What is violent in our communication?

1038: 

          

There are a lot of animals on death row.  There are very few people trying to protect them.  Sure, we need to raise awareness of this. Sure, we need to be effective in what we do and say.  But real communication can be elusive.  Perhaps we need to do the very opposite of how we feel, and not be too closed-off to opposite suggestions, not be unwilling to listen to opposite arguments.  It’s the key to effective communication.

If I hate violence it’s probably because I still have it in my own life.  I still have it because I doubt non-violence itself.  Do I say to myself , “Nice idea but too ineffective”?

By holding onto violence but professing non-violence we move forward too slowly; I might ‘observe’ non-violence in my eating habits but I might not too different to my omnivore friends in other respects.

In our society non-violence isn’t taken seriously.  It’s a bit whimpish and we doubt its effectiveness.  And by doubting it we emasculate it. We lose sight of its usefulness.  We think it’s weak.  We associate it with being cowering, cringing, humble, and too meek.  It lets us be taken advantage of (like the animals themselves).

So, being vegan, should I ignore these epithets and instead address the value of the lessons animals display themselves?  Shouldn’t I simply be learning from their approach?  Animals don’t sense things as intellectually as we do but they have abilities we’ve lost.  When they aren’t domesticated or enslaved in captivity they know how to survive on their own, and have heightened senses to help them.  Many of them can smell things a thousand times better than we can and see things clearer too.  They don’t work everything out before they do it.  And importantly, unlike us, they accept themselves as they are and aren’t judgmental or revengeful.  Another, perhaps their greatest talent, is their ability to discern peaceful intentions.   They’re attracted to affection because it denotes trustworthiness; to cats and dogs, and many other animals humans get close to, this is an important characteristic.

           

Having suffered so badly from human violence throughout the ages, animals, wild or domestic, have become arbiters of good taste in the matter of harmlessness.  And from that, with the example of that, we humans could take a leaf from their book and build a similar non-violence into our own attitudes.  Hopefully we wouldn’t then be subject to the human who might eagerly make us their slaves, as they’ve made so many animals!