Experimentation and Observation

1971:

Some of us have considered becoming vegan; some have tried it; gradually numbers are growing. The take up seems to be slow at first and then, as it merges more strongly with the spirit of this new age, it now seems to be moving much more rapidly.

How quickly this happens depends on where we are now. With veganism, the speed at which this idea sparks a revolution, is determined by our own faith in that idea, starting with our initial association with vegan food.

Once we have enough faith in our discovery (and feel optimistic about it), once we start feeling less ill all the time (by eating decent food), once we link mental clarity with our own uptake of this single idea, then we’re in a position to re-educate ourselves and help re-educate others.

When the really interesting experiments take place, when people start to experiment with a vegan lifestyle, they’ll know immediately that they’re investing in their own future and that of the planet. And it all comes about via information. And since we know this to be ‘the information age’, where useful knowledge is free and easily accessible, we end the most obvious misperceptions.  

We no longer have to be victims of misinformation, no longer mug punters, no longer the vivisected, experimental, laboratory creatures being dosed and observed.

Imagination Polishing The Mirror

1970:

For those with imagination (who are also attracted to ‘isms’) vegan-ism isn’t a bad ‘ism’ to have. But we have to face both what is tempting and what is daunting about it. It’s no good pretending that it’s a bed of roses. There’s a perception out there of veganism, that it’s a mixture of pleasure and non-pleasure.

Most of us don’t ‘do’ unpleasant, not readily anyway. We may be motivated by an ideal, but not that motivated. There are plenty of isms today and most of them involve some self-punishment as a way to being an all-purpose cleanser. But this ‘ism’ has some saving graces.

The main thing about veganism is that there’s a certain consistency and stability in it. It’s ultimately optimistic and it gives us some achievable hope. So, why would we walk away from it? We find this idea, we find it very alive, enough to let it be tested. And once found to work for us, it becomes a part of us. And then we can’t help showing it off, not to boast about it but to attempt to unlock people’s misperceptions of it.

In the ‘doing’ and the ‘showing’, what begins to shine from our simple, daily routines, starts to show. It’s noticed because it shines. It shines in the way we speak and how we start to live and think. Others may not appear to notice, because it contrasts with the way they think and live their lives, but it is noticed nevertheless.

The Bottom Line

1969:
One might consider the idea of veganism easily entering the imagination, but if it seems impossible, too painful, too daunting, then it’s likely we’ll shake it off. We’ll ditch the whole idea.

Even if one had to contemplate a vegan lifestyle and had read a couple of books about it, it might still remain beyond the pale. Why, for example, would we voluntarily opt for living ‘vegan’ if the pleasure of it wasn’t obvious? You’d surely agree, that if you can’t come at ‘being vegan’ you can never be of much help to the animals, because if you’re not vegan it follows that you’re still eating them or their by-products, and therefore condoning what happens to them. How could you ever trust yourself? How could the animals ever trust you to be their spokesperson? You’d be quite the traitor if you were still helping to kill them whilst trying to save them.

Farm Animals For The Chop

1968:

The most abused animals are the food animals. What if they could speak? What would they say about caged hens and machine-controlled cows? What would they say about denuded forests and the latest frightening changes to the weather? They’d give us such an ear-bashing.

It’s just as well they’re voiceless. But it’s sad. Omnivores are responsible for so much of this sadness. And what’s worse they don’t admit to the part they play.

That act of attacking animal starts on the farms and most lethally at the slaughter house. And whether it happens in the clinical, mechanised surroundings of the modern abattoir or in the backyard at the hands of the farmer, it’s the same terror for the animal, in the type of death it suffers. It’s murder, slaughter, execution, or torture. Call it what you like, but it happens to every domesticated animal used for food and clothing, whether killed for its carcass or to end its life when its productivity has ended. It’s killed because and keeping it alive no longer makes economic sense.

Altruism and Optimism

1967:

Out of optimism comes stability, and if our optimism persists, stability increases, and it brings a sense of permanence. The sort of change that is made by people who ‘go-vegan’, as it stabilises and as habits form and as the practical difficulties are ironed out, that change brings about a sense of being ‘vegan-for-life’. There’s a sense that we’ve got past the temptation stage, where we may have slipped back into our old ways, to where we find that even those things we thought we’d definitely miss have already faded in importance.

To achieve this change, to get to the point where we can feel entirely at home with being vegan, it is rather strange when we’re living in such a carnivorous society. Most people have never even given ‘going-vegetarian’ any serious thought let alone given any consideration to veganism. Their meat and dairy foods, and their woollens and leather shoes, are all part of their everyday life. For them, it might seem impossible to contemplate a life without these foods and commodities.

For us though, other interesting bits of life open up. Vegans, once established in their food and clothing regimes, are free to look ahead into other interesting areas, all of which are quite out of the question for anyone still using abattoir products. Those who are still omnivores will find it impossible, for example, to explore the principle of harmlessness, which is central to a vegan’s day-to-day existence. Vegans understand that a lot of the negativity which omnivores feel against us, is coming out of the frustration of being so closely connected with violence. Being customers of the Animal Industries, there’s bound to be a pessimism about the world and its future in general. If too many people pessimism to dominate their reality, they will generate a self-fulfilling prophecy of an inevitable ‘Coming Catastrophe’.

Pessimism is responsible for clumsiness. And nothing clumsier than a belief that change is only possible by the use of force - “change has to be big and fast, otherwise it won’t work”. And even if there were a common fear of catastrophe and a genuine search for ways to avoid it, something like veganism would never seem potent enough to set off the sort of chain reaction needed for major social change.

But here is where slow and strong works wonders. Veganism is slow to catch on but when it does it feels strong enough to change the world. It establishes the basis for reform. Its presence might be hardly noticed by those who want to ignore it, but when it enters your life it establishes a deep sense of rightness. Veganism is so profound that most people refuse to recognise its potential. If it ever does suggest any sort of solution, it will have to be seen as unreachable or unrealistic. It represents the need for change in the way life is viewed, and because it is an unpopular philosophy, it is easily dismissed.

         

However, popular or not, it is precisely in tune with the character of the 21st century. It’s thoroughness and optimism promotes a root-and-branch change, despite the fact that it might not show any signs of ‘flowering’ during our own lifetime.

         

For many this long-term prospect is off-putting. The two reactions Society makes to anything too long-term - “It’s already too late, so why bother?” and “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 they come to analyse the history of the early part of the century.

Greater Good Revisited

1966:

I suppose I’m arguing that to ignore animal issues is dangerous. In bodily terms, it’s like being passive about an illness when a deadly virus is over-taking us. We think we can ignore it and carry on as usual, doing what everyone else is doing, getting away with it, and thinking we can continue all the comforts of a consumer-istic atmosphere, without 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 we recognise in life - altruism and optimism.

Altruism is probably not very much different to optimism, since both foresee satisfying outcomes initiated by good intentions; when you set out for good results and it works for you, you tend to feel optimistic, and as results appear so too does the meaning of altruism. Perhaps optimism is the result of setting standards for self-pleasure that are directed by an altruistic urge to be unselfishly-useful. When it works it recharges our energy. We experience the pleasure of discharging energy for others’ benefit. By being involved with each other, in that way, it often results in reciprocation and a beneficial mutual exchange.

Optimism shows up like a light. Others can’t help but see it, especially when it isn’t a show-off but simply a daily habit. And that needn’t be anything special if only because we all enjoy habits which 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. We like to be needed. Whole relationships can surely be based on 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 look forward to a better, more pleasure-giving habit, a more useful way of living based on give and take. When we act optimistically, habits fall into place. Maybe, like kids settling in on their first day at school, new habits are a bit shaky at first. It’s optimism that gets us over the hump, in our habit-building. We are, if we did but know it, preparing for the repair-journey ahead. Perhaps we instinctively know that new habits are preparing us for change, for what we will have to get used to soon enough.

Consistent Ethics

1965:

Most people think that we can only be effective if we have specialist knowledge, but what expertise is needed to know that the animal business is wrong and to keep well 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, eating rubbish foods, none of this bodes well for the future.

When any of us choose to NOT buy something we want, stopping ourselves for ethical reasons, we make an important statement. We say, for instance with animal food, that we can’t eat what shouldn’t even exist - namely foods associated with animals.

This is one way we can exercise self-control, by setting an example. But if we do that in one field and not in another equally important field, we lose credibility. Concern for animals requires that we are also concerned for the land. It’s the same problem we have in any area of advancement, whether it’s 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 or inconsistency into our life, and that surely leads to double standards.

         

In the end, if we can’t muster sufficient personal power, to change any faulty parts of our own daily existence, then our personal authority will drop off. And without that feeling, we can’t fight corruption or change the system we live in.

An End To Pessimism

1964:

For over sixty years vegan activists have been forming teams of animal advocates, each working to stop the animal slave trade. We are doing it by persuading others and setting an example by boycotting the animal-abuse industry.

What we do is done in the spirit of optimism, helping each other drop our ingrained pessimism It is based on the classic negative idea that whatever we do won’t even scratch the surface, so we might as well just carry on doing what we’ve always done, and save us the bother of all that effort needed to change whole habits.

The optimist aims only to 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 a scrap of difference to the world”, then we’re doomed before we’ve even started. If we can drop our pessimism, we’re more likely to avert Earth’s downfall.

If optimism is to become something more than just a nice idea, it must be substantial enough to carry us over the tough spots. It must be measured not by personal success but on its contributive value to the greater good, with our own interests put second. Then nothing can possibly go wrong.

A Clean Sweep

1963:

Today, despite the difficulties put up by the omnivore world, there is already a growing number of people who genuinely do care, and about matters of global importance which definitely doesn’t exclude animal right. Vegans believe they’ll stop the great destructive juggernaut before it swallows us whole.

Not to be predictive here, vegans are just emphasising good intentions, in the form of a ‘mass wanting’, for our species to surge forward. And that does include a personal wish to follow a self-development route. Cynics and pessimists might not see things this way. Optimists do.

If the idea of ‘recovery’ and ‘repair’ were attractive, people would go vegan like a shot. We don’t want to see ourselves as heartless and unthinking. We want to be part of that sort of progress, in the form of protest or, even better, boycott. Any great cause, like social justice and animal rights, can attract us, inspire us, and strike us like lightening – it’s both right- reasoning as well as the coming fashion. A simultaneous mopping up of obsolete systems and hard-nosed attitudes can be done in a single sweep of the night broom.

Investing In Vegan Principle

1961:

If the number one fear for most of us is killer diseases and degenerative illnesses then number two must be fear of energy-loss. We horde our energy which we believe keeps deterioration away.

Energy equates with health, and any energy spent must be justified and purposeful. It isn’t something we use up for no reason. So for ‘unsupported’ causes like veganism, people may not want to invest 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 the amount of energy we will invest in 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. So, it’s a gamble going vegan, gambling with energy, time and money - gambling on very long-odds.

Taking up veganism as an idea is hard enough, but to engage our minds in it, invest in it, expecting so much of it, squandering energy on promoting it - perhaps we say to our self, “What a waste of time”.

Having faith in this one single idea is a big ask.

Reconciliation

1960:

Playing the ‘blame game’ is popular with some vegans. The Animal Industry and consumers in general make for an easy target. So, the blaming-vegans ask themselves, “Why not give them some curry?”

Certainly, it helps to release our anger and frustration. But, constructively speaking, there isn’t much to be gained from apportioning blame. What’s done is done and can’t be undone.

After the apartheid era in South Africa there was a need to move on, towards reconciliation, to avoid a blood bath. It showed a deliberate moving away from the idea of revenge. It’s often revenge that lets us enjoy, for a moment, the misfortunes of those who aren’t like us and who deserve retribution. But this is where true compassion shows through. It’s hard to imagine how one can be reconciled to the meat-heads, because their species-apartheid is so mean, and so accepting of cruelty. It’s especially reprehensible because, for them, it’s so safe.

Nevertheless, there’s a great need for vegans and non-vegans to make a point of contact, to be talking together about their differences – it’s the only way we’re ever going to deal with the very worst mistakes we’ve each already made.

We all need to turn into compassionate folk - isn’t it as simple as that? First off, it’s a personal thing, concerning food choices. Then we get to the principle of non-violence and being non-judgmental. And then it’s about feeling at peace with our detractors. Not to excuse them, but to be on friendly terms with them whilst discussions are underway, with the aim of helping them to restructure their habits. And to restructure our own too.

Once we see each other making an attempt to accommodate the expectations of the other, we’ll automatically move past the accusing stage and be on the road to repair. Once we can feel some movement, albeit some small steps of progress, we can, perhaps for the first time, experience optimism.

Ultimately (surely!) our overall goal is to focus on increasing the world’s optimism about itself. We can’t do that if we’re pessimistic or if we’re forecasting the end of the world.

Vegans have certainly got to get over their judgement-based looking-down-their-noses at those who aren’t vegans - yes, we have to realign our attitudes, for sure. It gives us a bad look. But for people in general, there are hard times ahead, when we are all judged by future generations. If we don’t do anything about animal slavery now, history will say we were an uncaring people. Future generations will accuse us, quite rightly, of being too casual about a potentially catastrophic problem. There will be no excuses, since the records will show that we knew everything we needed to know to make the necessary changes.

Not Being Too Obvious

1959:

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 force ourselves to forget about some of the trickier world issues, because if we can’t get a clear run at major global problems we give up on them. We think we are too insignificant, and they are too complicated. We give up trying to ‘run’ at them at all. And since we believe everything is out of our control anyway, why go to all the inconvenience of taking on a vegan lifestyle in the first place?

         

Animal consumers are practising members of an animal-abusing society. The Kill-Club is everywhere on the planet and most people are umbilically linked to it, so we feed the very problems we’re aiming to solve, because so many world problems trace their origins back to animal exploitation.

Once we can see the part we play in all this and want to do something about it, we may feel as though we’re on the move. But often we decide to pull back by only going half way – eaters of red meat switch to eating chicken and fish, the vegetarians stop at another point. Neither gets close enough to the problem to be an effective advocate for the animals. Vegans, however, can be effective advocates. But when no one notices us or even if they make fun of us, we tend to go on the defensive. Or we attempt to pre-empt that by showing off, by telling everyone what we’ve done and why they should too.

Inevitably we get a bad reaction, which surprises and disappoints us. Then we get angry (obviously frustrated because no one’s paying attention). Then we go for broke, with anger, invective. Finally, we disassociate. We give up on the wretched animal-abusers. But still, nothing really changes.

         

Nothing can change if we are focusing on the wrongs of ‘animal-attack’ when we then use another sort of attack on those who disagree with us. Perhaps we shouldn’t be phased at all by disagreement, for at least we’ve stimulated opinion.

If we don’t come across as unlikeable, when we’re faced with disagreement, then it’s more likely something of what we are saying will sink in, be it ever so subliminally.

Defending Change

1958:

When I get bogged down in discussions about the rights and wrongs of using animals for food, I find the fall-back position is “the cruelty of it all”. It’s the ‘yuk’ factor, the ugliness, the conventions we’re trying to move away from.

         

So, starting from the ‘no-more-cruelty’ position, I’d suggest we look at the transfer of our dollars to the pockets of those people who are doing all the ugly stuff to animals. If we stop making the rich richer by buying nothing from them, and if enough of us do that, the rich will go out of business. (Ideally, alongside our boycott, we could be doing something towards finding a way to encourage the people in those businesses to move into more humane businesses).

         

It’s our finest hour when we convince people to spend their money more wisely by no longer, ever, buying crap products and unethical stuff.

         

In a supermarket survey covering about seven and a half thousand individual items of choice (shelf products), three thousand of them were either partly or wholly from animals.

         

By breaking the ‘animal’ cycle, another better cycle takes over. Going vegan begins both a personal turn-around as well as a world recovery programme.

         

By not breaking with old habits, by continuing shopping for items with animal derivatives, we ally ourselves with some of the biggest destroyers on the planet.

By remaining omnivore, we refuse to see that veganism can make a difference. It’s as if we’re saying to our self that the idea is too way out, that it’s never going to catch on. That it’s too rigid, it’s isolating, and ‘going vegan’ looks too bleak. Inevitably that sort of defeatist, not-worth-doing belief makes everyone feel powerless, which is just how the powerful animal slave traders want us to feel.

         

To get this knot of defeatism untied, we need to imagine overcoming the odds, odds which, at first glance, seem so stacked against us, which seem to be making anyone feel ridiculous for feeling optimistic about Animal Rights.

Cool Fashion

1957:

Vegans want people to change attitude towards using animals. We don’t just want a local change amongst family and friends, we want it amongst LOTS of people. So, 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 being old-fashioned. Neither do they want to be seen as anything but ‘normal’ - normalcy helps us hold down a job, and keeps a certain reputation within the group. If we want to seem cool we’ll keep in with hairstyles or clothing, to keep pace with fashion and to be sure we’re never very far from peer acceptance.

         

But when it comes to a radical change of lifestyle, like going vegan, it might seem like social suicide to voluntarily act in such a different way to all our friends. We’d hope to persuade friends to follow suit, but to go vegan means, at first, we do risk going it alone, the aim obviously being to lead a fashion. It requires some bravery. Ultimately, though, it needs a cool enough head, to strike out into the unknown territory of new fashion - leading fashion not following it.

This is relatively easy with a new hairstyle, but with a whole different eating regime, and to some extent one’s clothing regime too, calls for some considerable strength of character. We are proposing a change based on ethical principles, to attract others to change in the same way.

We know ‘shaming’ won’t inspire 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 and clothing, they might want to get in early, to be ahead of the bandwagon.

If we try to use ‘guilt’ to get people to change, they’ll probably oblige us, eventually. But it’s likely not to be a permanent change. It’ll weaken back to nothing over time. But if the ‘coming fashion’ is overlaid with ethics, it’s likely to have a much more powerful effect on habits and a better chance of escaping the gravitational pull of convention.

Manipulation

1956:

I want to let people know how they’re being manipulated into buying “yummy” foods 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 but that would touch a very raw nerve.

So, that’s my difficulty. How do I explain my reasons for being optimistic without mentioning my reason for boycotting? It’s almost impossible to do that without offending most people. People make great daily use of all the stuff I’d be suggesting they avoid. 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 mostly I am drawn to talk about the crimes committed by the Animal Industries and, by implication, the consumer’s crime of 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 shame-merchant - that’s not going to help if I want to change peoples’ attitudes.

The Antidote

1955:

To fix our collective pessimistic views, vegans argue that the switch can be flipped, by boycotting. By convincing others why they should boycott, we highlight what is most destructive in our society, namely apathy. People are submissive to those who govern us, they work for them, spend the money they pay them on goods sold by them. They comply with the exploitative production methods, support the very worst systems, and keep quiet about anything they don’t like.

Once I dropped my own participation in all this I found I was also dropping my pessimism. There was some personal cost at first, for it meant I had to avoid buying things I might have always enjoyed before. But it was a small price to pay, to reverse my compliance and help to reverse so much dangerous destruction. It isn’t the only price – we realise that by letting go of so many popular food items (and having such a clear ethical reason for doing so) we pit ourselves against most people’s attitudes towards ‘the use of food animals’. The pessimism, the drabness of conventional attitude, the de facto cruelty people are associated with, all this is reversed by a simple boycott of products. As difficult as this may seem, I’m sure it’s the antidote to a very entrenched illness amongst humans.

Optimism

1954:

Are we generally optimistic about the future? Do we have reason to be? I’d say most people see no future. They’re pessimistic and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy - if enough people see the future in that negative way, our collective consciousness will self-destruct. Maybe some of us won’t be around to see it happen.

Is this negative view ‘pessimism’? And if so, is it the reason we don’t care about repairing things properly now? And isn’t that spectacularly selfish of us, as well as bad karma?

No one really wants to be selfish, or be seen to be, since that’s so unattractive. But, on the other hand, most of us seek pleasure in life, above all things. We say, “Why not make hay while the sun shines?” The thought of tightening our belts and imposing personal disciplines isn’t a pleasant idea.

What we’d prefer to do is simply coast along. But the warnings about systems-collapse are everywhere. Our ecosystems, our economy and our ethics are going downhill rapidly. Most of us realise that something must be done. To ignore all the warnings would seem crazy and yet if we waste a lot of energy trying to repair the unrepairable, we figure that it 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 that would be the ultimate put-down.

But how would they ever know what we went through? How would they know why we are no longer optimistic?

         

Every older generation, mostly out of self-pity and guilt, will ask the succeeding generation that. And every new generation will blame the last of being irresponsible. They, in turn, leave the same legacy to the next, and so it goes on, without there being any substantial change in human nature.

And if there’s something one would want to change in our world today, wouldn’t it be ‘human nature’?

         

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

How do I envisage what is going to come about, and does it bear down heavily on me? Is it that I can’t seem to deal with my own personal problems, let alone global problems? Do I ignore the significance of my own obvious shortfalls, simply because they feed my pessimism, preventing me from seeing beyond my own familiar reality?

         

And all of us - is it that we’ve given up? Are we mesmerised by one dead-end thought - that in this day and age, that there’s nothing we can do to stop the violent trends of today’s humans?

If most pessimistic people feel as though they are falling to their doom, is it because we can’t see how anything big is ever going to be fixed? And what’s worse, we don’t know how to stop the mega-destructive people in our society, who do all the big-scale destructive things.

         

Surely, everything changes when we personally protest and stop participating in everything we don’t agree with. And if others can’t yet, then their slowness shouldn’t provide us with an excuse not to get on with our own programme-of-boycotting.

How Vegans Are Perceived

1953:

How is it that some of us are passionate advocates for animals and some people are completely indifferent? 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 and don’t feel fazed by veganism?

There are totally different attitudes and lifestyles and yet we all live alongside each other. The fact is that our differences aren’t really that clear - there are so many important things to be different about. Vegans probably aren’t that much brighter or kinder or healthier 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. We do more questioning and arguing of our case. And all 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.

Vegans Facing Opposition

1952:

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 prefer to withdraw.

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 over a puff of smoke. I don’t need everyone to agree with me, 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 they are vegan. In the end my own example is the most powerful weapon I have. If I start to get aggressive it means I’m afraid of defeat. And I know I needn’t be afraid of anyone since 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 have never dared to thoroughly talk about in public.  

         

The Animal Issue

1951:

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 animal which we needed to eat in order to stay alive. Then the myth was exploded - animal protein was NOT essential to good nutrition. And then the rest of the story came tumbling out, about how animals were being treated on farms and what horrors were happening in abattoirs.

         

In the 1940s and 50s the idea of a vegan diet was being tested and found to be not only adequate 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 at the time. The information seeped into public consciousness and suddenly everyone seemed to be talking about it. But then, surprisingly, it all came to a standstill. At least it did in Australia. Why?

         

That has been at the centre of discussion in Animal Rights publications, but nowhere much else. In the general community, there’s 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 eat probably all contain some animal ingredient, because it adds richness, flavour and bulk to foods. The food industry has worked hard to make us 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 ethically about animal issues are usually avoided or discouraged from even bringing up the subject in conversation. The subject is generally tabooed.

Starting To Pay Back

1950:  

Once, when we were younger, when the world was less damaged, abundance seemed to be everlasting. Oceans were clean and teeming 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 left 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 back. 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 were and, like any bubble, it had to burst. That realisation dawned on us slowly at first, then we caught up with reality, and then it gathered speed as we took 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 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

1949:

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 soon enough come to know why we older ones are to blame for perpetuating all this destruction and cruelty and waste.

         

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, to see what it is and how it really hasn’t changed much over the centuries.

         

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, we can’t afford to sit around passively, twiddling out 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

1948:

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 they (often their juniors) show. Their example is perhaps a most powerful influence on the entrenched omnivore who might make their own first step in considering three things - their habits, their attitudes and their capacity for altruism.

The impact (of meeting a vegan) on anyone who is still using animal products is to underline their own contribution to the 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, as they ‘grow up’ and strengthen themselves, then commercially begin to outstrip their former masters. And their rise then becomes a danger to the economies of the ‘master’ powers. Similarly, powerless animals used for food now become dangerous to their masters, but indirectly, via their impact on human health. There are harsh consequences to stealing and taking advantage of the weak.

Pay Now, Live Later

1947:

The criticism of both young and older people, for their indulgent lifestyle, seems partially true but partially misplaced. Older people might argue that the trouble with the world today is young people’s profligacy. The young, 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 feel aggrieved. 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 feelings of 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. And much of that can be achieved 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 products on the market (which are unethical) 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 better 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.

Live Now, Pay Later

1946:

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. Older people 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 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.

         

I can remember starting out in adult life eager to experience abundance and effortless, sensory experiences. But as I got older, and taking all this for granted, I tried to recapture some of the pleasures of the past, only to find that that sort of pleasure required some investment. And as age creeps on and our health and strength isn’t as robust, 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, health and strength 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 every possible advantage. Access to pleasure is important. Food is one of the great pleasures.

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 people are starving, and have no prospect of finding food.

         

Here in the West, we are so privileged and have such opportunities to live life NOW, that we forget about the need to pursue ‘the greater good’. Something vital is spoiled in us because of that, for living an indulgent lifestyle.