All Will be Revealed to Yourself by Yourself

Wednesday, June 28, 2017 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments

This is an answer to a question asked here.

In my view, veganism as a movement shouldn't act as a way to abolish the idea of human superiority as compared to animals. It would be a mistake to think that we are not in many ways subjectively superior beings than any other animal on this planet. However, this superiority is in today's society by and large displayed by us as being subjugators, exploiters, slavers and destroyers.

All life is equal when viewed on a planetary scale, meaning all life contributes to the emergent balance of nature on this planet.

Except the human animal.

The human's contribution to the emergent balance of nature comes by far only in what we consider to be the negative aspect of balance, and so for the most part, the human acts as a personification of the destructive nature of reality.

I don't think veganism should act as a social justice movement. But as a movement of social enlightenment. Enlightenment meaning to bring to light aspects of society and humanity which have not been shown or thought about, or aspects which have been purposely hidden. Whether this movement achieves any sort of justice is beside the point, what is the point is to enlighten a person within, and not necessarily for the purpose of achieving some external goal. What each person does with the knowledge and how he realizes this knowledge in action is up to the individual.
An external goal would be if veganism should be successful in criminalizing all behavior that would bring harm to any animal. 

To me this  is not the point. 

The true goal remains an inner one, to achieve an illumination of the individual where harm towards animals and living beings in general would not be penalized by law, but prevented by an individual's own sense of self, morality and discipline. Meaning any harm towards an animal would be unthinkable to begin with and would be taken into consideration before any consumerist action is taken if the action is not necessary for survival.

Not everyone should be expected to care about the suffering of animals and their destruction for the sole purpose to be eaten. But everyone can realize that even in a room where a human stands along with 10.000 animals, there are 10.001 subjective individuals, but only one Self, and that any harm towards any of these individuals is harm towards the same Self.

I think this caring and a wish not to cause animal suffering is a natural state for most.
We abhor animal cruelty in the same way as we abhor cruelty towards the helpless when seen perpetrated by another.

Yet each one of us is on a different path towards realizing and equating meat on our plate with suffering and death.

We know death was involved, but we often do not realize or think suffering was, as well, or to what degree. Or see why we should care.
Or that by eating and buying meat we are directly supporting cruelty, suffering and the slavery of animals, even if on a personal level we would never commit these acts ourselves.

This means every person will react differently and consider every word anyone says about this subject differently. Some may even know all aspects of the industry and choose not to care, and would most likely argue the case of being on this earth to experience sensual pleasure which in their mind involves eating animal flesh, as well. Or perhaps argue the carnist's position, or an evolutionary one in which humanity's brain-meat as we know it would not evolve to a point it has if we would not have eaten meat. This is a tenuous proposition at best, since no one can truly say for sure that this would not have happened anyway.

A lot of vegans like to think this movement is the same as trying to abolish slavery.
We own and treat animals as slaves, even those we call pets, who are still, despite being pets, for the most part slaves to our will. Slavery was allowed to continue until those who owned slaves were forcefully removed from power or the power to own slaves was forcefully removed by action and law.

In this regard some vegans think humans also need to be forced to see their ways as destructive and to see animals as having equal rights to life and expression.
And yet always the only examples which are brought up for this kind of thinking are those that worked. Vegans like to mention the freeing of slaves, which was done forcefully, but never mention any of the other forceful events like the inquisition, the Islamic state, the christian expansion era in Europe, and all other empires.

Forcing your own beliefs on anyone is rarely not a hateful event.

You may succeed in your goal, but true seeds of compassion can only be planted in minds by showing what compassion is, not preaching it, by showing them what love towards all beings is, not explaining it, or enforcing it. And as the animals deserve this love and compassion, so do human beings. Even those who eat meat. They must be free to see this for themselves, shown how they can see this for themselves. Or be free to destroy themselves because of not seeing.

Shown how their actions and what they are doing right now in regards to animals will not help them on their sad path to feel better about who they are. But that compassion and love will. That they should realize and look at what they are doing and always know there's time to alter their decisions here an now.

Ultimately I think the role of veganism shouldn't be to bring about social change, but a transformation of the individual self. In whatever way someone wishes to do this, either by centering around what they themselves eat, or if it's walking the streets asking people who wear fur if the animal gave their consent. Ultimately that is up to the individual.

At least it is true, most of us like the idea of humanity as an apex being on top of the food chain.
This is a ridiculous assertion.
The food chain doesn't exist.
Nature is not interested in creating the perfect organism or a perfect species, or one that is below another or merely the food of another. Nature only ever emerges from itself and creates mirrors of itself, and in so doing creates perfect systems.
We alone can realize this self, no other animal has the ability to know itself and realize itself the way we can. And yet we as humans have not yet realized what our role in this system is. As of now, we act as slavers, destroyers, consumers... But perhaps our purpose and why we arose from this Earth is to be its spirit, its will, its compassion, its love and its caretakers. Its destructive will when there is a need for it. But only we can be this, only we were given the capacity to do this.