The comfort of being normal

1450: 

Why are people so hostile towards the idea of respecting animals?  Perhaps because it means losing the animal-content in their diet.  In comparison, a vegan eating regime looks as dry as dust, and to some, close to a living death.

The hostility towards Animal Rights may be coming from a sort of ‘fight or flight’ imperative.  We have to keep our self-protecting, blind-eye shut whilst keeping the other open, to safeguard food supplies.  You can imagine the thoughts of any omnivore: “Damn these vegans who want to close down abattoirs and animal farms, leaving everyone without proper food to eat and clothes to wear”.

Our omnivorous society has to protect its animal-food supply chain.  Here is a massive industry, employing millions and serving many more millions of customers.  Almost every single human on the planet is attracted to at least some of their produce, enough to finance it as well as giving it the tick of moral approval.  Taste-wise, the foods they produce really do work. Perception-wise animal foods are still considered good for one’s health, as in “Meat makes us strong”.  Importantly, a strong human maintains the dominant position - we use animals, they don’t use us.  This is a nod to self preservation.  It is also the guarantee of comfort and satisfaction at mealtimes.  And if there are any qualms about this using-of-animals, the very fact that ‘everyone is doing it’, confirms a strong sense of the normality of it, which protects us from feeling guilty about the animals we’re helping to kill.

Since almost everybody is holding hands with each other on this matter, it's easier to believe that animal-foods are natural and eating them is normal, and therefore there is no need to talk about it further.

Any in-depth discussion of this subject is tabooed, for obvious reasons.  Because the guaranteeing of ‘essential’ food supplies is important, there must only be minimal light thrown on farming practices.  Which is why there is such hostility shown to anyone highlighting the cruelty of animal farming or who is pointing out the unhealthy consequences of eating animal protein.   Even doctors, themselves omnivores, have a vested interest in nutritionally misinforming their patients.  Otherwise, their only choice would be to become vegans themselves and to prescribe plant-based diets to their patients.

But change is in the air.  Today, in spite of all the obstacles, consumers are becoming better informed.  Understandably, the more they learn the less they want to be poisoned.  And that ties in neatly with our inner cravings for peace, empathy and compassion.  These days ‘being normal’ seems to be dangerous.  Our hospitals are full of ‘normals’.  Most of us vegans are wanting to avoid the normal, disassociating from the majority and starting instead to trust our own instincts.