Cruelty is on the Nose - Why I'm a vegan
People who are cruel to animals are hard to bear, especially because of the hard-nosed way they practise cruelty. Who are these people?
Perhaps the most cruel and cold are the vivisectors with their sharp scalpels; or maybe the chicken farmers who cage hens; or maybe it's all of us who consume the products they sell. We want the goods so we finance the business of exploiting animals, we all make up the same cruel society. So, okay, we humans have a cruel gene! And so what, if we play out a game of do it and damn it? The trouble is, weakness and recklessness go hand in hand, and what we do for now eventually makes us feel ashamed. There's payback!
Some people find shame to be so debilitating that they decide to do something about it. They summon up all their willpower and break free of cruelty-based lifestyles. The environmentalists, to some extent, follow a code that keeps them living in a friendly way with the environment but the most comprehensive disengaging is done by vegans, who purge habits and cut out great chunks of normal lifestyle; they dramatically alter patterns of behaviour by restricting their food and clothing to items composed entirely from the plant kingdom. By not eating or using animal products they seek to ameliorate this overwhelming sense of shame. They may think they do it for the animals but in truth they probably do it in order that they can pursue a freer life and, by way of a "clear conscience", speak with a truer voice.
For the vast majority, who are not yet vegan, a contortion of thinking has to take place on a daily basis in order to prevent shame from continually knocking them down. They have to learn to pretend, to achieve a desensitisation to what's happening in the world Now, for intelligent, educated and sensitive people this is almost impossible. You can numb the nerves, so if the body is in pain a pain-killer will dull the sensation, but there are no pills to dull conscience. The conscience is a relatively pristine machine, and needs to be because it's the HQ for most of our main decisions, it's here that we make all the "yes" and "no" choices. So, pretending about fundamental things is a tricky business; to pretend that all this cold cruel stuff isn't in fact happening at all, (i.e. the killing and imprisoning of about 40 billion animals each year), is almost impossible. The only hope for the adult human is to pretend not to know and then switch off to any further information coming in.
Of course none of this is possible if you happen to be one of those people who are looking for truths and sensitive into the bargain. There's really only one course of action to consider: the reality of becoming a vegan.
In the end it all comes down to willingness or unwillingness to be party to the imprisoning and hurting and killing of creatures, who incidentally have done nothing to deserve their treatment. We can't fool our conscience. We have to consider some obvious propositions:
Apart from the fact that most "benefit" we derive from animals is in the form of food, we must acknowledge that this product is often poisonous to the body and damaging to the environment. The wasting of our own health and the cruelty we practise on animals are reason enough for vegans to avoid buying and enjoying these "benefits". We're talking here of a pernicious industry that needs no support from any of us. In the boycotting of the cruelty industries, in this one statement of principle and apparent act of self-denial, vegans tap directly into what is called "good luck". What?
Yes, perhaps it is really just good fortune all round that the idea exists: that humans are better off avoiding anything from the abattoir. From beef steaks to eggs to leather jackets.
It's luck that causes vegans to have stumbled over their own inner kindly feelings. On the face of it a vegan lifestyle appears less than gratifying, but as it turns out the regime is decidedly liberating. It's really only when the weight of something so familiar is lifted that we appreciate what we've shaken off. Once the conscience is relieved it pays back so generously that very few ethically-driven vegetarians ever go back to eating animals.
When we stop ingesting Society's main poisoning agent, ie meat and dairy produce, we get a better energy from our food, a feeling of zip never felt previously. Plant energy is a relatively clean energy and enters the body in balanced forms. It makes for energy both mental and physical, not to speak of it's "good" conscience-energy.
In contrast, the animal industry supporters, eating rich and chemically laced foods, often eventually find health deteriorating prematurely; minds blunten, arteries constrict and humours decline. If meat and animal by-products do kill us, (by means of heart attacks and cancers and diseases associated with obesity), vegan-vegetarians can probably avoid most of that by making just the one simple dietary decision - to stop eating the stuff.
Plant Eaters even smell okay.
There's less "hum" in the sweat, less of a nasty smell from the toilet, and a better reception offered by our creature friends in the countryside. Being "cleaner" and more physically healthy, and being of a greater compassionate sensitivity - all this translates back to our relationships with other humans and of course to the animals themselves.
To some extent what vegans are saying is this: that there is another world, a world which is such a pretty, sweet, darling world, with no hard-nose and no bad smells, . . . why not have a piece of it?
Speaking of smells, we can imagine why it is that almost every animal can smell things better than humans. They live (when non captive) in a natural state where smelling the enemy and their food and the weather is vital to survival. So, why wouldn't they smell dead animal food oozing from our pores when we get near them? Animals aren't olefactorially challenged! And by smelling us, they know they're near a potential danger, by contrast a plant-eating herbivorous smelling human would trigger off a non-danger reaction. So not only can a vegan pass amongst humans without embarrassment but with animals too - with a clear conscience, able to look them in the eye, and in being non-dangerous to them establish a vital first step in regaining their trust of us.
Imagine if they trusted us (and had reason to). The world would certainly be a pleasanter place for all concerned - living freely amongst each other. But it isn't like this yet For most of us, apart from our dogs and cats, we have little or no contact with animals. Somehow we are encouraged to believe in a nonsense, that if we love our pets then we must love animals and that makes it okay to eat some of them. True gobbledygook of course, but any old argument will do when it comes to food and indulgence. Both fashion clothing and yummy animal foods set our senses ringing, enough for many people to drown out the obvious shame of it all.
We say, "shame about the hens", then, nicely expiated, we set about eating our egg sandwich. We push the shame down with every mouthful and it rises up again like bile in the throat. "Shame about the mink in their isolation cages. Pass me my fur wrap please".
It's all of this (unnecessary) problem that vegans don't have to put up with. We don't have to visit the "shame-points" so often. And that's such a relief. We can afford to regard animals as angels, all innocent and shining and an example of peaceful interactive behaviour, as we watch them peacefully being with others of their own kind. How humans secretly envy and admire their placidity. Of course these "angels" when crammed into a cage or a concrete pen for a life sentence, cooped up tight with others of their kind, are bound to go nuts and quarrel, but even in the least extensive "free range" farms the animals do interact with each more beautifully than humans do in groups, and this example that animals set, especially in their wild state, is surely one of the great lessons we humans are here on Earth to learn. And we can't learn it when we resist it.
Eating animals! Who ever heard of such a ridiculous thing. You'd have thought that as soon as we found out it was safe to do so, plant food and clothing would be made the norm for humans and the whole ugly mess scrapped there and then.
Ayee, aye, ay.
David Horton, Sydney. 6-1-03
Vegan Wise Publications
Email: David Horton
Tel (02) 9356 4752
63/2 Ithaca Road
Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011
Australia
