Thursday, August 29, 2013

In a vegan tomorrow, would vegans be happy?

Bad celebration picture. Fireworks aren't vegan.
Imagine it! Tomorrow - no animal farms torturing animals for profit. No enslaved mother cows and orphaned baby calves. No more animals being skinned alive for their fur. No more male chicks being ground up or smothered in plastic bags. No more reading labels for casein, whey, lard, gelatine...

Think of the vegan celebrations! Vegans worldwide would be so happy...

Maybe. For a little while, anyway.

Making a better world

Vegans would be happy if all the above happened. But it wouldn't be long before other targets arose. Because the only one who shares your exact vision is you. A vegan world, overnight or gradual, might still not grant your wishes.

Would a vegan world still have:
  • carnivorous companion animals
  • uncontrolled human population growth
  • abortion
  • pest control
  • religion
  • political parties
  • guns
  • nuclear power
  • wars
  • fake meat
  • junk food
  • economic divide
  • humans being stupid and selfish
etc?

Vegan wars are legendary. Many vegan activists would quickly move on to the next global problem, or argue that the world is not vegan enough yet.

Hypothetical, so who cares?

The world today is imperfect. But a vegan world would still be imperfect, with problems desperately needing solutions. (The house will never be clean, and the world will never be perfect.)

We absolutely, positively need people who work to make the world a better place. Humans are great problem-solvers.

But activist burnout is very real and dangerous to mental health. Every day, a vegan shares anger and despair over the billions of animals suffering right now, or the people responsible. Every day, even more vegans feel but don't share.The knowledge of the problems leads to a feeling of overwhelming responsibility. There is no end to the problems, and one human, or one group, can't encompass the solution.

So today, while we work for a better world, we also must make space every day to celebrate, personally, the good things about this one. If we forget to enjoy this world, how will we remember how to enjoy a better one?

What is one good thing about your world today?



4 comments:

  1. Great post Jessica!

    Apparently we have reached "peak baby" for some time now so that is one thing you can take of the list :)

    http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.html

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  2. Thanks Jess. A lot to think about!

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  3. Good post and a good topic. A friend asked me not long ago what it would be like if the nexy day everyone was Vegan. I said it would be great. I think it would just be a wonderful step in the right direction but yes it is inevitable there would just be other things which we would focus on to want to make the world better. Yes it does seem important to focus on what is good and positive changes which are occuring.

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  4. VERY nice!! Thank you for writing this posting!
    greetings from Vienna, Austria,
    Paula - experiencing my 1st vegan Christmas :-)

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