Is the NON-Vegan brain due for obsolescence?

It’s not rocket science to understand that if we humans are going to survive as a species, we have to change how we do things.  For Vegans, this is basic knowledge.  Many non-Vegans also know that we need to change how we do things, but draw the line at changing how and what they eat.  The rest of the non-Vegans in the world don’t want to change anything if it means that they have to think about it.

I recently listened to a podcast of three millennial women being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour about a plant-based diet, and all three were like “I shouldn’t have to eat a plant-based diet if I don’t want to.  Save the world another way, but don’t tell me what not to eat”.  Not one mention was made about the small matter of the billions and billions of animals who die each year for the indulgence of those people who “don’t want to” eat a plant-based diet.  Nope, that requires going in to some icky areas of truth.

Before I continue, this is not a diatribe against Millennials nor women.  I know plenty of women and men of all ages who are not willing to change anything about how they live their lives.  I chose the above-mentioned example purely because it appears representative of the type of thinking amongst those who are deliberately and petulantly non-Vegan.  This podcast is also eighteen months old, so any of these interviewees may have changed their thinking since then.   

At the time, however, during the ten minutes of the discussion about plant-based eating, all three declared between them that:

• They shouldn’t have to change what they eat, and that science should come up with another way to save the planet.
• They just like the taste of animal meat.
• It was their culture to eat lots of lamb, chicken, beef and fish.
• Posters on the underground tube about veganism were objectionable (from a fierce proponent of free speech).
• A video clip on YouTube showing a pig enjoying a bath was “vegan propaganda” designed to make her feel bad about eating them (no shit, Sherlock), and that’s just wrong! 
• If Vegans aren’t perfect in every way, why should anyone feel obliged to listen to any part of the vegan message, much less act on it. 

These tired and spectacularly ‘me-centred’ arguments keep doing the rounds.  Given enough time, I expect the interviewees would have got to the “Lions, though” stage, too.  But this isn’t about the lame arguments we keep hearing; it’s about whether we as a species can afford to maintain the non-Vegan brains that are clearly detrimental to our survival – or whether those brains are becoming due for obsolescence.

The non-Vegan brain served us well when survival was by tooth and claw.  When survival meant fighting for it by any means possible, the me-centric non-Vegan brain was a good tool.  It extended to fighting on behalf of those we had a vested interest in, being our family group, because looking after that group helped our individual survival.  If we could shred our opponents and claw our way to the top of the human heap, we and our group enjoyed more power, which vastly improved our chances of survival.  Most political, social, and economic systems around the world today are based on the tooth and claw survival mode of the non-Vegan brain.      

The Vegan brain, however, has a more expansive view of the world.  From the time we begin our vegan life, we expand our perspective on what and who constitutes ‘life’.  We re-wire our brains.  This doesn’t make all Vegans good people with good brains, and all non-Vegans bad people with bad brains, but surely it can’t help but make the Vegan brain a step ahead when it comes to implementing a new way of survival?  A survival that will require more cooperation amongst ourselves, and every other species on this planet, than we’ve ever had before.  The Vegan brain seems more primed to see this bigger picture, and more ready to put it into place. 

The human ability to cooperate for a common goal is arguably our greatest tool.  We don’t have to be family or friends to cooperate; some historic and herstoric leaders who have achieved great things have been decidedly at loggerheads with each other, and some have been awful people.  Cooperation is not instant Utopia.  As long as human bums point to the ground, we will bicker and squabble.  However, major goals have still been achieved in spite of this by our ability for enough people to cooperate for long enough to achieve those goals.   

I don’t believe we can save ourselves as a species if we don’t change our mental software to meet this challenge.  Science has already come up with a list of what we need to change, but non-Vegans don’t like what’s on that list, so they block the data from being uploaded.  The non-Vegan brain could well prove to be a real liability in our struggle for survival, so obsolescence may be inevitable.  Luckily, the Vegan brain has uploaded all the data on the list, and is ready to step in and save the human race – and several billion other animals at the same time. 

Why would anyone not want that?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06zkzdm  BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour podcast – plant-based diet discussion is 21 minutes into it

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