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I mentioned in my last article how non-vegans, upon discovering I am a vegan, often feel obliged for some reason to immediately state why they are an omnivore. I haven't done the research but I wouldn't be surprised if "Well, I like the taste of meat" were the bigger slice on a pie chart of these reactionary responses.
It's troubling to me this phrase is the only good reason for omnivores. This individual and I aren't actually as different as (s)he may think. I also like the taste of meat. That's why last night I bought some Yves soy hotdogs and dipped them in Bob's Red Mill pancake batter with vegan egg substitute and fried the combination up like corndogs. It doesn't make sense that anyone should feel bad purely for the the neurological gustatory pleasure of meat. Animal rights is not about cuisine, food, or taste fixations. The dietary component of veganism is a baseline means of living a lifestyle which refuses to use animals as property.
I point this out to set such an omnivore on the right path: Stop thinking about food! Liking the taste of something is not a moral defense for taking away that individual's rights let alone their life and sanctity. So, as vegans, the best way to set our peers on this path is to engage them in an empathic experience. This is a handy way for us to dissolve personal offenses from a dialogue about non-violence.
The human brain is ready to understand animal rights
I choose my words carefully there: engage them in an empathic experience. An experience which will lead people to empathy--the desire to understand and feel what others feel--must be engaging. Again, taking a page from "Social Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman; we all know that raising awareness is an important step in campaigning others to one's cause but you may not be aware of just how close awareness is tied to a human being's natural sense of empathy.
While the book to the right discusses this in great detail, I'll just mention Goleman's term "Neural Wifi." Like the wifi we use to invisibly broadcast an internet signal, human beings are constantly communicating with body language, facial expressions, and even auditory signals.
This is not a mere primitive way of communicating for the lack of speech. Body language is constantly at work, across long distances, between strangers, to entire groups of people, and is bundled to express feelings and thoughts faster than they could be spoken. Arguably, "wireless" communication may be more efficient than spoken language in many instances. (Consider the need to use primitive facial emoticons like ":-)" in text to overcome the communication limitations of written text. Could this have evolved out of communication necessity?)
When we see someone's face, we tend to involuntarily take on the same facial expression (think about the "yawning" contagion). When this happen, a sort of reverse reaction occurs. According to Goleman, while it is true we make a sad face when feeling sad, it is also true we have a tendency to feel sad when making a sad face! This is the clever way in which humans can send a feeling through the air "wirelessly". By recreating the feeling of another person in our own body, this actually allows us to have true empathy--feeling as they do, living in their body, understanding their struggle.
Perhaps it is for this reason why video footage is so useful in getting the public to make the connection between the animals they love and the food on their plate. Because spoken and written communication has such empathic limitations, simply describing the horrors of the animal industry may be mistranslated due to a lack of an empathic force. An individual who truly believes an animal is not smart enough to feel pain as we humans do or that the pain is actually not all that great can easily take the description of a mother bellowing for its young (taken away from a dairy cow to be sent to a veal farm) as a docile scene of an idiotic animal confused and lazy. Their mind has preconceived notions as we all do.
However, seeing an animal make recognizably human-like gestures of pain and sorrow stimulates the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain which, among other functions, processes empathy. Seeing the pain and the suffering of an individual makes an imperative in the brain, an image that cannot be un-learned.
Empathy spoils appetites
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| For a normal, healthy human being, the slaughter and mistreatment of an animal should normally elicit negativity and feelings of empathy for the animal as a person. By re-labeling the stimulus with a happy human face (above), the viewer will then exempt themselves from this empathic experience having their pleasure sustained by positive gustatory (taste) memories. Image from SuicideFood |
So going back to this individual who tells me of their love for meat, it would do him/her good to see for themselves this cruelty not because I have a desire for personal revenge or a nefarious desire for them to feel guilty. Rather, being trained from the cradle to understand animal products as a substance and an encultured norm may only be broken by a sort of shock therapy, one which will realign empathic pathways to consider one's suffering more important than the gustatory pleasure of the self.
Sometimes we vegans are convicted of endoctrination by showing these videos. Let me say to those individuals the animal industry works hard to keep those videos and such footage from the public. The companies print pictures of happy-faced people (by showing positive facial expressions, empathy is snythetically steered the opposite way of what would be an expected response to death) on their products.
Animal industries use tactics like associating masculinity with meat-eating and publishing industry-funded research to suggest a diet heavy in animal products is necessary for optimal health. Exposing oneself to the horrors of animal treatment is a means of un-learning from our training. A human being should be averted from a scene of suffering and death. This is a natural and healthy response. However, our empathic pathway is syntheticall altered to have very positive feelings for a stimulus which should give us a very disgusted and unappetizing feeling.
To experience empathy like a natural, healthy human being, it is important we increase awareness. This awareness is essential for making a positive change in the world. And me? I'm starting with the man in the mirror.
Comments
Well, I would just choose carefully the context in which to share such footage. When I first watched those videos is when I immediately became vegan, and so intensely horrified was I that I went and posted it at once on a message board. But I was too emotionally disturbed and inexperienced in sharing such info to deal with the uncaring responses, and the discussion turned out badly. Very badly. As far as I know, that didn't turn anyone else vegan, though a huge number of people read my thread.
So I'm more careful now. I share in an unobtrusive way. Sometimes I don't share and still succeed. But you're right... I get the most determined responses from those with whom I shared a photograph of a suffering animal, or the undercover footage... others may express interest but seem to take it slower. I'm not necessarily averse to the latter. I'm not a highly skillful speaker, so I want to make sure I know the right thing to say or do before doing it... to be completely natural.
Of course there's nothing wrong with liking the taste of a certain food. For those who say they like meat - I always try to remind them that "meat" - in it's unprepared state is rather bland. That it is only adding seasonings and spices (all plant based) that give it its appeal. Sometimes that helps connect people to the idea that vegan food *might* be very tasty after all.
Thanks for another great read! :)
Why must you "turn" anyone? Ever notice how omnivores don't try to change your eating habits? I don't believe all animals are equal, and neither do you! There is only one species for which you are trying to change behavior. Oh, I know, "that's just nature." Well, I am a part of nature, and it is not an issue for me that you choose not to be. Sure, I live much of my life in "man-made" world, but I also spend a lot of time away from that world. To paraphrase Aldo Leopold, I cannot live without wild places and wild creatures. Unlike many "wild" animals, I do not kill without reason, nor more than my herd and I will eat. I don't want any strangers, such as yourselves, telling me who I can marry, whether I must give birth once pregnant, which God to worship, or how, nor what I can eat (so long as I obey the laws concerning safety and fair distribution of the opportunity to kill and/or gather my omnivorous diet! In turn, I will not force animal products on you.
Richard M, in fact, your kind HAS been "forcing" animal products on me since the day I was born - ever watch TV, read a mag or newspaper, listen to radio, go to ANY event you can think of? You're damn right it's pushed! Milk Marketing Board, Pork Producers Assoc., Cattlemen's Assoc., etc., etc.
I'm so tired of ignoble people such as yourself telling me to lay off "forcing" my lifestyle choice on others just because I like to talk about compassion and respect for the planet! It's not about you and your taste, or me and mine. If you can't make the compassionate connection that no sentient being wants nor deserves to suffer, no matter their species, you should really look for this non-violent video (under resources>other videos>vegan video) at nonviolenceunited dot org It's about respecting the planet and what's fair.
Thank you for this insightful article. And Richard, firstly I've stopped counting how many omnivores *have* tried to change my eating habits :) Secondly no-one is trying to tell you who to worship or marry. It is simply a matter of viewing the exploitation and killing of animals for food as wrong. In the past people have justified all manner of exploitation of other people, and they probably viewed reformers with as much animosity as you've just expressed.
We do not need to eat animals. All the nutrients we can ever want are in plants in abundance - read up on it from a neutral source. As for being part of nature, a number of nasty behaviours are "natural" yet we who consider ourselves civilised do not engage in it (e.g. relieving ourselves or having sex in public). Not to mention that the way meat, eggs and dairy are produced (factory farming) is everything but natural.
Lastly veganism is a lifestyle, not just a diet - it is about all forms of exploitation of animals.
I guess I gave the readers far too much credit. Woe is ye who feel "forced" by advertising campaigns. I have no problem with vegans advertising their beliefs. However, proselytizing is quite another matter. Lifestyle, or cult is a valid question for debate. Civilized? And of course you must drag out the "slavery" card. Let me know when you have "civilized" a species other than humans or those domesticated by humans and I will be glad to consider your comparisons to the exploitation other humans. I trust that in your vegan "lifestyle" you refrain from using automobiles or bicycles above 15 mph, so you can avoid manslaughter of insects (like Obama's murder of that fly). Naturally, (I just love that ironic use) you will also avoid consuming food transported by trucks and trains. Shall we discuss the animals displaced, poisoned, or otherwise killed by those who raise your veggies? Compassion? I work hard for viable herds of healthy animals, even when I have no expectation of killing any.
@Bea I use that same point quite often. When people tell me they "just like the taste of meat" I ask about how they prepare a steak or a roast. They start rattling off a list of vegetable products they apply to their meat to make it edible. I love to see that puzzled and surprised look on their faces when it starts to sink in.
Excellent point, Orange! Nothing quite like the vegetable combination of a good steak sauce to improve upon elk venison. Meat plus vegetables, hence the natural omnivorous diet of human beings. Tell yourself that your soyburgers taste "just like meat" all you want, but even my pathetic palette can distinguish the two. Just like diet cola drinkers who have conditioned their taste buds to think it is just like real cola and ignore the bitter after-taste. You can fool your own mind on taste and so-called ethics too. Some of us will not settle for less than "the real thing," and the omnivorous diet our bodies are made to operate on.
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