Big shiftings

853: 

One of the greatest temptations for grown-ups, who are free to make their own lifestyle choices, is to harden up. By becoming pragmatic and avoiding introspection, they are free to break a few ethical rules. Once they have children they imitate their parents’ values. If adults go astray they lead their kids astray with them. With ten or twenty years of indoctrination, young people might find it difficult to then adopt a truly compassionate personality ... and yet many do.

An instinct in some young people questions their elders’ values; their fellow humans could be wrong about something as fundamental as accepting violence done to animals for the sake of eating tasty food. The problem, as I see it, is that humans develop and entrench certain habits and then forget ever to question them.

Young people, however, have a chance to make changes when they first move away from their parents’ dining table. But theory is not practice, and this is a time when they probably need most practical help, to give them enough confidence to change and establish new eating habits relevant to a plant-based diet.

If they can’t find some useful guidance it’s likely the ‘pressures of normality’ will weigh down on them too heavily and they’ll revert. They’ll give up before they’ve even started.

The rewards for complying with majority ‘taste’ are obvious, in that almost every shop on the High Street offers irresistible attractions. With food alone there are too many food normalities and addictive food habits to forego. Even if one is ready to take up a vegan lifestyle, it might not be taken seriously because shops have such a limited range of vegan foods, and if they do they’re expensive.

If you do take up vegan-living there’ll be an immediate change to your whole life style. Some can handle that. They’ll rise to the challenge. But the reality is that, if your decision to make a radical change of diet is left too long, the social pressure to ‘settle down’ might leave no room for change. By one’s late twenties it might be too late. Unless we make the move fairly early, soon after leaving parental control, it’s unlikely our ‘habit-self’ will allow us to become vegetarian let alone vegan.

How great is the gulf, then, between practising vegans and ‘non-vegans’? Probably enough to need a collective fundamental attitude change to make changing feel less reckless , and for that, in order to hit the ground running, one would need to be free of mind. We’d need to be about two years old, not chronologically but in a person’s freshness of approach, so that the taking-up-of-new-ideas is relatively painless.

The principle behind the herbivore

852: 

Animal Liberation has come on a long way since the 1970’s but nowhere near far enough to be even close to the liberating of animals. It’s great that the vegan movement has emerged but sad to see how slow it has been to catch on. Early ideals have faded away and hearts have re-hardened. Eating habits are so deeply entrenched that when the novelty (of the philosophy behind true vegetarianism) wore off, old eating habits were returned to.

            A friend of mine tells me that humans are naturally omnivorous, and that’s the platform on which she rests all her beliefs about animal food and clothing. She’s exemplary about her environmental habits and her political leanings, but here, over animal issues, there’s a sticking point - she says it’s wrong to eat meat but ethical to eat animal products since the animal isn’t killed for its by-products (milk or eggs or wool). Oh no?

In that one misunderstanding (or obstinacy) one is able to justify the use of these products, which in turn allows one to justify the using of hundreds of food items using these by-products.

            This is where vegans are thorough in their avoidance of all items connected with animals, because each animal that is used ends up at the abattoir and always leads a life of misery and/or confinement beforehand.

            The idea of a totally plant-based regimen is resisted more hotly by the lacto-ovo vegetarian than the meatless diets are resisted by carnivores. The by-product-eating vegetarian, passionately resisting becoming a vegan, is content with simply going half way, by moving away from the killing of animals for their meat.

            I use the identifier, ‘omnivore’, not to describe the whole person but as the one very important defining attitude of that person. The habits of one’s own life, especially after a few years into adulthood, are strongly laid down; as we get used to using animals for our convenience it becomes ever harder to stop, which is why a rather clumsy justification is adopted for the using of animal products.

As young people enter the adult world they want acceptance. They want to be taken seriously, so the young adult emulates his or her elders. In certain important social ways, as with eating habits, they don’t want to stand out as being different. And yet there might be a stronger force at play here. It might manifest as a rebellion against the ways of their elders, or even their peers, replacing the habits of the majority with those of a minority who have more empathy-driven compassion. 

Whingeing at meat eaters isn't the answer

851: 

At the moment it doesn’t seem that people are ‘interested’ in us. The very mention of ‘Animal Rights’ makes most people want to switch off. At a rally or a street demonstration, they pass by without even glancing our way. We’re astounded. We wait … and nothing changes. And so it goes on.

Perhaps we can’t think of another way of publicising animal issues. It’s difficult when we’re so much on the back foot. In the Doldrums you can’t feel a wind from anywhere, you can’t move in any direction, everything becomes that much more self-conscious, the voice becomes shrill when we talk. I’ve often felt like saying, “Hey you”, implying you’re asleep. My tone is too earnest. I’m shocked by the indifference. “Wake up, why can’t you?”

But of course they are NOT asleep, they just don’t want to be confronted. When they see us holding placards on the street, their first thought is to avoid us. We represent an uncomfortable truth.

Amongst ourselves we talk. We say how we feel. It makes us feel better, preaching to the already converted. But if we talked the same way to omnivores our words would explode in our face, which is why whingeing to meat eaters never works.

Their food almost defines who they are. And perhaps their clothing does too (women’s shoes, men’s leather jackets). So, they don’t take kindly to being put on the spot over their choices. Sure, they can admire what we stand for in an abstract sort of way, and they can sympathise with vegans for the tough time we have of it, for being so excluded from the world. But it boils down to pity, and it’s probably a pity for our stubbornness and our self flagellation.

So, here we are, ‘vegans’, trying to talk about the most tabooed subject on earth and not even getting to first base. All I know is that omnivore-bashing isn’t the answer.

Omnivores are not stupid

850: 

The Animal Rights movement - where should it be focused? I would say, focus on the consumer. Once consumers stop consuming, the whole cruelty and exploitation of animals stops. We know that it’s the ordinary consumer who stands in the way of progress on this issue, but how do we react to this?

            Here’s what I think is the wrong way: vegans hit out at the omnivore consumer, wanting to pay them back for supporting the Animal Industries, as they do. We’d like to give them a good shake. we’d like to show them the full weight of our disapproval; even if we only raise an eyebrow, we show it. And of course, it has the opposite effect to the one intended, because no one likes being disapproved of. We vegans might not say it straight out, but we imply scorn, and omnivores see it. It’s like being told, “If you eat anything ‘animal’ you’re as good as killers”. We think that much shame, thrown at the consumer, is bound to make them want to change. We try to force them to see things our way, to jolt them into awareness.

            But people don’t like being jolted. They would rather be disapproved of than obey us.

            We think we are justified though, despite the fact that we’re not getting many people to go vegan. I argue to myself that if my intentions are ‘good’, fighting the ‘good fight’ etc, that I’ll be excused treating people a bit roughly. But whatever I say, it’s water off a duck’s back. Because it’s so normal to use animals, my good intentions and shaming just don’t work. Omnivores are not stupid. They know what we are up to, so my opinions, my approach and my tactics are not appreciated. And worse. I seem like a freak, and I’m treated like one. The average householder has been ‘assaulted’ by religious evangelists who’ve come to the door, and has learnt how to handle them. It’s probably the same when handling vegans who get too enthusiastic.

We vegans don’t go around knocking on doors but we do bring up this subject of animal abuse, and we often do it unsubtly. We initiate discussion of the subject because, unless we do, they won’t. And that’s the brick wall facing us - what we say is simply ignored.

This seems intolerable to us. Here we have all these animals in living in terrible conditions and we can’t even talk about it, because it looks as if we are attacking every person we speak to, because just about every person is implicated in the very thing we want to talk about.

But not everybody. Some are more open than others. So we established vegans have to do two things. Firstly no more finger-wagging and disapproval. Secondly we must make vegan living very accessible and make what we have to say interesting. Only then can a person consider the possibilities of changing their whole lifestyle, primarily for the sake of the animals and secondarily for their own sake.

“I’m outraged!”

849:

Some decades ago “outrage” was powerful. The political slogan of 1975 was, “Maintain your rage”, and later it was used by Animal Rights activists to show how deeply we felt about cruelty to animals. In those days, we got emotional. We dared to speak our minds, and I used to think brave speech could change things - the more outrage the better. And along with our outrage came personal change. But with all our mind expansion we could never really see how change would happen in the wider community. It was obvious there was a lot of ‘entrenched attitude’ but it wasn’t being shifted by our outrage.  

            In a way, nothing has moved on in terms of animals getting more rights. Sure, their welfare has been marginally improved in specific ways, sow stalls and cages are being looked at. But essentially, no great change of attitude has yet happened, not on any sort of scale anyway. At present, the game being played out amongst consumers and animal rights groups is a mind game. We enjoy seeing the issues fought over, whichever side we happen to be on. But we all skirt around the edges, we talk about food and diets and recipes and produce magazines which address health issues and the cruelty of factory farming, but the fuller picture is avoided for fear it will turn too many people off. The more profound ‘message’ of Animal Rights hasn’t sunk in yet. It hasn’t penetrated far enough, to bring about the type of attitude-change needed; it would need to be deep enough to touch allied issues, to set them off. I’m thinking of a general move towards egalitarian thinking and non-violence.

            Initially though, outrage being a reaction to some diabolical things happening down on the farm, Animal Rights begins with changing general attitude towards animals, and from there follows a more widespread revolution of attitude. 

Life in general

847: 

If we are going to respect animals, we must also respect life in general; surely the very life force should be respected and marvelled at, if only because Nature is probably the most beautiful thing we know. And yet, as staggeringly beautiful and inspiring as it is, we uglify our environment. Humans are lucky, to be enjoying all that beauty, supplemented by man-made miracles such as the music of Bach and the words of Shakespeare and other great human forces. As difficult as life is for the human, we’ve had our burden lightened. Human achievements, and the ideas springing from them, have eased our suffering and given us some sort of protection. We’ve sure needed it against the Exploitative Humans (for the sake of argument, let’s say they represent one per cent of any population). The 99% suffer, but what do we humans know of suffering? The real suffering is experienced by our caged slaves, the angels in sheep’s clothing.

            It’s always far, far worse, for farm animals. And they are twice our number (perhaps sitting, two-angels-per-person, one on each shoulder!) For the fourteen billion animals awaiting execution, there are no ‘easing forces’ to help them, only routine holocaust. The numbers are so great and their violation so coldly inflicted, that that’s where one’s attention should be focussed. Here is the greatest need for ‘protection’ and safety, for the billions of sentient (farm) animals presently languishing in gaol, at our behest.

            If we can take on this protection-agency, we’ll be restoring the balance of Nature, no less. And if it needs repair then it’s down to us to do it. [The cows didn’t try to wreck the planet, so they and their fellow ‘food’- animals, don’t deserve to be punished.]

            Eating animals doesn’t make any sense on any level. The cruelty they undergo is one thing, another is the stupidity of ignoring science. We learnt about the quality of nutrition in foods of plant origin some sixty years ago, and still we won’t put our knowledge into action. People prefer to continue a grotesque, life-destroying, abattoir-mentality.

What am I saying here? Am I talking about damage done to our own species? Well, if so, so what? Now we have reason to tune into our inner ‘repairing-spirit’. We don’t need to do much else. We humans are garage mechanics, here to repair things when they don’t work any longer. In this time of ‘sensitive intelligence’, our present brains are over-written with the moral codes of the past, and all the stronger we are for that, but now there’s a quicker and more thorough intelligence around. Maybe kinder hearts? We are well prepared for the Revolution ahead.

We have one chance - boycotting. In boycotting animal-based commodities we are doing a lot to save these very animals from the worst type of human predation. For all of us it’s an atonement and a very practical way of developing a repairing attitude. The starting line is food, because it’s an everyday occurrence, universally carried out everywhere. It’s our main energy source, but unfortunately so much of it is depleting our best energy because it’s tainted food. The food we eat is like a dance we dance all day, everyday, with everyone, everywhere (and that includes clothing and a move towards non-animal-based fabrics). It’s food and clothing that we must find cruelty-free alternatives to, but mostly it’s about seeking forgiveness and developing empathy.

In a circus, the trained seal finds it difficult to jump through a hoop of fire. Similarly, it’s hard for  trained humans to jump through the hoop of symbiotic relationships, in terms of equality and altruism. But, it happens anyway, when we behave magnificently when around children at home. Generous, kind, selfless, intelligent, etc. So why not apply that same approach, that same empathic closeness, to other sentient life-forms?

Since the nineteen fifties, nutrition-science has been discovering how humans can feed themselves - maximising energy but minimising harm. And that in turn has freed some of us to be partners not deadly enemies of animals. If we can tap into our compassionate side, we can walk more gently on the Earth. But when will all this start?

Perhaps we aren’t quite ready to start. As ‘garage mechanics’, repair depends on practising what we preach. We can’t ‘be something’ if we’re not. Take vegans, ‘peace-lovers’, who are not the hard/cold/separate types; these vegans have the opposite intention. But that’s not to say that we too don’t  still have a lot to learn about ourselves. But the omnivore and the carnivores at the extreme, who are a long way from animal liberation. They hold all of us back. So, you get the picture! The human race might have a way to go yet!

So,

In the meantime,

What should a vegan be focussing on? Springing animals from jail? But doesn’t that depend on us persuading the consumer to boycott? And to get there, we need to show animals as benign beings with souls worthy of saving, and then to show them set against a backdrop of the worst extremes of factory farming.

Voiceless

846: 

Animal Rights is the only protection from human exploitation that animals are ever going to get. It’s a noble thing for you and I to want to protect their rights. Vegans should feel unreservedly proud, deciding for ourselves to say, “Enough is enough” ... and then to have gone for broke. Fight it is, but a different sort of fight, nonetheless, a fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. Against the human, their fighting teeth were blunted long ago.

Ah bliss!! For you and I, for all humans, it’s been a long time since being frightened by bigger beings on the planet, who wish to dominate our human species. But taking the place of one fear comes the next, the fear of very small things like viruses. They show their teeth in a very challenging way!

For the time we’re the dominant ones. To prove it and to confirm it to ourselves, we’ve gone to extremes, to the ugliest extremes imaginable. And now anyone, as long as they’re vegans, can sound the alarm about animals urgently needing rights. Alarm! Humans will go crazy if they won’t respect them.

Our aim is to grant animals their right to a life, without imprisonment and without execution chambers.

Rage and abandonment

845: 

We (might) say, “Look, will you, at what they’re doing to the animals. It’s absolutely disgusting”. We say, “Stop buying their stuff. Stop grabbing what they’re offering you”. But how often do we ever get a chance to say any of this? And even if we did say it, surely it’s the way we say it, to show we’re concerned both for the animals as victims and for the humans as perpetrators. It’s likely that if we ever did say this, it would simply sound like an attacking rage.

            For those of us who are concerned, we find it hard to suppress our feelings. And I’m arguing that most times we should try hard to suppress them, for the sake of a better outcome. This ‘concern’ we have is a double worry. We’re as much worried by what’s happening as we are about our inability to stop it happening.

            I often think it’s like passing a house, looking through a window and seeing a kid being threatened by an adult and being entirely unable to help. It’s possible that things aren’t always quite as they seem. We have to say to our self, “Oh, they’re just having a scrap, it’s none of my business”, and then walk on. It’s very similar to turning a blind eye and then getting so used to that, because everyone else seems to be doing it, that it no longer registers. We walk on.

            It’s very difficult for the animal activist to imagine how any of this killing will be stopped. Lying awake at night I, like others, picture small animals, alone, frightened, and in a state of god-knows-what-unimaginable-hell and dread. Lying awake, I think, “This is happening tonight, now, at this moment”. I might be deeply concerned but it doesn’t help any of them. And yet my imagination is showing me all this suffering, and that it’s happening just down the road, not so far from where I live.

            In these sleepless moments I think we’re all doomed. I envisage the torment behind the production of each breakfast egg, the unheard torment behind closed-doors. As I imagine it, it gets into my head. I can hear them scream, and my heart goes out to them both for the suffering and anguish they’re feeling. I wonder if they know that nobody cares for them? Or if they feel abandoned?

             But if I said any of this to you, as you were eating your breakfast egg, you’d want to chuck me out. You’d make me look over-emotional, in order to shut me up.

            I feel like vegans live on different planets to the rest of the population, or that we speak a foreign language. Once you’re vegan it’s impossible to ever again be switched off, like we switch off a radio. Once you know about it and act on it, there’s no going back. Moving forward is only ever about shifting consciousness. The greatest challenge the activist-advocate has, is to make a small impression on those who most want to switch us off - ironically, these are the ones who’re often the most sensitive, who’re potentially closest to our point of empathy.

Grabbing what’s on offer

844:

Has anyone ever asked the animals their permission, for taking things from them? Their secretions and, for heaven’s sake, their very lives?

            No animal has indicated in any way that we may steal from them, and yet we do, and all the while we think it’s essential and (for we humans at least) good for us. That’s partly why vegans get so angry and judgemental about the casual way otherwise intelligent and kindly omnivores conduct themselves in this respect.

            Now, if we really want omnivores to start thinking about this whole matter of their ‘having no permission’, we first need to see them as potential learners rather than blind consumers. They need to see us as teachers rather than condemners.

If we can’t stop our habit of judging them, then the bigger our rage the smaller our voice, and the more likely no one will take any notice of what we’re trying to tell them. One of my main criticisms of the animal rights movement is that we only ever judge and condemn. We say the same things over and over again, hoping something will stick and hoping the penny will drop. We fail to see how this tactic never actually works.

Often we’re not very original in what we say. If it isn’t slogan-talk then it’s the stale repeating of the same old arguments – we never seem to encourage people to think things out for themselves, we don’t welcome opposite points of view or allow others space for consideration. Does this mean that we aren’t really interested in talking through this subject?

If we don’t really want to talk ethics with people, then what DO we want to talk to them about? Usually we don’t get further than health and cruelty issues, from where we can launch our well-known moral judgements on them.

Wouldn’t it be better to simply give out useful information, without feeling a compulsion to show our own feelings on the subject? It would be so much better if they had to wring information from us - they’d value it far more than if we fired it at them with angry guns. 

Don’t stand on ceremony, just help yourself

843: 

Animal guardians (vegans) are persistent, because we’re in it for life. But also because we keep asking the same unanswerable question: “How can such terrible things be done to animals, and people not react?” As our incredulity grows into outrage and then on into anger, we can feel a sort of power flowing through us. But sadly, there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s like lightening that doesn’t make contact with the ground. It doesn’t connect. For all our outrage, protesting and arguing, we notice nothing positive happens. The crazy, cruel things just keep on happening.

Humans know no other way of living that doesn’t include attacking and eating animals. Most people are dependent on abattoir products. Sad as that is, regrettably we animal activists have to get used to this just as the animals themselves have had to get used to it.

I suppose the animals have always been exploited by humans because it’s easy. They don’t fight back. And even if the idea of attacking animals doesn’t sit well with us, we don’t have to face up to the act itself. There will always be someone to do the caging and killing for us. It’s likely the people employed to do these nasty jobs, especially the killing at abattoirs, are those who can’t find employment elsewhere.

The awful reality, of routinely attacking animals, stands like a brick wall to human progress. For all the great discoveries a man or woman might make, if they are complicit with this, then they aren’t really progressing at all; humanity can’t move on until we acknowledge the possibility that life without the eating of animal-based foods is possible. It’s preferable on all counts. It’s beneficial to the human body, to the otherwise enslaved animals and it’s a shift from violence to non-violence. Any progress on granting animals the right to be safe from human attack can only come when vegan principles are observed.

Animals’ bodies and their secretions seem to be regarded as ‘for the taking’, like pears from a pear tree or minerals from the ground - it seems that if something can be taken, humans will take it. That attitude does us no credit and to see it as acceptable and unremarkable causes vegans to be not so much angry as incredulous.

Two stage break-out

842:

Most people have invested in a collective mind-set, which takes the form of an intractability of attitude about the treatment of animals. By keeping them as slaves we can maintain our dominant position in the hierarchy. We can remain omnivores. For some, the cruelty and waste associated with animal-farming is a worry but they can’t shake the habit of eating animal-based food. It’s addictive.

Maybe our worry isn’t confined to the magnitude of the problem so much as the cover-up we have to be party to. We’ve been tricked by the food companies into thinking there’s no ethical component to food and, as soon as we realise there is, we try not to think about it too deeply. We know that thought persuades action; if we gave the situation any thought at all it would lead towards boycotting. At first it would mean giving up meat, then eggs, then milk, then we’d end up avoiding many, many things.

The logic behind ethical boycott applies to very many food items. We fear that if we start along that road then, soon enough, there’ll be nothing much left to buy (especially those comfort foods of which we are so fond).

Everyone knows about the amount of animal exploitation going on, just by seeing footage on TV. But what we see is a momentary shock that we might be able to forget. Statistics aren’t as easily forgotten, especially when we learn that an average Westerner eats twenty one thousand animals (in his or her lifetime). That’s a lot of executions weighing on our conscience. Each death tells of an individual animal’s horror story. Each death  is a death that consumers are responsible for.

Just by writing this, I’m conscious of saying something highly unpopular! But I hasten to add that almost every single one of us, present day vegans included, are or were hardened animal eaters at some stage of our lives. We’ve all got blood on our hands.

Once we acknowledge this, we can start to repair, to atone. And then keep moving on, for this is just one hurdle to pass over. The next step is to stop judging those who aren’t vegan, because it’s not only a waste of time but it serves to alienate people.

The disease of pessimism

841: 

The disease of pessimism

All the time we humans are still using animals we are pessimists, unable to shake off the guilt and always feeling like failures because of it. The exploiters themselves, since they probably don’t care enough, are the most cynical of pessimists. But despite setting out in the right direction even vegans often catch the disease of pessimism. We might not have the same guilt but we do easily lose faith in our fellow humans, and that amounts to pessimism.

It’s the pessimist’s forecast, which ever extreme it comes from, that our pessimism protects us from the shock of the inevitable.

            Optimists know that pessimism is the excuse we use to keep us away from change, whether it be change of attitude or of lifestyle. We also know that change hinges on one’s confidence of being in control of our own minds. Adversity happens, but the optimist makes the best of it and even uses it to strengthen resolve.

            As vegans, we can be far more optimistic and up-beat than our omnivore friends, because at least we’ve made a practical optimistic gesture towards a better future; to a very great extent we have defied convention.

            We have devised our own way out of the mess, and we know it’s no different for anyone else. Just by making this one stand we step away from the most ugly aspect of conventional lifestyle. Here is a simple-to-understand way out of the violent society into which we’ve been born, it just comes down to wanting to escape it enough. Omnivores either won’t or can’t, mainly because they feel so helplessly locked into their own pessimism-about-the-future. How can a rosy future include the abattoir, the cage, the dangerous conventional diet and the addiction to animal-based commodities?

            The general consensus is that we don’t think the world will be greatly improved just because we change our eating habits. But if we do make the connection between personal attitude change and the long-range changes that issue from it, then it’s likely we’ll be able to see how important it is for each individual to make a start. The start, we would suggest, is to simply alter our daily food regime.

Not everyone sees that yet. And it’s because this connection isn’t made that the process-of-change is put on hold. With no imminent change foreseeable one’s outlook must remain gloomy.

            Changing attitude or dropping addiction is not seen to be something simple. For a start, there’s so much ground to make up, from convenience-living to ‘principled-living. For a pessimistic omnivore to become an all-or-nothing-vegan would be like going to the moon, or like going into free fall and hurtling towards the unimaginable. If one were to contemplate such a change, it could either feels profoundly unsafe or unthinkable, with all those favourite foods we’d no longer be eating. It’s enough to make one stick with what one knows, including all the pessimism that goes with it.

Absurd behaviour

840:

Oh, the absurdity! Can you imagine being inspired by money-making and dynasty-building? The products which make wealth for some are the ‘items’ consumers consume. Of course, dynasty builders gaze upon us like adoring parent do, only their gaze is inspired not by love but by money.  We consume and we encourage them with the money they’ll make from us.

            You can hardly blame the profiteers for taking advantage of us, if we’re gullible enough not to notice what they’re doing. We’re complaint. We sit through countless TV advertisements and respond appropriately. Via advertising, we are continuously ‘sales pitched’, and yet we go along with it.

            Take the food industry, on which we spend so much of our money. The big selling point here is the emphasis on treats and taste sensation. We are told, “Buy our cheese, buy our biscuits, imagine how much you will enjoy them”. By a process of mutual back-scratching the travel industry uses food to sell both, “Imagine how happy you would be eating this lobster-dinner while you are sitting by this lagoon on Paradise Island”.

Advertisers assume we are so human-centred that animals don’t matter. On ‘Paradise Island’ any possible creature is simply here for us to eat. We imitate the potentates with our longing for and pretending to have ‘an easy, cool lifestyle’. We aim to pleasure ourselves in every way possible.

            T.V. advertising ploughs like a tank through roses, past good sense, past affordability, past empathy for animals, past the unhealthiness of eating rich foods, and arrives at an easy acceptance of animals as merely objects-for-enjoyment. The tackiness of these ads is obvious. They’re tedious and repetitive. But this is TV - all of us put up with ‘the ads’ in order to get to the entertaining stuff we really want to watch. We’re shown hundreds of products every night. And what we see is, more or less, what’s on offer. We go along with it. We comply and cooperate.

But, largely, vegans don’t. We push one whole part of this tacky society aside. We deliberately disassociate from its most commonly shared activity – the cranking of the Animal Industry wheels. The non-discriminating omnivore ingests bits of animals’ body parts. They aren’t into actively boycotting what they might disapprove of. In effect, they sell their soul to the devil.

            Animal Rights is a fundamental protest. And even if our protest reaches zero audience, it must still be made, if only to bring some sort of hope to those who are still living within the ‘closed world’.

Almost all people, whether educated or uneducated, see no way to escape the ugliness of their world. Their attitude is frozen in the grief of being locked into the conformity of a mind-prison. They say, “Why bother?”

            A vegan bothers because he or she might have some reason to bother. We have some optimism and a whole lot of purpose. And that means we feel a whole lot better about our lives than most others and want others, ordinary people like us, to weigh up the situation and decide for themselves, just as we did.

As vegans, we need to recognise the remarkable talent all humans have, in our ability to adapt and change, to suit each new situation as it comes along. And when the time comes, as it surely will (when change will mean the difference between survival and non-survival), then, at that point, our choosing will come down to having faith, not in gods but in people.

            Our enduring optimism must merge with a collective self-confidence, to teach just one thing: that pessimism doesn’t need to exist. To convince others of this we need to emphasise that change can only come about by way of optimism, from the creative spirit within us all.

 Creativity is born out of determination – in this case, to deconstruct pessimism. The more often we say this the sooner people will start to listen to what we have to say about veganism.

            By giving up our wholly unnecessary value judgements of one another, by giving up gossip, by giving up blame and shame, along with all the other sad and sour habits we humans indulge in, we automatically look forward. By dropping our gloominess of attitude, we avoid personal collapse and therefore stop hurtling towards collective world disaster. Non-judgement lets us pick up on something far better.

The main reason we should drop pessimism is that there’s surely another, more upbeat reason for wanting to live. So, if we can’t get past our gloominess we won’t be able to let our imagination fly into optimism and determination and creativity. 

Absurd pessimism

839: 

There’s good reason for us to have faith in people’s ability to change. Many of us have done, despite the fact that we’ve once been omnivores. Excluding ‘from-birth vegans’, all of today’s practising vegans once conformed with the social norms of the day. We were (nearly all of us) part of ‘The System’ even when we doubted that it could ever succeed. Most of us were so much part of it, and not optimistic. And even if you’re now a vegan, there are many who are profoundly pessimistic about the future. So how damaging is pessimism?

            To think that the human race is going to hell in a hand basket, that one pessimistic idea is enough to hold everything back. It can be highly infectious. Defeatism only makes things worse. What hope is there for others coming along behind us if we can inspire optimism, especially if we are vegan?

            I’d suggest that we are simply avoiding taking personal responsibility for the way things are. And it doesn’t help to be naming and blaming; we do that simply in order to feel-better. Our own pessimism dooms us.

            The more violent amongst us focus on revenge, shifting focus away from taking responsibility to blaming. We blame ‘the corporates’ because they’re easy to hate. “They are responsible. They’ve made us what we are”. And so we deflect personal responsibility onto the big crooks. Their wickedness is obvious. Our own complicities and pessimisms are less obviously damaging.

            Most of us are small time crims. We reckon we can go for the big boys, the trans-national executives, the politicians, the rich … and the Animal Industries; we can demonstrate our hatred of them and get brownie points for being active campaigners against them. But it often screens our own guilt and destructive attitudes. It diverts us away from self-examination. It may even downgrade our need for personal discipline. We get more interested in fighting the good fight than in self-development. We concentrate on bringing down the big boys, and when that doesn’t do a scrap of good, then pessimism creeps back in to darken our soul. “It will never work”, we say. “Whatever I do it is nothing compared to the damage they do”.

            Because we aren’t rigorous enough with ourselves, the problems bounce back at us. They turn full circle, and we have to ask why we aren’t being rigorous, why we go for the easy option, why our activism can so easily deteriorate into a thirst for revenge. Even though we might be solid vegan and convinced of the need for animal rights, we still can get bogged down by making value judgements. We’d rather blame than self-judge.

            Value judgements are so predictable. We do it to relieve the pressure, to get our rocks off. What we aren’t doing (although pretending to ourselves that we are) is engaging in the ‘most optimistic pursuit of all’ - raising awareness. 

Absurd-isms

838: 

Veganism speaks like no other ‘ism’ because it outlines a structure for a future civilisation, no less! It lays the groundwork for a practical non-violent society held together by a single ethic of non-interference with sentient life forms. A human race no longer dependent on the animal kingdom, for food, for clothing or for anything, is something in which we could all be interested.

            There are many huge problems blocking our progress, pessimism for one. Pessimism seems to be associated with loss of something we are used to and to which we give little conscious thought; at the very prospect of a no-touch-animal policy we might feel profoundly uneasy. Who wouldn’t be nervous about the loss of the dominant position, the privileged position of being able to eat the products of enslaved animal or eat their very bodies? But consciousness has grown beyond that, freed to grow in the awareness that animal foods are not essential to our survival. The science of nutrition suggests an uplift of optimism – and in this single realisation, not only the animals are liberated but we too. Within the lifestyle of vegans is a new ‘reason to be’, a chance to caste off the slave-master millstones around our necks. We can see a chance here for the whole of future civilisation.

            People love looking into the future. If we see the possibility of good things happening, that’s optimism. And then it comes down to how we imagine our future could be.

While a weak imagination sees veganism only as a loss of human privileges and modern-day comforts, it recoils at the masochism of it all. If you can’t see beyond a life of using animal products, then veganism will be seen as a threat.

            But looked at coolly, is the abolition of animal slavery unrealistic? Is an egalitarian treatment of animals so absurd? And if so, why?

The exhilaration of freedom

837: 

Escaping our own habits-of-convention, our attitudes, behaviours, diet, philosophy, etc, is contingent upon knowing if there IS an alternative way of looking at life, and then seeing that it lies within vegan principle - this is distinct from merely eating more vegan food. I’m stressing here that this is not merely a physical health matter, but something much more.

Being vegan lifts us out of mindlessly following convention, by taking us closer to a more natural, freer state of mind. So, it isn’t only about slimming and health and food but also about appreciating what we didn’t appreciate before, namely the beauty of innocence. And I’d suggest that one of the most beautiful examples of that innocence is to be seen in those animals we most abuse. (Yes, kids are beautiful in their innocence too but not as oppressed or helpless as the ‘food’ animal).

Our compliances with violence-towards-animals are habits of attitude which hold us hostage. Often, when we’re attending to our own selfish needs, we’re doing so at the expense of others’ needs. Lions may chase and eat the gazelle, but humans want so much more than other predators. Our appetites, addictions and insatiabilities bring us to longing for what we shouldn’t want or can’t have.

            We are so enslaved by those who have a vested interest, that we’ve developed a warped sense of right and wrong. And if we see that but don’t want to address it, we say to ourselves, “Why bother to protest, when things are so far out of my control”.

It’s the ‘Goliath’ that is causing us to believe that ‘it’ is too big to do anything about. But all that changes as soon as an alternative way becomes apparent; as soon as you go vegan you start an upward climb. It might be a long climb but the smell of freedom is exhilarating.

Inevitably conditions apply - it’s a matter of facing habits of ‘wanting’ and attempting to drop them, especially the most insidious ones connected with animal foods and all the social conformities they involve us in.

Here at the heart of vegan principle is a diet, which is good for slimming and energy but broadens into a non-violent approach to life, which concludes with a ‘no-touch-animal’ approach. Obviously that doesn’t mean animals are not to be literally touched, but it implies that humans can’t be trusted around animals. A sign held up before a mob of sheep reads “Beware of humans. They eat your babies”.

Once things are seen from the animal’s point of view, we can move towards a truly symbiotic, mutually-respecting relationship with them.  

Energy

836: 

By not ‘doing’ violence there’s a better chance to use energy constructively, to bring about a balance between the pushing-forward and the holding-back of energy.

By giving out energy in pursuit of animal protection, and not draining it by being involved in exploiting animals, generous amounts of energy come back - just by showing respect for nonviolence, there’s a potential source of energy. The opposite is true therefore. As soon as I want something that will involve harm to something else, energy reduces - I’d suggest that this sort of wanting does the most damage. By not-wanting something, that I know I shouldn’t be wanting, I hold back the grabbing hand. I remember reading a book entitled The Grab where three daughters divide up their mother’s belonging after she’d died. It was an ugly business ending the previous good relationships they had had.

Perhaps the state of ‘not-wanting’ is close to contentment, and is probably the key to transforming human nature.

If an omnivore ever takes veganism seriously, ‘self denial’ will become the first worry, giving d up all animal-based foods and commodities; self-denial then has to be weighed against attractive things which might bring pleasure but which also represent the side of our nature we most dislike. By dropping our dependency on animals we give ourselves the best chance to escape that side of us, that side which is associated with violence and waste and addiction (a self-made prison, albeit an escapable one). To be vegan we are deliberately aiming at freeing ourselves from a heavy conscience burden and making this a life time’s project.

Of course, there are other great projects, like raising children and caring for less fortunate people, but if we’re not freeing ourselves in this way, we are well and truly trapped. And by tinkering with little improvements and making half hearted reforms to diet and ethics, all we can hope for is an improvement of the existing ‘prison’ conditions in which we live; it runs parallel with the attitude of improving the welfare of animals as opposed to liberating them completely.

If we can focus on the non-violent principle, we can escape our self-made prison and help others to escape too. And enjoy a heretofore unknown bonus of energy into the bargain.

Escape

835: 

‘Vegan-ism’ is not only about health concerns or salving the conscience but about escaping conformity to violent social norms.

Those who aren’t yet vegan might well believe they are held locked into certain inescapable behaviours; they can’t believe that by merely changing something as mundane as their food regime, that escape could be possible or that animal-eating could be responsible for a breakdown of moral values in Society. The don’t see the connection between Society’s violence and the food people eat.

In their belief that they can’t do without animal protein, people are unable to imagine life without animal products, and  that means farm animals will always be exploited. Liking the taste of animals, knowing no other way to eat with using animal foods, ties them to the exploitation of animals and all the shame that goes with that.

As advocates of animal rights it’s difficult to get that one across, because most people haven’t yet seriously considered animals’ feelings, as if they mattered. And this leads them to financially support the animal industry and see veganism as nothing more than a church of horrible disciplines. They dig their heels in, and say “No way. Vegan, never!”

If they looked a bit closer they might see the possibility of a major escape route via the non-violent principle on which veganism is based. As vegans  we have a chance to regain some level of innocence, and in the innocence is the escape.

Conscience

834:

By staying well away from animal products, vegans stay in touch with their conscience. Growing up as omnivores, to some extent we actively suppress the conscience, so that we can eat the same foods as others do, so we can fit into adult society. But once we ‘go vegan’, we regain the fighting spirit we might have had as kids. We can rebel against the status quo and use conscience to guide us.

            Conscience is there to stop us acting recklessly. While vegans aren’t necessarily nicer people than carnivores, veganism does give us the opportunity to be so. We travel lighter on our feet: we don’t wear leaden boots: we don’t trample the roses. We treat animals as ‘people’, respect their sovereignty.

Most people don’t give much thought to enslaved animals. They might want to but they know, if they did, a thousand products would fall off the edge of their shopping list. Which is what makes veganism so difficult to consider.

            They might have enough sensitivity to appreciate the sentience of animals but don’t think they’d have enough discipline to overthrow a whole lifestyle system, on their behalf. Or keep it up permanently. Probably, most omnivores think it best NOT to go down that road in the first place. They think it’s best not to know, not to notice the ingredients list on products, not to know about husbandry methods on farms, and not to know about the idea of ‘vegan principle’.

            What then must happen? A number one aim might be to avoid contact with vegans and animal rights advocates altogether, to keep shut the flood gates of ‘knowing’. But that is increasingly difficult today, since to NOT hear about what is going on in the animal farming business is almost impossible.

            The more we hear horrible stories of caging and confining animals, and their routine brutalising and killing, the harder it is to ignore. We have to become serial forgetters or doubters or ‘not-knowers’, which in turn saps one’s confidence to determine the sort of life we lead.

Doing without

833: 

For everyone, life’s hard enough. But for vegans it’s even harder, in one important way. We seem to bear almost the sole responsibility for persuading people of the wrongness of enslaving animals and the rightness of not using them at all.

            On one level that’s enlightening enough for us but on another level it’s a pit within a pit. We have to deal with our own everyday-participation (in this society) but we're forced to lead a double life, being in it but not of it; we’re true outsiders. But at least we don’t have the food baggage most people carry (which ends up looking bad on the scales and even worse in the mirror).

            The omnivore’s mental conditioning traps them into the habits of their childhood, the most dangerous of which is a fondness for Nursery Teas. We like to use certain combinations of junk foods, remembered from our earlier days, usually in the form of sweetened confections, cheesy concoctions and milky drinks. They’re tempting but they’ve lost their original impact as treats. No longer are they anything special since they’re indulged in so regularly. And every day too, most people eat a meaty meal, again something very addictive and harmful to the body.

            As dangerous as these foods are, we indulge in them. On top of the junk food we indulge in a whole range of intoxicants which fuzz up the mind and probably also fuzz-up a grumbling conscience, helping us to enjoy a thoroughly indiscriminate eating experience.            

            Science has been recruited to ensure that animal foods (or as main ingredients of processed foods) are ‘rich’ to the taste as well as being stomach-filling. It’s their addictiveness which denies us any chance of easily escaping them, even for a short while. Their daily use keeps us umbilically-tied to the most damaging norms of our society.

            Veganism takes us past that point. Once we’re vegan we usually never look back to that old self-harming world again. We get so used to looking ahead that we take for granted a world of daily-discipline and boycotting.

The ‘little habits’ of an omnivore’s diet are hard to let go, especially when the alternatives don’t seem attractive (veganism would be perceived as extreme and a vegan diet therefore unattractive). Perhaps the big lesson here is that perceptions can be deceptive, and they can be changed almost in a flash. But ‘going vegan’ isn’t necessarily simple.

            Immediately, as soon as the brain says “give it a go”, we face a Catch 22, where herbivorous-eating means limiting our choices. Our society is so heavily geared to the animal eaters’ interests that there’s not very much in the way of immediately attractive plant-based savoury food on the market; there are still relatively few products out there which can replace the addictive-products made with animal ingredients, unless we’re willing to pay high prices for imported goods. Mostly we have to do without.

            On the face of it, this puts people off vegan lifestyles … but ironically, just in that ‘limitation’, with so much being off-limits to us, we benefit greatly. Avoiding animal-based food prevents our being poisoned by it. And nor are we likely to put on weight, grow a paunch, slow our metabolism or develop diabetes. That’s the big advantage of this particular food discipline.

            Look at it this way. Going vegan helps us pass by certain shops; we just get used to never going into them. For example, nothing in a cake shop is ‘clean’ (of animal by-products), so commercial cakes are no longer something a vegan would indulge in. Now, all this ‘doing-without’ might seem like a big sacrifice to omnivores, but to vegans it’s a blessing in disguise. We can’t be tempted by the ‘delights’ of edible or wearable or usable animal products, so we can’t be tainted by them or, in the case of food, made fat or ill by them. And that’s the ultimate advantage. We don’t have to spend our later years in the grip of ill-health, at least not because we have, in previous years, indulged in second rate taste-trips.

Escape

832: 

The negative side of the human condition is the capacity we have to either enslave or be enslaved; we see the usefulness of taking advantage of vulnerability. We don’t take into account the damage it does. But let’s look at the victims here - if we are being taken advantage of we might accept it or we might fight it. Those who accept it don’t think they can escape it because there will be too many repercussions. The most obvious example is that one can be so hooked on animal-based foods that one accepts the violence behind it.

As vegans, we don’t feel trapped by that, because we have disassociated from all that routine waste and cruelty. Just by changing our food patterns, we have relieved ourselves from a lot of the pressure of ‘being enslaved’. For me, the feeling of being trapped was transferred, as I focused on the animals’ entrapment. The natural outcome was to increase my sense of empathy.

            By making our own escape possible, vegans see the importance of helping others to escape.

            I’m bound to say that a vegan diet solves many problems all at once. It’s obviously good for the health of our body and mind, but it builds other strengths too, not the least of which is becoming less self-obsessed. It is even, dare I say, a prelude to altruism. By working for the animals’ benefit, it has an efficacious effect on just about everything else we do. It’s certainly good for our ‘mental condition’, eases our spiritual struggling, but most spectacularly it hastens us away from crap-food and towards ‘real’ food. I was with a friend yesterday who couldn’t believe I’d never eaten at McDonalds or Kentucky Fried. By the same token, I doubt if she’d experienced much eating of ‘health food’ in her life. Eating what the body thrives on affects how the human body machine functions and help us towards our eventual escape from being manipulated by the system.

            Escape might be our end goal but if we must live an enslaved life, just by knowing we can get out of it makes it less onerous. Part of the escape ticket is in the food we eat, but chiefly it’s the overall altruistic trend which brings results on so many other levels too. For vegans, we are making a start. It’s about what we choose to do but also about what we don’t do. It allows us to tread more lightly on the land and tread more carefully in everything else we do, particularly when we’re relating to others more empathetically.

            I must come back to food again. The energy we get from food is such a crucial factor in life; we can only do things for others because we have enough EXTRA energy and know we aren’t personally hooked on energy-sapping junk foods. By avoiding hundreds of available animal products we benefit greatly just from that.

Our non-vegan friends are necessarily drawn to thousands of eating-items which use appetising animal products, and by NOT boycotting them, they either lose energy through becoming overweight or they are enslaved by them, like the addict of another substance, also referred to as ‘junk’. And what is worse, by eating it, buying it and demanding it, we give financial support to the Animal Industries. We give them the nod, that what they do is okay by us.

            Our ‘vegan habits’ largely protect us from the commercial food industry, simply by our avoiding hundreds of all-round-harmful consumer items. Boycotting them is the ultimate escape.

Do yourself a favour

831: 

We vegans could seem like a threat to people’s peace of mind, but since vegans are in such small numbers at the moment, we’re still rather ignore-able. (In most countries veganism is hardly known about at all). Here in Australia it’s rarely mentioned in the media and for most people the whole idea of animals having rights is a completely foreign if not laughable idea. Gradually things may change, who knows? At present though, the general attitude towards veganism is either to find it incomprehensible or a vague threat to one’s own lifestyle. Possibly it’s even a subject that’s dangerous for impressionable young minds.

            Any threat veganism poses isn’t physical of course but it can be somehow disturbing all the same, because it touches on everything all at once; any impact it makes, it makes deeply. For example, we argue that animal slavery can be related to just about every violence-based activity whether it damages the human body, the environment or the lives of animals. Any threat vegans pose isn’t physical of course but we can be somehow disturbing all the same; if we do make an impact we make it deeply. For example, we make the connections between animal slavery and illness, global warming, world starvation and many other central issues, while most people are collaborating with destructive forces simply by remaining omnivorous.

            The central question is about whether humans are innately destructive in their primary attitude to the world, and whether this can be justified.

            We live the way we do today in laboratory conditions of our own making. We’re almost desperate to find out if we, humans, are worth saving. Does it mean that we, despite our brilliant discoveries, have gone too far? Have we destroyed too much to deserve to be spared? Maybe that’s not a useful question, except that it points to the need for a solution - the principle of repair through a concerted act of non-violence, which cancels out the violence which has caused the problems in the first place.

            Vegans are presenting compassion as a principle that is still being shunned by the world at large. It’s neat because it’s incontrovertible (and that makes people hostile towards it because it shows them to have been wrong).

            Compassion theory is obviously making its mark. We care about things we didn’t care much about fifty years ago. We care for trees and threatened species. We care about the planet. We care about taking children’s views into consideration, we show concern for the troubled worlds outside our own comfortable world. But ‘compassion’ (heart-intelligence) seems an obvious threat to the macho status quo.

The unanswerable question

830: 

In reply to vegan argument, most omnivores don’t, won’t or can’t agree with us. When vegans realise how reluctant people are we get frustrated. We lose patience. Our lack of patience shows and puts people off wanting to find out what we’ve got to say. And that’s the tragedy. For us, all of us. Our losing patience looks like losing faith in people who aren’t like us, and patience is a must because of the magnitude of what we’re attempting to pull off here.

            In our Western societies, even in UK where there are quite a lot of vegans, we can see no BIG change in public attitude. The papers aren’t supportive, the media in general is not making this into an ‘interesting subject’, teachers aren’t teaching it and preachers aren’t preaching it. The concept of veganism, in combination with Animal Rights, is thoroughly ignored, even by the most educated and economically well-off. That’s depressing, but we can’t afford to get bitter or people-hating about it. Instead we need to enjoy acting constructively and persist with ‘what it feels right to be doing’. Hold that thought.

            It could go either way - there will either be a growth of violence in society or a growth of non-violence. I’m optimistic for the latter, simply because there’s got to be a solution to every problem, and violence is the ONE BIG PROBLEM still facing humanity.

            No one will actively welcome greater violence into our society but it probably ‘comes with the territory’, of habitually using of violence-based products. Most of our living expenses are in buying food, and this is where most tacit violence is concealed and where the cruelty behind so much of our food is hidden. Bacon isn’t pigs, chops aren’t lambs - the consumer can’t recognise the animal-in-the-food when looking at the meat trays in the supermarket. The clean, plastic trays of ex-sanguine-ated, headless, footless, de-gutted animal body-parts, show nothing to remind the consumer of the food’s real origin. And to help matters along, the consumer is led to believe in the substantiality of this food over the sorts of ‘rabbit diet’ foods that vegans eat.

            Animal-based food, for omnivores, is simply a sensory matter. It tastes good, it smells good, it looks good; for the average omnivore there’s nothing quite like meat, cheese and eggs and all their derivatives.

            Okay, there’s not much more to say about that sort of food, but if it’s on most people’s dinner plates it’s off most people’s thinking-agendas. Our main problem concerning this food is that we can’t get to discuss it, we can’t overcome the taboo surrounding the discussion of it.

            Slowly the issues are emerging. Vegans are asking a few piercing questions. (So are vegetarians who are concerned about animal welfare, although it’s arguable that they have little right to speak about it whilst they continue to eat animals’ by-products). But it comes down to the problem of getting people to hear our questions. The taboo, surrounding animal-use, protects people (including lacto-ovo vegetarians) from being reminded that they are cold hearted. I imagine there are many vegetarians or even meat-eaters who ask themselves what they can do to stop the terrible things being done to animals, but still they continue to enjoy eating them. That question has to hang in the air, unanswered.

So, you think I’m mad to be a herbivore.

829: 

One of the clinching factors for me, in thinking I’d made the right move by jumping to herbivorousness, was that it felt safe. I wasn’t going to die or get ill. I’d discovered that there had been many decades of research, to prove it was a safe diet. Once I felt safe and felt good about the food, my focus was able to shift from my own unsafety to the underlying problem of inconvenience. I could see the main difficulty might be less to do with health and more to do with the fragility of my own human nature –  I realised that it was within human nature to be predominantly interested in ME and far less interested in the welfare of others? And when it comes to the welfare of animals, their interests, plus a reduction of and greater expense in buying their flesh and by-products, then it comes down to going against self-interest and my own daily convenience. That’s quite a jump!

This might explain why, even when the idea has lots of appeal in theory, that in practice there are still pitifully small numbers of vegans and, consequently, ever increasing numbers of executed-animals being consumed by non-vegans.

On the subject of Animal Rights ...

828: 

This subject causes indignation and embarrassment to most omnivores. They don’t like responding to it. But some do, and eventually they become vegans themselves. Then, like any born-again convert, once they’ve been vegan for a while, they try to start a revolution. Despite the success or failure of converting others, to their surprise they find this subject is hot; it has the capacity to stir something deep. They discover that most people, when confronted by a vegan, feel very affronted.

            So, it’s useful to remember that, excluding those very few ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of us have, at some stage, been omnivores. Present day vegans are apt to forget the transitional stages they went through and become very intolerant of anyone who can’t change overnight; it’s only fair to remember that once upon a time, we each had our own ‘good reasons’ for resisting. We weren’t moved by even the most well-honed ‘arguments based on compassion’ and resented suggestions that, as animal-eaters, we were fans of the exploiters.

            Two main things need to be remembered here, that as soon as one is vegan one wants to convince others to be the same, and as soon as this happens we want to over-simplify the depth of resistance others have; we look for a strategy to make ourselves feel productive. And then, what I think happens is that this need to be ‘playing a meaningful role’ in the ‘liberation of animals’ translates to protesting cruelty. But that’s often as far as it goes. It never moves towards a deeper understanding of why the resistance to veganism is so strong.

            The fact is that, whether we feel useful to The Cause or not, it should be about the animals and not be about winning any kudos for ourselves; this involvement in The Animal Rights Movement is not about ‘me’ but about them, and it’s easy for that main aim to get lost in the wash of activities which might make us feel good.

            However much cruelty to animals we reduce, however many vegans emerge, this isn’t necessarily even scratching the surface of the main problem, which is people’s need to identify themselves with the norm (the predominant collective consciousness). What jolts a person out of their need to conform and lands them in the rebel camp might be different for each individual, but once the idea of conformity to social eating patterns is questioned, there’s a start to a self-improvement attitude-change. It involves not only becoming vegan but also in becoming gentler in almost everything we attempt to do. And that isn’t quite so straight forward because it sets up a contradiction: we feel less aggressive towards those who aren’t yet thinking the way we think, but that seems to reduce our effectiveness and that, in turn, makes our role seem less significant; it’s almost as if we are deliberately slowing down something that we want to see speeded up.

High moral ground

827: 

The trouble with being vegan is that we have two agendas, to educate others and to bolster our own self esteem. As ardent as we might be, to advocate for animals, we also need approval for ourselves. Are we really protecting animals or protecting ourselves? Are we needing to be taken seriously so badly that we project an image of how we want to be seen, rather than what we deeply believe is right? Do we want to be admired for making a stand? Do we need to see progress for Animal Rights to validate our own contributions? I think we should put these questions to stop us getting too carried away with our ‘mission’; if we want to allay suspicion about our motives and if we don’t want to be seen as self righteous, then we might have to soft pedal the high moral ground when we speak. To be this open about ourselves will prevent us being seen as sermonisers, so that we can be given the chance to put our case

            Vegans are trying to reach those who are far away, who can’t face the idea of a vegan food regime let alone face up to discussing animal rights or the healthy body or the sharp mind or the clear conscience. Omnivores don’t necessarily disagree with our facts and figures but they find our certainty off-putting. A little humility will go a long way. If we aren’t approachable we can’t expect to influence people. It’s too easy to be seen as invasive.  

Initiating discussion

826:

If we vegans insist on being Society’s judges we need to be prepared to weigh all arguments like a judge. We must even listen to the carnivore’s arguments in order to know precisely what they’re thinking, but mainly we should be listening out of respect for discussion itself.

            By showing how we value the process of discussion we give our own arguments a better chance of a hearing. Their argument might be that killing animals is within the law and so the killers can kill and the consumers can consume. Our argument might be that the law protects humans and doesn’t protect those animals used for food.

I’d suggest that these positions can’t change until the whole subject is properly discussed in a very civilised way. It’s easy to forget that the omnivore’s acceptance of a vegan’s right to their beliefs is quite different t the vegan’s acceptance of the right of the omnivore’s to theirs. We are the judgemental ones and we give off a strong odour of it, which is why we have to work on our approach, to make it clear right from the outset, that we are NOT about to be insulting. This subject of animal-use is crying out to be discussed, fully and frankly but in a friendly way. If we can’t establish the codes of conduct from the outset, then no amount of clever argument will result in any sort of agreement. And there won’t be any boycotting and very little identifying going on.

We do have a unique approach which isn’t immediately obvious and needs some careful explanation, and that requires true listening and willingness to listen; what vegans are driving at is about acting for the greater good and not solely for one’s own comfort. That’s way beyond choosing ethical foods and considering the welfare of farm animals. It speaks to a whole new way of approaching life. Once there can be an agreement about this, then all the rest will follow. Or, at least, what we have to say will be taken seriously.

If that altruistic slant isn’t emphasised right from the word go, then it’s doubtful if the rest of our arguments are going to be considered. Because this is such an ambitious goal we, as vegans, need to come across as neutral or as genuine people. We must be seen as people who aren’t into winning kudos or scoring ego points.  Omnivores won’t give us the time of day if they see us as fanatics who just hate ‘meatheads’.

            If they want anything at all from us they want us to be ‘educational’. Personal identification with us will only come by being impressed by what we say on our subject. 

Mild manners or abuse

825: 

It can be deceptive, when the vegan message seems to hit home and then, later, is forgotten about. Whenever vegan ideas are introduced to omnivores, as soon as the vegan is no longer around neither are their ideas. They can evaporate like Scotch mist. However profound we are at the time, each vegan principle can be forgotten about when back in the real world. What flew in now flies out. If it isn’t exciting enough then the other, more familiar reality will be restored - ‘reluctant’ ideas don’t stick in that part of the brain (or heart) especially when there’s a food addiction or when there’s too much guilt baggage surfacing. Unless ...

Unless something special happens, where there’s something impressive about ‘the promoter’, who establishes before anything else an ‘equal footing’, where they insist that each person has something substantial to contribute.

            Where it all goes horribly wrong is when the vegan fights as the ambassador for animals and judges the omnivore to be mistaken for eating them, and where the omnivore judges the vegan unrealistic and objects to their being judgemental of them. Both perceived valid positions can go either way – they can be the grounds for a quarrel or a valuable lesson-to-be-learnt.

There’s value in pursuing each point of view. But if we slip into the personal push-me-pull-you situation, where ‘discussion’ can’t move forward, then something happens which needn’t happen.

            Both sides have their arguments. And whether they are good or bad is immaterial, as long as each side respects the right of the other to put their argument. (That means people like me having to listen and not to be so quick to interrupt).

            Discussion on this subject can be stimulating. It doesn’t have to descend into personal abuse.

Veganism: inspiring but forgettable

824:

Coming on heavy about the need for everyone to be vegan can put people off for life – if we try to shame them into it or blame them for being so slow with it, we waste our best chance to make an impact. We simply come across as being ‘better-than-you’. And if we blow it here, we also blow it for other activists’ reputation. If we throw caution to the wind, if we’re willing to say anything which might shock, that crude approach will make us easily dismissible.

I suppose the truth is that people do not want to be inconvenienced and therefore try to make us as forgettable as possible. We need to be there and vocal but not so in their face that they want to move away.

If we can open up this subject, on one level what we are saying might be taken in. It might impact and yet not fix. It’s like going to see a highly emotional love story at the movies and then forgetting it as soon as we hit the street, when we plunge back into the real world. People might enjoy being ‘wow-ed’, as we can be at the movies – to be moved, shocked, inspired, carried away, but it isn’t meant to stick. It’s just a story. It’s rare that we can be moved by a ‘universal message’ in it. On that same level most people can see the ideals connected with vegan principle, but that’s a long way from adopting that principle into daily life.

People know that the vegan diet is about food and animals, but that’s as far as it goes. Their own un-interest stops them looking deeper or going further, and if a connection isn’t made to this ‘principle-of-compassion’ then changing one’s present reality doesn’t last. If a change is made, it might turn out to be something that’s regretted later.

Ask yourself this: What would it be like to be vegan? Probably the first thing to spring to mind would be one’s insufficient self discipline, to maintain such a change. And if you’re older, you might also say, “It’s too late to change anyway”.

Whatever about what we say to people, about animal-eating, about rights, nutrition, etc, if it does impact it has to sink in deeply enough to lock in the change, enough to ride over the initial doubts and difficulties of adopting a vegan regime.