Subjective Perceptions

1687: 

 Edited by CJ Tointon

Those of us who advocate rights for animals, try every known argument to persuade people to abandon animal-based foods and commodities. We know, however, that things won't change until there's an 'attitude change' - a recognition of what sentience means, what innocence means. There has to be a spiritual revolution!
In the meantime, all vegans can do is present their case - and wait! It's important to be patient, to have a credible 'argument' at our fingertips and to be ready when an opportunity arises or a question is asked. When our 'freedom loving', 'self-willed' omnivore friends require it; we must be able to come up with good arguments and have the facts with which to back them up.

Using well researched facts, we can expose the ugly horrors, appeal to peoples' sense of compassion and explain in detail why animal by-products involve cruelty and damage to health. We can emphasise the greenhouse implications of animal farming.  We can suggest attractive (and inexpensive) non-animal foods and recommend non-animal derived clothing and footwear.

But in the end, it comes down to 'perception'. For me, the smell of frying bacon is disgusting and I just want to get away from it! For those who eat bacon, however, it's a most seductive smell. These arguments - the warmth of wool, the look of leather, the smoke of the BBQ - are very subjective. So are 'ethics'. I regard animals as sovereign, irreplaceable individuals. You might think of them as dumb beasts with no individual personalities, put on this earth for humans to use as they will. Indeed, you might believe that they don't have brains (like ours), don't feel (like we do), don't have our sensitivity and can't foresee their own destiny at the abattoir. How can vegans get over that perception barrier? 

When advocating that animals deserve to be granted 'rights'; perhaps the strongest position vegans can take is that the attachment to animal products is a weakness and like any weakness, humans can find justification for it. But this one clashes with the common instinct for non-violence. Most of us aspire to gentleness. In our daily dealings, we think of ourselves as mostly kind, generous, loving and peaceful (it's rather stupid to be otherwise). We also realise that there's a great deal of violence in our society and we want to disassociate from it. And that's where we hit a brick wall! 

We can't understand the 'schizo' in our own thinking! How can our 'little weaknesses' turn into such extremes of violence when practised by others? We can't (or won't) see how it's all connected. We even have the ability to participate in a common 'violent' practice (eating meat) without feeling any responsibility. In the case of animal use, we justify the way they're badly treated because they are useful to us. It seems we are capable of accepting that 'usefulness' can trump 'ethics'. Instead of protecting them (as we would children or the disabled) we allow them to be exploited in our name. We may not approve of bullying, but it helps to know that they can't fight back - and it's just too tempting to take whatever we can get from them! The ease with which we enslave animals should make us just a little suspicious? It should alert us to be their guardians - not their jailers!

It's temptation that does the damage! The shame of what we do and what we're implicated in, might be great; but we can't get over our attraction to the yummy foods and attractive clothing only made possible by the killing and exploitation of a whole range of animals. We can enjoy animals, love animals, use them and eat them; but that's only possible if we can forget the social injustice of enslaving them in the first place!