Photo Jim Robertson
by Jack Carone
There is a tendency for some of us who wish to promote veganism—a way of living which excludes the use of animals for food, clothing and other exploitation— to cushion the call to action with a warning/acknowledgement/suggestion that it is a difficult thing to do.
While this is surely the case for some people, for others, including me, it has happened quickly and painlessly when the time was right. To set the stage for interested seekers to expect hardship invites failure or a refusal to even try.
For someone who still really wants to eat animals and their secretions, or still wants to wear a fur coat or a silk shirt, but resists for health or moral reasons understood but not felt, it is certainly hard to do. They have to exert Willpower to resist things they still desire, and this almost inevitably leads to a failure to maintain the “sacrifice”. Someone who gives up meat for “health reasons” very often reverts, occasionally or permanently.
But for someone who has internalized the horror and immorality of subjecting other feeling beings to abuse and slaughter, and who simply refuses to, simply cannot—just won’t— be a part of this any longer, there is no feeling of deprivation, and no enticement which can make them go back to participating in these injustices.
I call this Won’tPower, and in contrast to WillPower, it is effortless to maintain.
Let me tell you what pushed the button in my being and changed my life in an instant.
At the time, I subscribed to the Los Angeles Times newspaper. I sat down one morning and turned to the feature section, and began reading a human-interest story about a man who had become very bitter about life due to some tragic personal experiences. He had become very hard-hearted.
He somehow got a job in a slaughterhouse, killing lambs—baby sheep— as they came by in procession, he took their just-beginning lives with a knife.
One day, a particular lamb passed his station, and he stabbed as before. But before this lamb could fall, mortally wounded, she turned and tenderly licked her own blood from her killer’s hand.
The man broke down, had an instant change of heart, his bitterness melted, he left and became a minister, enriching lives instead of ending them.
I folded the paper, set it down, and have never looked back, except to regret that I had not saved the article!
It is important to note that I had already been thinking about the morality of eating animals, primarily due to my experience of having my first dog as an adult, with all the revelations that living with another species brings, and having met someone’s “pet” turkey, who had expressed as much interest in me as had their Great Dane dog. In other words, the time was right for me, much as the time has to be right to change any ingrained habit, whether it’s smoking, drinking or anything else.
So if you have been wrestling with the ethics of consuming and wearing animals, if you are torn, keep wrestling. Keep thinking and considering. Keep the internal quest alive. When it coincides with the thing—your own personal newspaper article—that pushes your moral button, you may find that it is the easiest and most satisfying thing you have ever done.
Exposing the Big Game 
I do believe it’s difficult for segments of our society–namely, the poor and homeless, who have neither the information, access, nor resources to prepare and eat an organic, plant-based diet. I’ve broached this subject to various vegan organizations to be met with silence, the sound of crickets, or statements like this one someone made to me at my local VegFest last summer: “We’re not focused on agrarian issues.” Me: “…”
Add to the list schools, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, and there are millions for whom living a vegan lifestyle, much less maintaining a vegan diet, is difficult to impossible. At present, that is, as I continue to nag the above institution heads to initiate change.
Well said! However if one is really interested in NO SUFFERING whatsoever for all Animals then a diet of beans and rice is perfectly sufficient! And no one gets hurt! 🙂
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul.
Thanks, Jim, can you imagine how much I wish I’d kept that Times article?
Oh well, You encapsulated it very effectively. Thanks for helping others to see the light.
I have this bumper sticker on my car (among many others):
“We are defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy.”
Right on, Jack — great article — not that I’d expect anything else! 😉
Pingback: WillPower vs. Won’tPower — Is it Really Hard to Stop Hurting Animals? | GarryRogers Conservation and Science Fiction: #EcoSciFi
I love the concept of “wont power” :0
..so well stated ☺ ..this vegan cried her eyes out when I got to the part re: the precious lamb…that’s how I’m “wired”…thanks for this, Jack…am keeping it…shared it on two different sites…sadly my stepdaughter is one of those that gave up meat for “health” reasons…she “relapses” regularly..
Ugh. No matter how bad my life would be, I could never, ever, take it out on another innocent being, especially one who had never done me any harm. It’s the sign of a weak character to do that.
Reblogged this on Moral Dilimia.
Reblogged this on Armory of the Revolution.
Reblogged on Armory of the Revolution
I can see why people abandon veganism if they just avoid nonvegan food for weight/health reasons. If the succeed in losing weight, they may move back to their old nonvegan diet. If they fail to achieve their goal, they are likely to become frustrated and be unwilling to continue a diet that they view as a sacrifice.
But some people are capable of feeling empathy for animals. When they discover the amount of suffering inflicted on them by human beings, they decide they need to do something.
Whether it is reading about the baby lambs having their throats slashed or viewing the horrific videos of slaughterhouses or hunts on the Internet, some people decide they will not and cannot be complicit. Often their decision to become vegan goes beyond food choices to a lifestyle of activism on behalf of animal victims.
I don’t think any of us who have made that decision struggle with a sense of deprivation or a temptation to abandon veganism. We know how the hamburger or down pillow or fur trim were made.
Exactly. I’m not tempted or feeling deprived at all. If only spreading the word about suffering were enough to make people care. Some people (most?) simply don’t care about the suffering of non-human animals.