You can't force someone to care

Once someone starts feeling true empathy for animals, they usually realize that it's not alright to have these animals suffer and die for our benefit. Most people at this point either go vegetarian, or go vegan, the latter being even better when it comes to not partaking in the above-mentioned suffering. The next step, for many, is to try to change the way others think about eating meat, and to hopefully get them to see that they can indeed transition to a way of life that involves less animal suffering. The way we treat animals is not fair, so getting involved in this would be as valid as fighting against any other injustice. That said, there are more and less effective ways to do this, with the better way being the gentler way. While there is nothing gentle about the way animals are used and abused in our society, and while sometimes we want to scream at how blind someone is to the harm he or she causes, we should refrain from being harsh in our condemnation of people who have not yet gotten where we are, ethically speaking. Why? Because a real understanding that the life of all sentient beings is important is one of the hardest realizations to come to for most people. For some reason, speciesism is much more deep-seated than racism, sexism, and many other isms. While many can grasp what the concept is all about, to put it bluntly, many of the same people just don't care enough to change.

When someone goes vegan, he or she often forgets what it’s like to have the mind of a carnivore. For me, and for many others like me, it is clear as day that breaking free from the meat-machine is a good idea, that it's the right way to live. This is, however, not the case for most people who still eat meat. We all want these people to see the light, so to speak, but an angry vegan (or even an overly persistent one) may end up simply pissing someone like this off instead of getting them to change their diet. Instead of building a bridge, you may be building a gap between this person and their empathy. I've been that carnivore. About 90% or more of vegans have been that carnivore. If you embraced veganism as soon as you heard about it, congratulations! (seriously, not being sarcastic), but this is not the path that most people take to get there. For most people, it is really, really hard to stop being speciesist, to see all sentient life as equal, and to break free from life-long habits. I’m not saying it’s impossible, or that it is not worth trying to change this. Of course it is. We are the animals’ voice. But again, just be aware of the problem and don't get upset when someone doesn't get it when you compare a human baby to a baby chick, or even a baby kitten to a baby chick. People will listen, many will agree with you in principle, a few (not more) will change their diet, but the vast majority, including those that may agree with you on principle, will still continue eating meat. Why? Because, once again, speciesism is the hardest -ism for most people to understand, to feel, and to overcome.

The better approach is to try to change someone’s mind by being positive, by leading by example. Remember what it was like when you ate meat. Remember how hard it was for you to completely make that leap to what seemed like a totally different lifestyle. Tell people that it’s really not that different being vegan; that we eat a lot of great healthy food. Invite them over for dinner. If they insist of going vegetarian for a while, don’t give them the “no, you’re vegan or you’re a murderer” attitude. Someone who goes vegetarian after being a carnivore has taken an empathetic step forward. Although going vegan would be better, don’t forget to recognize the importance of that initial step. Remind them that you too were like them; that there was a time when you didn’t make the connection between animal suffering and the food you ate, or that you simply didn't care enough about that connection to stop eating meat. It’s important to remember, though, that no matter how eloquent, logical, and well-presented your arguments for a cruelty-free diet, you will hear a lot of excuses about why someone will still eat meat. Some vegans get frustrated with the excuses, and try to argue against them, which usually causes our carnivorous friends to come up with even more of them. Here's the real reason for all the excuses: Many people simply don't care enough about animals to stop eating them, but consciously or subconsciously, they don't want to come off as callous, so they come up with excuses because an excuse justifies this lack of compassion and respect for life, without actually calling it by its name. It deflects the blame. Adding to many vegans' frustration, is that these people might feel selective empathy for some animals, but not others. Again, though it's illogical why someone would love a cat, but not care about a pig, most people embrace this selective respect for animal life. As frustrating as it may seem sometimes, you can't force someone to care. We can try to help them along, but, ultimately, they have to get to that point themselves.

Land of Kush (Baltimore, MD) | VEGAN AND VEGAN-FRIENDLY PLACES AROUND THE WORLD

LAND OF KUSH
ADDRESS: 840 N Eutaw St, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
PHONE: +1 410-225-5874

Land of Kush is located in central Baltimore, on the outskirts of the city's historic (and trendy) Mt. Vernon neighborhood. The modern-looking restaurant creates vegan versions of traditional African-American "soul food". I was here back in late 2013, but kept forgetting to post this for my blog, despite having enjoyed eating here quite a bit. I ordered the fried "chicken" (complete with wooden drumstick), collard greens and rice combo plate, and everything was really tasty. These guys really put a lot of effort into making the food taste as close to the original version as possible, so you can have all of the soul, without any of the cruelty. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in B'more during lunch time.

Cecil the lion, should we shut up about this?

Unless you live in a cave (with no Wi-Fi), you most likely know about the case of Cecil the lion, who was recently killed by an American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe. This has caused a lot of (out)rage among people online, with pretty much everyone and their grandmother screaming for the death dentist's head on a platter for what he did.

Well, not everyone. There are folks, like this individual here, who think that we should just shut up about this whole Cecil business. According to him, there are simply much more important things in the world to concentrate on than one lion's death. He also thinks that we are being hypocritical by focusing on this one animal's death, when countless other animals are suffering and dying all around us.

Myers' initial argument that we should concentrate on more important things betrays the lack of empathy typical of those who don't really give a rat's ass about animal suffering, or simply feel that this suffering can't possibly be as important as our own. He himself drives this point home near the end of his article. Even if we do, as he writes, have "thoughts and emotions and feelings far more complex than those of Cecil", we should not downplay animals' feelings. We are indeed more complex than (other) animals, but the fact that we share with them a desire to live, as well as an ability to feel pain, fear, happiness, sadness, etc., should be reason enough to respect these animals' lives. We are all sentient beings, something Mr. Myers doesn't really understand.

He pokes fun at the term "whataboutery", but still engages in blatant whataboutery. He defends this by saying that there are indeed levels of importance to what we get involved in (see my paragraph above), but his argument falls short. Many would argue that helping kids suffering in an orphanage is more important than helping an elderly lady cross the street. Does this mean we shouldn't help the elderly cross the street? One does not necessarily have to forego being an ethical person on a small-scale, just because there are large-scale ethical issues out there.

This brings me to his second major point: the hypocrisy of people who say that they care about the killing of one animal while ignoring the fact that other animals are killed in all kinds of horrible ways every day. On one level, this is correct. Animals are hunted and killed every day. Millions of animals suffer and die every day to wind up on our dinner plate, or to provide us with eggs and dairy. Many of the same people that claim to care about Cecil don't really care about any of the other animal suffering that goes on around them, and that they sometimes actively (or even more often passively) participate in. This is very unfortunate. Now if Mr. Meyers actually cared about animals, then this argument would have had some force. The way it stands, however, instead of encouraging people to use this flood of empathy for Cecil as a springboard to maybe start thinking about other animals and how unfairly we treat them, he simply states that animal suffering is par for the course, so we should just accept it. As he puts it, animals are "killed and cooked, plucked out of rivers and chucked back, shot out of the air, run over by cars, and nobody bothers to even name them, let alone mourn them." He seems to be OK with the admittedly callous relationship many (though not all) humans have with animals, which is probably why he offers no remedy to the problem. This is not really surprising, since the lazy and selfish "that's just the way things are" approach is still quite prevalent in society.

I am not a fan of bandwagons. Still, I was, like millions of others, moved by Cecil's story. I like the fact that so many people care about this lion, and hope that at least some of them will see beyond his "celebrity" status and realize that this is an ongoing problem, one that we have to address. Many beautiful wild animals are shot and killed by unethical trophy hunters. Many beautiful farm animals are needlessly killed daily to feed our addiction to meat. Although things are slowly improving, we are still a long way away from treating the animals with whom we share the planet fairly. Ultimately, Mr. Meyers get the most important thing wrong: this is indeed a very important, complex issue. One that will hopefully get some of us on the right path to treating all animals better.

So you like the taste of meat?

Many people who say no to veganism & vegetarianism do so because they claim to love the taste of meat too much and can't live without it. If you have eaten meat your whole life, it is easy to feel this way, but there are a couple of things you should consider before taking that next bite.

The argument that "it's all about the taste" kind of dies when you think about the taste of our own flesh. Ethics of cannibalism aside, we can, indeed, eat human flesh, and several well-known cannibals have confirmed that it is quite tasty, comparable to pork, beef, and even veal. Again, I'm obviously not advocating cannibalism, just stating the obvious that it's NOT all about the taste, that there are ethics involved.

Sure, you might say, but we are not going to cannibalize ourselves, - that's why we have to eat other animals, and they DO taste good. This is where our ethics should kick in, and we should remember that while humans are indeed different from animals (especially in our higher intelligence), we also have a lot in common with them. The animals that make up our diet are sentient beings, who have the ability to feel emotions (both happy and sad), and to suffer and feel pain much like we do. This alone should be enough to respect their lives like we respect the lives of other humans, and to say no to eating their meat, no matter how tasty it is. At this point, many will either deny that these animals are sentient in order to put off admitting the indirect cruelty of eating their flesh, or simply admit that they're selfish individuals who are willing to sacrifice the life of an animal for their own pleasure.

Much of the blame for our ambivalence lies in the smoke and mirrors act of the meat and restaurant industries. The meat industry does everything so that you don't associate the meat you're eating with the death of an innocent animal, and the restaurant industry dresses it up nicely in a variety of garnishes, herbs, and spices, so that the presentation of the food becomes the focus, once again bypassing the inconvenient little fact that what you're eating is a piece of a once living, breathing sentient being.

Of course not everything that is pleasant to our minds and bodies is beneficial to us. And I could point out that saturated fats (often found in meat, dairy, and animal products) taste great, but have been linked to obesity, heart disease, and several other health issues; or that our love of meat has spawned factory farming, which is destroying the environment like few other industries in the world... but for the purpose of this post, I'd like to stick to ethics. Ask yourself the following questions: how comfortable would you be drinking coffee made by people working under slave-like conditions, mistreated and abused, and paid almost nothing vs. coffee made by workers who were treated well and paid a fair wage? How comfortable would you be wearing clothes made by children in a sweatshop for almost no money vs. clothes made by well-paid adults with employee benefits? How comfortable would you be if you knew that the retrieval of a certain product was so hard, that people actually died during the process? Would you still purchase that product? If you understand the ethics involved in the above questions, you should understand the difference between eating meat and going vegan. If you are ambivalent about these things, then I suggest you examine your empathy and try to grow it. If you are a sensible, caring individual, however, then please add animals and animal-products to your "do not eat" list.

Fight for animal rights, because they can't do it themselves

People sometimes ask us, with all the suffering in the world, why do we focus on animals?

Because hardly anyone makes excuses for child abuse, and if they do, they are generally and rightfully ostracized by society.

Because hardly anyone makes excuses for rape, and if they do, they are generally and rightfully ostracized by society.

Because hardly anyone makes excuses for sweatshops, and if they do, they are generally and rightfully ostracized by society.

Because most people still make excuses for eating meat (which involves as much if not more suffering and death as all of the above), and when they do, only the enlightened few stand up for the animals.

Because although most people don't tolerate most types of violence and injustice towards humans, they both tolerate and partake in violence towards animals.

Fruits and Veges (Moscow, Russia) | VEGAN AND VEGAN-FRIENDLY PLACES AROUND THE WORLD

Fruits and Veges

Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya, 5, Str 9b, 20, Artplay, Moscow, Russia

https://www.facebook.com/fruitsandveges

The somewhat oddly named Fruits and Veges is located inside the Artplay complex, about a 15 minute walk from Kurskaya metro station. Visually it’s a pretty hip place, - a three or four level basement with a couple of tables on every level. There’s also a small seating area outside. The food is quite tasty, although unfortunately served with the blasé rudeness much too prevalent still in Russia. The (very filling) lunch special is about 300 rubles, and the other things on the menu (falafel, etc.) aren’t very expensive either..

How some animal metaphors perpetuate negative stereotypes and trivialize animal life

As most politically correct individuals will tell you, language can play a pretty important part in shaping and maintaining our opinions. While I am closer to Lenny Bruce than I am to hardcore purveyors of political correctness, I do believe that we have to be mindful of using language that perpetuates negative stereotypes, and especially violence. Most people will have no problem identifying and avoiding language that marginalizes, insults, and derides other human beings, yet there is very little that is said about language that perpetuates our view of animals as lesser (read: less significant) beings.

English, like other languages, has many phrases, idiomatic and otherwise, that refer to animals. Some are neutral, or even positive (eg: "pretty as a peacock"), others, less so. For example, although pigs are intelligent creatures, people often use the word "pig" to refer to someone who is greedy, dirty, or unpleasant. This usage of "pig" creates and/or reinforces the idea that these animals exhibit these negative qualities, which is not true. In fact, this particular phrase is a classic example of misattribution of human qualities (in this case defects) to animals. There are quite a few things we got wrong about pigs in our pig-related phrases.This article about pigs dispels this and other myths, and lets you know why other pig related phrases, such as "to pig out", are also inaccurate. Similarly, when we refer to someone as a "rat", we are saying that person is disloyal, deceitful, and/or just plain horrible. Why use "rat", an animal that has nothing disloyal/deceitful about it, when you can easily use, say, "politician"?

A dog is one of the most noble, faithful animals there is, and yet when we call someone a "dog", we're not referring to that person's nobility and/or faithfulness, but to his wickedness, often of a sexual variety. To "beat someone like a dog" is still often used to refer to giving someone a nasty beating. Do we really need to verbally associate (and thereby reinforce) "beating" with a dog, a mule, or any other animal, when violence towards animals is still a big problem in our society? While thankfully not used as much these days, "there's more than one way to skin a cat" used to be a pretty common phrase referring to there being more than one way to do something. This begs the question: Why would anyone use such a violent image, when so many other less disturbing ones could be used in its place? The answer is quite simple. Back when the phrase was first coined (mid 19th century), the sentience of animals such as cats was not something most people knew or cared about, so making light of such an animal's professedly insignificant life was completely acceptable. We, however, are living in 2015, and in our modern world, violent phrases that make light of animal suffering should not be used. "Shooting fish in a barrel", which refers to obtaining something without any effort, is another such phrase. Although seen as humorous by many, it is pretty unambiguous in its acceptance of violence. The underlying idea here is that it's OK to kill fish, it's just the method that matters. Fish and other marine animals continue to have a hard time getting an empathetic nod from people, so we don't really need to use phrases that reference violence towards them.

Birds too, are not immune to negative metaphors. "Bird-brain" is still used to refer to someone we think is stupid. This ignores the fact that crows, for example, are extremely smart animals. We are learning more and more about the intelligence of birds, and using phrases such as "bird-brain", and the horrible phrase "to kill two birds with one stone", either downplays these animals' intelligence, or reflects an unacceptable matter-of-factness about killing them.

These are only some examples of the way we use language to either misattribute human qualities to animals or to trivialize animal life. Many of these phrases came to be because of the "it's just an animal" approach to other sentient beings. These days, we should know better. We should respect sentient life, and not using words and phrases in ways that perpetuate archaic and erroneous ideas about these animals is a good step along that path.