1328:

Edited by CJ Tointon

Violence Stage Three: Good Behaviour
We are all proud of ourselves - sometimes - and ashamed of ourselves - sometimes.  The positive self acts in an honourable way, allowing us to be constructive.  We aspire to do great things that make us feel good about ourselves.  But it isn't like that all the time.  Life throws up new challenges, almost as if to test our character, to see if we can stick to our own code of conduct and be consistently positive.  And if we hit a tipping point, where we can't keep up the 'good behaviour', the positive self retreats and gives way to something that makes us act differently.

We start the day in a bad mood.  We don't need any of life's little challenges today!  We hit out!  We let ourselves down!  The evolved-self gives way to the barbaric-self.  We make an exception to our good-behaviour rule today, and excuse ourselves.  Over time, that exception becomes a habit. It becomes routine.  We respond selfishly in order to resolve anything from an unbearable discomfort to the mildest stirrings of the stomach.  We take the easiest path.  We indulge what our baser instincts suggest.  We do what others might do in similar circumstances.  We accept what's available!  The search for calm leads us to any port in a storm and eventually we come to rely on tried and tested methods of making ourselves feel calmer.  Then we find that we can avoid the storm altogether by using familiar substances, such as food and intoxicants.  'Fast food' is one of the most available, cheapest and fastest fixes.  Once we have relied on it,  this choice of food almost guarantees calm and pleasure enough that we can find a moment of peace and keep ourselves clear of any panic situation.


On a fine day, in a good mood, we can enjoy being constructive!  Without the panic or hunger or frustration, we can become the person we believe we really are.  And on these days we can identify with 'violence-free' attitudes.  We can even generate warm, loving and constructive feelings in people around us.  On these fine days we can even indulge in profound philosophies!  We're not afraid of adventure.  We can take on the World.  We can even test our high ideals by sailing close to the wind.  Perhaps we'll sail right into a safe port, and leave the turmoil behind us.  Live without resorting to any violence, be it refraining from killing or simply using no harsh words or thoughts.  But there are other days - and we can slide backwards. To prevent this happening, there has to be a sufficiently strong impulse that kicks in.  Infants can't be expected to have 'core principles' that come into play at such times, but adults would do well to establish them.  Vegans adopt such a comprehensive set of principles.  They help keep us clear of one of the strongest and most tempting flights into violence -  the food we choose to eat!  In plant-based foods there's no blood on our conscience.

Violence Stage Two: Self-control

1327: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

The word violence conjures up images of aggression and the use of force intending to hurt.  But perhaps it starts with being denied something we think we deserve, a fear of losing out, which in turn touches the panic button.  We bring force into our behaviour to get the result we want. If it works, it's likely we'll do it again  and if used often enough, 'force' becomes a habit.  Sometimes, when we're feeling uncomfortable and frustrated and know that if we don't act straightaway our feelings of discomfort will only get worse, the easiest way out is to use force.  A certain determination is needed, so we use force to bring things back under our control.

The seemingly uncontrollable demand for attention by infants may be excusable, but their screaming and crying are a panic response to something that's out of their control.  And, of course, the parent rushes in to alleviate the panic.  When there's panic or when the demands of self-interest need to be satisfied in adults, there can be a throwback to infancy.  But without a parent to come to our 'rescue', we employ force to help us out of our difficulty.  In our urgency to bring things back under control, we ignore the effect of our behaviour on everyone else.

Force and violence are forms of theft.  If we can't generate what we want by harmless means in order to gain benefit, some form of energy must be stolen from someone or something else.  Force!   And if that is what happens when we feel pangs of hunger, we go to the most potent food material we know that will guarantee comfort.  And these foods are everywhere!  They fill the stomach, stimulate taste buds and quell a whole range of discomforts.  In fact, when we face any sort of discomfort we go for the most powerful food we know - animal-based food - with no thought of the animal sacrificed to provide it for us.  The rich, high protein, full flavoured, filling food brings comfort and alleviates discomfort.  And, like a drug, we use it regularly for its predictable result.  It works like magic, but it acts like any addictive drug and we become dependent on it.   We’ll flirt with danger and violence if necessary to get that food which brings us most comfort.


Violence used in the subjugation, handling and killing of animals is efficient.  It’s cruel, it’s crude but it controls the animal which in turn produces an economical and viable end-product for the consumer market which can be 'consumed' to bring any situation from mild hunger to anxiety-filled-crisis, to a swift resolution.  For omnivores,  animal-based foods serve many purposes, not the least of which is their value in resolving emotional turmoil.  You can bet that whatever the problem might be, a meal rich with animal-based foods will put a smile on any omnivore's face, despite the violence and exploitation of animals it took to bring such a result.  And as it becomes more of a habit, they'll hardly see it as 'violence'.  Soon enough, it becomes part of the normal pattern of daily life.  Even though on one level omnivores know what happens to animals when they are exploited and executed, they choose not to bring what they know into consciousness.  They suppress such thoughts in order to draw the best from the 'product'.

THE FIVE STAGES OF VIOLENCE Violence Stage One: Mind-numbing

1326: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

There's violence everywhere in our world today and it's not likely to go away until we stop leading violence-based lives.  If you are eating abattoir foods (meat, fish, milk and eggs) and/or using things made from violated animals (leather, silk and wool) you are part of the violence problem.  That's just logical!  If you refuse to use animal-based products in your daily life, you'll be making a significant statement  - a commitment to non-violence.   Needless to say, violence is not necessary for your survival or well being.

Most people are blind to much of the horror with which they're involved.  They don't want to see, don't want to think too deeply about how they live their lives for fear of becoming disaffected with their favourite violence-linked foods or favourite pair of shoes.  By closing off your mind to information concerning the treatment of farm animals, you deliberately numb your sensitivities so you aren't constantly reminding yourself of the horrors of the abattoir.  If you gave in to even a moment's thought, you'd never sleep at night and certainly never again enjoy your bacon and egg breakfasts or your steaks or enjoy the comfort of your leather shoes.

Justifying the unjustifiable

1325: 

Buying a ‘pet’ from a pet shop means yet another ‘pet’ will be bred to replace the one sold.  Its cage is never kept empty.  Whenever we buy any ‘animal item’ we create a vacuum into which another 'item' takes its place.  Even when we give away a pair of shoes to someone who needs them, it gives us an excuse to ‘go shopping’ for more.

         

Stealing life from animals benefits us.  And to hell with the victim.  It’s the same as exploiting children or desecrating forests for timber - it’s the same human habit of using our advantage to victimise the defenceless. 

What the eye doesn’t see …

1324: 

  

In our society, we are encouraged not to know about animal issues.  Factory farms, abattoirs and animal laboratories are closed to the public.  But it’s unlikely the public are keen to visit them anyway because they’re such ugly places - we can’t object to what we haven’t seen with our own eyes.  We also reckon that if teachers at school thought we ought to know about this, they’d have taught it.  If we aren’t taught something then we reckon it’s probably not worth knowing about anyway.

One thing leads to another - if we discover that dairy products are cruelly produced then everything made with milk is ethically questionable ... and then our conscience will force us to inconvenience ourselves big time.

Imagine then, what happens when the same arguments are applied to our wardrobes.  Health arguments obviously don’t apply here.  Leather shoes, for instance, aren’t ‘bad’ for you, but they do come from slaughterhouses just as meat does.  (Leather is not so much a by-product as a co-product, since its production is often as economically important as meat production).  Vegetarians who still wear leather can’t hold, let alone promote, Animal Rights.  

Middle roaders

1323:

The middle-road meat-eater makes a small compassionate gesture by only eating free range eggs or drinking organically fed cow’s milk, but essentially they continue being indifferent towards animals.  A vegetarian avoids meat altogether but still takes part in the exploitation of animals.  They don’t want to go too far for fear of becoming too different from their friends so they wear leather, silk and wool and they eat butter, cheese and eggs.

         

“If you boycott all of it you’d go crazy”, they say. So, it’s the middle-of-the-roaders, as distinct from the uninformed, who, despite what they know, are still unwilling to act. They can’t face the vegan argument because they see us as a threat to their self esteem.

         

If vegans want to encourage middle-ground people, they must allow anyone who is considering what we say to take the initiative of changing by themselves without being shoved from behind by us.

Poles apart (from a vegan view)

1322: 

For vegans, we are tormented by thinking about the horror of animal life on the farm.  ‘Our subject’ is unlike any other subject.  It isn’t a hobby.  We can’t be casual about.  For us it’s a matter of righting perhaps the most terrible wrong ever known to our society – the enslavement and brutal killing of innocent beings. This massacre is carried out daily on a massive scale.  It’s not something we can ‘agree to disagree’ about.

         

If we are ‘abolitionists’, who think no animals should ever be used, we come across as being unbelievably radical and confronting.  But, to us, the changes we’re proposing are essential.  However, we only need to hold that view, not necessarily force it down peoples’ throats every time we talk to them, or every time animals are mentioned.