Are Vegans Brainwashing Themselves?
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
–George Orwell,
1984
Room for Improvement
This probably isn't the kind of question you'd expect to see on a vegan blog, but it's one I've thought about quite a bit. As a movement pushing for social change, we need to recognize and accept certain flaws we may have in order to move forward. That's not to say necessarily that vegans are brainwashing themselves, but there are certainly areas of veganism and activism upon which we can still improve.
Follow the Herd
As a species, we are prone to following the herd. We feel protected and safe when we stick with the status quo. Like the weakest antelopes are hunted down by lions, we don't want to do something abnormal that could identify us as a target for attack or ridicule. We know we likely can't survive long on our own, and we need the protection of the herd, working together, to keep us all alive and sustained. Though we no longer live in a world where we're fighting for survival every day, this need for safety in numbers is ingrained in other areas of society: we live in cities and towns, follow certain laws and norms that dictate the way we should behave, join clubs and groups of like-minded people, so on and so forth.
And it's not always a bad thing for us to all be living the same way, sharing the same information, believing the same things. The problems arise when all these things we do lead to some form of discrimination. In this case, it's speciesism and carnism. As vegans, we are a tiny (but strong) part of the population, and we genuinely need a clear message coming from all of us in order to infiltrate the public's consciousness. Because if we don't, the world will simply continue on functioning (horribly) as it does until everything and everyone is gone.
Groupthink
Like the majority of people, I lived most of my life believing that consuming animal products was normal, and I didn’t allow myself too often to question this. But when I was confronted with animal suffering in which I had unknowingly participated, I knew that I had to go vegan. But as I started to learn more, hearing many different arguments and angles on the topic, I started to wonder if my new thoughts and beliefs were my own. There is a concept called groupthink, about which I learned extensively both in psychology and business management courses; this occurs when a group of people who have worked together consistently or who are not diverse begins to think in a similar way. When presented with a challenge, a group like this fails to consider all possibilities, problems, and probabilities, thereby failing to complete a challenge or coming to an inefficient/ineffective solution. To simplify, it's like a problem of failing to think outside of the box because you don't even realize you're in a box to begin with.
I wondered if vegans have fallen into this trap of considering activism and the entirety of the vegan concept the same way. And the truth is that no one’s beliefs or morals or thoughts are ever entirely their own. We are all influenced by the world and its inhabitants around us. However, the people that I follow and learn from are like me: they have chosen to devote their life to causing as little harm to others as possible by being vegan. Those are the kind of people I choose to trust instead of people being controlled by the almighty dollar. I believe that I’m not being brainwashed -- I’m being enlightened. They help me to realize the error of my ways and think not only for and of myself, but in ways that benefit others.
Another Brick in the Wall?
The beautiful thing about veganism is that we don't suddenly wake up one day and decide that we're going to be vegan. Honestly, I sometimes wish that's how it worked because it would've made my life easier. As a society, we are taught certain ideologies and behaviors as we grow, but these are never things that we seek out for ourselves. Our education, whatever it may be, is completely directed by other people. Our parents teach us how to interact with other people, educators teach us basic life skills like math and grammar, society teaches us what behaviors are acceptable and what ones aren't. We never have to seek out that knowledge because it is handed to us.
But when it comes to veganism, as the world is now, we must choose to learn about it, and we must choose to learn that the education handed to us wasn't entirely right. So, yes, vegans seek out medical advice from plant-based doctors and "buy into" the marketing of vegan brands, but we have chosen to do so because we've discovered that those people and companies share similar values to ourselves and have also broken away from a society that passively teaches us to do terrible things to animals.
When vegan, we learn to think about the world around us in a radically different way than we were taught. That doesn't mean our fundamental core values suddenly change. It's not the Church of Veganism; it's not a cult. We still, generally, have the same political beliefs, religious beliefs, sociocultural beliefs, and so on. What we think doesn't completely change, but the way we think does. And thinking this way is not something you can learn from anyone else; if it were, vegans would probably be more successful in converting carnists. You have to figure out on your own how veganism will influence the way you view and interact with the world, other people, and animals.
Why It's Not Brainwashing
After writing this and considering these fears I’ve had, I’ve come to the conclusion that vegans may actually face the opposite dilemma. We are so diverse and split on how to most effectively create change that we appear ununified and disarrayed, creating significant discord within the community that projects to outsiders like we don't know what we're doing. For example, some vegans believe wholeheartedly in civil disobedience and disruption, whereas others want to create change through passivity, the "live and let live" doctrine.
Vegans are an incredibly diverse population, and we come from all different backgrounds. There are enough of us now creating real change in the world that we don't need to all think and act the same way about the extensive international problems surrounding animal exploitation. But it would probably do us (and the animals) a bit of good if we could work together more effectively. Maybe we need a little more brainwashing....
Overall, it seems that this "brainwashing" concept comes mostly from carnists, and animal agriculture in particular. There is a very real fear of veganism’s growing impact, and they want to muddy the waters in order to keep society anchored in carnism. However, it is only when you think with your heart that you realize that everything everyone says is pointless. Even my words mean nothing. When you remove your discrimination, bias, and subjectivity and listen to your empathetic heart, the answer is very clear. And that answer is veganism. Living by the golden rule; that’s all veganism really is.
be conscious, be kind, be vegan