If we are vegan and can’t understand why others are not, it may be worth looking closely at altruistic impulse. Is it altruism that initially drives someone to give away a lot of the ‘benefits of life’ for the sake of saving animals? To think so seriously about animals and bring that concern into our daily lives is simply being altruistic. But is that selflessness or is it something more interesting? What does the idea altruism involve?
No one actually criticises altruism as an ideal. It is beyond reproach because it’s meant to be about selflessness and considering others’ interests before one’s own. But like Nietzsche, I believe this definition is demeaning. More particularly, it’s unrealistic because it is the kind of purity no one can keep up. We are survivors and therefore have to be selfish and self-interested. We love to look after our own first and others afterwards. Perhaps that is relative altruism; one that we can enjoy unashamedly because it feels good to be doing something for others whilst doing something good for ourselves. There’s a lot of giving-out needed today; yet we shouldn’t neglect our own interests or our own need for reward. If we are brutally honest with ourselves, it is the reward we think about. Not necessarily being paid money for doing something helpful or winning praise or getting thanked. The reward is more like incoming energy – the buzz we get from being useful.
At its heart, altruism must be self rewarding. If it isn’t, why deplete yourself for it? Doing good without getting some recognition back, makes us become resentful. It’s only natural to expect something back. We give a birthday present, we expect a thank you. And if it doesn’t appear, we notice that we’re less inclined to bother next birthday.
Whatever we do, even if it’s a paid job, we need something extra, a recognition, because it makes what we do run smoother, which encourages us to give our all. This is much better than being pinched into giving the bare minimum expected. If just small recognition is shown it makes us feel energised. We all like the feeling of giving, whether it’s quality of service or a quality in our relationships. By being vegan we give quality to our own life and at the same time to the lives of the animals we help save from being reared and killed and eaten.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Give and take
If we want to develop a better world and gain some personal happiness in the process we have to inject wisdom and compassion into our daily decisions. Vegan principle embodies both. Being vegan is a major statement of compassion and as the years roll by the wisdom of being vegan becomes more apparent. So, it’s no wonder that long time vegans leap at the chance to introduce the idea of vegan principle to whoever will listen. Trouble is people aren’t wanting to listen, but when you find someone genuinely wanting to find out, then vegans can tell them. But it’s important to note that we shouldn’t do it evangelically or boastfully but simply because we want others to gain from what we know about it. Behind vegan lifestyle there is a principle which is both sensible and kind.
If there were one force that combined both wisdom and compassion it would be altruism. Not the idealised notion of it that gets so much bad press but a quiet, personal, utterly satisfying drive; that when one initiates good for others it’s also good for oneself. By putting the pursuit of one’s own happiness on hold for a while one may pursue the much less self-interested goal of looking out for others. Not necessarily easy, but by being altruistic we deliberately avoid living a self indulgent life and make it more robust and adventurous.
The one very practical central start is vegan principle. A few times every day we makes choices about our daily foods, clothes and commodities. According to vegan principle we choose commodities basic to our needs but which don’t steal from the needs of others. Once we get that right we’ve the grounding for self-respect, and from there we gain confidence and fulfilment.
Maybe it seems a rather roundabout route, making our lives seem so edgy, but this way we’re more likely to understand the mysteries of life and the subtleties of altruism. The give and take lets us realise that we can benefit ourselves whilst benefitting others.
If there were one force that combined both wisdom and compassion it would be altruism. Not the idealised notion of it that gets so much bad press but a quiet, personal, utterly satisfying drive; that when one initiates good for others it’s also good for oneself. By putting the pursuit of one’s own happiness on hold for a while one may pursue the much less self-interested goal of looking out for others. Not necessarily easy, but by being altruistic we deliberately avoid living a self indulgent life and make it more robust and adventurous.
The one very practical central start is vegan principle. A few times every day we makes choices about our daily foods, clothes and commodities. According to vegan principle we choose commodities basic to our needs but which don’t steal from the needs of others. Once we get that right we’ve the grounding for self-respect, and from there we gain confidence and fulfilment.
Maybe it seems a rather roundabout route, making our lives seem so edgy, but this way we’re more likely to understand the mysteries of life and the subtleties of altruism. The give and take lets us realise that we can benefit ourselves whilst benefitting others.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Setting the example
Today, we are so conscious of violence (largely through stories reported in the media) that we think most humans are violent, which of course they aren’t! These media stories bring (what passes for) interest into our dreary lives, giving us something to talk about. So we discuss violence and say how we dislike it, but as we become more interested in it, it sucks us in. Then we become disgusted by our own attraction to it and swing right over to the opposite side, into the idea of non-violence, sentimentally attracted by it’s being so politically correct. We escape into that sort of non-violence when things get tough. We use it to deny reality. But we forget to think about it deeply.
If the legend is true about the Lemurian civilisation and they abhorred violence, their undoing was that they were incapable of dealing with it realistically. They eventually died out because they tried to deny the very existence of violence. Perhaps they hadn’t thought deeply enough about the co-dependence of the two elements or given enough thought to the dynamic side of non-violence.
Today we can be far more dynamic about it, by boycotting violent activity wherever it is found. As consumers we can avoid using violent goods. We can encourage cruelty-free and environmentally friendly commodities. That’s a really good start. As more people act in this way so the fashion will take off, and violence and coercion will not be considered useful. And no one need ever notice the transition or identify what it was that changed our society, as long as those with a strong interest in non-violence set the example.
If the legend is true about the Lemurian civilisation and they abhorred violence, their undoing was that they were incapable of dealing with it realistically. They eventually died out because they tried to deny the very existence of violence. Perhaps they hadn’t thought deeply enough about the co-dependence of the two elements or given enough thought to the dynamic side of non-violence.
Today we can be far more dynamic about it, by boycotting violent activity wherever it is found. As consumers we can avoid using violent goods. We can encourage cruelty-free and environmentally friendly commodities. That’s a really good start. As more people act in this way so the fashion will take off, and violence and coercion will not be considered useful. And no one need ever notice the transition or identify what it was that changed our society, as long as those with a strong interest in non-violence set the example.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Keeping our violence in check
Take the violent world. In it, we always try to get what we want. We bend the rules and hope we can fix things up later. But there’s another violent world in Nature, where forceful events like storms, epidemics and earthquakes happen and destruction occurs on a massive scale. But this sort of violence isn’t the same as the human variety. Ours is damaging because it is so coldly administered - driven by our sense of insecurity and ambition. Only by implementing the principles of non-violence can we keep our own violence in check, whether it’s our own violence or it’s in our children, in our partner or in the collective consciousness itself. By checking ourselves and our closest relationships for violence, we can keep non-violent principles in touch with reality. Then we can watch it grow, probably first at home, in a relatively safe atmosphere.
At home we can test and trial non-violence before taking it into the outside world. At home, between familiar people, where we’re known, we can learn valuable lessons via praise, mockery and criticism. The impact on our ego may be softened by our intimacy with people who know us. And with them we can work through our differences, perhaps more slowly than we’d like but more thoroughly. Hopefully at home we can watch out for each other, test each other and have as our basis an implicit promise that we’ll never leave each other behind. That building of mutual care leads to a feeling of safety, and that can give us enough confidence to go into the outside world with strangers and be more truthful in our communications with them … which includes the vilified public figures whom we love to hate. It would be good training in non-violence if we could observe what they do without automatically aborting on them or bringing out the hate bugs to hurt them. Non-violence is strengthened when we stop being so predictably judgmental!!
At home we can test and trial non-violence before taking it into the outside world. At home, between familiar people, where we’re known, we can learn valuable lessons via praise, mockery and criticism. The impact on our ego may be softened by our intimacy with people who know us. And with them we can work through our differences, perhaps more slowly than we’d like but more thoroughly. Hopefully at home we can watch out for each other, test each other and have as our basis an implicit promise that we’ll never leave each other behind. That building of mutual care leads to a feeling of safety, and that can give us enough confidence to go into the outside world with strangers and be more truthful in our communications with them … which includes the vilified public figures whom we love to hate. It would be good training in non-violence if we could observe what they do without automatically aborting on them or bringing out the hate bugs to hurt them. Non-violence is strengthened when we stop being so predictably judgmental!!
The heated argument
Sunday 17th May
The most attractive feature of non-violence is that it is only interested in the bigger picture. That’s why it has no sense of timing. It can pop up at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of a heated argument which is verging on a quarrel – someone outside breaks in to suggest that we “calm down”. We push them aside because we are convinced that the importance of our ‘good idea’ outweighs any need for good manners. But as time passes, if things escalate into a personal slanging match, it’s only that call for calm which might have averted disaster. Only by applying the brakes in time, can we let the calming factor do its work. If we exclude it, violence ups the ante until an explosion is inevitable. After that it’s a long up-hill struggle to bring things back into balance. The calming element brings high emotions under control. It’s a sort of count-to-ten principle which is not meant to spoil our fun but to keep our dynamic emotions under some sort of control. So, how dynamic should our non-violence be? Certainly we must never let it act as a dampener or for us to be afraid of robust interaction.
The most attractive feature of non-violence is that it is only interested in the bigger picture. That’s why it has no sense of timing. It can pop up at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of a heated argument which is verging on a quarrel – someone outside breaks in to suggest that we “calm down”. We push them aside because we are convinced that the importance of our ‘good idea’ outweighs any need for good manners. But as time passes, if things escalate into a personal slanging match, it’s only that call for calm which might have averted disaster. Only by applying the brakes in time, can we let the calming factor do its work. If we exclude it, violence ups the ante until an explosion is inevitable. After that it’s a long up-hill struggle to bring things back into balance. The calming element brings high emotions under control. It’s a sort of count-to-ten principle which is not meant to spoil our fun but to keep our dynamic emotions under some sort of control. So, how dynamic should our non-violence be? Certainly we must never let it act as a dampener or for us to be afraid of robust interaction.
Saturday, May 16, 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 non-violent actions come into their own at the best time, when they can be most effective, becoming more powerful the longer it is kept waiting. It doesn’t need a supporting act to make it more valid or effective. 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 approach in everything we do. Which is convenient later on, when our approach is assessed and 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 non-violent actions come into their own at the best time, when they can be most effective, becoming more powerful the longer it is kept waiting. It doesn’t need a supporting act to make it more valid or effective. 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 approach in everything we do. Which is convenient later on, when our approach is assessed and the rest of the world catches up.
Friday, May 15, 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 yet imagine. Even if we could, we don’t really know how individual effort can get us there. We only know that if it can exist it will act as all the security we could want. Individually it’s safety-first, first. Only after that 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 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 comes down to trust - in this case, trusting non-violence. A dynamic form of it. A whole other way of looking at things.
Non-violence is never ambiguous, it is a simple clear principle guiding behaviour, and in a practical day-to-day way it serves as a perfect shopping guide too. 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. In turn this 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 have us all barbecued. If we don’t want to give them any success we have to be squeaky clean in terms of our own 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 our selves 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 we have to say whilst remaining in close touch with people.
A good comedian, always knowing how to keep the audience sweet, balances everything with self deprecation. Similarly, when we do the talking, when we start to go on about animals, what we say about animal rights should 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 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 comes down to trust - in this case, trusting non-violence. A dynamic form of it. A whole other way of looking at things.
Non-violence is never ambiguous, it is a simple clear principle guiding behaviour, and in a practical day-to-day way it serves as a perfect shopping guide too. 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. In turn this 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 have us all barbecued. If we don’t want to give them any success we have to be squeaky clean in terms of our own 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 our selves 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 we have to say whilst remaining in close touch with people.
A good comedian, always knowing how to keep the audience sweet, balances everything with self deprecation. Similarly, when we do the talking, when we start to go on about animals, what we say about animal rights should 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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