Getting ourselves informed

903: 

It’s an evening event - there’s a discussion organised on Animal Rights. I’ve rented a hall for the evening, chairs, refreshments, all advertised. And yet you might think to yourself, “Avoid, avoid”.

The event gets a poor ‘turn-out’, much the same as the street demonstration, with a few people with placards. What should we be doing? Do we try to inform, do we make a public protest? Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that ‘the event is dead’. We might have to conclude that we are not part of a large rebellious family of other similarly-minded activists. We appear more like a brave but small group, huddling together for mutual comfort.

We go through with the event more for our own sake than for others’ benefit; it makes us feel as though we are ‘doing’ something, anything. The lion roars but no one seems to pay any attention.

The one event that is well attended is a food fair – it promotes cruelty-free products and offers vegan food and maybe some entertainment, and there’s far less emphasis on disseminating information or promoting deeper ideology. I suppose that’s because the vegan movement is so needy for support, so the emphasis is on refreshment rather than inspiration.

But I don’t think it will always be like this. There’ll surely come a time when food is downplayed and ideas become more important. And this fits in with the present greater accessibility of information and the worsening of the mind manipulations of corporate advertising. Eventually people must see the danger of being  non-discriminating, and they’ll want to know the facts, in order to make up their own minds on these issues.

In this ‘information age’, facts being so readily available, it’s possible for any of us to be our own judge and jury. We can come to our own conclusions. No need for us to be preached at or protected from misinformation. We no longer have to wade through a whole library of books to find out what we need to know. What we need is on our home computers, helping us to fill the gaps and unravel our own tangled attitudes.

Instead of the printed pamphlet handed out at the street protest, we go to a website to learn what (and how much) there is to know. In this case, we can find out for ourselves what is really going on.  

What’s going on here?

902: 

Vegans can either be inspirational agents of change or irritating moralists. There are two types of vegan - those who don’t proselytise and those who do; some vegans speak out in public and are sometimes pushy and off-putting. Some vegans don’t speak out at all and seem to be afraid of confronting people. Outspoken vegans do invaluable work, and quiet vegans do too by their setting a fine example in silence. I think both types are valid, but they’re not mutually exclusive. They can coexist in the one person. There are those who don’t ear bash their friends every time they see them but never miss an opportunity to speak out when appropriate, when invited. Striking a balance is key to success in getting people to consider what we are suggesting.

If that part of us, which chooses to go into the public arena, is going to become more effective, it must be able to deal with opposition, including those who just ignore us. We have to get used to the swagger of the vast majority, who are almost over-confident in their resistance to us, buoyed by the fact that they hold majority opinion. So, to press on past this, we need to turn around the obstinate public mind, simply by enjoying the ‘game of reaching into the public ear’, and not getting huffy when we’re rejected.

I think this approach works best, to stimulate discussion. We can take a few blows to the head, a few insults and jokes at our expense, just so long as we start discussing that most touchy of all subjects concerning animal issues.

If we try to beg people to listen, we lose them. And there again, if we dispense with their permission, if we aggressively challenge them to ‘bring-it-on’, or if we try to force people to listen to what we have to say, they’ll run. And then we’ve lost them. An ‘unpermitted’ approach can cement a person’s dislike of us, and therefore our message. 

So, whereto from here then? Humour can work sometimes but it can give the impression that we are being too light-hearted about an obviously serious subject.

I suppose one of our main problems is that, already, we have a reputation to live down, seeming to be the newest evangelist on the block. People are generally afraid of what they see as our ‘extremism’; they can almost smell us coming from a distance. The danger is that, as soon as we open our mouths, they’ll suspect we are trying to convert them.

Our aim is to talk

901: 

Once we have an aim, such as going vegan, we’re in a position to be useful. Once we’re eating from plants, clothing ourselves from plants and using cruelty-free products, then we’re actively boycotting the Animal Industries. At the same time we are learning about an alternative lifestyle involving new ways of preparing food and learning about a better form of nutrition (for our own safety). Alongside food, we are learning about modern-day animal-husbandry and why it is making life ‘unsafe’ for billions of farm animals.

To set this ball rolling we need to carve out chunks of time and energy in our daily life, for the ‘work in hand’ (and that means learning what needs to be learnt, in order to be able to talk about this complex subject).

But where most work is needed is in convincing people of the connections between what is done to animals and what they buy; as soon as you buy, for example a quiche, you are supporting the caging of hens.

Most people wouldn’t have given it a second thought, beyond how attractive this item is to eat. But as soon as you make the essential connection, between the finished product and its ingredients, a question arises; is it tainted? You either consider the animal connection or you ignore it.

Now, if you ignore it, then does it mean you don’t care, that your egg comes from a caged hen? Does it mean you don’t care if hens are caged? And does that imply you are not a caring person?

If you do care then you can only stop eating eggs - by stopping eating this eggy quiche you make a statement of intent. Carried further, you might apply the same reasoning to any other product which is similarly tainted, in order to show that you care. However delicious you might think something is, having a clean conscience about it might strike you as being even more ‘delicious’.

By making this one decision to deny yourself a pleasure for the sake of a principle, it helps you to think more deeply about the violations for which humans are responsible. By developing any one of the many links between food and animal-killing and animal-incarceration, you inevitably come to consider the need for animals to have ‘rights’ – and that would be a case of conscience over convenience.

Each is a strong contender for our attention. The world we live in is full of tempting, delicious foods, but by boycotting cruelty-foods, many delicacies will fall off the shopping list. You’ll realise there will be no more lobster and no more favourite animal-based food items. If you don’t boycott the lobster, you’ll be condoning the unimaginable cruelty of the lobster being boiled alive (to kill it).

This is more than a matter of human inconvenience, because it highlights the subtlety of our highly sophisticated taste sensation (pleasure) put up against our knowledge of animal suffering (guilt). If you come down on the side of conscience, you are ready to become the advocate; you are suddenly in a position to talk about all these matters non-hypocritically. You’ll then be an agent of radical change.

Now, there is a whole generation of people hungry for information (for the ‘truth’), and that is precisely what vegans can and should be delivering. (Incidentally, I’ve never heard anyone suggesting that vegans are NOT speaking the truth).

Once we’re established as practising vegans, then we need to develop communication skills, in order to convince people to stop supporting the Animal Industries. But initially, anyone can talk about cruelty to animals because it’s so obvious; introducing the whole matter of animal-use to those who’ve never really thought about it. The more details of routine cruelty and speciesism we find, the easier it is to convince others that the non-use of animals is a possibility. Once that has been established, then it’s a matter of learning the specific details of how farmed animals are treated, and going on from there to make it easier for us to convince the sceptics.

When deciding to go vegan

900: 

Let’s say I consider the possibility of going vegan. My first question is probably going to be why? Why go to all this trouble? Why open this Pandora’s Box? Wouldn’t it better to deliberately NOT consider issues concerning domesticated animals? To leave it on the backburner? There are plenty of other important causes to get involved with.

            We might reason, amongst all the other important and urgent issues facing humanity, that there’s no room for ‘animal issues’. So, we take this one off our ‘to-do’ list. But, knowing the extent of human cruelty in regard to farm animals, we know it’s too important to ignore. All the time humans can do this to the innocent and the undefended, there’s good reason to leap to their defence. That, more than anything else, made me consider moving towards a vegan lifestyle.

Here’s what I think happens - a plant-based eating regime opens up certain possibilities, the most important of which is a total lifestyle change. And that underwrites an attitude change towards the social injustice of exploiting animals. And that means setting up opposition to the way most others think, which might not be easy to maintain. You realise that, once you become vegan there’s no going back. You also realise that almost everybody else is not thinking the same way, and that the world is geared up for living on the back of the animal. The world, the majority, will make things very difficult for anyone (vegan) who falls out of line with the conventional way of living.

All of us are all hard-wired to NOT step out of line in this way. There’s a temptation to remain within the fold, but equally strongly one feels that the majority are badly mistaken, and that however marginalised we may feel, NOTHING must put us off. We warn ourselves, “Don’t retreat at the first hiccup, push through, don’t give up”.

Once past that hurdle, we might find our ideas taking on their own momentum. The principle of non-violence may become a wave we decide to ride, and then, once aloft this wave, we can either stay with it or get off it. If we do decide to jump off it we must do it quickly, before it picks up speed. Because, after that, it will be harder to get back on again the next time we are moved to try. That’s what I mean by the feeling of ‘no-turning-back’.

Going vegan is not a one-day wonder, it’s a life-long project; eventually we have to be relaxed about it. It’s a matter of not being afraid of going against traditional, conventional lifestyle; questioning our learnt template for living. We must go ahead at any cost. Yes, it’s a risk, to go against everything we’ve learnt about ‘our right to exploit animals’ and to contradict everyone else’s attitude towards the using-of-animals.

As with the development of speed travel, with aeroplanes for example, veganism starts in one place and moves quickly under it’s own impetus; it changes us so quickly because it suggests a way out of the ‘great human impasse’ of having to remain a violent species. A way of life based on non-violence is a life that, before, would have been unrecognisable.

A tiny biplane using propellers was once thought improbable, and yet within a few years it had transformed into an accepted possibility – a huge metal cylinder, seating many people, travelling comfortably at unimaginable speeds, at unimaginable heights, through the air. If the aim was simply to fly we’d have stayed with all the romance of biplanes, but if we want speed-travel then the mighty jet plane was to be the answer. This is human ingenuity overcoming, what must have seemed at the time to be, impossible odds.

Vegan consciousness is really just the same; it’s a sped-up version of the old lumbering consciousness.

Where energy and health and compassion are concerned, the omnivore has chosen to stay put. They are slow, unhealthy and uncaring. They content themselves with the old slow, biplane-thinking. They don’t think innovatively, indeed they’ve given away their greatest asset of independent thinking. They’ve left themselves defenceless against what we (vegans) are saying, namely that humans have settled on second-best (poor food, conscience), and in doing so have become monsters.

The average human is in denial of the fact that terrible things are being done in their name; in fact, they are sponsoring terrible acts of cruelty and waste every time they buy their beloved animal products. By conforming to the status quo, imprisoning sentient animals in cages and pens to extract food from them, the omnivore can’t help committing the crime of inhumanity. What the ‘meat-eater’ does, by supporting the animal-trade, is just about the most cold, calculated and cruel thing they could be doing.

The reason we become vegan is to disassociate ourselves from this. And further, if we become vegan, then it’s our duty to speak up about our reasons, however uncomfortable it may be for us to explain or however uncomfortable it may be for others to listen.

Of course, it’s easy enough to write about all this, but it’s much more difficult to succeed in getting them to discuss things, to get them to trust us and convince them we aren’t just omnivore-bashing.

We have to keep in mind why we became vegan in the first place, to free animals from prison. That reason has to be, for us, more important than any other consideration. And, of course, there are certain valuable bonuses for us, in terms of good health and clear conscience. In fact, there are plenty of other reasons why it’s a good idea to become vegan.

Life’s greatest satisfaction

899:

 ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘meaning’ are the big drivers in life. As soon as we find meaning (in this case, that animals shouldn’t be used by humans) we see something new arising – the possibility that non-violence could provide the vital clue to a meaningful and happy life. Here’s an entirely different world, without the barbed wire and therefore without the notion of keeping living beings in captivity for our own ends. In this one aim, I could see emerging  an entirely new race of humans who viewed their world in peaceful terms.

As soon as I began to contemplate this noble aim, I had to ask myself, “Shall I give it a shot?” Shall I put into practice my concern for the plight of captive animals, by ending my support for the current system?

With that change of heart I noticed a shift of empathy in myself; I had begun to take seriously the feelings of others, in this case the feelings of non-humans. That feeling of compassion made me aware of my role as a representative of my own species. By becoming vegan I was standing up for oppressed animals, and it was, ambassadorially-speaking, making my own life that much more meaningful. I was to find this sense of meaning ultimately my greatest satisfaction. 

The ‘new’ altruism

898: 

Altruism is really a perfectly balanced two-way road of selfishness and selflessness.

Take the idea of selflessness. It could lead to insufferable saintliness, and that means we’d never be able to keep it up. And the opposite is just as unrealistic - the selfish world leads to trouble, and yet everything we do has a selfish element. A balance is essential but there’s no name for it; ‘altruism’ has been high jacked by the ‘morality mob’. It has been made to look ridiculous. It needs to be redefined.

The would-be altruist is attracted to idealism. One’s strong moral position is meant to be admired. It is intended to give life meaning, but it could very well seem too righteous. The saintly and selfless is in a face-off with the selfish and materialistic; extreme good versus extreme bad; black versus white. One side can only work when it has its extreme opposite to relate to, so if we’re really bad we have to do something really good to balance it. But why not just avoid extremes? We can thrive very nicely by operating low level selfishness and unselfishness; it’s not so impressive and it’s slower to get results, but in the long run it is more consistent. It’s good intention that counts (and makes us happier), to be helping others whilst helping oneself.

Does my ‘new’, slow-but-sure altruism bring the best results? Probably, if only by making me more optimistic about myself. And that’s likely to make me feel optimistic about the future in general. We need both altruism and optimism to brighten our lives in this depressingly violent world. The optimist says, pragmatically, “So what if all this damage has taken place? It can be fixed”. The altruist doesn’t indulge in recrimination or revenge, but employs optimism to ‘up’ the energy, to create attitude change. If altruism is the first sign of optimism it will automatically bring about personal transformation..

Going vegan is one of the simplest and most effective transformations we can make. And even if the rest of the community doesn’t understand it, on a personal level it feels right, and is essential to heighten our optimism.

With there being so much hypocrisy, concerning the crimes committed against animals, veganism stands as a beacon of social justice. It harmonises with Nature and it feels right, as if one is dressed appropriately for the climate. For vegans, anything we can do to promote vegan principle will inevitably be satisfying, and that allows our altruism to figure less prominently and be less showy.

Altruism

897:

If we still think of altruism as a sort of heroic selflessness, that might be too much of a stretch. If I want to protect animals and ‘go vegan’, I might need to readjust my meaning of the word. A ‘new’ altruism wouldn’t be me-centred or you-centred but a sensible balance between the two. It should have one eye on the future and one eye on the ‘now’. Altruism certainly adds to the betterment of future life but it shouldn’t present difficulties and it needn’t expect to be praised. It has its own reward by making our day seem worthwhile.

Altruism is a more efficient way of interacting with our personal environment. If it makes me feel good then it’s likely to have a good effect on the collective consciousness too. But, it should be comprehensive, and be applied as widely as possible; if I’m altruistic, it should be present in all my relationships, and certainly in any love-based human to human relationship, where a friend or partner’s welfare comes first and is always more important than my own. And, to be consistent, I would argue that it should step across the species barrier, so that there’s the same loving, protective feeling for animals, especially those who are unjustly imprisoned on farms.

Just like any animal whose life is under the control of a human, like our dogs and cats at home, these farm animals are innocent. They’ve been denied a life of their own. Their whole life has been taken away from them - the abuse of them is condoned by almost every human on the planet.

Would I put myself out for them? Or would I only be concerned to ask, “What’s in it for me?” You might think one can’t save all these millions of animals, that one shouldn’t be expected to feel the same sort of love for pigs and chickens as one does for the cat at home. But then altruism isn’t about that ‘same sort of love’. Perhaps it’s simply about not ‘doing unto others’ what you wouldn’t want done to you, thus not being able to countenance their exploitation.

Ultimately - why would you want to become vegan? Why would you want to do that to yourself? But, you could equally ask yourself, why not?

Strong words and strong insults

896: 

I can think of any number of ways to say how I feel about using (abusing) animals, some stronger and therefore more insulting than others. If I want to be insulting I’ll use words that are closer to my thoughts than the way I’d normally express myself.

            The words I use might seem to be the most extreme way of expressing my feelings, and I’ll guess any reader who ISN’T vegan will have already started fighting the words I use. In the last blog, they’d have bristled at the words ‘contempt and love’ - I obviously attribute the word ‘contempt’ to the way omnivores see farm animals, otherwise they wouldn’t countenance the way the animals are treated. They’d be fighting more words I’ve used, like ‘banged up in jail’, ‘ugly death’, ‘betrayed’ and ‘enslaving’. If I’d used milder language, would my words truly reflect what I think of omnivores, for indulging their food tastes? If I didn’t emphasise the crime I would seem to be stressing the positive, the only problem being that there isn’t a positive; even in my most generous spirit, I can’t see anything good to say about the ‘omnivore’ side of people. Unfortunately there isn’t anything good or natural or worthwhile that their own strict diet doesn’t contravene.

            So, here I am, doing my usual trick of slagging off the omnivore. Perhaps just by admitting that this is what I’m doing is enough to soften the impact of my insulting words. But that’s not the point is it. I’m not trying to seek forgiveness or plead acceptance or dodge responsibility, I’m just unable to think of any other way to get people’s attention. And yet, I know that going on the attack like this isn’t effective. The weight of resistance, to what vegans are saying, is enormous. Despite the insulting language and our puny opposition, we are easily made to look ridiculous, simply because ours is such a minority view, while theirs is the collective view of the vast majority.

            Here’s how ridiculous I seem to them: if I slag off someone for eating a cheese sandwich, then I have to slag off everyone, because none of them are vegan. But most people I know (and like and love) are meat-eaters, or meat-eaters disguised as vegetarians. With most people I know, I get on with perfectly well, discussing many other major issues. We have our differences, but it’s still okay. Maybe we agree to differ. But on this one subject, where we take a different stance, we are more fiercely defensive - they acting to protect their way of life, me acting like the attorney, representing a client.

here’s my problem: I feel compelled to say it as I see it, using words to place myself between animals and their attackers. I have to spell out the truth as I see it - that almost everyone is involved in the conspiracy to attack the defenceless animals. The conspiracy is only made worse by the fact that after the animals are attacked, they are killed, then eaten.

            If your own child was being attacked you’d do whatever you could to prevent it. Kids are helpless to defend themselves and they need a responsible adult to protect them when in danger. With animals it’s not so very different. They are routinely attacked and have no legal protection from the attacking human, because humans write the laws to suit human interests, not the animals’.

            So it comes to this: there’s great danger in continuing doing (supporting) what is being done to animals. The only way out of it all is with magnanimity of spirit. Then we can come closer to them. That’s empathy, and that involves an altruism which gets its kicks from engaging in guardian jobs and protective work. 

All-round, satisfying repairs

 BLOG HAS BEEN OUT OF ORDER THIS WEEK DUE TO INTERNET PROBLEMS

893: 

A big part of our life should be about repairing for the greater good, simply because there’s so much that needs to be done. Most of us are devoted to something (other than ourselves); we feel strongly, and perhaps act strongly, about the most important issues of the day. It may trees, children, peace or whatever. If something has been broken or harmed it’s only natural for us to want to repair it.

But however noble our repairs are, unless we find ways to enjoy the repair process itself, we won’t keep it up. Even a goal as noble as ‘the greater good’ can wear thin, and be too much like hard work; without enjoyment, there won’t be enough motivation to see the long term repairs through.

Whether we get good results or bad results, the thing we want to repair must be so important to us that to risk losing it, or see it further harmed, should be unbearable. But there again, it’s the motivational state of mind which is important - whatever we do, noble, selfless, hard work, can also be satisfying, in itself. We can enjoy dealing with it, contemplating it and working on it. And whether the activity is a hobby or some great cause, whatever it is, if there’s an edge to it, if there’s a controversial element to it, then nothing about it is ever going to be black or white.

My enthusiasms might not be shared by everyone, or anyone even. Take this matter of animals and food - there will always be a very mixed reaction. It effects people in different ways; for me, who is claustrophobic and hates imprisonment, I want to save the animals from all that, whereas perhaps for you, all you see here is someone trying to take your food away.

If Animal Rights is seen as the finger of punishment, or if we vegans see ourselves as bringers of punishment, the animals liberation cause will be tainted with the sort of righteousness so many religions have been tainted with and then been corrupted by.

Perhaps the best advert for veganism is our own attitude towards the subject. I want Animal Rights to be seen as a people-liberation cause, which makes the subject always urgent and ever fascinating. The worst advert for veganism is food-stealing. If we’re perceived as deniers of pleasure, then others will (willingly) go to opposite extreme. In fact they’ll become deniers of something else, turners-of-blind-eyes to the implications of continuing as they are.

The omnivore’s perception needs change. But in a different way, so does the vegan’s. We don’t perceive things the way the omnivore does, obviously. We have purposely sensitised ourselves to certain things  which we know the omnivore isn’t presently interested in - about animal husbandry. But our own deeper knowledge, or our own by-now-greater empathy, takes us further away from contact with those who don’t see things as we do.

For us it’s all too obvious, we perceive the bad guys, who do terrible things to animals, routinely, on a massive scale, daily. They make a living out of it. But for them it’s obvious too. They are probably as passionate about their livelihood as we are about ending it. There’s nothing personal here, it’s just a difference-of-view, about something very important to all parties.

Our heightened sensitivity (mainly by being vegan-eaters of lighter foods) makes living amidst this animal holocaust very difficult. In it we see danger for our species, not only for their animal-exterminations but for the widespread acceptance of it, for what they do. For omnivores it ‘works’ for them. They get the foods they want (and wool and leather, etc). Whereas for us it’s a catastrophe.     

I wonder if there’s something else going on here? Why is there such division over this subject? Perhaps there’s a difference of scale, where some see life as today and others see life as tomorrow. It’s between those of us who focus on immediate survival and those of us who focus on the long-term future of our species. The hard working farmer, busy with thousands of captive creatures, thinks only of production and markets. For the vegan, however, it’s quite different. To me, at any rate, it’s all about the potential we humans have, to develop our own collective consciousness. And that might sound big, but then perhaps it IS big. We are becoming more conscious of consciousness. Which means the beginning stage of a fundamental change of attitude, most particularly towards animals.

In a nutshell, it’s about regarding animals as sovereign beings instead of prey. Whilst, once, life was only about predation, now humans have refined that with ideas. One idea is to enslave and kill, the other is to minimise harm. In this case, we do that by eating from plant-based sources, thus our life coming to include both harmlessness and repair. In this way we can determine our own destiny, something animals can’t consciously do. But first, humans have to be cooperative about things. (Uproarious laughter, pigs may fly, etc.) “All we have to do is to get people together”. A very tall order, that is!

To bring this about, as unlikely as it might seem at this point in time, we need to concentrate on repair and we really have to stick with it.

That may not be quite the problem we think it is. Let’s put it this way – ‘the place of animals in human society’ is a significant subject. It concerns every human on the planet. Vegans think we need urgent attitude-repair on this one. So, yes, if we’re into repair on this scale, it’s best we get close to the subject itself, commit to it, and then enjoy dealing with it, on whatever level.

            By connecting personal fulfilment with practical repair work, we can make the struggle of change less-painful, and we can actually enjoy the work involved. By deciding to become vegetarian we appoint ourselves as repairers. Once we no longer use stuff taken from animals’ bodies we not only keep our health but we are helping to keep animals off Death Row (innocent of all crime, I might add!!)

            When we are into the liberating of animals, then almost anything we do will be primarily done for them, and that’s going to be satisfying to us, on all levels. 

Contempt or love

895:

If I said to you, “What I want for myself I also want for others”, would you say that’s altruistic or unrealistic? I feel a bit stuck with the old meaning of altruism, with its very ‘Western-Christian-Good-Bad’ associations. But somehow it’s some form of altruism that might just turn this whole thing around, with animals.

            If we can get into the habit of doing something regularly that is not selfishly motivated, we get practice in generating our own satisfactions. If we can find satisfaction in empathising, that will lead us to consider the feelings of animals. And once we are empathising, absorbing information about the conditions animals are being kept in, then we can move from having contempt for them to feeling affection for them. It’s the difference between indifference and caring. I wouldn’t say I love animals nor describe myself as an animal lover, but it grieves me that so many are banged up in jail, with only an ugly death to look forward to.

            Now, you may argue that they don’t know their fate. But what if they do? What if, even at that moment before death, they understand the extent to which they’ve been betrayed?

            Perhaps it will trouble us, that we participate in enslaving animals, since I’ve never met anyone who would actually want to cause any animal any harm, and have it on their conscience. Science has shown us it’s unnecessary to use ANY animals for either food or clothing, so by ignoring that science and following social custom, we let emotion and convenience do our deciding for us - to NOT change our attitude to animals. We prefer to have contempt for these sheep and cows and pigs and chickens, not love or affection. Such is the power of food satisfaction! Such is the fear of making changes to our attitudes.

Selfless or selfish

894:

When we Animal Rightists get serious about repair we like to think we’re doing something big for ourselves and something even bigger for the greater good (which in this case, of course, must include saving animals). To make this work effectively, we need some self-discipline to purposely stand aside from habit-behaviour, and avoid certain foods which are sensually attractive but morally illegitimate.

            At first this seems like a massive sacrifice (associated with discomfort). To get past this we obviously need a strongly based sense of intention. But once this first hurdle is overcome (once we’re established as vegans), we can look forward to the next level of enjoyment, towards more repair and more personal satisfaction.

Going vegan starts out as a selfless act, perhaps even the first new habit we’re truly proud of. As our efforts are rewarded, the initially selfless becomes so obviously self-benefiting that we forget that non-vegans cannot possibly see the personally beneficial side. They’ll still only see the discomfort.  

‘Booked’ on the yellow brick road

892: 

The great difficulty we have in getting issues across to others, is others’ unwillingness to listen - there’s none so deaf, etc ... but with this sort of ‘deaf’ there’s danger. By ignoring important clues we never find answers; by ignoring issues, we damage both ourselves and vast numbers of animals.

            Because people’s resistance is so strong, when we try to talk to them (about all this) they virtually tell us to mind our own business. Tell us we can’t barge our way into their lives. And they’re right, we can’t. We often have to bite our lip, for fear of being seen as evangelists. Yes, we can inform and communicate, but not use force, which includes shame and guilt and disapproval. Everyone has the right NOT to listen. And that’s what happens when the person you’re talking to has obviously tuned out. They’re not at home. So, if they aren’t listening NOTHING we do can get them to come in closer without, at the same time, pushing them further away.

            We have to be like a book.

            The book sits there, waiting to be read or ignored. It doesn’t pressure anyone to read it. And yet, here it is, ready to be read. If we vegans are a book, the one idea we present is a picture of our fellow humans, moving towards their own innate peaceful natures.

            Like a book, we should be laid aside when enough has been read for one day. No one’s forcing anybody to read the book, no one’s forcing anyone to listen. The book is passive, just as the future is. If it gets the chance to open its pages to us, it’s on the basis that it is always ready for us if we are ready for it.

            The most valuable element in the peaceful transition, from animal-dependency to ‘going vegan’, is our wanting to. It’s our own decision to pull the book off the shelf and open it. Once that decision has been made we can let the book do the rest.

            And then we’re on the yellow brick road. We follow it. The further we follow it the more we build it.

The bigger picture

891: 

It springs from changed attitude. And it’s already happening with some people, in their attitude to non-humans. We have all benefitted from the results of fifty-odd years of coming to terms with the science - the nutritional evidence about animal foods combined with scientific proof of on-going cruelty to animals. My own feelings of gratitude for the ‘science’ is always with me. I’m grateful to know how NOT to poison myself with certain foodstuffs. I’m also eternally grateful for the data concerning modern animal husbandry methods. The only way I can show my appreciation is to use that raw information to put the case for The Voiceless.

            For us, there’s a need for action. And that action needs to be carried out by dedicated activists and advocates, whose energy supplies have been underwritten by their personal diet and clear conscience. With this combination, we should be able to stop what’s going on, eventually. To liberate animals.

            We’ve had half a century of consciousness-raising, and now everyone, even kids, have got the picture - we all know what ‘battery hens’ means, or what ‘cage-free eggs’ are, or ‘stall-free pork’. Change is in the air, but perhaps it’s still only focusing on ending factory farming. Not animal farming. In this way it’s not happening for Animal Rights.

What is happening, though, is encouraging. Today, we have many who have voluntarily taken up a diet which conforms with their ethical reasons for wanting change; people are changing their attitudes and habits, and they don’t have to swear allegiance to any of these changes. Change is being carried out simply because we want to contribute to the future. It’s in our own interests as well as the World, and I mean a future which most of us want and can approve of.

Animal Rights implies a massively different, empathetic way of looking at life. Within this tiny mind-shift there’s a revolution. No blood or war or force or authority or danger, just a huge attitude shift - to vegan principle.

In a completely vegan world no one would be finger-wagging or pressuring anyone. The animals would be liberated, and by then other problems will have been dealt with, helped by this one self-generated action of attitude-change. Surely, that’s the big picture.

Why do we do it?

890: 

Get used to it! Vegan + Animal Rights is going to remain unpopular for a while yet. Vegans have to be solo fliers and yet remain free to speak. Surely that’s enough, satisfyingly, for any vegan activist. It has to be. We’re building for the future. It’s a future we may not see, in this lifetime and acceptance of that is integral to self-motivation. We have this one strength of purpose - the liberation of animals. That purpose drives us to work as hard but as enjoyably as we can. We should work in the areas that most interest us, since this is all about long-term motivation, getting into the rhythm of the work, getting used to the fact that we work alone, unsupported. Whatever we do, we are doing it for the animals. There’s nothing better to be doing, as far as I can see.

            As unsupported defenders of the animals’ right to a life, as hard as it might be, we must never forget for whom we are fighting. Those poor, incarcerated beings have a lot more to worry about than we do. Theirs is a much more horrible life of desperation.

            So, we have this struggle, with ourselves, our habits, our friends and colleagues. We struggle with being so unsupported, and then there’s the ‘poor-me’ and our whingeing pessimism to contend with. It’s enough to make us desperate, to compensate for our sense of failure.

But here’s where we need to look at the bigger picture - the ‘could-be’, the ‘will-be’, so that, when ‘speaking-about’ animal issues with other people, we need to appear to be just a little more certain than we actually feel. Primarily, we need to give off a feeling of confidence about change happening, even if it doesn’t seem likely.

And if I want to see things change (which of course I do!), I want it to benefit my life. I want the prospect of change to help me not to worry so much about the future. I want a nice future for myself. But I also want it for others. The whole point of going vegan, and getting into the business of liberating animals, is to shift from self-interest to working for the ‘greater-good’. Surely, even if we aren’t around to see the Future’s major changes taking place, that doesn’t alter anything about why we do what we do, now.

If at first ...

889: 

Going vegan: It might not work on the first attempt, (but) this one failure could make us even more determined.

What if I said, “Determination is everything”? What if I suggested that we should all introduce a little force on ourselves, to ‘up’ our self-expectations? We tentatively change. Perhaps then, we wobble. We look about for support. And this is the next problem, with this sort of change.        If you have become vegan you’ll know how hard it is to get people to recognise Animal Rights. We are always looking for support from others, where none can possibly exist. This is one issue over which people’s hands are tied; they’re involved in the whole mess, so they can’t speak up. And here we are, vegan, wanting others to agree with us, saying to ourselves, “Surely, any argument as good as ours must be agreed with?”

            But no, some things are argument-proof, like food. Vegans often underestimate the enormity of the thing we’re trying to pull off here - a vast social shift of awareness, coupled with dramatic boycotting of products in shops.

Support? No. It seems we’re not going to get it. In any other sort of major lifestyle-change friends give support, but not on this issue. It’s something most self-respecting vegans just can’t get their head around. We feel let down. There’s resentment. Even anger.

Do we sometimes purposely bring it on, this sequence of events, so we can feed our own anger, to fuel our own righteous indignation? And if so, how do we break that cycle?

Making major change

888: 

To be constructive, we need to train our thoughts towards how things could be. I don’t mean ‘feeling lucky’ or wishful thinking or romanticising or being idealistic, I mean looking at the significance of what’s happening when we are about to change. Why would you bother to change if you didn’t think it worth doing, or do it just to relieve guilt?

‘Change’ - we get stuck in the rut of our habits and we might like the idea of change but suspect we don’t have the energy to make it happen, or keep it up.

I look at parents sometimes, their time and energy invested in kids and home and careers. They haven’t got time for change (whereas for someone like me, no family, no long working hours, it’s the opposite). There aren’t enough hours in the day. ‘Change’ isn’t even considered. A radical change of diet, for instance, would seem unrealistic. So, people stay fixed by habit and time constraints. The sorts of changes being suggested (a diet to fit in with animal rights) seem unlikely, especially when it concerns a whole family’s food. But this sort of change is the first essential, if some of the biggest problems facing the world are to be tackled. The violence, shown to the animals we eat, is the same habitual violence which stops the human species from progressing. Non-violence seems the way to go, and it is most clearly embodied in vegan principle.

A lifestyle change, as significant as ‘going vegan’, implies action. It’s urgent. It’s all or nothing. If it’s half hearted it won’t work. Giving up meat alone says nothing about animals (and nothing about non-violence), because their protection isn’t just about not buying meat. There’s as much cruelty involved in using animals for their by-products. That’s why vegans disassociate from all animal-based foods and commodities.

Change - if we set the bar too high or take on too much too quickly, we might fail. If our attempt to change fails, it makes us wary of change. We’re less inclined to do it again, mainly out of fear of giving up too soon. But ‘going vegan’ isn’t like some dalliance with a new hobby. It’s a serious statement. One wouldn’t ‘go back’ because it had been a mistake to ‘go forward’. The principle of veganism is timeless and therefore, if you take up vegan living, you’re likely to be doing it for the rest of your life; there just isn’t enough reason to revert.

Change - the other side to failure-to-change is more positive. So, you fail, but even if it might not work on the first attempt, this one failure could make us even more determined. And then we can push through, and arrive at that place where the change feels solid. That sort of break-through, that completed change, presents a mighty possibility. Here’s our one chance to change everything, at a stroke. Eventually such a strong philosophy, based on vegan principles, must win through and hopefully we with it. 

Australia is about Optimism

887: 

Here in Australia I notice, comparing it with the England I knew forty years ago, there is an atmosphere of optimism. It’s undirected, but I swear it’s there. People look at you. They make eye-contact. And you don’t do that when you’re pissed off.

            But, in general, all around the world, people seem blasé about animals – they’re not yet conscious of them as sentient beings. They eat them, race them, wear them, vivisect them. But here, there’s a germ of something hopeful and I think it can be traced back to our respect for equality (albeit only amongst humans).

            In regard to the Great Egalitarian Dream (humans living amongst humans as equals) Australia has a lot to teach the rest of the world. Now, if that could broaden to include animals, we’d be in a prime position to be true leaders of a coming age.

            A central value, which is very twenty-first century, is the egalitarian ‘fair-go’ principle. That’s what Australians are famous for. It puts people here in an ideal position to understand the wrongness of speciesism (by becoming more ‘conscious of animals’).

Australians are explorers. We’re curious to try new things – so why shouldn’t we explore a more peaceful lifestyle, and ditch the violent food and all the violence we do to animals? I see most Australians as being, deep-down, the most friendly bunch of people you could ever meet. We could lead a change.

But there’s one small glitch we need to fix up, before any of that can happen. It’s a glitch, deep-set and worldwide. If we are going to change (specifically change the way we see the fauna) then simultaneously we need to see plants differently. Plants provide us with all we need, well, plus a few minerals. We don’t need animals, well, not to eat, certainly. The indignity of depending on them! They of all ‘people’. Our closest sentient cousins.

I think, regarding food, we have a bit of egg (and literally!) to wipe off our faces. We need to admit who they might be, who they are. Who are they? Obviously, vegans like me, see them as angels. And just as obviously, omnivores see them as objects. That’s the difference. That’s the only difference. So, I say, that’s the thing that needs changing first, no, second. There’s something even more immediate.

All the changes we can ever make in life are nothing, when slowed down by pessimistic predictions of doom. In the wider community gloom dominates. And you can see why. We’s still a violent mob.

I doubt if vegans have anything more useful to do these days than insist on the inevitability of a good outcome. And if you’re going to do that, then it’s useful to be creative about it. The more creative we are the more optimistic we’ll be. It’s like when you’re a vegan, and being hampered by shortages (of cruelty-free products) and experiencing a narrowing of choices, and getting annoyed about all that. Be that as it may, by being forced to be more creative with what is available, we start building something new. That’s optimism!

Blog gone on holiday. Be back soon.

The big problems

886: 

Our priorities concern our main interests; if we’re overweight we’ll want to thin down, if we’re claustrophobic we’ll try to avoid incarceration. My own claustrophobia drives me to want to liberate animals. If you love trees you rescue forests, if you love kids you don’t let them starve. Me, it’s animals. My priorities concern this interest of mine. I want to try to do something about it.

Whatever problems we prioritise, they seem to be double-pronged, with their apparent unsolve-ability alongside the slimmest of chances of finding a solution. These biggish problems are the main challenges of adult life. We cut our teeth on ‘intractable’ problems. By not straight-away-discovering solutions, we at least throw light on the deeper issues. And for this we have to pay a price, we have to bear the consequences of looking more deeply at things. If, for example, I hate seeing chickens in cages, I have to face the consequences; of not eating eggs; of protesting cages. Giving this subject any attention, throwing light of any of these issues, and the answers are all too clear. There’s a plethora of answers. But that doesn’t make the practical application of the principle (behind each answer) easy, since this particular principle doesn’t come cheap.

If I’m opposed to war I don’t join the army. But if that’s too passive, I might want to make a strong statement, about war. I might want to advocate non-violence, as a principle, to end the need for armies and war. As noble as that might be, to any who don’t like being soldiers, there’s another side to my wanting non-violence. I don’t want the pain. I don’t want to have to go through the pain of a problem to see my own shortcomings. We none of us want any more pain, and that might be the main reason we prefer to stay with one-dimensional thinking. Today’s main suggestion is that we move to more independent thoughts, which inevitably lead towards solutions. And isn’t it the genius of the human - the ability to gather evidence and solve problems? But to the next category of human genius - the discovery of selflessness. To see far ahead, beyond one’s own lifetime, to see ‘the bigger picture’. To be aiming towards something like this, well, I suspect most vegans can aim more easily than the omnivores can.

We don’t see the ‘bigger’ picture until we’ve shifted from the predominantly-personal-interest position to being predominantly interested in the ‘greater good’.

Because humans have always been so determined to focus on personal problems, for ourselves, for our family, our country, our species, we’ve never really progressed far enough past that point. All the ‘bigger problems’ are being piled into a corner, and being left for another day.

Probably, it’s better if we at least contemplated ‘the big ones’, to get us over the hump, to inspire us to act, sooner rather than later.

It might be scary, changing, but nothing helpful can be said about that. Change, big change, is associated with a shift in the way we look at everything, from being scared of it to being safe with it; not being afraid to look at each problem that comes up. Ideally, we get interested in observing the problem and ways of dealing with it. (And we try not to get superstitiously afraid, that there’s a demon inside every big problem, trying to taunt us.) This specific change (concerning animal consciousness, speciesism, etc) is a big change. It leads inevitably towards taking a position on violence.

Did the last century reach a climax of violence? Perhaps in a relevant way, it did, by showing the violence of modern weaponry and the violence of mind manipulation. Generations later, we are still affected by the fear of human violence. And yet we perpetrate the very thing we fear, and of course I refer to the daily torturing and mass murdering of animals, for food for humans. Nearly everyone on the planet is at the least a mild okay-er of violence. They still support a system which applies force to manipulate people, animals and resources. Violence has fingers in many pies.

Today’s is a particular type of challenge where we see problems clearly but can’t see any workable solution. Perhaps the un-solvables are like the unlovables, they symbolise the gravity and depth of changes needed (and which are currently being made, voluntarily, by some). As problems come up, we should be prepared to give them  contemplation time, so we don’t go off half-cocked, and not too quickly get put off by the thorny-ness of it all. Not be too easily overwhelmed by it all.

I think the idea is that we simply look at ‘it’, as if the problem were talking to us (even as it beseeches us, to taking an attitude of non-violence and letting the rest inevitably fall into place.

We have a strong argument

885: 

Because most rich foods are made using animal ingredients, vegans avoid most junk food and cream-filled nursery teas. So we don’t eat those foods that make people fat and sluggish. If our boycott seeks to protect the animals, it also succeeds in protecting us from the many ‘non-foods’ on the market. There’s nothing in a cake shop we eat, very little from a confectioner’s or a delicatessen. And we don’t visit the butcher’s or cheese-maker’s. Call it ‘self discipline’ if you like, but it’s really just keeping all that poison out of our bodies.

            Yes, it’s true, I miss out on all sorts of mouth-watering cuisine. This is the food which most people consider the yummiest of savouries or sweetmeats. And often, when the equivalent vegan-friendly product appears, it soon vanishes because of insufficient market. So, here’s the sticking point - vegans are able to ‘animal-empathise’ enough to overcome the ‘yummy’ factor of the foods they avoid. Non-vegans don’t empathise enough. Perhaps they aren’t prepared to make a statement on behalf of farm animals (whereas many people do boycott pharmaceutical items that are tested on animals) and that’s the separation factor holding back this great tide of potential vegan-conscious food-eaters.

            For those of us who’re already vegan, our greatest challenge isn’t sticking to plant-based foods but in convincing others. Our first problem is to get a hearing. Maybe talking is a bit too in yer face, so it might be more useful if people watched on video what is happening. But, how to get them to willingly watch when they don’t want to watch it. They can guess what will happen - if they watch it, they’ll end up wrestling with the images they’ve seen and what they could imply. Excellent video footage has been taken, but it’s not proof that’s required, it’s sufficient reason to darken our own day that’s missing. Amongst the brainwashed omnivore population, there’s not enough empathy, not enough reason to take drastic action and not enough interest. (‘Going-vegan’ is considered drastic!!)

            So, what we have, our most persuasive weapon, filmed proof, even that is not enough. Simply put, it is not widely watched. Amongst our omnivore population, if everyone sticks together we won’t have to know what we don’t want to know.

            Our second problem is internal to ourselves - it’s about keeping up our own morale in the face of constant rejection, ridicule and indifference. No one is for us unless they’re one of us. My own relationships with non-vegans (that is just about every person I know) often seems to be on shaky ground, whenever this subject comes up.

            You and I might be chatting away, and we hit this ‘animals’-‘food’ thing, and suddenly we notice they feel uncomfortable. They want to change the subject. It’s not just the ethics, the diet, the food, the animals, it’s my rightness or my righteousness that’s such a big turn-off. Imagined or real, there are problems when with vegans.

It’s difficult for both sides, when our ethical differences-of-opinion crop up. None of us like confronting issues, confronting passions, or only holding weak arguments. For vegans though, there’s nothing more annoying than having our whole philosophy summarily dismissed, without any attempt to deconstruct it. Both sides have grievances. So what can be done?

Each has responsibility here, but since it was me who brought the matter to a point where it sits in front of us like a lump, since I did this, I must take the initiative to NOT fight back directly. Instead I must observe other people’s inner assurances about their own moral and ethical positions. However, observing isn’t completely fulfilling. I’m often left with a feeling of unfinished business. But I know the problems worsen when I can’t let the issues go ... and continue past the permission-point with what I want to say.   

The upshot of all this is not pretty and not exactly fair. We vegans can start to harbour grudges, and because we can’t convince our friends, we get wild. And even wilder, when we hear the spruiking of commodities we daily boycott. Now, the tendency is to save our angriest judgements for the ‘big boys’, who vivisect animals or run factory farms and abattoirs. We rage against them. But there’s no satisfaction. So, we turn our wrath back onto the consumer, but since that involves just about everybody, we end up waging judgemental war on the whole world. It seem all we can do.

I’d suggest that there may be a more effective, non-judgemental way to initiate change. It starts close to home, in fact within our own mind; getting to know the Animal Rights advocate in ourselves. Firstly, we need to acknowledge that we’re in a strong position, even though we’re hopelessly outnumbered. We have what they don’t - a rationale, and eventually that must be discussed. Then we’ll have our say and effectively so.

Our strongest argument is that we hold to the non-violence principle. We apply it daily, without any exceptions. Some would call it an act of faith. And this central value is something others can’t easily oppose. If the concept of harmlessness worked for me, jolting me out of my own dark corner, it can work for anybody.

We’re hopefully brought up with beautiful values like honesty and kindness. These are values anyone can respect. But what if that isn’t what makes a person ‘come out’? What if the essential value of equality has been ignored. As a value, it’s just as beautiful as honesty and kindness. Surely, a better way to approach the difficulty (of us all holding different views) is to emphasise that we’re all in ‘this’ together. The vegan advocate’s job is surely to find ways of dealing with common problems, our own and other people’s, by interacting with others on every possible level, and not by separating away from them. Humans are wonderful planners and communicators and visionaries. It’s simply a matter of presenting certain possibilities and potentials, and then helping to ween people off second-rate gratifications and onto more first-rate benefits.

We’re vegans not ‘vague-ans’

884: 

Isn’t it boring, when people refer to us as ‘vay-gns’, when you know they know the word has a long ‘e’. It’s only a small matter, hardly worth mentioning, but I think it shows us how little they want to know about us, how unenthusiastic they are even to take this up as a subject, let alone take what we say seriously or to acknowledge vegan principle. In other words, they do not like our arguments.

Often, vegans are reckoned members of a cult group which is strict about what we can and can’t eat, dictating what we may or may not do. So, when people offer you food and ask, “Are you allowed to eat this?”, they imply the above, but also there’s often a hint of contempt for my having voluntarily given up normal lifestyle to abnormal. They can’t and won’t consider, in any seriousness, the giving up of any of their food choices based upon animal-concerns. I usually say rather testily “Yes, we can eat anything, it’s just my personal choice NOT to”. And of course that makes me sound rather precious, which I can be!

Behaving in this sort of way helps people ‘weird-ise’ us. And that helps them disregard what we say.

So, if you’re NOT vegan and reading this (brave person!) all I’d ask of you is pronunciation (vee,gn).

But, coming back to conversation - What happens when talking turns to fighting (with friends or with total strangers)? Even just one moment of locking horns could set you back endlessly; and of course, it’s always over ‘major issue-differences’.

Mostly, we just get mildly irritated by each other, which is usually enough to stay clear of serious controversy in the future, and that’s EXACTLY what we don’t want.

But serious talkers, all of us, should be living as we say others should live, in this seriously disturbed world. And, as far as I’m concerned, as long as we’re ‘clean’, then there’s nothing better than serious-talk with friends. (I’m including strangers here!)

Each talk or chat leaves its imprint. And the next time we’re discussing profound moral matters, we can virtually continue from where we left off. But by this time, hopefully we’ve done more work on our arguments. We’ve better defined our ethical position. We’re better prepared to defend.

But if you know you’re already on weak ground, you’ll see a skirmish ahead. In which case, it’s better to take a ‘bring-it-on’ style.

Therefore, vegan action is needed to keep these friends happy. Sometimes I just don’t talk animal-talk. A cop out? Here, as I see it, we have two problems, when advocating for animals - we can be identified too strongly with it and with nothing else, plus it’s difficult NOT to talk about it or ‘bring it in’ to a conversation, when so many other ideas are linked to it.

I’ve never been able to resolve these two - either I do NOT talk about farm animals, keeping my friends them sweet, or I never miss an opportunity to mention the animal-angle, and I end up on a stage in an empty theatre. And then, if there’s no one to hear what I’ve got to say, I get very rusty at talking, because I can’t find anyone to talk to. And that’s a very isolating thing for vegans.

The opposite side of this affects us more directly, like the silliest umbrage-taking, or getting irritated by mispronouncing “vegan”. There are many ways we feel the heat of the counter-message coming across – they’ll say we take life too seriously, that we can’t see the joke of ‘vaygans’ being somehow vague. Ironically, that’s the one thing we aren’t. Vegans aren’t vague about what we believe, in terms of the priorities-of-life.

And while I’m whingeing, another thing is (very-often, deliberately) misunderstood – the principles behind Animal Rights, so to spell it out, here and now, it means Right to a Life.

It’s because of this specific shift in consciousness, from eating them to protecting them, that we have two main, opposing interests, vying with each other, for the public vote. Our job is to marshal the protectors to fight a noble and violence-free argy-bargy with the other mob.

Still holding back

883:

Vegans need to know that we’re up against emotionally based attitudes - likings-for and disregardings-of. To reach the entrenched omnivore (who is devoted to many of the available animal products) we have a big job on our hands. Our understanding of their emotional response to ‘farm animals’ will help us address their lack of empathy.  When someone is reluctant to listen, not wanting to be persuaded towards a life of self-denial and lettuce leaves, we need to adopt a subtle approach. If they are reluctant they are afraid of something. To make a person less afraid of listening to us, I’ve got two tips:

Drop the slogans and clichés, because they’re boring.

Be as unselfconscious as possible.

Our aim isn’t to convert or even really to be listened to. Our aim is to establish a calm, where any confronting facts and figures don’t generate hostility. Ideally, information is taken in without shocks and offensive inferences. 

At any point in our conversation it’s likely there’ll be high emotion flying around. If I’ve instigated any sort of discussion then I must offer information without getting too smart about it. Being right doesn’t win friends (neither does being wrong) but when necessary it’s best NOT to win every point. We aren’t in competition between two opinions, this is a plain, old-fashioned conversation, a mutual exploring of each other’s idea and viewpoints. There shouldn’t be any hint of threat. And we shouldn’t be grasping every opportunity to lay down the law.

If we hit people with too much ‘law’, if we apply too much moral pressure, if we confront their politics then a friendly chat can turn ugly.

Dialogue is discussion-about, not fight-over. Because this subject is so emotionally charged, as soon as the matter of animal rights arises, there’s caution. Dialogue should certainly include the passing of information, with interesting ideas and ethics and empathies rubbing off at the same time, but it’s also about the vibration of our words.

When we sense any emotional instability in the air, we can almost hear them asking themselves, “Shall I continue or shall I abort this conversation?”. So, dialogue isn’t proselytising, and therefore it isn’t conversion or recruiting. By announcing ourselves as Fighters for The Cause (“I’m vegan, etc ...”), we disturb the delicate balance of equality. Sometimes it sounds like I’m saying that I’m better than you.

Much of the trickiness of this subject can be dissolved by unselfconsciousness. What on earth does that mean? Perhaps that a light touch on this subject is enough at any one sitting. vegans often forget just how explosive one single comment can be. What is so incomprehensible to most people is that we could have taken such drastic action (by becoming vegan and a vegan advocates). It’s often a surprise that we grant status to this ‘subject’, that we’re taking ‘animals’ seriously. the lightness of our ‘touch’ can have the effect of reducing the explosiveness of what we have to say.

Does your average vegan go to this much trouble, when discussing the use of animals? Perhaps we should, and perhaps we need to give some sort of assurance that we aren’t going to become unfriendly, because to take this sort of discussion on board, an omnivore must know something important about me. That I’m fair and non-violent, that I don’t ‘do’ attacks, that I’m willing to resist the itch to express a value judgement of them.

For my part, I need to know I’m safe. On some level of simpatico-mutual communication, I must be able to read the other person and be sure of two things:

1.      That they aren’t likely to attack me physically

2.      That they are genuinely interested in discussing the subject in hand

           

I’ll turn summersaults to keep someone off the defensive, so I’d always be prepared to hold back. I think if you’re vegan and an honest-sounding person, you should always allow yourself to hold back, for your own sake as well as theirs, in order to retain some of our own mystery. It makes us far less predictable. A little inscrutability goes a long way. And we should be careful not to take ourselves too seriously.

            Having said that, we need to remember that all this is happening fast inside our brains. The more we engage in these sorts of hyped-up conversations, the better we get at them. But before we reach the giddy heights of communication-savvy, we must know we can deal with flak. It always hurts, but criticism should never be too hard to handle – just think of the technique of Stage Survival for Stand-up Comedians.

These ace-communicators may be nightly heckled. I think their tactics should be ours. They show the opposite of what’s expected. They’re never too shocked by criticism, but instead turn it to their own advantage. Which brings me to a useful tool in the vegan tool box - self-deprecation. It neutralises the ego-wanting-to-be-right-all-the-time. It replaces it with “it’s okay to be wrong”, for me, for you. We must get across that it’s okay not to have thought about all this very much up to now. And if that doesn’t wash, if they insist on rubbishing our most ‘robust principles’, especially if they do that, we must know that there’s always an advantage in it for us. We know (but keep it to ourselves) that they have no real arguments for their dependency on animals.

We wait. We wait for their side to be defended as strongly as we promote the opposite. All we get back is sloppy arguments, barely at kindergarten debating level. And since they have no good arguments to knock us down with, our best approach is to hold back. Not push things through too completely, not at first anyway. We need to give them space to consider things, then to make a response, but just as strongly we must be saying, “You don’t have to respond”. We’ve got to show all this, so they can feel safe with us.

If we answer any debating point, we have to do it without shooting ourselves in the foot by being defensive our self. We’re in the advantaged position all the time, so it’s best not to exploit that. We know we can always hold our ground, and they know it too. So, their always being on the defensive means they have no real confidence in what they say, and that often means they resort to denigration.

The vegan advocate should be able to take anything, only because we know we have solid answers. We can out-argue on non-violence alone, and in that way always hold our own ... that is until the knuckle dusters come out. And then it’s best to run like hell!

Holding back

882: 

Assuming, as vegans, we enjoy talking about Animal Rights with non-vegans, and assuming I’m not an animal-bore, and assuming I still have some friends left to talk to, then any sort of discussion on this subject is a help to me. Talking, conversing, exchanging opinions helps to solidify where I stand on each issue. As I talk, I express my opinion and I’m prepared to stand by it.  Discussion is very useful - I need the practice. I should take any chance I can get, and not be too fussy when people don’t agree with me. Their reasoning behind disagreeing is none of my business. I can’t necessarily fathom that, or know the truth of why they think the way they do.  

Anyone I’m speaking with has a right to their own views. It’s not up to me to try to change them. And also, I don’t have the right to treat them like experimental subjects. These are real live people, some of whom might be strangers, some close friends. It’s not compulsory, for you to speak to me about animals. If you do, it’s you who decides that. You decide to participate with me, on the basis that I’m a friendly person, who holds perhaps, a different opinion to you.

The make or break of any human-to-human connection is how we communicate with each other, the quality of it. The unwritten rule of any serious conversation, on any topic, is surely that we can agree to disagree at any point, if we think we’re edging too closely to endangering the essential nature of our present relationship. We might be speaking with people who already know us, who may even love us for who we are.

If they do, it’s on the understanding that we remain true to this rule, and that includes not getting heavy with them or trying to ‘ethic’ them out. On this one subject, they have a probity shield, by being part of the same daily activity as everyone else. They hold a confidence shield in common with seven billion others. With any other human being on the planet, none of them will criticise another’s eating habits, or get heavy about food and animals.

In other words, omnivores are not afraid to slap me down, even my closest friends, for fear I’ve gone troppo, or I’m being hysterical. I’m just ‘going through a phase’. It’s appropriate to get heavy with me, to snap me out of it. However, things have changed of late. Veganism isn’t esoteric any longer. You even see the word printed on commercial products, although admittedly not often in Australia, more often in places like Britain. It’s more hesitant, the slapping-down, these days. But within, it’s different. The feelings omnivores feel, about vegans and what we stand for - many would like to spray us with ‘image-deterrent’. Like the mosquitto, we are an irritating presence in Society.

In our Western societies, where there are so many well educated and economically-advantaged people, ‘the vegan-type’ is quite well known. Some know quite a few things about us (not necessarily accurate). But how we are perceived is, again, none of our business. Whether we like it or not, if we represent certain values and principles, we come across as like a moral shock wave. Offensively so. Which makes us people to be roundly disagreed with. Some are keen to out-argue us. But few, and rarely. I wish there were more brave discoursers around.

 For us, vegans, advocates, activists, liberationists, abolitionists, we’re urgent. We want to get this compassion-revolution on the road. Discussing matters amongst ourselves, we agree on the significance of ‘compassion’. We talk about it a lot. And individually, we discuss it inside our own heads. We exude it and have belief in it and want to talk about it. All the time!! And so this is the heart of a very tricky problem: we come across as O.T.T.

In my first-home country of England, I can hear them saying that we “don’t-half fancy ourselves”. So, there’s something of a caution to be heeded here.

The omnivore also has to be cautious but in an entirely different way, for different reasons. So, aware of this caution and that caution, I know that when I steer the conversation round to that tabooed subject , your alarm bells ring. I not only see this happening frequently, I foresee it. So, I’m suggesting that we vegans, instead of going in hard, do the very opposite. We have such a powerful message that we should underplay it. Why?

I admit it’s got a similar ‘look’ to being ashamed of something, but of course it’s not the case here - shame is low listed amongst problems facing vegans, it’s one things absent when you’re vegan. No, this hold-back is for a good reason. In nearly every encounter I have with people, when it’s inevitable they’ll be put on the defensive, I jump ahead of this. When offered a plate of cakes, my first instinct is to beware, when I mention “I’m vegan”, as soon as that’s known, everything changes. I can hear the wheels turning, to defend one’s values, fearing an ethics-attack from said vegan.

Which is why this subject, coming up, usually comes up alongside refreshments, at home, in cafes, at friends’ places. At first I seem hyper-sensitive or just a fussy eater. And only later is that shown not to be the case. It’s the inevitability of this being the way vegans are seen that needs me to take that into account. I might have to bite my lip, bide my time, bow to the power of perception, and say far less than I’d like to.