NOT knowing

778: 

I know omnivores have arguments of their own but they aren’t that keen to say what they are. I do know that vegans have opposite arguments, and I know what they are based on, which makes it all the sadder when I see how people have sold out to easy living. Their outrage is almost non-existent. Societies everywhere in the world have allowed, participated in and encouraged outrageous cruelty to farm animals, and meat-minded customers have been silent about that.

After about 1945 (almost a lifetime ago) they came up with a few diabolical cruelties tailored to increase farm animal production. At the very same time science showed that animals were not necessary for food, and that human life could be sustained on a plant-based diet. These two factors were then, and still are, the main reason for veganism to exist. Early vegans tested the new nutritional science, began to thrive on plant-based diets and soon realised they could detach from the violence surrounding animal food. It coincided with what was happening in India at the time, with Ghandi showing the power and good sense of developing a non-violent nature for mankind.

We in the West were emerging from the ultimate violence of war. And here we had peace and food possibilities which we could have taken notice of but didn’t. We weren’t yet ready to abandon old-world thinking or end our war against animals. We weren’t then and still aren’t ready for deep peace. We chose to NOT change our collective nature. The cruelty of warfare might have been ending the cruelty in our nature was still there; the first of the great modern cruelties against animals showed up in the form of the battery cage. Keeping hens locked in cages with three or four others, with no room to move, that was a violation against Nature if ever there was one. And later, other animals were to be subjected to other equally horrifying cruelties. And if these cruelties made meat and eggs cheaper and more abundant it was to show just how far the customer would turn a blind eye for the sake of economic benefit.

This was the last straw - veganism sprung up and vegans began to show that it was possible to live without eating any violence-based foods. The first animal rights advocates would go on to prove that a vegan diet worked well, and were predicting a far less violent human species-to-come. In other words, vegans were suggesting a radical change in human nature, by any individual making a stand and demonstrating that non-violence could enter the kitchen.

There’s resistance to non-violence of course. By following the advice of the meat and dairy lobby, we lose our greatest freedoms, particularly our freedom to think for ourselves and freedom to speak for ourselves.

Today, people want to live their lives to the full. Which is why eating has become an adventure into animal-based food territory. Cruelty issues, regarding farm animals, are off-limits. Dinner party conversation never centres on the ethics of eating animals, in fact people are not ashamed of their ignorance when it comes to how their animal-based foods come to them.

Pretending to NOT know things has become as important, to some people, as knowing things.