Love

1750: 

Vegan philosophy is about clarifying the nature of love, as an energy which drives all creation and maintains all life. And so it follows that humans, with their free will and ability to choose, can bring the power of love into their own consciousness or they can pervert it or ignore it or be oblivious to it.

Because ‘love’ is such an abstract concept, it’s difficult to grasp its significance in our practical daily lives. It can be as dangerous as it is useful. If we want to ‘do’ love, perhaps it’s best to remember that by its very nature, love isn’t partial; it’s either unconditionally applied and applicable to all things we encounter, or it can be manipulated into an unstable look-alike. If we choose to respect ‘love’, we can join things up with it, to make things more comprehensible. But if we drop a link of this connecting chain (as we do when we hurt animals or damage a river or go to war) then there are consequences.

Our survival isn’t dependant on animals, unless by loving them we find a way to move beyond our violent human nature.

On this subject of animal rights, it seems absurd that we could still go on hurting and killing (and these days demonically torturing) animals, when for the past seventy odd years we’ve known well enough that we need do nothing of the sort for any reason whatsoever. If we ignore the fact that we no longer need to kill them or milk them or wear them in order to survive, then the power of love won’t work for us. In fact it will work against our best interests, just as any mutated or unstable element will if we introduce it into our lives. The more so when we’re using our sophisticated intellect to try to get the best of all opportunities. 

I’m sure there are communities around the world who must kill animals to survive, since for them there is nothing else available for them to eat or wear. I’m sure there are communities to whom it has never occurred that humans can survive without using animals. But our Western societies are otherwise informed. For us who know better, there can only be deceit and hypocrisy involved, when it comes to condoning the abuse of animals by continuing to buy abattoir products. Even those who eschew meat but still drink milk and eat eggs and otherwise use the by-products of animals, they ought to know the consequences of their own double standards. If love is the great power driving everything, then surely we are showing scant regard for love when we use products of violence. If we use products that come to us via the ugly dairy farming of cows or the slaughtering of spent hens or the shearing of sheep or from enslaving animals in any other way, we must know that there are negative consequences for us and of course for the animals themselves.

Animals, whether wild or domesticated, have committed no crime and deserve no punishment. To ‘waste’ (murder) them is both a waste of energy and a waste of love. For love to work, it must be comprehensively applied. It is nothing to do with 'love' when we are hurting animals simply to serve the short term convenience of ourselves.