Grab it while you can

925: 

You can’t blame humans for always exploiting an opportunity. We’ve developed our response to temptation over aeons, in order to gain advantage over the ‘lesser brains’ of animals. And this has made us the dominant species. In other ways we have exploited opportunities for our own benefit to the detriment of the planet (and ourselves in the long run). A current example - ‘fracking’, causing mini-earthquakes to explode the shale, deep beneath the earth’s surface, to extract gas. The immediate side effect is that the toxic chemicals use in this process, leach into the drinking water aquifers, poisoning the water supply for the people up above.

We humans have always celebrated the fact that we’re so smart, that we are clever enough in fact to exploit and disregard Nature. But we should know by now that we don’t get ‘owt for nowt’. We pay in the end.

 The great lesson for us, in learning how to use opportunities afforded to us by our big brains, is to know when to stop, when to pull back. But we don’t want to miss out.

Restraint is made difficult because if we don’t take advantage then others will, and to our own detriment. But it’s only restraint that will give us all a future. It’s at the heart of the trend to ‘go green’, and if we do go ‘green’ (read sensitive and aware), if we see the sense of that, then why not go fully green, by dropping the animal stuff in the diet?

Exploitation is dumb - taking trees, ‘taking’ rivers, taking any resource, including animals, helps to destroy the sustainable balance of Nature. And we may feel grateful for environmentalists who fight for sustainable systems. But unfortunately they can only ever achieve partial success, simply because too many environmentalists are still meat heads. The haven’t made the connection between their own fine principle (and it certainly is fine) and the principles espoused by vegans.

 All I’m saying here is that, just because animals seem to breed abundantly and seem so available, and seem so indefensible and cheap to ‘run’, there is no ethical or long-term economic reason to continue exploiting them.

Muddle-headed or evil?

924: 

Is what food producers do to animals evil? Is the conniving-consumers also evil? Perhaps, in reality, it’s more mindlessness than deliberate evil-doing. When something has been done for millennia, when everybody is doing much the same thing, everywhere on the planet (using or eating animals), it’s not likely to be thought of as wrong.

Of course to a person who does NOT eat animals, to a vegan for instance, it looks very wrong indeed.

It’s all in the perception. To those in the industry, the farmers, abattoir workers, cage manufacturers, retailers, etc., it’s a living – this is how they make their money, by using animals. The use of animals, as we would use any resource, is seen as utterly normal. And to consumers too, who are simply in the shop buying their normal food, it’s such an everyday occurrence that it isn’t even thought about. Any ill effects this food might have on them, let alone the harm done to the animals, is hardly thought about.

You can imagine how it seems when a vegan comes along and starts pointing out the stupidity let alone the wrongness of it all. To the regular omnivore that could seem quite mystifying - these are “normal foods” to everyone. They are the only type of foods they’ve ever known; a meal without animal-derived items is no meal at all.

It’s the same with pharmaceuticals or medical procedures, we trust they are safe, that they’ve been animal-tested before reaching the market with nary a thought to the pain and suffering animals endure during animal experiments. Most people are not aware or don’t want to be made aware that laboratories exist where thousands of animals are held against their will, immobilised and eventually die terrible deaths, to test chemicals for human safety. “Better to test on animals than humans”, we say.

As it is with farmers producing food for consumers, so it is with animal researchers and vivisectors, who believe they’re helping to fight illness and disease. When they’re searching for a new drug to help combat some horrible disease, surely, they say, “Anything goes”. Conducting ‘safety experiments’ on animals isn’t thought to be an act of evil, it’s quite the opposite in fact.

We humans have grown accustomed to making use of what’s available, and in this case we see animals merely as useful ‘resources’. We take from them without questioning whether we have the right to do so or not. It’s not much different to the motorist using petrol, in that it’s available so why not use it? Animals are simply available-for-use.

Gradually the human race is waking up to the consequences of this attitude. Gradually we are realising that taking what is not ours, especially if it’s to the detriment of something or someone else, might be a mistake. Not so much evil as muddle-headed. I doubt if Animal Rights is fighting evil as much as thick headedness, ego and a blind compliance with the norm.

The whole Animal Rights thing

923:

What happens to billions of animals each day is enough to give the average sensitive person night mares. Vegans can at least tell themselves that they are not to blame, whereas non-vegans can’t do that.

For those who are unwilling to give up their complicity with all that nightmare stuff, they have to train themselves NOT to think about it at all. And, if challenged they can claim to know very little about the ‘animal thing’, or even hope to deflect criticism by claiming not to WANT to know.

Some people are able to convince themselves animals are lesser beings and we humans are simply exercising our rights over them, as the dominant species; we have certain privileges which animals are not entitled to, namely the right to an enjoyable life and the use of every available resource, of which animals are one.

For those useful animals we keep imprisoned on farms, in cages, in pens, behind barbed wire, there’s no life; every one of them is doomed to an existence of the meanest kind, suffering brutality and being denied any sort of natural life, and when they’re fat enough or they are no longer economically viable they are executed. Humans have got it down to a fine art. The way we make ‘full use’ of the animal is all very efficient. It appeals to the practical and brilliant brain of the human.

If humans can see any way of taking advantage of them (of any resource in fact) we will take it. We never voluntarily forgo our advantage, especially over the matter of animal-use. If we do have to hunt them, because they can’t be domesticated, the hunting is done with the same ruthless efficiency with which we farm them (just look at the kangaroo hunting practices if you want an example of ruthlessness!).

If an animal’s main value is in the production of useful by-products, like eggs or milk, their day of execution is determined by their rate of production; when that drops below a certain level, they get the chop.

            With our knowledge of biology we understand how a body will produce (suitable foodstuffs for humans), we understand how they mate, reproduce, secrete, fatten and generally respond in a productive way to our needs. And we have, over centuries of experimentation, learnt that they will still deliver, despite their most appalling living conditions. Humans know that animals will endure life-long imprisonment and unanaesthetised procedures and still be productive. They will submit to the manipulation of their breeding cycle and to eating inappropriate food and blatant fattening. And then go passively to their execution at our behest. And why would they not? They have nothing to fight back, they are completely in our power and must know on some level that the human can do with them as they please.

Humans are only interested in animals for what they can get out of them, mainly food and clothing as well as entertainment and companionship. Nothing else matters. If they receive any care at all it is the sort of care more to do with humans looking after a piece of their property than concerning their individual well-being.

Their right to a life or the conditions under which they are forced to live are of no interest to most humans, since other factors govern everything; where money is to be made from them and where competition is fiercest for ever-cheaper products, welfare standards are minimised in order to maximise outcome.

The consumer, hand in glove with the producers, cheers from the sidelines, not because they are sadists but in order to maintain a constant supply of the food or clothing product they expect to be available.

As typical humans, we expect good supply of the foods we are used to just as we might expect a good supply of water from a tap. If vegans are the thin end of the wedge, by potentially endangering supply, veganism will always be seen as a threat. 

Omnivores can’t help holding back the progress of our species

922: 

I know that maintaining an animal-food habit doesn’t ensure good nutrition; animal foods are the chief destroyers of good health, but I also realise that most people have a taste for animal body parts. The meat of animals, the by-products , anything from muscle tissue to bodily secretions.

The taste, the seductive, mouth-watering experience is never lost. What is it? The texture, the saltiness, the blood, the richness – there’s no one feature of animal product that explains the allure of these foods and the thousands of food products on the market containing animal ingredients, to which humans are universally drawn. Perhaps it’s the comfort of the repeated eating of familiar foods, forming a link between our childhood to the present day. Perhaps it’s the feeling of being part of a community of fellow humans who share the same type of food attraction. And who knows, maybe it’s the lust for eating the animal the human has come to dominate and enslave, confirming in us the feeling of being at the ‘top of the pile’, the superior being, the species that reigns supreme over all other life forms.

Whatever it is that is so attractive about the eating and using of animals, it clouds our better judgement and obscures the writing on the wall, which has long spelled out the dangers of these foods to our overall well being and health, not to mention our complicity with the cruelty that is part and parcel of animal farming and animal slaughter. Added to this fixation (which humans have about the need to make full use of animals) is a worrying tendency, amongst those who are supposedly better-informed, that the science behind the danger of eating animal protein is invalid; if it were true, that indulging in animal protein ruins one’s health you would see all people suffering ill health – but surely, that is exactly what seems to be happening. The next worrying tendency is that of the sleeping-conscience – that because everyone does it then it can’t possibly be something we should stop doing; and, if I stop condoning the cruelty it will make not a scrap of difference, because more than 99% of people will carry on regardless, despite what I do.

The problem for omnivores is that they are losing control of how they live; their lifestyle has somehow been fixed for them, and there is little point in trying to change it, especially not when taking on a vegan diet would impact on so many varied aspects of daily life. If this were a conspiracy to wreck the human species, the promotion of animal products would be a very neat way of succeeding.

As humans, living in the wealthy West, if we stopped using animal foods, we believe that we’d suffer terrible withdrawals. It is almost unimaginable for most people to stop, especially since food is one of the few remaining pleasures of life, which would be compromised if we gave away the things we love to eat.

One has to ask oneself upon what basis one might decide to boycott animal products. If it were an ethical boycott then logically we would have to eat nothing which contained animal products, knowing that they are often surreptitiously used in foods and may only be spotted if we are willing to study the fine print on the ingredients list (and even that might prove difficult since many are listed under the cover of words we won’t be familiar with, like gelatine, whey and albumin - bones, milk and eggs).

We humans are social animals. We eat together, and over our shared meals we talk and interact, sharing a common bond by eating the same sorts of food. And since no meal is thought to be complete without meat or at least some cheese or milk-derived product, ‘incomplete’ meals would lead to hunger and worse. Even if we did want to stop using ‘it all’, we’d have too little faith in our own willpower to stop altogether, and if we don’t make a complete break, then these yummy products will always sneak back onto our shopping lists and be pulled off the shelf into our shopping baskets.

It seems then we are doomed - neither logic nor ill health nor guilt nor environmental impact will stop us buying ‘animal stuff’, and therefore nothing will stop the killing of animals for food, and therefore we will always continue participating in the sort of human activity that we can never be proud of. Our collective shame over this prevents us from moving on as a species.

Having empathy for food-animals is rare, so let’s say that at the moment, here in Australia, ‘it’ isn’t happening. Animals don’t touch our hearts enough. Our omnivore friends are brick walls when it comes to animal liberation and vegan diets.

And yet there are people coming over - vegans do exist and are growing in number, leaving behind their omnivore friends with their omnivore habits, who are developing empathy for exploited animals and willing to go it alone. Any important trend has to start somewhere and in this matter vegans are stepping out in front, to prove that it can be done and indeed should be done.

How to avoid mental health issues – final

921:

Is it that we think our mental health depends on what others think of us and not what we think of ourselves? Is it that other people, including ourselves, might think highly of anyone who lives the same sort of lifestyle?

            So, what happens when we forgo the approval of others, for the sake of making a radical change in our own lifestyle. The answer is likely to be that we effectively isolate ourselves, socially. Very scary. Probably this is why more people aren’t switching over to vegan food and vegan thinking.

We all fear for our own mental health if we’re alone; everyone knows there’s not much kudos in being vegan, or even vegetarian. Being alone is always frightening.

If the omnivore is complacent about their own mental health, or down-plays the guilt factor, or ignores good sense and conscience, they may not get far past where they are now. Their habits, which at worst are barbaric, at best mindless, are set down during our younger years and get locked into place when we become adults. There’s no chance of these social habits, especially those concerning food and communal eating, being changed unless one is willing to strike out alone. Vegans do strike out, very often without anyone to support them in their change of lifestyle. And what happens then can only be known to vegans themselves, because one’s lifestyle seems to change on so many levels, just by eating certain foods and boycotting others. One’s social life has to alter accordingly. Vegans can’t expect anyone who is not vegan to understand how it feels. there’s a sense of liberation in the body, when it’s being fed real food for the first time. Energy levels increase, there’s an absence of stomach troubles, a welcome change in the smell of the toilet, the smell of the breath, and the eyes look just that bit brighter. Any list of benefits and changes can’t convey the difference between the days of animal-eating and the days of no-animal-eating. But, over all the changes, the one that stands out most clearly (to the vegan at any rate) is the release from a nagging, worrying, something’s-not-quite-right feeling. Call that mental health if you like.

BLOG ON HOLIDAY UNTIL DECEMBER 28TH - May your Christmas Day be a no-animal-bloodbath-day.

How to avoid mental health issues – part three

636: 

People who eat animal products are probably struggling with an addiction to them; they aren’t eating them for their nutritive value, although many believe that they are not quite poisonous. If one takes the time to look at these foods objectively, it doesn’t take too long to see the harm they do. And physically, their effects on our bodies, once recognised, once they are no longer used, as the ‘poisons’ drain from the body, then the cravings lessen. As days go by, the addiction weakens and the need for self-discipline is no longer an issue. In other words, the difficulty of giving up foods, which we once thought we couldn’t do without, lessens.

            Once this addiction problem is dealt with, we no longer see ‘animals’ as an amorphous group of clones. They become sovereign individuals. And then it’s just a short step to seeing them as irreplaceable, close friends  in that they’re sentiently-close to humans; they’re not ‘un-persons’, as Negroes or Jews were once seen by our less enlightened predecessors.

Isn’t it in the very nature of addiction that we shield ourselves from the truth about the addictive substance, in order to guarantee the supply of it? It’s a give-and-take deal we strike with the Animal Industries, our mass complicity with them bringing about the mass assault on animals. It’s probably the most insane thing humans have ever done, to give up so much of our birthright for so little. We say, “I can’t imagine life without milk in my coffee”, “My dear, life without lobster …”. Strange to think that our sanity and general health will let us ‘get away’ with this attack on our body and conscience every day. 

How to avoid mental health issues – part two

635: 

By depending on animals and taking our dependency to the point where we have enslaved them, we have lost the very strength we wanted to attain in the first place. I’d suggest that this has become nothing more or less than a mental health issue. We humans have become so ‘me’-oriented that we can no longer consider ‘the other’. We want to be mentally stable, we want to be able to feel sympathy, even empathy, but we are no longer make the connection between our own mental stability and the safety of certain animals. To bolster this illusion, that we need animal-based foods, we have had to create a belief that ‘animal’ food strengthens our brains and bodies. Science has shown that this isn’t true but that science has to be rejected, in order that we can maintain our ‘strong body and brain’.

The central belief, that mental health can look after itself as long as the mind and body is kept strong, has led us to the worship of the brain and the physique, so fast-thinking goes hand in hand with our admiration of physically powerful individuals. And these heroes of our civilisation have to ignore the gentler and simpler side themselves, and in consequence they are usually no strangers to violence. They don’t go around bashing people up, it’s more subtle in that they are Society’s leaders and by taking an active part in their violent society, give their seal of approval to it. They would soon lose their position in Society if they sympathised with vegan principle. 

Vegans are suggesting that anyone can test their own mental health by challenging their own dependency on animal products. It sounds a simple thing to do, on the face of it, it seems to make a lot of sense, since the dangers of this sort of food have been well enough chronicled for the last few decades, but we are not dealing with good sense. We’re really dealing with addiction, two addictions in fact. The first is a belief that one’s mental stability will be maintained in spite of one’s addiction to animal foods, the second is that we can retain our sanity despite making unethical choices (in what we choose to buy). 

How to avoid mental health issues – part one

634: 

Let’s say that billions of people know what they are doing, whenever they eat animal products. They know what goes on behind the scenes, what has to happen before the eggs or milk or meat arrive in the shops; they’d be very naive or ill-informed if they didn’t. But then, let’s say that, nonetheless, they continue eating them. Why don’t they stop? The question could be put another way: why would they want to?

Let’s now imagine something which is probably not even true yet - that there is as many as one percent of our community who are vegan or who are moving that way. It’s a tiny fraction of the population and a considerable number, nevertheless, who have begun to see their world in a substantially different way to the other 99%.

To this minority, animals aren’t seen as mere objects because, unlike inanimate objects, they accept that animals have a sense of their own identity and can, on an individual level, feel emotion and fear danger, just as we can. We can assume they don’t want to suffer, and that they aren’t happy about being the slaves of humans.

So, how can anyone ignore that? And how did we come to accept that we do what we do to them? And how did we lose our connection with them, and start to misuse them to the extent that, today, we are factory-farming them?

These questions must hang in the air, while we look at the way humans have gradually changed the way they’ve been getting their ‘animal’ foods; we’ve gone from hunter-gatherer of wild animals to jailers and captive breeders.

By deciding to separate ourselves from animals, we’ve made a ‘disconnect’ – we’ve gone from predator to jailer. Somewhere along the line we’ve said, “Why should we go to all the trouble and uncertainty of hunting animals when they can be held captive and made to breed, especially since we can breed docility into them and make them completely submissive to our will?”

If an animal can be brought to this state of being then why care about their feelings? Do their feelings matter?.

Vegans believe that animals are ‘individuals’, no less than any companion animal at home. If people want to believe that animals are incapable of feeling, or that they’re not individuals, then one must ask how we came to see them that way. Perhaps it’s likely that we’ve manipulated our value system in a most fundamental way; by needing to feel secure about our food supplies, we’ve had to warp one of our most important values (compassion) in order to suit our need to guarantee this particular food source.

When we sup with the Devil we sell our soul in exchange for short-term personal benefit; it’s a classic corruption of power that holds good for a short time (in evolutionary terms) and yet erodes the very foundation of our species. We take for granted the gifts we’ve been given - our ethics have been compromised and our health has been compromised to the point where we have become addicted to a source of food that we now can no longer do without. Along with that food comes all the ugliness imaginable. In a nutshell, we have created the diabolical cage and all the cruelty of the abattoir, and can no longer contemplate human life without these two ‘institutions’. By depending on animals and taking our dependency to the point where we have enslaved them, we have lost the very strength we wanted to attain in the first place.

They’re mere animals

633: 

“I’m not a fussy eater. I eat anything”, says the omnivore, deliberately misunderstanding the issue. “Why fix something that ‘ain’t broke’? Why fiddle with habits if we’re quite happy with the habits we have?”

In the mind of the modern man or woman, maybe there’s a small but nagging worry that something’s not quite right. But if it were wrong, if something were ‘broke’, you’d think you’d hear about it? Animals. How can it possibly matter, to stop eating or using them, when everybody throughout the world is making use of animals for food and clothing? Perhaps it’s possible that it’s not a contempt for animals that’s in question here, but that we’ve already given up on the human race; it’s within the common acceptance that humans are naturally violent and naturally uncaring of other species.

And anyway, we generally compartmentalise what we do, so that food shopping and how we think about animals are separate matters.

When we reach for that favourite food item on the supermarket shelf we take it on trust, that it is safe, legal and ethical. But do we hear a voice inside us questioning how we are choosing? We know that once we’ve grabbed it and dropped it in our basket we’ve already as good as consumed it, so we have to decide there and then whether to reach for it or not. If we decide NOT to, then we’re starting to connect two separate concerns, even to the detriment of our own convenience. Instead of blindly doing what others do we are starting to think out the ethics of our choices, for our self.

Maybe we do consider boycotting a food item, for whatever reason; we’re perhaps deciding to do without it, or finding a alternative. It’s a very personal matter. It’s a private decision we have to deal with for our self, since we can’t discuss it with anyone else unless they also consider boycotting on ethical grounds.

If we try to discuss this matter with someone who hasn’t yet begun to question the ethics of their food, then we open up a potential battlefront, which will show up the difference in each person’s values. For instance, those of us who boycott all animal products on ethical grounds, if we compare our way of thinking with someone’s unquestioning approach, we open up an ego confrontation. It’s as if we are suggesting ‘me better than you’, or ‘me more compassionate than you’.

If we start to think that we are a more advanced person, by virtue of our being more empathetic, it looks as if others are seen by us as primitive and insensitive. This is not how most omnivores see themselves. They know they are empathetic, as evidenced by their kind disposition towards their children or by the way they treat their dogs and cats at home. So, immediately there’s a difference in perception.

They see us as delusional and hypersensitive to the feelings of mere farm animals. Their perception of ‘mere animals’ sums up the problem here, based on the belief that one needn’t question matters which are almost irrelevant.

Dealing with certain preliminaries first

632: 

Vegans who promote Animal Rights need to understand the size of our task. And the manner of it. Many people have already changed, quite radically, over these past 50 years. But alongside, technology has advanced dramatically, so that we now find ourselves living with a younger generation, amongst the Children of the Information Age. If they are discriminating it’s because they have access to more information with which they may ‘discriminate’. Ironically, there’s now too much information and we don’t know what to take notice of; today it isn’t enough for us to simply pass on information to others and expect to wow them with it, today there’s more cynicism and suspicion. So, it comes to this - no one can take in all the new information available, so they choose just the bits they want. We are information-saturated. As communicators of ideas nothing is very straightforward, especially if ‘the idea’ isn’t immediately appealing or if it’s an inconvenient idea like veganism.

            Today, bombarded, softened up by the sheer volume of information being put out, ordinary people are thought to become pliable (or so the vested business interests hope anyway). The Animal Industries, who do so much advertising, aim to install beliefs into the minds of their potential customers, and in doing so shut down individual thinking. They succeed only when people begin to follow the crowd and do as they’re told. Once people have settled into lifestyle food-habits they’re captive. These habits are not much different to any chemical addiction, since most of the addiction to animal products concerns the powerful taste-sensation of them.

            The vegan’s attempt to convince people that they’ve been duped isn’t easy, for why would people believe us? Why would they trust what we say? There’s so much misinformation in circulation today that anything too new, too radical or too inconvenient goes into the too-hard basket of ‘unbelievability’.

In our attempt, we need something special to break through all of that, something all-encompassing. It’s likely that most people will see the vegan diet one-dimensionally; that it is simply good for slimming. Or they’ll see it as good for other self-benefits. But veganism is more than a diet for personal food-advantage. On a deeper level it suggests a wholly different way of thinking.

Everything about being vegan, and everything stemming from it, gets the brain cells moving faster. It lets us see stunning potentials and transformations, and it addresses a lot of allied issues too. Now if, for whatever reason, you’re drawn to it, if you’re receptive to the reasoning behind it, then it’s likely you’re also hearing what vegans are saying about animals and their ‘right to a life’. Whilst not necessarily agreeing with us at first, the thinking-person might be ready to consider giving our arguments a fair hearing. And that will lead to a better understanding of non-violence and all the benefits of that accruing to our own species, let alone other species.

But there will always be those who are most decidedly NOT drawn to this. For them, everything about veganism is either unclear, unbelievable or unattractive. As animal advocates we have wear that. For us it’s probably the hardest part of all, juggling the responsibility of explaining it with the trickiness of dealing with such heavy initial reluctance.

How do we expose the misinformation? How do we get people to believe we’re telling the truth? How do we deal with our own unapproachability? Somehow we have to find our own way to weave a path through this undergrowth, so that we can encourage greater empathy, to get people to think first about the plight of exploited animals before they consider their own convenience.

Respecting our own intelligence

631: 

This is the age of relationships, between me and you, between ourselves and ideas. Relationship gives rise to a feeling of loyalty, to what we’ve been given, where we’re grateful and willing to acknowledge the best of things. If we make a friend we want to be a loyal friend. If we’ve been given intelligence we want to show loyalty to this intelligence by doing intelligent things.

By taking on a plant food regime we’re acknowledging the intelligence of it, whereas eating animal foods is exploitative and we probably feel foolish for letting those who produce it (and who don’t have our best interests at heart) to convince us it’s safe  to buy and then to winkle money out of our pockets.

Eventually by thinking for ourselves, we take notice of information concerning the everyday commodities we buy. Intelligence lets us see what is rubbish and what is not. One day we’ll look back with amazement on the days when we felt so attached to empty foodstuffs.

When we realise the poisonous effect of so much poor food going into our bodies we’ll realise what danger we’ve been in, as well as the conscience-crushing crime of it all; to do this to ourselves every day is against the integrity of our bodies and the integrity of food itself. As we realise the attractive qualities of organic fruit and veggies and plant-based foods in general, we’ll come to see them as the only food  worth eating. We’ll move away from ‘kiddy’-food and cruelly-produced food and move towards a more adult taste in food; plants will be seen as the obvious energy-food and come to be the food which is more enjoyable to eat.

The story so far: the animal thing (using them) is a habit entrenched over a long time. Now that habit needs to change. If this isn’t obvious, then vegans need to find a way of telling this story without sounding patronising or boring. We have to find a way of telling our story attractively, and if we throw a lifeline to people, we mustn’t hit them in the face with it.

The diminishing value system

914:

We might think that by morally disapproving of animal-product users, we’ll be able to stop them in their tracks, and get them to discover the facts for themselves. We reckon we can shame them, set them off in the right direction, and after that it will be a piece of cake.

If only it were that easy! People might be much better informed today but values have become so warped that wrong can seem right, especially when enough people say so. Eating meat and therefore abusing animals, for example, might be contrary to our core values but we have a way of making it okay to eat these same abused animals anyway. And if there is ever any threat that something, like a favourite food, might be taken away, that is when people are seen at their most implacable.

The human dilemma is whether certain values should be judged important. Who is to say that one value outweighs another? If most people, if almost all people, contradict a value, then it becomes a diminished value, as if the principle behind it can be turned upside-down according to popularity. It’s as if there’s a choice in how we see right and wrong. It’s as if we can choose to endanger ourselves (and others) by letting vested interest sway us.

So, here we are, going along with life, thinking we have a handle on truth, until that truth begins to feel inconvenient, and then it’s as if we have no choice in the matter; we have to simply follow a new truth, to see where it takes us.

Is this what has happened, where people have been persuaded en masse, to accept the unacceptable?

A tough job for vegans

913: 

Veganism isn’t just about food, it’s an idea, only part of which concerns food. Getting people to adopt a vegan diet isn’t an end in itself, it simply allows us to look at vegan principle without being knocked back by our own food practices.

This principle, logically, gives rise to the diet. It gives rise to a boycott which is based on a shift in the way humans interact with the animal kingdom. If we only give people advice about vegan diet, it isn’t necessarily going to change them as people. Diet advice on its own won’t give people something that is inspiring or completely rational enough to convince them to get rid of certain ingrained habits.

Almost all of us have been omnivorous at one time in our life. We’ve been brought up with specific ideas about food, regarding the safety of it and the ethical acceptability of it. We’ve been brought up to think it wrong (disgusting in fact) to eat cats and dogs. Most of us wouldn’t eat horse. And we probably wouldn’t eat whale meat. Many people today would refuse to eat pate de foie gras. But all the rest of it (that is available animal food) is still fashionable to eat. We are habituated to eat flesh and by-products from a whole range of animals, and many of these foods are eaten so often throughout our lives that we become addicted to them, and then it’s the constant supply of them that becomes more important than anything else.

For those of us who are keen to see the end of animal farming (and therefore the drying up of supplies of all animal foods), we must never underestimate how much of what we say pushes sensitive buttons. We need to understand the logic of an omnivore mind and why they believe in these, their favourite foods. We have to understand what it is about these foods, the taste and texture of them, the feel of them as they slip past taste buds and move through the throat and into the stomach - this is how food is supposed to feel. It’s a daily fix. It’s the thing which fuels our life. It makes a person feel physically satisfied. The food they like best is essential, and their very life depends on the supply of it.

Vegans are up against all of this. It is the greatest and most entrenched reality of life. Until we fully appreciate the extent of the omnivore’s reluctance (to tamper with their meat-based diet) we might never be able to swing enough of them over, to change Society’s violence-based attitudes.

Un-shaming the omnivores

913: 

In practice we can’t force people to think differently. And we know that without some substantial attitude changes becoming the fashion-of-the-day we’ll get nowhere with omnivore mentalities … however we do have  some pretty water-tight arguments.

            No one can say it’s foolish or wicked to be vegan. Our insistence that plant food is good for you and that animals have a right to a life is impressive. If they can’t put up a counter argument it’s probably scary for them, therefore no omnivore wants to talk about it, because the whole subject makes them feel uncomfortable.

            As vegans we can capitalise on knowing that vegan principle is a bigger, more powerful weapon than anything ‘they’ can come up with. Every human on the planet (but for a handful of vegans) would be uptight about losing the argument; they’d simply want to avoid it and hope it goes away. It all really boils down to shame. And if that’s so, then what is the price of shame? Surely anything one could do to ‘un-shame’ oneself would have to be seriously considered.

            Being free of shame is worth everything, and, indeed, that’s a freedom vegans have to quite a large extent. From our point of view it’s surely understandable that we’d want others to feel that way too.

An omnivore’s definition of a friend

912: 

If an omnivore said that ‘animal-food’ was okay (despite knowing what happens to animals and what eating it to excess is likely to do to our health) they’d look foolish or heartless, or both. Most people like being known for their casual, anything-goes, easy-to-be-with personalities. None want to be made to look stupid. And most want to keep up with progressive thinking, and be abreast of the latest information; it’s how we form opinion, based on that.

Fashions are changing. For all the popularity of animal based fast food, people are realising that it is not good food at all. Meat is suspect, dairy products are suspect, the writing’s on the wall with the trend away from animal protein. And perhaps there’s an understandable fear for many people, that if they don’t steer clear of all of it, they’ll be left behind.

With that in mind, the food industry’s chemists are being pushed to make animal-based food taste good and look good. They are backed by clever advertising and special deals on price. But, the harder they try the more suspicious is the customer. Since there’s not much more to be fiddled with, to make their foods more attractive, the Animal Industry is starting to get nervous; the novelty of artificially-flavoured, processed foods is wearing thin. The more sophisticated customer is demanding foods which are less highly salted or sweetened or enhanced by the use of mono sodium glutamate. Our over-stimulated taste buds will not tolerate food that tastes like cardboard. So foods are no longer what they seem.

As faith in popular food wobbles it might occur to the more intelligent person to move towards foods which come from better quality raw materials (organic, home grown). And if these foods are more highly priced and out of our reach, then we will go for plant-based foods in general. Simultaneously, the move to eating more plant-based products coincides with more alert taste buds, which adapt to a new type of food sensation. As this occurs, so the allure of meat and dairy fades. Healthier foods become more attractive than rich foods in much the same way as children’s toys lose attraction to grown ups.

Maybe you have already considered this sort of diet change. But it’s the initial stage of the change-over that’s hard, leaving behind a familiar food source and taking up with another. And the difficulty is compounded by the social implications of no longer eating what most others are eating.

In order to successfully abandon animal-based foods, we need a leap of faith. We need to build up a new type of relationship with our food. Instead of the more immediate yet ephemeral satisfactions and explosions of taste, instead of short term stomach-filling satisfaction, we might prefer something else; the satisfaction that whole plant-foods bring.

There are all sorts of psychological and physical challenges to face here. Not for the faint hearted. For many people, these challenges are too difficult to face, and those difficulties can act like brakes on an otherwise willingness to change.

Perhaps the final straw that breaks our back comes when we realise how animal food betrays us, when we see how it fails to keep us strong and healthy. It’s only then that we have good reason to move away from the unquestioned habits of the past.

Nursery teas

911: 

What confronts the vegan activist most powerfully today is a mighty army, formed up against our puny push. It’s no wonder they can ignore us, since we appear to have no weaponry worth worrying about. We just seem to be a few nervous advocates on soap boxes, calling out to passers-by. And when no one stops to speak to us it puts us in a bad mood.

What weapons do we have, to fight ‘the good fight’? Perhaps we have only one - that veganism is unarguable. Put to the test, it’s what omnivores dread most of all. It’s surely why they avoid all talk, about this subject of animals. If you’re talking ‘vegan’, and if you find yourself short of confidence, remember how low in confidence the omnivore is, despite there being so many of them.

Our vegan philosophy hangs like the Sword of Damocles over their heads, and probably annoys the hell out of them, because they can’t talk about this subject without sounding foolish. It’s a good reason for keeping well away from it.

But it must be galling, for them to have think like the mob. It might be quite embarrassing, wanting to be seen as normal but on this matter incapable of independent thought. What holds most people back is their love of their food, their treats and their nursery teas.

Life without lobster, my dear. I just can’t imagine it.

910: 

Winning support for Animal Rights was never going to be easy. We live in a conspiracy of misinformation which suits almost everyone, because it allows people to be speciesist, which in turn allows them to indulge in animal foods.

            While vegans are trying to defend abused animals, non-vegans are trying to do the opposite, by ‘not giving a damn’ about them. The educated food lover might wriggle out of the ethical quagmire but they keep sinking back into it each day, by cooking their bits of dead animal and practising the dark art of ‘animal cuisine’. It sounds quite respectable; it helps cooking enthusiasts to apply their sensitivity to the aesthetics of food, overriding the ethical side of it (the provenance of  those foods). It emphasises ‘food quality’ (nutrition or taste experience) in order to downplay the origins of animal foodstuffs.

For most people their pleasure is in indulgence. They think about it, savour it, salivate over it - the omnivore gastronome drools over food all day. The wealthy gastronomes indulge themselves in all the exotic delicacies without a single thought given to the animal behind what they’re eating; their favourite fleshy foods must not be given up lightly. Life without lobster is unimaginable.

Light switches and dark rooms

909: 

The status quo of animal-use is like a lump of concrete - at present it is set strong. It’s stronger than anyone’s good intentions to change it. Those of us who aren’t involved in the abuse have to deal with it. We have to acknowledge this reluctance-to-change, and the disappointment that comes with it. It shouldn’t put us off. It will always be hard to persuade the carnivores to switch across, and just as difficult with those vegetarians who are proud of the progress they’ve already made, in getting away from eating meat.

If an attitude is locked, it shuts out any chance of progress. If, for instance, you regard animals as little more than things, your attitude won’t let you see them as sentient individuals.

However far we’ve already come, the concrete attitude sits there blocking our way. But it’s useful for the animal advocate too. It could act as a springboard for re-evaluating where we’re coming from, just in case we’re held back by another sort of attitude block.

            I think vegan reasoning points to the ideal, up ahead; it doesn’t show us how to get there but it explains why we should be moving in that direction, to discover how our reality can make sense of those who aren’t yet aware of it.

Humans are in dark rooms, looking for a light-source, groping about at random instead of discovering what should be obvious (like where the light switch is in this dark room). Once we locate the light switch suddenly everything is clear. We regret the time wasted spent searching in darkness for such an obviously more appealing reality.

On one level we already know that there’s a parallel reality to the one we’re familiar with, and in that ‘reality’ we can see things from the opposite perspective. For me it was a surprise. It made me want to be less obedient to authority and more intent to discover if there was any order beyond the chaos.

The following of sequences brings us from one reality to another. I think a vegan diet, for example, is a more intelligent way to go (simply because it’s safe and ethical and more energy-producing.) The same goes for non-violence or compassionate attitude – it’s wiser if only because it makes us feel less ashamed. And that can’t be a bad thing.

Always in front of us is the common aim: to eventually rescue the animals as well as our own souls. In other words, the sooner we can relax about the hugeness of the challenge, the sooner we’ll be able to entertain another reality, consciously. That will be one which satisfies our need to be working for a great cause (whether it be to get people to go vegan or to get people to be less-violent). 

Gratitude

908:

The effects of veganism on one’s whole organism, just by going vegan, is so beneficial to oneself. For my own part, out of that came an urge to pay back – my gratitude made me want to spend up big, in order to promote what I’d discovered. I thought to myself, “Hey, I’ve got an aim! At last it’s clear. I know what to do ... so bring it on”.

            No amount of effort would be enough to pay for so much strength of purpose. Most activists I know are so grateful for what veganism has shown them that they’re constantly energised by it. For my part I know I’d do anything to further this ‘clean-up’ campaign, to ease the animals’ pain and to ease my own conscience. So, that’s why it feels so natural to want to build a strong support base for animal liberation.

Momentum

907: 

Optimism becomes more of a reality when you think of work as something pleasurable - the whole task of trying to change vast numbers of people’s minds isn’t so much about its ‘impossibility’ as the challenge of it all. We just don’t need the lead-weighted mind-set of inevitable failure; we can’t afford to fail before we’ve even started (and in terms of making a substantial impact, we haven’t really started yet).

It helps for us to remember just what has to happen to set off change on a large scale. We need to see the sequence of things, by remembering how it was for us, as each attitudinal barrier fell, only to expose the next one, which in turn fell to the next, and so on. The struggle was lightened as the sequence of events formed a pattern; the pattern of change became satisfying enough to move us on to the next stage.

            How it happens: We move from a basically, fairly selfish life (human-centred) to doing something for ourselves that merges with ‘doing something for others’. We move from the teeth-gritting stage of trying to be more selfless to a type of ‘work’ that isn’t boring or reluctant. Instead of needing results to spur us on we take on a project with impossible odds and find that to be not so much of a turn off. Momentum becomes more important than results; as long as we’re going in a consistent direction, day by day, that is enough to hold our interest and prevent us giving up. 

Communication and optimism

906: 

An optimistic vegan is like a small boat in a rough sea, facing up to impossible odds. Everyone wants to sink us, the carnivores for speaking out against them, the vegetarians for undermining their position and even fellow vegans who just want to lash out at everyone for disagreeing with them. The abolitionist vegan has to be single minded, and not get upset by criticism or ridicule, wherever it comes from.

In rough seas, our job is to hold out for the port in the distance even though we can’t see it, only knowing that our direction is right.

            It is a big turn-around in attitude for most people, to swing our way. That challenge keeps us on our toes. But unless we keep optimistic we’re merely fighting a rear-guard action. It’s optimism that gives us our forward momentum. It’s based on the strength of this one single idea, the coming of an age of non-violence. By our own practice of that we can withstand the rough conditions, we can stand up to our detractors. Optimism takes us on further, it sets us apart from both omnivores and some within the Animal Rights Movement, who refuse to see anything much changing for the better; in consequence, they try to squash our optimism, saying how impossible our task is, and how “Humans will never change”. But they haven’t taken into account that people wise up to things when too many conventions and ‘stabilities’ collapse (as they do when they realise the extent to which animal food links to animal cruelty and ill health). Then, when it’s so late in the day, they realise things have to be re-thought-out.

People do change. Just look at the many vegetarians there are today after a mere thirty or forty years, where before that there were practically none. And now there are those who are practising-vegans, who are passionately speaking up on animal issues.

In Animal Rights, since we’re at such an early stage of consciousness-change, our work shouldn’t be weakened by those who talk about ‘the pointlessness of it all’. Somehow each of us has to find a way of getting over that, in order to maintain the momentum of change. In order to promote optimism.

            

Rocky road

905: 

Convincing people of the link between food and the slavery of animals should be dead simple. But it isn’t. We are seen as the ‘spoilers’, for trying to do just that. But so what? We know our intentions are good, and that should be good enough. But no. perception is everything , and if we are seen as spoilers of people’s eating pleasures we will be ignored or disliked.

            Attitude colours everything. For omnivores, pleasure pushes its way to the front, and eating comes first, before thinking; their insistence on eating-pleasure delays personal ethical development. Vegans can only clear the path and wait.

            We attempt to lift attitudinal rocks from what would otherwise be a smooth path. It’s the best training we can get, for communicating this awkward subject.

Our aims and the freedom to speak

904: 

The animal-eaters are convinced they’re not doing anything wrong, while the vegans are trying to talk them round.

Our aim is to show the difference between the food which we advise people to eat and which to boycott, based on the treatment of ‘food’ animals. This is why we decide to become vegan in the first place, to uphold this central value of humanity.

Most people believe they are humane beings, with ethical distinctions between what we should and shouldn’t do. Vegans are suggesting that our food should be consistent with humane values, in respect to the way our animals are being treated. Our role is to talk about animal issues and learn how to talk effectively, without turning people off.

Ideally, we are in the business of waking-up people who have given this matter little thought. Every adult should, by now, be aware of the caging of chickens and the confining of pigs in sow stalls. But there’s so much more animal-abuse involved with food production. And that abuse connects to other dangers, where human health is jeopardised and malnutrition in third-world countries is perpetuated, and all because we are focused on our own comforts and convenience. Added to this, animal farming is so polluting that it contributes heavily to the threat of global warming. The sequence of events, with one thing leading to the next, from food to good nutrition, to plentiful food supply, to the farming impact on the environment, that we can’t isolate any one of these issues; by adjusting human diet we affect many issues and effect repair in many areas of damage.

The world could benefit from a plant-based food regime and we in the West, where we have a real choice of lifestyle, can instigate the necessary changes.

The omnivore needs to be helped to see the sequence of these connections, but for that to happen they must show a willingness to change. And we, as vegan advocates, only speak about all this with their permission. If it’s not forthcoming then we’ve got problems. And we have to ask why people are so reluctant to talk or listen when it come to the question of Animal Rights. Food is the big persuader and the possibility of endangering the enjoyment of favourite foods causes them to close down on what we have to say. So, until we make progress on their giving of permission, for us to speak about all this, we have to wait. Forcing people to hear what we have to say will help us make no progress at all.