Vegan principle

1045: 

I’ve got a friend overseas (who I write to regularly about all this) and he dislikes the idea of veganism - but it’s the ‘ism’ bit he hates.  Perhaps he’s right.  ‘Isms’ sound a bit like religion, and really ‘vegan’ isn’t anything other than a principle which combines plain good sense with compassion.   Vegans leap at the chance to introduce ‘all this’, because we want others to have access to something we’ve ‘picked up’, that’s mainly to our own advantage.  It isn’t a wish to boast  ... but that’s the trouble here ... that’s how other people often perceive ‘all this’ and our wanting to talk about it. 

Non-vegans see us as masochists or, more generously, our ‘going vegan’ to be all about self-discipline.  But to us it’s all-benefit, and we’ll always want to make that clear.

           

It’s very hard to shine a light on something ‘self-disciplined’ without looking too shiny about it.  If what I do looks like altruism I’m necessarily showing off, because it’s the opposite of selfishness, which is always ugly.  It’s very hard not to look smug about being so ‘sensible and compassionate’.  The omnivore will giggle (rather nervously) at the strictness of our lifestyle.  And then dismiss it.  But we look at it quite differently, seeing what we eat as the most satisfying food.  Our ‘ism’ gives us an interesting goal-for-life, and that’s because we’re showing a care for farm animals, and generally looking out for others, etc.

Certainly, all this can sound smug.  Difficult too.  But maybe life for vegans is a bit edgier.  We push ourselves at a greater pace, to learn about things which are being kept hidden from the general pubic.  We’ll want to investigate and expose and inform.  Does that sound smug, again?  It’s difficult not to come across like that, and if it looks altruistic then it’s nothing more than common sense with a dash of kindness thrown in for good measure, on behalf of the oppressed.

Is non-violence dynamic enough?

1044: 

I’m everyday made conscious of violence, through stories in the media, making me think most of us are violent.  But of course we aren’t!  These media stories bring (what passes for) interest into our dreary lives, giving us something to talk about.  We discuss violence.  We 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 then swing right over to the opposite side, to the idea of non-violence.

           

Certainly, I’m attracted by the political correctness of non-violence.  I would like to see myself as non-violent; it helps me dream and fantasise.  But I should also be considering the grey areas in me, and the significance of violence.

If we dislike violence, we might try to deny the very existence of it, because we fear it and aren’t good at dealing with it.  We might want to make a stand against it without being able to see a dynamic enough side to non-violence; it might seem ineffective.  Non-violence can seem too indecisive and passive.  And yet, we also know there is a dynamic in it.  For example, we can avoid conscription when there’s a war and white feathers for those who won’t join up, or avoid eating meat when there is little or no alternative.  

Boycotting in many ways is difficult, but it isn’t passive or indecisive.  Mainly, it isn’t violent.  As consumers we can avoid using violent goods.  We can encourage cruelty-free and environmentally friendly commodities.  That’s a really good start.  But where else can we ‘practise’ it?  Ideally, non-violence should be in everything we do, from thinking and talking to actively supporting commercial enterprises which espouse non-violence.

As the new fashion takes off, so violence and coercion will fade away.  But then, this is only part of the violence we need to lose.  Only when it has been established in our behaviour will it sink more deeply into our unselfconsciousness, so that it becomes part of our very nature.

Keeping our violence in check

1043:

Take the violent world.  In it, we always try to get what we want.  We bend the rules and intend to fix things up properly later and then, forgetting to do that, end up with the same mess.  We never seem able to solve the problem of human-induced violence.

           

It’s different in the violent world of Nature.  Events like storms, epidemics and earthquakes destroy on a massive scale. But it’s not the same as human violence, which is so damaging and wanton or so coldly calculated; I want what you’ve got, I threaten you, I go to war, I win or lose.

By implementing the principles of non-violence, it’s implicit that we aren’t wanting to win. Instead, we are looking to understand the root of our problems; not just trying to catch the serial-killer but understand why the sociopath-psychopath has chosen that path.  It’s slower and takes more effort but is a more thorough way of dealing with complex problems. Non-violence always has a better look than violence, and if it solves anything at all it provides a much more permanent solution. 

Violence has an unattractive look, especially when we examine our own relationship with it.  And if we see it for what it is, we might want to do something about it.  In one of those moments of self-realisation we’ll look to see how to fix it, properly. And there’s no more obvious place to start than with our food.  It’s the first step in keeping our own violence in check.

But there’s no gain without pain.  Dropping violence involves a long to-do list of things to NOT do.

           

Here’s the theory - when I change, to accommodate an idea as universal as non-violence, I’ll need to test it against other people’s opinion of it.  If they’re as impressed as I am, they’ll change accordingly, and their change will make my change easier.  My non-violence will therefore win a following.  But it’s not as simple as that.  This isn’t how it works.  Non-violence is not a reality in the same way violence is.

Violence brings advantage especially when others engage in it and I reap the benefit, especially if I’m not directly associated with it.  And also, if it comes close to me, if it seduces me, the damage it might do me is lessened by the fact that everyone else is doing it. It is so omnipresent.  It’s visible everywhere, in everyone, in children, in our partners, in the collective consciousness, and we all make use of it. We say that if they use violence why shouldn’t I?

However we come to regard violence, it’s not that easy to shake off.  If we don’t like it or we see that it doesn’t bring the results we want, we might drop it.  But then we must replace it with something just as strong and almost as advantageous.

Non-violent principle looks strong but its advantages aren’t quite so obvious, being less in touch with reality.  It just seems like a good idea that’s not very practical.

If we can see the difference between the two (the most obvious place is abattoir versus non-abattoir) we might vote for non-violence.  The safest and most appropriate place to trial non-violence then would be at home, in our relationships with fellow humans and with companion animals and in the commodities we buy.  This would be when our latest change brings more harmony into our lives and acts as a springboard to everything else.  By checking ourselves for violence, by seeing how respect for non-violence affects our closest relationships, we can watch things beginning to grow, things which before might have seemed static.

By applying non-violent principles to our lives, at home in our relatively safe environment, we can better deal with praise, mockery, criticism, intimacy, ridicule, lack of encouragement, etc., and the impact is softened by the very intimacy of living amongst people who know us, especially if it’s mixed with true affection.  It’s with the people we are closest to that we can work through our differences, perhaps slowly but perhaps more thoroughly, more ‘organically’.

           

Hopefully, at home we can look out for each other, and try to never ‘leave one another behind’, which again is a central principle of non-violence.  If we have a bond with non-violence we won’t break-up with each other so readily or not with so much acrimony.  There’ll be fewer contracts of hatred and things will be done in a more civilised and less destructive way.

By using non-violence to build a more mutually caring society, we’ll come to feel safer and be more able to express ourselves freely, even with strangers.  We’ll be able to communicate more openly, by stating without aggression, “this is what I reckon” or “I disagree”, and we’ll be able to take others’ opposition to our views without flaring up in ego-defensiveness and violent reaction.  

An ancient idea

1042: 

Non-violence is not new.  It’s as old as the hills and the very bedrock of wise philosophy.  But because it has no form, no presence and no outlet, it can only stands like a beacon to light the way for a possible future. True to character, it doesn’t push itself forward, but steps back and allows violence to pass by, to make us remember that we exist in a world where violence still rules.

But it has a presence in the bigger picture, the picture of the future, where violence looks like something crude and irrelevant.

There will always be conflict and differences of opinion, but just before we resort to lashing out, it would be good to consider other ways of dealing with one another.  If non-violence has any voice at all, it will say “calm down” in the middle of a heated argument.  It applies the brakes just in time, in order to avoid an explosion.  Its value is in avoiding the long up-hill struggle to repairs things when they’ve gone violent. 

Non-violence keeps high emotions under control, working on a sort of count-to-ten principle.  And when it comes of age, when non-violence becomes the dynamic tool we use almost unselfconsciously, then it must be a fearless tool which inspires us to engage in robust interaction.

A Non-Violent World

1041: 

Is a no-weapon world, where we trust our neighbour not to attack us, just pie in the sky?  A planet of humans - can it exist without resorting to violent confrontation?  A non-violent world is something we can hardly imagine because everyday we hear about war.  We none of us know or have any confidence in any other system, so when things get difficult we try to exert force; the bigger force quells the smaller one.  And it works ... for a while.

This system has been in operation for as long as history has been recorded, so we think that no other system could ever work. We always fall back on the familiar, showing the violent-self.  Humans will always be fairly stupid when it comes to finding non-violent ways to deal with differences of opinion.

We hardly notice that violence is the driving force for so many of our daily decisions. For example, we use violence to feed ourselves when we take away the lives of animals.  That could mean when we eat meat, or use the milk of the enslaved-cow or feed our beloved dog with the flesh of executed farm animals.   All that stops when we stop buying the product, and start buying cruelty-free and environmentally-friendly and plant-based  product.  Just in this one way, we send a powerful message to those who produce our food and clothing; if enough of us did it they would go out of business.

If it’s plant-based products we use, we make a statement to that effect and back it up by what we buy.  And within that statement is our backing for a more generous and trusting world. We take a gentler approach to those who are unlike us. It’s the first step towards a peaceful, no-weapon world.

Two opposites dancing together

 1040:

Non-violence seems too passive to effectively eliminate violence.  But perhaps that’s the point – we shouldn’t want to kill off anything at all.  Everything is here with the purpose of teaching us something significant, violence included.  We need to know the meaning of violence and understand why it’s in us, all of us.  Certainly, violence is in the very nature of this planet.  There’s violence within the body, where alongside disease there lives a battle-worn immune system - one attacks, the other defends.  Nature itself shows violence, which helps to build defensive strengths, so in a destructive storm the strongest stalks of wheat bend but don’t break.

We find violence within our own minds too, in the tension between opposite choices.  In the push-me-pull-you of decision-making, we can observe violence creeping in, to suggest the most advantageous way to go. On the other hand, we might become the Holy-Jo and be non-violent for the sake of being righteous.

           

Perhaps there’s no good or bad here, it’s just non-violence dancing with violence.  But up to this point in history there’s been so much violence that it seems obvious to do something to stop it taking control.  Today, in trying to counter that trend of routine violence, we’d do well to let non-violence take a more active part, to burn out the old violence in the same way that a ‘control burn’ makes a firebreak to prevent a devastating bush fire. By initiating non-violence, we step in, to make a different sort of impact.

           

At this point in time, after the orgy of violence in the twentieth century, we need to be looking for non-violent solutions, to stop us repeating the mistakes of the past.  We don’t need to resort to quarrelling or going to war to solve problems.  And yet, that’s still the approach of the carnivore who can’t stop attacking animals and eating them to solve the problem of feeding and guaranteeing the supply of food; we keep doing the same things because the alternatives are still largely untested, as in the perception that a plant-based, vegan diet is untested and therefore unsafe.

If non-violence is to become the modus operandi of our new age, we have to learn to walk with it before we run with it.  And in the same way, if you become a vegetarian/vegan you need to practice it a while before expecting to convert others to it.

Planning for the far future

1039: 

Needless to say, animals are different to us.  With them there’s no hubris, no superiority and they have no doubt about how dangerous humans can be, which is why they always run away from us.  For them the prime danger is that humans always attack them and attack their environment.  Perhaps they know that humans are always trying to improve things for themselves, and with that comes the violence of maintaining their position-of-dominance over Nature, but especially over animals.

The damage we’ve done has come from trying to improve things by wit, strength and ruthlessness.  We’ve never learnt to ‘be content with our lot’.  And now, our manipulation and bullying have brought us to the brink of catastrophe - the worst animal cruelty imaginable, the worst health consequences from eating animals, the worst imaginable environmental damage.  Which is why some of us have decided to tear ourselves away from as many of the destructive habits of our own species and look more closely at the possibility of conducting our lives without exploiting the exploitable.  At least we are making a start, by living a plant-based life.  We’ve begun the process of turning in a different direction to the majority.   It’s hard enough on a personal basis, by changing to a plant diet, let alone convincing the majority of our fellow humans. To swing others around from their omnivorous foods is like steering an ocean liner around, 180 degrees.  There’s so much momentum invested in human interest (what I like, what I want) that to swing the whole ship around might have to be a very slow process.

There has to be a selfless element here; we have to look far ahead, beyond our own lifetime, and set the foundations for and on behalf of future generations. We need to be working on the assumption that eventually people will come to their senses and become peace-loving, responsible and far less me-centred. If and when that fashion takes hold, hopefully the human species will then become unselfconscious warriors of non-violence.

For us here, today, there are problems specific to this very early stage of human transformation, concerning the nature of pro-active peace-making, and that means we, ourselves, must be resolute non-animal users, whilst being dynamic yet not aggressive, non-violent yet still effective.