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.