Seeing violence for what it is

1796: 

Vegan, non-violence, animal advocacy - I suppose what fascinates me more than anything is why some people get it and some people don’t. Of course, it’s easier for those who've already become vegan. We suppose that those who aren’t vegan are just that much lazier or un-inspirable.

For vegans, the more we learn about the use of animals the more cruelty we see. And that brings us to disapprove of the vast majority of people who won’t look. Because we look and act on what we see, we get to see more than is comfortable. As more windows open up onto that dark world, and because we aren’t so deeply implicated, we can allow ourselves to see the extent of the cruelties, and draw the connections between them. 

For example, if people can allow animals to be violated for food, it’s easier for them to be less concerned that children are dying needlessly for lack of food. That might not apply to every non-vegan, since many meat eaters do show great care and concern for starving kids. But in general, if you can turn a blind eye to one sort of violence, you’re better placed to be less outraged by another, be it war, pollution, greed or malnutrition.

The more sensitive you become, the more troubled you might be at the ugliness of our world, and want to do something about it. The less sensitive you are, the less troubled you’ll be by the hardness of ones fellow human beings. So, what I’m trying to propose is that we all need to become more sensitive to all of the violence, not just those most politically incorrect ‘violences’. We can all feel comfortable about hating war, hating environmental destruction, and hating hunger, especially if we are separated from it. On the other hand we find it far harder to hate abattoirs if we are directly involved in their existence, by still supporting them.