• Effective Vegan Advocacy: Logic of Courage?

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    Introduction

    This post is for everyone: vegans who aren’t activists yet, activists looking to improve their effectiveness, and visiting nonvegans.

    I have watched many debates on the subject of veganism, and I have engaged in quite a few myself. If I had a grain of sand for every logical fallacy that was used to justify animal abuse, I would have enough to create the famous desert island often mentioned in hypothetical thought experiments.

    After a while I came to the conclusion that, overwhelmingly, logic itself doesn’t seem to change many people’s minds. The reason for this is that logic is not the cause of belief systems and behaviours, rather, it is often the justification of it.

    So then, if nonvegans don’t require more logic, what do they really need to make the transition?

    The Real Reason

    Most people do not like to watch footage of what happens to animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses (example: Dominion [graphic]). In fact, many of the people who work in these industries end up with mental health problems. It is also a scary thought to realise there are many people around the world who kill, or in some cases torture, animals, whilst seeming not to care.

    So we have billions of innocent beings being killed every year by millions of people armed with weapons, who seem to have little or no conscience; it is enough to drive anyone insane, or at the very least afraid.

    After all this time, was it it really “ancestors”, “tradition”, or “canines” that prevent people from becoming vegans and activists, or was it just fear all along? If only fear had an antidote…

    The Solution

    The word courage comes from the Latin ‘cor’, which means heart, or sometimes soul and mind. Therefore, to be more courageous and to overcome fear, your best bet is to go with your heart and use the power of love.

    But love for what? Love for animals. Love for justice. Love for equality. Love for progress. Love for peace. Love for the planet. Love for righteousness. Love for good. It doesn’t really matter which reason you find to be the most important, as long as there is a positive motive that compels you to face the fears that inevitably come from being a vegan.

    “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

    “Let love guide you, but also take fear with you.” ~ Ralph Smart

    “There’s some good left in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” ~ J.R.R Tolkien

    “What we guide ourselves by is love of virtue not hatred of evil. The hatred of evil is the shadow cast by the love of virtue, but do not stare so long into the pit, into the abyss, into the true moral horrors of human behaviours to the point where you lose your way.” ~ Stefan Molyneux

    Standing up for the rights of humans and standing up for the rights of animals are essentially the same thing; they both require courage and a good will to protect the innocent. At this point in history, however, animal rights is arguably more important because they have far less laws protecting them, and in terms of numbers they are the greater victim.

    The battle for the fate of animals was never a logical one, but a moral and spiritual one, and has been that way for thousands of years. Even Pythagoras, around 2500 years ago, realised the problem with harming animals:

    “As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” ~ Pythagoras

    Conclusion

    With this idea of fear vs love in mind, watch the following videos, and ask yourself which force are you focussing on more right now?

    In closing, veganism is not simply a fad, a passing phase, or a diet; it is a rights movement, and the goal is worldwide animal liberation, which there has been much progress with already.

    It is time to leave the era of carnism and speciesism behind us. It is time to be on the right side of history, and to join The Side of Justice!

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