Judgement aside, it IS valuable to see what is happening ‘out there’. Judgement is a misleading directive and unhelpful for taking on the enormous task of communicating this subject; people are of a pattern and it’s useful for vegans to be able to see the pattern. We don’t have to be judging, just seeing, observing so we can better grasp the hugeness of the task ahead of us, that of communicating and engaging.
Things have come on a long way since the 1970’s but not far enough to scratch the surface. It’s great that the vegan movement has emerged but sad it’s still so slow to catch on. Things have in fact gone badly wrong in the lives of so many people - their hearts have hardened. Habit has done it.
An intelligent close friend who is an omnivore firmly holds the belief that “humans are naturally omnivorous”. That is the platform on which she rests all her beliefs about food. She’s exemplary about her environmental habits, her political leanings and her sense of humour is second to none, but here is the one big sticking point - she says it’s wrong to eat meat but NATURAL to eat animal products. The animal isn’t killed for her milk or her eggs. (Oh no?)
In that one obstinacy (or it could be more kindly described as a misapprehension), the egg and the milk and hundreds of products using these base products is justified. The idea of a totally plant-based regime is resisted more hotly by her than a meatless diet would be by a carnivore. Vegetarians can be the most resistant to veganism because of the great strides they’ve made away from killing animals for meat. They are proud of what they’ve done, as they should be. They’ve stretched as far as they can, away from the norm.
I keep using the identifier ‘omnivore’ not to describe the whole person but a very important part of that person’s habit pattern and one which, to vegans, is the pattern most urgently in need of reappraisal. The habits of one’s own life, especially after a few years into adulthood, are so strongly laid down that we become be-habited - in this instance, once we get used to using animals for our convenience it’s a hard one to stop. What we longed for as youngsters - to enter the adult world - now rests on our acceptance by it. If we are to be taken seriously as young adults it will be by other adults, almost all of whom will be deeply ‘behabited’. They themselves will be on the lookout for similarities of habit from anyone they come to know. The co-justification process powers forth and it’s only the tiny scrap of niggling empathy and compassion from our upbringing or our innate nature that might just safeguard us from being swept away by the tide of normality.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Vegans-as-communicators
We know what should happen but not necessarily what’s likely to happen, but one thing is for sure - what we have to say is simple but the saying of it is not. Just believing something doesn’t guarantee we’ll succeed in communicating it.
Famous professors who know so much valuable stuff don’t always know how to get it across, so what they say goes to waste. Same with we ordinary people, with just simple things to say, we’re all subject to reception, to audience response. What we want to avoid is a negative reaction. Apart from anything else it will affect us badly, as communicators.
We mustn’t take it too badly - the unencouraging response we often get when telling people about ‘what happens to animals’. We mainly need to know that we can handle the disappointment when people push us away (or pretend not to understand). I’d suggest we are wasting our time judging them or disliking them for “not understanding”. Worse, we’re undermining our own confidence as communicators.
At the heart of the problem is the queering of our own pitch. When we’re talking to people about vegan matters or animal matters, there’s a tendency to NOT see ourselves at fault (failing to engaging people) but to shift blame onto them. We blame their lack of understanding of what we’re saying, whereas at the heart of this is our own judgement giving off a bad smell. We say, “They are stupid so they can’t understand me”. “They are wrong/ evil/ been brought up with poor values/ etc. which is why they can’t/ don’t/ won’t understand me”.
The judgement’s easy to make because omnivores are different in one very identifiable way - they eat differently. In this single difference we can see they’ve no time for our values ... regarding the sanctity of animals. So we use that as a platform for judging them. “They BAD. Almost recidivistic” (... for what they do or eat). Imagine that sort of opinion coming across to you if you’re one of the billions of people for just eating ‘normal’ food. Normality has a long way to shift before getting anywhere near to where we are, as vegans, and how we see things.
Famous professors who know so much valuable stuff don’t always know how to get it across, so what they say goes to waste. Same with we ordinary people, with just simple things to say, we’re all subject to reception, to audience response. What we want to avoid is a negative reaction. Apart from anything else it will affect us badly, as communicators.
We mustn’t take it too badly - the unencouraging response we often get when telling people about ‘what happens to animals’. We mainly need to know that we can handle the disappointment when people push us away (or pretend not to understand). I’d suggest we are wasting our time judging them or disliking them for “not understanding”. Worse, we’re undermining our own confidence as communicators.
At the heart of the problem is the queering of our own pitch. When we’re talking to people about vegan matters or animal matters, there’s a tendency to NOT see ourselves at fault (failing to engaging people) but to shift blame onto them. We blame their lack of understanding of what we’re saying, whereas at the heart of this is our own judgement giving off a bad smell. We say, “They are stupid so they can’t understand me”. “They are wrong/ evil/ been brought up with poor values/ etc. which is why they can’t/ don’t/ won’t understand me”.
The judgement’s easy to make because omnivores are different in one very identifiable way - they eat differently. In this single difference we can see they’ve no time for our values ... regarding the sanctity of animals. So we use that as a platform for judging them. “They BAD. Almost recidivistic” (... for what they do or eat). Imagine that sort of opinion coming across to you if you’re one of the billions of people for just eating ‘normal’ food. Normality has a long way to shift before getting anywhere near to where we are, as vegans, and how we see things.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Whingeing at meat eaters not the answer
At the moment it doesn’t seem that people are ‘interested’ in us. Yawn. The very mention of ‘Animal Rights’ makes them want to switch off. Not all of course but many. At a demo we’re running on the street, they pass by without even glancing our way. We’re astounded. We wait … and nothing changes. And so it goes on.
We, most of us, can’t think of another way of telling people - but other tactics might be more appropriate. For a start we could realise how shrill our voices might become when trying to press our point. We may be so gobsmacked by their indifference (and silence) that we can hardly help shouting at them. “Hey you”, as if they’re asleep. But of course they are NOT asleep, they just don’t want the confrontation. When they see us they’re working out ways of getting past us. We represent an uncomfortable truth.
Amongst ourselves we’re fine; we vocalise, we say how we feel and that makes us feel better. But if we try the same thing on omnivores (as it were, by getting our rocks off with them) it usually explodes in our face. That’s why whingeing to meat eaters doesn’t really work.
Their food almost defines who they are. And perhaps their clothing does too (especially women who like their shoes or guys with their leathers). So, they don’t take kindly to being put on the spot over their groceries and such.
One can sympathise with vegans. We have a tough time. We feel excluded fro m their world or at least from a big part of it. So, here we are, “vegans”, trying to talk about the most tabooed subject on earth and not even getting to first base. All I know is that omnivore-bashing isn’t the answer.
We, most of us, can’t think of another way of telling people - but other tactics might be more appropriate. For a start we could realise how shrill our voices might become when trying to press our point. We may be so gobsmacked by their indifference (and silence) that we can hardly help shouting at them. “Hey you”, as if they’re asleep. But of course they are NOT asleep, they just don’t want the confrontation. When they see us they’re working out ways of getting past us. We represent an uncomfortable truth.
Amongst ourselves we’re fine; we vocalise, we say how we feel and that makes us feel better. But if we try the same thing on omnivores (as it were, by getting our rocks off with them) it usually explodes in our face. That’s why whingeing to meat eaters doesn’t really work.
Their food almost defines who they are. And perhaps their clothing does too (especially women who like their shoes or guys with their leathers). So, they don’t take kindly to being put on the spot over their groceries and such.
One can sympathise with vegans. We have a tough time. We feel excluded fro m their world or at least from a big part of it. So, here we are, “vegans”, trying to talk about the most tabooed subject on earth and not even getting to first base. All I know is that omnivore-bashing isn’t the answer.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Stoopid, omnivores are not
Can I be really honest here? Can I say what needs to be said? Is it not true that we, as vegans, feel so frustrated that we want to hit out. And who else at but omnivores (our friends and the people we often talk with are almost entirely omnivore)? The ordinary consumers, the ‘man in the street’, we know they stand in the way of progress on this issue. We want to implicate them with wrong-doing. We want them to connect what they buy with what the Animal Industry does ... which we go to great lengths to describe. The cruelties, etc.
Our hitting out takes on subtle forms. We don’t shake people or abuse them, that would be assault. No, it only needs a little ‘implication’; we don’t have to be very explicit. It’s easy to plant the food-animal connection and then suggest disapproval. And even then we only need to raise an eyebrow. That’s how we show disapproval.
We hate, all of us, being disapproved of. It’s as if we’re invalid, so omnivores, when they hear what we say, know what we’re trying to imply. Omnivores are not stupid. They add two and two together and probably think “I’m being told that if I eat from animals I’m implicated in killing them, ouch!, that’s being preached at, and I don’t like that”.
When we (vegans) do this, we know exactly what we’re doing. We might make a bit of a joke of it. Or when they reply to something we say we then point out their obvious faux pas (having said to us something patently untrue). Our aim is to trap them, challenge them, force them to see things our way. By their wandering into our trap they experience our Shock Tactic for Jolting Awareness. People don’t like having their awareness jolted and yet we still set the trap because we think we are justified in doing that.
We reckon that, as vegans, we can get away with this, because of the rightness of our cause: we think that our intentions are ‘good’ and we’re fighting the ‘good fight’. But people have experience of this sort of thing - like all evangelists before us, our approach rings alarm bells. We’re easily spotted. It’s as if, just by our demeanour, we seem capable of being rude or even explosive.
The righteous, including vegans, think they might well be blessed ‘from above’. So, we go ahead, say what we say, intend to make them think twice about buying animal products. We say, “Before you go ahead and buy its body, be aware of what you’re actually doing”. That’s heavy. When the average omnivore hears it or reads it or just vaguely senses it, at that very moment they know ‘where it’s coming from’. They know what we’re saying, they know what we’re doing. Weighing the odds, their being in the majority versus our being in the minority, they realise we’ve blown it.
Handing out Animal Rights literature on street corners is important, but so is trying to repair some of the handy-work of previous proselytising ‘fellow travellers’. We may need to convince people that we aren’t clones of each other and that we aren’t all finger-wagging, disapprovists, out to get revenge. And we aren’t social suicides either, trying to lose friends.
Our job is to communicate. What a waste it would be if we blew it; once we actually spark interest, to then waste it by becoming somehow threatening.
Our hitting out takes on subtle forms. We don’t shake people or abuse them, that would be assault. No, it only needs a little ‘implication’; we don’t have to be very explicit. It’s easy to plant the food-animal connection and then suggest disapproval. And even then we only need to raise an eyebrow. That’s how we show disapproval.
We hate, all of us, being disapproved of. It’s as if we’re invalid, so omnivores, when they hear what we say, know what we’re trying to imply. Omnivores are not stupid. They add two and two together and probably think “I’m being told that if I eat from animals I’m implicated in killing them, ouch!, that’s being preached at, and I don’t like that”.
When we (vegans) do this, we know exactly what we’re doing. We might make a bit of a joke of it. Or when they reply to something we say we then point out their obvious faux pas (having said to us something patently untrue). Our aim is to trap them, challenge them, force them to see things our way. By their wandering into our trap they experience our Shock Tactic for Jolting Awareness. People don’t like having their awareness jolted and yet we still set the trap because we think we are justified in doing that.
We reckon that, as vegans, we can get away with this, because of the rightness of our cause: we think that our intentions are ‘good’ and we’re fighting the ‘good fight’. But people have experience of this sort of thing - like all evangelists before us, our approach rings alarm bells. We’re easily spotted. It’s as if, just by our demeanour, we seem capable of being rude or even explosive.
The righteous, including vegans, think they might well be blessed ‘from above’. So, we go ahead, say what we say, intend to make them think twice about buying animal products. We say, “Before you go ahead and buy its body, be aware of what you’re actually doing”. That’s heavy. When the average omnivore hears it or reads it or just vaguely senses it, at that very moment they know ‘where it’s coming from’. They know what we’re saying, they know what we’re doing. Weighing the odds, their being in the majority versus our being in the minority, they realise we’ve blown it.
Handing out Animal Rights literature on street corners is important, but so is trying to repair some of the handy-work of previous proselytising ‘fellow travellers’. We may need to convince people that we aren’t clones of each other and that we aren’t all finger-wagging, disapprovists, out to get revenge. And we aren’t social suicides either, trying to lose friends.
Our job is to communicate. What a waste it would be if we blew it; once we actually spark interest, to then waste it by becoming somehow threatening.
Friday, November 26, 2010
“I’m outraged!”
Some decades ago “outrage” was powerful. There was even a saying made popular after 1975 - “Maintain your rage”. But all that heavy emotion, in the name of outrage, effective enough at the time, got us nowhere, well, actually, to where we are now, profoundly un-outraged. Animal Rights Outrage is now a whimper.
In the beginning, in the earlier days of the Animal Rights movement, anger made quite an impact. But that “incredulity-angle” doesn’t do it for people any longer. It doesn’t have the same impact today. Been there, done that ... and sooo predictable.
Where I always go wrong, and many others too, is that we use the one weapon only, and it gets blunt from overuse. The heaviest club we hit people with is ‘the horror’. We don’t need much encouragement to whip out our ugly pictures and frightening stats. We even have quotes. And stories of encounters. And we even learn to tell jokes at our own expense. All sorts of sales pitches ... if vegans get a chance to present our case, we take it.
We vegans will use almost anything to communicate our message. But we get careless. Like other passionate people, ‘ going on’ about their favourite subjects. Sometimes we go over the top, and say too much, and perhaps that’s forgivable, even admirable ... however (as oftentimes already stated) how far do we take it with people who are not on our wavelength? We go around telling people “where we’re coming from”, and then it’s not long before we get a reputation. Maybe people do half listen and half digest but probably they also half reject and half dislike the messenger too. Reception is a mixed bag. Positive reaction may be encouraging but it’s not necessarily maintained. Responses are, overall, disappointing We have to get used to that.
But clearly enough, what we have to deal with and how we deal with it is the make or brake of “Project Animal Freedom”. At this early stage progress is painfully slow, people are still so set in their ways. Vegans can either enlighten or entrench attitudes. It’s the value judging which does the major damage to our cause.
In the beginning, in the earlier days of the Animal Rights movement, anger made quite an impact. But that “incredulity-angle” doesn’t do it for people any longer. It doesn’t have the same impact today. Been there, done that ... and sooo predictable.
Where I always go wrong, and many others too, is that we use the one weapon only, and it gets blunt from overuse. The heaviest club we hit people with is ‘the horror’. We don’t need much encouragement to whip out our ugly pictures and frightening stats. We even have quotes. And stories of encounters. And we even learn to tell jokes at our own expense. All sorts of sales pitches ... if vegans get a chance to present our case, we take it.
We vegans will use almost anything to communicate our message. But we get careless. Like other passionate people, ‘ going on’ about their favourite subjects. Sometimes we go over the top, and say too much, and perhaps that’s forgivable, even admirable ... however (as oftentimes already stated) how far do we take it with people who are not on our wavelength? We go around telling people “where we’re coming from”, and then it’s not long before we get a reputation. Maybe people do half listen and half digest but probably they also half reject and half dislike the messenger too. Reception is a mixed bag. Positive reaction may be encouraging but it’s not necessarily maintained. Responses are, overall, disappointing We have to get used to that.
But clearly enough, what we have to deal with and how we deal with it is the make or brake of “Project Animal Freedom”. At this early stage progress is painfully slow, people are still so set in their ways. Vegans can either enlighten or entrench attitudes. It’s the value judging which does the major damage to our cause.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Emotion using imagination
Other writers, I’m happy to say, are or will be expressing things better than I can. Eventually they’ll hit the spot. They’ll ‘come across’ by painting a picture, sparking the imagination of people, and then hearts will be touched.
Perhaps the beginning of this process is story telling. I can’t think of a better way this is being done at present than in Jodi Ruckley’s new seven part utube film, which lets the animals “speak” as narrators in their own life stories. The film is online at www.ourplaceonearth.com (and click on link) "the animals you eat" - it’s in 7 short watchable and un-horrific parts, suitable for and appealing to three year olds and adults alike.
By images and words (and damn it, some humour too) we can help to lift the leaden weight of today’s collective mind-set. It’s tragic that, at present, it’s holding down our collective potential-talent-for-communication.
Unfortunately, not being particularly skilled in this, some of us depend too much on gut feeling and emotional outburst. We use emotion-only, and that’s not enough for sophisticated audiences today. They insist on getting what they expect, i.e. a high standard of information presentation. Anything short of that is too amateur.
We have to sharpen our vegan imagination, see the importance of our message and come to understand how people will eventually find it irresistible. Empathy we’ll find, good food we’ll find, but best of all ‘hope-for-the-future’ we’ll find - that’s the irresistible part.
The ‘gold’ in what we’re saying springs from mere emotion. Not something we can use on its own (since the slush merchants have been misusing it now for centuries) but it’s the starting point. Our emotion is the springboard to greater things. It leads us towards empathy and that gives us the feeling-good feeling in life. Emotions power the intellect which in turn designs the revolution.
It will be a revolution, of course, and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing in this insensitive swamp we all live in. But an emotional revolution will be a flash in the pan if we neglect our intellect.
It isn’t only sadness that drives us ... although it’s very sad that no one notices us crying ... privately perhaps ... listening to the cries of our own soul ... but emotion must move on to allow Determination to move in. Soon enough it’s time to polish the armour.
The vegan advocate, activist, sees too much sorrow for their own good. We almost wallow in it, perhaps to expiate the sin of what we’ve done, but sorrow begets self pity.
And here’s where I think we may make a classic mistake, we let Self-Pity put through a call to The Anger Department who issue instructions about rescuing the ‘damsel in distress’. We slash away at the undergrowth ... and the harder we slash the quicker it grows back.
We think our message is easier to get across than it really is - proud of the fact that “I say it as I feel it. I feel genuine enough ... so, that’s good enough for me to feel effective” ... but then we see the response ... and then we know we’re a long way from our goal. Uncontrolled emotion takes us nowhere. If we let it loose on it’s own it’s like a small child crossing the road, in danger of being run down. Emotion, in the form of outrage, guarantees the average omnivore a good laugh at our expense. It’s not the sort of laugh we want.
Perhaps the beginning of this process is story telling. I can’t think of a better way this is being done at present than in Jodi Ruckley’s new seven part utube film, which lets the animals “speak” as narrators in their own life stories. The film is online at www.ourplaceonearth.com (and click on link) "the animals you eat" - it’s in 7 short watchable and un-horrific parts, suitable for and appealing to three year olds and adults alike.
By images and words (and damn it, some humour too) we can help to lift the leaden weight of today’s collective mind-set. It’s tragic that, at present, it’s holding down our collective potential-talent-for-communication.
Unfortunately, not being particularly skilled in this, some of us depend too much on gut feeling and emotional outburst. We use emotion-only, and that’s not enough for sophisticated audiences today. They insist on getting what they expect, i.e. a high standard of information presentation. Anything short of that is too amateur.
We have to sharpen our vegan imagination, see the importance of our message and come to understand how people will eventually find it irresistible. Empathy we’ll find, good food we’ll find, but best of all ‘hope-for-the-future’ we’ll find - that’s the irresistible part.
The ‘gold’ in what we’re saying springs from mere emotion. Not something we can use on its own (since the slush merchants have been misusing it now for centuries) but it’s the starting point. Our emotion is the springboard to greater things. It leads us towards empathy and that gives us the feeling-good feeling in life. Emotions power the intellect which in turn designs the revolution.
It will be a revolution, of course, and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing in this insensitive swamp we all live in. But an emotional revolution will be a flash in the pan if we neglect our intellect.
It isn’t only sadness that drives us ... although it’s very sad that no one notices us crying ... privately perhaps ... listening to the cries of our own soul ... but emotion must move on to allow Determination to move in. Soon enough it’s time to polish the armour.
The vegan advocate, activist, sees too much sorrow for their own good. We almost wallow in it, perhaps to expiate the sin of what we’ve done, but sorrow begets self pity.
And here’s where I think we may make a classic mistake, we let Self-Pity put through a call to The Anger Department who issue instructions about rescuing the ‘damsel in distress’. We slash away at the undergrowth ... and the harder we slash the quicker it grows back.
We think our message is easier to get across than it really is - proud of the fact that “I say it as I feel it. I feel genuine enough ... so, that’s good enough for me to feel effective” ... but then we see the response ... and then we know we’re a long way from our goal. Uncontrolled emotion takes us nowhere. If we let it loose on it’s own it’s like a small child crossing the road, in danger of being run down. Emotion, in the form of outrage, guarantees the average omnivore a good laugh at our expense. It’s not the sort of laugh we want.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Life in general
If animals are to be respected it’s only as part of a much wider respect for life in general. Surely the very life force should be respected, no, marvelled at, since Nature is the most beautiful thing we know. Both animals and Nature now need the protection of some humans from the destructive natures of other humans.
We’re looking here at one side of ‘protection’ - that of the farm animal. By protecting these animals we have a chance to restore the balance of Nature itself (vegan principle protecting more than the food on our plate, it’s protecting-as-repairing). If we don’t repair, we’re lost.
Slim as it might seem, there’s probably only one chance left for humans - and ironically it’s the animal chance - that we have to be saved by the animals, or rather by our repaired attitude towards them: In this, we need to look at them differently and we certainly need their forgiveness.
The difficult patch humans are going through, transitioning into a far more conscious life form, needs animal ‘humanity’ to show us our own humanity. To restore our lost sanity. Between animals and us there’s potentially a symbiotic relationship. We have the possibility now to be reciprocal partners. But right now they urgently need our defence.
We need to be their knights in shining armour, acting for them, rescuing them from the towers of castles. Yes, corny perhaps, but just as corny that we sometimes look like such rank amateurs, trying to fight dragons. So what?
If we’re acting in good faith it’s likely we’ll mature into effective advocates. If our intentions are good, bravery won’t any longer be unfamiliar. Hopefully, in the end, we’ll all be positively pulsating with bravery, just in our very being. And then we’ll have no trouble firing up, regarding the oppressed animals as the new damsels in distress.
We’re looking here at one side of ‘protection’ - that of the farm animal. By protecting these animals we have a chance to restore the balance of Nature itself (vegan principle protecting more than the food on our plate, it’s protecting-as-repairing). If we don’t repair, we’re lost.
Slim as it might seem, there’s probably only one chance left for humans - and ironically it’s the animal chance - that we have to be saved by the animals, or rather by our repaired attitude towards them: In this, we need to look at them differently and we certainly need their forgiveness.
The difficult patch humans are going through, transitioning into a far more conscious life form, needs animal ‘humanity’ to show us our own humanity. To restore our lost sanity. Between animals and us there’s potentially a symbiotic relationship. We have the possibility now to be reciprocal partners. But right now they urgently need our defence.
We need to be their knights in shining armour, acting for them, rescuing them from the towers of castles. Yes, corny perhaps, but just as corny that we sometimes look like such rank amateurs, trying to fight dragons. So what?
If we’re acting in good faith it’s likely we’ll mature into effective advocates. If our intentions are good, bravery won’t any longer be unfamiliar. Hopefully, in the end, we’ll all be positively pulsating with bravery, just in our very being. And then we’ll have no trouble firing up, regarding the oppressed animals as the new damsels in distress.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Voiceless
Animal Rights is the only protection from human exploitation that animals are ever going to get. It’s a noble thing for us to be protecting their rights. Vegans should feel rightly proud of the decision they’ve made. They’ve said “enough is enough”, and gone for broke by fighting for those who can’t act for themselves.
There’s nothing better we could be doing, wouldn’t you say? It’s certainly something no animal can do for themselves since their fighting teeth were blunted long ago. It’s been a long time since humans were frightened of any other species. (Perhaps viruses haven’t shown their teeth yet, but watch this space for humans’ predator-to-come!!). But for the time being, humans are the dominant species and to prove it we’ve taken things to the ugliest extremes imaginable. And now vegans are sounding the alarm to say one thing - that animals have rights, that we should grant them their right to a life. This means a real life and not one of life long imprisonment, and ending at the slaughterhouse.
There’s nothing better we could be doing, wouldn’t you say? It’s certainly something no animal can do for themselves since their fighting teeth were blunted long ago. It’s been a long time since humans were frightened of any other species. (Perhaps viruses haven’t shown their teeth yet, but watch this space for humans’ predator-to-come!!). But for the time being, humans are the dominant species and to prove it we’ve taken things to the ugliest extremes imaginable. And now vegans are sounding the alarm to say one thing - that animals have rights, that we should grant them their right to a life. This means a real life and not one of life long imprisonment, and ending at the slaughterhouse.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Grabbing what’s on offer
Has anyone asked the animals whether they have permission to take things from them that are theirs, their secretions and, for heavens sake their very lives? No. No animal has indicated in any way that we may steal from them, and yet we do. This is fundamentally why vegans get angry and judgemental.
Now, if we really want to get the omnivores to start thinking along these permission lines we need to seem not so very unlike them. Which means a radical change of attitude towards the “wicked consumer”. Drop the judgment of them, drop the anger. It’s not a good look. It looks like a hissy fit, in that the onlooker knows it will pass, (vegans will tantrum and then it will pass). Omnivores therefore needn’t take too much notice of it.
That’s not how we vegans think about our little shows of ‘outrage’. It’s what we do. It’s all we can do, so it seems. For us it isn’t clear what else there is we can do. So, we keep saying much the same thing, over and over again, hoping that by repetition something will stick, penny will drop, etc. We may not realise why it’s always just a hissy fit and why it hardly ever hits home ... because what we say isn’t original, not ‘ fresh’, nearly always stale, nearly always using stats we haven’t checked, inevitably we’re repeating what someone else has said. Call it lazy activism. The information we’re sending across look like ‘lectures’ and ‘difficult’ and ‘dull’ - cant.
We say “Look, will you, at what they’re doing to the animals. It’s absolutely … etc”.
For those of us who are concerned (and I’ll include vegans only here since unless one is, the idea of ‘concern’ is almost ludicrous). For us. the way we look at our driving principle, our veganism, is a double worry. We’re as much worried by what’s happening as we are our own inability to stop it.
I often think it’s like passing a house and looking at some activity going on in a house. You turn to see through a window, a kid being beaten up by a parent (or adult authority figure) and being entirely unable to help, to enter the house and intervene. “Oh, they’re just having a scrap, none of my business”, and we walk on.
It’s very difficult for the animal activist to imagine how any of this killing will be stopped. Lying awake at night I, like many others, picture small animals, alone, frightened, and god-knows-what-else unimaginably horrible. Lying awake thinking, “this is happening tonight, now, at this moment. What brew of disgustingness is bubbling in so many cauldrons of suffering, located just down the road, not far from us.
In these merry sleepless moments I might well think, believe, we’re all in the frying pan. We’re doomed. And on I go, seeing the torment as the breakfast eggs are being laid each night, and on I go, hearing them screaming ... unheard behind-closed-doors.
I can either imagine or remember that sound. It doesn’t matter, Either way the thought gets into my head and I know one thing - a scream is a scream. My heart goes out to them ... to know nobody really cares about them, No one hardly ever thinks about them. They’re abandoned to the whims of the slave-masters, the humans.
Now, if we really want to get the omnivores to start thinking along these permission lines we need to seem not so very unlike them. Which means a radical change of attitude towards the “wicked consumer”. Drop the judgment of them, drop the anger. It’s not a good look. It looks like a hissy fit, in that the onlooker knows it will pass, (vegans will tantrum and then it will pass). Omnivores therefore needn’t take too much notice of it.
That’s not how we vegans think about our little shows of ‘outrage’. It’s what we do. It’s all we can do, so it seems. For us it isn’t clear what else there is we can do. So, we keep saying much the same thing, over and over again, hoping that by repetition something will stick, penny will drop, etc. We may not realise why it’s always just a hissy fit and why it hardly ever hits home ... because what we say isn’t original, not ‘ fresh’, nearly always stale, nearly always using stats we haven’t checked, inevitably we’re repeating what someone else has said. Call it lazy activism. The information we’re sending across look like ‘lectures’ and ‘difficult’ and ‘dull’ - cant.
We say “Look, will you, at what they’re doing to the animals. It’s absolutely … etc”.
For those of us who are concerned (and I’ll include vegans only here since unless one is, the idea of ‘concern’ is almost ludicrous). For us. the way we look at our driving principle, our veganism, is a double worry. We’re as much worried by what’s happening as we are our own inability to stop it.
I often think it’s like passing a house and looking at some activity going on in a house. You turn to see through a window, a kid being beaten up by a parent (or adult authority figure) and being entirely unable to help, to enter the house and intervene. “Oh, they’re just having a scrap, none of my business”, and we walk on.
It’s very difficult for the animal activist to imagine how any of this killing will be stopped. Lying awake at night I, like many others, picture small animals, alone, frightened, and god-knows-what-else unimaginably horrible. Lying awake thinking, “this is happening tonight, now, at this moment. What brew of disgustingness is bubbling in so many cauldrons of suffering, located just down the road, not far from us.
In these merry sleepless moments I might well think, believe, we’re all in the frying pan. We’re doomed. And on I go, seeing the torment as the breakfast eggs are being laid each night, and on I go, hearing them screaming ... unheard behind-closed-doors.
I can either imagine or remember that sound. It doesn’t matter, Either way the thought gets into my head and I know one thing - a scream is a scream. My heart goes out to them ... to know nobody really cares about them, No one hardly ever thinks about them. They’re abandoned to the whims of the slave-masters, the humans.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Don’t stand on ceremony, just help yourself
Strange to think how immutable the collective consciousness is, but strange too to think how persistent animal guardians (vegans) will always be, because we’re in it for life.
It’s likely we keep up with the latest horror stories; we’re freshly outraged and ask “How can this be done to animals and people not react?” As our incredulity increases to outrage and then to anger we can feel a sort of power flowing through us ... but sadly it goes nowhere. It’s like lightening that doesn’t make contact with the ground. It doesn’t connect. It hardly lasts a second and then ... nothing happens. The crazy and cruel things continue.
With the war on animals continuing, humans know no other way of living that doesn’t include animal-attack. There are too many who are too dependent on too much abattoir product. For us, as animal activists, we regrettably have to get used to this. Animals will continue to be exploited because it’s easy. Someone will always be there to do the job for us and the fact is it’s all legal. What happens down on the farm and at the abattoir doesn’t break any law. This awful reality stands as a brick wall to progress on this front. “Animals’ bodies are for the taking like pears on a tree. It can be had - so take it”.
It’s likely we keep up with the latest horror stories; we’re freshly outraged and ask “How can this be done to animals and people not react?” As our incredulity increases to outrage and then to anger we can feel a sort of power flowing through us ... but sadly it goes nowhere. It’s like lightening that doesn’t make contact with the ground. It doesn’t connect. It hardly lasts a second and then ... nothing happens. The crazy and cruel things continue.
With the war on animals continuing, humans know no other way of living that doesn’t include animal-attack. There are too many who are too dependent on too much abattoir product. For us, as animal activists, we regrettably have to get used to this. Animals will continue to be exploited because it’s easy. Someone will always be there to do the job for us and the fact is it’s all legal. What happens down on the farm and at the abattoir doesn’t break any law. This awful reality stands as a brick wall to progress on this front. “Animals’ bodies are for the taking like pears on a tree. It can be had - so take it”.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Two stage break-out
Maybe the weight (of the worry we have) isn’t just in the magnitude of the problem, it’s also to do with the cover-up that goes with it in our society - at the heart of our collective mind-set is an attitude (about the treatment of animals) that keeps us omnivore. maybe we suspect we’ve been tricked by the food producers but dare not think about it too deeply; if we start boycotting we’ll end up having nothing much left we can buy, in comfort food terms.
Everyone knows about the mountainous amount of animal exploitation going on. It’s awe inspiring to think about the implications. An average Westerner eats twenty one thousand animals (in his or her lifetime). That’s a lot of executions weighing down on our conscience. These, each one, are deaths we’ve been party to. Just writing this blog I’m conscious that just by saying this I’m being very heavy, making what I say very unpopular! But I hasten to add that all of us, including present day vegans, are or were once hardened meat-eaters. We’ve all got enough blood on our hands to drown in, that’s for sure.
Once we can acknowledge this ‘plain awful truth’, and then stop doing what we’re doing and decide not to ‘go there’ anymore, we’ll start to atone. But that’s just one thing. There’s another vital step - once we’re boycotting all the right things, then we can start to get off our high horse about “being vegan” and judging those who aren’t.
Everyone knows about the mountainous amount of animal exploitation going on. It’s awe inspiring to think about the implications. An average Westerner eats twenty one thousand animals (in his or her lifetime). That’s a lot of executions weighing down on our conscience. These, each one, are deaths we’ve been party to. Just writing this blog I’m conscious that just by saying this I’m being very heavy, making what I say very unpopular! But I hasten to add that all of us, including present day vegans, are or were once hardened meat-eaters. We’ve all got enough blood on our hands to drown in, that’s for sure.
Once we can acknowledge this ‘plain awful truth’, and then stop doing what we’re doing and decide not to ‘go there’ anymore, we’ll start to atone. But that’s just one thing. There’s another vital step - once we’re boycotting all the right things, then we can start to get off our high horse about “being vegan” and judging those who aren’t.
The disease of pessimism
Friday 19th November 2010
All the time we humans are still using animals we won’t get past being pessimists, and we’ll never shake the guilt, and we’ll always feel like failures because of it. It mightn’t be so for the exploiters themselves, since they probably don’t care enough or like themselves enough to be optimists-for-the-future anyway. Nothing will stop them doing what they do, for as long as they can do it. They’re pessimists who feel as though they’re optimists.
But even vegans catch the disease of pessimism, not out of guilt but from nurturing a negative outlook. I’m thinking of vegans I know who get depressed about how things are looking, who can hardly fail to notice the bastardry everywhere, and how things aren’t looking so good for ‘voluntary change’. That’s the pessimist’s forecast, whether from the exploiter, the consumer or the vegan - each in their own ways holding pessimism as some sort of protection against the shock of inevitability.
Optimists know that pessimism is just a trap to keep us away from change. Optimists know that change hinges on one’s state of mind, and we are in control of that to a large extent. Things may happen but the optimist makes the best of it and even uses adversity to add resolve to the escape from compliance. As vegans we can be far more optimistic and up-beat than our omnivore friends, because at least we’ve made a start at defying convention.
For us there is a way out of the mess. But for anyone too there’s a way out. It just comes down to wanting it enough. Omnivores either won’t or can’t. And they don’t, mainly because they’re locked in to pessimism-about-the-future. And that’s coming out of guilt about the past and particularly their compliance over what foods they’re willing to eat and their addictions to animal products.
The reason we don’t want to address the mess is that it doesn’t seem likely that much will alter for the world just because I happen to personally change my eating habits.
If, however, we do see the connection then a start can be made, by simply altering one’s food regime. But it’s because that connection isn’t made, because changing one’s whole lifestyle isn’t realistic, that the whole process of change is put on hold and one’s outlook remains gloomy.
An omnivore will probably not see changing their attitudes or dropping their addictions as something “simple”. For a start, especially for the not-so-young, there’d be so much ground to make up that the starting line would seem too far away. It would only serve to emphasise how far we’d slipped into convenience-living. The weight of so much moral backsliding holds us in our own deep cell, within Society’s prison, within our mind, within our conformities. And that’s closely linked with morality and religion and god-knows-what-else so that, effectively, omnivores live imprisoned, simply by the way in which they see things.
To become vegan would be like going into free fall - it’s all or nothing. And just imagine, hurtling towards the unknown - the not-using-of-animals. It probably feels profoundly unsafe, especially with one’s list of favourite, addictive foods. Just by contemplating ‘losing’ so many, many yummy things is enough to make one shut down on the whole of the ‘animal thing’ and stick with the safety of the status quo and all the pessimism that goes with it.
All the time we humans are still using animals we won’t get past being pessimists, and we’ll never shake the guilt, and we’ll always feel like failures because of it. It mightn’t be so for the exploiters themselves, since they probably don’t care enough or like themselves enough to be optimists-for-the-future anyway. Nothing will stop them doing what they do, for as long as they can do it. They’re pessimists who feel as though they’re optimists.
But even vegans catch the disease of pessimism, not out of guilt but from nurturing a negative outlook. I’m thinking of vegans I know who get depressed about how things are looking, who can hardly fail to notice the bastardry everywhere, and how things aren’t looking so good for ‘voluntary change’. That’s the pessimist’s forecast, whether from the exploiter, the consumer or the vegan - each in their own ways holding pessimism as some sort of protection against the shock of inevitability.
Optimists know that pessimism is just a trap to keep us away from change. Optimists know that change hinges on one’s state of mind, and we are in control of that to a large extent. Things may happen but the optimist makes the best of it and even uses adversity to add resolve to the escape from compliance. As vegans we can be far more optimistic and up-beat than our omnivore friends, because at least we’ve made a start at defying convention.
For us there is a way out of the mess. But for anyone too there’s a way out. It just comes down to wanting it enough. Omnivores either won’t or can’t. And they don’t, mainly because they’re locked in to pessimism-about-the-future. And that’s coming out of guilt about the past and particularly their compliance over what foods they’re willing to eat and their addictions to animal products.
The reason we don’t want to address the mess is that it doesn’t seem likely that much will alter for the world just because I happen to personally change my eating habits.
If, however, we do see the connection then a start can be made, by simply altering one’s food regime. But it’s because that connection isn’t made, because changing one’s whole lifestyle isn’t realistic, that the whole process of change is put on hold and one’s outlook remains gloomy.
An omnivore will probably not see changing their attitudes or dropping their addictions as something “simple”. For a start, especially for the not-so-young, there’d be so much ground to make up that the starting line would seem too far away. It would only serve to emphasise how far we’d slipped into convenience-living. The weight of so much moral backsliding holds us in our own deep cell, within Society’s prison, within our mind, within our conformities. And that’s closely linked with morality and religion and god-knows-what-else so that, effectively, omnivores live imprisoned, simply by the way in which they see things.
To become vegan would be like going into free fall - it’s all or nothing. And just imagine, hurtling towards the unknown - the not-using-of-animals. It probably feels profoundly unsafe, especially with one’s list of favourite, addictive foods. Just by contemplating ‘losing’ so many, many yummy things is enough to make one shut down on the whole of the ‘animal thing’ and stick with the safety of the status quo and all the pessimism that goes with it.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Absurd behaviour
Oh, our thirst for diversion and the absurdity of what we’ll do in that cause. It’s all spurred on by money-making, big business and the consumer consumes what they offer. Corporate interests cash in - we sow the seed and they exacerbate the damage.
You can hardly blame the profiteers for taking advantage of us. We’re gullible enough not to notice what’s they’re doing. We’re complaint. We’re fed continuous advice. Our noses are rubbed in the swill of commercial advertising, for that’s the price we pay for being entertained or diverted. We do love a good story, in fact any story. But the essential facts of life, that story they hide from us. We barely hear anything about waste and cruelty. That’s one of the not-nice stories. Instead we are given pleasant stories and the all the means to enjoy them. Because of the fierce competition for our consumer dollar we have to be continuously sold these stories, varieties of the same thing. And from that transpires a tedious sales pitch.
The big selling point is the heavy emphasis on treats and food sensations. We are told “Buy our cheese, buy our biscuits, buy into a lobster dinner sitting by the lagoon”. In other words, what they sell assumes a humano-centred attitude (that animals don’t matter and are for eating). The ads for animal foods stand alongside ads for soap powder and, overall, they tell us how to lead ‘an easy, cool lifestyle’.
Advertising ploughs, like a tank amongst rose bushes, past empathy for animals, past the unhealthiness of eating them and arrives at an easy acceptance that animals are merely objects-for-eating. The tackiness of these ads! There are bits of dead animal everywhere. Tedious they certainly are, and for people who get involved in this ‘advertised’, how tedious life must be for them.
But all of us, we all have to put up with ‘the ads’. What we see is, more or less, what’s on offer. We assume there’s nothing else, not cheap enough, or available enough, or immediate enough to be of any sort of interest, anyway. Most people comply with a “white-goods” mentality – they take part in a world that is advertised. It’s the best on offer. It seems there’s no other cogent world that could appeal to customers. We might not exactly accept the status quo but it’s what we know. We go along with it, because if there are things we don’t like, there’s nothing much we can do about it. So, we comply. We cooperate.
But vegans don’t. We push it aside by disassociating from its most commonly shared activity, the ingesting of said bits of dead animal. By actively boycotting every commercial item which has any animal connection we make our protest. Our most active protests might reach zero audience but make them we must to bring some sort of hope to those who are living in the ‘closed world’. Almost all people, whether educated or uneducated, don’t believe there’s any chance to escape the pit. Their attitude is, “why bother?”
By our jumping-ahead (of this pessimism) we focus directly on mass escape - all more or less at the same time. Not in the same precise moment but all during the same time slot.
For us ordinary vegans, we need to focus on ordinary people like us, and have faith in their ability to weigh up the situation and decide for themselves, just as we did. As vegans we need to recognise the remarkable talents we humans have, in our ability to adapt and change to suit each new situation. We should have faith that we, ordinary as we may be, will do just that.
When the time comes, as it surely will, when change will be the difference between survival and non-survival, then at that point our choosing will come down to our faith, not in gods or happenstance but in people themselves; our/their talent, our/their enduring optimism and our collective self-confidence. Omnivores are teachers because teachers are usually omnivores. Teachers are not often vegan, but vegans almost certainly will be the teachers of the future. They’ll be teachers of optimism, who teach that pessimism doesn’t exist ... well, that it doesn’t have to anyway.
When change comes, optimism will arrive to help that change take place. Think it will come out of human determination to make pessimism disappear simply because it doesn’t need to exist. And the more we can convince others of its redundancy the more inclined they’ll be to listen to what we have to say about veganism.
By giving up judgement, giving up gossip, giving up blaming, shaming and all the other sour habits we have, by giving up the sheer gloominess of attitude, we avoid personal collapse and perhaps collectively avert world disaster. Non-judgement lets us modify our sense of shame and guilt, and pick up something much better.
The main reason we can drop pessimism is to find another, more upbeat reason to live. If we can’t get past our gloominess we won’t be able to let our imagination fly. We just won’t see how the process of change can start to take place when there’s not enough imagination and optimism.
You can hardly blame the profiteers for taking advantage of us. We’re gullible enough not to notice what’s they’re doing. We’re complaint. We’re fed continuous advice. Our noses are rubbed in the swill of commercial advertising, for that’s the price we pay for being entertained or diverted. We do love a good story, in fact any story. But the essential facts of life, that story they hide from us. We barely hear anything about waste and cruelty. That’s one of the not-nice stories. Instead we are given pleasant stories and the all the means to enjoy them. Because of the fierce competition for our consumer dollar we have to be continuously sold these stories, varieties of the same thing. And from that transpires a tedious sales pitch.
The big selling point is the heavy emphasis on treats and food sensations. We are told “Buy our cheese, buy our biscuits, buy into a lobster dinner sitting by the lagoon”. In other words, what they sell assumes a humano-centred attitude (that animals don’t matter and are for eating). The ads for animal foods stand alongside ads for soap powder and, overall, they tell us how to lead ‘an easy, cool lifestyle’.
Advertising ploughs, like a tank amongst rose bushes, past empathy for animals, past the unhealthiness of eating them and arrives at an easy acceptance that animals are merely objects-for-eating. The tackiness of these ads! There are bits of dead animal everywhere. Tedious they certainly are, and for people who get involved in this ‘advertised’, how tedious life must be for them.
But all of us, we all have to put up with ‘the ads’. What we see is, more or less, what’s on offer. We assume there’s nothing else, not cheap enough, or available enough, or immediate enough to be of any sort of interest, anyway. Most people comply with a “white-goods” mentality – they take part in a world that is advertised. It’s the best on offer. It seems there’s no other cogent world that could appeal to customers. We might not exactly accept the status quo but it’s what we know. We go along with it, because if there are things we don’t like, there’s nothing much we can do about it. So, we comply. We cooperate.
But vegans don’t. We push it aside by disassociating from its most commonly shared activity, the ingesting of said bits of dead animal. By actively boycotting every commercial item which has any animal connection we make our protest. Our most active protests might reach zero audience but make them we must to bring some sort of hope to those who are living in the ‘closed world’. Almost all people, whether educated or uneducated, don’t believe there’s any chance to escape the pit. Their attitude is, “why bother?”
By our jumping-ahead (of this pessimism) we focus directly on mass escape - all more or less at the same time. Not in the same precise moment but all during the same time slot.
For us ordinary vegans, we need to focus on ordinary people like us, and have faith in their ability to weigh up the situation and decide for themselves, just as we did. As vegans we need to recognise the remarkable talents we humans have, in our ability to adapt and change to suit each new situation. We should have faith that we, ordinary as we may be, will do just that.
When the time comes, as it surely will, when change will be the difference between survival and non-survival, then at that point our choosing will come down to our faith, not in gods or happenstance but in people themselves; our/their talent, our/their enduring optimism and our collective self-confidence. Omnivores are teachers because teachers are usually omnivores. Teachers are not often vegan, but vegans almost certainly will be the teachers of the future. They’ll be teachers of optimism, who teach that pessimism doesn’t exist ... well, that it doesn’t have to anyway.
When change comes, optimism will arrive to help that change take place. Think it will come out of human determination to make pessimism disappear simply because it doesn’t need to exist. And the more we can convince others of its redundancy the more inclined they’ll be to listen to what we have to say about veganism.
By giving up judgement, giving up gossip, giving up blaming, shaming and all the other sour habits we have, by giving up the sheer gloominess of attitude, we avoid personal collapse and perhaps collectively avert world disaster. Non-judgement lets us modify our sense of shame and guilt, and pick up something much better.
The main reason we can drop pessimism is to find another, more upbeat reason to live. If we can’t get past our gloominess we won’t be able to let our imagination fly. We just won’t see how the process of change can start to take place when there’s not enough imagination and optimism.
Absurd pessimism
Wednesday 17th November 2010
There is good reason for us to have faith in people’s ability to change. After all, excluding ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of today’s practising vegans have once been omnivores. And therefore we all know why we were and they are omnivore, and why we had a rather gloomy view on life. Through our conformity to these major social norms we could see ourselves part of a system that clearly can’t succeed. No wonder we also knew pessimism!
You don’t have to be an omnivore to be pessimistic, vegans are just as doubtful about the future and they’re infectious with their views too. So, whether we’re vegan or omnivore, all of us have sometimes thought “things will never change” and we’re all going to hell in a hand basket. The end of the World is nigh, etc. All of us have see how pessimism arrests progress. All of us know the power of the mind, for positive or negative. If we want to see things pessimistically, if vegans for instance want to entertain the idea that “humans are fucked”, what hope is there for others who coming along behind us, who aren’t yet vegan? If our defeatism turns to anger and value-judgement, how does that not make things worse?
I’d suggest that we are simply divesting ourselves of personal responsibility, for the way things are.
The naming and blaming game is something we play in order to ‘feel-good’. Our self-justification eases shame. Our own complicity as animal eaters (with the Animal Industries) or if we’re vegans our complicity with pessimism, dooms us. Or so we believe. And in our pessimism we lose faith in the future and that makes us all deeply unhappy. “Why go on?”
The more violent amongst us take out their swords and resolve to get their revenge. For them there’s an adrenalin rush, shifting focus away from painful self-responsibilities, from ‘me’ to ‘them’. “The Corporates”, oh how we love to hate them. “They are responsible. They’ve made us what we are, they’ve infected all of us”.
We deflect personal responsibility away from ourselves and onto the big crooks, whose wickedness is unquestionable.
We are and always have been small time crims. We reckon we’re somewhat let off the hook by going for the big boys, the corporates, the politicians, the rich, the Animal Industries. We get brownie points for being active campaigners. But it’s often a smokescreen for dealing with our own guilt - lessening self-examination, downgrading the significance of personal discipline. We get more interested in meddling than self-development - we go for where we think we can be most politically effective. We concentrate on bringing down the big boys. By contrast we consider “what I do is nothing in comparison to the damage they do” … and so it goes on.
Because we aren’t rigorous enough with ourselves we therefore can’t be rigorous enough in our activism. It turns full circle: we’re back to why we aren’t being rigorous, why we go for the easy option, why our activism can be just revenge.
Judgement. We’re hooked on it. Sometimes (ouch, that flame feels hot) judgements are quite valid but our value judgements, that’s something else. “Let the non-sinner caste the first stone”. Our judgements, righteous as they always are, are also so predictable; when we’re condemning others we’re not utilising our time and energy to the max. Instead we’re getting our rocks off . We aren’t engaged in optimistic pursuit, looking for ways to raise awareness.
There is good reason for us to have faith in people’s ability to change. After all, excluding ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of today’s practising vegans have once been omnivores. And therefore we all know why we were and they are omnivore, and why we had a rather gloomy view on life. Through our conformity to these major social norms we could see ourselves part of a system that clearly can’t succeed. No wonder we also knew pessimism!
You don’t have to be an omnivore to be pessimistic, vegans are just as doubtful about the future and they’re infectious with their views too. So, whether we’re vegan or omnivore, all of us have sometimes thought “things will never change” and we’re all going to hell in a hand basket. The end of the World is nigh, etc. All of us have see how pessimism arrests progress. All of us know the power of the mind, for positive or negative. If we want to see things pessimistically, if vegans for instance want to entertain the idea that “humans are fucked”, what hope is there for others who coming along behind us, who aren’t yet vegan? If our defeatism turns to anger and value-judgement, how does that not make things worse?
I’d suggest that we are simply divesting ourselves of personal responsibility, for the way things are.
The naming and blaming game is something we play in order to ‘feel-good’. Our self-justification eases shame. Our own complicity as animal eaters (with the Animal Industries) or if we’re vegans our complicity with pessimism, dooms us. Or so we believe. And in our pessimism we lose faith in the future and that makes us all deeply unhappy. “Why go on?”
The more violent amongst us take out their swords and resolve to get their revenge. For them there’s an adrenalin rush, shifting focus away from painful self-responsibilities, from ‘me’ to ‘them’. “The Corporates”, oh how we love to hate them. “They are responsible. They’ve made us what we are, they’ve infected all of us”.
We deflect personal responsibility away from ourselves and onto the big crooks, whose wickedness is unquestionable.
We are and always have been small time crims. We reckon we’re somewhat let off the hook by going for the big boys, the corporates, the politicians, the rich, the Animal Industries. We get brownie points for being active campaigners. But it’s often a smokescreen for dealing with our own guilt - lessening self-examination, downgrading the significance of personal discipline. We get more interested in meddling than self-development - we go for where we think we can be most politically effective. We concentrate on bringing down the big boys. By contrast we consider “what I do is nothing in comparison to the damage they do” … and so it goes on.
Because we aren’t rigorous enough with ourselves we therefore can’t be rigorous enough in our activism. It turns full circle: we’re back to why we aren’t being rigorous, why we go for the easy option, why our activism can be just revenge.
Judgement. We’re hooked on it. Sometimes (ouch, that flame feels hot) judgements are quite valid but our value judgements, that’s something else. “Let the non-sinner caste the first stone”. Our judgements, righteous as they always are, are also so predictable; when we’re condemning others we’re not utilising our time and energy to the max. Instead we’re getting our rocks off . We aren’t engaged in optimistic pursuit, looking for ways to raise awareness.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Absurd-isms
Veganism speaks like no other ‘ism’ because it outlines a structure for a future civilisation, no less! And who couldn’t be interested in that? There are many huge problems blocking our progress, pessimism for one. Pessimism seems to be associated with loss. At the very prospect of a no-touch-animal policy who wouldn’t feel uneasy? (Well, vegans wouldn’t actually!). Who wouldn’t feel uneasy at the loss of privileges if they gave up animal products? But we have to weigh that unease against a reason for optimism - in this single (vegan) idea not only are animals liberated but for us there’s a new hope, a new ‘reason to be’ and a chance for a future civilisation.
People love looking into the future. If we see good things are going to happen, that’s optimistic; conversely, the doom-sayers have their pessimism to keep them company. It’s all about how we imagine the future. A weak imagination calls for pessimism, seeing veganism for instance as a loss of human privileges and modern-day comforts. Or it’s passed off as masochism. For our pessimistic, omnivore friends the idea of dropping animal products is depressing and veganism is threatening.
But are vegans really a threat with their plant-based eating? Is the abolition of animal slavery and an egalitarian treatment of animals absurd? If so, why?
People love looking into the future. If we see good things are going to happen, that’s optimistic; conversely, the doom-sayers have their pessimism to keep them company. It’s all about how we imagine the future. A weak imagination calls for pessimism, seeing veganism for instance as a loss of human privileges and modern-day comforts. Or it’s passed off as masochism. For our pessimistic, omnivore friends the idea of dropping animal products is depressing and veganism is threatening.
But are vegans really a threat with their plant-based eating? Is the abolition of animal slavery and an egalitarian treatment of animals absurd? If so, why?
Monday, November 15, 2010
More escape
Escaping convention is contingent upon knowing more about vegan principle, as opposed to merely eating more vegan food. Being vegan lifts us out of the pit by taking us closer to a more natural, freer state of mind. It has other benefits too numerous to mention, but it isn’t only about slimming and health and food but about appreciating what we didn’t appreciate before. Namely the beauty of innocence. Namely the innocence of the most beautiful things we know, animals. (Sorry kids, you’re beautiful too but not as innocent as the creatures and especially, here in the West, not as oppressed).
In our own minds we aren’t innocent like animals because we’re always attending to selfish needs at the expense of others’ needs. Humans want so much more than other predators of the predator world. Our appetites, addictions and insatiabilities ruin us. Wealthy humans (read Westerners) are wanting-humans. The pain of ‘wanting what we don’t need’ brings us to a desperation point which brings us to searching for escape.
The will is there but the flesh is weak. We are frustrated by a few warped perceptions concerning right and wrong. All very confusing. If this confusion is the ‘pit’ we’re trapped in, that is taken full advantage of by vested interests. We are so enslaved (by them) that we’ve become subservient (to them) - “why bother, when things are so far out of my control”. The question for most people is surely whether one should put up with it or attempt to flee from it?
The pit is merely the state of mind which makes a Goliath out of what we see, and causes us to believe that ‘it’ is too big to do anything about.
As soon as you go vegan you start the upward climb out of the pit. It might be a long climb but the feeling of starting is exhilarating.
Inevitably conditions apply - it’s a matter of facing certain facts; facing habits connected to selfish ‘wantings’ and attempting to drop them. Especially the most insidious, connected with the animal-base.
Here at the heart of vegan principle is a revolutionary set of values, which look simple at first - just a diet (something to slim by). But then it takes on another dimension, more than just food. It broadens out into a non-violent approach to life ... and taken to its logical conclusion it becomes a “no-touch-animal” approach. It implies that humans are not to be trusted around animals, not the ‘food animals’ anyway. Like paedophiles near children animal-eaters shouldn’t be left near animals - “Beware of humans, they’ll eat your babies”.
Once things are seen from the animal’s point of view the whole subject lightens up. Then we can face up to our relationship with the ‘voiceless’, and move on towards a truly symbiotic, mutually-respecting relationship with them. How happy would that make you?
In our own minds we aren’t innocent like animals because we’re always attending to selfish needs at the expense of others’ needs. Humans want so much more than other predators of the predator world. Our appetites, addictions and insatiabilities ruin us. Wealthy humans (read Westerners) are wanting-humans. The pain of ‘wanting what we don’t need’ brings us to a desperation point which brings us to searching for escape.
The will is there but the flesh is weak. We are frustrated by a few warped perceptions concerning right and wrong. All very confusing. If this confusion is the ‘pit’ we’re trapped in, that is taken full advantage of by vested interests. We are so enslaved (by them) that we’ve become subservient (to them) - “why bother, when things are so far out of my control”. The question for most people is surely whether one should put up with it or attempt to flee from it?
The pit is merely the state of mind which makes a Goliath out of what we see, and causes us to believe that ‘it’ is too big to do anything about.
As soon as you go vegan you start the upward climb out of the pit. It might be a long climb but the feeling of starting is exhilarating.
Inevitably conditions apply - it’s a matter of facing certain facts; facing habits connected to selfish ‘wantings’ and attempting to drop them. Especially the most insidious, connected with the animal-base.
Here at the heart of vegan principle is a revolutionary set of values, which look simple at first - just a diet (something to slim by). But then it takes on another dimension, more than just food. It broadens out into a non-violent approach to life ... and taken to its logical conclusion it becomes a “no-touch-animal” approach. It implies that humans are not to be trusted around animals, not the ‘food animals’ anyway. Like paedophiles near children animal-eaters shouldn’t be left near animals - “Beware of humans, they’ll eat your babies”.
Once things are seen from the animal’s point of view the whole subject lightens up. Then we can face up to our relationship with the ‘voiceless’, and move on towards a truly symbiotic, mutually-respecting relationship with them. How happy would that make you?
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Escape
Sunday 14th November 2010
Are vegans up to being useful, practical agents of assistance? If so, focussing on omnivores is a must, sans judgement.
First, we vegans should see our own ‘vegan-ism’ more broadly. It isn’t only about selfish concerns or about health or salving the conscience, it’s about seeing the connection between our food choices and escaping the ‘pit’.
The pit is escapable but most people don’t believe it is. And certainly it hasn’t occurred to them that by merely changing something as mundane as our food regime that anything good will happen, in that direction. Instead they believe what they see - all about them there is such a vast breakdown of values that all is hopeless.
What’s this got to do with food?
The pit, our human condition, seems dangerous and inescapable. This, vegans say, it’s all tied up with our addiction to things and their connection to the weakening of certain important values. Not being able to imagine life without animal products means animals will be exploited to provide what we think we can’t do without. This ties omnivores to one of society’s main systems of exploitation.
As advocates of animal rights it’s difficult to get that one across, because most people haven’t yet seriously considered thinking-about-animals’-feelings. They haven’t got past the supposition that veganism is a church of horrible disciplines. They can’t contemplate the prospect of a plant-based food regime. They’re influenced by our image as ‘lettuce-eaters’. They dig their heels in. “No way. Vegan, never!”
If they looked a bit closer they might see that veganism is our ticket to escaping ‘the pit’. Veganism may be pointing towards a spectacular future. But to entertain that possibility one would first have to overturn one’s present mind-sets.
Today we all have a fuzzy image of how things could be. Perhaps the ‘bigger picture’ is a lens through which we see how much life-doubt we have. Our own idea of the bigger picture might be one thing or the other, involving either a blurred image or a clear one - of how humans could be.
From one simple idea (the principle on which veganism is based) comes a picture of a world without a dominant and destructive human race causing havoc. This is a world embodied by the principle of innocence, not the naive childish sort but the innocence enjoyed by the not-guilty or the less guilty.
Those who value their own innate innocence have a better chance to balance the two driving forces of life, the pushing-forward and the holding-back. In slushy terms we might call this ‘the power of love’. More objectively we might see it as the balancing of energy and innocence. But however we think of it, these two forces in tandem seems to run the whole show, here on Earth. They fuel everything (and apparently, according to veteran space travellers, everything throughout the entire universe). They fuel ‘life’ by way of that unique, self-perpetuating impulse - the phenomenon of energy which is produced without any particular discipline or practice or stimulus other than spending-it-to-get-it-back. It’s forged in attitude. In just that, coloured by respect and gratitude for what we have, we have some semblance of contentment, a veritable furnace of energy. And with that, so it seems, we can hold back any inundation of wanting. It’s all in the state of mind. We would neither be wanting more nor contemplating using a heavy hand to grab at it. If this un-wanting is the “great force” on which the universe runs, then surely we’d want to be part of it. Any clue to it (outside the slushy and sentimental love-based philosophies), anything that could relieve the mayhem of our human society, might be worth following?
If omnivores can ever take veganism seriously, they’ll first have to question their own attitude to “self denial” (that’s what it feels like, giving up all sorts of familiar animal stuff). That self-denial has to be weighed against whether it’s worth going without things.
Let’s see what we have - we have lots of stuff and a passport to use violence to get it. This is the pit and dropping all of that is the act of escaping the pit.
Whether we’re vegan or not, we’re all still in prison, albeit an escapable one. Vegans need to remind themselves, and others, that escape is only a possibility if we are prepared to work hard on unravelling our attitudes. Are we prepared to see escaping as a major-major project in our lives?
There are other great projects, like raising children and contributing a sense of security to others, but if we aren’t escaping the pit it’s just an improvement of prison conditions. If escaping can become a significant focus, then there’s a whole new happiness in store for us. By adding this dimension to our life, we escape prison life.
Are vegans up to being useful, practical agents of assistance? If so, focussing on omnivores is a must, sans judgement.
First, we vegans should see our own ‘vegan-ism’ more broadly. It isn’t only about selfish concerns or about health or salving the conscience, it’s about seeing the connection between our food choices and escaping the ‘pit’.
The pit is escapable but most people don’t believe it is. And certainly it hasn’t occurred to them that by merely changing something as mundane as our food regime that anything good will happen, in that direction. Instead they believe what they see - all about them there is such a vast breakdown of values that all is hopeless.
What’s this got to do with food?
The pit, our human condition, seems dangerous and inescapable. This, vegans say, it’s all tied up with our addiction to things and their connection to the weakening of certain important values. Not being able to imagine life without animal products means animals will be exploited to provide what we think we can’t do without. This ties omnivores to one of society’s main systems of exploitation.
As advocates of animal rights it’s difficult to get that one across, because most people haven’t yet seriously considered thinking-about-animals’-feelings. They haven’t got past the supposition that veganism is a church of horrible disciplines. They can’t contemplate the prospect of a plant-based food regime. They’re influenced by our image as ‘lettuce-eaters’. They dig their heels in. “No way. Vegan, never!”
If they looked a bit closer they might see that veganism is our ticket to escaping ‘the pit’. Veganism may be pointing towards a spectacular future. But to entertain that possibility one would first have to overturn one’s present mind-sets.
Today we all have a fuzzy image of how things could be. Perhaps the ‘bigger picture’ is a lens through which we see how much life-doubt we have. Our own idea of the bigger picture might be one thing or the other, involving either a blurred image or a clear one - of how humans could be.
From one simple idea (the principle on which veganism is based) comes a picture of a world without a dominant and destructive human race causing havoc. This is a world embodied by the principle of innocence, not the naive childish sort but the innocence enjoyed by the not-guilty or the less guilty.
Those who value their own innate innocence have a better chance to balance the two driving forces of life, the pushing-forward and the holding-back. In slushy terms we might call this ‘the power of love’. More objectively we might see it as the balancing of energy and innocence. But however we think of it, these two forces in tandem seems to run the whole show, here on Earth. They fuel everything (and apparently, according to veteran space travellers, everything throughout the entire universe). They fuel ‘life’ by way of that unique, self-perpetuating impulse - the phenomenon of energy which is produced without any particular discipline or practice or stimulus other than spending-it-to-get-it-back. It’s forged in attitude. In just that, coloured by respect and gratitude for what we have, we have some semblance of contentment, a veritable furnace of energy. And with that, so it seems, we can hold back any inundation of wanting. It’s all in the state of mind. We would neither be wanting more nor contemplating using a heavy hand to grab at it. If this un-wanting is the “great force” on which the universe runs, then surely we’d want to be part of it. Any clue to it (outside the slushy and sentimental love-based philosophies), anything that could relieve the mayhem of our human society, might be worth following?
If omnivores can ever take veganism seriously, they’ll first have to question their own attitude to “self denial” (that’s what it feels like, giving up all sorts of familiar animal stuff). That self-denial has to be weighed against whether it’s worth going without things.
Let’s see what we have - we have lots of stuff and a passport to use violence to get it. This is the pit and dropping all of that is the act of escaping the pit.
Whether we’re vegan or not, we’re all still in prison, albeit an escapable one. Vegans need to remind themselves, and others, that escape is only a possibility if we are prepared to work hard on unravelling our attitudes. Are we prepared to see escaping as a major-major project in our lives?
There are other great projects, like raising children and contributing a sense of security to others, but if we aren’t escaping the pit it’s just an improvement of prison conditions. If escaping can become a significant focus, then there’s a whole new happiness in store for us. By adding this dimension to our life, we escape prison life.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Getting to know the animals, as people
Omnivores are ‘majority-thinkers’, are limited to thinking within the square, the same square most others think in. Do they feel a ripple of something outside the square? Can they contemplate having empathy with enslaved animal?
Possibly not, because if they did a thousand products would fall off the edge of their shopping list. That’s why veganism is difficult ... to think about.
To contemplate it is to ask if one would have discipline enough to do it, and hold to it, out of empathetic duty. Is our empathy strong enough to drop routine food items from our day? Permanently? Is it strong enough to overthrow a whole system of thinking and consuming, that plays such a large part in our lives?
Probably most omnivores think it best NOT to go down that road in the first place. By opening this one door we let in a flood. We say to ourselves “it’s best not to know”. We pretend not to notice what is on the ingredients list, on products. We pretend not to know the latest husbandry methods on farms.
If it’s conscience-comfort we’re after, our number one aim could very well be to avoid all contact with vegans and animal rights advocates.
To keep those potential flood gates shut we must stay ‘unsure’ or ‘unknowing’. The more we hear horrible stories of caging or confining animals, the harder it is to ignore them. Then we can hit the bigger problem of our becoming a serial forgetter or doubter or a ‘not-knower’. That saps one’s confidence. It exposes omnivores to no-think and all the horrors of zombyism ... which is, after all, what vegans are there to help with.
Possibly not, because if they did a thousand products would fall off the edge of their shopping list. That’s why veganism is difficult ... to think about.
To contemplate it is to ask if one would have discipline enough to do it, and hold to it, out of empathetic duty. Is our empathy strong enough to drop routine food items from our day? Permanently? Is it strong enough to overthrow a whole system of thinking and consuming, that plays such a large part in our lives?
Probably most omnivores think it best NOT to go down that road in the first place. By opening this one door we let in a flood. We say to ourselves “it’s best not to know”. We pretend not to notice what is on the ingredients list, on products. We pretend not to know the latest husbandry methods on farms.
If it’s conscience-comfort we’re after, our number one aim could very well be to avoid all contact with vegans and animal rights advocates.
To keep those potential flood gates shut we must stay ‘unsure’ or ‘unknowing’. The more we hear horrible stories of caging or confining animals, the harder it is to ignore them. Then we can hit the bigger problem of our becoming a serial forgetter or doubter or a ‘not-knower’. That saps one’s confidence. It exposes omnivores to no-think and all the horrors of zombyism ... which is, after all, what vegans are there to help with.
Conscience
Friday 12th November 2010
By staying well away from the grubby world of animal products, vegans can better keep in touch with their own innate innocence. As kids we had it, admittedly without much life experience or freedom-to-pursue, but as adults we can regain it. Now, as ‘olds’, we have the freedom to play with and explore conscience. To some extent we have, by our twenties, had some experience of human society and the general lack of conscience. If we ‘go vegan’ we get back fundamental rights and wrongs, and in the tussle of conscience regain a fighting spirit we may have had as kids. By rebelling against the status quo we are restarting that neglected engine of ethical conscience. We can fight-back ... but, with adult confidence and maybe a touch of wisdom. By adulthood we rather need to know that our conscience is the friendliest organ in the body.
Conscience is there for our own welfare, serving the purpose of making us into nicer bastards than the other bastards (for bastards we are, as humans. We’re not nice. We’re not nice at all.) Do we have the capacity to be better? Not so bastard-ish? That’s my point here.
Vegans are not exempt from trashing both planet and their relationships, just as carnivores do. Vegans aren’t necessarily nicer people than carnivores but veganism gives us the opportunity to be so. Vegans travel a bit lighter on their feet. We aren’t wearing such leaden boots. We tread more softly. And in that way escape and, hopefully, incite others to, too.
In a nutshell we’re “doing ourselves a favour”.
By staying well away from the grubby world of animal products, vegans can better keep in touch with their own innate innocence. As kids we had it, admittedly without much life experience or freedom-to-pursue, but as adults we can regain it. Now, as ‘olds’, we have the freedom to play with and explore conscience. To some extent we have, by our twenties, had some experience of human society and the general lack of conscience. If we ‘go vegan’ we get back fundamental rights and wrongs, and in the tussle of conscience regain a fighting spirit we may have had as kids. By rebelling against the status quo we are restarting that neglected engine of ethical conscience. We can fight-back ... but, with adult confidence and maybe a touch of wisdom. By adulthood we rather need to know that our conscience is the friendliest organ in the body.
Conscience is there for our own welfare, serving the purpose of making us into nicer bastards than the other bastards (for bastards we are, as humans. We’re not nice. We’re not nice at all.) Do we have the capacity to be better? Not so bastard-ish? That’s my point here.
Vegans are not exempt from trashing both planet and their relationships, just as carnivores do. Vegans aren’t necessarily nicer people than carnivores but veganism gives us the opportunity to be so. Vegans travel a bit lighter on their feet. We aren’t wearing such leaden boots. We tread more softly. And in that way escape and, hopefully, incite others to, too.
In a nutshell we’re “doing ourselves a favour”.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Doing without
For everyone, life’s hard enough but for vegans it’s harder, in one important way. We seem to bear almost the sole responsibility for persuading people of the wrongness of enslaving animals and the rightness of not using them at all. On one level that’s enlightening but on another it’s a nightmare, a pit within a pit. We have to deal with our own everyday-participations (in this society) but we're forced to lead a double life, being in it but not of it. We’re outsiders leading an almost schizophrenic existence. But at least we don’t have the food baggage most people carry, which eventually represents itself as extra bodyweight and ill health.
The omnivore’s mental conditioning traps them into habits which are perhaps reminders of childhood habits that are being maintained into adulthood. The most dangerous of these is our fondness for Nursery Teas. We like to use certain combinations of these (addictive) products from childhood, in the form of sweetened confections, cheesey concoctions and milky drinks, because they’re tempting and they do predictable things to our immediate mood. But they’ve lost their original impact as treats because they’re indulged in several times a day, every day. The habits of childish indulgence are joined by their big brother, the expensive centrepieces of our main meal plates, the primary (meat) foods. As dangerous as these food habits are their twin, in terms of expense and body damage, are on a par - the intoxicants, which are probably used to fuzz the conscience, in order to enjoy the eating experience more.
Animal foods (and ingredients) make for tasting-pleasure and stomach-filling satisfaction. They give us a ‘rich’ feeling. They appeal to the extremes of ‘yin’ and ‘yang’, but they always ultimately impoverish. The addictiveness of these foods seem to deny us any chance of escape - because of them we seem to be umbilically held captive to the norms of our society.
Veganism takes us past that point. Usually we never look back to that world but look ahead to a world of slight daily discipline (boycotting). I say ‘slight’ because that’s how it seems to someone who does it and finds it (weirdly) easier-than-expected. The self discipline isn’t insignificant, make no mistake, but it’s made so much easier by realising the extent of our society’s weakness for oral pick-me-ups. And that becomes, as we get older, more determined. Our lives are redolent of “little habits”. To release them becomes harder and harder, especially when the alternatives seem uglier (veganism appears especially extreme and ugly). Perhaps that’s when the Big Lesson should take place, when we realise just how powerful perceptions and preconceptions can be. Veganism alters all of that in a flash. And how!
But “going vegan” isn’t quite that simple. Immediately when the brain tells us to “give it a go” we face a Catch 22, a paradox. Herbivore eating means a limited choice. In 2010 societies and markets are so heavily geared to the animal eaters’ interests that vegans have to make do without many convenient commodities. Just in that ‘limitation’ vegans lose one sort of energy - the boost we may get from any one of thousands of animal-based food products on the market. That’s their big selling point. By going vegan all of that product is off-limits. If they’re enjoyable at all then we, as vegans, don’t get to experience that. But out of this denial comes unexpected new energy we hadn’t realised we’d have access to.
That energy looks like the product of a self-disciplining. Again the weight of that each day seems ugly to the casual onlooker. It seems too ridiculously hard. But look at it this way: going vegan helps us pass certain shops. Nothing in a cake shop is clean of animal by-products ... so vegans don’t have any reason to go inside such a place, nor butchers nor McDonalds nor furriers. Then there are shops that sell some good stuff but reek of dead animal, like delicatessens, shoe shops, supermarkets and restaurants. People like me go into them but we shop quickly due to the horrible smells.
All this ‘doing-without’ might seem like a big sacrifice to omnivores but to vegans it’s a blessing in disguise. We can’t be tempted by the ‘delights’ of edible or wearable or useable animal products, so we can’t be tainted by them or, in the case of food items, made ill by them. And that’s the ultimate advantage. We don’t have to spend our latter years in the grip of ill-health, at least not from our previous years of indulging in second rate taste-trips.
The omnivore’s mental conditioning traps them into habits which are perhaps reminders of childhood habits that are being maintained into adulthood. The most dangerous of these is our fondness for Nursery Teas. We like to use certain combinations of these (addictive) products from childhood, in the form of sweetened confections, cheesey concoctions and milky drinks, because they’re tempting and they do predictable things to our immediate mood. But they’ve lost their original impact as treats because they’re indulged in several times a day, every day. The habits of childish indulgence are joined by their big brother, the expensive centrepieces of our main meal plates, the primary (meat) foods. As dangerous as these food habits are their twin, in terms of expense and body damage, are on a par - the intoxicants, which are probably used to fuzz the conscience, in order to enjoy the eating experience more.
Animal foods (and ingredients) make for tasting-pleasure and stomach-filling satisfaction. They give us a ‘rich’ feeling. They appeal to the extremes of ‘yin’ and ‘yang’, but they always ultimately impoverish. The addictiveness of these foods seem to deny us any chance of escape - because of them we seem to be umbilically held captive to the norms of our society.
Veganism takes us past that point. Usually we never look back to that world but look ahead to a world of slight daily discipline (boycotting). I say ‘slight’ because that’s how it seems to someone who does it and finds it (weirdly) easier-than-expected. The self discipline isn’t insignificant, make no mistake, but it’s made so much easier by realising the extent of our society’s weakness for oral pick-me-ups. And that becomes, as we get older, more determined. Our lives are redolent of “little habits”. To release them becomes harder and harder, especially when the alternatives seem uglier (veganism appears especially extreme and ugly). Perhaps that’s when the Big Lesson should take place, when we realise just how powerful perceptions and preconceptions can be. Veganism alters all of that in a flash. And how!
But “going vegan” isn’t quite that simple. Immediately when the brain tells us to “give it a go” we face a Catch 22, a paradox. Herbivore eating means a limited choice. In 2010 societies and markets are so heavily geared to the animal eaters’ interests that vegans have to make do without many convenient commodities. Just in that ‘limitation’ vegans lose one sort of energy - the boost we may get from any one of thousands of animal-based food products on the market. That’s their big selling point. By going vegan all of that product is off-limits. If they’re enjoyable at all then we, as vegans, don’t get to experience that. But out of this denial comes unexpected new energy we hadn’t realised we’d have access to.
That energy looks like the product of a self-disciplining. Again the weight of that each day seems ugly to the casual onlooker. It seems too ridiculously hard. But look at it this way: going vegan helps us pass certain shops. Nothing in a cake shop is clean of animal by-products ... so vegans don’t have any reason to go inside such a place, nor butchers nor McDonalds nor furriers. Then there are shops that sell some good stuff but reek of dead animal, like delicatessens, shoe shops, supermarkets and restaurants. People like me go into them but we shop quickly due to the horrible smells.
All this ‘doing-without’ might seem like a big sacrifice to omnivores but to vegans it’s a blessing in disguise. We can’t be tempted by the ‘delights’ of edible or wearable or useable animal products, so we can’t be tainted by them or, in the case of food items, made ill by them. And that’s the ultimate advantage. We don’t have to spend our latter years in the grip of ill-health, at least not from our previous years of indulging in second rate taste-trips.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Imprisoned in ‘the pit’
As humans we’re subject to the human condition, a pit of cruelty and waste which most people accept because they don’t think they’ll ever get out of it. As vegans we’re almost-but-not-quite trapped in ‘the pit’.
The first step we took, when we disassociated from Society’s routine waste and cruelty, when becoming vegan, was to leave behind a whole lot of nonsense-thinking. Food-wise, clothing-wise, attitude-wise, all of that change we made (when becoming vegan) relieved a lot of the pressure of prison-living; life in the pit was that much less claustrophobic. We understood that escape was possible, and that let us realise the importance of helping others to escape the human conditioning brought on by being in an imprisoned state.
I’m bound to say a vegan diet solves many problems all at once. It’s good for the health of body and mind, obviously, but it builds other strengths too, not the least of which is becoming less self-obsessed, even more altruistic. Working for the animals’ benefit and not just our own has an efficacious effect on just about everything we do. It’s certainly good for our ‘mental condition’, by steering us away from crap-foods. And that’s such a useful start to our escape - our cutting out the addiction to various ‘foods’ helps with the worst aspects of our oppressive society.
If we must live in the ‘pit’ (and most us do), it’s knowing we get ‘out’ that makes being there less onerous. The escape ticket is in the food we eat maybe, but mainly it’s the altruistic context of everything we do; by being around for others. But we can only do that because we know we aren’t personally hooked on the food junk. We avoid hundreds of available animal products and perhaps thousands of eating items which use animal products to make them more appetising. By NOT boycotting and consequently NOT avoiding these commodities we are slaves to them. They play such a big part in the omnivore’s life.
Our vegan habits largely protect us from the commercial food industry simply by our avoiding hundreds of consumer items. Boycotting is the act of escaping. And if some can do it then all can do it.
The first step we took, when we disassociated from Society’s routine waste and cruelty, when becoming vegan, was to leave behind a whole lot of nonsense-thinking. Food-wise, clothing-wise, attitude-wise, all of that change we made (when becoming vegan) relieved a lot of the pressure of prison-living; life in the pit was that much less claustrophobic. We understood that escape was possible, and that let us realise the importance of helping others to escape the human conditioning brought on by being in an imprisoned state.
I’m bound to say a vegan diet solves many problems all at once. It’s good for the health of body and mind, obviously, but it builds other strengths too, not the least of which is becoming less self-obsessed, even more altruistic. Working for the animals’ benefit and not just our own has an efficacious effect on just about everything we do. It’s certainly good for our ‘mental condition’, by steering us away from crap-foods. And that’s such a useful start to our escape - our cutting out the addiction to various ‘foods’ helps with the worst aspects of our oppressive society.
If we must live in the ‘pit’ (and most us do), it’s knowing we get ‘out’ that makes being there less onerous. The escape ticket is in the food we eat maybe, but mainly it’s the altruistic context of everything we do; by being around for others. But we can only do that because we know we aren’t personally hooked on the food junk. We avoid hundreds of available animal products and perhaps thousands of eating items which use animal products to make them more appetising. By NOT boycotting and consequently NOT avoiding these commodities we are slaves to them. They play such a big part in the omnivore’s life.
Our vegan habits largely protect us from the commercial food industry simply by our avoiding hundreds of consumer items. Boycotting is the act of escaping. And if some can do it then all can do it.
Waiting for the future to arrive
Tuesday 9th November 2010
As vegans we promote animal liberation. If we can get people to see the need for that we’ll have something to be optimistic about. However, let’s face it, presently things look gloomy. Pessimism reigns. It’s depressing to see how little future vision people have. It’s sad that we still live in a slum called ‘civilised society’. All we hear about is greed, violence and the rich getting richer, etc. That’s food for pessimism, but for vegans, the added difficulty is having to live as herbivores within an omnivore-world.
In the present world there’s routine cruelty to animals and that’s made benign by the products of the Animal Industries being so nicely wrapped and colourfully presented. The truth is neatly swept under the carpet and most people don’t suspect what is happening behind the scenes. For vegans that’s unbearable, especially since what we know is not wanted or needed by others who aren’t vegan. What we do know is to our own advantage, that’s for sure; if we’re all inmates in the human prison at least, on the up-side, vegans enjoy better conditions. But primarily, knowing what we know puts us in a position to be better able to help those who need it, both animal and human. Our shop is open all hours. Customers may come and go as they please. And we wait. Even wait in this little blogspot where we can get together. Even deep down (that’s the next blog).
As vegans we promote animal liberation. If we can get people to see the need for that we’ll have something to be optimistic about. However, let’s face it, presently things look gloomy. Pessimism reigns. It’s depressing to see how little future vision people have. It’s sad that we still live in a slum called ‘civilised society’. All we hear about is greed, violence and the rich getting richer, etc. That’s food for pessimism, but for vegans, the added difficulty is having to live as herbivores within an omnivore-world.
In the present world there’s routine cruelty to animals and that’s made benign by the products of the Animal Industries being so nicely wrapped and colourfully presented. The truth is neatly swept under the carpet and most people don’t suspect what is happening behind the scenes. For vegans that’s unbearable, especially since what we know is not wanted or needed by others who aren’t vegan. What we do know is to our own advantage, that’s for sure; if we’re all inmates in the human prison at least, on the up-side, vegans enjoy better conditions. But primarily, knowing what we know puts us in a position to be better able to help those who need it, both animal and human. Our shop is open all hours. Customers may come and go as they please. And we wait. Even wait in this little blogspot where we can get together. Even deep down (that’s the next blog).
Monday, November 8, 2010
What’s the purpose of a vegan?
Vegans, who are they? For the time being, in practical terms, no one’s too worried who we are. Little notice is taken of vegans, Parents probably tell the kids not to be scared of us since we’re so few in number. They may never even come across one.
Our profile is low because over the years our performance has been weak (or too ‘pushy’). It’s obvious, when we try to explain “everything” in a few sentences and get agitated because we can’t, that we neither pose any threat nor exert any influence on fashion. Who’s afraid of a big bad vegan? ... unless we’re frightened in that creepy way, when someone’s watching you in the dark.
I think that’s how things are today. But tomorrow, who knows? With a more heightened awareness of health issues, environmental concerns and poverty, there’s going to be change. At least in consciousness.
If any issues do become goers, they may not spring from a heightened sense of responsibility but from something more earthy. Perhaps a wish to take more control of our own life. And perhaps that will have sprung from indignation and a determination not to be manipulated.
By stopping letting ‘them’ make suckers of us, by NOT being pushed around by commercial interests, we take a brave stand. (‘Brave’ because it may get lonely during these early days).
Eventually we should arrive with more conscious and eventually vegan consciousness. But this whole process of ‘awakening’ isn’t just a change of daily habits. Our ‘going’-vegan isn’t just a change of diet or shoes or action, it’s a whole new approach - along the lines of seeing how life could so easily become. At present vegans should attempt to exemplify that ... and holding that thought ....
... This is where one predicts a world that is devoid of inappropriate anger, people-hating, value judging and, most of all, no overtly- or covertly-threatening-behaviour. That prediction, maybe wishful thinking, is both a more intelligent approach to life and a more enjoyable experience. If we can, in a nutshell, ignore “the white goods” and go for simpler things, then the most interesting and pleasurable discoveries will be made. Probably at first in the unravelling of knotty problems. And therefore one can arrive at the central reason why humans are here. And why we’re significantly different from ANY other life form.
There, if it can ever be solved, is the riddle of our reason to be (here), alongside trees and cats. Understanding (approximately) our raison d’être (as 21st century humans), this adds a certain extra dimension to the human species and allows us special focus to follow our purpose.
Our profile is low because over the years our performance has been weak (or too ‘pushy’). It’s obvious, when we try to explain “everything” in a few sentences and get agitated because we can’t, that we neither pose any threat nor exert any influence on fashion. Who’s afraid of a big bad vegan? ... unless we’re frightened in that creepy way, when someone’s watching you in the dark.
I think that’s how things are today. But tomorrow, who knows? With a more heightened awareness of health issues, environmental concerns and poverty, there’s going to be change. At least in consciousness.
If any issues do become goers, they may not spring from a heightened sense of responsibility but from something more earthy. Perhaps a wish to take more control of our own life. And perhaps that will have sprung from indignation and a determination not to be manipulated.
By stopping letting ‘them’ make suckers of us, by NOT being pushed around by commercial interests, we take a brave stand. (‘Brave’ because it may get lonely during these early days).
Eventually we should arrive with more conscious and eventually vegan consciousness. But this whole process of ‘awakening’ isn’t just a change of daily habits. Our ‘going’-vegan isn’t just a change of diet or shoes or action, it’s a whole new approach - along the lines of seeing how life could so easily become. At present vegans should attempt to exemplify that ... and holding that thought ....
... This is where one predicts a world that is devoid of inappropriate anger, people-hating, value judging and, most of all, no overtly- or covertly-threatening-behaviour. That prediction, maybe wishful thinking, is both a more intelligent approach to life and a more enjoyable experience. If we can, in a nutshell, ignore “the white goods” and go for simpler things, then the most interesting and pleasurable discoveries will be made. Probably at first in the unravelling of knotty problems. And therefore one can arrive at the central reason why humans are here. And why we’re significantly different from ANY other life form.
There, if it can ever be solved, is the riddle of our reason to be (here), alongside trees and cats. Understanding (approximately) our raison d’être (as 21st century humans), this adds a certain extra dimension to the human species and allows us special focus to follow our purpose.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Do yourself a favour
We vegans could seem like a threat to people’s peace of mind, but since at the moment vegans are in such small numbers we’re still very ignore-able. (In most countries veganism is hardly known about at all). Here in Australia it’s rarely mentioned in the media and for most people the whole idea of animals having rights is a completely foreign if not laughable idea. Gradually things may change, who knows? At present though the general attitude towards veganism is either to find it incomprehensible or a vague threat to one’s own lifestyle. Possibly it’s even a subject that’s dangerous for impressionable young minds.
Any threat vegans pose isn’t physical of course but we can be somehow disturbing all the same, because we touch on everything all at once; if we do make an impact we make it deeply. For example, we argue that animal slavery can be related to just about everything that’s going wrong today, illness, global warming, world starvation and many other central issues. We show how humans are being destructive and selfish for being-as-they-are. We compound this by collaborating, by remaining omnivorous.
The central question is about whether humans are nice or nasty, and whether being nasty can be justified.
We live the way we do today in laboratory conditions of our own making. We’re almost desperate to find out if we are worth saving. Yes, we’re ashamed but does that mean we, despite our brilliant discoveries, have gone too far? Have we destroyed too much to be spared?
Da-daah … “Ladies and Gentlemen. We are presenting tonight … “. Vegans are presenting principle. An answer to the world’s problems. Its neatness is its incontrovertibility. We humbly present the panacea for our age ... hardly a reason for people being so hostile towards it?
Compassion theory is obviously making its mark. We care about things we didn’t care much about fifty years ago. We care for trees and threatened species. We care about the planet. We care about taking children’s views more seriously, we show concern for worlds outside our own world when they’re in trouble. But ‘compassion’ (heart-intelligence) isn’t always recognised gladly. For some it poses an obvious threat to the status quo. For instance, the herbivore is a threat to the meat eater, and when we accuse omnivores for their lack of compassion we make easy enemies.
Our impact on people (just one look, one ‘humph’, says it all) makes it easy to dislike vegans, and to dislike them seems a prerequisite for dismissing them and therefore their criticisms of omnivores … who, understandably, hate being put on the spot. They don’t like being forced to react in a hostile way, to protect their dignity. Therefore vegans should guard against causing them to feel bad about themselves - indignant people don’t have to listen, which means they’ll probably never learn from us, and that would be sad to say the least.
Any threat vegans pose isn’t physical of course but we can be somehow disturbing all the same, because we touch on everything all at once; if we do make an impact we make it deeply. For example, we argue that animal slavery can be related to just about everything that’s going wrong today, illness, global warming, world starvation and many other central issues. We show how humans are being destructive and selfish for being-as-they-are. We compound this by collaborating, by remaining omnivorous.
The central question is about whether humans are nice or nasty, and whether being nasty can be justified.
We live the way we do today in laboratory conditions of our own making. We’re almost desperate to find out if we are worth saving. Yes, we’re ashamed but does that mean we, despite our brilliant discoveries, have gone too far? Have we destroyed too much to be spared?
Da-daah … “Ladies and Gentlemen. We are presenting tonight … “. Vegans are presenting principle. An answer to the world’s problems. Its neatness is its incontrovertibility. We humbly present the panacea for our age ... hardly a reason for people being so hostile towards it?
Compassion theory is obviously making its mark. We care about things we didn’t care much about fifty years ago. We care for trees and threatened species. We care about the planet. We care about taking children’s views more seriously, we show concern for worlds outside our own world when they’re in trouble. But ‘compassion’ (heart-intelligence) isn’t always recognised gladly. For some it poses an obvious threat to the status quo. For instance, the herbivore is a threat to the meat eater, and when we accuse omnivores for their lack of compassion we make easy enemies.
Our impact on people (just one look, one ‘humph’, says it all) makes it easy to dislike vegans, and to dislike them seems a prerequisite for dismissing them and therefore their criticisms of omnivores … who, understandably, hate being put on the spot. They don’t like being forced to react in a hostile way, to protect their dignity. Therefore vegans should guard against causing them to feel bad about themselves - indignant people don’t have to listen, which means they’ll probably never learn from us, and that would be sad to say the least.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
On the subject of Animal Rights ...
This subject causes indignation and embarrassment to most omnivores. They don’t like responding to it. But some do. They even turn vegan. Some, who’ve been vegan a while, try to start a revolution with it and others don’t go quite that far. This subject, rejected or embraced, is quite hot. It stirs something.
Excluding very few ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of us have, at some stage, been omnivores. We can’t get too high and mighty about our present views because, once upon a time, we each had our own ‘good reasons’ for resisting ‘compassionate arguments’. We were condoners of the exploiters and we practised animal-eating.
Then, one day, something happens and we make a move, leaving behind those for whom that same thing doesn’t happen. Even when these people know about animal exploitation they don’t take veganism seriously because they’re reluctant to turn into herbivores.
So the jump to herbivore, for whatever reason, is such a major departure that most people think those who jump are mad. But after 70 years of research it’s been proved safe. Since back then, at the start of veganism (which incidentally coincided with the start of factory farming), so much has been discovered, and yet there are still pitifully small numbers of vegans and still large numbers of executed-animals being consumed by a vast majority of people.
In reply to vegan arguments, most omnivores don’t, won’t or can’t agree with us. When vegans realise how reluctant people are we get frustrated. We lose patience. Our lack of patience shows and puts people off finding out what we’ve got to say. And that’s the tragedy. Our losing patience, losing faith in people. And that’s why we should be practising the art of patience, with the rigour of a track-athlete. Patience is a must because of the magnitude of what we’re attempting to pull off here.
In our Western societies, even in UK where there is a sizable vegan presence, we can see no BIG change in public attitude. (The papers aren’t supportive, the media in general is not making this into an ‘interesting subject’, teachers aren’t teaching it and priests aren’t preaching it). The concept of veganism, in combination with animal rights, is thoroughly ignored, even by the most educated and economically well-off people. That’s depressing ... but we can’t afford to get bitter or people-hating about it. Instead we need to enjoy acting constructively and persist with “what feels right to do”. Hold that thought.
Forecasting: it could go either way. There will either be a growth of violence in society or a growth of non-violence. It’s a big question. Optimists sticks to the latter prediction.
No one is actually welcoming greater violence in our society and yet we do give in to it. We accept that it “probably comes with the territory” - the big temptation is violence-produced food product. This is where most of our violence comes from, in condoning it and by being physically poisoned by it. It’s concealed in many ways but the food, the cruelty is kept from us as far as possible ... so our animal food doesn’t look violent because there’s nothing about it to indicate the suffering behind it. It’s hidden. There’s no recognition of the animal in the clean plastic trays of ex-sanguine-ated, headless, footless and de-gutted body-parts. There’s no reminder of the food’s real origin. The propaganda does the rest ... so, to omnivores this is just food and it looks a lot better than a vegan ‘rabbit diet’.
Animal-based food, for omnivores, is simply a sensory matter. It’s cuisine with no strings attached. For the average omnivore there’s nothing quite like meat, cheese and eggs and all their derivatives. Okay, there’s not much more you can say about food, but the other problem we have about this whole subject is how to discuss it, how not to taboo it.
Slowly the issues are emerging. Vegans are asking a few piercing questions. (So are vegetarians who are concerned about animal welfare, although it’s arguable that they have any right to speak on the animals’ behalf, since they have double standards - they still eat them or their deadly by-products).
The taboo surrounding animal-use protects people to some extent but the lingering question remains (and already haunts many animal-eaters) - how cold hearted have humans become? Can we help to support what they do to animals and can we continue to enjoy eating them?
Excluding very few ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of us have, at some stage, been omnivores. We can’t get too high and mighty about our present views because, once upon a time, we each had our own ‘good reasons’ for resisting ‘compassionate arguments’. We were condoners of the exploiters and we practised animal-eating.
Then, one day, something happens and we make a move, leaving behind those for whom that same thing doesn’t happen. Even when these people know about animal exploitation they don’t take veganism seriously because they’re reluctant to turn into herbivores.
So the jump to herbivore, for whatever reason, is such a major departure that most people think those who jump are mad. But after 70 years of research it’s been proved safe. Since back then, at the start of veganism (which incidentally coincided with the start of factory farming), so much has been discovered, and yet there are still pitifully small numbers of vegans and still large numbers of executed-animals being consumed by a vast majority of people.
In reply to vegan arguments, most omnivores don’t, won’t or can’t agree with us. When vegans realise how reluctant people are we get frustrated. We lose patience. Our lack of patience shows and puts people off finding out what we’ve got to say. And that’s the tragedy. Our losing patience, losing faith in people. And that’s why we should be practising the art of patience, with the rigour of a track-athlete. Patience is a must because of the magnitude of what we’re attempting to pull off here.
In our Western societies, even in UK where there is a sizable vegan presence, we can see no BIG change in public attitude. (The papers aren’t supportive, the media in general is not making this into an ‘interesting subject’, teachers aren’t teaching it and priests aren’t preaching it). The concept of veganism, in combination with animal rights, is thoroughly ignored, even by the most educated and economically well-off people. That’s depressing ... but we can’t afford to get bitter or people-hating about it. Instead we need to enjoy acting constructively and persist with “what feels right to do”. Hold that thought.
Forecasting: it could go either way. There will either be a growth of violence in society or a growth of non-violence. It’s a big question. Optimists sticks to the latter prediction.
No one is actually welcoming greater violence in our society and yet we do give in to it. We accept that it “probably comes with the territory” - the big temptation is violence-produced food product. This is where most of our violence comes from, in condoning it and by being physically poisoned by it. It’s concealed in many ways but the food, the cruelty is kept from us as far as possible ... so our animal food doesn’t look violent because there’s nothing about it to indicate the suffering behind it. It’s hidden. There’s no recognition of the animal in the clean plastic trays of ex-sanguine-ated, headless, footless and de-gutted body-parts. There’s no reminder of the food’s real origin. The propaganda does the rest ... so, to omnivores this is just food and it looks a lot better than a vegan ‘rabbit diet’.
Animal-based food, for omnivores, is simply a sensory matter. It’s cuisine with no strings attached. For the average omnivore there’s nothing quite like meat, cheese and eggs and all their derivatives. Okay, there’s not much more you can say about food, but the other problem we have about this whole subject is how to discuss it, how not to taboo it.
Slowly the issues are emerging. Vegans are asking a few piercing questions. (So are vegetarians who are concerned about animal welfare, although it’s arguable that they have any right to speak on the animals’ behalf, since they have double standards - they still eat them or their deadly by-products).
The taboo surrounding animal-use protects people to some extent but the lingering question remains (and already haunts many animal-eaters) - how cold hearted have humans become? Can we help to support what they do to animals and can we continue to enjoy eating them?
Friday, November 5, 2010
Initiating discussion
If we vegans insist on being Society’s judges we need to be prepared to weigh all arguments like a judge. We must even listen to the carnivore’s arguments in order to know precisely what they’re thinking, but mainly we listen out of respect for discussion.
By showing how we value the process of discussion our own arguments get a better chance of a hearing. Here, today, we have a free-willed society in which nothing that’s widely practised needs to be discussed, in which everyone can do what they like within the law. That of course means the killers can kill and consumers can consume, and the law protects us and doesn’t protect food animals. Nothing will change until, person by person, the subject is discussed, personal choices are made on principle and the market is reduced by way of consumer backlash and boycott ... when we each of us act for the greater good and not solely for our own comfort.
Those who already do act for the greater good, including vegans, will only be taken seriously if they seem genuine as people. The ‘greater good’ needs human identification - those who do it need to win respect. That respect helps to introduce arguments. Omnivores won’t give us the time of day if they see peace-loving people looking like fanatics. They want ‘educational’ not ‘judgemental’.
Personal identification with the messenger comes before being impressed by what they say. So, we have to stop finger-wagging to shake off our weirdness. Judging someone by dint of the food they’re eating can tell us a lot about them, but it’s not our prerogative to condemn or caste stones.
But “we’re protecting animals” we say. That’s true but not necessarily the whole truth. We might be protecting ourselves even more. We might want to be taken seriously so badly that we project the image of how we want to be seen, rather than how we are. Probably most of us want to be admired for making a stand. And that stand springs from our own desperate need to make progress on Animal Rights. If we don’t want to be seen as righteous we must give up our high moral ground when we speak. It might seems a contradiction to suggest that, but isn’t that why vegans aren’t given the chance to put their case?.
Vegans are trying to reach those who are so far away they can barely hear us, and maybe don’t want to anyway. They can’t face the food regime let alone face us in discussion.
Our righteousness, our healthy body, quick minds and clear conscience are our downfall - we can’t be faulted. Omnivores don’t necessarily disagree with our facts and figures but they find our ‘glow’ off-putting. We aren’t approachable. Indeed when we force our opinion on people we’re seen as invasive ... to put it mildly!
By showing how we value the process of discussion our own arguments get a better chance of a hearing. Here, today, we have a free-willed society in which nothing that’s widely practised needs to be discussed, in which everyone can do what they like within the law. That of course means the killers can kill and consumers can consume, and the law protects us and doesn’t protect food animals. Nothing will change until, person by person, the subject is discussed, personal choices are made on principle and the market is reduced by way of consumer backlash and boycott ... when we each of us act for the greater good and not solely for our own comfort.
Those who already do act for the greater good, including vegans, will only be taken seriously if they seem genuine as people. The ‘greater good’ needs human identification - those who do it need to win respect. That respect helps to introduce arguments. Omnivores won’t give us the time of day if they see peace-loving people looking like fanatics. They want ‘educational’ not ‘judgemental’.
Personal identification with the messenger comes before being impressed by what they say. So, we have to stop finger-wagging to shake off our weirdness. Judging someone by dint of the food they’re eating can tell us a lot about them, but it’s not our prerogative to condemn or caste stones.
But “we’re protecting animals” we say. That’s true but not necessarily the whole truth. We might be protecting ourselves even more. We might want to be taken seriously so badly that we project the image of how we want to be seen, rather than how we are. Probably most of us want to be admired for making a stand. And that stand springs from our own desperate need to make progress on Animal Rights. If we don’t want to be seen as righteous we must give up our high moral ground when we speak. It might seems a contradiction to suggest that, but isn’t that why vegans aren’t given the chance to put their case?.
Vegans are trying to reach those who are so far away they can barely hear us, and maybe don’t want to anyway. They can’t face the food regime let alone face us in discussion.
Our righteousness, our healthy body, quick minds and clear conscience are our downfall - we can’t be faulted. Omnivores don’t necessarily disagree with our facts and figures but they find our ‘glow’ off-putting. We aren’t approachable. Indeed when we force our opinion on people we’re seen as invasive ... to put it mildly!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Mild manners or going in for the kill
Whenever vegan ideas are introduced to omnivores, as soon as the vegan departs their ideas leave with them. Each vegan principe is forgettable back in the real world - what flew in now flies out. ‘Reluctant’ ideas don’t stick in that part of the brain or heart where inspiration is unforgettable. So, are we not inspiring people?
Society’s non-recognition of animal-rights makes forgetting easier for individuals. It’s determined by collective guilt, about this whole matter being a black mark on humanity. So, what is the ‘vegan message’ after all, if not an accusation. It’s uncomfortable. They strike back at vegans in the only way they can - by ignoring us. Then, in their minds, the whole thing gets twisted around - they become convinced vegans are just out for revenge. They want to embarrass people for eating ‘just ordinary food’. “We don’t have to listen to you. there are so many of us and so few of you”. Obviously there’s a reluctance to discuss things ... except maybe from the point of view of curiosity or even hedging one’s bets?
If the omnivore and the vegan are going to discuss matters there must be some semblance of an equal footing. Each side must have something substantial TO discuss, otherwise it turns into a rout. And that’s a no-discussion.
The vegan will fight as the ambassador for animals, judging the omnivore mistaken for eating them. The omnivores might judge the vegan for being judgemental and intrusive. Both valid positions to take. The omnivore has a right not to be judged and the vegan has a right to be taken seriously. Each position has potential and there’s great value pursuing each. But if we slip away from the general and into the personal we provide both obstacle to and opportunity for discussion - a push-me-pull-you situation where ‘discussion’ can’t move along because it’s stuck, and that sticking point must be dealt with first.
Both sides have their arguments. And whether they are good or bad ones is immaterial, as long as each side respects the right of the other to put their argument. (That means having to listen and not be so quick with commenting back).
Discussion on this subject can be stimulating. It doesn’t a
have to descend into abuse.
Society’s non-recognition of animal-rights makes forgetting easier for individuals. It’s determined by collective guilt, about this whole matter being a black mark on humanity. So, what is the ‘vegan message’ after all, if not an accusation. It’s uncomfortable. They strike back at vegans in the only way they can - by ignoring us. Then, in their minds, the whole thing gets twisted around - they become convinced vegans are just out for revenge. They want to embarrass people for eating ‘just ordinary food’. “We don’t have to listen to you. there are so many of us and so few of you”. Obviously there’s a reluctance to discuss things ... except maybe from the point of view of curiosity or even hedging one’s bets?
If the omnivore and the vegan are going to discuss matters there must be some semblance of an equal footing. Each side must have something substantial TO discuss, otherwise it turns into a rout. And that’s a no-discussion.
The vegan will fight as the ambassador for animals, judging the omnivore mistaken for eating them. The omnivores might judge the vegan for being judgemental and intrusive. Both valid positions to take. The omnivore has a right not to be judged and the vegan has a right to be taken seriously. Each position has potential and there’s great value pursuing each. But if we slip away from the general and into the personal we provide both obstacle to and opportunity for discussion - a push-me-pull-you situation where ‘discussion’ can’t move along because it’s stuck, and that sticking point must be dealt with first.
Both sides have their arguments. And whether they are good or bad ones is immaterial, as long as each side respects the right of the other to put their argument. (That means having to listen and not be so quick with commenting back).
Discussion on this subject can be stimulating. It doesn’t a
have to descend into abuse.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Veganism is forgettable
Coming on heavy about the need to be vegan has worked, with some. But I vouch many more are put off (even for life) by that approach. In short, vegans who ‘walk the shame and blame road’ waste their best chance to make an impact. We simply come across as being better-than-you. And since we follow form we are predictable. That’s the delivery end, but at the receiving end, when we’re caught out (saying something not thought through properly) we react aggressively. Which is when our fear pheromones are released, which inspires a king-hit judgement of us, in return ... and so it goes on. We blow it. And we blow it for activists all - unuseful. The aggro comes when we throw caution to the wind - willing to do anything, say anything, to make what we’re saying unforgettable. We blow it to get attention for our cause, and in doing so make fools of ourselves. All I’m saying is that crude approaches are easily dismissable.
I suppose the truth is that we are eminently forgettable. It’s like going to see a highly emotional love story at the movies and then forgetting it as soon as we hit the street, when we plunge back into reality. Every day we get used to being shocked. We enjoy being ‘wow’-ed. We go to the movies for just that. We let ourselves be inspired and carried into the movie, but we know it’s just an ephemeral story NOT a universal message. On that same level most people regard veganism. vaguely they know it’s about food and animals, that’s probably all they do know if they’re uninterested. But what they do know by instinct, is that humans don’t easily make changes to their own reality. And on another level we don’t think we have enough self discipline to change radically. And on yet another level, especially if you’re one of the older ones, you’ll admit that it’s “too late to change”.
I suppose the truth is that we are eminently forgettable. It’s like going to see a highly emotional love story at the movies and then forgetting it as soon as we hit the street, when we plunge back into reality. Every day we get used to being shocked. We enjoy being ‘wow’-ed. We go to the movies for just that. We let ourselves be inspired and carried into the movie, but we know it’s just an ephemeral story NOT a universal message. On that same level most people regard veganism. vaguely they know it’s about food and animals, that’s probably all they do know if they’re uninterested. But what they do know by instinct, is that humans don’t easily make changes to their own reality. And on another level we don’t think we have enough self discipline to change radically. And on yet another level, especially if you’re one of the older ones, you’ll admit that it’s “too late to change”.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Squirming at home
Meanwhile back at the ranch, in our kitchens or out doing the shopping, it’s food we’re mainly thinking about. ‘Food for the week’. Even if we’ve just been listening to ‘a very interesting talk on the radio with a vegan’, and been impressed by their arguments, even if we’re currently unhappy about our own eating habits ... Get real. Today is today and we’ve got enough to do without taking on this one too. (Going-vegan would be like adopting a stray dog!). Soon enough the omnivore (in us) pulls back to where we were before ... before hearing that radio program - back to the familiar, the comforts.
Whatever a vegan’s intention, to actually get others to agree is difficult because omnivores are addicted to their foods. But on another level there’s an equal difficulty - the hidden agenda, where we vegans like to show we are vegans. Which implies that we are better than them. If we do have a hidden agenda, if there’s a ‘hidden’ trait common to vegans, does it need weeding out? Perhaps I’m suggesting that no amount of bull-in-a-china-shop activism is necessarily going to be effective, not concerning this hyper-sensitive subject anyway. It is the BIG taboo-subject after all.
I hope we fail to win devotees. I hope we fail, if we try to secure a permanent habit change in even one reluctant omnivore. Vegan is not a dictatorship. The only person watching what we’re eating or using is ourselves (or, if we’re children, our parents). It signals the importance of our subject that it’s not easy come-easy go. We’re bound to be roundly ignored at first (and this is a very early stage we’re at in animal rights awareness). So, we’re ignored ... so then we push back harder, scream louder ...all to absolutely no effect! The weight of the collective consciousness is so phenomenal that no one fact or shameful image can stir the dragon of conscience, even in one individual if they themselves aren’t willing.
So how do we approach other people? How do we win them over when we’re NOT trying to convert them?
No glib one-liner will do to answer that very central question. Cynicism and suspicion abound for all new ideas and causes. The push for new members is promoted by every good cause in the world, and there are many of them. We are all trying to convince people – so far, veganism hasn’t yet taken on. Nor will it if we get a reputation for preaching, judging or evangelising.
Whatever a vegan’s intention, to actually get others to agree is difficult because omnivores are addicted to their foods. But on another level there’s an equal difficulty - the hidden agenda, where we vegans like to show we are vegans. Which implies that we are better than them. If we do have a hidden agenda, if there’s a ‘hidden’ trait common to vegans, does it need weeding out? Perhaps I’m suggesting that no amount of bull-in-a-china-shop activism is necessarily going to be effective, not concerning this hyper-sensitive subject anyway. It is the BIG taboo-subject after all.
I hope we fail to win devotees. I hope we fail, if we try to secure a permanent habit change in even one reluctant omnivore. Vegan is not a dictatorship. The only person watching what we’re eating or using is ourselves (or, if we’re children, our parents). It signals the importance of our subject that it’s not easy come-easy go. We’re bound to be roundly ignored at first (and this is a very early stage we’re at in animal rights awareness). So, we’re ignored ... so then we push back harder, scream louder ...all to absolutely no effect! The weight of the collective consciousness is so phenomenal that no one fact or shameful image can stir the dragon of conscience, even in one individual if they themselves aren’t willing.
So how do we approach other people? How do we win them over when we’re NOT trying to convert them?
No glib one-liner will do to answer that very central question. Cynicism and suspicion abound for all new ideas and causes. The push for new members is promoted by every good cause in the world, and there are many of them. We are all trying to convince people – so far, veganism hasn’t yet taken on. Nor will it if we get a reputation for preaching, judging or evangelising.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Make them squirm
This very confronting subject of ours causes embarrassment and worse. They see us looking at them, taking note of what’s on their plate (or what they’re wearing). How does that make them feel?
They may think they’d rather be vegan than have vegans judge them, but it’s unlikely. Apart from the very ill, who at the eleventh hour make desperate changes in lifestyle (in a bid to avoid death), people seldom change in such a radical way. Yes, they will make changes to save their health but rarely to save their souls.
The shock of a new awareness, of something as horrible as animal cruelty, of a connection between the cruelty and the support of it by the customer should be enough to jump start a radical change. But it doesn’t. That could turn out to be the most revealing and interesting characteristic of modern man. It could mean we don’t care about others any more. It may even mean we are self centred and self serving and too self involved.
Why we act altruistically in such a way (out of concern not just for humans but mainly out of concern for animals, out of concern that humans had stooped to such levels of base cruelty to stay in business) and in such a non-self-serving way indicates that vegans won’t lose hold of that concern. If we forget the animals they are indeed doomed. And we humans for dooming them.
It’s all to do with innocence, not quite the same as the innocence of children or of the animals themselves but an innocence revisited by the adult (perhaps keeping in touch with our childhood learning, about being kind). By becoming innocent of the unkindness done to animals, by boycotting animal foods, we can restore much of the guiltlessness of our youth. At the same time we help the plight of the animals. It doesn’t seem much, alone, ineffective, but it’s an essential start.
Once we’ve made that move, to act from concern then we’ll want our friends and family to realise their concerns. And when that doesn’t happen we ask why they don’t shock as easily as we do ourselves.
That’s the level we’re dealing with when we try to persuade, speed up the process, be impatient with the slowness of societal change. It probably dims the brain, so in frustration we read the riot act to people and they look on amazed.
They don’t see our agitation, vegan frustration, in the same way as we do. They see us simply trying to make them feel as uncomfortable as they do. Life is lettuce leaves and not much more, whereas life can be full of enjoyment … and that of course includes the enjoyment in eating a wide variety of animal-based foods. If vegans are living uncomfortably why do they want me to live as miserably as them? Vegans aren’t making me feel uncomfortable for the best, most positive reasons.
That’s the omnivore speaking. Now let’s listen to a vegan digging a little deeper into the truth – vegans know they can be on the nose, we know that and yet we do it all the same. We think we do it because we’re dedicated people but it may be that we are dependent on showing contempt when ever we see something we disagree with.
Be warned, you omnivores, that dedicated activists may trample your rose beds, grabbing any opportunity, gathering any evidence to make a case against omnivore habits. It’s as if we think the whole world ought to be on trial. So maybe think it but maybe don’t broadcast it. If omnivores get a whiff of crushed roses they’ll dig in their heels. Trampling doesn’t work simply because this is a world of perception and it’s primarily emotion driven, and the collective consciousness is NOT consciously guilty about eating omelettes. What is more, nor are the purveyors. In fact for them, with their advertising and all, it’s the very opposite. There’s zero guilt … so when Mr Ape Man Dancing For Red Meat is on the ads vegans are driven mad by it. It occurs to us that everyone is dancing with apes, eating their good-for-your-iron red meat. It’s enough to make anyone pessimistic about humans … frustrated, even violent, and so it goes on. How do we stop it, the whole sorry crime against animals? I don’t know, but I suspect we first have to understand how best to expose the whole thing. And that means looking carefully at our approach to omnivores, and that in turn means also looking carefully at how we get our ‘kicks’.
They may think they’d rather be vegan than have vegans judge them, but it’s unlikely. Apart from the very ill, who at the eleventh hour make desperate changes in lifestyle (in a bid to avoid death), people seldom change in such a radical way. Yes, they will make changes to save their health but rarely to save their souls.
The shock of a new awareness, of something as horrible as animal cruelty, of a connection between the cruelty and the support of it by the customer should be enough to jump start a radical change. But it doesn’t. That could turn out to be the most revealing and interesting characteristic of modern man. It could mean we don’t care about others any more. It may even mean we are self centred and self serving and too self involved.
Why we act altruistically in such a way (out of concern not just for humans but mainly out of concern for animals, out of concern that humans had stooped to such levels of base cruelty to stay in business) and in such a non-self-serving way indicates that vegans won’t lose hold of that concern. If we forget the animals they are indeed doomed. And we humans for dooming them.
It’s all to do with innocence, not quite the same as the innocence of children or of the animals themselves but an innocence revisited by the adult (perhaps keeping in touch with our childhood learning, about being kind). By becoming innocent of the unkindness done to animals, by boycotting animal foods, we can restore much of the guiltlessness of our youth. At the same time we help the plight of the animals. It doesn’t seem much, alone, ineffective, but it’s an essential start.
Once we’ve made that move, to act from concern then we’ll want our friends and family to realise their concerns. And when that doesn’t happen we ask why they don’t shock as easily as we do ourselves.
That’s the level we’re dealing with when we try to persuade, speed up the process, be impatient with the slowness of societal change. It probably dims the brain, so in frustration we read the riot act to people and they look on amazed.
They don’t see our agitation, vegan frustration, in the same way as we do. They see us simply trying to make them feel as uncomfortable as they do. Life is lettuce leaves and not much more, whereas life can be full of enjoyment … and that of course includes the enjoyment in eating a wide variety of animal-based foods. If vegans are living uncomfortably why do they want me to live as miserably as them? Vegans aren’t making me feel uncomfortable for the best, most positive reasons.
That’s the omnivore speaking. Now let’s listen to a vegan digging a little deeper into the truth – vegans know they can be on the nose, we know that and yet we do it all the same. We think we do it because we’re dedicated people but it may be that we are dependent on showing contempt when ever we see something we disagree with.
Be warned, you omnivores, that dedicated activists may trample your rose beds, grabbing any opportunity, gathering any evidence to make a case against omnivore habits. It’s as if we think the whole world ought to be on trial. So maybe think it but maybe don’t broadcast it. If omnivores get a whiff of crushed roses they’ll dig in their heels. Trampling doesn’t work simply because this is a world of perception and it’s primarily emotion driven, and the collective consciousness is NOT consciously guilty about eating omelettes. What is more, nor are the purveyors. In fact for them, with their advertising and all, it’s the very opposite. There’s zero guilt … so when Mr Ape Man Dancing For Red Meat is on the ads vegans are driven mad by it. It occurs to us that everyone is dancing with apes, eating their good-for-your-iron red meat. It’s enough to make anyone pessimistic about humans … frustrated, even violent, and so it goes on. How do we stop it, the whole sorry crime against animals? I don’t know, but I suspect we first have to understand how best to expose the whole thing. And that means looking carefully at our approach to omnivores, and that in turn means also looking carefully at how we get our ‘kicks’.
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