Conspiracy

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I see conspiracy everywhere when it comes to humans using animals. I prefer to call it a ‘conspiracy’ since animals are so easy to conspire against, simply by ignoring them or downgrading the importance of them. Their ‘issues’ have always been downgraded by vested interests, and we ‘bleeding hearts’ and ‘lettuce leaf eaters’ are duly denigrated for being on the animals’ side. Central to the conspiracy, doubly insulating it, is the ridiculing of the anti-meat lobby. It’s as big a part of the promotion game as TV advertising of chicken nuggets.
Conspiracy theories often raise a smile. But some of them are such serious perversions of truth that there’s no other word to describe them. In this instance we have health issues not being linked to animal food, animal farming having a benign effect on the environment, unfair food distribution being unconnected with malnutrition. The links are obvious enough once you dare to look at this particular conspiracy to pervert the course of truth.
Is this too much to take on board? Too overwhelming an idea? That animals are our meat and not much more?
Easy-to-see-through conspiracies attempt to conceal what’s going on? Animal use is nearly always exploitative yet legal by dint of Society’s sanctioning of violence. If you do see all you can do is disassociate yourself from it. And then perhaps speak out against it.
This is what many vegans are doing. From our perspective so many of the major issues of the day can be closely connected to violence or the unthinkingness of going along with what the next person does. And when it comes to the abuse of animals, mainly in their use as food, it is always about violence.
If we Earthlings were to be seen by an outsiders, we’d come across as cold, hard and cruel, if only because we condone routine cruelty perpetrated on millions of captive animals.
It’s useful to see our Society through the prism of violence, as a thread that links the rape of the environment with the rape of animal life with the destruction of bodies and minds. By developing habits of non-violence we can counteract or at least minimise our negative impact on the planet. And that starts in the kitchen, with food change. By boycotting animal products we atone for what humans have done to the animals. Who could deny that domesticated animals are not the MOST abused and damaged of Nature’s children.

Example-setting

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Vegans are example-setters, standing up against a Goliath opposition. The opposition isn’t only over food but the myriad issues facing the world, each of which usually take precedence over compassion-for-animals. The issues, in a line of given importance, include global warming/climate change, third world starvation/malnutrition, deforestation/pollution of aquifers, the nuclear threat/nuclear power, abuse of women and children, unemployment ... the list goes on. Each issue gathers passionate support and occupies the minds of the worrying, thinking person. Animal issues don’t impact on people in quite the same way, since there isn’t the same level of obvious, immediate threat to our own lives or the safety of the planet ... although of course vegans would argue otherwise.
The significance of the Big Issues is flagged in the media and is generally acceptable in the way they write it up. So, when it comes to Animal Rights, there are so many other issues to worry about that it isn’t difficult to push it into the background or drop it into the too hard basket.
For those of us who see it as THE main issue we have to come to terms with the reality of the common perception. It isn’t seen that way by most people owing to the fact that they don’t WANT to see it so, and vested interests, namely the Animal Industries, definitely don’t want to see it so.
It’s therefore down to the animal advocates to establish the importance of animal issues and to illustrate how these issues impact on most other problems facing the human race today. Our climate would benefit, our health and food problems would be dramatically alleviated, non-violence would be taken more seriously, etc, if .... but, let’s face it, reasoned argument isn’t quite the point here.
People in general are overwhelmed by that long list of problems. We humans built the problems and now we’re chipping away them. Any single improvement of one of them doesn’t seem to impact on all the others. It seems we can only mouth our concern. It seems we can make a gesture or two but then just get on with our lives. And if we get too worried about being ineffective, hypocritical or misguided we’ll have to deal with that, maybe by cutting another slice of cheesecake and trying to calm down. Mentally we mustn’t be brought down by the weight of all these global unsolve-ables, otherwise we’ll be in danger of losing control of our daily lives. Maybe we’re already in danger of falling into something we dare not think about.
Where will all this worry lead, for those already concerned about their own mental stability? If they were to listen to vegans they’d feel all at sea, changing food one day, going organic next, then raw the next, health issues, animal issues, environmental impacts ... where does it all stop? Can any of us afford to spread our concerns that much?
I suppose it comes down to the way we look at things. When I get a flier through the mail about the latest tragic event, asking me for a contribution, it feels like I’d be plugging a hole in a leaky bucket. I also say “Where does it all stop?”
But why not start? Slipping a fiver in an envelope won’t solve the world’s problems but it’s a start, and every gesture helps. Starting to think about the animals we’re eating, that’s a start. What we do will be largely anonymous, unremarked and even personally inconvenient. But in doing something we are example-setting. Can I do it? Can I resist the pressure, which is always on us to conform, to take the easier way, to go the cheaper way. Can I re-direct my own consumer habits? These are central questions.
Our involvement in waste is as regular as our involvement in cruelty. Being profligate with paper, being party to the ruin of the land or the caging of hens - abuse and cruelty and taking advantage stem from the same attitude ... not reckless, wanton, selfish violence but simply a belief that we do things that we don’t believe we can STOP doing. We don’t think we are good example-setters.
The trick is surely not to be overwhelmed by all the issues but to do something about that which we feel most strongly and about what we feel comfortable doing. In the ‘doing’ comes a certain sense of achievement, and by broadening our concerns, by going deeper, we understand the issues better. I know that I get something valuable out of what I’ve better understood … especially about myself.

Communicating compassionately

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Vegan principle needs to be spelt out if only to stop the rot amongst omnivores. If some people can overlook something as obviously wrong as factory farming (immobilising animals to make them work more like machines) then this needs to be pointed out by us. Vegans might seem as if they’re trying to snatch the chicken nuggets out of the hands of children … so, we need to turn that around. We need to show how the alternative can be so much more fulfilling, breaking the attachment to the ubiquitous chicken nugget, aiming for people to no-longer want them.
‘Not-wanting’ isn’t a self-disciplined, teeth-gritting, temptation-denying impulse. It’s a moving-on-from, a disinterest-in or even a repulsion towards that which we once loved.
I notice smells. Beef cooking, fish grilling, egg frying and to me it’s something I want to get far away from as if one is sniffing burning rubber. However to those who eat these things, these smells are delicious and salivation-inducing. ‘Not-wanting’ is a long way from denial-of-wanting - it’s a reaction to that which we once wanted which we now distinctly don’t want anymore. Maybe in relation to certain popular animal foods there’s an ‘addictive-wanting’, where our guilt is involved in making the object of desire more seductive, like chicken nuggets.
The omnivore animal-eaters will want to keep quiet about the ‘wrong’ of animal abuse and they’d do almost anything not to have to face facts. Vegans might break into a sweat when they consider the cruelty of animal farming, knowing that we’re different from those who don’t think it matters because they can get away with it. Conscience can be so pliable.
Vegans themselves might avoid certain truths too - that our vegetables and fruits come from a monoculture which destroys the land, and yet we buy these products because they’re cheap. These vegetables, produced by ‘intensive means’, are grown by farmers who want to stay in business. Competition is the main reason intensive methods are used, and whether it’s animal farming or arable farming these operations provide us with our food and therefore the very energy of life. If we move away from the standard food product (whatever it might be) we enter a world of ideal conditions and high prices when, for example, we buy biodynamic and organic or buy speciality products.
At some time we’ll have to deal with the ‘wrong’ of certain aspects of food production, and that might mean vegans themselves having to eat less so that they can eat better … which means changing our habits and denying what we want (namely, low prices).
Here’s a dilemma for us perhaps, but all this helps us to understand omnivores better. If we can experience a little of what they are facing we’re in a better position to be of some help. And that involves a compassionate dialogue which in turn allows better chance of communicating vegan principle, even when resistance is already high.

The vegan sell

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What happens to the people who make their money off the backs of animals? Or take advantage of any other resource against the best interests of the ‘greater good’? Perhaps they suffer for it in their own way but this is the story of the human race, where we use resources in an unsustainable way, not to mention sometimes in a cruel way. The arguments for restraint and acting for the ‘greater good’ don’t seem convincing. It seems that ‘bad’ might just works better for us.
But laying all that aside for the moment, if we are one of those people who want to drop our own use of animals and want to persuade others to join us, we have to sell the alternative. A vegan approach is not perfect but at least it deals with non-violence and doing things for the greater good rather than out of self interest, and that in itself is an inspiring position to take up.
A vegan diet doesn’t solve everything, for instance it doesn’t address how plants are being grown and how arable farming, in the form of monoculture, destroys the land, but it’s a start. It’s a jumping-off point for better systems of horticulture, for better types of eating and preparing foods and getting more nutrition out of plant-based foods. It’s pioneering in so many important ways. It lays the foundations for a different lifestyle and for a greater respect for Life. But at this early stage, it is a statement of disassociation with the unthinking conventions of exploiting the weak by the strong. Vegan principle ends the one-sided war between humans and the animals.

The animal farmers and their customers

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If we were strangers to the ways of this world we’d see a farmer as an unkind gaoler who tortured animals for a living. There’s no kinder way we could possibly see them, unless we also saw the equally cruel people who urged the farmer on so that they (the customer) could benefit.
We are not strangers to the ways of farmers, in fact every child on the planet will be made aware of the role these people play in ‘bringing food to our table’, an obviously useful and essential service to the community – thus, the child thinks well of the animal farmer and probably will carry that opinion on for the rest of his or her life ... and therefore never think ill of themselves for using what the farmer provides them with in the way of ‘animal food’.
This is their ‘living’, the business which animal farmers engage in, at the expense of their animals. The animals are their property. They own them and are free to use them to make a wage for themselves, especially in country regions where there are few other employment opportunities. If living off the land is difficult it’s even more so on marginal land where crops won’t grow profitably enough, where the farming of animals is the only way to make ‘a living’. It seems that human survival will always be more important than considering the welfare of animals, even though we know what we put them through is hateful, even though what we do to them eventually impacts badly on human health.

It’s there, it’s for sale and I want it

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Vegans are out there being different. I, for one, want to communicate to people why.
This is not something too many others do. It’s not how they spend their time. The way a vegan thinks is so radically different to how most people think. I think a lot about those poor helpless animals in prison, and I’d do anything to stop what we humans are doing to them. This is contrary to the way Society has always regarded the usability of farm animals and also contrary to attitudes about using animal foods.
When I start to speak to anyone face to face, about an ethically driven diet-change, a curtain falls. I’m met with un-interest or worse, a casual dismissing of the whole subject. But despite this, or rather because of , I know I need to work out how to move ahead, to communicate despite the collective resistance.
I think people in general have been got at. I like to emphasise that, and show the blind ‘following tendency’ humans have - that we basically do as we’re told as kids and never actually grow out of that obedience. I would stress that we rarely reflect deeply enough on what appears to be our benign eating habits, for if we did we’d soon enough see how we’ve been duped.
Just look at the obvious: eating animals, wearing them, using them - we do it so much. Our voracious appetite for their products is encouraged by the Animal Industries, and we the customer spend so much of our money on their products. We do it even though we know it’s wrong (that is, wrong for the planet, for our health and of course for the ‘health’ of the animals themselves). Nevertheless we do it.
The Animal Rights movement has tried to swing people over, by pointing out the cruelty and health angles, but it doesn’t work … and we need to understand why. But in the meantime, vegans need to present themselves as a solid resource, a service to those who are ready to wake up to the trap they’ve allowed themselves to fall into – a trap made almost invisible by the volume of traffic passing into it. The fact is that almost every human on the planet has been lured into a state of unawareness. Vegans are the wake-up call, and we’ll always be there in the community, applying pressure on people in whatever way we choose to do it.
But, for some activists, we need to foresee how things are going to change. We need to see the sequence of things and where the tipping point will be likely reached. To see where what we’re on about is going to be finally grasped. It really is simple, almost too simple for people to even notice what’s in front of their very eyes.
Why is animal cruelty happening? Why is there this mad addiction to animal products? Why are good hearted people with fine minds immune to what is really going on?
It’s possible that they feel there’s really no choice – it’s all there is ... in reality. It’s what we do to make energy, to keep warm, to maintain dry feet – we use animal. These are the habits of a lifetime, it’s how we eat, it’s the food that’s on sale, it’s how Society operates.
Our habits are fed into the common psyche, from birth. We only know of those products which are promoted, which are very often rich with government subsidy. The foods are made to taste good or, in the case of clothing, look good. They’re hard to resist and not easy to replace.
In almost all countries core foods and core items of clothing are made from animals - the non-animal choices are negligible. In all cultures affordability has been the determinant of what can and can’t be purchased. If it’s legal and we have the money for it we are brought up to assume there’s no other obstacle to having what we want. Our pockets are full of expendable cash, and we are so used to getting what we want we buy whatever’s on offer. It never crosses our minds that there is an ethical component to shopping. We don’t give a thought to the wrongness of supporting the Animal Industries. By buying their goods we encourage the producers in what they do ... and since they’re economically driven, they just can’t help inflicting cruelty on animals, to keep pace with the competition. Profit takes precedence over ethics, and it always ends up that the customer is the patsy.

Nudging un-realism

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What sort of people are vegans speaking to when they do get the chance to speak? We always hope people will be compliant or, better still, eager to learn all the stuff we want them to know … but it’s likely they’ll be bogged down with other priorities and reluctant to listen.
We have to consider that many people DON’T feel badly about behaving badly. For instance, if they do know about the suffering of animals it might not matter to them, and therefore eating these animals won’t concern them.
What would get people to pull back a bit on their animal eating? I’d suggest that such a radical move only ever happens if people want it badly enough for themselves. What? For their health? For their conscience? Their reputation? At first, does it matter what sort of ‘wanting’ it is?
As vegans we need to appeal to this deep sense of wanting, if it exists. If people aren’t ready to change, we can appeal to their sense of right-behaviour, to their health or to their compassion and get nowhere. We have to be realistic. If they aren’t ready they’ll resort to saying, “If it’s legal and if most other people do it there’s no argument in the world that will persuade me to change”. If they’re not ready they won’t even let their minds rest on the subject of Animal Rights let alone change their diet. They’d say to us: “This is my favourite food we’re talking about here. No way am I going to give up the pleasure of a Sunday roast” (and the social tradition attached to it). “Giving up meat and ALL the rest of it is out of the question”. But who knows, maybe some concession will be made, and that’s a start.
It’s such a powerful substance, food. It’s the one consistent and familiar strand linking all the days of our lives, right up to the present day (we say “I am what I eat”). To expect we can alter any part of that might seem unrealistic. To attempt to alter it though, even though we fail, might add a jot of forward-moving.