Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Our sensitivities are poles apart

1321: 

There’s an enormous difference of opinion between the protectors of animals and the users of animals.  Many of us who are animal activists have been involved for so long, that it’s possible we’ve forgotten how we once felt, when we accepted living as an integral part of mainstream society.  We ate as others did, wore leather shoes, wore the same fabrics, etc.   And now, all that has changed and we’re used to feeling part of a minority.

For non-vegans, they’ve always been part of the majority, who eat anything on offer.  Just to take one example of a routinely used product, cheese. To most people cheese is just cheese, and they've never given a thought to the origin of it. So when we say “no dairy products” (which includes cheese), the cheese-eater doesn’t connect that with something unethical. We can talk all we like about animal slavery, but to them cheese will just be cheese. Arguments about how it is produced, the treatment of the dairy cow, the killing of calves and the genetic modification of the cow’s mammary glands all sound a bit too complicated to listen to.  It’s easier to NOT investigate too deeply, and continue to enjoy cheese, and of course the hundreds of other popular food products of which milk is an integral part.


It’s easier to think of vegans just as weirdoes. 

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