The Big Sell

1898:

If I’m attempting to convince the majority that what they’re doing, by using, eating or wearing animals is wrong I’m also asking them to listen to something attractive they can do instead. Sometimes we can start in with ethics, at other times, health or food or environment, depending on who we’re talking to.

         

So, maybe we can start with this sort of pitch, suggesting that there’s a way to get off unhygienic, disease-ridden and unhealthy foods by simply eating from a plant-base, which also happens to takes us immediately away from being involved in crime against animals. We could just mention health and animal cruelty but, as the ads tell us, “there’s much more!”.

Perhaps the most attractive aspect of becoming vegan is the improvement in self respect, pulling ourselves away from the brainwashed habits we’ve inherited, making us feel less like cowards for not exploiting animals simply because they can’t fight back.      

Veganism stands up for those bullied by the self-interested human. Vegans don’t see animals as a resource, and therefore don’t turn animals into commodities. Our lifestyle is cheaper too, simpler perhaps, and yet encourages us to be creative with food. If you eat with vegans it’s likely you’ll discover new tastes and surprisingly delicious plant-based dishes. But above all this, the most significant of the attractions is that we’re in a unique position to recommend repairs. Our arguments are as simple as they are unarguable. And we think, or at least some of us do, that the universal principle which has so long been ignored by violent, greedy, enslaving humans, can now be taken up by the intelligent humans. And through them we can transform ourselves en routes to transforming our species and indeed, our planet’s future. By the simple expedient of leading non-violent lives. In other words, by becoming vegan it allows us to take a brave stand on our own behalf as well as the animals’, and pave the way for a constructive improvement all round.

Vegans are brave in what they do, how they speak out against the odds, how we conduct our private lives, and nothing more needs to be said. Unless it is to mention those who go a bit further and are speaking with just a small touch of love, to cut through any hostility and ridicule we’re given. It is only fear, after all. And courage comes cheap when you’re ‘wacko-ing’ vegans, it being easy to speak with the crowd. It’s sometimes so hard to continuously stand against it.