The meaning of trust and the trust of meaning

930: 

What must it be like for a young man or woman, now living independently, setting up on their own and perhaps coming to terms with daily, domestic decisions. Food becomes a major area for decision-making. Perhaps the most important food decision – are they going to be boycotting animal stuff?

They know if they do, it will be a huge statement of compassion and good sense. If they do, it’s likely beforehand that they’ll have weighed up the advantages and disadvantages, and started to experiment with new ideas, which could affect the rest of their lives. So, let’s look at what would be involved.

In practical food terms, what does it mean to acknowledge the importance of compassion? First up, this means no animal foods, only plant-based foods and is that going to be nutritionally safe? You can only make your choice based on information received from those who’re better informed, from books, etc. But since this is your life you are playing with, your decision requires trust, just as a bungy-jumper will have to trust the strength and length of the rope.

Trusting a new idea might take a whole lifetime, or it could happen overnight. It comes down to where we’re at, regarding new ideas and taking them on board, especially where so much is at stake - over one’s food choices. Once you’ve weighed the pros and cons and finally arrived at a clear picture, you go with it, one step at a time, rather like climbing a hill. Each step might feel like hard work. But once you’ve made the decision, to intend to climb the hill, you can better deal with anything you meet on the way. If you knew beforehand every obstacle you’d encounter, you might never set out in the first place.

Anyway, for you it might NOT be like slogging up a never-ending hill, but quite the opposite. If you decide to go vegan, meaningfulness lessens the difficulty, because perhaps you’ve known all along that promoting liberation for animals is possible from the moment you stop using them. The work of ‘being an animal liberationist’ is in itself uplifting, meaningful, stimulating. It’s almost as if, while you were an omnivore, you had to keep your mouth shut about something you did feel strongly about. And now, you are free to express your feelings. Going vegan might, at first, feel like hard work ... so, redefine the word ‘work’.

Promoting vegan principle, and living by it, is a new type of work. It’s unpaid and maybe frustrating, because we’re breaking so much new ground. And because there’s so much opposition, we constantly have to defend ourselves. And in the daily routines of living, for instance in the kitchen, where everything takes longer than expected. Cooking meals, for instance, means we have far less ready-prepared compounds and need to go back to the raw materials to make, for instance, something like a simple burger. And when shopping, everything needs double-checking and background-ing. It means we have to boycott and, before that, we have to learn about such things as modern animal husbandry methods to confirm our initial decision to boycott.

Progress is slowed by our omnivore friends’ resistance or even hostility. And when we start to promote vegan principle, it’s annoying to find some of our fellow vegans dragging their feet (by being less activist than we’d anticipated).

All this is a right-of-passage for vegans. We have to go through each stage of impatience and frustration, to find out what sort of person we are and what kind of people others are.

On a personal level we, early-on, need to find out whether we are ‘quiet’ or ‘noisy’ types. For noisy vegans who want to talk, if we make any breakthroughs, it’s great; there’s nothing quite like it. It’s like no other satisfaction - communicating this most important subject. Even for the failed communicator this is no less an important subject, not merely because we’re attempting to save people from obesity but because we’re introducing what I would term the greatest panacea for our age – vegan principle being the ultimate statement of non-violence. Yes, it’s wonderful when we connect but often we don’t. Most often a wall of resistance faces us, and we’re only seen as ‘the enemy’.

Animal Rights is a fascinating subject and something we can get our teeth into, communication-wise! It’s an up-hill task especially because it’s so urgent, but it’s never uninteresting. And never, for one minute, have I ever thought it insignificant to the future of both planet and our own species. And I hope I’ve never ever let anyone think that I regard myself as ‘the enemy’!

Fighting talk

929:

If five year olds accept meat-eating you can’t blame them, if a fifteen year old still accepts it you might be more worried, and if a 25 year old is still eating meat, well, even then perhaps there’s still a chance they’ll change, but by then it might be too late. They might have recently left their parents’ dinner table and started shopping for their own food and catering for themselves. They may be experimenting on all sorts of levels, with healthy/ethical-eating being but one of many experiments.

Older carnivores are probably beyond the pale; things have gone too far, with too many worldly pressures and commitments bearing down on them, so radical food-changes are unlikely.

            To older people, vegans probably just seem weird. This makes it doubly hard for us to persuade them. They usually have settled views on this whole animal ‘thing’ and won’t willingly enter into any conversation about it. They’ll steer away from all animal talk (or divert it to ‘pet-talk’) in order to avoid the trap of getting into talking about animal husbandry or veganism.

Although I’ve never had any hostility shown to me for my being vegan, others have. This is one of the most tabooed subjects. As vegans, if we attempt to barge through the barriers, we can alter the whole basis of our relationship with someone. Mentioning our different ethical perspective feels, to the omnivore, as if we are making an attack. They’ll talk about anything else, but refuse to go anywhere near ‘personal eating habits’ that impugn one’s ethics. And let’s remember that this whole matter is primarily about ethics (not health). How frustrating it is, that the less ethics are mentioned, the better.

So, what to do? Keep silent? No, but understatement can be more powerful than using too many words, which have the effect of cornering people. We’re dealing here with what may be called 'truth-force' (satyagrahya) and so all information we have in store, needs to be handled with care and respect; in order to show how important compassion is to us, as vegans, we should practise compassion on all levels, on people too. It’s too easy to offend people and for them to be ‘once bitten twice shy’.

Every day the world eats meat, causing billions of deaths and causing billions more animals to be purpose-bred to take their place. Cruelty is now routine, and practised without a second thought; it isn’t perceived as ‘wrong’ by the mass of the population because it’s all so cunningly hidden away – behind the closed doors of farms or ‘intensive operations’. 

Factory farming of animals guarantees to feed vast numbers of people at the lowest possible cost to the consumer. The law allows animal farms to do what they do, to ensure food supply. Laws pertaining to cruelty-to-animals don’t apply to farm animals.

For the animal advocate, there’s no point in blaming the consumer, farmer, government or overseas competitors. The only constructive thing to do is promote the reasons for boycotting animal produce and continue to encourage ‘cruelty-free’ products to come onto the market. But to do that we must talk, and talking might be our biggest problem here. This is where we most often shoot ourselves in the foot. So, sometimes it’s best we hold back, or rather, work quietly and consistently.

It’s a complex mixture of approaches: a little teasing here, ignoring the whole matter there, sometimes stirring, sometimes ending a conversation as it gets too close to the edge, sometimes being bold about being vegan and at other times being self effacing and making light of the subject – it’s a matter of pushing forward and pulling back, but always taking the initiative, in each situation.

We’ll only be taken seriously when we can show as much sensitivity to the human condition as we would expect from others for the animals’ condition. If you instinctively think it’s inappropriate to discuss this subject, then change the subject. You might lose ‘an opportunity’, but by terminating a discussion you are winning another de-evangelising brownie point, by making it clear that you aren’t trying to convert and also that you aren’t willing to talk in a half hearted or frivolous way.

Each approach has its right timing and a variety of approaches keeps ‘them’ guessing, and hopefully keeps what we’re saying interesting and not too predictable.

I always feel that I can say anything I want to say, as long as I’m being sensitive (and compassionate) to the person I’m talking to. I never want to hurt another person’s feelings, because what I really want is the other person’s trust. If I can get that, then I can talk more freely. Obviously, trust has to be earned, and if I screw up on that, if I fail to get permission-to-talk, it simply looks like I’m squaring up for a fight. And that gives them the right to shut me out. That’s bad enough but then, when you come along they’ll remember my aggressive approach and shut you out too.

Cold hearted horror

928: 

When you see pictures of the Nazi prison camps and the Jews being marched to the gas chambers, you realise how much damage the human brain can cause, especially when its used to normalise cruelty. And especially when that normalisation becomes so routine, that it’s no longer noticed or remarked upon.

If you’ve ever seen films like, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, you see how damage can be maximised when directed at innocence itself. When a child is traumatised, when a child’s innocence is broken, when a child is sent into the gas chamber, at that point innocence is totally violated. By realising that this could happen, that one human could do this to children, is salutary. The exquisite terror these children must have experienced, as they saw the cold-blooded killing ‘machine’ go into operation, must have been more than anything a surprise.

A child’s innocence, just like an animal’s, by being destroyed, emphasises the pitilessness of the deed. It’s so surprising to think any human could be capable of this. Therefore, to me anyway, what happened there tells me a lot. For the two boys in ‘the striped pyjamas’, this was an attack on their consciousness, the most precious survival equipment humans have, for becoming aware of their thinking-environment.

By their sharing so much of the same sentience, I can only think it’s much the same for animals, when facing the same lack of pity from their executioners. This is why farmers don’t give their animals names or let their kids get to know them. If young people, living on animal farms, were allowed to develop any sort of emotional attachment to them, they would have too much difficulty later on, when they become their betrayers. Without this betrayal, the animals could never be sent to the equivalent of the gas chamber, sent to an equally  terrible death by having their throats slit open.

There’s not much difference between the death camps set up for humans and the abattoir set-up for animals - each shows how unfeeling, how ruthless and how pragmatic humans can be. And it’s that trait, in some humans, that lets them do what they do, without a second thought. Which is why people like us have to distance ourselves from this particular barbarity. Once we end our association with the Animal Industry, we can wash our hands of the abattoir, and that of course means that we give up eating (and enjoying) the meat and produce from those abattoir clientele.

These images of abattoirs and gas chambers are haunting enough, if only because they fatally attack the defenceless - they are a constant reminder of what the human is capable of.

But if the act itself is straight forward, far from simple is the psychology running behind it, since it reflects the human capacity to make what’s wrong right. This is what Orwell might describe as “double-think”; in the nature of this particular crime, it is not seen as a crime at all.

Most present day humans (including almost everyone that is an animal ‘consumer’) don’t necessarily see the crime, any more than do the hands-on animal farmers, transporters or executioners. They hold a view that says, “Animals - why make a fuss about them? They are ‘mere’ animals. They don’t have brains like ours. They are incapable of feeling. They don’t have the same ‘sentience’ as us. They aren’t as conscious of things as we might be. They can’t be traumatised because they can’t reflect on their own situation. They can’t premeditate their own destiny, so they don’t suffer from anxiety. In short, animals are unaware of what’s happening to them until it happens and, because of that, they never experience agitation. We mustn’t anthropomorphise about animals”.

These explanations have comforted many generations of meat-eating humans. They help to convince whole populations of people, that what happens to animals is basically okay, because our ‘using’ them is essential to the preservation of our life. 

Props

927: 

Animal Right activists are concerned about other people’s callous attitudes. But we also have an attitudinal problem. We might have walked away from using animals, and that’s something we can be proud of, but pride of accomplishment is close to arrogance. The self disciplined, vegan, animal activist needs to downplay their achievements, never be arrogant and never boast, if they want to be listened to.

It has to be said that if a person is still a user of animals they can hardly expect others to abstain. It seems obvious to say this but there are still so many well-meaning activists who are unwilling to

reduce their dependency on certain material items which they think they need.

Simply put, and without pontificating about it, vegans are all about consistency. We can only set an example if we are practising what we ‘preach’ (that is without boasting and  by NOT preaching, of course). Our consistency is based on the logic of reducing demand for products connected with animals, boycotting in fact. We don’t need to convert people to veganism, all we need to do is persuade people to reduce their demand, and when enough people do, so they effectively reduce the market for unethical commodities. It automatically raises awareness at the same time.

The more people who do that, the faster we will create a new market for ‘cruelty-free’ products, and the faster the prices for these products will drop. It might be slow at first, but it is the start of a major shift in attitude towards animals leading to a major shift in our planet’s destiny and ultimately to the transformation of our own species.

On an individual level, at first, it requires a few sacrifices of some foods and a willingness to do without the acceptance of others who don’t yet share this understanding. As individuals, we have to be pioneers, putting up with some loneliness, and doing without a few home comforts to which we’ve grown accustomed.

Humans, especially those of us living in the so called ‘developed world’, are the spoilt brats of our world. To a large extent, our lives have been spoiled, since we can no longer enjoy living in a state of unselfconsciousness. We are constantly reminded that the material world is available and we’d be fools not to get the best out of it.

For many in the underdeveloped world, life is possible with just a little food and shelter, and not very much more. When one weighs the true advantages of both types of life, one realises that even bare survival would surely be better than all the luxuries we have become addicted to today, because the luxuries are stolen. As we gradually become aware of the dangers of rich living, as our lives become progressively sadder and unhealthier, so we might wish that we could rid ourselves of the shame we feel and our lost innocence. We might long for the unselfconsciousness we have so sadly lost. But beyond what we might want for ourselves there’s one other aspect of modern life we need to throw-over, because we so badly need to atone for what we have done – done to so many life forms but particularly to the animals. 

Most of the items we’re attached to are merely material props. They’ve been our comforts during our spiritual ‘growing up’. Now that we are beginning to realise what we’ve let our self be drawn into, we have a chance to shake off our need for all those little luxuries, particularly the fancy foods and clothes we spend most of our money on. They are props we just don’t need. We are capable of doing without them, and as soon as we know this to be true we are on our way to true progress and transformation.

Fouling our nest

926:

How can the people in rural areas be entirely blamed for making money out of animals? There’s not much else one can make money from, so animals are put to use, and the rest of the story we know.

The most immediate payback has shown up in health problems amongst exploited animals on farms and amongst so many of the humans who eat them and eat their by-products. Down on the farms they feed the animals chemicals to increase their growth rate and fend off disease. If they didn’t, with so much fierce competition from home and abroad, they’d go broke. Farmers are being economically backed into a corner over the animal welfare issue. On top of that are environmental problems associated with modern farming practices, again brought about mainly by economic pressures. Animals have long been seen as a resource; they are ‘free-for-the-taking’. And now today, what was regarded as a nice little earner is now being seen as coming with many hidden costs.

It’s the same story with petrol or gas. It is useful. We have used our considerable brains to extract it and use it for human benefit. The hidden cost is that, by using so much of it, it has polluted our planet and even affected the delicate balance of our planet’s climate, on which we depend for our very survival. Again, with trees being so useful for timber, but in the taking of so many of them we’ve caused a catastrophe for the environment.

We humans push everything to the limits of toleration and then complain about the consequences, or rather the rich get richer by exploiting and the consequences hit the poor the hardest, since they haven’t the means to withstand the damage caused.

The collective human, as distinct from the individual, doesn’t learn from one bad experience. We have to wear each system down to the bone before we realise how there must be a withholding of so called ‘progress’. People are not willing to speak out, inconvenience themselves or set a good example to influence others, and so the species as a whole, in fact the planet as a whole, must suffer the consequences. It seems that our inevitable selfishness is linked to our common materialist traits, and this seems to control our lives. Up to now, we haven’t been able to stop fouling our own nest. 

Grab it while you can

925: 

You can’t blame humans for always exploiting an opportunity. We’ve developed our response to temptation over aeons, in order to gain advantage over the ‘lesser brains’ of animals. And this has made us the dominant species. In other ways we have exploited opportunities for our own benefit to the detriment of the planet (and ourselves in the long run). A current example - ‘fracking’, causing mini-earthquakes to explode the shale, deep beneath the earth’s surface, to extract gas. The immediate side effect is that the toxic chemicals use in this process, leach into the drinking water aquifers, poisoning the water supply for the people up above.

We humans have always celebrated the fact that we’re so smart, that we are clever enough in fact to exploit and disregard Nature. But we should know by now that we don’t get ‘owt for nowt’. We pay in the end.

 The great lesson for us, in learning how to use opportunities afforded to us by our big brains, is to know when to stop, when to pull back. But we don’t want to miss out.

Restraint is made difficult because if we don’t take advantage then others will, and to our own detriment. But it’s only restraint that will give us all a future. It’s at the heart of the trend to ‘go green’, and if we do go ‘green’ (read sensitive and aware), if we see the sense of that, then why not go fully green, by dropping the animal stuff in the diet?

Exploitation is dumb - taking trees, ‘taking’ rivers, taking any resource, including animals, helps to destroy the sustainable balance of Nature. And we may feel grateful for environmentalists who fight for sustainable systems. But unfortunately they can only ever achieve partial success, simply because too many environmentalists are still meat heads. The haven’t made the connection between their own fine principle (and it certainly is fine) and the principles espoused by vegans.

 All I’m saying here is that, just because animals seem to breed abundantly and seem so available, and seem so indefensible and cheap to ‘run’, there is no ethical or long-term economic reason to continue exploiting them.

Muddle-headed or evil?

924: 

Is what food producers do to animals evil? Is the conniving-consumers also evil? Perhaps, in reality, it’s more mindlessness than deliberate evil-doing. When something has been done for millennia, when everybody is doing much the same thing, everywhere on the planet (using or eating animals), it’s not likely to be thought of as wrong.

Of course to a person who does NOT eat animals, to a vegan for instance, it looks very wrong indeed.

It’s all in the perception. To those in the industry, the farmers, abattoir workers, cage manufacturers, retailers, etc., it’s a living – this is how they make their money, by using animals. The use of animals, as we would use any resource, is seen as utterly normal. And to consumers too, who are simply in the shop buying their normal food, it’s such an everyday occurrence that it isn’t even thought about. Any ill effects this food might have on them, let alone the harm done to the animals, is hardly thought about.

You can imagine how it seems when a vegan comes along and starts pointing out the stupidity let alone the wrongness of it all. To the regular omnivore that could seem quite mystifying - these are “normal foods” to everyone. They are the only type of foods they’ve ever known; a meal without animal-derived items is no meal at all.

It’s the same with pharmaceuticals or medical procedures, we trust they are safe, that they’ve been animal-tested before reaching the market with nary a thought to the pain and suffering animals endure during animal experiments. Most people are not aware or don’t want to be made aware that laboratories exist where thousands of animals are held against their will, immobilised and eventually die terrible deaths, to test chemicals for human safety. “Better to test on animals than humans”, we say.

As it is with farmers producing food for consumers, so it is with animal researchers and vivisectors, who believe they’re helping to fight illness and disease. When they’re searching for a new drug to help combat some horrible disease, surely, they say, “Anything goes”. Conducting ‘safety experiments’ on animals isn’t thought to be an act of evil, it’s quite the opposite in fact.

We humans have grown accustomed to making use of what’s available, and in this case we see animals merely as useful ‘resources’. We take from them without questioning whether we have the right to do so or not. It’s not much different to the motorist using petrol, in that it’s available so why not use it? Animals are simply available-for-use.

Gradually the human race is waking up to the consequences of this attitude. Gradually we are realising that taking what is not ours, especially if it’s to the detriment of something or someone else, might be a mistake. Not so much evil as muddle-headed. I doubt if Animal Rights is fighting evil as much as thick headedness, ego and a blind compliance with the norm.