Eating out

I go to peoples’ places and I’m offered the usual snacks and drinks. I’m met with utter incomprehension when I decline. If pressed, as soon as I tell them my reason, I’m considered a little weird. Nice people race around and find something I can eat. But nice or otherwise most people are defenders of the faith. They secretly resent my finicky eating habits. For that’s what they turn it into – from what could be a respect for my philosophy of compassion into an irritation at being fussy over food. Not often does anyone ask me to explain why.
If they did they’d get an answer that would make them uncomfortable. They would expect me to say something about the food containing too much fat or sugar and too high in protein. They’d expect me to mention it being harmful to health … plus the bit about the animals themselves, and hens in cages, etc
So as a vegan I’m not usually asked to give reasons for my food choices. I’m regarded as a social pariah.
What is it, apart from the animals, that is so awful about so many of the foods people eat? They make us fat, they encourage heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Any sensible person wouldn’t go there. They’d avoid them. But to talk about all this, to get to a point where we may speak, we need to be ready with a couple of interesting points, facts, something to catch the attention that won’t seem as if we are making sweeping statements. If we try to be too outrageous we can draw too much unnecessary fire, making it easy for them to change the subject or get bogged down in fine details which can be lengthily discussed to avoid dealing with more uncomfortable matters. As animal activists we won’t be able to satisfy every inquirer’s questions about diet and nutrition and health consequences, although we should try. Our best approach is to appeal to the heart, to assure people of the general safety and health of a plant-based diet and then to move on to what we feel they know almost nothing about. How the animals are treated with no more respect than machines!

Popular poisons

Animal foods are popular even though they are harmful to health. Because people like the taste of them and because they are easy to find, people love them. No, they aren’t necessarily cheap but there’s a great variety of them and we’re spoilt for choice. They appeal because these products you can eat straight from the fridge or they don’t need much preparation time. That’s a big selling point. Supply follows demand and demand responds to supply. To clinch the matter, certain ingredients like milk products are subsidised. And these ingredients cream-ify, enrich and bulk out foods making them taste rich and substantial. They’re cheap enough for everyone so they’re mass produced for mass consumption.
What’s so good about animal foods is that, at a primary level, they provide us with an instant sensation. In savoury foods it’s the blood or saltiness that attracts and in non-savoury there’s usually sugar and flavourings added to make them taste delicious. Animal foods are made to be seductive and we can’t get over that. This is food we crave.
Our love affair with animal foods has never really diminished, despite the vegetarian drive in our society, mainly because even with the absence of meat there are still the cheeses, creams and egg additives that keep us hooked. Any number of cheeses, for instance, have been developed over the years to titivate the palate and develop just this one product into a connoisseur’s paradise The food manufacturers have used every device imaginable to lure us and make us buy. And the more sold the easier it is to create the endless variety of foods to maintain people’s interest. Popular products, eaten from early childhood, advertised constantly, with family pressure reinforcing eating habits, become as natural as fresh air. We can’t contemplate life without them. These products are present at just about every meal.
Drip by drip these are the foods that imprint on our minds and slowly poison our bodies.

The consumer trap

We are all consumers and we all need help to make the right decisions. One big help is in clear and full labelling of products. And if it is suitable for vegans then a “this product is suitable for vegans” label makes shopping that much easier. It’s common in other countries but not in Australia. When we’re after a food product with several ingredients, vegans want to be sure it’s free of those dreaded items.
I go into a food store with my reading glasses in hand, ready to examine the microscopic print in the ingredients list, to catch any animal products listed. But I have to know that albumen is from eggs, that whey is from milk and gelatine is from hoofs, and many more sneaky terms they use to hide items that come from the abattoir. If the product contains nothing objectionable, the least they could do is make what’s in it clear, and better still, put a tick next to the word ‘vegan’ on the front of the packaging.
We need good labelling so that we can make informed choices. If we are eating foods from abattoirs or the co-products or by-products of animal farming or the foods whose ingredients contain these products, it should be clearly stated. We have the right to know what we are putting into our bodies.
Vegans, and that includes me who is too lazy to follow my own advice, should write to product manufacturers who make vegan-suitable products. Tell them we appreciate their ingredients and ask them to label their products vegan friendly, or some such. Not only am I lazy but I’m forgetful too. When I’m off food shopping I forget to take my glasses, so of course I can’t read the damned ingredients list anyway. I have to refrain from buying something because I’m not sure what’s in it.

How to meet

Even though we are up against the very worst attitudes, unbelievable levels of indifference, almost total lack of responsibility towards the weak, acceptance of a value system geared up to damage future prospects, all this shouldn’t make us pessimistic. It’s the ultimate challenge, to face each other and, despite such different viewpoints, resist the temptation to go to war against each other. It’s as if we are the victims of a divide and rule system, designed to keep us at each other’s throats. To keep us bickering and to keep us weak. Our non-acceptance of each other’s views easily turns into a non-acceptance of each other as whole persons. Dislike and disapproval move on to a policy of dismiss and destroy. We bully in order to win, but there’s nothing to win only to spoil the one chance we have of coming together. Pessimism keeps us weak and at war with one another. It’s no different to the dysfunction in homes where the dominant adult goes ‘over the top’ with the submissive child. The adult shows disapproval of a child (for behaving badly), ignoring the fact that this young person is trapped by their own inexperience of life. By giving the child a sense that they are lesser, because of their behaviour, the damaging separation starts. The attempt to exert pressure on them, to bring about better behaviour, strays into non-acceptance of the whole person. It then becomes destructive. Then both parties recognise something is badly failing, that a faith is being broken, that things aren’t progressing positively. And the further we go with it the less chance there is to restore balance. There’s a feeling of pessimism, (between adult and child). Even violence creeps in. There’s a feeling of being overwhelmed, like something is irrevocably failing, that a profound faith is being shattered. And pessimism is all we can hold onto. We abort on each other. Many parents give up on their kids, and vice versa.
If we can be optimists, through thick and thin, we can break the victim mould. We can insist on forging a positive reality. When we see violence, we then also see it giving way to non-violence, setting itself up, as it were, for a break through. The optimist actively avoids the trap of separation by never letting go of the positive.
If I predict that the value of my house will drop because Abdullah has moved in next door, I am a pessimist; the optimist would see things differently – their value system would be based on something more wholesome. So, instead of being resentful they would make friends with Abdullah. And this good neighbour would become their greatest asset. The pessimist sees the gloom. To the optimist, Abdullah might be the one person who can lift the gloom. What better aim could there be than to focus on changing things for the better, moving towards the integration of different cultures, building the global village. If we bring this about it will simply be because we are capable of it.
What could be better than living together like they do in the garden, where cats and cabbages and kids all rub along nicely together. In a future world there won’t be any need to be hurtful and certainly no reason to eat pigs or milk cows or kill chickens. If we are up to date with what’s happening in our world, we would already know that being vegan and having a plant-based food and clothing regime is possible. And then, it’s just a stroll along the garden path to where it all becomes natural and fashionable.

How not to meet our opposites

How to relate to non-idealists, the dry-as-dust pragmatists who only see through dollar eyes. The antediluvians we live with are often oblivious to a certain quality of life which seems so obvious to so many of us. It makes living amongst them uncomfortable and frustrating. When we find resistance to our ideas, even hostility, it’s usually because we are each proposing two opposite life-styles. There’s a great gulf between us and if we work hard enough we may come closer. If we don’t put the work in we move further apart - in our attempt to put space between us, we make value judgements of each other and end up in mutual dislike. The stress of being on unfriendly terms sucks energy out of us and makes it that much more difficult to pursue any worth while goals. It makes life toxic in terms of human relating.
So, if we do separate from others, for whatever reason, and then compound that by making personal value judgements, it comes back to bite us. Fairly or unfairly, we become the subject of criticism and our feelings get bruised and egos hurt. Of course this mightn’t matter if we could accept that: “what others think about us is none of our business”, but we don’t. We can’t. We are involuntarily part of a collective belief system that makes us all react badly to being thought badly of. And that reaction marks the start of things going wrong - we retaliate to criticism with more value judgements; those we judge retaliate back; any communication we may have enjoyed goes sour; we make sweeping generalisations in order to create even more separation, to get a surer sense of being right. And we end up about a million miles from an intelligent exchange of views. How not to meet!

'That' type of energy

Our society admires those who get ahead, but that includes those who squeeze the land, the animals or anything that seems free for the taking.
Kind and loving to their family they may be, but when it comes to their money, or rather to their source of income they can be ruthless. These are the advantage-takers. These are the people who are prepared to numb their feelings if it means enslaving animals to make their income. And that’s a whole attitude which contradicts everything the idealist stands for. The idsealist would rather forgo the chance to make money than get mixed up with anyone in the business of advantage-taking, especially on the scale animal farmers operate. The pastoralist or the factory farmer is usually cheered on by society, which means the idealist is left out in the cold.
Idealists get little encouragement. They’re often called ‘bleeding hearts’. Idealism isn’t easy but there is one advantage. They have a grand goal, an ambition for the greater good, and a principle that pays back in terms of energy, a special kind of energy. By acting as guardians to children, animals, forests, the marginalised, etc., there’s meaning, and when that is combined with harmlessness a special type of energy is tapped into.
Many people aren’t aware of this energy because idealism doesn’t exist in their lives. Perhaps they don’t miss what they’ve never had, and so they miss the point of why the idealist works so hard for what seems like so little reward. But idealism and the wish for better things to come, is to have access to a self-perpetuating energy. It works on the basis that you put it in and you get it out - the more of it you get the more you want to put in. It isn’t really anything to do with making money or the superficial energy that comes from money making.

Our equals, the animals

The withdrawal of care or the lack of any relationship at all with captive animals is perpetuated right through to the killing chambers where the animal has its life terminated. That emotional separation carries through to the packers and sellers and finally to the eaters of the animal.
How do we come to love animals, not just the cute and cuddly ones but all animals – well, obviously not by eating them. That’s the first step in changing the nature of our relationship with them, and of course it presupposes the application of vegan principle. But from there we need to go a step further, to regard animals as our equals. Not to give them voting rights or a comprehensive education or warm clothing (huh, the very idea!) but to live alongside them as partners in sentience.
Egalitarianism is really a gigantic levelling process, where dog, human and tree exist on one level, where (other than areas specific to species or gender) there is effectively no separation. If we can be one way with our beloved dog, then surely we can be that way with any living thing, even the most loveless. If we can love those for whom we feel affection, then shouldn’t we be able to extend that love to the unlovable?

The nature of exploiting

It’s a nasty trait, taking what isn’t ours. But we do love a bargain. And domestic animals seem like a bargain, in terms of producing food for us to eat. They’re easy to handle and easy to keep captive. The animal exploiter can make money out of them by seeing them as a resource and using them like machines, for producing food and clothing for human use. Unlike the animals we have at home, the farmer feels nothing for these animals as individuals.
And who would disagree? These ones are ugly, not cuddly and we can’t feel affection for them. We train ourselves, and our kids, to see them as ‘beasts’ (just the sound of the word is sharp and is used against people who act disgustingly - it therefore denigrates animals and makes them seem disgusting). Indeed these beasts are disgusting, since they usually live in filthy conditions.
If ordinary people have no feelings for them and farmers don’t either, it seems justified to keep them in slum conditions, and when the time comes these animals are transferred like so many shares in a company, to the next owner. They may have been in-care since birth, almost like a child in the family, but at the appointed time they are let go without a second thought. The animal is to be transferred to another person and thence to another place which has been specifically designed to destroy them … money is exchanged, the deal is done, and if there had ever been any care shown towards them it is now forgotten about.

Animal wisdom

If we were all to go mad tomorrow it would probably be because we tried to find out who was to blame for the mess we’re in at the moment. Because we’d have forgotten to share the blame around and in particular forgotten to blame ourselves. But then it’s pointless to judge and blame anyway – what’s done is done. It’s best surely, to move on. Towards repair. It’s that reluctance most of us have to glance in the mirror, to look for a reality that might be different to the one we know, and not to find something that scares us. How much better to see a reflection that confirms the way we are going, that shows how to continue to repair. Not just the crows feet on our face but the newer understandings we’ll need for repair. For a start, an understanding that we aren’t as strong as we appear to be. That, after all, we aren’t ‘the dominant ones’, and that there’s an urgency to earn a new reputation by losing that very sense of dominance.
Our history has been so black because we’ve never had any real interest or concern for other beings. In consequence, we’ve become outcastes in our own world, our superiority leading us to believe we can control all the other animals and life forms. But to those of us who don’t see them as inferior, we’ve come to respect the animal world and see that in many ways it is a wiser world than our own. It would be good to explore the reasons for this … but there’s not enough time. For the present it’s all about repair. We’ve strayed so far from the natural order that we need to get back ‘home’ as soon as possible, to where we can exist together, peaceably. And we can learn to do this from the animals themselves. If we have a lot to make up for then they have a lot to teach us. But nothing is possible on that front unless we are at least following vegan principles.

Meltdown

At present, in the natural world, if animals were capable of judging us morally, we’d be very much ‘on the nose’. We don’t have a good reputation, so we need to earn our way back to re-acceptance. Humans have become so used to regarding our own species as supreme that it’s almost impossible for us to imagine things switching around – the animals thinking of us as the barbarians and soo dumb or worse; that it is we who are left out in the cold.
If, godforbid, there were a major global collapse with destabilisation of social structures and food supply drying up, how would we react? As hunger hit we’d realise to what extent we’d lost touch with Nature. In such a crisis we might find animals better able to survive than us. We humans, especially those in the affluent West, have never learnt to feed ourselves or deal with adversity, having lived on easy street all our lives and having been softened by our dependency on animals for so long.
Before the eleventh hour, to help avert a collapse, we need to get busy repairing. We can’t pretend not to have noticed the need for it. If there were a global collapse, we’d need to draw on our sanity and creativity to pull us out of it. What we wouldn’t need is seven billion deranged humans, gripped with fear, doing even more damage than at present. At such a critical point, we might see the need for repair but might believe we are suffering too much and weighed down with too much fear, to do anything much about it. It’s likely that, once we stopped using meat and broke free of other addictive animal products on the market, we’d develop some self-discipline. By which time a lot of fear and panic would fall away, letting us focus on repair.
Using a shipping analogy: the great ship of society is sailing towards rocks – it hits and begins leaking. It needs running repairs to avoid sinking. Steering away from the rocks is difficult due to the inertia of the ship taking on so much water. The atmosphere on board is panic, with any essential running repairs made harder because of that. Everyone seems transfixed by the rocks ahead. Repairs are slow and the ship is getting heavier and disaster seems inevitable. Rescue is unlikely. Should we jump? (give up?). With animal cruelty so deeply ingrained in human nature and with our deteriorating health, humans are feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the need for repair. The ship of our society is foundering.
Vegans are suggesting a way to avert catastrophe, by offering an idea for steering away from the rocks and for repairing the gash in the side of our ship. To repair the cumulative damage we’ve done to ourselves and our world we need a simple-to-understand safety principle, that suggests how we go about self-repairing and how the environmental damage is mended too. The very beginning of this repair involves boycotting animal farm produce, because it is this, more than anything else, that has caused a near catastrophe on so many levels.

In time

When we see what we’ve done and people open their hearts to the animals they’ve been exploiting and killing, we’ll start to feel concern. We will concern ourselves with these animals’ comfort and well being, and treat them with as much dignity as we do our own children and companion animals.
Just as environmental consciousness has come about, by way of mass concern for the planet, it follows that we must eventually show the same level of concern for animals. We’ll drop our animal eating habits. Then it will be normal to eat exclusively from plants. To only wear clothing that hasn’t been made with animal parts. As time goes on we will forget why we kept and ate animals in the first place. Veganism will be so normal that we won’t even have a name for it. By then we’ll acknowledge animals and be at their service, to atone for what we’ve done to them. We’ll rehabilitate them and provide refuge for them in safe sanctuaries. And we certainly won’t be breeding them!! The very idea of interfering with another species’ breeding cycles let alone keeping them in captivity will not only be scorned but will win mention in the history books, in much the same way as Dr. Mengler’s experiments on humans in Nazi Germany.
When humans realise their mistake, make amends and become their guardians, animals will regain their lives, and their individual, irreplaceable souls will find peace. When we eventually come to rescue these animals, from farms and research labs, we won’t be able to simply turn them loose to lead a ‘natural’ life. They’ve been so completely altered from their wild state that they wouldn’t survive for long on their own. We can only retire them and intervene to stop their breeding. And hope to hell they can forgive us.

Farm animals

Farm animals, and this peaceful cow in particular, are all victims of abuse. This is matter of great concern, but only for those who’ve made it their business to look behind the scenes. Those of us who see what they are doing to animals know we have to try to stop it. Our concern is for them – but ‘concern’ is usually reserved for our own children and other humans, and sometimes for the environment, but it isn’t usually extended to these animals, because that would show up all the terrible things we’ve done to them. So we collectively put our heads in the sand. We’re unwilling to fess up, it’s just too messy to think about.
The bottom line is that all animals face execution. Their destiny is so preordained by ‘this other species’ and their fate so inevitable, that all we can hope is their innocence protects them; that they don’t see what’s coming when their last day comes.
Humans who eat animals think they can get away with all this, but it’s likely that the adrenalin rush produced by the animal’s terror at the point of slaughter, saturates the body tissue and makes their flesh toxic. Those who eat it are poisoned by it. It’s not unlikely that some of the terrible diseases afflicting humans (and their companion animals) are linked to these toxins. Truth is: if we kill them, they kill us.

Farms

We’ve been trained to see animal farms as benign places. And, heaven-forbid, animal research labs too. We value the work farmers and scientists do, even the ones who ‘work with animals’. Consumers along with factory farmers and vivisectors are becoming increasingly desensitised. For instance, consumers let themselves be persuaded that an animal lab is a benign place, and consequently pharmaceuticals, developed using the animal model, are also benign. Consumers say they know nothing about what goes on in labs. They’d rather not know because it’s difficult enough to object to food from farmed animals let alone drugs tested on lab animals, and so this whole subject is ignored as somehow irrelevant. We make the whole thing seem benign. But benign it is not! Well, not to animals it isn’t. For surely every captive creature experiences not only confinement but the denial of any affection. One can only hope they don’t foresee the terrible deaths awaiting them.
If we humans can’t see the wrongness in this, there’s probably a reason - it’s likely that we bypass the guilt about it and make laws to okay it because we need to feel safe from being punished for what we do to them. We all do it by spending money of animal industry products, but there’s safety in numbers. Animals can never pose any direct threat to us, and if they can’t show any retaliation there’s no reason why we can’t go for broke. And we do “go for broke” since we cling to the absurd belief that animals were ‘put here’ for us to use as we please. The represent profit to the farmer or the vivisector and they benefit humans in general (or so we believe), indeed we do it because there’s something in it for us. We turn off the protective gene and turn on the gene of indifference, justifying it by believing animals don’t have feelings (in the sense that we humans do).
And hey presto, we’ve turned them into a machine. As machines we needn’t feel anything for them … as distinct from the very opposite feelings we have for companion animals. If it were a cat or dog being treated badly we’d have the TV cameras down there, recording everything….but not with these creatures.
What is the difference between a mistreated dog and a mistreated cow? Why is it that we aren’t interested in the cow’s emotional wellbeing and why do we not give a stuff about a hen’s health unless it’s going to affect her ‘egg production’? And more to the point, why aren’t we concerned for ourselves and our fall from grace, over this? Over such a pathetic, spoilt-brat attitude as - “I must have milk on my corn flakes or my day just won’t start out right”?

Cow prisons

Why should we care about cows living on prison farms? This question is at the nub of things. Surely cows are the living example of how we’ve made a machine out of Mother Nature. We’ve harnessed Nature to supply our own vast needs, and insured our future survival by having so many animals ‘on tap’. This is victory achieved! We can guarantee our major food supply. We’ve done it by using our brains.
Again, illustrated best by the cow, with our useful knowledge of the biology of this animal we have taken control of her, body and soul. Keeping a cow as a milk-producing machine involves forcibly impregnating her, letting her carry a calf to term, letting that biological process take its course, to stimulate her mammary glands to produce maximum milk. We also very cleverly manipulate her genes too.
By disposing of the newly birthed calf, in order to draw off milk for us, we arrive at a perfect example of slavery. Certainly in Nature ants enslave aphids and terrible predatory things happen between creatures, but everything, predator or predated, is always allowed its sense of being part of the natural world. But not cows nor any other farmed animal. They are enslaved, shut up in cages or enclosed by concrete, and in constant contact with cold hard steel. They’re attended by cold hearted humans who, at their convenience have the animal executed.
Something in our instinct should tell us this is profoundly wrong. But for most of us it doesn’t say anything. Our instincts, in this regard, have been cauterised, so we see no wrong in it.

Milk

So, many people today are realising that cow’s milk is not nutritionally essential, and even that it is unhealthy. Because there are thousands of different products made with it, almost all people still continue to buy milk or foods that contain it.
There’s a tendency for we humans to insist on getting what we want … perhaps it’s a Dominant Species thing - we want it and prefer to get it without struggle. Milk is legal and it’s cheap, it’s subsidised and plentiful. It is therefore the favourite ingredient by many food manufacturers. It is a truly struggle-free product. Fresh supplies are available everywhere. We often need go no further than a few meters down the road, to the nearest corner shop, to get our milk … at which shop they sell many other products, also made with milk (as a chief ingredient). As consumers we almost fall over ourselves to get milk, because we can only contemplate our tea and coffee with it (and therefore unable to imagine life without it!). Everyone has a carton in their fridge (except vegans and lactose intolerants). There is no more prevalent consumer item on the market, and therefore milk is a guaranteed money spinner for the industry. They’ve turned it into something as natural as fresh air. They say it’s essential to human life. So, buying milk is an entrenched consumer habit.
We forget that whenever we buy it, milk, we help to finance cow prisons.

Economics of farms

Perhaps humans have no sadistic need to harm animals for the sake of it. It’s just that economics dictates how we keep them whilst alive and how we bring them to their deaths. We do what we have to do, to get what we want from them, without spending too much money on them. Since the world is a very competitive place, it all has to be low cost. Those with the least morals set the standards. For example, eggs. Cage-eggs are cheap, so every egg farmer in the world must cage their hens or go out of business. It’s the same with all commodities. If milk is cheaper to ship in from Singapore, then will come from there … and Australian dairy farmers eat your heart out!
To get milk (her milk) and sell it for a profit (our profit) a cow must be cheap to produce and cheap to keep. Oceans of milk are made at minimum cost. Rivers of milk supply maximum numbers of consumers.
If this is how milk works then it’s the same for all farmed-animal produce. We want it so they must die for it.
It’s unusual, the idea of being compassionate enough to not want it. It’s impossible to imagine, this idea of refusing to be the cause of harm to these animals. In our culture we are so used to animal products that to voluntarily deny ourselves of them seems absurd. In our culture, the enjoyment of food is everything, especially if we think animal cuisine is an art form. The enjoyment of animal food is greater still if we think it makes us strong. It’s unimaginable to see the need to reverse all this (on the basis that these products are unhealthy represent human cruelty).
And likewise, omnivores can’t imagine animal products being satisfactorily replaced by plant-based products. They just don’t believe it’s possible. And because they can’t imagine it (whereas of course vegans can) they continue to demand these products. They consequently deprive animals of their lives.

Animals wild and enslaved

If an animal is wild (and not regarded as a pest to humans) we study them, marvel at them, protect them . . . although sometimes we hunt them. But if an animal is docile and edible or can make useful products for us, then we put them into the domesticated animal category. Put into service and their freedom to escape is out of the question. Usually their bodily movements are restricted. We take these animals very seriously indeed because they aren’t meant for entertainment or for studying but are essential elements in human lifestyle. It follows then that if an animal is not for cuddling or admiring it must be there to be enslaved. It’s best, emotionally, if humans try not to get too close to these particular animals, since they are going to murdered when they’re either big enough or exhausted enough. We can’t get too friendly if we are going to make them so unhappy. Their happiness is that last thing we are concerned with when holding them in prison conditions (in their pre-abattoir days). When the time is ripe and they do arrive at their last day, it is their unhappiest day. (Or perhaps their happiest, since it brings to the animals a blessėd relief from suffering).

Companion animals and the fate of others.

Our attitude to animals in general is a paradox. It’s curious how we humans can be close to our cats and dogs, even sometimes closer to them than our own species. We might do everything for them to make their lives happy, despite the fact that they only offer companionship, (“only”!), and produce no useful products for us to use. We call them pets or companion animals and put great value on them. Mind you, when they can no longer fulfil their role as companions, we might have them shot, well, ‘shot’ full of lethal chemicals to ‘put them to sleep’. But when they are alive, living with us as working companions, we often try to give them the very best. We give them love, food, shelter and provide them with expensive medical care. But not so other animals, who are valued not as companions but as property and edible property at that. These animals enjoy no quality of life whatsoever, a life of perpetual torture in fact.

The cow

Humans will manipulate anything to gain personal advantage. We exploit resources to strengthen and protect ourselves, and especially when there’s no danger in it for us (like using animals in captivity). Our advantage-taking pragmatism lets us dream up systems, which we then put into practice. Animal farming is the classic example, where we subject animals to slavery, so that our food and clothing supplies are available on tap. And whole livelihoods can be provided for, by putting animals to work for us. And we do it to them because we can, because there are no negative repercussions. (Or so we think!)
Take the cow for instance. She is the victim of theft and assault on a daily basis. Her fate is in the hands of humans who want her milk and who use force to get it, to get 20-40 litres a day from her. The new born is pushed aside so that we can get the milk intended for the calf. We steal it for ourselves and we’ve always done it and now we hardly notice it, and we certainly don’t feel any compunction to stop it.
On the farm, the calf is got rid of as quickly as possible, having served its chief purpose in embryo. As a foetus, having stimulated its mother’s mammary glands, it’s no longer useful to keep it alive. Often calves are shot on day one. One or two calves (of the five or six born to a cow) are sent to ‘calf prison’ until they’re ready for dairy duties or for fattening purposes.
It’s a sad thought that we abuse such a peaceful creature. Anthropomorphically, we can guess that both cow and calf are unhappy about all this. But the whole thing is still legal, so there’s not much anyone can do about it. The milk is drunk, the profits made and the cow enslaved. Are we unhappy about this? Ashamed? Not exactly, because most people have never even thought about it, or if they have they’ve chosen to ignore it. Humans have been nicely brainwashed, our desensitisation reaching the point where considering the rights and wrongs of dairy farming has never entered our heads.

The cow

Humans will manipulate anything to gain personal advantage. We exploit resources to strengthen and protect ourselves, and especially when there’s no danger in it for us (like using animals in captivity). Our advantage-taking pragmatism lets us dream up systems, which we then put into practice. Animal farming is the classic example, where we subject animals to slavery, so that our food and clothing supplies are available on tap. And whole livelihoods can be provided for, by putting animals to work for us. And we do it to them because we can, because there are no negative repercussions. (Or so we think!)
Take the cow for instance. She is the victim of theft and assault on a daily basis. Her fate is in the hands of humans who want her milk and who use force to get it, to get 20-40 litres a day from her. The new born is pushed aside so that we can get the milk intended for the calf. We steal it for ourselves and we’ve always done it and now we hardly notice it, and we certainly don’t feel any compunction to stop it.
On the farm, the calf is got rid of as quickly as possible, having served its chief purpose in embryo. As a foetus, having stimulated its mother’s mammary glands, it’s no longer useful to keep it alive. Often calves are shot on day one. One or two calves (of the five or six born to a cow) are sent to ‘calf prison’ until they’re ready for dairy duties or for fattening purposes.
It’s a sad thought that we abuse such a peaceful creature. Anthropomorphically, we can guess that both cow and calf are unhappy about all this. But the whole thing is still legal, so there’s not much anyone can do about it. The milk is drunk, the profits made and the cow enslaved. Are we unhappy about this? Ashamed? Not exactly, because most people have never even thought about it, or if they have they’ve chosen to ignore it. Humans have been nicely brainwashed, our desensitisation reaching the point where considering the rights and wrongs of dairy farming has never entered our heads.

Instinct instead of understanding

When we have to make up our minds about big issues we’re likely to consult our instincts, especially if the best choices seem obvious. We guess things are so because they are apparently so. For instance, do we need to understand the psyche of a cow, to guess how she feels when her calf is taken away? (Cows are allowed to spend very little time with their calves these days before they are removed). It’s impossible to know how an animal thinks let alone feels. It’s impossible to know for sure. But with imagination and instinct we can guess. Anthropomorphically speaking we rely on our instincts to tell us what we can’t provably ‘know’ … like knowing how this cow feels. We can safely say she feels badly, because she is captive and powerless and she’s forced to lose her offspring.
If we take away an animal’s freedom we take away her very soul; loss of freedom is inimical to all wild creatures and humans too. Once we allow animals their freedom and liberate the captive ones into sanctuaries, we can restore relations with them. And however we are with them, as long as we aren’t violating them or disregarding them or treating them as if they were inferior, then repair is already happening and we are truly living with them, and therefore we can enjoy being close to them.
It’s this wanting-to-be-close that we do best and like most. The buzz from animals is not so different from the buzz we get from kids. For many people, that sort of closeness is unfamiliar. For them animals mean little. They see them as objects, certainly not as equals. Animals are there to be exploited.
With attitude like this animals all over the world are in a parlous situation. That’s why, to us, it is of such great concern.

Doing what we’re good at

Humans are a paradox when dealing with ‘underlings’. We can be pragmatically pushing them down at one moment and loving them the next. We look after their usefulness rather than their individual selves. To make them useful and essential to our survival we kill them - an ultimately violent act. At heart humans would rather be non-violent and to be doing what we do best. We’re not natural tormentors, we’re much better at alleviating pain. We like making life smoother for others. We can be very good to our neighbours. We can be especially good to The Vulnerable, not just out of kindness but because we are fascinated by them and at the same time want to be useful to them. Humans can be very caring for ‘the other’, whether an ecosystem, a needy person or an animal. We get involved in ‘foreign causes’ and we do it, to some extent, out of kindness but mainly we do it because it’s interesting, it’s challenging and it’s about solving a problem somewhere. This is the allure. Here we have the chance to observe something that’s not immediately understandable. To feel close to it. When we’re not engaged with killing or lending our financial support to the animal industry, then caring is the sort of activity that is hobby-number-one for humans. We love spending time with these ‘other fascinating consciousnesses’, like our companion animals at home. Since we like having company and we’re good at being companions ourselves, closeness give us satisfaction. We’re great lookers-afters. It’s one of our greatest skills, but we should also know it’s our greatest privilege, and that should be enough for us. We shouldn’t want anything else for ourselves.
But many do … let’s face it, we ALL do! We are so needy. The animals are our most reliable resource. They are there, vulnerable and available, for satisfying so many of our needs. This means we have to turn away from a loving relationship and enter into a contempt-type relationship. We attack them. And some gather great numbers of them and build whole industries out of them, reducing animals to mere ‘foodstuffs’ and commodities.
For most of us animals aren’t part of making our lilihood, that we eat them as food seems to be a bit of an anomaly, because we have no reason to. We kill them as food but not out of hatred. It’s not really out of anything and most often the whole abattoir-butcher-meat-eating thing is a not-thought-out activity at all. If it were most of us would probably opt for a benign relationship with the animal kingdom and move towards becoming vegetarian … because then we’d have a clear run towards many things getting better … which might mean becoming happy. Most of us associate our happier times having been spent in the company of an animal. Just being with them and letting them be with us can be exquisitely satisfying, whether companions, wild or farmed. We don’t necessarily need to be intrusive or to become indispensable to them or be in control of them. Better only to be relevant to them or be needed by them or useful to them. And while we’re on the subject, I should mention the bleedin’ obvious, that we can’t expect thanks from them for anything we do on their behalf. In fact a friendly nuzzle from our dog is about the most tangible sign of thanks we can expect of them (for being loving as opposed to being exploiting). Animals are silent appreciators but transmit something not easy to describe. But whatever it is, it’s in us too.
If we do something fine, we can feel appreciation for it but it’s not always tangible and, for the most part, were okay about that because we don’t want a song and dance made about it. The altruist and the ‘altruee’ are together, unseparated at that time. It’s good to know that we can have that with others, to know that we have the sensitivity to see a need and respond to it with no strings attached. Our reward is simply to be close to another living entity, and one who we don’t have to understand, who might be unpredictable and fascinating because of that … but do we have the right to understand them (or each other?). Do we need to?

Not essential to understand others?

We project altruism and we think about possibilities and opportunities, and sometimes we pour our altruism into great causes. Which brings us back to Animal Rights. When we’re aware of our own altruism, (like parents can be with their kids) we go on to apply it beyond the home and beyond the personal, elsewhere, for other people, other species, other ideas. Animal Rights is just one of the great causes, another is planet care, another is social justice and the human ‘right to a life’. Many people divide up their stocks of altruism between personal matters and world matters. Energy for this comes from our empathetic enthusiasms.
For us, as humans, empathy is our forté. We can feel almost as much for the loss of a life in others as we can for the loss of our own life. Humans are often drawn to compassion when we see death amongst starving children. Kids dying of it is heartbreaking. But we see it in exploited animals too, and all these animals have their lives prematurely ended too, not by starving but by execution. As with starving kids, all farm animals are also dying young. And for kids so it is for animals it can be much the same sort of empathy we feel, not only for the dying but for the suffering whilst alive.
The ability to cause this level of suffering purposely and carelessly, denying kids food, caging and killing animals, this is the opposite of empathy. It’s full-on separation, where we see ourselves so far removed from the ‘other’ that we alienate them, exploit them or kill them. When we humans turn against each other, there’s a feeling of warlike spearation but when we turn against animals it’s worse than separation, it’s enslavement. Maintaining this sort of relationship with animals couldn’t be worse - we exercise power over them unashamedly, we grant them no rights, only the ‘privilege’ of staying alive for long enough to be productive. To us. And that’s about the most cynical foundation for a relationship one could imagine.

We don’t need to understand animals

When we come across people who are different, we either alienate them because we fear them or we make an effort to get close to them and make them feel at home. They remain a mystery for some time but their differences, aren’t they usually more interesting than threatening? Maybe don’t understand them, but do we need to? The more differences others have, the more they bring us out of our shell and the more we can learn from them - how they operate, how they see us and how they respond to us. The more we watch them the more we learn about ourselves. And that valuable form of learning isn’t confined to humans. Who hasn’t felt close to a creature, found them fascinating, learnt from them and tried to understand them? But surely the question is, why should we want to understand them when all we really want is to be close to them?
Most humans are fascinated by any kind of connection with an animal. Surely what we like most is them liking us. But more importantly, it’s that protective feeling we have towards them, and us ready to act as a friend or guardian to them, if they need help. And many do.
Because we see so much need for help, we’re vegan. But even for those who aren’t ‘animal people’, even if they eat them, for all of us guardianship comes quite naturally. It’s an integral part of human nature. We know animals are less powerful than us, and hopefully we look out for them, especially if they’re in trouble.
Humans are good at this. We do it well: coming close + getting involved. Dogs, with thousands of years being close to the human being, are also good at it. In fact they’re renowned for it - being protective of us and being loyal and friendly. We know less about other animals but probably they’re all like this, especially amongst their own kind, being protective of their young and acting for their wellbeing, guarding the vulnerable, creating safety and encouraging growth. In other words, this altruistic trait is characteristic of both animals and humans. In humans, altruism springs out of us naturally, instinctively, as it does animals. But there’s another element in humans that animals don’t have; we ‘do’ altruism. They don’t ‘do’ it, not intellectually or by design or to be correct. Altruism in humans is (not always) a response plus a reflection on that response - “oh, wouldn’t it be great if I were altruistic, not just for my kids and family but out of charity, beyond home”. That’s how, I think, animal rights advocates feel; they step beyond self interest to attend to the urgent interests of a repressed slave population. We certainly don’t need to understand animals to do that.

Different from me

If we care about the differences in others, which might put them at a disadvantage (whether it be racial, species difference), our caring may not stem from kindness but from interest. It’s usually interesting to observe the differences in others. In whatever form, it’s deeply satisfying to experience the diversity of life.
The difference may not be in person-form but in the form of an idea. An idea might not be familiar, it may scare us, but it may show us new possibilities and opportunities. Different people, different life forms, different ideas – they can help us move on and grow. Perhaps great ideas like non-separation and non-violence suggest a new approach, in how we treat each other and, in tandem, these two ideas can smooth the way to an acceptance of animals, as being of equal importance to humans. On some levels we might be superior to them, on some levels they might be superior to us. But however we see them, if we look closely, we can learn a lot from them, to our benefit. We don’t need to hurt them for us to benefit from them! By realising some of the superior qualities they have, we’re more likely to re-think how we treat them.
Animals may be superior to us, by having better survival skills. They may do better with their relationships, because they aren’t gratuitously violent with each other (sure, there are exceptions!). They lack revenge. They aren’t judgemental. They don’t bear a grudge. To accept animals as equals we need to use our imagination. If animals are worthy of equal respect, it means the same as respecting people from different cultural backgrounds – who show us things about ourselves we didn’t know, some wonderful qualities we don’t have.
Our reactions to ‘different-ones’, whether species or racially different, might at first spark hostility in us, from feeling threatened by the unfamiliar. But once we get to know them a little better, we might switch over from dislike to admiration. We can learn a lot from foreigners … whether they’re human or non-human.

Pay-back time

For those who refuse to accept the dietary changes suggested by vegans, there’s a hard lesson to be learned. There are the health dangers of meat eating, with heart disease, cancer and diabetes each being associated with eating animal protein and fats. But it’s not just about health, it goes deeper, to the danger of developing a weak conscience. It leads us into advantage taking and not feeling the wrongness of it. It’s about abusing the vulnerable to benefit ourselves, and that could include the abuse of women and children, or spoiling the countryside, or fishing-out the oceans or the caging of hens.
All exploitation comes at a price even though it might not be immediately obvious. And because it isn’t immediately obvious we continue to exploit and think nothing of it. But eventually the damage shows up on our own doorstep, if not in the nightmare part we play in animal cruelty, then in the ill effects of eating animals. In terms of ill health (as well as shame) we are discovering how deep is the hole we’ve fallen into. It can be so deep and our hands so tied, that even if we wanted to we’re too far gone to make amends. Unless we try to repair some of the damage we’ve done, we may lose everything that we have gained.
If we do care about the animals’ plight we’ll probably appreciate the great advantages we humans have been enjoying, up to now, and not begrudge giving away some of those advantages for the sake of the greater good. Sure, we’ll have to deal with some inconvenience, and yet in the long run our decisions will be justified by enjoying good health and a lighter conscience.
It’s a straight forward move, from being an abuser to becoming a repairer. We all have to move that way sooner or later. And as soon as we do, as soon as we start to respect the natural order, we can develop, evolve and expand our consciousness. But not until!

Boycotts and information

The job of convincing animal product customers not to buy is the job of those animal rights advocates who know how to communicate, (something any impassioned, vegan advocate can do credibly, if they feel strongly enough about the issues). Communicators have to show the need for product-boycott, even though it’s inconvenient. We must talk about spending habits and the chance for change coming when billions of boycotters divert their dollars to non-animal products. Only then will the billions of animals be released from slavery.
The impact on the general community, of rescuing animals from factory farms and getting media coverage, is in the initial shock effect of seeing the conditions they live in, but to further influence people we need to get into their minds. Minds that fear life without animal products. We lessen this fear by witnessing the conditions animals live in and resolving to help them in the only way we can – namely by way of boycott. The rescuers video footage is usually powerful stuff, but after that we must rely on words, to get across details, to explain why these things happen to animals and how the customer helps to perpetuate it all. And getting all this across is essential for people to learn the essentials … but the information easily becomes too heavy to digest. So, for communicators, we need to avoid the temptation to say too much, too soon or with too much emotional punch. We mustn’t lose our reputation as information givers. If we preach it’s a big turn-off.
We don’t want people to simply agree with us anyway. We want to stimulate enquiry. As speakers we don’t want passive acceptance nor does the Animal Rights movement want followers. The need is for people to find out what they need to know, to step away, take a deep breath, and then make a leap of faith. The need is for them to imagine how-things-could-be, and then how we could have a freer world where all things are freer, including animals, environment and impoverished people.
The world will find great benefit in a change in human eating habits. The main reason a vegan diet is still regarded as a threat is because it touches on so many interrelating attitudes, and for many people that is just a bit too overwhelming. We need to be able to show how each connection can be contained in a normal daily life and how putting an effort in will reap rich rewards for all concerned … not for the animal industries though!

Direct action or direct communication

If we want habits and mindsets to change it means learning how to communicate. And that rules out using disapproval, guilt, shaming tactics and any other of our favourite ‘frighteners’. We should only make suggestions and promote the ‘coming attractions’ (of which, as we know, there are many!)
Many of the most sincere animal activists may disagree with this approach.. They only know how to be effective by confronting and forcing animal rights issues into public attention. And that might be valid – for example, the activities of the Animal Liberation Front, who are willing to destroy property to save animals on fur farms and intensive farming operations. They risk their own liberty to make their point. They save many tortured animals in the process. They promise their direct action will be carried out without causing any injury to people. They deserve our respect. And there are those who break into vivisection laboratories and rescue the animals there. They also perform a great service for those animals. And it takes guts. And surely, at the cost of a few broken doors and locks it’s a small price to pay. Surely, in these cases, some collateral property damage is justified, especially since there’s no physical harm to any person. If their actions are non-violent and they go on to provide sanctuary for the animals they’ve rescued, the only real damage is to animal industry profits.
But these rescuing activities aren’t going to impact on the egg breakfasters and milk drinkers and ham sandwich eaters, who refuse to change their eating habits. If we want to approach the massed throng of people who are the customers of these ugly animal industries, I think our only valid approach has to be educative. Bucket loads of embarrassing facts and big doses of logical argument to attempt to persuade the customer. But this is the mighty, free-willed human being we’re referring to here. They are habitual spenders whose money is all powerful, who are part of a vast, vast majority. There’s a wall of obstinacy, arrogance, selfishness and thoughtlessness built against our arguments. These consumers aren’t necessarily hard hearted or implacably anti-vegan, it’s just that they are addicted to animal products and don’t want to relinquish them, and that’s their reason to buy them. We have our work cut out to convince them of good reasons to spend their money more humanely.

Communicating Animal Rights

When vegans talk about going vegan we are suggesting nothing less than a major lifestyle change - a lifetime lived on a plant-based diet, wearing plant-based clothes and using cruelty-free products. For us, the reasoning behind all this is obvious and for most established vegans relatively easy. To us it feels perfectly safe personally. And collectively, it’s the answer to so many of the world’s great problems. And because we feel so sure about it we go to great lengths to tell others about it.
But we have to remember that it’s a big step for people to contemplate. And if they aren’t yet convinced about safety issues, it’s up to us to have the facts at hand, especially about nutrition. We have to be ready to field questions about protein, iron, calcium, vitamins, etc. and only then, if we can pass on a sense of safety, can we expect people to take their the first steps into ‘this other world’, largely based on ethics.

Freewill

We need to strike a balance between letting people make up their own minds and giving them the information they need to make informed choices. Animal cruelty and human health are probably the most vital elements in persuading us to make intelligent shopping choices. When people understand the reason for change, not out of a need to alleviate guilt but out of a wish to be constructive, they must surely want to change in many of the ways vegans have changed. If change is entirely voluntary then, again, change is more likely to happen and remain for the long term. If anything is forced, change might take place but it won’t be sustained. Even if the animals are eventually freed and the planet’s environment saved, unless it happens in the right spirit, we will eventually revert back to our abusive habits as soon as things get difficult.
Our freewill is the apex of human development and, out of respect for achieving it, we must never let it be compromised - freedom-to-choose-for-ourselves took such a long time to achieve. Even if vegans can see all the terrible dangers facing society, we can only suggest change not try to force it, or manipulate it, because that contravenes freewill. We have to let each person make up his or her own mind, and let them make their changes when it feels safe and wise for them to do so. Which takes us back to the importance of people having confidence in what we are saying, for vegans, us, to make our ideas convincing and enticing.