Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
There's An Elephant in the Room blog
April
2015
It’s not out of love, kindness or compassion that we refrain from harming other humans. For example we would quite rightly be outraged to see campaigns in favour of ‘compassionate’ domestic violence, making ‘kinder choices’ about child abuse, or being ‘more loving’ about raping and murdering.
I seldom post about ‘compassion’, ‘kindness’ or even ‘love’ in relation
to nonhuman rights because whilst they are admirable qualities, compassion,
kindness and love do not necessarily drive our values.
It’s not out of love, kindness or compassion that we refrain from harming
other humans. For example we would quite rightly be outraged to see
campaigns in favour of ‘compassionate’ domestic violence, making ‘kinder
choices’ about child abuse, or being ‘more loving’ about raping and
murdering. No one would congratulate me for my ‘compassion’ for refusing to
steal from, harm or kill another human. No one would praise me for making a
‘kinder choice’.
No, some behaviour is deeply wrong in the eyes of the vast majority of
humans and we do not hesitate to call for it to end completely; we see it as
black and white. To reject what we see as wrong behaviour is basic decency.
To refuse to participate is a matter of fundamental justice and reflects our
deepest values.
So it is with our use of individuals of other species. Simply because they
are gentle, vulnerable and have no defence against us does not give us
license to ignore their rights as sentient inhabitants of this planet. In
fact it does the opposite, it places responsibilities on us to safeguard
their interests, to protect them. After all, deep down every one of us likes
to think of ourselves as a protector of the innocent.
The truth that our nonvegan former selves did not want to hear, was that far
from being guardians of the helpless, almost every choice we made of our
clothing, toiletries, foodstuffs and many other commodities required
brutality, violence, unspeakable harm, suffering and misery. Either through
thoughtless acceptance of the mistaken myths of our childhood, or with
unfounded delusions of superiority and entitlement, we ignored the
catastrophic cost of our self-indulgence to individuals exactly like
ourselves in every relevant way except species.
We must stop pretending that ceasing to cause completely unnecessary harm is
a kindness for which we should be congratulated. Brutalising and bullying
our way through life is a crime that we must stop. We do this by
acknowledging the right of all sentient beings to own their bodies and their
lives. And that means we become vegan. There is no other way.
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