What went Wrong?

1882:

I suppose it all started to go horribly wrong 70 years ago, when the Second World War was still raging and people’s attention was focused on survival and the fear of starvation. The profiteers were always there in the wings, planning how to increase their profits. But now it was a different sort of age, because all semblance of consideration for animals disappeared - they upped the ante, they took things to a new and demonic level. They exponentially increased the horrors, by way of pollution and violence, especially towards profitable animals and vulnerable humans (who let themselves be conditioned to spend their money on eating ever more of the animals. I’m talking about the 1950’s.

I was brought up after ‘the war’, but more particularly after The Bomb. A single hit of that thing and a million dreams go up in smoke. I think my generation of ‘baby boomers’ was the first to feel very afraid, for suddenly there was a chance of total planetary annihilation.

This marked a great ethical leap backwards. Not just with the coming of The Bomb but the simultaneous arrival of the first factory farms. With the bomb and the caging of animals we stepped over the ethical boundaries in order to find some sort of security. The Bomb brought safety from war, the factory farmed animal brought safety from hunger – this wasn’t a time for complaints. After the war there was food aplenty. And during the ‘cold war’ that followed, there were many tests to perfect the atom bomb. There was plenty of everything!

Now, seventy years later, if we have little hope for the future it may be because we’ve let science rage unchecked. We’ve applied what science has taught us to the point where we simply don’t have much optimism for the future. We now even ask the most defeatist question of all: “Do we really deserve a future?”

Here’s where we stray into the absurd, for it’s not actually about what we deserve. The absurdity here concerns other ‘bystanders’, other species, who do deserve a future, even if we don’t. And they would have a future if it weren’t for the fact that we humans have interfered with the balance of Nature. We’ve knocked down the forests, caged the animals and caused the climate to change. If we are intent on continuing being destructive, our life here is over and this place should be left empty of humans, for the pleasure and continuation of Earthly life for the innocent non-humans.

Optimism and The Future

1880:

Edited by CJ Tointon

 As a species, we need stable emotions to plan for a sustainable future. Emotional stability is dependent upon some level of optimism. As our optimism and stability increase, there comes a sense of permanence. People who have made the changes necessary to "Go Vegan" soon realise that their decision won't weaken or reverse. What they thought they'd miss is no longer on their minds and is fading away in importance. It's as if this one change signifies a maturing, a moving past the temptation of slipping back into old ways. 

When we feel content being vegan, we don't mind so much being at odds with almost every person we know. We live in a society where most people have never given veganism a serious thought. Their meat and dairy foods, their woollen jumpers and leather shoes are so much a part of their everyday life that boycotting them would seem like an unnecessary self-punishment. They wouldn't be able to grasp the fact that animal-based foods and commodities need not play a major part of daily life and that someone who chooses to live as a herbivore does not have some sort of mental health issue. So fixed are these ideas in the minds of omnivores, that they go through life never touching on their true inner compassion and therefore miss out on their best chance for self-development along with many other interesting aspects of life.

Having established new food and clothing regimes, vegans are free to look into these other 'interesting aspects', all of which are quite out of the question for anyone still using abattoir products. Omnivores would find it impossible, for example, to explore the principle of harmlessness. Harmlessness is central to a vegan lifestyle and essential to our species if we are to move away from violence.

Vegans understand that a lot of the negativity which omnivores feel towards us is really the subconscious self-dissatisfaction feeling of being so closely connected to the violence of animal cruelty and abuse. It leaves them with a level of pessimism; for theirs is a world without a future. What chance for recovery has a human world that is so soaked in violence? What hope do we have when most humans are completely dependent on the routine mass killing of innocent sentient beings for maintaining their 'normal' daily life? If a person allows this bleak outlook for the world to dominate their reality, they'll be feeding the self-fulfilling prophecy of 'The Coming Catastrophe'. 

Vegan principle opens the door to optimism; if only by establishing a sound basis for fundamental reform. Our 'going vegan' might seem hardly noticeable to those who ignore it; but when it enters our own lives, it establishes itself deeply, like a breath of fresh air to one who has been suffocating. Veganism is so profound that most people don't recognise it for what it is. They see it as an easily dismissed, unpopular philosophical view on life. But, in essence, veganism offers a 'root and branch' change to the way we view life, the way we eat, the way we treat people and the way we respect the miracle of Nature. 

Non-vegans will say: "It's already too late. Why bother?" or "I don't give a stuff about the future anyway." These are merely expressions of pessimism and selfishness, neither of which will impress future generations when it's their turn to analyse the history of the early part of this century. We will be seen as showing a shocking lack of faith in what will have proved to be (by then) the essential lifestyle for human health and self-development and for taking on responsibility for the health of this already 'human damaged' planet.  

A Carnivore's Christmas

1879

A new song that can be sung to the tune of The Lumberjack

I’m a carnivore, and I don’t care for

New Age food, vegetarian fare,

Kentucky Fried Chicken and six Big Macs, and

Flesh to suck and bones to crack.

I eat what I like and I like what I eat,

A lifetime’s diet of flesh and meat

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

I drink and eat and have my fill of

Animal food and fish and fowl,

Just eat all day and eat more still, and

Belch and fart from an upset bowel,

D’gesting, resting, here I lay,

Filled to the brim with animal prey.

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

I got my hen to drop an egg, and I

Had it fried on toast,

Then I wrung her neck, ah, what the heck,

I had the old girl roast.

I made a sauce for that old chook,

And had it fricassee.

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

The butcher’s shop is high in prices,

Carcasses and bacon slices,

Bought some gammon made from pig

To have it with my toast and a hard-boiled egg.

Fried that bacon, but sorry to say,

It’s thick and soft and a nasty grey.

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

In a field of cows as I drove past, in a

Daisy field wiv long green grass,

And in that field they can’t go far, from

A barbed wire fence and the abattoir,

They’ll die tomorrow, come what may,

Sold to McDonalds, no delay,

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

And as for the fish in the river and the sea,

Hooked and netted for you and me,

In slippery piles on greasy decks,

They suffocate, but what the heck,

Fry ‘em up nice in the same old way

But a bit too toxic, so they say.

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

Now I got a stomach, the biggest in town,

Full of food if I can keep it down,

But the trouble is I feel so ill

The doctor gave me a special pill,

To help digest and defecate, all the

Drink I drunk and the food I ate

And a ho-ho-ho, a hey-ey-ey,

It’s made me what I am today.

And now it’s Christmas fun and joy, for

All the kids both girl and boy

But feed them rice and lentil stew

And sure, they’ll scream for barbeque

They want their turkey with red sauce

And chips with everything of course

So it’s ho-ho-ho, a hey-hey-hey

We carnivores are here to stay.

Greater Good Revisited

1877:

Vegans argue that to ignore animal issues is dangerous. In body terms, it’s like ignoring the diagnosis of a deadly illness, carrying on as usual, hoping it will go away. It’s the same with the food we eat, hoping to get away with it, thinking we can breathe in the fullness of consumer atmosphere, without it having any ill effects.

If we want our society to be a strong force for good on the planet, then we have to set personal standards. We have to let our enthusiasm for the greater good move freely with the other great forces of life - altruism and optimism.

Altruism is probably not very much different to optimism, since both combine good intention and a determination to bring about a satisfying outcome. When we set out in the right direction, and it seems to be working well for ourselves and for others, we tend to feel optimistic; perhaps optimism is self-pleasure directed by an altruistic urge to be useful. When it works, it recharges energy, and it feels like experiencing pleasure without the bad after-effects. Being involved with others, for others’ benefit, often results in reciprocation, that is, beneficial mutual exchange.

Optimism shows up like a light. Others can’t help but see it, especially when it’s not showing-off but simply going about our daily business with a positive intent. And that needn’t be anything special, since we can all enjoy being constructive when it might involve some self-discipline. Just as lifeguards love to be on the beach to save lives when people get into difficulties, we all like being useful and needed. Whole relationships can surely find a sound foundation in this same pleasure-service principle.

As we develop new and sometimes not-so-easy-to-install habits, for example in setting up a vegan lifestyle, the main driver is usually optimism; we are looking forward to a better set of habits based on give and take. When we act optimistically, the best habits just fall into place. Maybe, like kids settling in on their first day at school, new habits are a bit shaky at first. But it’s optimism that gets us over the hump, preparing us for the repair-journey ahead. Perhaps we instinctively know that new habits are preparing us for what we’re going to have to get used to.

Consistent Ethics

1876:

Most people think that we can only be effective if we have specialist knowledge, but what expertise is needed to know that something is as wrong as the animal business is wrong, and to steer clear of it? When something isn’t right we know it in our gut. It comes from intuition and inborn values. A familiar comment from new vegans is, “Why didn’t I see it before?”

         

From my own experience, as soon as I tap into instinct, things become clearer, and then I’m more likely to gravitate towards ‘the greater good’, if only because it seems so obvious.

What counts, I think, is optimism and faith. And you can’t sustain much of that if you are hanging around the gates of the abattoir, figuratively speaking. Following convention, without questioning it, eating food which we haven’t examined ethically, doesn’t bode well for the future.

         

When any of us choose to NOT buy something that we want, stopping ourselves for ethical reasons, we making a statement about self-control - controlling our cravings and desires. We say, for instance with animal food, that we shouldn’t eat what shouldn’t even exist - namely foods associated with enslaved and executed animals.

         

We’re saying that what is obviously wrong has to be off-limits. Even if we are exemplary human beings in what else we do, by setting an example in one field but not in another, equally important field, we lose overall credibility. It’s the same problem we have in any of our personal advancements, whether in our career, lifestyle, relationships or spiritual progress. By neglecting any one vital issue, simply because it doesn’t suit our convenience, we introduce an incompleteness into our life, and that surely leads to double standards and self-dissatisfaction.

In the end, if we can’t muster sufficient personal power to change any faulty parts of our own daily existence, then we come across as someone without personal authority, without which we can’t fight corruption or hope to change the system we live in.

An End to Pessimism

1875:

For over sixty years, vegan activists have been forming teams of animal advocates who are themselves boycotting the animal-abuse industry. What we do is done in the spirit of optimism and giving mutual support, to help overcome the ingrained pessimistic belief that whatever we do won’t even scratch the surface.

We do what we can do - we change to eco-friendly light globes, recycle newspapers, support organic farming if we can afford to and, most importantly, eat plant-based foods. Everything we do in this way is valuable, but if we think that what we do won’t make any appreciable difference to the world, then we’ve doomed our efforts before we’ve even started. If we can drop our pessimism we’re more likely to avert the endgame of Earth’s downfall.

If optimism is to gain strength, to become something more than just a nice idea, it has to be substantial enough to carry us over the tough spots. It mustn’t be based on personal success but on people-power that is focused on working for the greater good. The greatest need is for us to put our own interests second. Then nothing can possibly go wrong.

A Clean Sweep

1874:

Today, despite the difficulties put up by the omnivore world, there is already a growing number of people who genuinely do care and who believe they’ll stop the great destructive juggernaut before it swallows us whole.

The animal rights activist wants to see things change, so that our species will be able to surge forward. This is what vegans are optimistic for. Even though we are surrounded by cynics and pessimists who don’t see a bright future ahead, we optimists do.

         

If we were confident of recovery, we’d be more inclined to support causes like veganism and want to be involved in their progress. Any great cause can inspire a new fashion and in doing so, mop up obsolete systems and hard-nosed attitudes overnight. Along with the crushing pessimism which goes with it.

Investing in Vegan Principle

1873:

If the number one fear for most of us is killer disease and degenerative illness, then number two must be fear of energy-loss. The energy that can keep deterioration away is almost hoarded.

         

Energy equates with health, and any energy spent therefore must be justified and purposeful. It isn’t something we use up for no reason. For what seems to be an ‘unsupported’ cause, like veganism, people may not want to invest their energy in it if they don’t think it stands a chance of coming to anything. If we see no ‘me-advantage’ in the vegan deal, perhaps we’re likely to be stingy with any energy we put into it.

If we take up any major cause, we probably want to believe that it will make a difference, otherwise our efforts will be wasted. And there’s the rub. We’re all afraid of backing the wrong horse (horrible expression) and no one wants to be associated with a bunch of losers.

         

It’s a gamble going vegan. We gamble with energy, time and money. We gamble on very long-odds, that is if we are viewing it from any personal advantages it may give us.

         

Taking up veganism as an idea is hard enough, but to engage our minds in it, invest in it, expect so much of it or think we are squandering our energy on promoting it … perhaps we say to our selves, “What a waste of time”.

         

Having faith in this one single idea, that it may solve the problems of the world, might seem like a big ask. Which is why we need to focus on the bigger picture and understand how many problems have their roots in human violence. For there’s no better example than our carnivorous eating habits.

They're only Animals

1872:

It’s understandable, with pessimism being in vogue, that we’re beating-ourselves-up with shame and guilt about the mess we’re in, and our inability to clean it up. Personal shame is all turned inwards. We make ourselves forget about some of the trickier world issues. If we can’t get a clear run at major global problems because we think they are too complicated and we are too insignificant to make a difference, we give up trying. Since we believe everything is out of our control anyway, we accumulate a list of non-urgent issues, to be avoided. Since animals have ‘nothing to do with our human problems’, why go to all the inconvenience of taking on a vegan lifestyle in the first place? “They’re only animals”.

         

Animal consumers are practising members of an animal-abusing society. The ‘Kill-Club’ is present everywhere on the planet. And since so many world problems can trace their origins back to animal exploitation, it’s as if the human is umbilically linked to the very problems waiting to be solved.

         

Once we can see the part we each play in this, assuming we are omnivores, we have a jumping-off point, from which we can start to move forward. But as soon as we do we often decide to pull back. We only go half way – eaters of red meat switch to eating chicken and fish, the vegetarians stop at meat but make up for it by using lots of dairy. Neither gets close enough to the central problem of animal cruelty, to be an effective advocate for the animals.

Vegans, however, can be true advocates, true to themselves and true to the interests of the animals. But ‘true’ is not always enough for us. When we find that no one is taking what we say seriously, we either go on the defensive, or let everyone know that we are ‘vegan’, and why they should be too.

         

Inevitably, we get a bad reaction, and this surprises and disappoints us. And then we feel frustrated, and then we go for broke, with anger, invective and disapproval. But still, nothing really changes.

         

Nothing can change if we are focusing on the wrongs of animal-attacking, when we then use another sort of attack on those who disagree with us. Perhaps we shouldn’t be phased at all by disagreement, because we’ve at least stimulated a reaction, and introduced some new thinking. When we’re not agreed with, as long as we don’t come across as unlikeable people, or too weak to hold our position, then it’s more likely that something of what we are saying will sink in, be it ever so subliminally.

Lining Powerful Pockets

1871:

When we get bogged down in discussions about the rights and wrongs of using animals for food and clothing, our best fall-back position is “the cruelty of it all”. This is the ‘yuk’ factor which makes everyone feel uncomfortable. It’s the ugliness of animal farming, the convention of it, that vegans are persuading people to move away from. So, in our defence of animal rights, we can consider ‘no-more-cruelty’ as the core of our argument.

How sad it is that we part so readily with our dollars, and hand them over to those who perform all this cruelty on animals. If we stop making the rich richer by buying none of their unethical products from them, and if enough people do that, the rich will go out of business (or at least, shift into more humane businesses).

         

It’s our finest hour when we convince people to spend their money more wisely, by no longer, ever, buying unethical stuff. But the market place has a powerful influence. They have the big money to promote their goods and make them look good, and in the case of foods, taste good.

In a supermarket survey I did, covering about seven and a half thousand individual item choices of shelf products, three thousand of them were either partly or wholly made from animals.

By breaking the ‘animal cycle’, another much more positive cycle takes over. By ‘going vegan’ we begin both a personal transformation as well as a global recovery.

By not breaking with old habits, by continuing shopping for items with animal derivatives, we ally ourselves with some of the worst destroyers on the planet. By remaining as omnivores, we are forced to believe that veganism will make no appreciable difference. It’s as if the idea is too way-out, and that it’s never going to catch on. It seems too rigid, too isolating, and too bleak. Inevitably that sort of not-worth-doing-belief makes everyone feel powerless, which is just how the powerful want us to feel.

Reconciliation and Satyagraha

1870:

Edited by CJ Tointon

Playing the 'blame game' is popular with some vegans and Animal Industries and their consumers make an obvious and easy target. Why not give them some curry? Whilst apportioning blame helps to release our anger and frustration, there isn't much to be gained from it; especially when we gang up on the vast majority who don't get what we're on about anyway. 

There's an animal holocaust taking place right now and it looks likely to continue - unless there's a fundamental change in human attitude and human nature. If we herbivores exacerbate the situation by making enemies of our detractors, it's the animals who will suffer. Our sights should be set on constructing a better future by transforming human nature and coaxing people into changing their attitudes. We should be inspiring them to become animal guardians rather than animal exploiters.

After the apartheid era in South Africa, there was a real need to move on towards reconciliation and away from the idea of revenge. It's revenge which makes us momentarily enjoy the mistakes and inadequacies of those who aren't like us with a determination to bring them to account for their wrongdoings. But this is where true compassion can make a breakthrough. It's hard to imagine how one can be reconciled to the violence condoned by meatheads. Theirs is an apartheid that separates humans from non-humans, excusing the crimes against the animals because they are so 'useful'. Their harshness is made worse for being so cowardly-safe. And yet, despite all odds, a reconciliation with meatheads is what vegans need to concentrate on. 

We need patience and compassion. Vegans need to be patient with non-vegans and non-vegans need to feel compassion towards animals. It's a personal thing concerning the twin principles of non-violence and non-judgment. If progress is to be made, vegans need to take the lead. We need to be at peace with our detractors, not excusing what they do, but not voicing so much disapproval that the other side simply clams up and refuses to listen. Our lead is about making sure we are on friendly terms whilst discussing matters of ethical differences of opinion.

Once we see each other making an attempt to accommodate the expectations of the other, we are in the process of restructuring our habits; whether it's their eating habits, or our habit of endless condemnation. We'll each have moved past the accusing stage and be on the road to greater mutual enlightenment. This will involve the repair of relationships and ingrained attitudes. Once there's movement at this level (however slow) there's a chance for optimism. Without this level of optimism, we will continue to see each other as not worth bothering about. Vegans need to get over any judgement based disapproval of non-vegans. Aborting on others is a trait common amongst vegans who feel that they hold the moral high ground.

How we behave towards each other reflects how far we've come along the road towards non-violent living. We have to repeat to ourselves the base mantra concerning the 'force of love' as in the principle of satyagraha. Vegans have taken the first brave stand against the primitivity of exploiting the exploitable. From this position we need to realign our attitudes and set the example we expect of others - to always be working towards the greater good.

All of us will be judged by future generations. If we don't do something about animal slavery - now - history will claim we were an uncaring generation of people. They'll accuse us (quite rightly) of being too casual about a potentially catastrophic problem. We'll have no excuses. The records will show that we knew everything we needed to know to make the necessary changes. Becoming vegan is our springboard into a deeper understanding of the true message of non-violence and the 'force of truth'. Not only must we work to free enslaved animals, we must persuade the seemingly unpersuadable. With such a vast majority still bogged down in speciesist attitudes, we won't make any progress if we continue to express disapproval and value judgments of their conduct.

Cool Fashion

1869:

Vegans want people to change their attitude towards using animals, but we don’t just want a local change amongst family and friends, we want it amongst LOTS of people - we need to be aiming for change on a grand scale.   

People will change if they think it’s in their best interests. For example, they’ll be very willing to change to keep abreast of fashion - no one likes to be out-of-fashion. And they don’t want to be seen as anything but ‘normal’ - normalcy helps us hold down a job and keeps a certain reputation within our social group. If we want to seem ‘cool’, we’ll keep in with the latest hairstyles or clothing. We’ll try to maintain peer acceptance.

         

When it comes to a radical change of lifestyle, like going vegan, it might seem like a promise of social suicide, to voluntarily act in such a different way to almost all the people we know. We might hope to persuade our friends to follow suit, but they too will be afraid to move away from the predominant fashion – in this case, by no longer eating stuff made from animals. To go vegan means, at first, that we do risk going it alone, the aim being that we might eventually lead a new fashion. That requires some bravery. Ultimately, though, it needs a cool head, to strike out into the unknown territory of new fashion (as in, leading fashion not following it).

This is relatively easy with a new hairstyle but with a whole different eating regime, based on ethical principles, it calls for some considerable strength of character, to be inspirational enough to bring people across, for them to change in the same way, for the same reasons.

         

How do we inspire? We know ‘shaming’ won’t get people to change, but what might move them is their fear of falling behind the current fashion. Once people feel that there is a trend towards compassionate eating, they might want to get in early, to be ahead of the bandwagon. To get them to wear shoes that aren’t made of leather may be successful when the wearing of leather shoes is considered in much the same way as the wearing of furs is today.

         

If we try to use ‘guilt’ to get people to change, they’ll probably try to oblige us, at first. A new idea is always attractive until the drawbacks start to surface. So, change happens, but it’s unlikely to be a permanent change. In one’s private world, in a world of free-choice, the novelty of change soon wears off, the ‘new habit’ weaken back to nothing.

However, if the ‘coming fashion’ is overlaid with ethics it might have a better chance of escaping the gravitational pull of convention. In which case we may need to have faith in the strongest card in our hand, and wait to see if ethics will become the catalyst for major change.

Theory Versus Practice

1868:

I want to let people know how they’re being manipulated into buying ‘yummy’ foods and wearing shoes and clothing made from animals. Of course, in order to push my point home, I’d love to talk more about people’s ‘addiction’ to these foods and clothing items, but that would touch on a very raw nerve.

         

So, that’s my difficulty. How do I explain my reasons for being optimistic without mentioning boycotting? It’s almost impossible to explain the remedy for pessimism without giving offence. People make great daily use of all the stuff I’d be suggesting they stop using. I could talk about saving money by not wasting it in buying rubbish. I could talk about the health benefits of eating only from the plant world. But I’d always have to come back to the crimes committed by the Animal Industries and, by implication, the consumer’s crime in supporting them. The very mention of ‘crime’ would win me no friends. I realise it would distance me from non-vegans, and I don’t want to be seen as a shame-merchant, because that’s not going to help change peoples’ attitudes. But how to embark on this subject, with any serious purpose, without seeming to take the moral high ground?

It would be wonderful if it were like any other subject, where one’s opinion wasn’t reflected in one’s daily actions. But this isn’t something about which an opinion can be changed or modified so easily – it has to be linked to daily habits of eating and wearing, of what we buy and what we have in our cupboards and wardrobes. You might not agree with animal cruelty but if you comply with the way things come into our possession, then how can you do anything but be a supporter of what you, in theory, disagree with?

The Antidote

1867:

There’s a general air of pessimism in our Western societies (and elsewhere, no doubt). To fix our collective pessimistic views, vegans argue that the switch can be flipped by making a stand against the profiteers, boycotting a lot of the unethical stuff they’re selling, and finding ethical alternative product. This may sound simplistic perhaps, but it’s a great start. By highlighting what is most destructive in our society, identifying it in our own lives and leaving it behind us, we can then feel some optimism, that there’s a future worth having and passing on.

In our quest to continually seek pleasure and avoid pain, we let ourselves become submissive to those who run the show. We work for them, spend the money we earn from them, to pay for the goods sold by them. If we are an unthinking consumer, we comply with exploitative production methods because we don’t know any other way to conduct our lives. We give support to the very worst systems. We keep quiet about what we wouldn’t normally approve of. We feel pessimistic not only because what others are doing but because we can’t seem to move out of the rut we’re stuck in.

Once we drop our own participation in all of this, we can drop our pessimism. There might be some personal cost at first, when we have to avoid buying or doing things we might have once enjoyed. But it’s a small price to pay, to reverse compliance with the powerful and rich, and help to reverse our society’s inherent destructiveness. And nothing more destructive in our society than the animal trade, the enslavement of animals, the killing and eating of them and their various products.

Vegans realise that by letting go of so many popular food and clothing items (and having such a clear ethical reason for doing so) we pit ourselves against most people’s attitudes concerning ‘the use of animals’. The drabness of conventional attitude, the cruelty most people are associated with, all of this can be reversed by a simple boycott of unethical products (and there are a lot of them out there!!). As difficult as this may seem, it’s almost certainly the antidote to the rife pessimism, apathy and ethical spinelessness amongst our fellow humans.

Optimism

1866:

Are we generally optimistic about the future? Do we have reason to be? I’d say most people see nothing positive in store for the future. They’re pessimistic, and perhaps that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy - if enough people see the future in that negative way, our collective consciousness will fall into line and we’ll self-destruct. Maybe you and I won’t be around to see it happen, and in many ways this is the cause of so much of today’s selfish, destructive and violent behaviour.

Is this the source of our ‘comfortable pessimism’ then? Is this the reason why we don’t care about repairing things properly now? If so, this is the classic opposite of altruism. And who’d want to see themselves in such a light? It’s so unattractive. Is it that we want to avoid pain, and want to seek pleasure? Is this why we say, “Make hay while the sun shines?” The thought of tightening our belts and imposing personal disciplines isn’t a pleasant idea. But what if we could turn that attitude into pleasure – the pleasure deriving from being useful and repairing and restructuring.

If we aren’t that creative, if all we can imagine are the pleasures we are used to now, then we might simply prefer to coast along. But in reality, with so much information available, we can’t help but see the warnings about systems-collapse, everywhere. Our ecosystems, our economy and our ethics are obviously going downhill rapidly. Most of us realise that something has to be done. To ignore all the warnings would seem crazy. But specifically, what can any of us do? We might argue that if we waste a lot of energy trying to repair the unrepairable, our efforts will come to nothing, and won’t be appreciated by people who come after us. And what’s more, they’ll say we didn’t address our problems because we “didn’t care enough”, and we’d have trouble explaining why that was an unfair assessment of us. This would be the ultimate put-down.

How would they ever know what we went through? How could they guess why we didn’t feel optimistic enough to strike out?         

         

Out of self-pity, every older generation asks the succeeding generation for forgiveness, even though at the time we wouldn’t have had the clarity of hindsight. And every new generation blames the last for being irresponsible when, from the future perspective, it is quite clear what we should have done. Our successors, in turn, leave the same legacy to the next generation, and are subsequently judged, and so it goes on, without there being any substantial change in the fundamentals of human nature.

         

And if there’s something one would want to change in our world today, wouldn’t it be ‘human nature’, in the form of a transformation of our deeply rooted attitudes? And I’m thinking particularly of our speciesism which, like racism is today, will be something quite incomprehensible to those who come later.

         

So, today we ‘live now, pay later’, preferring that any payment-to-be-made will come after we’re gone from this world. Could it be this which has brought about our infamous irresponsibility - not caring about a world fifty years, a hundred years hence? And, if so, then that’s surely the ugliest face of pessimism, and the heaviest weight we carry. This cynical outlook on life signifies only one thing - an inability to see how things could be.

         

How do we envisage what is going to come about? And if we are pessimists, how heavily will that bear down on us? Is our inability to deal with our own overwhelming personal problems making us incapable of addressing global problems? Do we each ignore the significance of our own obvious shortfalls, simply because in addressing them we fear worse pessimism, preventing us from seeing beyond our own reality?

Have we in fact almost given up? Are we mesmerised by one dead-end thought, that in this day and age (of huge, powerful, political corporations making decisions for us and doing so many things we disagree with) that there’s nothing we-the-ordinary-people can do to stop them?

Could it be that we are so caught up in a world of destruction, that we don’t even look the world’s future? And that, because we can’t stop the powerful people in our society who are SO destructive?

Surely, everything changes when we personally boycott everything we don’t agree with. Others’ slowness shouldn’t provide us with an excuse to not get on with our own programme-of-boycotting.

How Vegans are Perceived

1865:

How is it that some of us are passionate advocates for animals and some people are completely indifferent to them? How is it that to us, vegan principles seem so enlightened and meat-eating so primitive? But then how is it that meat-eaters are so confident and feel so sophisticated for using animal products that they don’t feel fazed by veganism?

         

There are totally different attitudes and lifestyles amongst omnivores, and yet we all live alongside each other. The fact is that our differences aren’t prioritised - there are so many important things to be different about. Vegans probably aren’t that much brighter or kinder or healthier than the animal-eaters, but we do have more self-discipline because we do so much more boycotting. And, creatively speaking, we are busier discovering alternatives to animal foods, and products, and new ways of meal-making. We’re more used to thinking about ethical issues, and we do more questioning and arguing of our case. This gives us a strong point of view and an ability to sustain it. Even as a tiny minority within a predominantly omnivorous population, our strength and sense-of-right could intimidate those who hold opposite views. We have a double job, to allay their fears and to guide them towards a whole new lifestyle, without seeming to them that we think ourselves ‘better-than’.

Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

1864

Edited by CJ Tointon

Have you ever tried to change habit patterns? Had a new idea and tried to put it into practice, only to realise the idea comes with strings attached? Weighing the pros and cons, we might be reluctant to change when it's something we've been doing all our lives. Change brings fear. We start to think: "Why have I only just had this idea?" "Perhaps it's not a very good idea after all."

Maybe the new idea is to consider altering what we eat - for ethical reasons. Ethics might not have been associated with our food before. Maybe we've never met anyone who wasn't eating the same food as us. Maybe we've never had any conversations with people questioning food from animals, or that not using this sort of food is relevant to life quality. Perhaps the reason why we've never had this idea before is that we've never had occasion to think of these 'food' animals as sentient beings. The cow, chicken or pig on some farm, a fish in the sea - what are they to us? We don't communicate or connect with them.  We think they're all just the fruit of some food tree. An apple falls and we take it.

We accept animal-based foods as 'normal'; just as we accept having cars to transport us or schools to educate our kids. It's part of our present-day human society. Just as it is 'normal' to have 'pets' in our homes. These animals (usually dogs or cats) are docile, friendly companions. A wild, undomesticated animal in our home would be impossible to control. When it comes to animals, there's a dividing line between the civilised and uncivilised. We are brought up to believe that pigs and chickens are for eating and cows are for eating and milking. They are only relevant to us as part of a food chain. Having responsibility for or association with these 'uncivilised creatures' is a long stretch for the imagination.

However, most of us have enough anthropomorphic imagination to sympathise with animals. We know that animals are suffering on farms to such an extent that it is plausible to believe they're experiencing something akin to what humans would feel when undergoing prolonged deprivation in an incarcerated state. This sympathy for them can develop into empathy and this is the key difference between the sensitivity of vegans and the insensitivity of omnivores. Somehow, we vegans are blessed (or cursed) with a sensitivity so strong that we have no alternative but to make radical alterations to our lifestyle and diets - for ethical reasons.

There's one pleasure nearly everyone knows - the warmth and comfort of having a heated, pressurised water supply. Who hasn't stood under a warm shower and felt the pleasure of it? By turning on the tap we experience a no-shock transition from being cold and uncomfortable to being warm and comfortable. But there comes a time when the tap has to be turned off. The water stops and we feel the outside world beckoning - sometimes not such a comfortable pleasure. We probably wouldn't turn off the tap at all, if we didn't have to grapple with daily reality to continue our purpose of working for a better future - which we ourselves may not even be a part of. And if reincarnation is plausible to you, a future we are going to be part of. For better or worse, maybe we are so much the products of 'normal' living that some important things slip under our radar. 

Our primary concern used to be for our immediate connections - family or the people of our village. These people were our whole world. Today it's much broader. We have a connection to and an empathy with a much wider family. As our consciousness has developed, so too has our understanding of what's involved in relationships. We may have trouble with our spouses and children, but they still remain our chief concern. Less so are those living on the outside. 

To view strangers and animals (even things) as worthy of our greater consideration, would probably mean making substantial attitude changes which we might regard as almost impossible. And that's the funny thing. We magnify out of all proportion the difficulties involved with such changes because we try to second-guess what it would feel like for us. But those of us who have experienced change (either voluntarily or by force of circumstance) are accustomed to taking on the new. We discover that our fears were groundless and that changes of this order don't stop us being in control of our lives. In fact, daring to move away from convention might prove to be an exciting adventure rather than a punishment.

Omnivores and vegans alike are locked into convention in one important way - an attachment to food. It's a big part of our daily lives. Whether we're eating it, shopping for it, or earning money to pay for it, food is of paramount interest to all of us. We have to have a very good reason to change what we like to eat. The motivation for making (or not making) this particular change is strong in some of us and weak in others. Hence some people become vegan and some remain unchanged. 

Vegans Facing Opposition

1863:

I know that my feeling of empathy and compassion for animals is right. Of course it is, because it’s anti-slavery. It feels right in the same way as non-violence feels right. I’ve never heard anyone denounce vegan principle or say that it was in any way wrong.

But the subject agitates people. They show plainly that they don’t want to discuss it. They don’t like me voicing my opinion on animal matters in general. And if I attack their views, if my arguments get at all heated, I know I’ve gone too far and then I wish I’d withdrawn earlier.

         

I’m always having to remind myself that, in a free world, each person is entitled to their own opinion and it’s ridiculous to wage war. As soon as we do the shutters come down. We need to take care to NOT antagonise for the sake of it. But just as important, we don’t need to make a rod for our own backs. I don’t need everyone to agree with me, and I don’t need to take on every red neck I meet. I don’t need to parry every joke made at my expense, and by the same token I mustn’t feel intimidated by what others say, even if they’re powerful political figures or corporations.

         

Vegans can be confident simply by virtue of the fact that we are vegan. In the end, our own example is the most powerful weapon we have. If we start to get aggressive it means we’re afraid of defeat. And we should know well enough that we needn’t be afraid of anyone, since our arguments are water-tight and it seems that no one has the courage to take any of us on in serious debate.

         

As far as I know, this is the only subject which non-vegans don’t dare to talk about in public. 

The Animal Issue

1862:

There’s a great gulf between people’s attitudes to animals. The difference lies between the cute, cuddly ones and the ‘edible’ ones. Until a few decades ago, no one thought much about it - farm animals were just different types of animals, which we needed to eat to stay alive. Then the myth was exploded – it was discovered that animal protein was NOT essential to good nutrition. Then the rest of the story came tumbling out, about how animals were being treated on farms and in abattoirs.

         

In the 1940s and 50s the idea of a vegan diet was being tested and found to be not only safe but healthy - plant-based nutrition was coming of age. By the early eighties, The Animals Film and the book Animal Liberation were released, and together they had a shocking effect. They certainly shocked me. I realised for the first time how much our food relied on animals, and what actually happened to the animals reared for food. Some of us were galvanised into action at the time. The information seeped into public consciousness and suddenly everyone seemed to be talking about it. And then, surprisingly, it all came to a standstill. At least it did in Australia.

There was a lot of discussion of the situation in Animal Rights publications, but nowhere much else. In the general community, there has been a reluctance to face up to animal issues - probably because people who eat animals feel too uncomfortable to think about it too deeply. In private, if there’s any talk of it at all, it centres on health issues rather than the ethics of imprisoning and killing animals. People like their animal foods too much to discuss the rights and wrongs with any sort of intellectual rigour. In any supermarket, there are probably thousands of choices of animal-based edibles. In any one day, the meals and snacks we’re likely to be eating probably all contain some animal ingredient, because it adds richness, flavour and bulk to foods. The food industry has worked hard to make us fall in love with their products and thus to crave the animal content. And since we now want it so badly, we’re reluctant to discuss the subject seriously.

Those who are against the ‘eating of animals’ are usually the butt of jokes. Those who are likely to want to talk about animal issues are usually avoided or discouraged from even bringing up the subject in conversation. The subject is generally tabooed or joked about as being unrealistic.

Starting to Pay Back

1861: 

Once, when we were younger, when the world was less damaged, abundance seemed to be everlasting. Oceans were clean and teemed with fish. It was incomprehensible that whole river systems could ever die. Land was fertile. Our surroundings were attractive. It was unimaginable that the world could be turned into a slum. But over a relatively short period of time, with each person saving their own skin, we’ve nothing of lasting value to pass on. The damage is done, and we haven’t been able to stop ourselves from continually taking, and taking more and taking faster.

         

Instead of learning from our mistakes, the human race has refined cruelty, increased slavery, wrecked forests, polluted the air and land, and generally become addicted to an increasingly unsustainable lifestyle. Now we’re in all sorts of trouble.

         

From a state of plenty, we’ve built up a debt burden. Our collective debts won’t easily be paid off. But we must try to make a start. It isn’t impossible, surely?

         

Debt mentality gave us the false impression of being richer than we really are and, like any bubble, it has to burst. That realisation is dawning on us, slowly at first, then gathering speed as we take more and more for granted. Now, with less clean air, less fresh water, less bird song in the morning, we’re learning the big lesson about debt – that it seems so benign at first but as it consolidates it becomes inevitably toxic. It’s a bit like animal food itself or anything else we’re not entitled to - it kills the best in us.

Inherited Debt

1860:

Debts affect the generation which follows. Young people wake up to the mess left them by their elders. They have no trouble putting two and two together to see what has happened and why. They’re familiar with self-interest, they understand how forests are being destroyed, they see how animals are being factory-farmed. They realise why poor nations are being made to starve. And they know we older ones are to blame for perpetuating all this destruction and cruelty and waste, for the sake of enjoying our own private, advantaged lives.

         

I imagine the young get quite angry when they think about what they’ve inherited. But to be completely constructive about the mess we older ones have left them, we need to look at human nature in general. We need to see what it has deteriorated into, but then to realise how it really hasn’t changed much over the centuries. It’s just that much more obvious now.

         

Unless we want the next generation to do exactly what we’ve done, we must stop adding to the collective debt. Unless we want today’s kids to spoil their own health, ethics and environment, as we are doing, we can’t afford to sit around passively, twiddling our thumbs. If we do, they will continue stealing as we did, until there is nothing left to take. The first and most constructive step we can take is to become vegan and encourage them to follow suit - it will have a dramatic effect on their health and the legacy of non-violence they leave to their own progeny.

Advantage-taking

1859:

The example set by young people who ‘go vegan’, is noticed by those near them, whether it’s at work or at home. The general effect is that the omnivore can be embarrassed by the self-discipline shown by those who aren’t omnivores. Their example is perhaps a most powerful influence on the entrenched omnivore. They might take their own first steps by considering three things: their habits, their attitudes and their capacity for altruism. The impact of veganism on the omnivore emphasises the majority’s upholding of Society’s animal-exploiting conventions.

         

Veganism is just one idea that counters the wrongness of stealing from the powerless. Colonial powers steal from poorer nations to enrich themselves, and humans in general steal from animals for much the same reasons. And isn’t it true that our thefts come back to haunt us? Once-powerless countries grow up and strengthen themselves, and then commercially begin to outstrip their former colonial masters who’ve now become a danger to their economies. Similarly, powerless animals used for food now become dangerous to their masters, but indirectly, via their impact on human health and human conscience.

There are harsh consequences to stealing and taking advantage of the weak.

Greater Good can be self-benefitting too

1858:

The criticism of both young and older people, for their/our indulgent lifestyle, seems partially true but partially misplaced. Older people might argue that the trouble with the world today is young people’s profligacy. But they, in turn, argue that the trouble today is with the older people, for causing all the major world problems. And so, whoever we are, we pass the buck.

For me as a cyclist, I blame the car driver, for me as a wage slave I blame the rich, and so on. But really it’s a whole complex of issues that rise to the surface to make us cranky. We feel impotent because we are part of the collective mind-set. We drive cars and we fly in planes that pollute our world. What can any individual do to stop it apart from not driving or flying? In today’s world how can we NOT take part without disadvantaging ourselves? I know if I tighten my belt and act responsibly I’ll feel resentment that others aren’t doing likewise.

         

Perhaps the one way each of us can get started (doing the right thing) is by acting constructively whilst avoiding resentment – that is, taking a stand without making a rod for our own backs – that is, doing something for the greater good which also happens to benefit ourselves. 

         

Which brings us back to the need to save the environment, our health, the animals, the economy and most importantly save our own sense of meaningfulness - by going vegan.

By not exploiting animals, by eating plant-based foods and by wearing non-animal clothing and shoes, we do something to make us and our world feel better. It helps pay back the debt we’ve collectively run up. By boycotting very many of the unethical products on the market, we can affect the collective lifestyle habit. And that might appeal to young people who don’t see how, otherwise, they can be constructive with their own lives. They almost certainly do want to build a future. They most certainly do not have to adopt the ruined pleasure dome they’ve inherited from their elders.

         

By going vegan, young people can show, by this one major gesture, how individual action can start the ball rolling.

You just can't win!

1857:

If vanity is the big trap in life, you’d think after some decades of life we’d learn about it and stop ‘doing’ it. All I’m saying here is that for older people, who could be setting an example for the young, if they want to avoid neuroses concerning their lost youth and missed opportunities, they might need to spend less time in the mirror and stop running up their ‘vanity debts’. We should get used to paying-back as we go along, doing without some things, exercising a little self-restraint plus a touch of responsibility-taking. If we don’t go that way then we risk not being able to restore balance later in life, and then it all ending in tears. Not our own tears but those of the many animals we destroy to satisfy this ‘me-looking’.

         

I can remember starting out in adult life eager to experience abundance and enjoy effortless, sensory experiences. But as I got older, and taking all this for granted, I tried to recapture some of the pleasure of past years, only to find that that pleasure required more investment. I was losing my capacity for pursuing it. And as age creeps on and our health goes and then our strength, we have to measure what we do - we no longer run just for fun. Our body creaks so much we can’t even run for a bus! If you speak with very old people they’ll say how important it is to ‘keep your health’, because once lost it’s very hard to get it back. For them, so they say, there’s pain every day. Whereas younger people don’t get much body pain and, whenever they do, it isn’t so ominous - health isn’t an issue because they haven’t lost it yet. But they do know that good health and good looks go together, and energy, sexuality and a slim, athletic body also go together, and this somewhat pulls them into line. But up against this there’s a powerful need to extract from life everything possible.

         

On an everyday basis, we try to excite the taste buds and satisfy food cravings. So here, on these familiar battle grounds, we tear ourselves apart, torn between pleasure and good sense, stuffing our faces with good-tasting but body-destroying foods, and it becomes such an all-consuming occupation that we forget that the rest of the world is going on around us. Many are starving.

         

Here in the West we are so privileged and have such opportunities to live life NOW, and that’s great! But in the process we forget about the need to pursue ‘the greater good’. It’s a shame about that because something vital is spoiled in us because of that, and it’s likely we deserve to be criticised for living an indulgent lifestyle.

         

Huh! You just can’t win. But was it ever just about winning?

In Praise of the Mirror

1856:

We live for pleasure and acceptance, young and old. Appearance is important, for young people especially, cock and hen dance that it is. Fashion is important and particularly for women whose shoes have to be right. But for vegan women, there’s often not much to choose from fashion-wise, and that puts them in a very difficult position with footwear. 

On the general matter of shoes, when I look around, downwards, I don’t see many vegan feet. But I do see lots of animal-based shoes. A ‘contents’ label either isn’t on the product or it doesn’t occur to us to look for one. If you’re vegan you certainly do.

There isn’t much fashion in non-leatherwear, since it’s an expensive business designing shoes for profit, relying on footwear made with leather, that will fascinate and sell. Whether it’s hardy hiking boots or fashionwear, it doesn’t cross people’s minds to think about the material used to make shoes. They don’t give a second thought to this product; specifically concerning its abattoir origin. Skin that becomes leather is not something left over from a for-food animal; in many cases, an animal’s hide is more valuable to the shoe industry than the carcass is to the meat industry.

So, it comes to this - we’re more likely to go for attractive or hard-wearing shoes than consider the ethics of leather. Perhaps we’ve stopped eating animal foods for health reasons but haven’t ruled out wearing the skins or wools or silks of animals, because we know the use of these by-products won’t adversely affect our health. We don’t give leather a second thought.

         

Even with health itself we may consider that the eating of junk food is okay because, especially when we’re young, ‘health’ isn’t an issue. Kids are generally fit as fiddles. Their bodies are strong and vibrant enough to build powerful, protective immune systems, to fight off any of the killer diseases. Health might be about looking good to others, but otherwise it’s taken for granted. Which is why such phrases as “Life is for living” and “Live Now” are heard in a lot of advertising commentary.

Life can be exciting for young people. And so it should be, after having waited so long to escape the ‘olds’, and start to live independently and think for themselves. But as we grow up we find our youth fading and we then find that we are putting on body weight. As young people enter the world of excess it allows us to eat whatever we feel like. But there are more surprises in store when we realise another aspect of this dangerous territory – the body having the power to make decisions for us. We pander to the mouth, the senses, the taste buds and the stomach. Something must be satiated but at the cost of obesity and all sorts of other health conditions setting in. But even if we are conscious of fattening foods when we grow up, we only ever tinker with that one danger. We see these ‘foods that fatten us’ only as that. Our concerns are for our mirror image rather than at any good health practice.

Irrepressible teenagers and young people in their twenties are rotten with good health. It’s of less concern our than keeping up appearance. Whatever commodity we consider essential to our lifestyle, whether we are young or old, we try to squeeze what we can from what’s available. We spend big, risk debt, ignore warnings and mainly consider our own interests. We want to live for the moment. Above all we try NOT to become like those sad people (usually older people) who don’t seem to have any real fun at all.

A young person’s instinct will be to paint their life from a brightly coloured palette, to make life more exciting than it is. It’s best not to think about things too deeply. The reason we don’t think about certain things, is that we know NOT to go there. It’s born into us, to protect ourselves, to not bring unnecessary pain to ourselves. Our main aim is to maintain self-confidence.

At a certain age, young people who have been under the control of adults, are suddenly free to experience every possible stimulating experience dreamed about since childhood. And of course, this as-yet unexplored adult world must be something worth indulging in, seeing as how happy the adults can seem to be sometimes. Once the adult world opens up, we adopt a policy of “And why not?”. “We only live once, so live life while you can”.

But then, down come the shutters. Change is forced on us, usually later in life, by which time we’ve lost sight of ‘the fun life’. And we’ve become like everyone else - a victim of vanity. And in all that time, of preening and posing, we’ve maybe never given a second thought to very much at all. Only rarely might we have considered the animals, whose lives have been sacrificed to make our own colourful life possible.