Clear Thinking Comes at a High Price

1703:

Edited by CJ Tointon

We are awash with information these days. The media pumps out facts and opinions and generates plenty of fear. What should we read? What should we listen to? What should we watch? It's a continuous series of decisions we have to make as to how to spend our input time. Every spare moment is a chance to check out information sources. But are we sure we want to? One source spreads pleasing news; the other is more unpleasant. Education is a fine thing until it unlocks a few too many doors into a world we'd rather not enter. And if we do choose to look more closely at that world, it can set off concerns  almost forcing us to say: "Please don't tell me too much. It'll only make my life more difficult!" This is how we end up when we choose not to look at certain issues deeply enough.

If we see things too superficially (as most people do when it comes to matters pertaining to Animal Rights) we are confronted by shocking information and unwelcome news. On the face of it, the prospect of eating a healthier diet and having a clear conscience should add up to a more bearable and pleasurable life. But it's likely we'll only be focusing on the 'losses'. Respecting animals (which means being vegan) just seems like a lot of self-sacrifice and missing out on the good things of life. It seems too self-denying to give up so much just for the dubious benefits of better energy, fewer colds and less guilt!

But if we dare to look a little deeper, if we open Pandora's Box, it often becomes difficult to close it. The same acuity of mind that we reserve for important matters, isn't as easily applied to our senses, especially when they're seduced by the 'pleasure foods'. Beefsteak, cheesecake, prawn cocktails, chocolate fudge - and a thousand more 'delights' - keep us coming back for more. We use these 'foods' to give us a lift. We depend on these readily available, animal-based treats because we think our lives would be unthinkable without them. This is why we so hotly resist contemplating animal rights and plant-based diets and why the deeper issues are never exposed to rigorous scrutiny. Debate will not willingly be entered into!

Our routine use of these animal-based foods (these 'treats', lifters and boosters) is not as quickly destructive to us as heroin use; but over a longer period it's just as deadly! Animal-derived products may not be as cancer associated as tobacco or as 'liver shrivelling' as alcohol; but they comprise a whole army of 'pleasure giving' eatables, most of which we've grown up with or acquired a taste for. Nearly every fridge and kitchen cupboard in the land contains a variety of animal-based substances which are seen as essential to the smooth running of our domestic and social lives. Whether to satisfy the munchies, for celebration or to alleviate anxiety, we bring out the meat and dairy, the salted and sweetened snacks and 'ready-mades' - all of which originate wholly or partly from the slaughterhouse! 

To the thrill of our taste buds (and the long suffering of our bodies) we bypass the warnings of our inner wisdom. We know the danger of a live now/pay later approach. We also know that most people are battling food seductions whilst nibbling away at health and conscience - but the seduction is irresistible. Today's rich foods are made to taste delicious and they're made to feel safer than they really are because they feature so prominently in our lifestyles. The matter of food is never portrayed as a fight between good and evil - only as a self-benefitting payoff for what seems like such a minor lapse of clear thinking. 

First freeze your lobster, then take a sharp knife ...

1702:    

Despite a certain wave of change taking place today, it's still fashionable to be 'unaware' of the conditions in which farmed animals live and die. Fashion says it’s okay to eat meat, to wear wool, to buy fashionable shoes made of leather, to eat eggs for breakfast and take cow’s milk in your coffee. But what about the big food temptations, the salivation stimulators, the rich foods, the treat foods, and the exotic foods like lobster or wagyu beef? Or simple mouth-watering confections which contain cruelty-based ingredients? By deciding to buy any of these tempting items, we implicate ourselves in cruelty and atrocity. Could there be anything more atrocious than visiting a tank in a restaurant, and asking the waiter to bring you "that" (present-living lobster - which must of course must be violently dispatched before being steamed)?

At that most private moment, as you are standing at the 'lobster tank' or at the shop counter, you are imagining the taste of this lobster. You've decided to buy it, and it's likely you won’t be considering the rights and wrongs of your purchase - you refuse to deny yourself the most exquisite taste-pleasure money can buy.

For children, things are different. For them such choices don't have to be made. But for them choosing is denied anyway, in most important ways. I don't mean choosing what lollies they want, I mean choosing the ethics they'll need, to guide them through their lives. Most often, the family regime is imposed directly or subliminally - many of the foods the kids might want are, in practical home-rules' terms, unattainable. But as we grow up and we have freer choice, we’re faced with a new fear -‘missing out’. The time is narrow, and we are young men and young women for only a short period. We choose to live our lives to the full, and enjoy whatever we want. So, it would seem strange to deny ourselves anything simply based on ethics. Even the mildest consideration of 'ethics' would inhibit our delicious freedom-of-choice.

 But this is exactly what many people are doing - making a conscious decision not to buy. "I no longer eat meat, fish or fowl", we might say. But we can be tricky with ourselves. If we want something badly enough we’ll pretend a 'lightweight' ignorance. Particularly in the supermarket when we fail to check the ingredients list. And then we're able to eat what we like. BUT we end up eating what we actually disapprove of. Since there's no one checking up on us (whether parents for kids or vegans for adults) there's no pressure to ‘do the right thing’. We can avoid knowing, for there's only Conscience left that could be calling the shots.

Imagine what life must be like for our consciences, becoming ever more disabled, disconnected and discarded. Today there's so much to object to that our conscience is a barely heard voice.  We've trained it to be weak, which is why vegans have to spell out something we shouldn't have to - a ‘non-use-of-animals’ standard. And if we do have to, then we must do it as nicely as possible - vegans have to speak loudly (and softly) to get others to think things through for themselves, so they can come to their own conclusions with a newly reinstalled conscience.

Why the reluctance to change

1701: 

I’m always going to find it difficult to get the idea of empathizing with farm animals across to unwilling listeners. Most people won’t necessarily see things as I see them. They won’t willingly give up meat and eggs, let alone leather shoes or woollen blankets. They won’t extend the same kind feelings they have for their children towards those animals which provide them with 'the essentials' of life. And they won’t make the connection, that boycotting will help end the exploitation of animals.

         

Whether there’s some reasoning or none at all, almost every person will resist our arguments fiercely.  They won’t ‘be told’. They won’t be easily persuaded. They won’t voluntarily ‘do-without’. This is why I think the key to liberating animals can only be found in a particular way of approach - it has to be a sort of ‘whispering’, like talking to a nervous horse. Somehow each of us has to find our own way to earn trust, so that we won’t be pre-empted, so we can put forward our case without causing the resistant person to feel too judged or too threatened.

         

Animal advocates are essentially information imparters. So far, to a certain extent, we’ve done a good job by making information available, through our campaigns, literature, web sites, video footage, and in our personal conversations and exchanges of ideas. Today there’s no excuse for not knowing about farm animal abuse. But any number of facts won’t necessarily alter feelings, which reflect a distinct lack of interest in animals, notably farm animals. In fact, there is mostly an absence of those feelings which allow the conscience to be freed, so that we can enjoy eating such things as meat and fish, chocolates and creams and other rich foods laced with animal products. Without the nagging of Conscience, there’s no pressure or incentive to find non-animal alternatives.

         

The lack of concern for ‘food’ animals means there is nothing strong enough to spark radical dietary change or even discuss the subject. So we animal advocates can rant and rave till we’re blue in the face, but we live in a free society where everyone knows they are free to do as they please. And the ‘authorities’, the media, the parents, priests and teachers - very few of them speak up for the animals, some animals maybe but not ALL animals. This gives people the green light to NOT have to listen to what Animal Rights people are saying.

         

All the time the majority of omnivores accept the status quo, there can be no real progress made towards liberating imprisoned animals.

The low empathy quotient

1700: 

You first hit the idea of it. Vegan principle is explained and one's first instinct might be to leap to the defence of animals, because they obviously badly need defending. And then one realises what that defence involves. To 'put your money where your mouth is' involves a long ‘to-do’ list. Is one prepared to take on such a list without setting oneself up for a fall? Giving up items of animal-based food and clothing because of the animals, and giving them up for ever?

If one feels overwhelmed with such a long list, then what is achievable? Is it an all-or-nothing situation or do we ration-out our reserves of ‘care’ in order not to deplete ourselves, and then give up on the whole 'project'? This is probably a question which consumes many who find it difficult to move beyond being vegetarian.

The Animal Rights Movement is all about maintaining high ideals. Many of us feel a bit drained by trying to achieve them, because just by facing the issues head-on takes a lot of energy. So, which issues do I take up? For animal activists there’s always a danger of spreading ourselves too thinly and pleasing nobody, least of all ourselves. But in prioritizing, there’s a danger of putting too much onto the ‘back burner’, and then letting some issues become permanently forgotten about. So while we might want to be consistent, knowing that no animal is more important than any other, it will grieve us if we can't do the job thoroughly, by finding the idea of animal-rights beyond our capacity.

Perhaps it’s important to understand other people’s difficulties, concerning their own use of animals. The whole ethical confusion of it is about the use of animals in our society. It's important for vegans to try to understand what empathy involves. If we ever wonder why others are inconsistent, we need to look at our own other areas of inconsistency. Doing well in one area doesn't lessen our culpability when we do badly in another. Beyond animals, beyond food and health and violence, there's a strong attraction to passion. To be passionate about something, to be passionate about the greater good - it makes us feel very alive and involved. It gives our lives meaning. But can that numb our empathy elsewhere, where it is also needed. For example, when I see the homeless man on the streets at night, I tell myself that I’ve already got enough to care about, so I can’t take on more; I pretend not to notice him; I pretend NOT to notice what I know I HAVE noticed.

It’s the same with the way most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs suffer badly, and yet they also know they are just like their dogs and cats at home. Their companion animals have the same sorts of feelings and suffer the same pain when it’s inflicted, yet they treat one type of animal as unlovable and the other as loveable.

My dearest friend might be lonely and ill and I lose sleep at night worrying about her. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend and yet I’m able to ignore him completely. No sleep is lost! Abattoirs exist, animals going to their horrible deaths - again, no sleep is lost. Is that just all part of the absurdities we get used to living with? They say charity starts at home, but so often that's where it stays. But such a huge act of routine non-awareness and lack of charity deserves some serious attention, because we prop each other up while looking away at what we can't face. The fact is that we humans don’t yet regard all sensitive and sentient creatures as of equal importance to the other. Or, of course, of equal importance to humans.

Understanding the minds of others starts with our own minds

1699: 

When I considered becoming an animal activist, I soon enough also became a vegan. I knew that would involve me in much more than just avoiding meat and dairy. I’d experience shortages and unavailabilities. I’d be cutting myself off from ‘normal food’ and therefore seeming to be NOT normal. I’d have to get used to doing without; there’d be no more cheese, no more cakes from the cake shop, no more honey, quiche, waffles, and the list goes on. No more being-invited out to dinner because of the complications of catering my eating requirements. No more discussion of food with people because talking about all this leads inevitably to animal issues.

But this isn’t ever solely about food or our social lives. There are other important principles at stake worth perhaps more than losing friends and missing out on favourite foods. Mostly, amongst us there's a wish to tread more lightly on the earth, to better appreciate things around us, to be kinder members of our world. We need to somehow transform ourselves from clod-hopping brutes to more sensitive, gentler adults.

We each face a simple choice: we can either carry on grabbing whatever we crave or become more circumspect and use a bit of self control, and then see if we can keep it up. This is the aim of becoming less attached to things, less nailed down, less concerned about doing-without.

The bigger picture involves not only becoming less tempted, but being more in tune with the prospect of some important transforming principles. One can see that these same principles can transform not only our selves but our species. (And I would say that the human species is in dire need of transformation if it is not to die an ignominious death of its own making). Practising 'being vegan' is the start of something big. It isn't attempting perfection or seeking enlightenment or taking a ‘spiritual path in life’, but rather about experimenting with what appear at first as 'maybe-truths and bringing them ínto fuller consciousness as full-blown truths.

Life is a laboratory where we learn about getting used to change, embracing, not fearing it, even if we see it as a need for radical change. This isn't about changing for the sake of it but taking up change in response to circumstances which demand it. Embarking on a course of radical change - does it have to be a hard slog or can we enjoy it? Or at least be at ease with it? By getting used to change we can keep alive a questioning of those things which others seem un-bothered about.

For me, then and now, the most bothering thing I can think of is the routine abuse of sensitive and sentient beings, particularly farm-animals. Abusing animals who can't fight back seems to me and many others to be both cowardly and weak. The situation regarding farm animals, animals being used solely for the purpose of providing us with food and clothing, is simply an example of social injustice. It is such a monumental example because there are so many who are so innocent and who are being so badly abused. Our main aim must be therefore to better understand why our fellow human beings are so careless about animals, why there is such a lack of empathy for non-humans when in every other way it seems to be a natural part of human nature. There are so many examples of humans knowing how to treat their nearest and dearest with love and affection. So why should it be different when dealing with Nature - in this case with those aspects of Nature deemed useful to humans - the animals and the environment?

Non-violence can be a slippery slope

1698: 

Vegan diets are about not-eating products extracted from animals, so just by observing vegan principles we can’t help practising non-violence too. It carries through to other parts of our lives. We consider the animal before buying clothes and shoes. We think about animals sacrificed to test the safety of our cosmetics and medicines. It brings us to feeling more empathy for others, whether sentient or non-sentient. It lets us be more generous and have gentler attitudes all round. No doubt it makes us less aggressive in the way we drive a car, more considerate about recycling waste and of course being kinder to  cows.

Sometimes non-violence can seem like passivity. At worst it’s cowardice or avoiding facing the music. But non-violence isn't a mantra - it's neither non-doing or doing or ‘turning the other cheek’. It's a governing mood, that's all. We need to be playing it in the background as we weigh the pros and cons of each situation. Especially when we are considering if the means justifies the ends.

Take for example Animal Liberation’s plan to fly drones across private farming land, to photograph examples of animal cruelty. Sounds like a great idea. Evidence of routine animal cruelty is thin on the ground since what happens on private land is usually well hidden from the public eye. Filmed evidence has always been hard to come by - getting it has often been dangerous when activists illegally trespass with their cameras. People only believe what they see, not what you tell them, so if you can show them something, they’ll find it harder to ignore or forget.  But there's another aspect to this. A drone is a very big threat. It could be turned against us. The power of the Industry combined with the opprobrium of an outraged public can seriously work against us. This could be perceived as "city-slicker interference" or it could fuel people's fear of the 'spy camera', turning this into a violation of the rights of the farmer to go about his business.

From the farmer’s point of view, and with the public on-side, his animals (his property!) are units of food-production. There’s something rather threatening about having a CCTV camera looking down from above - the farmer might feel justified in shooting them out of the sky, even though it’s quite legal to fly cameras ten meters above private property. To them this wouldn't be a case of using technology to achieve safety for exploited animals, it would be an outrage.

The drone's film footage will show the public things they wouldn't otherwise be able to see. It will show video evidence of exploitation too shocking to ignore. And that will make it all the harder for the media to ignore. But the media is the great wall of resistance here. At its thickest point, it becomes a wall of silence. We know well enough how barely a word is printed on this subject, since they fear losing the sympathy of their advertisers and readers if they print or show any adverse stories about animal cruelty. At it's worst, the media will manipulate the story to their own ends. It won't be highlighting the violence of the farmer but the Animal Liberationist's violent spying tactics. They have the ability to make us into ugly terrorists who need to be stopped and prosecuted.

Non-violence is a slippery subject. As soon as there is any pro-active initiative, there's a chance for it to be subjected to clever spin, and before we get important matters up for discussion the whole initiative is turned against us, alienating us from the brain-washed masses even further.

Self development via compassion

1697:

One of the main reasons people become vegan is to further their own self-development. When we do eventually decide to 'go vegan', we automatically become more sensitized to the plight of farm animals. By developing empathy for them, we get closer to the trauma they experience. In this violent world, most of us want to know how to become less violent, less selfish and more healthy on all levels, indeed to become an all-round, better type of person. The obvious start is to go vegan.

If, to some extent, ‘we are what we eat’ then, more so, ‘we are what we boycott’. We make our most sincere statement of intent in what we deny ourselves, becoming more empathic by what we avoid eating or wearing when it happens to be animal-based. By boycotting products so closely associated with cruelty, we make a most powerful statement concerning our ethical priorities.