If we can't see it, does it exist?

The Difficulty and Importance of Vegetarian Advocacy
If we can't see it, does it exist?

Years ago, Paul McCartney pointed out that, "if slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be vegetarians." This concisely captures the main difficulty of vegetarian advocacy -- that people don't have to see the animals they eat being imprisoned in factory farms and butchered in industrial slaughterhouses. One can order a chicken sandwich, and that is all that is involved -- just a sandwich. Even after reading detailed, illustrated information about factory farms, the cruelties of meat don't stick with every individual, especially when the rest of society conceals the realities behind meat.

Similarly, if factory farms and slaughterhouses were as visible as the meat they produce, all thoughtful, compassionate individuals would be vegetarian advocates. Without the elaborate concealment, it would be clear that the vast majority of animals exploited in this country suffer and die to be eaten.



Human nature leads us to focus on the familiar and immediate, such as the campaigns to help dogs and cats displaced by Katrina. In fact, people concerned with animals have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on high-profile cases, while focusing much less money on the roughly 99% of domesticated animals who are slaughtered to be eaten.

We each want to feel we have accomplished something tangible, that we have achieved a quantifiable victory. Promoting vegetarianism doesn't always provide this kind of reward. You meet few of the people you have influenced to stop eating animals, and you can't see the animals who, in the alternative universe where you hadn't pursued veg outreach, would have suffered horribly in factory farms.

Yet, the number of animals helped by exposing factory farms and promoting vegetarianism are impressive. For example, over 650,000 students have been handed Vegan Outreach booklets through our Adopt a College program. We calculate that this has prevented the suffering of more than 28.5 million birds and mammals. And this counts only our college outreach program -- it doesn't include all the animals spared by the other 3.8 million booklets distributed!

Of course, we could also list some of the signs that we -- a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens -- are, indeed, changing the world: e.g., the 2005 ARAMARK poll that showed that 24% of surveyed college students consider having vegan options important; the ever-increasing availability of vegetarian and vegan options; the stories reported every day by Vegan Outreach leafleters. However, these are mostly indirect indications of success; for many people, these aren't enough to support person-to-person outreach.



In short, we know how terribly animals are suffering today, and the animals saved by vegetarian outreach are so abstract as not to exist, let alone to feel like a "victory." Because there are so few of us who look beyond the familiar and immediate, recognize the magnitude of the suffering caused by eating meat, and understand the opportunity veg outreach presents, we have a special obligation to do the hard, intangible, and often unrewarding work of tearing down the walls that hide the atrocities of factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses. We need to work, every day, to abolish, totally and forever, the horrors of modern animal agriculture.

In the end, we must remember that throughout history, there has always been a "right" and a "wrong" side to ethical issues -- a right side to slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights. And there have always been "reasonable" people, advising caution and realism: "You can't really expect to end slavery/get women the vote/pass a civil rights law. Let's be realistic in what we seek."
With hindsight, though, we don't respect those who simply accepted the seeming limitations of the status quo. Rather, we admire those who stood up for what is right and, in so doing, changed history.

We can be those people. If not us, who? If not now, when?
You can see previous issues of Vegan Outreach's e-newsletter and to get involved, go here.