Non-violence has always seemed a bit passive, as if it isn’t effective enough to eliminate violence. But perhaps that’s the point – we shouldn’t want to kill off anything and that includes violence itself. Instead we should accept that one lives alongside the other. It’s the nature of the planet. Alongside disease there’s an immune system; the disease is the attacker, the other the defender. During one of Nature’s violent gales the stalk of wheat bends but doesn’t break. It’s built for wind - the tension on the stalk brings about the strength the stalk needs. This is the tension between opposites, the push-me-pull-you of our own thinking and all human-made ideas.
Non-violence confronts and then withdraws. It dances with violence. It lets the violence-based world make its impact, all the sooner to burn itself out. Then a period of non-violence starts to make a different sort of impact. At this point in time, after the violence of the twentieth century, we’re in transition, clinging to violence because it’s been passed-down to us as a method for getting things done … but wanting it gone. Now, in a new era, non-violent values are beginning to solve some of our problems. But, like veganism itself, these values still make small impact. For most people they go largely untested. So for non-violence enthusiasts, patience is golden. Especially in helping us to come to terms with the violence of our world. If non-violence is to be the modus operandi of our new age, it would seem fairly urgent to recognise how violent we may be personally. In big ways or in little routine ways. Non-violence: we shouldn’t run with it before we can walk with it; we shouldn’t preach it before we can practise it.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Planning for the far future
Needless to say, animals are different to us. No hubris, no superiority and (mainly amongst wild animals) innate understanding about how dangerous humans can be. Their senses are impeccable. But they can’t judge everything about us because we are so very different to them. Unlike animals, we are aware of a future and we try to plan for it and improve things, and with that comes the violence of maintaining our position of dominance over nature and especially over animals. That’s what has brought us unstuck. The damage we’ve done has come from trying to improve things by wit, strength and cruelty. We’ve never learnt to ‘be content with our lot’. And now, at the eleventh hour, our manipulation and bullying have brought us to the brink of catastrophe. Now, some of us want to turn in a completely different direction. But it’s like steering an ocean liner 180 degrees. It has so much momentum that to swing it around is a slow process. So we have to see far ahead, beyond our own lifetime, to future generations of responsibility-takers who, we might hope, will be warriors of non-violence. For us here, today, our job is to set the ground work and try to solve the eternal conundrum – when is dynamic too aggressive and when is non-violence too ineffective?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Harmlessness
Our aim should be to encourage confidence in the things we say. And for that we need non-violence in our voice and as the basis of everything else about our daily life, our eating and shopping, thinking and talking. We need to be assertive and we don’t need to be indecisive, but we need to be open to suggestion from ‘outside’ even when it contradicts us. If we once become closed off we lose whatever advantage we may have had. The Animal Rights movement doesn’t have a good track record on effective communication because we aren’t too good at the complete non-violent approach. Is this because we say we hate violence but still allow it into our lives? Those of us who are the noisiest about our dislike of violence often don’t notice the way we practise it. To make matters worse, if we doubt non-violence itself, we’ll move forward far too slowly in winning people over. If we merely observe veganism in our eating habits but aren’t so very different to our omnivorous friends in other respects, we won’t be taken seriously.
We need to be sure about non-violence. We certainly give it a tick of approval when we become vegan, so we need to feel right about it - that it’s neither weak, nor leads to submissiveness. It may be a weak-looking characteristic of submissive animals but that’s because they’ve been driven to it by having their lives and living conditions continuously under threat. In wild conditions animals are far from submissive or weak.
If we can adopt non-speciesism we can then let the animals show us the values they represent. They do things differently to us. Think of any farm animal that hasn’t been driven insane and you’ll picture a peaceful being, utterly non-violent. Their disposition is something we can all learn from.
We all know humans are superior to animals because they can build houses and read books, but animals have a few tricks up their sleeves. They can sense things! They smell things a thousand times better than we do and often have an uncanny understanding of what’s going on. Just think of how prescient our cats and dogs are. They don’t have to work everything out before they do it. Their non-violence shows up in their completely non-judgmental behaviour.
When our companion animals know us, they can often tell us truths about ourselves that we can’t rely on humans friends to tell us. They can give us an accurate appraisal of how we are doing in our progress towards non-violence, since they are masters of it when it comes to spotting a peaceful person. They are attracted to an affectionate nature because, to them, it denotes trustworthiness. To cats and dogs and many other animals we get close to, this is value number one. It’s genetically encoded I suppose. Having suffered so badly from human violence throughout the ages, animals, wild or domestic, have become arbiters of good taste in the matter of harmlessness.
We need to be sure about non-violence. We certainly give it a tick of approval when we become vegan, so we need to feel right about it - that it’s neither weak, nor leads to submissiveness. It may be a weak-looking characteristic of submissive animals but that’s because they’ve been driven to it by having their lives and living conditions continuously under threat. In wild conditions animals are far from submissive or weak.
If we can adopt non-speciesism we can then let the animals show us the values they represent. They do things differently to us. Think of any farm animal that hasn’t been driven insane and you’ll picture a peaceful being, utterly non-violent. Their disposition is something we can all learn from.
We all know humans are superior to animals because they can build houses and read books, but animals have a few tricks up their sleeves. They can sense things! They smell things a thousand times better than we do and often have an uncanny understanding of what’s going on. Just think of how prescient our cats and dogs are. They don’t have to work everything out before they do it. Their non-violence shows up in their completely non-judgmental behaviour.
When our companion animals know us, they can often tell us truths about ourselves that we can’t rely on humans friends to tell us. They can give us an accurate appraisal of how we are doing in our progress towards non-violence, since they are masters of it when it comes to spotting a peaceful person. They are attracted to an affectionate nature because, to them, it denotes trustworthiness. To cats and dogs and many other animals we get close to, this is value number one. It’s genetically encoded I suppose. Having suffered so badly from human violence throughout the ages, animals, wild or domestic, have become arbiters of good taste in the matter of harmlessness.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The unthinking approach
The original principle of non-violence is behind everything Animal Rights stands for. With that in place and agreed to, it follows that the sovereignty of animals is secure. To us it’s obviously impossible to justify hurting them, and yet they are attacked and hurt and murdered daily, en masse. Humans in authority let this happen and presumably most people can justify this.
Since people haven’t thought much about non-violence their behaviour continues, unquestioned – they eat meat knowing the animals they eat met a violent death. Eat them we do, because we want to taste it.. We can’t resist the T-bone steak. And what is this ‘resist’? We’re not used to resisting things we want. That’s a given.
And so we have a society involved with daily mass murder of innocent animals and consequently there is a chaos in both human ethics and health. There could be worse chaos if we didn’t have laws to prevent certain crimes, so rape and child molestation is outlawed because we can’t have a society where there’s a free for all, where women and kids are exploited.
But there are no laws to prevent the crimes against animals, so we have true chaos when it comes to them. Because these animals have never been protected by law, the consumer thinks it’s okay to prey on them. When we’re out shopping for food, we forget that we’re interested in non-violence and we take the easy way out. “Hang it, I’ll do what I’ve always done”! “Everyone else does it so why shouldn’t I?”
Since people haven’t thought much about non-violence their behaviour continues, unquestioned – they eat meat knowing the animals they eat met a violent death. Eat them we do, because we want to taste it.. We can’t resist the T-bone steak. And what is this ‘resist’? We’re not used to resisting things we want. That’s a given.
And so we have a society involved with daily mass murder of innocent animals and consequently there is a chaos in both human ethics and health. There could be worse chaos if we didn’t have laws to prevent certain crimes, so rape and child molestation is outlawed because we can’t have a society where there’s a free for all, where women and kids are exploited.
But there are no laws to prevent the crimes against animals, so we have true chaos when it comes to them. Because these animals have never been protected by law, the consumer thinks it’s okay to prey on them. When we’re out shopping for food, we forget that we’re interested in non-violence and we take the easy way out. “Hang it, I’ll do what I’ve always done”! “Everyone else does it so why shouldn’t I?”
Straight talking
Sunday May 10th
When we’re giving our opinion or giving out information we should come across as genuine but also pay attention to how we sound. Given the potential for this subject to ignite passions we should be straight-talking but leave lots of space for other people’s opinions.
It’s likely that some of us amateur communicators don’t see ourselves as others see us. We talk as if people want to take our side, whereas most people simply want information from us, if that. We have to be careful with details and facts. Behind everything we say there must be a backup, for example, all animal products may be unhealthy and cruel but behind this must a reference to support the association between these products and certain ailments; the same with cruelty - behind the cruelty we need to give details of animals treatment: the sow stall, the cage, the biology of a cow’s lactation, what happens in abattoirs. It’s the story that counts. It’s the story and the verifiable facts behind our stories that convince. Us having this background knowledge also gives us the confidence to speak out.
Whatever we say is likely to contradict what people have been led to believe, but our conclusions are likely to be provocative anyway - we’re commenting on and questioning the morals of ordinary people who, being consumers, won’t take kindly to what we say or any fingers we are pointing. No one feels too comfortable agreeing that they’ve made mistakes regarding the healthiness of their foods let alone hearing us talk when there’s a moral principle at stake, which makes them feel really guilty.
To a certain extent people will accept what we say about nutrition on the basis that they can go away and check the details for themselves, but the cruelty side is more difficult to escape from. It’s something already known about and already swept under the carpet. Animal advocates, who are ‘straight talking’ about animal torture and public compliance, are dealing with delicate matters. If we want people to listen to this sort of disclosure we need to show them we’ve done our homework at the very least. But whether we have or whether we get caught out, it only matters that we are trying to be objective. We need to come across as sincere and entirely non-violently.
If we are promoting veganism in public, advocating total abolition, animal rights and non-violence personal sincerity would seem to be pretty important. If we look a bit fake, however wise we sound, people will always turn away. Things may even turn nasty. If we are saying how things should be done we’re also saying that they should be done as beautifully as possible, and to do that we mustn’t sound ugly! If we show any hardness in our words they will seem empty. Value-judgments and heated disagreements are guaranteed to lose us support. Instead of trying to convert people in the old fashioned, tub-thumping way, we need to listen a lot more than many of us do, and not be afraid of opposite opinions. Until this is established getting to first base is all up-hill when it needn’t be. When there’s no balance in a conversation or in fair debate it’s easy to lose sight of the issues and the central point of difference.
When we’re giving our opinion or giving out information we should come across as genuine but also pay attention to how we sound. Given the potential for this subject to ignite passions we should be straight-talking but leave lots of space for other people’s opinions.
It’s likely that some of us amateur communicators don’t see ourselves as others see us. We talk as if people want to take our side, whereas most people simply want information from us, if that. We have to be careful with details and facts. Behind everything we say there must be a backup, for example, all animal products may be unhealthy and cruel but behind this must a reference to support the association between these products and certain ailments; the same with cruelty - behind the cruelty we need to give details of animals treatment: the sow stall, the cage, the biology of a cow’s lactation, what happens in abattoirs. It’s the story that counts. It’s the story and the verifiable facts behind our stories that convince. Us having this background knowledge also gives us the confidence to speak out.
Whatever we say is likely to contradict what people have been led to believe, but our conclusions are likely to be provocative anyway - we’re commenting on and questioning the morals of ordinary people who, being consumers, won’t take kindly to what we say or any fingers we are pointing. No one feels too comfortable agreeing that they’ve made mistakes regarding the healthiness of their foods let alone hearing us talk when there’s a moral principle at stake, which makes them feel really guilty.
To a certain extent people will accept what we say about nutrition on the basis that they can go away and check the details for themselves, but the cruelty side is more difficult to escape from. It’s something already known about and already swept under the carpet. Animal advocates, who are ‘straight talking’ about animal torture and public compliance, are dealing with delicate matters. If we want people to listen to this sort of disclosure we need to show them we’ve done our homework at the very least. But whether we have or whether we get caught out, it only matters that we are trying to be objective. We need to come across as sincere and entirely non-violently.
If we are promoting veganism in public, advocating total abolition, animal rights and non-violence personal sincerity would seem to be pretty important. If we look a bit fake, however wise we sound, people will always turn away. Things may even turn nasty. If we are saying how things should be done we’re also saying that they should be done as beautifully as possible, and to do that we mustn’t sound ugly! If we show any hardness in our words they will seem empty. Value-judgments and heated disagreements are guaranteed to lose us support. Instead of trying to convert people in the old fashioned, tub-thumping way, we need to listen a lot more than many of us do, and not be afraid of opposite opinions. Until this is established getting to first base is all up-hill when it needn’t be. When there’s no balance in a conversation or in fair debate it’s easy to lose sight of the issues and the central point of difference.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
An ancient idea for the future
Non-violence is no new kid on the block. It’s as old as the hills and the very bedrock of all wise philosophy. But it always steps back and allows violence to pass by - remembering that we exist in a world where violence still rules. As activists, we won’t get our views across by gate crashing – we can only do it by suggesting another way - no more. How careful is that? Perhaps it’s careful enough to stop us being pushy.
By checking this and worse, by stopping any tendency we might have to use emotional blackmail, we let non-violence grow in friendlier soil. We have to believe in people coming around, but slowly. The idea is that a whole heap of non-violent actions lets us harvest a bumper crop when it’s fine and ripe, when it can be most effective. It bides its time, becoming more powerful the longer it is kept waiting. It doesn’t need a supporting act to make it more valid or effective, so in other words it doesn’t need us trying to sell it. Well it does, but with subtler sales pitches than the ones we use today. And even then we can’t expect results quite yet. Non-violence can stand on its own feet but at present it acts simply as a badge of the future. If any of us feel a bit ahead of our times then we’ll probably adopt a less pushy nature in everything we do. Which, so the argument goes, is very convenient later on, when the rest of the world catches up.
By checking this and worse, by stopping any tendency we might have to use emotional blackmail, we let non-violence grow in friendlier soil. We have to believe in people coming around, but slowly. The idea is that a whole heap of non-violent actions lets us harvest a bumper crop when it’s fine and ripe, when it can be most effective. It bides its time, becoming more powerful the longer it is kept waiting. It doesn’t need a supporting act to make it more valid or effective, so in other words it doesn’t need us trying to sell it. Well it does, but with subtler sales pitches than the ones we use today. And even then we can’t expect results quite yet. Non-violence can stand on its own feet but at present it acts simply as a badge of the future. If any of us feel a bit ahead of our times then we’ll probably adopt a less pushy nature in everything we do. Which, so the argument goes, is very convenient later on, when the rest of the world catches up.
Friday, May 8, 2009
A non-violent world
Is a no-weapon world, where we trust our neighbour, just pie in the sky? Can a planet of humans exist without resorting to violent confrontation? A non-violent world is something we can’t imagine. Even if we could, we don’t really know how individual effort can get us there. We only know that it’s security we want. Individually we want to feel safe first, and only then begin to build a better world.
It could be suggested that we need less security than we think. The sooner we seek less protection the sooner we’ll realise there’s nothing to be protected from. If we trust life to be safe there’s no need to ensure (or insure) anything. It’s all rather down to trust, in this case trusting non-violence. Unless we tread the virgin ground of dynamic non-violence, we’ll never see how different it is as a whole way of looking at things.
Non-violence is never ambiguous, it is a simple clear principle by which to behave, and in a practical day-to-day way it serves as a perfect shopping guide. This is where each of us has the power of the spending dollar. As we take time to look for ethical goods (buying cruelty-free and environmentally-friendly products) we send a powerful message of encouragement to the people who sell them and that changes the market and affects the way goods are produced. It’s the first step towards a peaceful world, a no-weapon world.
As we draw non-violence into our daily life, we have to be prepared to be scrutinised by others who would love nothing better than to put us down. If we don’t want to give them a signal that they’re succeeding we have to be squeaky clean in terms of non-violence. And that standard, once set, must be kept up, because as we improve our game so our inconsistencies show up more vividly. Even worse, if we begin to evangelise about doing the right thing, soon enough we will hoist ourself with our own self righteous petard, letting our adversaries have a field day with us. Somehow we must find a non-boasting way to say all this and yet remain in touch with people.
A good comedian always knows how to keep the audience sweet and on side, by balancing everything with a heap of self deprecation. Similarly, when we do the talking, when we start to go on about animals, what we say about animal rights might have to be gauged carefully. Subjects like veganism or non-violent action are sensitive enough to require great imagination to keep them as "light" as possible. At all costs, whatever we say must be kept strictly non-personal. We must never be accused of aggression or of using our subject as an excuse to make a speech. A good comedian educates by way of entertainment. Preachers on the other hand, miss the point of entertainment in their haste to get their message across.
It could be suggested that we need less security than we think. The sooner we seek less protection the sooner we’ll realise there’s nothing to be protected from. If we trust life to be safe there’s no need to ensure (or insure) anything. It’s all rather down to trust, in this case trusting non-violence. Unless we tread the virgin ground of dynamic non-violence, we’ll never see how different it is as a whole way of looking at things.
Non-violence is never ambiguous, it is a simple clear principle by which to behave, and in a practical day-to-day way it serves as a perfect shopping guide. This is where each of us has the power of the spending dollar. As we take time to look for ethical goods (buying cruelty-free and environmentally-friendly products) we send a powerful message of encouragement to the people who sell them and that changes the market and affects the way goods are produced. It’s the first step towards a peaceful world, a no-weapon world.
As we draw non-violence into our daily life, we have to be prepared to be scrutinised by others who would love nothing better than to put us down. If we don’t want to give them a signal that they’re succeeding we have to be squeaky clean in terms of non-violence. And that standard, once set, must be kept up, because as we improve our game so our inconsistencies show up more vividly. Even worse, if we begin to evangelise about doing the right thing, soon enough we will hoist ourself with our own self righteous petard, letting our adversaries have a field day with us. Somehow we must find a non-boasting way to say all this and yet remain in touch with people.
A good comedian always knows how to keep the audience sweet and on side, by balancing everything with a heap of self deprecation. Similarly, when we do the talking, when we start to go on about animals, what we say about animal rights might have to be gauged carefully. Subjects like veganism or non-violent action are sensitive enough to require great imagination to keep them as "light" as possible. At all costs, whatever we say must be kept strictly non-personal. We must never be accused of aggression or of using our subject as an excuse to make a speech. A good comedian educates by way of entertainment. Preachers on the other hand, miss the point of entertainment in their haste to get their message across.
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