First cracks appearing

It might be preferred that people like vegans were quiet, and portrayed as extremists. However, whether Western society likes it or not, compassion-philosophy has seeped in through the cracks, mainly because of the terrible things happening down on the farm, documented by the brave film makers who enter factory farms at night with lighting and cameras, to expose what goes on there. For those who look for it, this video footage is readily available. But otherwise it is suppressed by main media outlets.
Although the subject isn’t often discussed unless minimally in the middle class media, when animal farming methods are mentioned, or less often when footage is shown, it shocks people and that’s enough to put the shivers into the meat industry. They see how a vegetarian culture might spread and how presently it is spreading rapidly in places like Europe and USA. Although it isn’t enough to panic the Australian public yet, the animal industries are becoming quite desperate, as we can see in the tone of their advertising. And that makes people grow suspicious.
The animal industry has got to keep its product image looking good if only to calm its nervous shareholders who fear the industry will go down the tube. It never looks good to have animal products linked with all the big diseases of the day but, unfortunately for them, they don’t seem to have any good arguments to allay fears. They therefore have to rely on misinformation, which is going to expose them soon enough anyway. So even though it still does good business and since vegans are still too few in number to pose any serious threat, they can hear a rumbling in the distance.

Vegans take things too far

Because most people are still grappling with their people feelings - humans who are different- there’s no room left to consider our kinship with other species. For most people it hardly bears thinking about (to be considering animals as if they mattered). If we didn’t rate one species (our own) as better than others we’d be little more than animals ourselves. We are only able to feel separate, superior and special because we confirm it every day by eating animals. If we thought any differently we’d choke on every mouthful of meat we ate. This is why veganism is potentially such a danger to society and why conventional egalitarianism isn’t quite convincing because it stops short at animals - we can be friendly to the dark skinned neighbours next door but being nice to cattle and pigs … steady on! That’s taking things too far. We prefer to eat what we want and take egalité with a pinch of salt. We prefer to make life as comfortable as possible for ourselves and only then determine how much extra we might have, to spare for others. But certainly, we’d much prefer it if people like vegans were kept quiet (or forcibly quietened!). To that end, vegans need to be portrayed as uncool, weird or extremist.

Kinship

Although adults have more life experience than children they nevertheless don’t differ from kids in one particular way - both adult and child have an innate sense of kinship. They enjoy each other’s company. They have a sense of guardianship for each other, the elder for the younger and vice versa. In the same way humans, although very different to animals, can have a strong sense of kinship with their companion animals, the family dog being like one of the kids in the family. Humans seem to be naturally wanting to protect these vulnerable ones from being hurt or exploited. So why do we feel different about other animals, in other places? It’s in the culture. The hardwiring is something most people accept. They don’t think they can overcome it. Many don’t want to because, to date, it seems to have worked well enough for almost every consumer on the planet.
For just about every human living today, it’s vital to think that it’s okay to exploit animals if you eat them and especially if that’s how you make your living. If you work in some branch of the animal industries, it’s hardly likely that you will have a highly developed guardian instinct for the animals you’re helping to kill. It’s not much different for consumers of animal products, so it’s little wonder that society almost forbids us discussing welfare issues (concerning those animals we use for food and clothing) let alone ‘rights’ issues!! State-sponsored education never mentions having kinship with these sorts of animals, only a need for kindness and respect towards certain wild or companion animals. Most education revolves around the need for humans to eat meat, milk and eggs, and it emphasises the serious danger to our health if we don’t. This is what vegans are up against.

Separation

If we are ‘separationists’ and dealing with an exploited human, whether low caste or uneducated, we (the boss) need to keep a firm trench dug between what we are and what they are. How big the distance-of-separation is depends on either how far we want to do the right thing by them or how much we are willing to screw them. Exploitative attitudes, once they’ve been established and passed on from one generation to the next, are likely to become group attitudes. If we mix socially with 'separationists', soon enough we’ll learn how to put a person ‘in their place’. Even simpler, we can turn on the auto-pilot of dislike. By disliking ‘people who are different’ we can regard them as either a threat or as a resource. But that’s a people-attitude. When it comes to handling another species the separation process is much cruder. The gloves are off with them. Animals, who are never a threat and nearly always a resource, are fair game for any amount of heartless treatment.
If we turn away from separation and are attracted to people who are more egalitarian, we’re likely to be promoting the interests of minorities. We won’t see the differences in other people or other species as being anything at all negative. Quite the opposite. We’re more likely to regard them as deserving of the best treatment.
But separationists are still in the ascendant, their view is that other people from other cultures should be put ‘in their place’, and that makes it much easier to feel separated from other species; they transpose their culture discrimination to species discrimination. Most humans rate animals (and some lesser-people) as being lower, treating them badly whilst not feeling bad for doing so. Humans do terrible things to animals and yet still maintain their equilibrium, as if nothing bad is happening.
That is, until people like vegans come along and burst the bubble, in a most alarming way. They point out what’s really happening to animals at the hands of humans (read consumers). Sitting at the dinner table, listening to vegans talking about our “kinship with animals” is not a pleasant experience, especially if one is eating an animal at the time.

Exploiting

Once we feel safe to exploit, the process of separation has already taken place, just as we might do to ‘certain’ people, to put them in their place.
Once we’ve made it clear in our own minds where our inferiors stand, then all we have to do is simply withhold friendly feelings from them - a dependent employee, for instance, in fear of losing their job, doesn’t need to be befriended by the employer. From a superior power base, the unscrupulous employer can push employees to their limits, in order to get the most out of them. As long as they’re careful (and within the law), they can come very close to enslaving their workers. Much the same thing happens on the farm, with animals, only much worse – a farmer, by having biological control over the animal can feed them and breed them at will. Animals may be used to pull a cart or produce an egg or fatten or reproduce, and all of them, once used up, end their days in the execution chamber at the abattoir. Even our pets, once past their use-by date will be sent off for execution. We euphemistically call it ‘euthanasia’ or ‘putting them to sleep’. Whether kind or cruel, this determination of the fate of animals reflects our deepest belief that, as inferiors, they require less consideration and less ‘trouble’ on our part, and usually that means less expense in keeping them alive beyond our comfort zone.
But it’s the ‘food’ animals that suffer most, and in their billions. They are regarded merely as property. They are strictly utilitarian objects for making money for humans. They are subjected to their own biological body functions and their breeding is manipulated. They’re made to produce whatever is useful, and that’s the extent of their living being, as dictated by their human masters. A milking cow, for example, is artificially inseminated to produce calves, and often these calves serve their only real purpose in embryo, their presence in the womb being enough to stimulate high lactation in the animal which maximises her milk production. The cow is as powerless to stop her calf being born (and then disposed of) as she is to alter the biological functioning of her body. She lactates and gives birth all her life. And whereas at the age of 20 she would normally die, in the dairy she is ‘put down’ at about half that age, too exhausted by constant pregnancies and milking to live much longer. More importantly at this age she is no longer economically viable. She doesn’t warrant any more life. The decisions that are made about her are as cold as that.
The bonanza which a farm animal represents can be quite considerable. Not only does the owner of the animal benefit from the sale of the animal’s carcass and the co-products like leather which are often more valuable than the carcass, but also from their various by-products, taken from her while alive. Animals make ideal slaves. They don’t complain and they don’t fight back. There’s no need to make friends with them any more than bosses do with their employees at the factory. Humans have separated so completely from these animals that normal standards of care we are obliged by law to show to our companions animals at home do not apply to these animals. How can this be?

Being superior

In the broadest possible way, we need to establish where we stand on principle. We can make a start by rejecting anything that’s been achieved using violence or violation. If it’s worthwhile it’s done in a non-exploitative way. Even though humans have always been advantage-takers, we now need to reject that whole idea, whether it’s in the form of racism, speciesism, snobbery or cruelty. And if very privately we think we’re better than others, that too should be reversed, otherwise we’ll think we deserve to be special, which is exactly what got humans into trouble in the first place. Advantage keeps us separated from others. We are so hardwired in favour of separation and against equality that it’s little wonder that animals are always regarded by humans as inferior.
If we want to understand this attitude, especially in regard to animals, we need only look at the way most of us treat people who are different from us. We indulge in separation to avoid integration. We might not admit it and we might even appear benevolent towards strangers (in order to win a liberal reputation for ourselves) by showing compassion for the less well-off. It may be a tactic we use to mask our contempt for them, where we half-heartedly try to get to know strangers and help them (we assume they need help!) and then, when they feel patronised and keep us at arm’s length, we can safely feel rejected … by which time we can feel justified in separating from them. We might say to ourselves, “ I guess they’re not worth getting to know”, which brings us nicely round to not liking them, and then not thinking of them as equals. This seems to be the way we arrive at separation.
I lived in a town after the second world war to where Sikhs migrated. People then had no experience of other races of people in their town. They thought they smelt (as of course they did and as we must have smelt strangely to them!) and said that “they don’t even speak proper English”. To this day the two communities have never accepted each other.
We stay in a separation cocoon where it’s more comfortable for us. We don’t wish to make the attempt to integrate, so we notice the way a person dresses or talks and conclude that we have nothing in common with them. Soon enough we are thoroughly distanced from them. To be a minority victim of this sort of attitude must be terrible (those with ‘inferior’ origins must surely know how it feels from bitter experience!) and it’s a feeling that many of us, from ‘superior’ backgrounds, are hardly aware of, because we are so used to ‘practising’ separation on others when it suits us.
It’s the same process we go through with animals, especially and most dangerously those animals living on ‘farms’. We humans feel distance between ourselves and them. We believe them to be inferior to us, and that allows us to exploit them without feeling pity for them. Separation-beliefs make some humans and absolutely all animals into inferiors. This allows us to treat them differently. We believe them to be ‘brutish’, less sensitive to pain and therefore unable to notice what we dish out to them.

Leaving others behind

To separate from others, to leave behind those who choose not to change, that’s a big step but it allows us a certain amount of freedom to explore new ways of doing things. But I don’t think it serves any useful purpose to make value judgements about those we separate from or those activities we aren’t any longer part of. Some sort of separation is a necessary evil, but we don’t need to make it any more difficult than it needs to be, like making a point of having less regard for those who don’t agree with us. It’s surely enough to break away from the norm without going further by accusing others of being deluded, that is deluded because they support the predominant values of their society. If we’ve made significant changes to our own attitudes and behaviours there’s no need crow about it. As vegans we can enjoy all the advantages (of our plant-based diet and lifestyle) but we should avoid leaving friends and family behind when they won’t come across. If we abandon certain aspects of traditional lifestyle it doesn’t mean we have to abandon friends, or make it a condition of our friendship that they are supportive. A threat of friendship-withdrawal is usually a response to our being ignored or rejected, and vegans should be bigger than this. It serves no one’s interests to quarrel with our adversaries or trash their feelings. And there’s no need to back up our arguments by using shaming tactics.

Hardening our nature

Making radical changes to our diet doesn’t do a lot for our image as an acceptable member of our society, especially if we’re advocating the overturning of so many normal behaviours. To become a vegan would seem ludicrous to most people, especially if it were done to benefit mere animals. The aim of most people is to be acceptable to others and hopefully make a little headway in life. If they do anything that doesn’t fit in with that aim, which isn’t self-benefitting, it might be for the environment; to save the world for their grandchildren or at least preserve the way of life as it is now. Most people wouldn’t believe that, by accepting animal slavery, we were hardening our nature. Even if we believed it, that society’s acceptance of killing animals for food had a malign influence on us, it isn’t obvious how we could escape that influence . . . unless we were willing to psychologically separate from society. But this is exactly what vegans have decided to do. By disassociating from the norm, vegans illustrate that their nature has not been hardened.

Giving the nod to violence

The worst violence done in the name of food is committed by the animal industries. They not only exploit animals but people too, who, over time, become dependent on their products. Once hooked, big issues, concerning the unhealthy nature of animal foods or the violent origins of these foods, are no longer noticed. Animal food is so routinely used by most people and so widely promoted by the industry, that we hardly ever give it a second thought, certainly not in terms of whether we should or shouldn’t use it. Our habits are ingrained. We don’t like to think about the part we play in state sanctioned violence, and we certainly don’t want to be reminded of what goes on behind the doors of factory farms and abattoirs. Meat eaters stick to traditional meals and buy the clothes and shoes that everyone else wears. They buy what they want, and their only decisions concern the quality of the products they buy. With food it’s about cost and freshness and general nutritional value. Provenance is hardly ever considered, unless one ensures the eggs are free-range or the milk is from organically fed cows. Mostly the animals themselves are of little concern.
Since animal-derived food isn’t judged ethically it means the animal, from whom it comes, is of no ethical concern either, and that is tantamount to approving their violation at the hands of the industry. We are willing to live off the backs of these animals and if we ever consider the greater good, it is only in terms of our impact on the human community or the environment. Hardly ever is it about the billions of animals living on factory farms. Despite the staggering number of animals living involved, our attention is always directed towards our own selves. That’s our priority. Animal affairs are so secondary that we prefer to leave them permanently on the back burner.

Animal food symbolising violence

I often work in other people’s homes and put my lunch in their fridge, but I usually have a squiz inside, just to see if I’ve stumbled on a vegan household. No such luck! I’m always disappointed. There they are, the same old products, bits of dead animal flesh in neat little trays or the cheese or the politically correct free range eggs, or worse. And my clients are usually lovely people and I shudder to think how far they are from being at the forefront of social change.
The move away from animal food is where any transformation of the species has to start because it symbolises the most routine and widely practised violence that we humans practise. Our attitude to where our food comes from is at the heart of a much bigger attitude change. Animal foods symbolise the violent side of human nature. That symbol is familiar to all vegans, and it makes a vegan’s life very different to other people’s. We buy different things to most others to symbolise our non-violence. Our kitchens smell differently and our fridges are full of violence-free products. Vegans boycott a huge chunk of the consumer market which is violence-based, and just by doing that they begin the transformation. And that is why veganism is where non-violence starts and vice versa.

The biggest battle

If the population was much closer to agreement with us (as they are over environmental matters) there would be greater support and a louder demand for reform and a greater acceptance of vegans. But animal rights isn’t like that. Animal liberation is not obviously a planet-saving solution nor is it perceived as being ‘good for us’. If something isn’t going to benefit us directly and personally we’re not as likely to agree to any personal inconvenience connected with it. It’s likely that we’ll do nothing until we have to . . . unless we grant some support for giving hens larger cages, but that’s as far as it goes. And that’s as far from the abolition of animal slavery as anything can be. It’s so far from addressing the matter of animal rights as to make a joke of it.
This struggle we have with the popular mindset is a classic David and Goliath battle. For us to create the right atmosphere for an entire switch of attitude seems like an impossible dream. It’s almost a hopeless cause, and yet it doesn’t rest there if our final aim is to use these issues as a springboard towards building a non-violent society. If we do want a peace-loving human to emerge, if we want a transformed species, then we must want a world where ethics are considered before personal comfort, and that means at the very least, a compassionate consideration of other species, a starting line towards building something much bigger. At present we stand a million miles from this. What we have at the moment is a love of comfort, and with animal foods being one of the greatest comforters, animals themselves must be seen for what they are – more objects than sentient creatures. In this way we can enjoy eating them without empathising with them.

Communicating without violence

When we become vegan, if we speak up, then we automatically stand out and obviously our nearest and dearest will notice. We run the risk of becoming outcasts. Our decision to stand apart like this may seem radical but it’s necessary, in order to balance the bull-headedness of the majority of people. When we criticise the institutional violence of the meat trade we also criticise the consumer; most people will feel that criticism levelled at themselves, because they eat meat. So when we imply that omnivores are guilty of “attacking and killing animals on a mass scale” we will always inflame emotions. And that makes us seem aggressive. That’s hard to handle maybe, but it’s not surprising considering what we are saying. For our part, there’s no reason to fall out with our friends about it. We must come to accept emotional reactions and learn to live with them. For any of us who believe that what society is doing to animals is wrong, our making a strong statement might seem justified. To us. We may be surprised at the strength of the reaction we get - that no one takes this subject seriously or even appears interested in it. But why be surprised? We are effectively attacking a person’s whole lifestyle. Obviously the animal advocate is going to be seen as intrusive if they bring the subject up, so we’re not winning any approval here, for the strength of our passion. That will always be downplayed or ignored. Our message too. People will always turn away - they have to, because they eat animals. By trying to shock people into changing their minds we risk pushing our arguments too hard and too fast. We don’t need to take advantage of listeners just because they are a captive audience. And free-willed people don’t need to be taken advantage of in this way. This is why we need to examine this interface very carefully, to see what opportunity there is for creative communication

Attitude versus attitude

Being vegan means putting up with people’s misconceptions of veganism. To ‘have attitude’ usually means being resentful and uncooperative, and vegans often seem this way to outsiders. In advocating for animals vegans have to become ‘refusniks’ and maybe suffer for that; by showing empathy for food-animals we might have to accept derision from people who not only disagree with us but who think we regard ourselves as superior. However unfair that might seem, we need to hold onto our position to get our message across effectively. And not take umbrage.
Our reason for disassociating so radically from the main group is that we believe that certain social values need radical re-examination. Vegans don’t want to be exclusive, we just want to get this animal slavery problem taken seriously. We need some communication happening without alienating our own personal support base.
A non-vegan friend of mine mentioned to me the other day that global warming was the biggest issue facing us, and I said there’s another equally big issue, if not bigger … but before I could expand on my outrageous theory I was stopped. He ‘knew’ what subject I wanted to bring up and he mentioned something about “we can all get a bit obsessive …”, which was his way of closing down the discussion. The problem was that he thought he knew what I was going to say. And that it would have opened up a whole deep discussion of certain matters, which he neither had time for nor the inclination to get into. So I never got the chance to explain what I had in mind.
It’s not easy to find anyone to listen, especially when people get wind of what we are trying to bring up. But that is the reality we always have to come to terms with. It illustrates not how we’d like it to be but how it actually is, now. To discover how to inspire people we must surely learn first how to deal with disappointment and disillusion, and keep trying different ways without being put off. The eureka moment won’t be handed to us on a plate. In the meantime we need to hold onto the belief that people’s attitudes will change in time. So presently, it’s ‘nothing to go on about’.

Two forces

In advocating for animal rights there are two things going on at the same time: we are trying to advocate for the animals but we are also trying to come across as an acceptable and rational human being. On one level we need to seem just like the rest, not better than anyone, just part of the group. On another level we want to stand out and have what we are saying taken seriously. Some would say this is an impossible dream, given the subject - Animal Rights is an unpopular cause which will make us unpopular – just face it! We are torn between two forces here - being ineffective but acceptable or saying “to hell with social acceptance, better to be disliked than ignored”. Two forces: either we stand up for what we believe and feel good about it or we compromise to gain the support of others. It’s our choice. But it does rather depend on who we are talking to, observing them and deciding our approach by what we read from them, as we go along.
Some days I just go along silently with whatever happens. I don’t speak out. I keep smiling and everyone likes me. Other days I bite, and I can see how it effects people who did think I was a sweet guy. One day I’m cowardly, the next I’m violent.
We might ask ourselves how to turn attitudes around when we don’t dare to speak up? These days if your voice is too soft no one will hear you let alone listen, let alone pay attention. And it’s not as if we don’t realise how massive a shift is going to have to take place, if we want to see the abolition of animal slavery. We need so much support for that to happen.
But how do you make people love you and then want to listen to you? The eternal question. Be too sweet and they’ll run a mile. Be aloof and they’ll do the same. But there may be half a solution here: that we don’t try to convert friends and family but confine our outspokenness to speaking in public; being outrageous, dramatic and courageous when we’re most exposed, so that the public eye is caught, we take a risk and win respect, just for that. ‘At home’ we abstain. And then we can still retain the acceptance and emotional support of those who know us, which keeps us stable and secure within ourselves. Then we can go out and be more outspoken without needing reassurance. That will hopefully have the effect of stopping us becoming too aggressive in our overall approach, both to friends and strangers, whilst still being effective with our message.

Why vegans go out on a limb

The group. My group. It’s nice to belong, to be amongst people I can identify with. Even nicer to feel special. Most of us want to be part of the group and be approved of, to be well thought of, by family, friends or even by our town. And what wouldn’t we do to be famous in our own country? The bigger the group that 'knows us' the more special we feel. Some people will sell their soul for fame.
But when that prize is stained, when the goals of our society seem wrong and we have to turn away, then we might have to face people’s misunderstanding of us. This isn’t so pleasant. It’s the opposite of approval. It’s a feeling of being alienated, and that’s real punishment. No one wants to be excluded or to stand out like a freak. So, most of us do what others do. We dress the same, talk the same, behave the same … that is, until we come to something we can’t accept and must speak out against, even if we are going to be judged for it. Not everyone who wants to stand up for a principle is strong enough to maintain their stand if they get an unpleasant reaction. Especially if it seems unfair. It’s the unfairness that makes us angry, even if it’s only because we are being ignored.
Animal rights advocates have to put up with this. They feel like victims, so they react, and in so doing become victimisers; they are judged by society for following their principles and in turn judge people who don’t agree with them. It’s like a deadly no-win game we play with our adversaries: it starts off reasonably enough but if it turns aggressive, dialogue stops and we become ineffective. Unfortunately some of us get aggressive in order to make ourselves heard and to show how deeply we feel about animal rights issues, and then it becomes a fine line between being assertive and becoming violent. To be outrageously noisy is one thing but to make value judgements to the faces of the people we talk with is usually counter productive.
Today, in a place I was working in, the occupant said to me “I hear you are a vegetarian” and I hit back with “Yes, I don’t eat what you eat”. That was rude. Of course I smoothed it over but I felt ashamed about this – I was put out because he’d been cooking beef for his lunch and I couldn’t stand the smell and had to go out for about an hour, never of course saying a word about it, it being his place after all.
As soon as there’s any disapproval in our voice, however convincing our argument may be, the message gets lost in the delivery. And when it fails to get across we aren’t much help to the animals. And we get a reputation of being a bit aggressive, and in that way we lose support.

Non-separation

Being associated with the animal rights movement or the vegan movement requires a big commitment. There’s so much ground work to be done by so few people. But to keep up our drive we need to have a high frustration threshold, because almost everyone is opposed to what we are saying. And people don’t necessarily say so, instead, they assiduously ignore us and hope we will go away. Of course we won’t, but it’s like being buried under an avalanche of indifference. It’s debilitating. No other activists, in minority groups, put themselves up against such a brick wall, against such a universally observed convention as animal eating. Almost everyone is implicated, and if it’s not eating them it’s wearing them or using them in some way to the human advantage. What happens to animals is ugly, we know it. We don’t want to be reminded of it, which is precisely what vegans are trying to do!
We are a thorn in the side of almost everyone, and for that reason we are not liked. And because we are scorned, we’re lonely. And lonelier still because, within this small grouping of people, there are so many different approaches. Each one believing their way of ‘breaking through’ to resistant people is the best way. Inevitably there’s antipathy between activists. This of course is the stuff of any political grouping but it’s worse for vegans working for animal rights because we comprise such a tiny percentage of the overall population, especially here in Australia.
The realities of ‘animal activism’ are hard enough on a personal level, without our adding to our difficulties by distancing ourselves from others, by feeling superior to other activists or other people in the wider community. The aim, after all, is to connect not to draw apart. As soon as we separate from others we make ourselves look morally superior, which is not a good look. This next section is about the importance of non-separation.

A new take on altruism

Things we do voluntarily should be done because we find it difficult to stop, because it gives us pleasure. I remember my parents playing with their first grandchild. I knew they’d never get bored by her, even though in their old age the child’s energy was exhausting for them. They just loved being exhausted that way. This is what relative altruism is about - using any amount of effort to find a balance point between the selfish and the selfless, between benefiting self and being of benefit to others and always knowing that we do the best we can and that each day we’ve tried to foster a sense of altruism. We don’t need to win brownie points or pave our way to enlightenment. We just need to do things for others for the fun of it. If there’s no fun there’s no altruism.
Relative altruism guarantees us a certain sort of energy relative to that which we put out. In this way the energy of altruism is self perpetuating. It expands rather than expends. At the outset, altruism might make our lives more difficult but by its valuable lessons, our day is brighter because of it. If what we do benefits the planet then it is a bonus and if at the same time we can also withdraw our support from "the cageman", all the better! We can help put him out of business, or better still encourage him to make his living another way!
Altruism clarifies the order of things. It tells us what to avoid and what to do next. It brings us home.

Good greed

The nature of altruism - the more confident we become with it, the more we really make a difference; the more difference we make, the more others will try to make a difference too.
Do we doubt that all this could happen? Is it impossible for us to see ourselves operating in a selfless way? If so, that’s probably because we still think of altruism in terms of selflessness, moral goodness and idealism, whereas it is nothing more than realising a good business opportunity. It is an alternative form of greed, but this time it’s greed for others, greed for a fabulous future (from which we personally mightn’t be around to benefit) and a time when racism and speciesism are forgotten concepts. But could it be this way? Could it happen? Even the goal is easy to lose sight of because we have this bad habit of plunging back into gloom and self pity. We forget that altruism has already stepped into the breach and is waiting patiently in the wings for us to use it to transform ourselves. We must never forget to learn from the past, but there comes a time when we must stop regretting the horror of the bomb and the cage and get our minds focused on new ideas - like plant-based eating regimes, a world parliament or a new type of motivation. So how will altruism help?
As individuals, we actually 'do' it all the time (if we did but know it) by smiling at someone passing by, donating money anonymously, giving credit for things that are being done by others. Certainly we do it by looking out for others, as a parent does with a child. Altruism always has the potential for setting off a chain reaction. But if we fail, it might be because we’re still carrying heavy moral baggage and that means our idea of altruism is still skewed by its reputation for wowser-ism. Altruism should only be about joy. The joy of problem solving, the joy of accepting challenges, the sheer fun and exhilaration involved in making alterations to our lifestyles. When we do things without needing to get materially rewarded for doing them, we switch an important attitude. We transform our world view. As soon as this attitude becomes common, it supersedes other types of pleasure. At that point we have altruism in the bag!

Altruism is irresistible

We need to discover if altruism can work for us, at first privately and then collectively. As individuals, we need to take the initiative without waiting around for others to go first. It’s up to us to bite the same bullet we accuse others of not biting. It’s up to us to find out if our initiatives are safe, then go ahead and enjoy them as we explore them. We each have to be happy taking on more than our fair share of responsibility. It’s not a matter of who does more or who is more culpable or, even, more capable. It’s simply a matter of going through the motion of repairing what we’ve done, as best we can. Altruism shines brightly here because it is the one thing that can transform the violence of the past and give us a different type of motivation to take us into the future and help us gear up for a different type of world. By knowing it will happen and then acting as if it is a certainty, we can promote altruism as something to be taken seriously. However, if we are to mend the damage, we need an army of advocates in support.
For each advocate there must be an energy source and a motivational force in their lives, so that they can stand up to anything thrown at them. Each of us must agitate for the greater good and, at the same time, transform the way we function as individuals. As we think, so we act, and if we are altruistically motivated, we have the capacity to cause a certain type of chain reaction, inspiring people into being creative and optimistic. Altruism should be seen as irresistible because it is a force for transformation. Of course, the danger is that we get so carried away by the idea, we forget the principle at its heart - thinking of others before, not after, we think of ourselves.
If the idea is to work and be impressive enough to swing over other people, it must first ring true to us. We must be comfortable enough with altruism to let it dissolve our value judgements of other people, to let us never get involved with violence, or to get pushy or to become righteous. If we act altruistically, the great reward is found in seeing others also acting altruistically.

Plant-based diet

This crude, human-advantaged world wasn’t what my mother and father wanted when the war ended. They saw a golden future for their family in a world which had surely learnt its lesson. But it was never going to be that simple. That war, that bomb, that cage - each had to come into being to so revolt us that we’d have to find a better way. Specifically, there had to be another way to handle the food supply problem. But that lesson still isn’t learned, in fact over the succeeding sixty years since the war ended, things have become decidedly worse. One has to ask why we haven’t found a creative way to supply food without causing chaos and misery to so many sentient beings? Perhaps it’s because we refuse to look at the most obvious answer which has always been staring us in the face - a plant-based diet which solves most health problems and ethical problems in one hit. But most people say they aren’t ready for that! And you can see why. Peoples’ attention has been powerfully redirected elsewhere. Towards other matters. We are focused on anything but animal slavery.
The latest fear is climate change. It makes us sit up and take notice. But not much more. We still believe in serendipity and again it seems we talk a lot and toy with our problems. But we will probably never do as much as we could because we lack motivation and energy. We almost know we won’t get it together because it will inconvenience our own lifestyles and personal relationships and threaten our habits. We almost know we are still too selfishly motivated to act for the greater good. We’re especially reluctant to make changes in our own lives when similar changes aren’t being made by everyone else. You first, me next!

Dodging ethics

The man who came up with the idea of imprisoning hens in fetid, sunless sheds, set a trend. He and others invented and then developed the caging system. They were pioneers of pragmatism and many of them were also builders of similar prisons for other animals. It came to be known as the "factory farming" process. Perhaps it was all inspired by the Nazi holocaust, since it too came from a death-camp mentality. This may be a clue to the main weakness in humans - our ability to turn a blind eye for the sake of convenience and to be able to dodge ethics when it suits us.
By associating with anti-altruism, we show an acceptance of cruelty and then learn to appreciate the concomitant benefits of that cruelty. The significance of this trend, particularly in the treatment of domesticated animals, is opposite to the central tenet of altruism - empathy. It shows how easily humans can go along with what is supposedly being done 'for the best', knowing it to be fundamentally ethically flawed. Take eggs for instance. Scarce during the hungry times of the second world war, but now plentiful. When we allowed the cage to be used as an emergency means of feeding hungry people, we neglected to write in a twilight clause - so it continued. Now eggs are mass produced. They’re cheap, people are hooked on them and like so many other animal products, we buy them because we like the taste of them. We didn’t see the danger in allowing factory farming to happen, perhaps because it could have proven too inconvenient for us personally, so it continued as a means of supplying cheap food. The animal industries have always known how to cater for the consumer and we consumers have always been dazzled by improvements to our lifestyle and particularly those attractive tasting food experiences. If animals have to suffer for that, too bad!! Today, nearly all humans ignore animal suffering, they believe they’re going to get away with it. They think they’ve got the whole thing wrapped up. Humans rule nature by perfecting the enslavement of animals. It’s humans one: animals zero.

The cage

The first cage system was built to house the egg-laying bird. The hen was to become the complete victim of her own menstrual cycle. In order to mass produce her powerful protein package for humans to eat, flock numbers were greatly increased and each individual animal was locked into a tiny cage, from which she would lay as many eggs as any free ranging hen could, and even more. This cunning idea was about to revolutionise food production techniques.
The cage became an essential component in the application of industrial mechanised processes to the treatment of animals. By caging birds, the cage itself came to represent one of the most cynical suspensions of compassion ever contemplated by humans. In order to guarantee food supply, we decided to become thoroughly pragmatic. The caging system was an emergency measure at a time when many other horrible things were happening. Its introduction was barely noticed.
By the end of the war, "battery farms" were already established. The system was based on the idea of having batteries of cages in rows, tier upon tier, with these cages promising life-imprisonment for each bird. The hen had been reduced to a biological function; far from caring for the welfare of these long time friends of humans, they were abandoned to their fate, as machines working for the egg industry. This deliberately created hell hole environment was forced on one species to benefit another. This caging system is perhaps the most anti-altruistic thing humans have ever done and it has given rise to the concept of "speciesism", in its most extreme form.

Learning from the past

Repairing the earth means repairing ourselves as well. The most productive way is by learning to put ourselves out a bit. But we need to learn from our collective past mistakes. Now, since we can’t know what is up ahead (any more than we can reach out to the stars) we have to actively bring the future into present reality by finding significance in past events. At first we see the mistakes, then we see the simplicity of (probable) solutions. Maybe we see one simple sparkling idea that stands out from the rest, which can re-route our synapses, to allow us to think differently. As soon as we change our thought patterns, we change our whole nature, no longer constrained by the tight confines of self interest. Now we want for ourselves what we want for others. This might be the greatest value to come out of a war torn twentieth century. Looking back on what happened it is hardly believable that so many humans could have participated in such barbaric behaviour, how they could have allowed things to turn out the way they did. And yet, albeit in different forms, the same barbaric behaviour exists today. And in the future others will look back and find it all unbelievable, that it happened. And yet at the same time they too won’t see what they are involved with, the new behaviour, the unresolved events, equally barbaric. How do we, in the middle of this particular era of barbarism, stop, take stock and consciously alter course?

By looking at the extraordinary events of the mid 1940s, we see human nature in all its extremes. We see bravery, altruism, waste and cruelty, all the big lessons from which to build a future. When I was just a twinkle in my dad’s eye, three near-simultaneous events took place. First there was a war grinding to a halt, millions of humans dead, millions of humans dying of starvation, and in the middle of it all a man who scared the living daylights out of people (and when he shot himself, it gave my parents and many others the confidence to enlarge their families). Next, some hundred days later, an atom-splitting device exploded over a Japanese city. That showed how we could kill a whole planet by just pressing a button if we desired. These two events marking the close of one war gave rise to another war. A war of fear, a precursor of what could happen one day.
The third significant event around this period didn’t get much publicity at the time, but later it was to become the very symbol of non-altruism. Perhaps it grew naturally out of the first two. Certainly it was a forecaster of what was to come. A new grim reaper had appeared in the form of a mindlessness combined with a clever idea, proclaiming: “the cage man cometh”. So now we are in the cage age, or rather in a time where we are so cost effective that we use cages to entomb and enslave animals.

Reaching for the stars

When we look up at the stars in the sky (which presents no problem for us at all, it’s like watching the cat sitting on the mat - it’s there, it’s alright) and we feel a yearning, part of that is a frustration of seeing something we can’t reach. We may gaze at stars but we always have to return to the here and now, to appreciate what we have at home. We have our own star, the sun, we have our own planet and our own companions. We are very lucky. We look up at the stars. They shine down on us just as they shine on their own orbiting planets, and that reminds us of our future, which we cannot possibly see because it hasn’t happened yet. But we can project probabilities by referring to the past, by listening to the stories which have made us what we are and moulded our social attitudes. This is where we find out what has happened and perhaps learn things about human history that we’d rather not know about. Like the many humans who have been exploited and the many lives wasted. The age of the machines has arrived and machine minds are responsible for a lot of damage. We’ve even turned animals into machines and we have them producing goods for us from the confines of cages and concrete pens. Things couldn’t be worse, and yet repairs can be made.

Order and chaos

When bringing order to chaos, we need to know why we do it the way we do. When pulling out weeds to make room for a sapling, we consider the greater good and yet want to avoid destruction. It’s a dilemma and a challenge. Our decision might not resolve everything to our perfect satisfaction, but then relative altruism is really all about compromise.
It isn’t about the ideal, it’s simply about doing a job that needs to be done, urgently and thoroughly. Perhaps it involves nothing more than smiling into the eyes of someone or no less than a rescue bid for both planet and human nature. If we can restructure our own nature we can re-balance the earth. And if that’s obvious, why are we waiting? Do we procrastinate? Are we still star gazing?

Altruism as a reference point

Living within a partially unknowable universe, we do the best we can although there is essentially nothing to do nor anything to achieve, except perhaps to foster affection. The only way to be sure it’s the right way is by acting on instinct, according to what each situation suggests.
Intuitively we know life is not only about doing good, it’s about optimising our best opportunities. By making choices which are selfish but none the less intelligent and non-harmful we’re doing what comes naturally. These are the sorts of decisions we’re making every day, which we don’t mark up as ideals but as ordinary things; like the things grown ups do for the sake of the kids; like the things we do that feed back again to ourselves.
Altruism is the maturing agent for people who are in the process of learning, particularly if they’re learning through parenting. A child screams for attention and the parent comes to the rescue, goes into action, using altruism to help them make the best decision for the child as well as their own sanity. Altruism is always the reference point, especially when parents have to draw a line between indulging the child and denying the child. Each decision can be an altruistic one. It’s the same thing with the ant in the sink. Altruism can’t be partial and obviously never violent or harm-causing. In fact one might say that non-violence and harmlessness can never be anything but altruistic!

The ant in the sink

Altruism usually means putting in the first spark. Initial energy needs some effort and that usually means some inconvenience. But what we put out will come back to serve us, if we move away from the demeaning type of moral altruism and move towards a more relative altruism. It is just a matter of putting it into practice: being impartially and randomly altruistic and for it to become as unconscious as breathing fresh air. It mustn’t be too carefully planned or so casual that it goes unnoticed. It has to be performed in such a way that the 'cards may fall where they will'. If we choose to unselfishly act in the best interests of our own child, then that’s the way we should do everything. When making our next decision, say finding an ant in the sink; it’s up to us to decide its fate. Perhaps we don’t want it there, perhaps we don’t like ants, perhaps we think to drown it; but in resisting the temptation to turn on the tap, we switch from self interest to the interest of the insect. We save it and learn to deal with the situation another way. Through that choice we don’t so much solve a problem (of the ant in the sink) we take it as a lesson in acting non-violently. Every situation that might tempt us into making a selfish decision is a chance for opposite-thinking, of not taking the line of least resistance. If choosing to take the altruistic route means treating the ant with the same consideration as we show the child, we draw closer to the ant’s world. We do it not only to be kind to the ant, but also for our own sake. It opens our imagination, it gets us closer to the "other universe" and the ant’s own world. It brings us closer to an unknown world which needs to remain outside our own understanding for its own reasons.

Motivation and altruism

In our minds we, as individuals, don’t see that we have any direct power to slow today’s destruction and we don’t know how to acquire the resources to directly repair the damage that’s been done already. We can’t see past our present society whose structures seem so set in concrete. Nor can we feel excited by the promises given by our leaders, because of their obvious self interest. Cynicism and pessimism block our way forward. And yet without a hopeful, realistic future-vision nothing much can happen. Without some sort of blueprint we can neither repair nor rebuild the structures that need changing. To jolt us out of our black dog view of the world, we need to transform the way we think.

To be altruistic and forward-looking, without being evangelistic about it, we don’t need to keep the moral baggage. The optimistic component of altruism comes with a different kind of motivation; reward is the driver and motivator. Ideally the reward is coming from actually wanting to do things for others. It doesn’t have to be particularly special to attract us, it just has to be creative enough to allow for the unexpected. Reward is that much richer because of the surprise of it.
Perhaps we have to re-examine what motivates us. By helping human nature turn around for the better, our pessimism automatically weakens. By thinking optimistically we weaken our focus on personal safety and security, putting greater faith in altruism. The more we dare to trust in it the more we’ll see what it can do; just by putting ourselves at the service of others and being graceful enough about it, we might then be able to accept any positivity someone else might be directing towards us. If the world were a more altruistic place, we wouldn’t be so much thrilled by the notion of being altruistic, we’d be thrilled instead by the climate of unselfconscious altruism around us and the little need we’d have for any sense of an expected reciprocation. But we have a long way to go. In our present world things aren’t like that. So at first we have to stir some conscious motivation into the mix, to get altruism up and moving.

Altruism and optimism

Although altruism isn’t about getting egotistical about our Boy Scout good deeds, we should never ignore its significance or the power of it, when we go into the outside world to meet social and political challenges
Importantly, altruism is a central ideal for the future. When we start observing it in our own private lives and then start to apply it in the service of some great cause, it becomes integral to everything we do (for that cause). It adds something important to the image and reputation (of that cause). It is the very mode of our repair work. Activists and advocates of all major causes who understand the importance of non-violence, need to be strong on altruism.
The old way of winning campaigns is finished. That was where we gained power and clobbered the opponent so hard he/she conceded. Maybe today we have learnt to consider both sides of any argument, come to a conclusion based on the greater good and stick with it until something better comes along. Whatever we do, we must make a stand against violence and put self interest behind us. This isn’t easy or straightforward and yet this is the kind of approach Ghandi describes as "soul-force" - using the soul part of us to deal with major problems by way of non-violence and unselfishness.
Many people believe the world is doomed. They say we’re caught up in our own misdeeds and must atone for them. For many others though, it’s a matter of holding out for better ideas. Looking forward to a better world, dreaming of better things to come. And yet, is it because it is "just a dream" that we don’t really believe it will happen or see how it could happen?

A better world

The sort of world we'd like to have already has a working model. It’s here and in very ordinary ways it’s coming into existance all the time, unselfconsciously. A cat is sitting on a mat, so when I stroke the cat she starts purring. She shows satisfaction. Maybe she purrs to get more affection. Maybe her own purring feeds relaxation back into her own system. This sound-vibration (about the most reassuring sound a cat can make) is important and satisfying to her and it also affects me beneficially. The satisfaction is mutual. A contented human stroking a contented cat - neither is being entirely selfish nor selfless.
These moments are times when all’s right with the world, just by being in a state of familiar satisfaction - at home. However, the significance of being with a beloved cat or a child we’re close to, is that it is a valued experience, but these home values may be carried outside the home, even to the big end of town. We can employ the satisfaction of altruism in any issue-deciding situation.
Altruism, in whatever form it takes, has a magnetic quality. It stands out. People see it even though they don’t mention it. So what is altruism? Is it a method of making others feel good? Not entirely. But it will attract attention. However we describe human altruism, it always has a certain cachet that makes it attractive to others. It’s noticed. It gets us noticed and it feels satisfying too - that’s hardly selflessness. So perhaps pure altruism doesn’t exist because it is contaminated by our own desire. But so what? The main thing is that we are inspired by what is already practised by almost everyone, but largely unselfconsciously.
By bringing it into a fuller consciousness, altruism takes on a usefulness. It has a very practical purpose.

Altruism is often innocent or at least unselfconscious. It may not be directed at anything because we are uninformed and not using altruism or exploring it particularly. Vegans may be different. They have an agenda and are aware of the part altruism plays in the eventual success of their ‘mission’. Vegans are not willing to remain uninformed and have become disciplined enough to start things moving – towards a very conscious social revolution. Our job is merely to make a spark. Not much more is needed - altruism takes over. It’s the beginning of a new attitude of being-with-the-other, empathy, compassion, respect, recognition. When we acknowledge someone else even by saying just “Hi” in passing, or giving them a glance of "at-one-ness", or if we retrieve a cat stuck up a tree. Any action big or small, is making a statement about how things could be and probably should be. We initiate altruistic acts and know each act counts. It is as if each one is a blow for freedom, defying a tendency we all have for self absorption. These acts of altruism, whilst not needing to mean much at all, oil the wheels of our involvement with other people. Obviously, if we did them merely for the sake of doing a good deed, we’d become greasy and disingenuous. But in a modest way each of us can do important things and do them well: like being affectionate or being useful. We are capable of being altruistic in any social setting by showing we care about others and we can almost draw the future into the present, by sketching the shape of a new type of humanity. That shape will obviously not involve violence and therefore will be at the very least vegan.

Mutual support

Because people who aren’t vegan are so dismissive of it, to keep it away from them and to keep it from growing in popularity, there’s zero encouragement given to vegans. This is the hardest cause to fight because of that. Vegans therefore have to gain their recognition and reward from other vegans. Thin pickings, because other vegans are suffering from the same adversity. Motivational energy must come largely from a developed sense of altruism. It’s hard in one way, but useful in another since this is how vegans can develop empathy for the most marginalised beings, the exploited animals themselves. Nevertheless, energy is where you find it. There is no shame in reward and recognition in exchange for this vital income of energy. If we deny the importance of the element of reward, altruism won’t work. It will wither and we’ll revert to a catch-what-you-can mentality.

Energy. We need so little back, but we do need some, because we don’t come free. Our engines need just a touch of this good grease - a mere smile of recognition, even just a glance. There’s not much more we need to do other than recognise each other’s existence. If vegan, support for another vegan is of greatest value. Whatever cause we are fighting for, part of that cause is the giving of support to others who are giving their time and energy for that same cause. This is altruism at its most subtle and yet most powerful. Mutual support stimulates us to act for the greater good.
We are capable of being content with very little, not because we’re good (for having such strength of character) but because in this way we won’t run up gratitude debts. It means if we haven’t got much to give, it’s okay - small is no less effective. We aren’t building with bricks here, this is merely a spell we’re casting to conjure up a better world.

Altruism

If we are vegan and can’t understand why others are not, it may be worth considering why vegans are willing to give away a lot of benefits in life for the sake of helping to save animals. Why do vegans think so seriously about animals and translate that concern into their daily lives. Perhaps it’s because vegans are more altruistic? But is that simply selflessness or is it something more interesting? What does the idea altruism involve?

Altruism (in its common usage) is immune to criticism and beyond reproach because it’s meant to be about selflessness and considering other peoples’ interests before our own. But like Nietzsche, I believe this definition is demeaning. More particularly, it’s unrealistic because it is the kind of purity no one can keep up. We are survivors and therefore have to be selfish thinkers and self-interested. We love to look after our own first and others afterwards. If we now have to reappraise this notion, it is to consider the plain common sense of a relative altruism; one that we can enjoy unashamedly because it feels good to be doing something for others whilst doing something good for ourselves.

There’s a lot of giving-out needed today; yet we shouldn’t have to pretend to neglect our own interests to get our reward; because if we are brutally honest with ourselves, it’s the reward we think about. The reward is like incoming energy. It seems opposite to altruism which is always giving energy away. So, at its heart, altruism must be self rewarding. If it isn’t, why deplete yourself for it? Doing good without getting some recognition back, makes us become resentful. It’s only natural to expect something back. We give a birthday present, we expect a thank you. And if it doesn’t appear, we notice that. We’re less inclined to bother next birthday.
Whatever we do, even if it’s a paid job, we need something extra, a different kind of reward, a recognition, because that is the lubrication and it's is vital. This makes what we do run smoother, which makes us want to give our all. Which is much better than being pinched into giving the bare minimum expected. We need to feel energetic and energised by what we do. We all like the feeling of giving quality to our jobs and giving quality to our relationships. By being vegan we give quality to our own life and at the same time to the lives of the animals we help save from being reared, killed and eaten.

wisdom and compassion

The two great forces and two great attractions of life are wisdom and compassion. Everyone wants these foundation stones in their life, if they want to develop a better world and gain some personal happiness in the process. Vegan principle embodies both. Being vegan is a major statement of compassion and as the years roll by the wisdom of being vegan sinks in deeper and deeper. So, it’s no wonder that long time vegans leap at the chance to introduce the idea to whoever will listen. Not to boast about it, not for egotistical reasons but out of a wish for others to gain what we have gained.
If there were one force that combined both wisdom and compassion it would be altruism. Not the idealised notion of it that gets a giggle whenever it’s mentioned but a quiet, personal, utterly satisfying feeling, that what is good for others is good for oneself. By shelving the pursuit of one’s own happiness while one pursues the much more interesting goal, of looking out for others, we may suffer all sorts of frustrations, but we make our lives a challenge. By deliberately avoiding the obvious, the self interest and the soft life, we make others’ lives better and make our own much more robust and adventurous.
One very practical start we can make is to adopt vegan principle, in the choice of our daily food and the choice of clothing and commodities – we choose those which are basic to our needs but which don’t steal from the needs of others. Once we can get that right we have a solid basis for self-respect. And from there confidence, and from there fulfilment and happiness. Maybe it seems a rather roundabout route to take but it’s about making our own life a bit edgy, so that we set a greater pace for learning than we would otherwise, in selfish pursuits. By learning on a more multidimensional scale, we’re more likely to understand the subtleties of altruism and come to realise that, by adopting a more altruistic outlook, we can benefit ourselves by our actions as much as others who initially benefit from them. The next section deals with altruism.

dynamic non-violence

Today, we are so conscious of violence (largely through stories reported in the media) that we think most humans are violent, which of course they aren’t! These media stories bring (what passes for) interest into our dreary lives, giving us something to talk about. So we discuss violence and 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 swing right over to the opposite side, into the idea of non-violence, sentimentality attracted by it’s political correctness. We escape into it when things get tough. We use it to deny reality. But we forget to think about it deeply.
In legend the Lemurian civilisation abhorred violence. They were incapable of dealing with it. They eventually died out because they tried to deny the very existence of violence without having any realistic alternative for it. Perhaps they hadn’t thought deeply enough about the co-dependence of the two elements or given enough thought to the dynamic side of non-violence.
Today we can be far more dynamic about it, by boycotting violent activity wherever it is found. As consumers we can avoid using violent goods. We can encourage cruelty-free and environmentally friendly commodities. That’s a really good start. Non-violence must be in everything we do, from thinking and talking to actively supporting commercial enterprises. As more people act in this way so the fashion will take off, and violence and coercion will literally fade away. And no one need ever notice the transition or identify what it was that changed our society. As long as those with a strong interest in non-violence set the example. Today we need only concern ourselves with installing new habits … as long as we do it by tomorrow at the latest!

keeping our violence in check

Take the violent world. In it, we always try to get what we want. We bend the rules and hope we can fix things up later. But there’s another violent world in Nature, where forceful events like storms, epidemics and earthquakes happen and destruction occurs on a massive scale. But this sort of violence isn’t the same as the human variety. Ours is damaging because it’s so coldly administered - driven by our sense of insecurity and ambition. Only by implementing the principles of non-violence can we keep our own violence in check, whether it’s our own violence or it’s in our children, in our partner or in the collective consciousness itself. By checking ourselves for violence and by observing our closest relationships, we can keep non-violent principles in touch with reality. Then we can watch it grow, probably first at home, in a relatively safe atmosphere. At home we can test and trial non-violence before taking it into the outside world. At home, between familiar people, where we’re known, we can learn everything we need via praise, mockery and criticism. The impact on our ego is softened by our intimacy with people who know us. And with them we can work through our differences, perhaps more slowly than we’d like but more thoroughly. Hopefully at home we can watch out for each other on the basis that we’ll never leave each other behind. That building of mutual care leads to a feeling of safety, and that can give us enough confidence to go into the outside world with strangers and communicate with them. Which includes the vilified public figures whom we love to hate. It would be good training in non-violence if we could observe what they do without automatically aborting on them or bringing out the hate bugs to hurt them. Non-violence is strengthened when we stop being so predictably judgmental!!

the bigger picture

The most attractive feature of non-violence is that it is only interested in the bigger picture. That’s why it has no sense of timing. It can pop up at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of a heated argument which is verging on a quarrel – someone outside breaks in to suggest that we “calm down”. We push them aside because we are convinced that the importance of our ‘good idea’ outweighs any need for good manners. But as time passes, if things escalate into a personal slanging match, it’s only that call for calm which might avert disaster. Only by applying the brakes in time, can we let the calming factor do its work. If we exclude it, violence ups the ante until an explosion is inevitable. After that it’s a long up-hill struggle to restore things. The calming element brings high emotions under control. It’s a sort of count-to-ten principle which is not meant to spoil our fun but to keep our dynamic urges under some sort of control. So, how dynamic should our non-violence be? Certainly we must never let it act as a dampener or for us to be afraid of robust interaction.

an ancient idea

Non-violence is no new kid on the block. It’s as old as the hills and the very bedrock of all wise philosophy. But it always steps back and allows violence to pass by - remembering that we exist in a world where violence still rules. As activists, we won’t get our views across by gate crashing – we may only suggest that there’s another way - no more. How careful is that? Perhaps it’s careful enough to prevent any routine pushiness. By checking that impulse, we let non-violence grow in friendlier soil. It lets us harvest a bumper crop when it’s fine and ripe, when it can be most effective. It doesn’t need a supporting act to make it more valid. It doesn’t need selling. It can stand on its own feet, as a symbol for the future.

a non-violent world

Is a no-weapon world, where we trust our neighbour, 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’t imagine. Even if we could, we don’t really know how individual effort can get us there. We only know fear, so it’s security we want. Individually we want to feel safe first, and only then begin to build a better world.
It could be suggested that we need less security than we think. The sooner we seek less protection the sooner we’ll realise there’s nothing to be protected from. If we trust life to be safe there’s no need to ensure (or insure) anything. It’s all rather down to trust. In this case trusting non-violence. Unless we tread the virgin ground of dynamic non-violence, we’ll never see how different a way of looking at things it is.
Non-violence is never ambiguous, it is a simple clear principle by which to behave, and in a practical day-to-day way it serves as a perfect shopping guide. This is where each of us has the power of the spending dollar. As we take time to look for ethical goods (buying cruelty-free and environmentally-friendly products) we send a powerful message of encouragement to the people who sell them and that changes the market and affects the way goods are produced. It’s the first step towards a peaceful world, a no-weapon world.
As we draw non-violence into our daily life, we have to be prepared to be scrutinised by others who would love nothing better than to put us down. If we don’t want to give them a chance we have to be squeaky clean in terms of non-violence. And that standard, once set, must be kept up, because as we improve our game so our inconsistencies show up more vividly. Even worse, if we begin to evangelise about doing the right thing, soon enough we will hoist ourself with our own self righteous petard, letting our adversaries have a field day with us. Somehow we must find a non-boasting way to say all this and yet remain in touch with people.
A good comedian always knows how to keep the audience sweet and on side, by balancing everything with a heap of self deprecation. Similarly, when we do the talking, when we start to go on about animals, what we say about animal rights has got to be gauged carefully. Subjects like veganism or non-violent action are sensitive enough to require great imagination to keep them as "light" as possible. At all costs, whatever we say must be kept strictly non-personal. We must never be accused of aggression or of using our subject as an excuse to make a speech. A good comedian educates by way of entertainment. Preachers on the other hand, miss the point of entertainment.

two opposites dancing together

Non-violence has always seemed a bit passive, as if not effective enough to eliminate violence. But perhaps that’s the point – we shouldn’t want to kill off anything and that includes violence itself. Instead we should accept that one lives alongside the other. It’s the nature of the planet. Alongside disease there lives a healthy battle-worn immune system. The disease is the attacker, the other the defender. In the violence of nature, we experience a gale and see a stalk of wheat bending but not breaking in the wind. There is always a tension between opposites – it’s the nature of life on earth, but it’s also the push-me-pull-you of our own mental processes. Intelligence either preventing violence creeping in unnoticed or non-violence becoming too righteous. As observers, we should notice the nature of these two elements. Non-violence confronts and then withdraws. Violence confronts and gets out of control. Non-violence dances with violence - it lets the violence-based world make its impact (as it’s done so spectacularly up to now) then burn itself out, whereupon it steps in to take its place and makes a different sort of impact. At this point in time, after the violence of the twentieth century, we are struggling for something new; if we are still clinging to violence in any way, it’s because it was passed-down to us, as a way of getting things done; violence became routine. As we emerge from a dark century, we step into a new one in urgent need of non-violent solutions. Today, the ways of solving our problems by way of non-violence remain largely untested. So patience is needed to come to terms with non-violence with all its hidden powers and subtle approaches. If it is to be the modus operandi of our new age, we mustn’t run with it before we can walk with it. Meaning that we should make sure we can practice it before we preach it.

planning for the far future

Needless to say, animals are different to us. No hubris, no superiority and (mainly amongst wild animals) no doubt about how dangerous humans can be. Their senses are impeccable. But they can’t judge everything about us because we are so very different from them. Unlike animals, we are aware of a future and we project it. We try to improve things and with that comes the violence of maintaining our position of dominance, over nature and especially over animals. That has brought us unstuck. The damage we’ve done has come from trying to improve things by wit, strength and cruelty. We’ve never learnt to ‘be content with our lot’. And now, at the eleventh hour, our manipulation and bullying have fulfilled us but also brought us to the brink of catastrophe. Now, some of us want to turn in a completely different direction. But it’s like steering an ocean liner 180 degrees. It has so much momentum that to swing it round is a slow process. So we have to see far ahead, beyond our own lifetime, to future generations of responsibility-takers who will be warriors of non-violence. For us here, today, our job is to set the ground work and try to solve the eternal conundrum – when is dynamic too aggressive and when is non-violence too ineffective?

harmlessness

Our aim should be to have confidence, in order to give confidence to the things we say. And for that we need non-violence to assist us. It shouldn’t only be the basis of our eating and shopping but also our thinking and talking. Yes, we need to be assertive and not indecisive but we need to learn about non-violent approach. Yes, we need to be effective in what we do and say but not be closed off to suggestion from ‘outside’ - activists in the Animal Rights movement don’t have a good track record on effective communication. We all still have a lot to learn about non-violent approach. Is this because we say we hate violence but still allow it into our lives? Those of us who are the noisiest about our dislike of violence often don’t notice the ways we practise it. To makes matters worse if we doubt non-violence itself, we’ll move forward far too slowly. We may observe veganism in our eating habits but be not so very different to our omnivorous friends in other respects. In our society non-violence isn’t taken seriously. It’s a bit whimpish. It seems ineffective even though we know violence is ugly and history tells us it always fails. And so we still doubt the power of non-violence.
We need to be sure that non-violence will bring us success, so if we go for it (and we certainly give it a tick of approval when we become vegan) we need to feel it in our hearts not just our heads. It has to feel right. It has to feel human and neither regressive, nor weak, nor leading to subordination. This is where we need to upgrade our non-speciesism to embrace the true values animals represent to us. They do things differently to us, and we have a lot to learn from their approach.
Animals sense things! They smell things a thousand times better than we do and see things clearer too. They often have an uncanny knowledge about us (and show it if they happen to be in a relationship with us, like our cats and dogs at home). They show us things in the way they approach us. They aren’t pre-set. They haven’t worked everything out before they do it. Importantly, unlike us, they are not judgmental.
When they know us, they have things to tell us. Things that we can’t rely on humans to tell us, namely the truth about ourselves. An accurate appraisal of how we are doing in our progress towards non-violence comes from animals. They are masters when it comes to discerning a peaceful person. They are drawn towards them. They are attracted to an affectionate nature because it denotes trustworthiness. To cats and dogs and many other animals we get close to, this is value number one. Having suffered so badly from human violence throughout the ages, animals, wild or domestic, have become arbiters of good taste in the matter of harmlessness.

the unthinking approach

The original principle of non-violence is behind everything Animal Rights stands for. With that in place one can’t help acknowledging the sovereignty of animals. Whoever would try to justify hurting them?
Since people haven’t thought much about non-violence their same old behaviour continues unquestioned. There’s a knee-jerk reaction - when something attractive comes along, we go for it. We can’t resist it. We’re not used to resisting things we want. (This is why there are such fierce penalties for rape and child molestation, because we can’t have a society where women and kids are preyed on, by people who can overpower them to get what they want.) Most animals have never been protected by law, so the consumer accepts that it is okay to prey on them, to get what they want. When we are out there, shopping for our food, we forget non-violence and decide to take the easier way, which is often the hard-nosed way. We might be aware that another way is possible, but it’s just an idea. It can be shuffled off. We know we feel more confident with the old tried and tested ways - “Hang it, I’ll do what I’ve always done”! “Everyone else does it so why shouldn’t I?”

straight talking

When we’re giving our opinion or giving out information we should come across as genuine.
Where most of us make mistakes is by relying on speaking with emotion and paying too little attention to how that will sound. Given the potential for this subject to ignite passions and stir up confrontation, we should be straight talking but leave lots of space for other opinions.
It’s likely that some of us amateur communicators don’t see ourselves as others see us, as if our stand is admired and people want to take our side. In fact most people simply want help understanding and getting some useful information from us. Just because we (think we) have ‘the truth’ doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful with details and verifiable facts.
Behind everything we say there must be a backup, a hammer blow of information, ready to be brought out if necessary. For example, all animal products are unhealthy and cruel - behind this must be some sort of reference to support the association between these products and certain ailments. The same with the cruelty argument - behind the cruelty we need to give details of animals treatment: the sow stall, the cage, the biology of a cow’s lactation, what actually happens when animals go to an abattoir. It’s the story that counts. It’s the story behind our opinion that gives credibility to what we say. Even if not asked for (and therefore not offered), background knowledge gives us the confidence to speak out.
Whatever we say is likely to be provocative - we’re commenting on and questioning the morals of people, ordinary consumers, and they don’t take too kindly to that. No one feels too comfortable, hearing us talk when there’s a moral principle at stake, especially if they’re already feeling guilty. Animal advocates who are ‘straight talking’ about issues concerning animal torture and public compliance, are dealing with delicate matters. If we want to be heard we need to win respect for what we say, showing them we’ve done our homework and that we are trying to come across sincerely and non-violently.
If we are promoting veganism in public, personal sincerity is essential. If we seem at all fake while talking about animal rights, people will turn away. Things may even turn nasty. We talk about how things could be done beautifully, so it’s best not to sound ugly! If we show any hardness in our personality our words of wisdom will seem empty. Value-judgments and heated disagreements are guaranteed to lose us support. Instead of trying to convert people in the old fashioned, tub-thumping way, we need to listen to, and not be afraid of, opposite opinions. Then we are in the best position to offer our own solutions. In the absence of balanced conversation and debate we can lose sight of the issues and that would be ridiculous since, in the end, the issues are the point of our debate.

communicating veganism

Why are we so keen to talk about all this? Talk about new ideas, altered attitudes and changing habit patterns? Perhaps it’s not as facile as wanting something new to chatter about but a more genuine wish to implant a sense of optimism in others. "Optimistic veganism" is a light on the future. We’ve discovered a jewel and simply want to share our good fortune.
If we can see the potential in this idea, it’s likely we’ll be busting to talk about it. We figure that once (it is) seen (it will) never (be) forgotten. But instead of this jewel being admired, something unexpected happens. We hit a hurdle. A barrier drops and we don’t understand why. No one wants to listen to what we have to tell them. Maybe this is our first taste of rejection over a point of principle, the first time we’ve been cold-shouldered. This rejection feels real because of the energy it sucks out of us. It hurts and it’s intended to hurt or at least bring us up with a jolt. Almost everything will be thrown at us, not only in words but in unspoken feelings of disapproval, in order to bring us back into the fold (in the style of “we’ll do anything to bring you home”). At bottom, it’s a suspicion the majority of people hold about minority types - that not only are they deluded but (in what they are saying) that they are less sincere than they seem. Animal rightists, who speak about kindness to animals, are often seen as being not really kind people at all, but people who can only show love towards "creatures" and not to their fellow human beings. Whether this is true or not, the rejection vegans often feel makes them try all the harder to come across as sincere people. And ultimately that is not such a bad thing. Vegans may learn the hard way. But this matter of being utterly sincere and not having any ulterior motives, is central to our credibility. And eventually our effectiveness.

promoting vegan, continued...

“Vegan”. An idea. A new attitude. Does switching from one attitude to another, one diet to another, mean a long and painful transition or something shorter, even as enjoyable as falling in love? Progressing into it depends on how much we want it, how we come upon it, if we are coerced into it. But assuming we were free agents, inspired by the idea, and we took up the ‘good idea’ of going vegan, and went from idealistic theory to comfortable habit - that is one huge journey. We can remember where we started it and how it is ended up; it started as a very conscious change and eventually became something we just ‘do’, unselfconsciously.
That’s how it may have gone in our own private lives, but almost certainly it is going to be more complex when it comes to swinging others around. To be successful at that is almost as important, for many of us, as it was to become vegan ourselves. Meat eaters seem so obstinate, they just won’t budge. Every time a wave of despair sweeps over us, because we see that people are just carrying on regardless, it slows us down. Saps our energy.
Perhaps we should realise what we are dealing with here - this one idea can transform our species, get us all back on track, give humanity a chance to become healthy, creative, benign and friendly. It could make us far more non-violent. Imagine the worth of that. Then any amount of hard work and patience on our part, any amount of exasperation, would seem a mere nothing.

Here’s the parallel scenario: how it might go with me - the aim is to establish a vegan lifestyle into my own life. I’d start my day by doing certain new things and not doing certain old things, forming new habits, making deliberate, assured changes. This, on the private side, is what I want for myself. But when all that is in place, then maybe I want to get political. I feel an urgency and want to speed things up. I want to break down barriers. I want to keep a ‘high’ so I don’t lose my advantage. I want to promote veganism, start a revolution in my corner of the world. It’s as if we’ve been transformed from a wannabe vegan to vegan warrior, ready to take on the world.
And yet this isn’t reality. We’re not hardened politicians with a tough reputation, ripping into our adversaries in the bear pit, we’re just ordinary people talking with other ordinary people, like ourselves, about issues. Our ‘adversaries’ are sensitive free-willed beings, who will decide things for themselves, no matter what we say or how forcibly we say it. Once we start actively advocating animal rights, it’s hard not to get pushy. We forget how easy it is for people to simply walk away from us, in their feelings anyway. However good we think an idea is, it shouldn’t be forced onto others. Any uninvited contributions we make can be seen as intrusions into other peoples’ private space, especially when we call their morality into question - “You still eat meat?” … our good idea is ‘fired’ at people (aiming at their values) and they, sensing something uncomfortable, are put off. Perhaps they swear off both the good idea and us - for ever. And none of us would want that. That’s anti-promotion.

promotion of veganism

At first, when we’re going vegan, there’s a mixture of concerns that we have about ourselves. And that’s just in our private lives. Alongside personal worries, there grows a concern for others, the animals and for people, especially people we know who are bogged down in speciesist thinking. That concern leads on to our wanting to promote veganism and non-speciesism, but it isn’t easy. There’s not much out there to help us. Promotion is tough because veganism still has so little social momentum of its own. All we can do, if we have the energy, is to keep the issues alive. And along the way, deal quietly with any personal problems (about our own vegan lifestyle), at least until the ‘good idea’ is established in our own lives. It all takes time, developing it and then practising it, but that’s relatively simple compared to the complexities of promoting. Many live private vegan lives, they keep quiet and so no one is affected. Others are out there under the noses of everyone, advocating veganism to anyone they meet. But neither really promote veganism.
There are those others of us who like to see ourselves as dynamic activists and who dream of living in a vegan world, but we aren’t necessarily very effective at communication. We question the old methods and find them wanting, so why do we fail? Perhaps because the changes we want to see are so fundamental and seem to most people so radical. We almost have to expect NOT to be stunningly successful. There’s so much to deal with on so many different levels. We have to look after our own image as well as the image of the idea itself. We have to make our ‘good idea’ attractive enough to be habit forming if taken up – quite a task! If that seems unlikely then the even greater hurdle is to get other vegans to discuss promotion ideas. And it’s here where the big problem may be. Success may only be possible if we can be as equals amongst ourselves. We need to own our difficulties, stresses, failures because we all experience them. The more we can show what each of us is going through, for better or for worse, the better we can understand each other, and then the better we can solve the promotion problem.
And while some might have been at veganism longer than others, no one knows the definitive way to live or sell this idea because everyone thinks differently. The closer we are when talking, the clearer the communication is going to get. The more at ease we are with our subject and the people we are with, the more effectively we can get something across that is dear to our heart. Apart from all the information we’d like to impart, we should spare a moment to explain the most central truth. That we, as vegans, are all undergoing the same journey, hopefully a less judgmental one, and there are no ‘right’ answers to communication. The only thing we can be sure about is that the principles (of veganism) are unshakeable and potentially world-transforming. Now that sounds attractive enough to make promotion seem a fairly straightforward business!!!

heat stress

My good idea (becoming vegan) is like a beautifully engineered car with its engine cold, needing a kick start. My veganism, my ideals, seem half clear and half fuzzy. I wonder if I’ve put too much hope on making these changes. Here I am, trying to change into a non-violent person (‘Go Vegan’ the slogan says). But I need more than fearlessness. I need a confidence that will uphold my ideals and ignore what others think about me. I’m inspired by the good idea but that doesn’t mean I understand everything about it, like what the implications of it will be. Perhaps it’s a bit like when we fall in love and then have to learn how to live together. We grasp the idea well enough but how do we get our brain around it, to put it into practice?
When we ‘go vegan’ - we like to talk about it. Boast about it too. And because we do, we have to make it work. Perhaps we squeeze it a little too hard and it take on too much importance, all at once. We go in full-bore, because we don’t want our good idea turning sour on us, That would mean going back to square one, and we’d never live that down. And besides, this idea deserves our best shot, so that we’ll understand it better … all the better to reach others with it … all the better to get them to join up and be company for us. Overall, we want this change to work. But all this wanting leads to trouble … we stress about it. And that is characteristic of people starting out being vegan.
But the pressures remain, only they change. For longer term vegans, the food isn’t the problem, people’s opinions of us aren’t so problematic but the stress doesn’t go away about the slowness of people to come round, to even discuss the subject. The world sleeps on and time is running out. So, for all vegans, young or old, when the scales fall from our eyes and we see what others are not yet seeing, then it is stressful to see the extent to which the conventional world is reliant on animals and psychologically how fixed people’s attitudes are about animal use. So vegans have to learn to live with a certain level of stress, (the heat is in the kitchen and somehow we have to find a way to stay in the kitchen, heat or no heat).

decision to ‘go vegan’

I start the process of change. I latch onto this good idea and head directly into being vegan, non-violent, animal friendly, green, world transforming, ideal, and everything else indisputable! But I know that once started, I must continue with it or I'll feel like a failure.
Definitely I want to leave violence behind me. I want to become a peaceful person. But how do I deal with the "feelings" of violence, woven so tightly into my personal experience and social culture? I’m overwhelmed by the difficulty of dropping it entirely. I aim to be clear of it all; no less than celibate with regard to animal abuse.
I take on a vegan diet. I chuck out my leathers, and so on. The idea continues to inspire me. But what about my "feelings"? It may be a good idea in theory, but is it going to make me "feel" better? I have doubts, not about the principle, but about the practice. And that’s where having some sensitivity is a boon and yet also a burden. Great to reach this far, but am I making a rod for my own back? I want to toss this idea of veganism about, let it settle into my life, live with it, let it be known in my social group, without worrying about what others may say … and then I can feel comfortable with it. Then I can handle the inevitable flak.
So, I decide to give up eating unethical stuff and that makes me think well of myself. So far so good. I get ready to change. But it’s hard, slow work because I can’t see any wheels turning or any momentum building. I’m impatient, waiting for things to happen. I want everyone to become supportive. And I know that’s unrealistic. I feel I’m wading through treacle, in a state of ever-increasing social isolation. Oh the burden of it all!
But the benefits. On the plus side I get a surprise, in finding the change of diet isn’t such a big a problem after all. Well, not to me anyway. This diet switch is surprisingly easy (and that’s what I’d been dreading all along!) With some new products in the cupboard and a few new recipes, I soon come to like the different food and not miss the animal-stuff I once enjoyed eating. But there are other difficulties that need to be mentioned. Unforeseen ones. I worry about my resolve. It might fade before the new lifestyle kicks in. So I’d better go carefully and maybe change incrementally. Trouble is, I probably know a few people who have gone half way and never progressed much beyond that, which is a truly sad position to find yourself in. So, on thinking about it, as I head towards being vegan, I might decide to go in full bore. I’ll use sheer will-power, anything to get to the ‘other side’.
Some people are gradual changers and some are more sudden. But whichever way works best foodwise, there are other substantial issues still to face. A newish feeling, how we feel when we begin to notice when something is missing, like losing something we’ve come to rely on. Like the acceptance of people, who now think we’ve gone a bit weird. And our comfort foods, gone! But hey, what's this next one? Seems to have come out of left field … seems as though, along with food and wardrobe, there’s other junk in the cupboard, like our favourite jar we keep full of value judgments. I might have really enjoyed my judgment-making. Perhaps that’s part of why I wanted to go vegan in the first place, to feel better than other people. And now . . . they look a bit rancid. A bit like the nasty poisonous things I've been chucking out.
So, if I'm beginning to eat clean, why not start thinking a bit cleaner too? Lessen my reliance on making judgements and enjoying my little superiorities?
As vegans we experience change on various levels when we start this product boycott. We face the tension that exists between our deepest passion and our patience. Some of us have to face up to addictions. And some of us have to acknowledge failure too. And whilst, in the beginning, veganism seems like such a good idea, it still needs to be reinforced regularly, to withstand the cold winds of criticism or the drag-down inertia of the conventional world.
As an evangelist for veganism I’d want to say “it’s worth it: go vegan. It’s not that hard at all”. But in truth, it’s bloody hard. At least for some of us. But, all the same, certainly worth it.

blog 71-MY RESPONSE

The following blogs I’ll be trying to keep at about 400 words each, or less. But this first one, of the new series, will be much longer than usual. Twice as long.

"RESPONSE"

This blog is very experimental. I’m laying down ideas, sometimes a few entries per day, without knowing if it is being read or not, since I don’t yet know how to make it participatory. I’ll now head into the area of ‘going vegan’. Anything that is sent in to the gmail address will now be put into the blog – with the word “response” as a heading. davidedwardhorton@gmail.com. Please include your name if you want it to be printed. Thanks.

people power for peace

In a vegan world, our fundamental nature is consciously changed. If we want to become peaceful people, we must stop using animals because all animals are eventually barbarically killed. If we don’t step away from all this, our attempts at peacemaking will be to no avail. Peacemakers and planet-savers have to start spending their money on cruelty-free products thereby persuading unethical businesses to pursue a more ethical direction. The money in our pockets is the one power we have that can change things.

the toxic human

Vegan principles make a start to unlocking the violence humans have done to animals, but more so, veganism shows the utter waste of energy in producing food from animals. Once the plant-based food regime is up and running in our life, it then becomes clear that, in the past, we’ve been poisoning ourselves. The full extent of the toxicity of animal food is only now coming to light, in terms of its effect on peoples’ health. Epidemiological studies show that ill health is closely linked to the diets of whole populations, showing the links between a high intake of animal protein and the high incidence of deadly disease. But still there is silence on the dangers of using animal foods, not to mention the silence about the demise of our ethics in general!
We’re led to see ethics as a rather threadbare garment unlikely to keep us warm enough, so we’ve substituted ethics with other moral codes that allow us to do whatever we want, to animals. This is sad enough, but it has somewhat put us to sleep. We’ve lost our sense of outrage. We allow ourselves to comply. We no longer fight to protect the innocent. And this is why Animal Rights is so urgent. The protection of animals from us is essential. We humans can no more be trusted with animals than paedophiles with kids. And yet it seems we still care little about this subject or about the ethics of non-violence. As we continue to drive animals insane for our own advantage, our only fear is that we become marginalised by our membership of a vegan world.