losing friends and favourite foods. Mostly, I wanted to tread more lightly on the earth, I wanted to better appreciate things around me, be a kinder member of my world. I wanted to transform myself from clod-hopping brute to a more sensitive, gentler adult.

I faced a simple choice: I could either carry on grabbing whatever I craved or I could be more circumspect and use a bit of self control, and then see if I could keep it up. I suppose I was aiming at becoming less attached to things, Buddhist-like. I was wanting to be less nailed down, wanting to eventually enjoy doing-without. And all this, so that in the end I’d be less tempted to compromise my newly found principles. And these principles were, I sensed, my gateway to transforming not only myself but my species. A big aim, so if I didn’t pull it off then at least I’d have started something BIG. And on the way I knew I’d be led to find out something important. And I think I did. I realised that truth isn’t about attempting perfection or seeking enlightenment or taking a ‘spiritual path in life’, but rather it is about experimenting with half-truths and bringing them towards full-blown truths.

I had one basic principle as my guide. And I aimed to follow it as fearlessly as possible, in the belief that things will turn out well in the end.

            I began to see things this way: that life is a laboratory where we learn to get used to change, like it and not fear it, even radical change. This wasn’t just changing for the sake of it but taking up change in response to circumstances, when they demand it. Enjoy it? Perhaps that’s going too far. To be at ease with it, yes. I wanted to know the truth (and don’t we all?) and I figured that by getting used to change I could keep alive a questioning of those things which others seem un-bothered about.

            For me, then and now, the most bothering thing I can think of is the routine abuse of sensitive and sentient beings, particularly farm-animals. This seemed the plainest truth: that abusing animals is cowardly and weak. My aim, in this regard, was to move towards being brave and strong. The situation regarding animals, I mean farm animals, animals being used for food and clothing, was simply an example of social injustice; the reason it’s so bothering is that there are so many who are so innocent and who are being so badly abused. My main aim then was to better understand why my fellow human beings are so careless about animals, and to do something about that. I wanted to examine the lack of empathy in people, and see what was preventing empathy being a natural part of human nature.

It’s rather confusing, this ‘human nature’. For my own part, I think I know how to treat my nearest and dearest ... with love and affection, wherever possible. But why should I stop there? I have to ask myself if there’s any reason to stop anywhere - with humans, animals, environment - any of it? Is there anything that doesn’t deserve affection and care? And if there isn’t, then why are we humans being violent towards each other, towards animals, trees, and all the rest of our world? 

Non-violence

694: 

Vegan diets are about not-eating products extracted from animals, so just by observing vegan principles we can’t help practising non-violence too. It carries through to other parts of our lives. We have less reckless thoughts. We have consideration for the animal before buying clothes and shoes. We think more about empathy for others, and empathy for non-humans too. Taken to its logical conclusion this ‘consideration’ sees no difference between sentient and non-sentient, and our ‘consideration’ will likely edge towards more generous and gentler attitudes, including the way we drive a car, recycle waste, deal with the kids or respect cows.

Sometimes non-violence is horrible. It looks like passivity. At worst it’s cowardice, used as the excuse for deferring decision-making or avoiding facing the music. But non-violence isn’t non-doing, and there again it isn’t doing either. When you hit me in the face for no good reason, ‘turning the other cheek’ may not work. Maybe it would if were just about ME. But what if it’s not? Like when I’m trying to protect someone else. Most of us are proud to be able to Attack Back, but that’s the central question, and for me it remains open. I love non-violence but not the mushy side of it.

Now here’s an interesting development which might illustrate the point I’m trying to make.

The other day I heard of Animal Liberation’s plan to fly drones across private farming land, to photograph examples of animal cruelty. Animals on private land are usually well hidden from the public eye, so evidence, film evidence, has always been hard to come by. Getting it has often been dangerous too, for the brave activists illegally trespassing with their cameras; evidence of routine cruelty has always been a bit thin on the ground. People only believe what they see, not what you tell them, so if you can show them they’ll find it harder to ignore or forget.  Of course, from the Animal Industries’ point of view, this is the LAST thing they need, for us to be offering the media visual documentary proof of animal cruelty. Understandably, to those with vested interests in the Industry, a drone would be seen as a very big threat.

From the farmer’s point of view, knowing as they do about cruelty-to-animals better than any of us, it just seems like city-slicker interference. Cruelty? The farmer is a pragmatist. The stockman doesn’t perceive his cattle the way we might. In one way the animals are units of production. In another way there can be a connection between farmer and individual animal. But at a certain level, the farmers’ relationship (with them) is not what I would call relating; it isn’t something you can do in half measures. Just as the quality of mercy is not strained, so too the relationship between us and them; since there is this possibility to empathically relate to them, that surely makes it unthinkable that anyone would be able to hurt them.

But coming back to the drones, there’s something rather threatening about having a CCTV camera in the sky spying on people. Perhaps farmers might be tempted to shoot them out of the sky, even though it’s quite legal to fly cameras ten meters above private property. Is this a case of using rather aggressive technology to achieve safety for exploited animals? Is this a completely non-violent means to an end? As this project develops, we’ll be able to see what violence, if any, is stirred by the drones.

I suspect that if it goes ahead and succeeds in its purpose, the public will be presented with video evidence of exploitation too shocking to ignore. And that will make it all the harder for the media to avoid. The media is the great wall of resistance here. At its thickest point it’s a wall of silence; barely a word is printed on this subject, but no surprises there! The media fear losing both advertisers and readers. These days it’s all about not giving offence. Everyone seems to be burying their heads in the sand over animal cruelty, believing that if you ignore it long enough it will go away.

From an Animal Liberation point of view it’s simply about getting issues DISCUSSED, for heaven’s sake!

Self development via compassion

693:

One of the main reasons people become vegetarian is to start the process of self-development, to become more sensitized to their surroundings and the plight of farm animals, and most of all to develop empathy in order to get closer to the trauma inflicted on ‘food’ animals . In this violent world, most of us want to know how to become less violent, less selfish and more healthy on all levels, indeed to become an all-round, better type of person. The obvious start is to go vegan. If, to some extent, ‘we are what we eat’ then, more so, ‘we are what we boycott’. We make our most sincere statement of intent in what we deny ourselves. By what we avoid eating or wearing, especially if it is animal-based indicates how empathic we are. By boycotting products so closely associated with cruelty we make a most powerful statement concerning our ethical priorities. 

Learning about and teaching Animal Rights

692: 

We can’t necessarily trust what we’ve been taught. It’s not because teachers and parents are liars, it’s just that they don’t necessarily know the truth themselves but don’t want to be seen as fallible or ill-informed.

Every major issue, particularly issues which impact on our private lives, need to reassessed; we need to be run them past our instincts and our conscience, if only to test them. If we ever get to the point where we are sure (as I am, about not exploiting animals), we can apply our new-found ‘truth’ to daily life. And once we’re doing that, then we are in a position where we can pass it on to others; not as ‘truth’ but as a set of precepts which others can then test out for themselves, as we might have done earlier.

I suppose we are all doing it, passing on what we believe in, hoping others will become enthusiastic. And in passing information on, we have to compete with other disciplines, each of which is vying for the public ear.

It’s much easier to pass on a diluted principle (don’t eat animals – it’s bad for your health) than expound fundamental principles (don’t eat animals – it’s unethical).

If we are talking about the more difficult-to-accept principles, we need to be particularly inspiring and informative. And if that needs some technique, some research and some self confidence it also needs us to not be sounding too full of ourselves.

But above all, we can’t afford to have any dodgy habits ourselves, any double standards or any obvious vulnerabilities. We have to be squeaky clean, especially if we are trying to convince people to give up their habits of a lifetime, namely the use of animals to enhance lifestyle.

Since Animal Rights is a rather foreign concept to most people, those of us who aspire to be advocates for animals need to have useful facts at hand, for those who want them, (like how to prepare meals every day without using animal products).

In order not to swamp anyone with too much information we need to know how to hold back. Especially for those who are less willing to listen. We need to let them know what the essentials are without going on too long about it; we aren’t trying to push our way into their private world, after all; we aren’t in the business of making value judgements of those who don’t agree with us. If someone isn’t ready to change their diet or make ethical changes, we need to be able to accept that (NOT doing that is a big turn-off). 

For ‘newcomers’ to animal rights and veganism there’s a lot to find out about, not only about cruelty to animals but the nutritional and environmental consequences of animal farming. All this new learning may seem like a hard slog in front of them. So, we have to emphasise that there are a great many personal rewards to be found - being a true vegetarian, we probably show two main things, that we respect our bodies (by not poisoning them) and that we are prepared to find out about current animal exploitation. If we are getting into better types of food we’ll benefit greatly but even more so by recognizing the great cause to fight. It’s something most people have neglected to address, and by our taking up this cause we enter a world of great satisfaction. Here is something H HHHhHHHHHsubstantial to think about and talk about and feel proud to be part of the early days of becoming conscious of the plight of sentient animals. 

Changing attitude

691: 

Despite the die-hard meat-eating of our society there are still many people who have taken up a diet that’s entirely plant-based. And let it be said that animal advocates have done a lot of good work showing people how to prepare plant-based foods. But it’s been piecemeal. There hasn’t been a general shift in attitude in our society. Mass habit-change just hasn’t happened. There isn’t enough empathy for the plight of animals and there’s more than enough temptation to keep diets the way they are, with so much rich and tasty foodstuffs available. Without greater empathy nothing much will change. We might succeed in breaking some of the inertia, our efforts might improve the worst farm conditions, we may even get people to take up healthy vegan diets, and that will be a great step forward but it will be nowhere near enough to make much difference.

            The problem is deeper, a ‘million years’ deep; the habit of using animals for food is planted so firmly in our psyche, that no simple dietary shift or welfare improvement will ever impact strongly enough on Society’s habits unless it is accompanied by an expansion of empathy, for both animals and the children who remain largely ignorant about all this.

            The Animal Rights movement, as distinct from the animal welfare organisations, is all about abolishing of the use of animals to benefit our own lives. We set the example not to save our own skins but to help our species to evolve to greater consciousness. By eating and wearing and using commodities which are NOT from animals we promote the ending of reliance upon animals. Just as the abolitionists’ attitude towards human rights was about ending human slavery (in the Slavery Abolition Act of almost two hundred years ago), we too need to bring about large-scale attitudinal change with animal liberation.

The liberation movement is facing one main obstacle; people are attached to what they are eating (and what they’re wearing) and they fear the radical loss of access to those food and clothing items. But these are changing times, and people are beginning to realise that we have to DO something if we want to avoid the danger of ‘social meltdown’; our ethics are looking threadbare and the planet itself is teetering on the edge of irreparable damage. We have to get used to giving up things which, up to now, we’ve taken for granted.

If radical change is necessary we must examine the norm, the bad habits, our common weaknesses. Whether it’s burning fossil fuels (wrecking the planet) or eating dangerous foods (detrimental to health) or being unconcerned about animal gulags, we will have to face all this damage that we’ve caused.

The factors linking all the main issues of our day reflect human nature and particularly our taste for high living and maintaining an animal-dependant lifestyle. It’s not just a matter of meat-eaters giving up meat or vegetarians giving up eggs and cheese. It is for the ‘example-setters’ to show what can be done by simply changing one single attitude based on the idea of animals being irreplaceable individuals, just as humans are. By adopting a no-using-animals policy we recognize them as sovereign beings who should not be seen merely as commodities here for our convenience, to enhance our lifestyle.

Guiding young people

690: 

Schools which provide food for students still provide the very worst foods, like meat dishes and sugary desserts, but there is a move towards healthier foods. Salads and fruit appear on the menu, but animal foods still make a strong showing whilst substantial plant-based dishes are rare; although in fairness a vegan meal can be ordered in advance at school canteens.

Young people are offered less unhealthy meat and dairy foods but generally not introduced to healthy eating, let alone avoiding ‘cruelty-foods’. They are not learning what they are putting into their bodies or the health-giving qualities of non-animal food. Teachers and parents take their lead from nutritionists who are not willing to speak out against animal foods, for fear of losing professional credibility or even losing their funding from animal-industry sources. They don’t want to offend tradition; and the thing with food and catering is that meat dishes are well known. They are popular. They are the default, because their ingredients are so readily available and volunteer canteen staff  may only know how to prepare meat-based meals. I imagine few would be familiar with making attractive, main course, plant-based dishes.

Ideally school teachers (whom students already trust) could be teaching about healthy foods, introducing children to plant-based foods and telling them about the horrors of farm-animal life; but they probably know little about either nutrition or animal husbandry, and don’t wish to promote vegetarian foods since they probably eat meat themselves. They can’t be impartial or encourage students to examine animal foods too closely. Therefore it’s down to those who have a ‘clean slate’ and the necessary information to inform kids about animal farming and the dangers associated with animal protein. But many of us are not teachers or don’t have access to young people. So until there are enough school teachers who are at least practising vegans, children are unlikely to find out what they need to know until they are old enough to discover things for themselves. By which time too many bad habits are entrenched.

For children and adults alike, there’s so much ground to cover and so much to learn. Being addicted, or at least craving certain foods, doesn’t help. Poor food habits hold most people back from contemplating the possibility of an ethically-based diet change. And apart from the animal population suffering, the young people are suffering for lack of responsible guidance.

Pitching to the grown ups

689: 

The Animal Rights movement aims to grant animals the right to unenslaved lives. It is still a young movement, in the process of formation, and peopled by passionate and good-hearted activists, who no longer use animals. These people, who advocate on behalf of the voiceless, meet with limited success. They gradually find out (to their horror) what resistance they are up against.

            The Movement has made some considerable impact in USA and parts of Europe, but to date it has had less impact in Australia. I like to think we are a more discerning race of people here, uncomfortable about being told what to do and what we should eat. You can’t win over Australians with a few slick, fundamentalist arguments. But the thinking Australian is also savvy enough to know that this is a much bigger matter, a more far-reaching problem than first meets the eye, and perhaps will need more time to consider this great issue.

            But wherever we’re from, we all face a conundrum - we know how tempting it is to use animals but we also know that the using of animal products involves ingrained habits of eating, clothing and fashion, and tests our compassion and empathy for animals as well as threatening the ecological health of the planet.

            As Australian animal advocates, we might need a more sophisticated approach than our colleagues overseas. It isn’t enough that we merely encourage people to take up vegan diets. We have to show our hand more completely, to help people see animals in a different light, to empathise with animals in their suffering and to recognise how humans are suffering too because of the way we treat farm animals.

            It’s tricky for the persuading advocate – too much finger wagging and people turn off, too soft a voice and we’re ignored. But it’s not our job to tell intelligent and self-willed people what they should be eating or using. We should encourage them to investigate and become their own judge and jury, so they can come to their own conclusions. Independent adults must be allowed to decide for themselves. Young people too must be given the chance to understand what is going on, so that when they are old enough to decide they can make informed decisions.

Children recruited into animal cruelty

688: 

Those of us who don’t subscribe to the supremacy of the economic argument, and who think using animals is wrong, also realise that animal protein is unnecessary and often harmful to health, especially in the overindulgent way it is consumed in the West. We also see it as a tragedy for both animals and young people. Both are powerless victims of the habit of consuming animal-based foods.

            Kids can’t fend for themselves. They must do as they’re told and eat what they’re given. Almost every child is misinformed or kept uninformed about animal-based foods and how they are ‘produced’.  Consequently, they come to believe what they are told, by adults, that it is necessary to farm animals for food. They grow up being told little about how their food comes to them, and especially little about what life is like for farm animals. In fact most people know very little since everything is kept secret. These days no one, adults and children alike, is encouraged to study animal farms let alone intensive farms or abattoirs.

            If we, as a society, weren’t ashamed of our treatment of farm animals, we’d allow and encourage students to see it all for themselves, at every stage of the processing of animals for food. Children would be taken to factory farms and processing plants and shown how meat, milk and eggs are produced. Then, whne they are due to leave school they’d be in a better position to decide for themselves whether they should use food produced from these animals. But since that would be likely to seriously affect the fortunes of the animal-food market, it doesn’t happen! 

The economic rationale behind animal cruelty

687: 

In this present day society, we are guided less by ethics and more by economics. From a need for food-energy comes the idea that high-energy-food comes from animals, and that if we want to enjoy the advantage of this  sort of energy, then its production must be economically viable. If that is accepted we take the next step, that it must be okay for ‘food’ animals to be held captive for their whole life and kept virtually immobilized to maximize their energy-giving properties. The poultry sheds and cattle feedlots are testament to that logic, in that they depend for their success on restricting the animal’s bodily movements, to make their fattening more efficient. Nothing else makes economic sense.

            The typical intensive system must go unremarked if we want cheap meat, cheap eggs and cheap milk! There must be tacit public approval for treating animals in this ‘necessarily atrocious’ way, and that approval is given in return for product being made available and affordable.

Be normal, eat animals

686: 

It is an irrefutable fact, that ‘almost’ every human on the planet eats meat and uses animal products! The idea that animals may be used for food, is universally accepted. The habit of using animals for food and many other services is deeply embedded in the human psyche. This Goliath seems unconquerable … and yet the idea of Animal Rights has reached a considerable number of people and inspired them to be advocates for these animals. They’ve decided for themselves that they’ll no longer be party to animal exploitation. A recent survey by the Vegetarian Resources Group in USA, shows 1% are practising vegans and so it seems that, against all odds, the ‘Rights’ movement is gaining ground. But to reach the majority who are not as sensitive, who are less empathetic or more animal-food addicted, we ‘advocates’ might need to revise our approach. The near-impossible task in front of us is to persuade the majority of practising omnivores, comprise 99% of the population, to think for themselves.

            Let’s put it this way, almost no one is in full control of their own actions, when it comes to food choice. Our minds have been bent heavily towards the need to comply with majority behaviour. More than anything, people want to be seen as ‘normal’, and don’t want to stand out as being fussy about food or to be thought of as food-wowsers, or weird in any way. To underline our ‘regular guy’ status, perhaps we must believe that what is normal must be ethically okay, otherwise everyone else would reject it. From that belief stems a blind acceptance of a few dangerous premises: firstly the belief that animals bred for food are NOT at all like dogs and cats, secondly the belief that since unloved pigs and cows and chickens are brought to life solely for the use of humans, that it is then (by some contorted logic) okay to enslave them, brutally kill them and quickly forget them. Once this is accepted, we can believe that it’s okay to deny these animals any sort of life of their own, and from there build a case for accepting any level of atrocity to make their products available to us. All we need to do is treat them like inanimate objects and forget they are in any way sentient.

685: Self preservation

Most people are unwilling to step so boldly away from convention by taking up a vegan lifestyle, especially because it means giving up their favourite foods. At best, they are afraid of living for the rest of their lives on, and perhaps suffering from the ‘deficiency’ of, a plant-based diet. At worst, they are ignoring animal cruelty in the food industry and therefore in ‘atrocity-denial’, and playing dangerous mind games with themselves.

Maybe they do realize the truth of what we are saying but just try their best to ignore us. They may be afraid that if a break-through were made in the public’s acceptance of Animal Rights, that it would spell the end of animal farming. That would mean no more meat and none of the thousands of animal-based commodities widely available today. In foreseeing this, people are inclined to vigorously defend their lifestyle and do whatever is necessary to guarantee supplies of their favourite foods. More importantly, they’ll resist everything we are saying about ‘atrocity’, which is probably why people pre-emptively shy away from discussing anything to do with animals that are used for food.

In the meantime all we can do is present our case and wait.

684: 

It’s as important to be patient as it is to have a credible argument at our fingertips. When they are required by our freedom-loving, self-willed omnivore friends we must know that we have many good arguments to choose from. And for us to know the facts which can back them up.

We might expose the ugly horrors, appeal to people’s sense of compassion, explain in detail why animal by-products involve cruelty and how they damage the health of the human body. We can suggest attractive non-animal foods, recommend what sort of clothing and footwear to buy. We can emphasize the greenhouse implications of animal farming and tell our friends how inexpensive plant-based foods are and how they don’t rot so quickly or smell so badly when being cooked.

Ah, but that’s not quite true, for it comes down to perception. For me the smell of frying bacon is disgusting and I want to block it out, whereas for others, who eat bacon, it is the most seductive smell. And so these arguments, the warmth of wool, the look of leather, the smoke of the barbeque, they are very subjective. And ethics are too; I regard the animal as a sovereign, irreplaceable, individual, sentient, innocent creature, and you might think of them as dumb beasts without individual personalities, put on this earth for humans to use as they will, believing they don’t have brains like ours, don’t feel as we do, don’t have our sensitivity and can’t foresee their own destiny at the abattoir. How do I get over the subjective barriers?

Perhaps the strongest position I take, when advocating that animals deserve to be granted rights, is that our attachment to animal products is a weakness, and like any weakness we can find any amount of justification for it but this one will always clash with our instinct for non-violence. Because there is so much violence in our society it would seem obvious that this ‘little weakness’ is connected in some way with the way we treat those species we are closest to and which are most useful to us. Instead of protecting them, as we would children or the disabled, we exploit them. Knowing that they can’t fight back, should alert us to the need to be their guardians and not their jailers. The shame of that might be overwhelming but, in reality, not as overwhelming as our attraction to the yummy foods we will enjoy if only we can forget the social injustice of animal exploitation.

Denial

683: 

By their use of animal foods and by supporting the way animals are treated, most people are in denial. They protect themselves by only-doing-what-others-do. If they practise same-behaviour then they also turn a blind eye to the suffering of these ‘food animals’. The main obstacle facing the liberation of these animals is that there are so many people still supporting the trade; it’s not only ‘most’ people, it’s such a high percentage of the population that for them there is, ethically-speaking, a great feeling of safety in numbers. Everyone knows that everyone else is keen to preserve the status quo, knowing that if the flood gates of dissent were to open even a crack, that people would start to consider the part animals play in our Society, and experience a rather nasty shiver down their spine. So many goods and services would be put on the politically-incorrect list that life as we know it would be virtually unrecognizable in a short space of time; food would alter, confections would change, shoes would be different as would a lot of our warm clothing and bed coverings. And if such changes meant an entirely different lifestyle imagine how attitudes would have to change to keep pace. We’d then be much more open to what Animal Rightists are saying.

Those of us who are advocating rights for animals might try every known argument to persuade people to abandon animal-based foods and commodities, but we know that won’t happen till there’s a fashion change in attitude, a much greater recognition of what sentience means. I hate to use the word ‘spiritual’, with all its religious connotations, but that is more nearly what sort of revolution I am referring to.

The atrocity buffer

682: 

If hunting with barbed fishing hooks or with guns is a ruthless sport, then animal farming is a cold, calculated and prolonged torture process. Using animals as a main source of food supply has long been shown to be unnecessary, since a plant-based diet is safe, satisfying and very healthy. When that penny eventually drops, one hopes that all intelligent people will say “no more” and start to look more carefully at the Animal Rights arguments and go on to discover a food regime which poses no danger to either health or conscience.

            But at the moment, most people haven’t paid too much attention to our arguments. They prefer to eat as others eat, fish as others fish, shop as others shop. Of course, impressionable youngsters think everything is quite normal and acceptable; and we can’t blame them for that.

            Over this last half century, since the end of the Second World War, consumption of meat has increased dramatically. It’s cheap, plentiful and animal by-products are widely used in a huge variety of snacks and confections. We’ve become dependent and even addicted to animal-based foods. Greater demand and competition has brought about a creeping deterioration in conditions on animal farms, to the point where intensive farming is now nothing short of an atrocity. When we think of atrocities, we imagine the torture and massacring of people. These horrors, not usually involving us personally, we duly condemn. But this atrocity (the enslaving and executing of food-animals) only differs in so much as almost every person living on the planet is involved in it. For example, the life-long caging and brutal killing of chickens is actively supported by anyone who is buying caged hens’ eggs or eating chicken-meat … which is something that most people do. Since no one wants to associate themselves with ‘atrocity’, they try to deny it. They develop an ‘atrocity-buffer’ which allows them to spot any other atrocity except the one they themselves are connected with. 

The killing process we never get to see

680: 

Humans enjoy eating animals and animal by-products. We wear their skins and skin coverings. We experiment with them to test the safety of drugs and cosmetics. We downplay empathy for animals and emphasise the need for a more cold-hearted, macho and pragmatic attitude. Perhaps we regard animals as the spoils of a war. This is, after all, a war being waged against them, and they are our trophies. We eat and exploit animals as a celebration of our status as the ‘dominant’ species.

            Animals are eaten at almost every meal. We have a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude about these animals, and this won’t change until we see how ugly the whole system is and what we are buying into.

            We need to remind ourselves what actually happens to the animals we are about to eat. Lobsters and crabs are boiled alive, fish are slowly suffocated or crushed under the weight of other caught fish, chickens are hung upside down by their legs, and carried on conveyors, one behind the other, to have their throats cut by revolving blades. Cattle have a bolt fired into their foreheads before they have their throats cut and are bled to death. Pigs have electrified tongs clamped to their heads to immobilize them before being knifed. Male chicks are thrown live into mincing machines because they are useless to the egg-laying industry, and so it goes on.

            The way in which we kill and mutilate animals is cruel by any standard and yet the consumer accepts this as part of the essential food that they must have, glad enough to use the ‘end-corpse’ for food. The supermarket trolley, filled with styrofoam packets of the muscle tissue of killed animals are a familiar sight in the supermarket. We never get to see a dead whole animal, unless with fish, where often their whole bodies can be seen, dead, laid on ice and gutted. As gruesome as the sight of a dead fish might be, it’s such a familiar sight that the customer doesn’t turn a hair. They’ve been familiar with this sight since they were children.

            The way these animals are caught or killed at abattoirs is not often witnessed, the customer only sees the body of the dead animal when it has been cut up and packaged, by which time it bears no resemblance at all to the whole animal. We rarely see the animal in the process of dying; the animal is either fully alive and then fully dead. That’s a long way from being personally involved in the complete process. It’s a very long way from fulfilling our hunting instinct which involved stalking, killing, skinning and butchering.

            Today we eat animals that have been caught or imprisoned by other people and then killed and butchered by others people. We’re not too fussy how it all happens just as long as we don’t have to know too much about it. If we use animals for food or clothing we comply with an industry that cares nothing about the feelings of the animals they use; they simply coral, breed, fatten and execute them for us. 

Killing in the wild & Angling

679:  

Once upon a time people were more in touch with how animal foods came to them. Long before ‘food animals’ were held captive they were hunted, and without the use of high-powered rifles and four wheel drive vehicles. Back then hunting might have been  essential for survival, but now it isn’t. There is a kangaroo meat industry providing income in rural areas but mostly the wild  animal being hunted will be hunted for recreation. The government are even encouraging this ‘sport’ into National Parks, allowing people to shoot at ‘feral’ animals, causing terrible injuries to the animals themselves and putting human Park users at risk.

Angling

The fishing industry is denuding the oceans of fish with trawl nets hundreds of meters in length, dredging up both target fish and many other non-target sea creatures which are either too badly injured when caught and dragged to the surface in the nets or which die in the process. Ecologically the damage to the sea environment by large-scale fishing is well known, but little is being done about it. On a smaller scale the very popular pastime of angling does terrible damage too.

            My next door neighbour hangs his fishing rod over the sea wall to relax from his stressful job, as a chef. He’s an intelligent, kind man and probably never thinks for a moment that the fish he catches are sentient creatures who share with us very similar pain receptors and nervous systems. He may not realize or want to know that the fish he hooks will slowly suffocate to death over a period of twenty or so minutes.

            He (like thousands of others) fishes for fun, unconcerned about how fish feel when a barbed hook pierces the fish’s mouth and is hauled out of the water and left to die a slow death. As a chef he’s dealing with animals all the time, but his ‘working-animals’ are already dead. He doesn’t have to make any connection between the living creature and the body parts he uses. He simply cooks what his customers ask for (which is mostly meat, sea foods and rich dairy concoctions) without any thought of animals suffering or dying. Most people who go fishing care nothing for the creatures they ‘catch’. It doesn’t occur to them that they are causing fish such suffering. 

Wild animals used for food

678:                 

In my local supermarket, at the meat counter, I see that there are some ‘wild’ products - notably kangaroo meat. They stock various cuts of kangaroo including fillets, steaks, minced meat and 'kanga bangas'  (kangaroo sausages). While some kangaroo is sold for human consumption it is mainly sold as dog meat.            People don’t really want to know what happens to these animals when they are being hunted. The kangaroo here in Australia is a wild creature. It is not farmed because it can’t be domesticated or fenced in or made docile in captivity, so the teams of hunters go out at night, and in the glare of spotlights the kangaroos are shot at. Their young, too small to be useful, are clubbed to death or left alive for predators to kill. Perhaps the killing of these animals supplement the income of farmers but I suspect there’s some pleasure involved in ‘sport’ of the kangaroo-shoot.