Changing attitude

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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.