Involvement

1854:

Most people today are involved in a live-now-pay-later culture, believing that debts incurred will never have to be paid back. As with money so with every other material advantage - we accumulate useful stuff and don’t care about the damage caused in getting it or wasting it when we no longer want it. We celebrate the abundance of things because there seems to be so much for the taking. We believe there’s nothing to pay back because it’s all free - the air, the water, the soil, the flora, the fauna - we take it all for granted and throw away what we don’t want. We either live high on the hog or we aspire to it. Our wastefulness and narcissism imprints on each succeeding generation, until we come to today, when we hardly notice that our ‘smash and grab’ attitude is out of control. We no longer pass on to the young a sense of responsibility and frugality, instead we show them that life can be lived almost entirely for pleasure.

         

Probably we think that the greatest pleasure comes at the expense of exploiting animals. There are rich pickings here. The supply of animal products has become endless, although there’s been a hidden price to pay - animal farmers have had to inflict ever greater cruelty on animals, to keep costs down, to keep prices low in response to fierce competition.

         

Our society lays-to-waste on a grand scale - throughout the animal-eating world, vast numbers of defenceless animals are massacred (at a rate of 1500 deaths per second), and we do it because we can, because they can’t fight back, because the customer wants cheap food, and because there are always unethical operators willing to undercut less-unethical operators. It’s a fact that all omnivores are caught up in this, and vegans quite deliberately aren’t.

Go Vegan

1853:

In the worst scenario, the omnivore has few defences. They have lost the power to fight illness. The damage has been done, whether ethical or chemical, by eating from animals. But it’s not mandatory to damage ourselves, nor are we compelled to participate in an aggressive, advantage-taking society. We don’t have to feel responsible for keeping the Animal Industry afloat.

         

Both our emotional and physical immune systems should be nicely safeguarding us. Our spiritual and mental immune systems should be beautifully honed too. These systems don’t need to be compromised or weakened. But then they also don’t need to be strengthened since n the natural state, they’re probably just fine as they are. We are given working machines which don’t need to be torn apart by cravings or a nutritional imbalance. A vegan diet, a vegan ethic, a respect for life force - that’s all we need. To be drawn away from these natural balances isn’t very intelligent, especially when we in the ‘West’ have access to all the information we need and enough food to live a sane, vegan lifestyle. It keeps harm to the minimum and benefits all concerned.

Pay-Back

1852:

If we go to our fridge, do we find part of a baby sheep’s body in it? We call it ‘chops’ (a most appropriate name to describe the violence needed to get the better of a small animal). These animal ‘remains’ pervert something precious, namely, the original animal’s life force.

This animal’s soft tissue, this chop, seemingly gives some benefit but ends up acting like a lead boot. As we eat it so our cells are filled with the corrupted life force of the animal. Our immune system has no defence against a lifetime of ingesting this material. A consumer’s advantage-taking proves not to pay off in the long run.

The cycle continues. We indulge, we give-in to impulses, and life goes on as usual. But each animal’s death diminishes us. It’s pay-back time.

'We'

1851:

Humans can discover great and wonderful things. We revel in complexity and discovery. We’re lured towards possibilities, even unto the vain notion of human intelligence being greater that the gods and Nature herself. That’s the point when we lose control of our thirst for knowledge and extend the worst parts of ourselves into new inventions which are death warrants for others. What we discover can’t be un-discovered. We can no more return to an innocent or simple life than we can unmake the atom bomb. Likewise, once we learn what happens down on the farm, nothing worse can haunt us. There is nothing about the routine torturing of animals that can bring us any comfort. All we can do is atone, stop being involved, and cross our fingers.

‘We’ should be acting ‘more appropriately’. But who is this ‘we’? I didn’t make the Bomb and I can’t ban it. I can’t change laws. I can’t ban animal slavery. But what we can do is live by our own code of conduct and try to lead by example. We have to be content with that, in the slim hope that we will set a trend. Again, though, who is ‘we’?

If we see the less fortunate and consider them, they may have a new friend and a new hope and have fewer enemies. If I stop using animals that’s one more friend they have on their side. Once we learn why human ambition can be so dangerous, we can reverse it on ourselves so that we no longer make the same old mistakes humans have been making for thousands of years. But when it comes to change, there is no ‘we’, as in collective thinking. It’s an individual’s act of making a change in one’s own life that is the start, if others are going to fall into line. Eventually, when the majority follow suit and stop being involved in the grisly business of killing animals for food, only then is there an effective ‘we’, and only then can ‘we’ bring enough pressure to change things for the better.

Un-relationship

1850:

Objects may not appear to be living and breathing beings like us but perhaps their purpose is to show us what being is really all about; it’s as if they sometimes ‘respond’ to our feelings for them, as if they ‘read’ our feelings. Like the planet itself, changing its climate in response to our profligate use of fossil fuels.

We need to address dysfunctional, inherited attitudes which are not producing mutual benefit. The most damaging of these is likely to concern the way we use animals, with our belief in the safety of having a ‘non-relationship’, as we do with the animal we are about to eat.

Our contact with certain animals, our cruelty towards them, is to our mutual disadvantage. It starts out badly and ends up badly. Humans and animals – we’re deluded enough to think we’ve discovered a bargain, where it’s all advantage on our side and minimum disadvantage to us. Later, too late usually, we find things don’t work out quite as well as we thought they would. Here we have a lop-sided situation, the too strong against the too weak – helpless animals, their lives ruined by us, and we-humans-with-intellect, hungry for advantage. In this case, where humans are using and abusing animals, we have the disadvantage of the ultimately ugly act of enslaving, killing and consuming - it creeps up slowly and strikes us down just when we’re not expecting it. It comes in two forms, shame and illness. Which one strikes us down is unimportant – but vegans suggest avoiding the whole messy business of conducting non-relationships. That’s a conceptual framework we just don’t need any longer. Why try getting away with it - adding to the imbalance - when you don’t have to?

The Harmlessness Principle

1849:

What’s it like being an animal? We’ll never know, but I think we can learn a lot by observing them. Those we know best, dogs and cats, have an energy which is attractive, care-free, intimate, often friendly, and without ambition. Mind you, they’re fed and housed rent free in their human incarceration hotel.

In contrast, what’s it like being human? Without a sugar-daddy, we must learn how to survive. And today, we survive, not by hunting for food but hunting for a social place (to earn the money to buy the food, etc). Survival in this difficult human world means we must accomplish things. In order to accomplish we need possessions, qualifications and money. When successful, we often become something other than what we are – we adopt an unfriendly attitude where friendliness would not be beneficial. The habit of it forms ‘in business’ and becomes acceptable: money talk is deadly serious with no room for anything else. Success, ‘getting ahead’, ambition, career, dreams-within-reach - when and if it happens to you, you are almost mesmerised by the ‘specialness’ it makes you feel about yourself. The society you identify with, you hope will make you feel special too. A lot of effort is put into impressing others, in a social-climbing sort of way.

But this same society, you discover, sanctions something frightening. This society uses the power of each human brain to dominate everything else, including other sentient animals. Our superiority-as-human, felt by just about every living soul on the planet, is underlined whenever we use animals, whether we are snuggling under eider downs, eating them, experimenting on them, imprisoning them or murdering them. The human simply disregards the sovereignty of animals in order to take from them – this is the central creed of the people whose minds vegans are trying to change.

The human species has developed knowledge in the use of animals, and subsequently misuses that knowledge. As a consequence of that misuse, things have turned very ugly. We’ve become so caught up in our own advancement in one sphere that, for many centuries, we’ve almost totally ignored the significance of enslavement. These days we enslave those who have no power at all, so there can be no come-back. What can a sheep do to us?

But as happens in Nature so also must happen with human design. Everything finds an eventual balance. From gaining all the advantages of violence and hardness of heart, humans don’t realise that there must come some balance - it would seem only fair that, in return for us killing them, the animals are killing us, slowly – their carcasses and by products are destroying human health and may well be the cause of the human species dying out. But as society becomes more obviously gross, so the reaction away from that grossness might be transforming. And that is the plus of increasing consciousness.

We only need another attitude to the one we live by today – violence and animal-based products – and that’s spelled out in the simplest way imaginable, in the harmlessness principle on which veganism is based.

Energy Rationing

1848:

Edited by CJ Tointon

The purpose of a 'big brain' is not for feathering our own nests, but for 'doing good', whether mentally, physically or spiritually. It's what we DO that counts and this hinges on choice. The best choices we make often come out of our taking an initiative. We've weighed our options, remembered our signed (or unsigned) contracts and not forgotten our responsibilities. Going by these guidelines seems to fit with us being guardians. We are guardians of children, animals and possessions. This presents us with choices. We can either take care of the things for which we are personally responsible - or treat them abusively.

Our relationships are our own responsibility and each initiative we make is a call on our energy supplies. By deciding on our priorities and how much energy we can afford, we might consider Going Vegan, supporting Animal Liberation, thinking in a non-speciesist way. But if non-human species are low on our priority list, we come back to that thinking: "Why use up valuable energy on Animal Rights?" This is where the mystery of energy comes in. It seems to self-generate when we do good stuff - like becoming active in Animal Rights. We can find a whole new purpose for living and likely it will be a lifetime's job. I can only speak for myself; but I'm drawn to this idea of being a guardian and an advocate. You might feel the same way, but wonder about all the energy it will involve.

A lot of our energy must be self-generated from doing what we love doing, in much the same way that athletes get their energy from daily training. As activists and advocates, our main energy comes from the thought that we're guardians. I know parents can identify with this. They get very altruistic - for their children. Being childless and aware of animal issues, I want to be as useful as possible to other undefended beings, especially the current fifteen billion animals in human custody.

Back to energy. Love is the best known source of it. Love shines so brightly if only by contrasting so completely with the crude energy of the smash-&-grab mob. Their way is to treat animals with no holds barred. Cruelty is just part of a familiar dark world in which there's no redeeming feature. In that harsh world, animals are made to work for us. We drain their life from them. And all in the name of Energy - for humans! We hear the half-convincing farmer say that he loves his animals. But in truth the care he shows his inmates is in the interests of humans not animals. He knows that animals respond better and grow faster when treated better. His theory: "More is gained from them the less they're abused." Omnivore theory: "Food is cheap. It's easily extracted from animals". 

Energy Spending

1847:

Edited by CJ Tointon

Most people these days put 'food animals' low on their priority list and consider their treatment not very important. This one single attitude probably reflects a naked survival instinct concerning food and energy. Energy from animals is cheap. We have animals here - so why not use them?

Keeping animals is easy pickings while predation requires lots of energy. Thanks to our large human brain, we know how to corral, capture, imprison and breed animals. It's the factory floor of the Animal Industry and all perfectly under control. Human Inc. have perfected the slave relationship - docile domesticated animals. And from these 'food animals' comes the best source of energy (or so it's widely believed).

But it's fool's energy. Animal-based food is laced with slow-acting problems and isn't the best source of energy anyway. There are as many varieties of energy as places to find it. And various ways to lose it, especially energy draining attitudes. One of these attitudes grows from the bargain basement mentality and an attraction to easy pickings - stealing what isn't ours. The energy we get from animal-based foods is stolen since it's removed by force. Sentient humans stealing energy from sentient non-humans. And that's where all the trouble starts.

Humans feel entitled. We expect the fruit of the tree to just fall into our laps. Our sense of entitlement is connected to our belief in the power we have over Nature. We bend and dominate Nature and in our arrogance we expect animals to give up their lives for us while we do nothing for them. Unlike Humans, Nature understands how to control and make energy. It's a two-way affair, a give and take system. The tree is cared for and lets fruit fall in an expenditure of gratitude. If we want this sense of symbiosis and the energy to forge it, it's not only physical energy we need. We need energy response to intention, motivation, passion and determination.

Much of this energy is self-generated. In a good cause, we expand energy when we expend it. It's not like a finite volume of fuel left in the cars petrol tank. This intangible substance surely self perpetuates - like a loving thought. And love can do wonders, even bring human-made peace into line with Nature's Grand Design. 

But theft is popular with energy grabbers. There's a lot of energy being stolen by omnivores who are still waging war on animals. Perhaps they do it so they can continue enjoying the fruits of life, by using thousands of commodities, each traced back to enslaved animals. Humans get a free ride by indulging in energy draining, omnivorous lifestyles.

You and I want good quality energy. But the energy that animal eaters get comes with a string of ailments and ill health. The energy produced from enslaved animals is a poor source of energy. Combine poor quality food with poor quality energy and there's danger.

Vegans are unlucky in that they can't change the world overnight. But we are lucky not to be nursing the omnivore's concerns, anxieties, guilts and doubts. Not only is our food better, but our cause (keeping to vegan principle) keeps us on track. We just have to hold our nerve while we wait and 'animal advocate' and wait some more. We can only observe the omnivore being still dazzled with the cleverness of human advantage taking. We can only listen to them when they say: "Why should I waste my time and energy on animal welfare when I've got so many human problems?"

The Intelligent Way To Go

1846:

We, at least we in the West, seem to be gradually moving away from the human-dominant model to a subtler, gentler type of character, moving towards valuing kindness and compassion.

I’m not suggesting some sort of slushy emotional revolution is taking place. It’s just that there are more young people realising that violence has got to stop somewhere since harmlessness is the more intelligent way to go.

Today, people are much better informed about the ugly and the unintelligent lifestyles, and are therefore better able to make a better choice. We begin to see the emergence of a loyal, mature, gratitude-centred approach to life. And whether we’re talking about relating to animals and how far we move towards a plant-based food system or how we relate to each other, there’s a certain sensitisation taking place. For us in the West especially, this period will surely be remembered as the ‘age of relationships’. We are learning how to relate to things, to people, to the disabled, to minority groups, to farm animals, to forests, etc.

I suppose we’re beginning to see the advantages of acting more interactively, symbiotically and altruistically. But the upshot all this is our gaining better clarity. Once we are clearer about why we feel as we do, then we will want to be ‘doing the right thing’. But there’s something else here too. It isn’t just a new morality creeping in. It isn’t a throw-back to doing our duty or observing greater strictness. It’s something much easier. What was once a discipline is now becoming an enjoyment. We no longer need to earn merit points or get other’s approval for what we do. We are quite capable of following our own life-guidance systems.

Maybe it comes with the territory, but vegans use intuition as a life-guide, since other humans might not be impartial enough to be clear about their own behaviour, let alone reliable enough to argue the merits of humanitarianism. We live in a carnivorous and violent world. By being empathic towards animals we are more sensitive perhaps, but also more resilient. Perhaps the greatest advantage of veganism, to us, is our needing less outside encouragement. Carnivores like to invalidate our non-violence principles in order to continue practising violence on animals.

If we are about to rescue our species from ignominy, it will surely be by way of voluntary, independent choices being made by many individuals. It will be a willing change, an attractive change, a shifting of one’s own ‘conceptual framework’ regarding right action. We’ll be able to see the move towards vegan principle as a mixture of helping to repair the damage (we humans have done) and seeing it as the most fulfilling thing we could be doing for ourselves - enjoying doing things for the greater good, enjoying work-as-play-as-work.

Attachment and Detachment

1845:

What does it feel like when we feel or even express ‘respect’? When I’m deciding who or what to respect, or when to develop a relationship or when to trash things that are no longer useful, I find it’s easy to like the likeable. I know I’m capable of showing respect for them and I can show loyalty and affection for the loveable. Conversely, with the ugly or used-up, I notice how readily I can move away from them.

I see how it happens even with things that I acquire but then get bored with, even friends who I’ve lost interest in. I know people where this happens with their companion animals. Often it’s a cute kitten or an adorable puppy dog. As they grow towards adulthood, and perhaps don’t have the same fascination for their humans as when they first appeared on the scene. Like any product reaching its use-by date, they are got rid of at the first opportunity. But whether it’s possessions, friends, cats or even gardens, they each have the power to benefit us or bring us down, depending on how we treat them.

To stabilise my relationships with anything or anyone, I must maintain my respect for them or a sense of play with them. It’s easy enough with dogs and cats and kids, because they’re always ready to play, and we respect them for this and hope it will rub off on us; they don’t pretend to be other than they are, and that’s so endearing. One hopes that perhaps we can by-pass respect and go straight towards naked love. When we’re ‘feeling together’, in an unselfconscious, letting-go friendly atmosphere, it’s just simply enjoyable being with the intimate, because they bring out the best out in us.

         

The influence of a cat or a dog lets us see our sensitive nature, but not necessarily our goodness. We find them cute and attractive in their manner and probably in their looks too. The young are always irresistible. But with anyone or anything less-dear, it’s a different story.

I don’t act so honourably with the less-loveable, human or non-human. That smelly homeless man, asking me for money. I ignore him. Or that not-so-attractive animal you might have eaten at dinner, you ignore that animal’s being. Farm animals are regarded as non-beings. They’re always on tap ready to be used up. Perhaps we learn to despise them for being so subservient and powerless, although how we get from such levels of disregard that we can murder and eat them is beyond me.

Perhaps what happens is that animals are tame – and it’s rather like fame being thrust upon us. It makes us feel special, in fact so special that we can afford to withdraw intimacy and friendly feelings altogether. There’s a certain safety that comes from knowing that those domesticated animals have no power over us, so they pose no threat. So, I can say, “They can’t possibly hurt me even if I ignore them or hurt them. They have no hold over me”. But subtly they do. Their body tissues and secretions are attractive foods for humans, and as such become addictive substances we can’t do without. Then the animals get their revenge as a weight on our conscience for harming them and as a harm to our bodies for ingesting them. We play dangerously ugly games with what we perceive to be ‘ugly animals’.

         

It’s easy to show our kindness to a cute puppy or to the young-person member of the family, but we won’t necessarily be so kindly inclined towards a stranger (human). And we’ll feel even less warm towards an anonymous farm animal (non-human) who is going to be turned into my favourite food.

         

But all that is changing. Now, in this present age, we are becoming more aware how unattractive is the hard-nosed human. And conversely, a once-reviled, soft-hearted (“bleeding heart”), gentler, kinder character is emerging to replace the meat-eating animal-despisers. And so, the balance point of our society is starting to change.

The Unloveable Things We Own

1844:

Once upon a time everything was valued and was potentially useful for something. It was a much more closely connected society, perhaps because people regarded what they possessed as they did personal relationships; they only had a few possessions so they had more regular use of them - ‘knew’ them better. It was more realistic to consider them by using them more wisely, mending them when malfunctioning. One’s possessions were taken more seriously and accepted with more gratitude than the way today, when we possess so much ‘stuff’.

In the past we believed things were worth having, worth using, worth repairing and worth sometimes talking to. And through them we could let our imagination flow. We could let them come alive and thereby feel more responsibility for them. Each item was known, accommodated and cared for. Or not, as the case may be.

When we use money to acquire ‘stuff’, we assume the role of its guardian, if only by providing each item with its space-to-be, it’s housing. Say with a car, we garage it and maintain it and in return it serves us well. It’s as if each ‘thing’, in its own way, puts us to the test as guardians. It might be said that in this way, objects have a will of their own and, when indispensable, can change our whole attitude to the way we see them. And just to test us to the final limit, they also can pose as a burden. It sometimes demands more attention than we want to give it. And then, it sulks. For when we neglect things which we use but don’t respect, that an ingratitude. It seems like something else, similar to our habitual abuse of animals. And this abuse is far graver than not maintaining the car (beyond tyres and brakes). Specifically, this abuse centres on denying the sensitivity of those sentient beings we use for food.

Love

1843:

Love is one of those words easily be misunderstood and over-used today, too full of sickly-sweet overtones to ever mention the word. But love isn’t quite everything anyway, surely? Life isn’t just a matter of showering love on everything we see. In the material world, we have the formalities to attend to, like clothing, washing, looking after our gadgets and machines, etc.

Love is a big emotion, embracing the mundane too. Take the fridge; it does a lot for us and deserves to be ‘loved’. It keeps our food cool and our beer cold. The fridge and the computer and the car, they each deserve respect. Our high-‘ideal’ lifestyles often show disrespect for things, and if we think of animals as mere ‘things’ then that same attitude of disrespect is applied to other ‘materials’, especially when they’re a source of food.

We’re good at ‘loving’ but not always consistent with it. It’s often completely absent in our attitude concerning cruelty to animals. Somehow we think it’s normal and therefore okay, because we’re real nice-loving-people in other quarters of our life.

Enjoying an extra dimension to life

1842:

If ‘vegan’ means more to us than just food, then it might be a new basis for our thinking. If you can ever see yourself as a guardian, or as being protective, or encouraging independence, you’ll know how comforting that place is. And if you yourself have few over-dependencies, then you’ll see a way ahead, and be on the way towards the ideal.

As a sort of patron-saint of lost causes, the most fulfilled vegans are the ones on the side of the most vulnerable, who no one else thinks about. There are no rewards, no praise, no encouragement, no notice taken of what we do. But if approval doesn’t matter much to you anyway, then you might just make it. To become one of the planet’s natural caretakers.

A janitor is who we are, in our heart of hearts, guardians and look-over-ers, without the creepy surveillance connotations - neither preacher nor evil guardian, nor nanny nor master, just protector.

Our brains are hard-wired to focus on empathy. It’s not much more than a shorthand for intelligence. Because we humans are so clever at guessing what others need, some of us use that to exploit the unwary. But without that ulterior motive, this ‘guessing’ may be very useful. Many people do look beyond their self-interest, to devise ways of lessening suffering or guess at how to make things work better than they do presently.

Whether it’s car maintenance or relating to animals or in human relationships, humans (can) make things run smoothly. If we think we might have the janitor-gene in us, it’s likely we’ll be drawn to where things are going wrong and work to fix them, by developing that sort of ‘empathy’ skill.

In order to be effective in anything we need to go to the unknown. We come closer and look carefully, even with our imaginations, to feel how it might be for others, and then to have care enough to think about others. Then it’s all-good for all concerned. Empathy is in all of us and it’s use is for the ‘Greater Good’.

Coming Home

1841:

As confused humans, we feel a warped nostalgia for being part of the dominant species, tempered with a belief that fun is bad (as, of course it can be when it’s based on things we do which cause damage). But not all fun is bad. Take for instance the ‘sheer enjoyment factor’ in spending a few hours without being involved with any exploitation and destruction. Imagine, all of us using resources sustainably and sensitively? Dream on!

But we are affected by nostalgia. It takes over. Whenever the pressure is off, like when we’re away on holiday, we sink into a contemplation, wherein we see that each new moment is a moment in which the world about us is so valuable that we see the enormity of the damage we humans do. But then we come back home to reality, our big ideas fade fast and we return back to where we were at. We get back to normal, doing ordinary things, following habit patterns.

Is it possible for a few hours in the evening, for us to be entirely free of any element of damage? The goal here is surely to satisfy our need for sheer enjoyment whilst adopting a no-damage policy towards things, animals, people and even ideas. Harmlessness is its own reward.

Using Animal Bodies

1840:

I’m sure the damage humans do, especially when enslaving animals, contravenes the most primary of Nature’s laws. The audacity and evil of slavery is breathtaking. Each instant takes the very oxygen out of the air. Indeed, this very Saturday morning I waded through a fog of burning animals’ bodies to get to the vegie stand for my pesticide-free carrots.

Slavery, that “peculiar institution”, makes all the other damage we do seem relatively insignificant, because we do worry about the future, and most people think our big problem world-wide is over-population. But there’s enough vegan food on the planet to feed twice the number of humans. Switching over to plant-based foods isn’t the biggest problem we have. Once we’ve done that we’ll realise that we actually have an animal-population problem – what are we going to do with fifteen billion animals? Genocide them? Sterilize them? Although most people don’t realise it yet, still content to continue as carnivores, the biggest overall problem is waiting to confront us, alongside climate change and a general collapse in human ethics.

APOLOGIES FOR THE GLITCH IN THE BLOGS.
COMPUTER CRASH - LOST FILES. ALL BACK TOGETHER ASAP.

A Conversation between You and Me

1839:

A Conversation between Me and You

People are afraid of getting tangled up in awkward situations, and veganism IS an awkward situation. Each fact concerning the treatment of farm animals can be a bomb shell, guaranteed to ignite an argument. Here’s a vegan, probing attitudes: here’s you, listening, and in too deep for comfort.

My dropping, as if out of the sky, some horrible fact about animal abuse, seems to suggest you make some sort of polite response. It’s usually in the form of a question, which aims to divert but only gets into even deeper water. For the average omnivore this is a conversation-trap. You’re either going to look foolish or look like a heartless bastard.

Which is why I’m suspicious of ‘horrible facts’, at any initial stage, whereas I think it’s important to find out asap, who one might be talking to and where that person is at.

In any conversation, where animal-use gets mentioned, if it won’t go away then we all want to have our say. Our strongly held views reflect our values. And I, for one, would be more interested in getting fundamental values clear – I’d suggest two questions:  

Are humans more entitled to be free than animals?

Is a sentient being more entitled to consideration than a non-sentient being?

Fascinatingly, we could spend a lot of time considering this. But what I’m emphasising here is that something happens in a conversation between you and me. I drop a tiny grenade into the converstion. Unexpectedly, and out of the blue, we have a situation forming between You and Me. My opinion : your opinion. And on this particular subject, vegans feel undaunted. We might have expectations of omnivores – we expect a response. At the same time you are more wary of me, and you realise the conversation is veering around towards animals, and the eating of them.

Facts are one thing. Your feelings about Me talking to You about Animal Rights is another.

The Vegan Diet: "A Hideous Thought"

1838:

By being inconsistent about what is and what isn’t important, we fog up our value system … of course! But life isn’t just about clarity. It’s about risks being taken, improvements being made, and testing ideas to see if they work, and then whether to follow them up.

Now, to be fair, ideas can sometimes fog things up too, and we get caught between Utter Absurdity and the Unrealism of Perfection. It seems logical that the starting line is somewhere in the middle, with something simple and achievable. The practical, common sense, down-to-earth way has to be clear. And efficient, but mainly locked onto one ‘parent’-principle. A principle we can prod and poke but can’t ignore, since it’s a universal principle. In the constant prodding and poking and questioning, we are surely looking for answers.

So, starting where starting lines start, it’s ethically logical that food’s a good place, a logical beginning (whilst knowing that it’s based on a bigger principle). Plant-based diet - to meat-eaters, the logic is impenetrable – “it’s seditious what you vegans are saying”. We make them feel nervous about us. “What are they on about?” Theirs is a mixture of annoyance and incomprehension, but on reflection it must, even to them, seem nonetheless, logically simple-albeit-uncomfortable.

A friend of mine, Mary (who died recently at ninety nine and three quarters) used to say she admired our vegan principles but the idea of our diet is a “hideous thought”. She’s not alone. So many people only know the food they know. They try to imagine what a vegan food regime must be like, and shudder.

A small side-track here: Going vegan means obstacles which need to be ironed out, if the logistics of food appears difficult, it is no longer difficult the further you go along, but it presupposes an interest. Somehow, vegans probably need to get (a bit) interested in food and kitchens and the practice of making meals. Tasty and healthy vegan food isn’t always easy to produce, 365 days a year. And there’s a time factor concerning food too. Vegans need to bring a lot of things ‘up’ from raw ingredients to make a meal. This means dinner takes half an hour instead of the usual short time needed to make a basic carnivore dinner. Yes, I’d say that adopting some sort of interest in the kitchen is a must for self-catering vegans. End of this side-track.

With far fewer years of ‘being fed’ by others, younger people are less afraid of experimenting with new food regimes. However, the big block is almost in-built. Every day of one’s life, there’s the relentless propaganda about animal foods. Many young people are torn. They know what’s going on. They are the most well-informed generation ever. But what they learn then can’t be unlearned.

One may not like the way things seem to be going. And if you’re over fifteen, you know enough (about what they do to farm animals) that you don’t want to hear any more. Further information will only confirm what you’re still be able to forget.

Consistent

1837:

The defence of animals is important because there are so many of them, with their lives sucked out of them. They so badly need defending. That involves a long ‘to-do’ list, and then feeling perpetually overwhelmed by that long list. The trap is to attempt to shorten the list and force a prioritisation of interests which might also happen to be not-too-inconvenient.

Vegans’ priority is for animals. Their safety. And that depends on us keeping our own goals achievable, without losing the plot or giving up. The other side of our having empathy for animals is that we fear the loss of our own personal energy. We force ourselves to ration-out our reserves of ‘care’, ending up being partial and inconsistent.

But all this, a big part of all this activism for animals is a personal journey of self-insight. Big efforts being made both for me and for helping animal liberation. So, on the personal side - from this starting point we can examine our own inconsistencies. But if we are already vegan, at least we have a whole heap of ‘inconsistency’ lifted from our shoulders. We might also find our to-do list overwhelming but we can clutch at a rail for support, hold firmly to ‘what needs most care is most cared about’.

Some things we know about ourselves. Essentially, that we are caring beings. We’re good at it. Oftentimes, we don’t care how much inconvenience we have to put up with, as long as we aren’t dodging issues. Facing big issues takes a lot of energy. We can easily spread ourselves too thinly. We can end up pleasing nobody, least of all ourselves. We can easily spread the issues out in front of us and put what we can’t face onto the ‘back burner’. Later, it, languishing there untended - the neglected issue going nowhere. Making us feel ashamed. And the guilt about that cancelling out our best efforts, elsewhere.

Now if, like me, you feel inconsistent, you’ll find yourself up-ing one issue and ignoring another. I disregard the ‘homeless man’ on the street. As I walk past him, I ask myself why should I care about him? I already have enough on my plate. I don’t want to take on another ‘responsibility’, so I pretend not to notice him. And in the same way, most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs are not much different to dogs and cats, but they are to be found unlovable. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend. Yet I ignore him completely. It just means I haven’t developed enough ‘somethingorother’ yet, in much the same way as omnivores haven’t developed beyond speciesism.

What a world it would be if they were consistent, in regard to one single idea. That all sensitive and sentient creatures are of equal importance in terms of our mutual resonating vibrations. Whew!

Animals, what are they?

1836:

We know they can’t talk our language and we find them to be ‘funny-looking’ close-up. They see their world two dimensionally, whereas humans are concept-forming in three dimensions. So what? What am I saying? That this makes it somehow alright to treat them in a way we wouldn’t treat our own kind, or our own kin?

I think I know how to treat my nearest and dearest. As we all do. With love and affection. And that must radiate out into a weaker version of love but nonetheless as an affectionate-interface) with anything we come in touch with. Guarding, protecting, we are good at this, humans. But we are duped into denying connections between what happens off-stage and what-happens on stage. Behind the scenes are the hidden secrets of the farms and abattoirs, all very prone to misinformation.

We all know how we treat each other. We can be nothing less than oozing with love and affection. This is our forte. It might be our saving grace, and why humans might become such an exciting species, later. But in the meantime, there are things we have to face, one of which is the decision to become vegan. For many, at the moment, this is One Hard Ask. But vegan advocates grind out the same fait accompli, that there is NO OTHER WAY TO PROVE you mean what you say, until you are a practising ‘vegan’.

I suppose it must feel like being caught in your own net, for as soon as you squeak ‘compassion’, you’ll soon enough be shouting ‘vegan’.

This is the diving-off-point to go deeper, to see how non-violence is a possibility for everything. Veganism is all about humans, animals and environment, and caring - if there’s anything doesn’t deserve affection nobody knows what it is.

At Ease with Cheese

1835:

On the road to reaching some sort of enlightenment, if we can take what is known as a ‘spiritual path in life’, we’ll be confronted by a need to change in the face of the familiar, the comfortable and the ingrained habit.

A circumstance stops us on the road to question direction. We come to a fork in the road, etc. There’s a need for a decision to be made, not about what socks to wear but something as big as the question of our whole eating regime. Here we sit to eat every day, the table manners and eating habits are set from birth. Here we are attached to the milieu of eating and socialising over food. Here we are attached and with cravings. Then ‘bang’, there’s a moment of never-been-thought-about-before confusion. Arriving at a major moment of choice. And it is done. The decision is set.

For vegans, behind their decision-making, isn’t a random switch-of-preference of items of food. Behind it is a significant philosophical position, and our food-choosing conforms with this position.

Concerning food, before looking at the choices we make, we might have to face our own failure – asking ourselves, “Am I in the grip of an addiction, and can I shift away from it?” The magnetic hold of say, a favourite cheese, allows us to put up the fatuous question, “How can cheese be cruel?”.

This is what Animal Rights is up against!!

And this is what vegans stay firmly with – an empathy grown out of truth-seeking. And telling. For if we get a chance to tell our story it’s a red letter day. But to tell it effectively, it has to be quick. No sentimentality. Catch them while you’ve got their attention. The real value of what we get across comes later anyway, when private-mind recalls words and feelings, and analyses it all.

Going vegan is essentially a private matter. It concerns nobody else. It’s no one else’s business (unless of course they’re non-humans). Going vegan gets noticed, one way or the other. And asked about becoming vegan (“Why are you vegan?”), my own response is a celebration of courage, for anyone to dare to ask that question so the ‘red-letter-day’ thing means I intend to try to first make them laugh, NOT to make them feel guilty about animals, food, etc. On a personal level, I always hope they’ll see my disposition, making-them-think but making-them-laugh at the same time. A disposition that shows concern for the difficult position all omnivores are in, over this. Which means I have to work on it. To acquire a disposition which puts others at their ease.

But with that comes the advice: about the need to change, to “find another way”, starting by questioning things that others aren’t bothered about. Or they say they aren’t! Things which they still pretend don’t bother them, and perhaps things they’re too frightened to question. My self image might tell me I’m good and kind. I don’t want to go looking for the violent, ugly side of myself. But reality always returns me to the omnipresence of violence in our world. I think it might be pay off for getting. Getting the world we want, the one we’re used to, the one we shouldn’t risk by making any changes just for the sake of reducing our intake of violence. Like nicotine addiction, cutting down on our intercourse with violence, it’s hard to give up. In this case, with all this animal-use in our lives, it’s also hard to see that a world without violence would be a world of paradise, well almost. And tell me ‘vegan’ isn’t just that!!

‘Without-violence’ means vegan of course. It’s essential to start here. There’s no other way to put it, nor any way of not spoiling your day. This is where choice sits squarely: in our cheesey example, we know denying ourselves the pleasure of cheese is a big step. We think of the taste and textures. We think of cows, anonymous herds of them all over the place. We think of their children, snatched away. For milk. A dairy-hell for calf-bearing mothers. Cheese. Decision.

Hence the need for empathy. The need to feel change. The need to act on it. The need not to feel afraid of decision-making. And if this seems to be bothering, more bothering would be having

another disposition entirely.

Your life’s work is to plan and carry out routine abuses of sensitive and sentient beings, in order to earn your living. Your life spent making money by exploiting your neighbours on the planet. It’s so bothering because every single one of them is innocent, and being punished by the humans who do it and others who support them.

Vegans expand a sense of responsibility, raise sensibility enough to understand the reason for this level of collective carelessness. Perhaps it’s a low empathy amongst passive (and addicted) consumers. Who say, “No amount of personal development for me, nothing will interfere with my cheese. That’s my bottom line”.

Doing without

1834:

Veganism is like an eye, driven by empathy, watching day-by-day for violence-produced products and searching out the ‘clean’ stuff. This vegan eye checks, observes, but doesn’t have to judge human values. That doesn’t serve much purpose. The most useful vegan eye notes connections between benign appearances and reality. The vegan eye focuses on violence, using it as the yardstick, for keeping us clear of unethical merchandise. Primarily, away from animal food. But the eye sees below the surface, to a deeper layer, where becoming vegan means more than food and clothing. The word is, after all, just shorthand for ‘vegan principle’ which means vegans should be an embodiment of that principle. You’re not much use to animals if you’re not!!

Every consumer uses resources, and often we tread heavily on the earth. Hopefully we’re transforming into an advanced version of ourselves, from resource-grabbers to builders of sustainable systems. As  modern consumers, we are still dazzled by the trappings of a life’s which can be too much fun to start exercising a lot of self control - who knows what pleasures and opportunities you could be missing out on.

As consumers, do we care about the “long-term” consequences of being a ‘grabber’. 'Taking' has its downside. Habits and cravings form, for a start.

Vegans have to meet those same cravings and bad habits, and we have to meet this head-on, from fundamentals to practicalities. If a vegan craves something when it’s ‘no longer available’, we know we must learn to do without it. You say to yourself, “nothing as trivial as an item of food is going to break my boycott. No one can knock me of THIS perch”. Vegans have to learn to do without those things that everybody else seems to be enjoying. And to do it with a will and without stress.

Because there are so many obviously-attractive food products containing animal ingredients, there is so much off-limits for vegans. And, unless a replacement is available, we do without. We get used to that, as we do with boycotting animal-linked clothing and footwear. So many products are ‘contaminated’.

In order to avoid all this ‘dark side’, it comes down to an out-&-out exercising of self-discipline. If you can break through the temptation barriers, then you really speed-up the process of coming to know yourself and fitting into a vegan lifestyle. Of course, it’s plain sailing for anyone already there, who tells us it’s all possible and all-satisfying, when only I know my own cravings. And only I know how fulfilling being vegan might be for me.

Abuse of animals

1833: 

Farmers don’t recognise that animals are entitled to a life of their own, where human interests play no part at all. To any animal-farmer, animals are simply a resource for human convenience. To build up any sort of relationship other than an abusive one is unthinkable. After all, he does intend to have it murdered.

So, animals are there to profit from. That they’re abused is incidental. Any docile animal is a business opportunity. Keeping up with business competition makes shareholders happy but compromises ‘principles’, at which point the abuse starts.

Following the Crowd

Edited by CJ Tointon

Most people find it very difficult to grasp the idea of veganism. They prefer to take advantage of what is on offer and just do what everybody else is doing - even though they must know there's something distinctly wrong about using animals for food, clothing, medication, etc. 



Perhaps it's the lack of questioning in our society that's at the root of these ugly and dangerous habits. If there is a possibility open to us but it's  not widely publicised, then effectively it doesn't exist. We are all influenced by what is promoted and ignorant of what isn't. Think 'normality' and then think McDonalds, Heinz and Adidas. These are well-known, powerful corporations. They know exactly how to persuade by way of blanket advertising. 'Vegan' is neither a brand nor a very well know concept. It is purposely not promoted. It doesn't appear much in the media. Any discussion of its merits is given almost no publicity, thereby implying that a vegan way of life is so impractical that it isn't worth consideration.



Even intelligent, articulate, widely respected people don't dare embark upon this one subject. And I'm not talking diets or health or veganic farming here, but simply referring to the common practice of attacking animals to make human life easier. 



It's not exactly hard to win the argument for veganism. I've even known kids to knock down hefty intellectuals with one or two well chosen words on the subject. It must be embarrassing for those who will talk expansively about any subject under the sun, but who refuse to open their mouths when it comes to the matter of using animals to provide food, clothing….and much more.

Arguing for Veganism

1830:

  Edited by CJ Tointon

From birth, we’ve all been accustomed to animals being farmed and consumer items produced. Making use of animals is easy and convenient. It makes money for the 'Animal Industries' and meat and dairy are associated with many popular foods. But the predominance of animal-based foods in our diet is the cause of much disease and ill health. And (perhaps worst of all) the exploiting of animals contradicts our potential guardian nature.



Whether you believe in climate change, environmental sustainability, God or motor cars; there'll always be those who can put up a cogent argument opposing your beliefs. But vegan principle is different. It's out there on its own. It's an ideal and yet a very workable precept. There seems to be no intelligent opposing argument (at least I've never heard of one) unless one talks to Ahnah, an Inuit from Kangirsuk, who lives on foods that are mainly fished or hunted; there being no land to cultivate fruits and vegetables. She's not unhealthy, but then she's not subjecting herself to the poisoned body parts of highly medicated and artificially fed captive animals! Or one could talk with John from outback Hamilton who can only find work on a cattle station. Or we could speak with refugee Hussein who has only been able to find work at the Narrogin abattoir. These people have probably never heard of 'veganism', but their options are very limited. Not so for the rest of us. We do have choices, especially if we're urban consumers. We have plant-based foods available and a range (albeit limited) of non animal-based clothing and footwear.

APOLOGIES FOR BLOG'S ABSENCE THIS PAST WEEK. COMPUTER CRASHED. FILES LOST. PASSWORDS MISLAID! ALL GOOD NOW. DAVID

1830:
A Serious Shortage of Argument

 Edited by CJ Tointon

There's one thing which has probably occurred to vegans (and those moving towards veganism) but not occurred to those who have no interest. The uniqueness of ethical veganism. It's unique because it has no counter-argument. It's indisputable.



Ideally, kindness and compassion are considered paramount in our culture today. If someone is lying in the gutter, you don't assess his origins or clothing first - you simply go to his assistance. You'd react the same way if you came across an animal trapped or being attacked (hopefully).

We humans are natural rescuers. It's how we've been brought up. It's in our cultural genes. And that, in essence, is what veganism is all about - rescuing and defending the undefended, protecting the innocents, fulfilling our guardian role - no matter the cost to ourselves. If we look ahead to the future, we should see humans as custodians of our somewhat beleaguered planet. Vegan principle is a show of confidence in the idea of non-violence. I doubt if too many vegans would be interested in a military career!



One would have to be either very brave (or very stupid) to attempt an argument against vegan principle. To say that what humans do to animals is acceptable makes no sense. Enslaving them, mutilating them, killing them at abattoirs, is cruel by any measure. On top of that, what we do to ourselves by consuming all the cholesterol and saturated fat in meat and animal products, is doing untold damage to our health.



To argue that using animals is essential or reasonable is obviously open to question. Any argument in favour of meat eating or animal husbandry, just doesn't stand up. Not only is the 'Animal Industry' riddled with cruelty, its food products are a source of inefficient energy. And animal farming itself is an environmental disaster area. The whole 'animal business' makes no sense! We're involved with it out of habit. Our whole food and clothing setup is geared that way with thousands of unchallenged, unhealthy food products on the market and leather goods and woollen products dominating the clothing market. From birth, we've all been accustomed to these consumer items. They're what is readily available.

APOLOGIES FOR BLOG'S ABSENCE THIS PAST WEEK. COMPUTER CRASHED. FILES LOST. PASSWORDS MISLAID! ALL GOOD NOW. DAVID