424:
Why are the ‘right’ so very right? People’s sense of right and wrong is determined by the culture they’re born into and maybe it changes very little until one actively takes time to examine values afresh, as vegans have done by looking at animal exploitation and the unhealthiness of animal derived food. But whether we have or haven’t re-examined ‘right’, we nevertheless have a sense of what is fundamentally wrong and, in theory, try to avoid it. But the trouble is that vegans and omnivores are poles apart, concerning ‘wrong’.
Vegans have thought it through one way and omnivores another way ... or perhaps for them there’s been a deliberate avoidance of thinking. Do they lack imagination when it comes to the suffering of animals? Or do they stop themselves using their thinking faculty to shield themselves from an awful truth?
When I found myself challenged by a new way of looking at animals I immediately thought of all the ramifications. It would touch food and touch on everyday habits and pleasures, enough to want to shutdown that ‘line of thinking’ and scramble for justification (which, as everyone knows, doesn’t have to be too logical, since everyone else is justifying similarly).
If no one can afford to think things through too carefully, the majority ends up with different values to vegans. And that needn’t matter much because, as yet, there are few vegans to make complaint. It’s in the omnivores’ interest to continually reinforce the majority view for fear of the minority (vegan) view gaining ground.
Most people try to make what they think is ‘right’ to be Right. They can’t afford to do what is wrong, because anyone deliberately doing wrong will suffer from attempting to go against their ‘better’ instincts, by not trying hard enough to rise above their own knuckle-dragging primitive impulses. And yet they do cut ethical corners and know they do. Maybe they do it out of convenience and an easy life. Maybe, if directly involved in profiting from animals, to egregiously line their own pockets ... and the Devil take the hindmost.
I’d say that vegan principle teaches us to act with restraint. We try to avoid the easy way out as well as the downright ‘evil’ way, and try to have the courage to do the right thing ... and certainly never to profit from animal misery.
So, for example, when I’m tempted to play my music loudly late at night, if I restrain myself because people are sleeping next door, that would be the ‘right’ thing to do. If, on the other hand, I say to hell with the neighbours, that’s just not right. When I know it’s wrong and yet do it all the same, I’m refusing to forgo my pleasure ... and that’s the attitude I’d call ‘primitive’.
Humans have learnt to live their lives on the backs of others. The worst example is exploiting animals who can’t fight back. And that might extend to exploiting the environment for personal gain - perhaps the main reasoning being that is “If I don’t exploit the situation someone else will”. They’ll beat me to it and steal my opportunity ... good reason not to lose my chance of gaining the advantage”.
I suppose that’s the central attitude that needs changing, so that empathy can kick in and make us into a caring-about-others type of person.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
The divide between us
423:
I find it’s difficult to remain passive when I’m speaking about animals (that are used for food) with a meat eater. But I try to keep quiet and listen. And then whatever I do say, I try to say off beat. As if the values I want to present might be too strong, too contrary to theirs; that my point of view might need to be taken in by them almost subliminally. Otherwise, what I say will seem like a subtle attack - asking the questions I know the answers to - “this is what I do, and is that different to what you do?”
I sense that any value judgements I’m making (of them) will show up, however clever I think I’m being in attempting to hide them. Which is why I try to move right away from making judgements, even in my own mind, so that I’m better placed to observe their point of view. And once I’m familiar with that, I feel that I’m in a much better position to be helping them transition to a new attitude.
I find it’s difficult to remain passive when I’m speaking about animals (that are used for food) with a meat eater. But I try to keep quiet and listen. And then whatever I do say, I try to say off beat. As if the values I want to present might be too strong, too contrary to theirs; that my point of view might need to be taken in by them almost subliminally. Otherwise, what I say will seem like a subtle attack - asking the questions I know the answers to - “this is what I do, and is that different to what you do?”
I sense that any value judgements I’m making (of them) will show up, however clever I think I’m being in attempting to hide them. Which is why I try to move right away from making judgements, even in my own mind, so that I’m better placed to observe their point of view. And once I’m familiar with that, I feel that I’m in a much better position to be helping them transition to a new attitude.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
People behaving badly
421:
There are those who don’t feel badly about behaving badly … condoning the abuse of animals for food and clothing, as if it’s of no significance. It’s as if they are impelled to (take a full part in the whole cruel system of animal abuse themselves) cause damage but don’t know how to pull back. Better behaved people can see better the part they play, moderate their urges and try to minimise damage.
As advocates for the animals we get disappointed by those pulling in the opposite direction and might want to give up on them, exasperated?
When I get talking to people who behave badly but may not seem to care, I nevertheless find they’re worth getting to know if only to find out how they justify their views on animals. I try to talk to them, ask them how they feel about ‘all this’. At the same time I try to make them feel at ease, by eliminating any hint of judgement from what I’m asking. I try never to show any trace of disapproval.
If we can ask questions of them, as if they were asking themself the same questions, then I think we have a better chance of influencing a change of attitude, without igniting ego-resistance.
If we can spend time with people who not only disagree with us but adamantly oppose the whole concept of ‘animals having rights’, we might get closer to the general point of view shared by very many others. On this subject of eating animals, people put them in a special category, where their own companion animals are much loved and ‘food’ animals are completely un-loved. However illogical their arguments may seem to us, our job as animal advocates is to get deeper inside that way of thinking. And that’s made easier the more we become familiar with their arguments. It’s easy for vegans to forget the rationale we ourselves might have used to justify our own eating (and clothing) habits of the past.
There are those who don’t feel badly about behaving badly … condoning the abuse of animals for food and clothing, as if it’s of no significance. It’s as if they are impelled to (take a full part in the whole cruel system of animal abuse themselves) cause damage but don’t know how to pull back. Better behaved people can see better the part they play, moderate their urges and try to minimise damage.
As advocates for the animals we get disappointed by those pulling in the opposite direction and might want to give up on them, exasperated?
When I get talking to people who behave badly but may not seem to care, I nevertheless find they’re worth getting to know if only to find out how they justify their views on animals. I try to talk to them, ask them how they feel about ‘all this’. At the same time I try to make them feel at ease, by eliminating any hint of judgement from what I’m asking. I try never to show any trace of disapproval.
If we can ask questions of them, as if they were asking themself the same questions, then I think we have a better chance of influencing a change of attitude, without igniting ego-resistance.
If we can spend time with people who not only disagree with us but adamantly oppose the whole concept of ‘animals having rights’, we might get closer to the general point of view shared by very many others. On this subject of eating animals, people put them in a special category, where their own companion animals are much loved and ‘food’ animals are completely un-loved. However illogical their arguments may seem to us, our job as animal advocates is to get deeper inside that way of thinking. And that’s made easier the more we become familiar with their arguments. It’s easy for vegans to forget the rationale we ourselves might have used to justify our own eating (and clothing) habits of the past.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Meeting resistance
420:
What sort of people are vegans speaking to when they do get the chance to speak? We always hope they’ll be compliant and eager, wanting to learn all the stuff we have to tell them … but it’s likely they’ll be ‘reluctants’.
We have to remember that many people don’t feel badly about behaving badly. If they do know about the suffering of animals it might not matter to them, and therefore eating these animals won’t concern them either. Nothing will get them to pull back a bit on their animal eating. They will only change their food if they want to badly enough.
We can appeal to their sense of right-behaviour, to their health, to their compassion but if it’s legal and if most other people do it, there’s no argument in the world that will persuade them to change if they aren’t frightened of their usual food. They won’t even let their minds rest on the subject of Animal Rights let alone consider changing their diet as radically as we are suggesting. We’re talking about food here, ‘my favourite foods’. It’s the one consistent thing we’ve been doing all of our lives, right up to the present day. We are what we’ve eaten. To attempt to alter any part of that would be disturbing to our home life and might even seem like committing social suicide (eating differently to other people).
Vegans, as most people realise, are in a different reality and are ‘out there’ wanting to talk contrary to people’s usual food regimen. When a vegan starts speaking people’s eyes glaze over. We are met with either inertia or dismissal. This is the collective resistance, but despite this, vegans need to work out how to move people on, or at least stimulate some form of communication on the subject of animal-eating.
What sort of people are vegans speaking to when they do get the chance to speak? We always hope they’ll be compliant and eager, wanting to learn all the stuff we have to tell them … but it’s likely they’ll be ‘reluctants’.
We have to remember that many people don’t feel badly about behaving badly. If they do know about the suffering of animals it might not matter to them, and therefore eating these animals won’t concern them either. Nothing will get them to pull back a bit on their animal eating. They will only change their food if they want to badly enough.
We can appeal to their sense of right-behaviour, to their health, to their compassion but if it’s legal and if most other people do it, there’s no argument in the world that will persuade them to change if they aren’t frightened of their usual food. They won’t even let their minds rest on the subject of Animal Rights let alone consider changing their diet as radically as we are suggesting. We’re talking about food here, ‘my favourite foods’. It’s the one consistent thing we’ve been doing all of our lives, right up to the present day. We are what we’ve eaten. To attempt to alter any part of that would be disturbing to our home life and might even seem like committing social suicide (eating differently to other people).
Vegans, as most people realise, are in a different reality and are ‘out there’ wanting to talk contrary to people’s usual food regimen. When a vegan starts speaking people’s eyes glaze over. We are met with either inertia or dismissal. This is the collective resistance, but despite this, vegans need to work out how to move people on, or at least stimulate some form of communication on the subject of animal-eating.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Judge and jury
419:
Young people are better informed these days, and they're starting to make the links between ethics and personal judgement. With a computer and a few mouse clicks, we can get all the information we need. We can then be our own judge and jury on these issues. Then it's just a matter of prioritising things to make our own life easier and become effective animal advocates.
An easy life means switching away from poor quality and animal-based foods to whole, plant-based foods. It puts us in a better position to take up the work of communicating animal rights issues to people and stay healthy while we do it.
Young people are better informed these days, and they're starting to make the links between ethics and personal judgement. With a computer and a few mouse clicks, we can get all the information we need. We can then be our own judge and jury on these issues. Then it's just a matter of prioritising things to make our own life easier and become effective animal advocates.
An easy life means switching away from poor quality and animal-based foods to whole, plant-based foods. It puts us in a better position to take up the work of communicating animal rights issues to people and stay healthy while we do it.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Health horrors
418:
Surely the Western educated and well-informed person has twigged by now that the decline in people's state of general health is related to conventional eating habits. We are far less healthy and far fatter than we need to be. Surely the connection is obvious, between the large numbers of sick humans and the preponderance of cruel farm-animal practices. It's surely a case of ethics interfacing with health consequences up against obstinacy and free-willed decision making.
Surely the Western educated and well-informed person has twigged by now that the decline in people's state of general health is related to conventional eating habits. We are far less healthy and far fatter than we need to be. Surely the connection is obvious, between the large numbers of sick humans and the preponderance of cruel farm-animal practices. It's surely a case of ethics interfacing with health consequences up against obstinacy and free-willed decision making.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Rushing to the rescue
415
Obviously boycotting animal products isn't easy, especially at first. Our addiction to many products on the market is entrenched. And yet we know, as a species, we're highly adaptive and that change isn't really as hard as we think it might be.
Many of us want to be rushing to the rescue - we have ideals to be realised. We know this will mean making a big statement, and for that we need to be adept at making practical changes to our lives, so that we can back up our words.
What is the idealist most up against? Perhaps in the case of animal welfare it’s the majority attitude of pitilessness. The lives of domesticated animals tests the pity in us, and if we can feel enough empathy we’ll make some difficult, personal lifestyle changes to show solidarity, on their behalf. Hopefully it will lift us up to such a level of altruism that we become better in every way - kinder, 'greener', 'vegan'. But this 'vegan' thing, even if it weren't about animals or health, it would still be the most logical and intelligent way to go.
By being vegan we are, to some extent, in a state of self control over our food habits. That in itself is empowering. But there’s the pay-back too, in the food itself; the highly energising plant foods are an aid to thinking, a ‘lighter’ brain food. And that let’s us see on a bigger scale, to see how to make repair.
We may be saving forests or saving starving children or saving exploited creatures but the initial emphasis is always on a need for urgent repair. Of course, we can't start any big, new initiative without first repairing the damage already done to ourselves. In the business of saving animals we have to get things sorted out, by being vegan at the very least, so that effective personal repair can be made possible.
But ‘repair’ sounds like such a dull and unrewarding business ... until we start to see it as the ‘new creative’. Creativity is perhaps what we need most, since without it our repairs will just be for show. They won’t last and, for vegans, a non-lasting repair is a sort of personal tragedy.
Once you ‘go vegan’ you do it for life. If repairing our own attitudes (concerning the use of animals) slides backwards we’d look foolish and shallow, as if our ideals had simply been wishful thinking or boasting. Once our attitudes shift and in accordance with them we take on being vegan, then there’s no reason, other than weak will, to abandon them and slip back into old primitive ways.
Obviously boycotting animal products isn't easy, especially at first. Our addiction to many products on the market is entrenched. And yet we know, as a species, we're highly adaptive and that change isn't really as hard as we think it might be.
Many of us want to be rushing to the rescue - we have ideals to be realised. We know this will mean making a big statement, and for that we need to be adept at making practical changes to our lives, so that we can back up our words.
What is the idealist most up against? Perhaps in the case of animal welfare it’s the majority attitude of pitilessness. The lives of domesticated animals tests the pity in us, and if we can feel enough empathy we’ll make some difficult, personal lifestyle changes to show solidarity, on their behalf. Hopefully it will lift us up to such a level of altruism that we become better in every way - kinder, 'greener', 'vegan'. But this 'vegan' thing, even if it weren't about animals or health, it would still be the most logical and intelligent way to go.
By being vegan we are, to some extent, in a state of self control over our food habits. That in itself is empowering. But there’s the pay-back too, in the food itself; the highly energising plant foods are an aid to thinking, a ‘lighter’ brain food. And that let’s us see on a bigger scale, to see how to make repair.
We may be saving forests or saving starving children or saving exploited creatures but the initial emphasis is always on a need for urgent repair. Of course, we can't start any big, new initiative without first repairing the damage already done to ourselves. In the business of saving animals we have to get things sorted out, by being vegan at the very least, so that effective personal repair can be made possible.
But ‘repair’ sounds like such a dull and unrewarding business ... until we start to see it as the ‘new creative’. Creativity is perhaps what we need most, since without it our repairs will just be for show. They won’t last and, for vegans, a non-lasting repair is a sort of personal tragedy.
Once you ‘go vegan’ you do it for life. If repairing our own attitudes (concerning the use of animals) slides backwards we’d look foolish and shallow, as if our ideals had simply been wishful thinking or boasting. Once our attitudes shift and in accordance with them we take on being vegan, then there’s no reason, other than weak will, to abandon them and slip back into old primitive ways.
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