Activism, a label which makes it easy to dismiss an idea or movement. A study showed ‘vegan activists’ as well as vegans, are viewed with a disdain reserved for drug addicts. What evokes such an extreme response in an otherwise rational person? Change, or the anticipation of change.
There are two kinds of people who actively seek change, climbers and dreamers. Climbers, known as social climbers, must change to survive, to carve a life they crave. Their need to be reinvent pushes them to claw their way out of a situation, unfortunately often at the expense of another person. Those are not the radicals we encourage you to become.
Dreamers are the uncompromising individuals who chase their dreams, along with the dreams of the beings they love for a better world, life, planet…
Activism is radicalized, because there is no better way to de legitimize an idea, movement or thought. Once you convince enough ‘thinking minds’ an idea is on the fringe, and the status quo may be affected. You’ve successfully activated the ‘self preservation’ instinct of the human mind.
Preservation is a state of mind. Mid pandemic, we witness a raging debate on mask wearing, we experience in real time the break down of rational thought.
Self preservation, at the cost of “personal liberties” (which are not in any danger) is not an option for the mind of a person who is convinced mask wearers is an activist. The logical and scientific argument of self preservation as an innate instinct of the human mind is lost.
We label animal activists, environmental activist, any individual who challenges the status quo. They used to known as heretics, witches, or heathens…
Our beliefs become living breathing entities in our minds, and the modern human mind, is being moulded and shaped. We’re barraged by so many varied media and images multiple times a day, that truth and fiction are blurred. The food on our plates is neatly packaged, and the disconnect between the life it once had and the journey from farm to plate is magically erased.
We’re living The Truman Show, a mid 90’s movie- which left the viewer, questioning is my life real? Or am I part of someone else’s entertainment?
How do we pass a torch to the next generation when we are so confused by the messages of our own? Food revolutions are more than what is on your plate. It is an acceptance of systemic control of information for the most basic building block of your life — sustenance.
We’re not afraid the ‘new eating’ will not work- we’re afraid it will. Because if it does- your belief system was a lie. Let’s not jump to blame the educators of 40 years ago, they were victims of circumstance. But in the information age we live in, to feign ignorance is intentional. It is selective ignorance and does you and the planet a disservice.
To radicalise any belief or movement buys the status quo valuable time, to gauge and asses, it pushes the new idea away. Affording the skeptic an opportunity to study it from a distance. Throw every obstacle you can in its path, if it trips, pat yourself on the back, if it hurdles over with ease- time to take a second look.
Animals are sentient beings- Socrates, Einstein, Tesla (Nikola), Rosa Parks as varied a group of people as possible — all on the fringe, all trail blazers, and immortalised as heroes. Each one of them questioned the ill treatment of animals as food or entertainment. But their greatest legacy as educators, lies in the fact that they taught us to hold fast to our beliefs. Not because they were geniuses because they were human beings with clarity of thought.
We’ve failed the next generation, robbed them of clarity of thought. Leading them to believe activism comes from tapping a key board and education is “googling it.” A thinking, questioning mind is quickly brought to book by a school system (globally) which has become a business. The business of education chases profit not purpose and the victims are your leaders of tomorrow.
Radicalize the routine and champion the caregiver, the carer and bleeding heart. To prove your ‘woke’ parenthood, and your ‘I’m my kids best friend’ status, get your children to question you and think. Let them be radical, vegan or activists. No matter the path they choose, they will hurdle over the obstacles and change the world.
If we have the courage to make the radical acceptable, the inheritors of this planet, stand a fighting chance. Be a iconoclast, when you begin a business, check the boxes but not all the boxes, create a few of your own. If you are out there doing what the herd asks of you. Or follow your parents footsteps, as inspiring as they may be — man would never have landed on the moon.
We consider ourselves lucky to witness our youth rise up and educate the educators. Recognition of that comes from being of a generation which had boundaries, discipline and manners. The ‘constraints’ gave us a foundation for freedom of thought and purpose, we can only hope our successors out do us.
