The scale of change

1183: 

If I had two reasons why I feel constantly motivated – why I’m a vegan advocate - number one would be that my involvement in Animal Rights is down to it being the most fascinating and challenging of all subjects.  Number two reason-for-motivation is that I really do care about changing views about animal-slavery.

From my own experience, I know my main driving force springs not from duty or obligation or compassion, but from interest.   I’m interested in how the human mind works, or rather why it seems, at one time, to be so brilliant and yet so dumb at other times.  I’m particularly interested in how it allows itself to be manipulated so thoroughly.  And how, in a nutshell, people who work so hard for their money can waste so much of it on rubbish and cruelty-based foods.

If I consider the animal farmer, the abattoir owner and the butcher antediluvian, then I include the consumer.  He or she shares the same antediluvian attitudes (about animals) as the farmers and producers.  But the difference is that most consumers could more easily switch over to plant-based foods.

If they became plant food eaters, like vegans, and if they weren’t dependant on animals for their livelihood, they would be able to help save animals from being farmed.  And enjoy the bonus - a side effect of eating plant-based food being that you’ll begin to enjoy extraordinarily good health and energy supply.  Certain ingested foods, over many years of being eaten, can have an amazingly powerful effect on the human mind and body.  To long-time vegans, it seems no more incomprehensible, that anyone would fill the sophisticated machinery of the human body with second rate food, than putting cheap petrol in a high quality car?

Vegans aren’t really appealing to any particular demographic here, because consumers can also be farmers and all farmers are consumers themselves.  But, farmers aside, most people are not actually living directly off animals.   Most are only consumers.  They aren’t necessarily as loyal to meat as the pastoralist is, so they’re that much freer.

Going vegan: I know it could seem like a nightmare, the prospect of changing something as straight forward as one’s diet when everyone else about you, in the family or amongst friends, is NOT changing along with you.  If you shop or cook for others, then it’s two sets of shopping, cooking two different meals, and that could be time consuming.  But once that’s a routine, there’s only slightly extra work.   For many people a swop-over to a vegan diet wouldn’t present too many problems; the logistics are tackle-able.

It’s possible, therefore, that a change on a large scale could happen quite quickly.  And because of this possibility, we, as animal advocates, should be at least prepared.  However, if that is our eventual aim, to bring to popularity cruelty-free commodities, then we must know, for this to come about, majority support is essential.

I’m interested in the scale of change, the change up to and above the 50% mark, where there are more vegetarians than omnivores, and where legislation can be enacted, without politicians committing political suicide - when, for instance, they vote to close the abattoirs.