Pushy Vegans

2025:

We all use force. We use it to drive in a screw, we use it to stop the kids screaming all day. But force can be used unjustifiably. Whatever the circumstances, force is always ugly and ineffective. However deserving the animal cause is, we can’t afford to be ‘pushy’, not over something people aren’t yet fully aware of. To most people using animals is still ‘acceptable’. What we say to them about that, however well we put it, will always sound pushy. People don’t feel an obligation to listen, let alone agree. In our protest against animal cruelty we want to be seen as confident and determined, but nothing is achieved if we end up losing the audience.

On this subject of animals having rights, we want others to know about it. But being forceful and making people feel uncomfortable and taking the moral high ground, well, it’s a bit ‘yesterday’.

Whatever the reasoning behind using force, somehow the more reasoning approach comes across as more genuine. We have to find ways of stopping people running away as soon as they know we’re vegan.

Here’s a thought – if we poke fun at ourselves there’s a sense of relief on people’s faces when we start talking. It’s difficult to  describe a whole manner, and each of us is different in our style. But perhaps it’s our gentleness of approach which is picked up before we even open our mouths. There’s something in this notion of ‘vegan harmlessness’ which has a nice ring to it and we need to be living examples of just that. Maybe it can be cheeky but it never has to be pushy and certainly never offensive.

Same-Old,Same-Old

2024:

How can we ensure that, when advocating for the ‘animal cause’, that we won’t become ‘forceful’ or even violent? When we’re talking to people on this subject, are we really trying to force people to agree with us? If so, how do we justify that?

Perhaps we use the animals as an excuse to bully. Our pushiness comes across as boring, same old-same old. If we have something to say let it be useful and sound original, as if it comes from the heart and not from the vegan text book.

Being 'Right'

2023:

For vegans, we have such cast iron arguments that we can’t believe they don’t have magical powers. Certainly, our arguments are powerful but maybe not yet imbued with magic. Our job is to bring them to life.

To animal-food-addicted omnivores, our arguments are unacceptable. They build cast iron barricades to guard themselves from vegan assault. In the end it comes down to perception - our arguments might as well have no weight at all if we, as ‘identifiable-with humans’, seem like poor ambassadors.

We know omnivore logic is faulty but the trap for us, with our better arguments, is that we sound so ‘right’. It’s our smugness that puts people off. “Look at me, how healthy, guiltless”, etc. It’s what they call here in Australia “big-noting oneself”.

We, as vegans, have to control our passions, and make sure we don’t signal that we’re ready to forfeit friendliness for the sake of making a point. What is so hard for omnivores, when they talk with a vegan, is that they don’t know if we’ll suddenly ‘turn’ on them. 

We must be always respectful, always affectionate but always stirring.

Outrage Isn't Enough

2022:

If outrage isn’t a cool image, what is? I’m not sure, personally, that I could even attempt to answer that question because when it comes to animals being attacked, I’m not really in control of my emotions. I won’t flinch at watching footage of animal cruelty. I hate to see it but I’ve seen so much of it, and I know it underlines the rotten core in many humans. And yet, this ‘outrage’ I feel is a trap, as it is for many vegan animal advocates.  

It interferes in our speaking about this subject. All important is how forgiving we are, and how much we respect other humans. It isn’t just about animals. When we speak, we can create great waves of trust and promise, as long as we don’t pounce.  

Communication has to be a long and patient process. We might think we are natural speakers, and do a lot of emailing, writing, telephoning, to connect this vegan message to people. But how do we protect people from fearing us as preachy and threatening and evangelical? So often, we don’t reach the point where we make it feel ‘safe’ for omnivores to listen to us. They can’t protect themselves from us except by running away.

Omnivores need to trust that we won’t ‘turn’ on them, crush them or make fools of them.

Turning Nasty

2021:

In public, some vegans protest in the streets (or in the media) for Animal Rights. In our fierce fight for ‘rights’, we mightn’t leave room for ideas, like ‘having all-round-respect for animals and humans alike’.

In our daily interactions with people, it’s this one small weakness that damages the reputation of the animal advocate. It’s one of the main contested issues within the Animal Rights and Vegan movements - how we appear to the general public, how our words are couched, and how we deal with contentious issues sensitively. Same say “go in soft”, others like to throw their metaphorical fists about. The whole process of communicating effectively is what we are surely all about?
Here are omnivores listening to us, hearing  about our interest in Animal Rights, asking themselves whether we are people they can identify with. It rests with a gut reaction – about vegans – whether they are violent or non-violent by nature.
If we use ‘emotional blackmail’, we’ll succeed in proving that others are WRONG but we’ll be remembered for the humiliation we cause when we show how others are wrong or make them feel foolish.
An omnivore listening to a vegan can feel like being vomited on by a drunk. Whenever listening, how can the omnivore be certain the vegan’s views are going to be expressed in a reasonable way. As vegans, if we come across as fierce, we may reinforce that old familiar evangelical image. Whatever the subject, when we get steamed up about it, it’s the outrage that sounds so ugly and ridiculous.
Vegan shouts: listener cringes. What the listener does NOT do, is say, “That is so true and from this moment on I will join you in your outrage”, especially if they have a ham sandwich in their lunch pack!

Protests Can Look Ugly

2020:

As vegans, we may be convinced of our own non-violence. But then we ‘do’ an angry protest. To people who see us, we’re off-putting. Our high moral ground might give us confidence. We feel that we are so obviously right. And yet we don’t see how, drip by drip, our protest seems too harsh, too ugly, and even violent.

To be non-violent, I think, we ‘activists’ (so-called!) do need to consider developing a level of control, where words are strong but not frightening, where voices are loud but not screaming. Collectively we can seem too big for our boots, over confident or even brash. The vegan public-face is sometimes off-putting. Whereas when we are at home, it isn’t like that at all, because we’re not trying to impress anyone. Lifestyle-wise, vegans are pretty much fine examples of non-violence. It seems a shame to wear our darker side in public, just to appear deeply dedicated, even when it’s just a one on one.

In practice, vegans show an ‘at-peace’ spirit, because we have low levels of ‘spending-violence’, i.e. buying, say, animal-stuff or guns or something which supports crime. At home vegans are cool. It’s only when we’re trying to be effective outside the home that we hit trouble. Like when we want to be ‘hot’ (passionate) and our appearance lets us down. Vegans should, of course, always feel safe when we go up against the ‘big-bad-world’. When we have to face some opposition, face some curly questions, how we handle it makes the main impact.

I know an 18 year old who is into vegan food, but she’s stuck on shoes. She loves shoes. (What woman doesn’t?) But there isn’t much of an alternative to reasonably priced, leather fashion-shoes. So, why does my ‘vegan’ friend wear leather on her feet? Maybe it’s the fear of social failure - a beautiful dress, a magnificent everything else and it all falls to pieces if she wears canvas on her feet.

Of course, this usually isn’t so much of a problem for men, well not for me certainly but then I’m not 18 and not dating. And of course, it doesn’t matter eventually because as soon as there’s enough demand for a different line of shoe, then a whole range of magnificent plant-based footwear will suddenly appear, and at competitive prices.

The world is moving towards cutting unnecessary costs by ‘going-plant’. Fashion will shift towards both non-animal foods and fabrics. However, it all depends where we spend our money now. If you join the boycott and sponsor alternatives, fashions will change. And it’s the fashion market which determines whether we get plant-based shoes.

But back to my friend. It must be annoying to her that, because of the shoes she chooses to wear, she can’t actively promote vegan principle or Animal Rights.

Force

2019:

Experimenting with the use of force is experimenting with advantage-taking. Once we take out the ‘force factor’ in what we do, what are we left with? Perhaps different habits. We free ourselves from the grip of violence-based habits.

As humans, we’re capable of wonderful things, not the least of which is our ability to ‘act on principle’ rather than from ‘me-first’. One such principle is non-violence. The most attractive aspect of non-violence is a provocateur spirit. This element of rebellion or provoking or questioning needs to use no violence other than gently taking the piss out of omnivores for being, well, omnivores. Vegans are at their most effective, I think, when they are being simultaneously passive and pro-active, just as they are when they boycott.

The boycott is a withdrawal from a world-that-need-not-be. Our pressure, as vegans, brings this world into focus, making compassion the new fashion. Omnivores believe it’s probably too hard to live happily being a boycotter of violence. But then that’s been planted in the collective mind, and is part of the ‘conspiracy of misinformation’ put out by the Animal Industries. 

'Me-First'

2018:

When we look into the ‘me-first’ world, obviously food features large. When it comes to food, It controlled Us. Our food habits haven’t substantially changed since childhood, because changing them has never occurred to us (you).

Vegans turn away. Sometimes not enough. You might become vegan, and sacrifice some of your ‘me-first’ world. For vegans, for all the premeditation gone through befor plunging in, it’s surprising that things do move on quickly. Once the food thing is secure, food feels right for you, once cooking and messing about with food is no longer a nightmare, then you’re feeling good about being vegan. And going on to see that veganism isn’t only about food but about activism too.

Once we’re there, actively advocating for animals’ case, and advocating in a ‘no-force’ way, we can achieve non-violence in our food, our clothing, and out thinking.

So, if we are NOT advocating non-violence, then how can vegans ever be of any use to our non-violent animal friends. It might sound bizarre, but are the animals not in a superior state of mind to us? Isn’t our job to aspire to their incredible levels of peace and harmlessness?

So, if our veganism doesn’t aspire to non-violence then the question is: Why not?

To routinely practise non-violence in this violent world, that’s quite a challenge. But if we don’t attempt non-violence, our self-esteem will surely suffer. We as vegans will suffer, out reputations as being ‘heavy’ will increase, and we won’t do much good for the animals who we’re supposed to be standing up for.

Crazy

2017:

Imagine the embarrassment in years to come, when we remember how we participated in animal enslavement. This is no casual, accidentally picked up habit, this is daily routine complicity to murder, made more obscene by eating the dead bodies of these creatures we’ve been abusing.  

Today, when plant-based foods are known to be so perfect for us, the whole thing of farming and killing animals seems crazy. Vegans live amongst 99% of all humans on the planet, who are locked into the ‘me-first’ attitude in so many significant ways. The most dangerous thing about human nature is the way we see things only from our own vantage point.

Crazy!

Breeding Controls

2016:

Existing animals should have their lives restored, but certainly we can’t allow the billions alive today to breed indiscriminately, since we need to have their numbers (whole populations of them in fact) drastically reduced, and as quickly as possible. If we keep large numbers of animals alive and then let them breed without fertility control it would be chaos. As the number of ‘useful animals’ increases the more their dollar-earning potential will tempt the unscrupulous human back to using them again, at a later date. Without fertility control, the animal-liberation-solution is untenable. Even as it is, the cost of caring for the present-day’s animals could be an intolerable burden on the public purse. But retiring the animals still alive today is probably a relatively minor problem in the greater scheme of things, since people do love being around animals. Any government could find potential animal-refuge workers, ready and willing (and probably voluntarily or for low wages) to work at animal retirement centres. The whereabouts of these sanctuaries could be on land no longer used for farming.

The details, however, concerning reproduction, must include the possibility of denying the animals reproduction rights or in some way controlling birth rates.

Free them we must. Our energy can’t be better used than in the work of dis-enslaving these presently incarcerated animals.

Animal Rights by Law

2015:

Animals, especially when they’re around humans, certainly need their rights to be legislated. The story of domesticated animals is all about loss of dignity and loss of life. We should atone, or at least leave them alone. But, as it happens we’ve done so much damage to them over the generations that we can’t simply let them go. Now we also need to protect them. Domesticated animals wouldn’t be able to survive on their own. Importantly we owe them ‘safe passage’, to live out their lives in a sanctuary or refuge, to be retired in other words. At the very least they are entitled to an unmolested rest-of-their-life.

Since we know that neither animal’s muscle tissue or animal’s by products are essential for a healthy life, there are no arguments left to support non-vegan living. We owe them some of our bounty which has been taken from them while they were bound to us in slavery.

Loss

2014:

We’ve got to get used to losing - take on the world of loss.

For instance, what does it mean to lose friends? Or lose friends’ acceptance? These are both difficult losses for those who are moving toward becoming vegan, who have friends who are hostile to that change. Perhaps on the up-side is loss of addiction, even loss of weight (if one is overweight). Whatever we lose, in order to make changes, at whatever level or cost or discomfort, the consequent results may be worth it. Anything’s better than inaction or doing something that lowers one’s self-respect.

There are a lot of ‘good causes’ to get involved with. This particular cause of Animal Rights needs many to take on the major job of liberating animals.

Vegans want to get all domesticated, enslaved animals out of gaol. And rehabilitate them. We want them to have a life free from their slave masters. We believe they have a right to a life and, as with the issue of human slavery, it must be written into law for future generations. Some people will lose out, by no longer being able to exploit animals to make a living. But their loss is really their gain, since they won’t have to ignore their compassionate feelings in order to make money.

Reason to Change 'Me-First'

2013:

In the process of change, if we feel confident not to land ourselves in serious trouble, then we might change. Surely as progressive, model citizens, but attitudinally regressive, we may still have allegiance to the ‘Me-First’ club.  

There’s a ‘me-first’ in all of us. But it prevails mostly when we’re eating for pleasure and comfort. “Don’t touch my food”, says the omnivore to the vegan. But there’s no idle reasoning behind our interferance. We’re suggesting that the most me-centred activities, like eating delicious but harmful animal-based foods, are so in need of change that our very potential as humans is currently being wasted, like rotting fruit fallen from the tree. We are, most of us, victims of self-perpetuating, harmful habits. (From meat to cheese to cakes and confections and eggy concoctions, all of which have in some way been extracted from the bodies of fellow, sentient beings).  

Changing ‘me-first’ doesn’t have to mean ‘me-last’. More like ‘me-second’. We need to step back from the attitude of we-the-dominator-species, in order to contemplate other matters affecting us, like addiction, material insecurity or being vulnerable to peer pressure. Me-second is a sign of growing-up. Specifically, these particular habit changes should come about not because they’re causing us harm but because they harm animals.  

A habit-change, from omnivore to herbivore, starts with boycotting. By no longer encouraging animal incarceration, we no longer support our own bad habits. Only by boycotting can we make a sufficiently strong statement – enough, both to save our own souls and let what we say to be taken seriously. We do need people to pay attention to what we have to tell them, and we achieve this by shifting the emphasis from ‘me’ to ‘the other’.  

What sort of world is it we dream of? Just something nice for ourselves or a dream of uncaged animals?

Thinking about Going Vegan

2012:

As vegans we pass on information, and we may know what we want to say but we might not yet understand how to say it. We’re looking for keys to communication.

The aim surely is to stir, to question, to make others a little troubled and then persuade them to get thinking on their own. And the aim surely is to have a good time stirring and interacting with people and sometimes being a bit edgy. But then to get the balance just right.

For omnivores, something happens in their ‘contemplation zone’ when we speak ‘vegan’. They’re hearing things, noticing things, computing how it would be for them to change -specifically, how it would feel.

Contemplating going vegan ranges from revulsion through to inspiration. If it’s somewhere in the middle and we’ve arrived at that point, the next step is to quieten the brain for long enough to listen to the heart’s gentle roar. It will undoubtedly be  strongly advising us to make ‘that particular change’.

The Fluidity of Change

2011:

Vegans have made one or two quite dramatic changes in their lives. For a start, they’ve replaced the items in their fridge. They’ve changed their whole lifestyle from one they’ve always known since childhood. (Although now, of course, there are ‘lifers’, who’ve been vegan from birth).

Vegans may have made certain changes, but some of us are still afraid of doing too much more. However, once started, why not explore. Vegans of today are the freest people on Earth to be exploring.

Change breathes life. It’s like with cycling, where you curse the hills but love the down-slopes. As vegans, we need a buzz of change about us to keep us on our toes. We have the potential to be a determined and vocal ‘opposition’ to all aspects of the appallingly amoral Animal Industries.  Vegans are out there, showing that we are an evaluating and discriminating people. We need to find out what the differences are, between omnivore-mentality and vegan-mentality. And how that pertains to human development.

Change is the key here, not unnecessary change or dramatic change but a bubbling, unplanned, next-moment sense-of-change. For any of us who are drugged and addicted, we must be kept awake, so our receptors are receptive to whatever is coming in.

Vegan animal advocates have the responsibility not only to promote plant-based products but to advocate change, if only because there’s such a deep-rooted fear of it. Everything benefits from the heat of change. Staid solid lives don’t welcome change. So, in our harmlessness drive, we know we don’t have an easy sell on our hands.

The omnivore mind-set is largely based on pleasure. The exquisite sensation of pleasure from certain flavours and foods is indelible. Food opinions have been forming and responses rehearsed for much of our adult lives. Too many get stuck. It often takes a dramatic illness or a near-death experience to jolt us into change. And then perhaps it’s done reluctantly.

Not surprisingly!

But vegans have their deep-rooted fears too. We often take a long time to realise, having made such a dramatic step, that it isn’t all, then, done and dusted; we don’t always recognise our own need to keep moving on. We can be so focussed on food that we think of not other dimension to veganism. Is it for  health, is it for the environment, for animals - each is central to the application of the highest vegan principle of harmlessness, but the big ban is violence. And we, getting a better understanding of why it’s there, and structure one’s own thoughts the other way. Notably, liking and then promoting non-violence.

Habit Trouble

2010:

Habits are like friends - we rely on them, we’re familiar with them but they can be trouble. Try changing a habit and a little voice says, “oh no you don’t”. We learn not to tinker with our own internal balance. We’ve become so identified with our habits that we hardly notice that they, under cover of ‘personality’, control our behaviour. Fiddle with a habit and you reveal a dangerous-intention-to-change. And ‘change’ always means trouble.

There are two types of trouble: the noticeable trouble that springs up immediately, when we intend to change, and the sort of trouble that comes later, when the changes are set in and they start affecting everything we do. “Trouble” is something we try to avoid.

Trouble is what vegans take on. They give up heaps of favourite foods (troubling at first) and then set out to confront people and persuade them to change - if you want trouble, there’s no better than a vegan for bringing it on! But by causing trouble and then accommodating it (for ourselves at least) it’s a freeing process, and eventually becomes an attractive process, especially when habits become more fluid.

Change With a Touch of Pizzazz

2009

If there’s something we want to change, something big we’d like to see changing in our self and, by extension, in our society, we need to know what we’re getting into.

Change can mean having to go the long way round, being patient, thinking along the lines of “better to prevent than cure”. Ideally change would be motivated by a sense of great-improvements-to-come. It would be something we’d enjoy doing at the time. And we’d enjoy it because we’d put in some pizzazz. We all like to be style-merchants so if we are going to do something important we might as well do it in style. If the way we change is optimistic, creative and enthusiastic, what can possibly go wrong?

Often though we change out of fearing-for-the-worst. We might feel a compulsion to change, gritting our teeth and full of determination. The potential enjoyment of change is spoiled by grumbling and procrastination. Changing certain types of habits is as daunting as changing certain types of friends - they don’t like it. Habits feel unchangeable. Even the intention-to-change depends on us being in the right mood. But it isn’t always like that! In another sort of mood we might only consider changing habits to save our own skin. (Like giving up red meat after suffering a heart attack).

Whatever our mood or motivation we should ask our self if we think change is attractive or a turn-off? It depends on what it is that we’re changing, but say it’s one of the classic habits, the addictive habit or a rigid attitude. Changing these habits is hard despite the promise of good returns in the future.

In the vegan drive towards ‘humanising humans’ we have to sell the importance of change, but more importantly we need to be absolutely clear about what we’re saying. Anyone can understand the message we’re putting out but it’s the ‘how’ of saying it that tips the balance - if it can be done firmly but gently it might just catch on. If it does impact, it will because it’s in contrast to the usual finger-wagging, evangelical, make-‘em-afraid approach.

The prospect of becoming a more humane human should make change seem attractive – specifically, enjoying a vegan-principled life which contrasts to the rut most people are in.

Enjoying Change

2008:

I suggested to a friend he might consider changing some of his habits. “It’s a bit late now”. And that was from a 25 year old!

At whatever age change happens, it can improve everything, but often it’s too little, too late. Or we do something so radical that we don’t stand a in hell of keeping it up.

Competition with other humans plays a big part here – if it won’t help us win status amongst our friends it won’t seem like such a good idea. Because we regard self development as a competitive sport, success becomes more important than the actual enjoyment of it. Consequently, we don’t enjoy the process of change. We race one another to be more special, more rich, more well known, more revered, more liked, and so on. The very process of change is supposed to be enjoyable. It’s the risk, the uncertainty which is the essence of it. It isn’t to be confused with teeth-grindingly hard self discipline.

Change is a teacher. It keeps us creative and on our toes. It gives life edge. It draws us into a less judgemental forgivingness, because the best change always recognises (and respects) mistakes and misjudgements. If ‘change’ were our teacher, it would be patient enough to appreciate even our smallest movement forward.

Radical Change

2007:

How can radical change work for us? The thought of making big changes in our life, especially when they may not be understood by others, frightens us. Ethics frighten us. Ethical principles make short work of old behaviours we grew up with. Over the years we did acquire habits that made life easier but were distinctly unethical.

To radically alter a habit, especially a habit concerning three-times-a-day food, isn’t so easy. If we feel like a failure in life, and probably most of us do, going vegan will probably go wrong if only to fulfil our expectation that it will. If we’re going to fail, can we afford to take that risk?

For a start, we don’t think we’ve got the self-discipline to voluntarily kick a favourite habit. Truth to tell, we probably don’t want to kick it, we prefer to continue being as we are. But we know that it’s likely one day things will start to go wrong, then maybe we’ll try to change.

As our body fails and we see, for instance, that our eating habits are making us ill, even then we’re still reluctant to change. It’s the pleasure association we can’t let go of.

The body fails nonetheless, and we wonder what we’re facing for the rest of our life? Not only can we not ignore symptoms (of the ageing body) but we can’t face the upheaval of ‘change’.

Cleaning Up Our Act

2006:

We are modern. We are untouched by old fashioned ways of dealing with problems. We laugh at the stupidity of using war to settle differences. But we still use the same principle, force, to get what we want. We still grab what we can and become destructive. It doesn’t seem like real war when there’s no blood spilt (none we can see anyway) but much harm is still done in the hardening of our approach to each other and in the solving of problems. Whatever we do that uses force and violence is at least as stupid as war.

We need to see those situations where humanity could work, how the gentle touch can overcome difficulties and where the aggro element can be dropped. Our intention to clean up our act might need to start very close to home, with routine matters (in the way we speak to each other, in the boycotting of violent foods)  and move on towards what seems, at first, like an ‘impossibly clean’ attitude. Only later does it seem clean because the other way was so dirty.

If we avoid all temptation to go in hard, if we don’t ignore the brutality of what we’ve been doing, then life can become incredibly simple, and before we know it we’ve cleaned up our act. Which is what vegans have done.

Too Late?

2005:

Wasn’t it the shillyshallying White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland who was rushing against the clock, “too late”, and we find that funny even though we carry on in much the same way in this oh so serious world. It’s ridiculous the way we rush about looking as if we’re achieving things when in fact we aren’t.

In comedy and comics, the adventures of humans are ridiculed and we all laugh. But that teaches us less than we think, since we continue to perpetuate the same mistakes, over and over again. We won’t get serious, we must keep laughing to show we’re happy (when we’re not!). We won’t apply history’s lessons to help govern our society. What happened in the past doesn’t seem to relate to today’s problems. We ask, “what has history to teach us about today?”

We’re so dazzled by technology that we ignore any matters not interesting enough. But here we are in 2017, overwhelmed and feeling as though we’re standing on the brink of an abyss, without a hand to hold onto. We feel abandoned, so what do we do? Do we wait for things to change? Shouldn’t we be the ones initiating change?

It feels safer to stay as we are, with no change. We continue to believe that human-domination is the only way to go. We act just like the kids did in Lord of the Flies, giving-in to the savage in us. We refuse to let history shake us up. We are determinedly modern, and to prove it we destroy our relationship with Nature, and often with one another too. We are still determined to be the dominant ones (even in our human relationships) but the clock ticks on. Too late, too late, we fear. We face an up-coming challenge to our dominant attitudes. Most of us would like to think we could rise to that challenge when it comes. It’s never too late to stop being so dominant.

Eventuality

2004:

The people responsible for great empires have always thought they were God’s chosen people. I come from a country with that sort of mind-set, from a group of conceited oafs in fact. The knowledge that we are superior gives us our sense of dominance, almost a right to be superior, a right to rule. When I was young we never thought about it, being tops - we thought it was something that would last forever … so we grew up proud, the nasty side of proud, and we contracted hubris and megalomania.

Each empire fails and its central weaknesses show up in the endgame, when they collapse. Even when they fail horribly, the people of the empire can’t (for long) remember why it failed. They career downwards, pretending nothing has happened.

Humans who’ve ‘made it’ don’t learn from their past mistakes, or so it says in recorded history.

In this way, the empire-people are very stupid, always having to make the same mistakes over and over again, in order to find out what should have been obvious in the first place.

Our lives, so they say, are awash with delusion and false justification for what we do. We think we can only learn by re-experiencing the whole cycle of ‘succeeding then failing’. So, we go through the same lessons, lifetime after lifetime, until eventually we learn. Eventually.

Mad for Plenty

2003:

We probably all dream of having plenty, indeed that there should be plenty for all. We dream that eventually humans will fix things up for the planet and all our oafishness will dissolve like Scotch mist. Violence and greed will no longer be needed. Eventually.

Ironically, this is more or less the justification for today’s bad behaviour. By becoming truly dominant over lesser life forms, including lesser ‘human’ life forms, we see ourselves as the ‘benevolent despots of Planet Earth’. Call it evil, call it wicked, it matters not a jot since dominators always self justify according to their end-aim (it being to ‘save the world’ or ‘save our souls’).

We know from history that this end-aim is a furphy, because too much happens along the way that we don’t bargain for. We’re seduced by our big brains, into cutting corners and outsmarting the opposition. We practise violence. Violence brings us a certain type of power. We can win with it. We can get what we want - at the time it seems simple. The world seems ripe for the picking. There are no adverse outcomes. So, we lose sight of the aim of saving souls and saving the world and instead enjoy being on a roll. It’s only later that the awful consequences become apparent, and then it’s almost too late!

Mad For It

2002:

A chicken farmer has to be cruel and destructive, doing unspeakable things to hens or he’ll go out of business. And short of moving to the city to find work, going out of business means ruin. There are many rural suicides connected with farmers going bust.

Like many other highly destructive pursuits, like deforesting by foresters or denuding the land by miners, animal farmers have to destroy just to live. We the consumer can’t mine copper or cut down timber or make food. We’re dependent on others. We feel we have to support those people who can bring us the products we want. This is a rich-living lifestyle we Westerners lead, where many superfluous items are ‘needed’ by us. Without them we believe we’d go mad.

Rural Life Today

2001:Posted Sunday 4^th June

Life in the country today

Animal farming is just about the only reliable source of income for people who live in the countryside. They use the ‘resources at hand’. They farm animals, sometimes because the profits are better than from plant-growing, and sometimes because the land can only support animal grazing. The more marginal the land, the more cattle and sheep will be ‘run’ on it. Using the land, converting its energy for our use, is the name of the game. When the primary ‘converter’ is an animal, it is regarded merely as a machine for ‘using the land profitably’.

The cruelty factor has exponentially increased over the past 60 years owing to competition for market share. There has been a vast explosion of (hungry) populations in urban concentrations. The ever-present threat of someone else exploiting the market has made intensive farming inevitable.

The End Is Profit

2000:

Ending animal farming won’t come about over night but it will happen. Before it does, the farmer is going to feel fairly safe, with steady market demand along with promises of protection from prosecution for cruelty to animals. There’s nothing more satisfying than knowing ‘what you do’ is safe. When there’s safety from prosecution and safety of profit it helps people do things they shouldn’t. It helps them exploit animals for a living. Animal farming has now, more than ever before, become a cruel practice. It’s always been cruel and yet pragmatically it’s been accepted, but now it’s so obviously wrong that it’s much harder to wriggle out of feeling guilty about it. And animal business has gotten bigger and grubbier, but it’s still here, feeding the population. Its husbandry practices are overlooked by people, out of ignorance, or they’ve been excused as being ‘part of traditional practice’. The blind spot people still have is that the cruelty itself is not wanton or sadistic, but simply calculated to fend off competition. That’s the justification for cruel practices anyway. In the end, it all comes down to the fact that money can be made out of animals. And there are a lot of interests riding this particular wagon.

Making Them Mad

1999:

It’s not as simple as it seems, to turn the minds of the movers and shakers who are our so called ‘leaders’. The chief killers in our community, many of whom are the leaders of the Animal Industries, are a determined lot. They own. They’re within the law and conduct businesses which are dependent on animals. They won’t willingly give up their rights to use them, to turn a profit. However, a consumer boycott of their produce will take away their means of making money from animals. That will make them mad, in both senses of the word.

Oafs

1998:

What is it, when people behave badly, that lets them NOT think ill of themselves? Perhaps it’s a slow, almost imperceptible process, almost as slow as evolution itself, moulding normality into the shape of how things have always been done - I’m okay because I’m normal, doing no worse than others.

What arrogance that is, and yet probably no more arrogant than someone with a sense of being special, privileged or the ultimate saviour of humanity. The messianic and the barbaric aren’t that dissimilar to each other.

Are humans meant to be the dominant species, have a role to play in taking primitive life forms and transforming them into more sophisticated beings? It’s as if humans have swallowed a sci-fi fantasy, leading them to not-question their dominator role. It’s as if we believe we are the way we are.

If we put it this way it makes us sound like real oafs. But that’s more or less what we are, according to what we do. And alongside that, we achieve some really wonderful things. We have become mesmerised by our own achievements but have conveniently forgotten how we’ve paid for them. Our oafishness, arrogance and insecurity have been inherited from our culture, our parents, etc, and if we don’t spot it soon enough it sticks to us. It stays with us. It comforts the lonely and emboldens ‘me-first’. It says “I must succeed. I have about seventy or eighty years of life in which to do it, preferably sooner, so I can enjoy my success. If I fail I will be unhappy”.

Only when we come to question this closely do other things start to fall into place. We see why we need to start changing but, for this, we need breathing space. Slowness-of-purpose doesn’t always mean indecision, it sometimes shows patience and a sense of long-term purpose.

Vegan Animal Rights, the movement, has embarked on a long struggle which could end overnight if the collective attitude changed, but maybe it will endure for quite a bit longer yet, as if the time to change hasn’t yet arrived. During the intervening years, people who are part of the Movement, are exploring. We’re testing different ways of communicating the idea, that all animals are royal. That idea will take time to sink in, if only because most people still think of animals in the very opposite way.