don’t trust anyone over 30
in the interests of full disclosure, i made some substantive edits to an old post of mine today. why, you might wonder? have i gotten more moderate as i’ve aged? actually, i have gotten more radical.
i’m not sure what those old hippies meant by “don’t trust anyone over 30,” but i always assumed they meant that becoming a “grown-up” generally means selling out and becoming part of the establishment. i do think that if the 16 year-old me could see the 35 year-old me, she would think i’ve sold out in a lot of ways. the 35 year-old me thinks a lot of this alleged “selling out” is actually having a more nuanced and practical view of life. ah, the age-old gender gap!
it’s awesome to think about having a gender gap with yourself. that would make an excellent play — a debate about taking a stand and selling out between the 16 year-old and 35 year-old versions of the same person. too bad i’m all about concepts and not much for follow-through (as i was just telling cameron last weekend) or else i might actually write a play like that. of course, that’s a lot of the problem between 16 year-old jen and 35 year-old jen, you know: 16 year-old jen still hasn’t realized that big ideas don’t mean much unless they are backed up with big action.
hmm, i’m seriously imagining how this script would play out:
16-y.o. jen: “action! who are you to talk about action? you are a capitalist bureaucrat who spends most of her free time watching tv!”
35-y.o. jen: “yeah? well, i’ve written a play. what have you accomplished?”
16-y.o. jen: [typical teenage eye roll/sneer]
35-y.o. jen: “and don’t think that wearing an ‘arms are for hugging’ tee shirt to public school counts as an accomplishment. listen, honey, you are living in 1987 — the cold war is over, disarmament is the least of the world’s problems. maybe you’d realize that if you paid half as much attention to the actual issues as you do to those hippie boys.”
16-y.o. jen: “oh shit, do NOT tell me i grew up to be one of those anti-sex p.c. police feminists!”
35-y.o. jen: [genuinely surprised and offended] “fuck no!”
16-y.o. jen: [visibly relieved]
so anyway, yeah. i’ve gotten “less moderate” about animal rights in the last few months. a lot of it was from reading nadine gordimer’s book “a sport of nature”.
basically, i realized that if you don’t stand up for what you believe in, you’ll never achieve it. i know that sounds obvious, but it’s easy to lose sight of this reality when your goals are radical. it can seem so much more practical to focus on what compromises are achievable and work to make things better than before, even if “better than before” is still “not so good.” 34 year-old jen saw a lot of sense in that. 16 year-old jen would argue that sounds like a pretty good definition of “selling out.” in a rare instance of generation gap detente, 35 year-old jen has come to largely agree with her.
looking back at that post now, it feels like i was trying so hard to make nicey nice that i ended up sounding like i endorse the “better than before, but still not so good” solution. so i changed the post to make it clear that i believe you all should go vegan. if you aren’t ready to do that, it’s definitely better to choose more humane versions of animal products (cage-free eggs, grass-fed beef, etc.) over the factory-farmed versions. but it’s still wrong. and i wish you’d stop.
this way of thinking is not, in itself, new to me. it’s pretty much the basis of animal rights ideology: animals are not ours to use. where i’ve become less moderate is in my views on how to win people over to this way of thinking. i have come to believe that improving conditions on farms should not be a significant focus of animal rights activists. that is a relatively “radical” view among animal rights activists these days. there has been quite a debate between “animal welfare” and “animal rights” in the animal rights community lately, and reading “a sport of nature” gave me a different perspective on that debate.
here’s something i posted to an online discussion on the topic, responding to particular points made by another poster who believes that animal rights activists should promote welfare reforms such as cage-free eggs and make compromises like eating “a little dairy” if it makes us more acceptable to omnis:
We cannot win others over to “our way of thinking” if it is not clear to the world and to ourselves what that way of thinking is. It must be clear that the way of thinking we are trying to win people over to is that it is WRONG TO EXPLOIT ANIMALS FOR OUR CONVENIENCE. We are not trying to win people over to the idea that it is ok to exploit animals if someone will be mildly irritated if you don’t. Those of us who disagree with you are saying that you can’t win people over to our way of thinking unless you yourself stand up for that way of thinking and not only think it, but do your best to live by it.
Of course it matters what “people” (as a general term) think, because we are trying to convince them. “People” in the sense of “mankind.” But the way to reach that goal isn’t to pander to each person in turn, one by one, doing whatever it takes to convince that one person, and then moving on to the next person and doing whatever it takes to convince the next person. There is no integrity in that. People will not follow a leader without integrity. Revolution of action must first be a revolution of imagination.
And who will create this revolution of imagination, showing the world that it is possible to live — not just live, but live joyfully, contentedly, fully-satiated — without exploiting animals? It must be vegans, who else can do it? We might piss off some people in the short term, but living our ideals is the only way to convince mankind in the long term. As Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see in the world.”
As a matter of practicality, I can vouch that this approach works. I have not found it difficult to keep people’s ear while remaining vegan. It doesn’t put people off that I won’t eat even a little dairy. What would put people off would be if I judged them, or was rude to them. I absolutely agree that we have to be very careful about not pissing people off UNNECESSARILY by being flip, judgmental, etc. We might have to piss a couple of people off if they just hate the idea of vegans, but those people are rare; most people don’t find it off-putting that I live for my ideals, quite the opposite. Even people who themselves have no interest (yet) in being vegan, respect someone who lives by her own values. Very few people respect people who compromise their values for short-term expediency.
so that’s why i changed that old post. can i just say that i love the phrase “revolution of action must first be a revolution of imagination”? not to toot my own horn, but i’m pretty proud of that line.
back to the subject at hand, i’m 35 and a lot more practical than i was 20 years ago. i see a lot more nuance where i used to see black and white. i have a comfortable bourgeois life and a lot of nice material possessions. i’m a “sellout” in a lot of ways. but still i think my play will have a happy ending, right? at the end jen and jen hold hands staring off into the sunset together as the curtain falls.
completely off topic, i tried to use wikipedia to find the source of the famous quote in the title, but wikipedia didn’t know! i think that’s the first time wikipedia ever let me down. if i knew anything about how this wiki stuff works i’d fix the omission. google came to my rescue though. it was 60’s radical jack weinberg, and he was just being facetious.
technorati tags: selling out jack weinberg animal rights
Do you ever just get tired of it all? I hope it doesn’t come off wrong but there are times when I just feel like it would be easier if I didn’t care (and I’m not anywhere as active as you are). Lately, I’ve been exhausted thinking about what I need to do and think it would be so much easier just to do what everyone else does (in my area at least) and not think about it. Why can’t I use VOC paints? Why can’t I just spray the heck out of my weeds instead of pulling them? Why do I need to pull out all invasive plants? Why can’t I just use ziploc bags and juice boxes for lunches? Why do I have to make special trips to wherever when Giant has something similar? Why do I have to research floors instead of getting what I want?… I’d feel bad if I didn’t and I still do it but there are times lately when I’m just tired. But then I think you manage to do so much more and I’m just wimpy doing what I do. Maybe it’s just too much wine, or too much gym time or whatever but right now, I’m overwhelmed just thinking about some of the things I need to do and how much easier it would be just to hop over to Home Depot and do it the easy way. Sorry, this has nothing to do with your blog but it made me think and part of me is thinking I should be so much more pro-active and part of me is just tired trying to stay where I am.
Jen, I just want you to know that I have always liked and respected your approach to inspiring change. It may take a heck of a lot longer to see the change you have inspired, but you’re doing it simply by living your life. I know that you have been part of the inspiration for many of the changes I’ve made in my life such as cloth diapering and buying food from a local farmer who treats his animals humanely. Prior to “meeting” you, I didn’t give those things a second thought. You’re making a difference.
thanks millcreek.
jean, i don’t feel that way, but i also don’t do a whole bunch of things just because i’d feel guilty if i didn’t. that does sound really tiring to me. i do use ziploc bags and shop at home depot if that makes you feel better, and i assume the paint i’ve been buying has VOCs although i never thought to check.
i’m not sure why you think i’m so much more “active” than you are, or even what that really means. the only way in which i’d say i am arguably more “active” (though i’d never normally compare myself to people this way) than you is being vegan, and i find that to be easy, not tiring at all. honestly, that’s one thing i love about being vegan: you can make such a huge difference in the world so easily. painlessly, really, once you are used to it.
i should tell that gandhi story i promised to tell a long time ago. i know liza for sure will get a kick out of it. you sound just like me before “the gandhi incident.”
When I said “active”, keeping in mind it was late at night for me and that I’d had a couple glasses of wine so wasn’t thinking straight, I meant pro-active in that you are vegan and you make sustainable, environmental choices from how you live to what you buy and you make it seem effortless. It’s probably the “good girl” in me that makes me feel like I should do what I know is best. I should point out that I do use ziploc bags and things like that but minimize it and reuse them, but it would be so much easier to toss them each time and I’m not planning on changing things like that. Maybe it’s having been where I live for so long and seeing how others are that I start thinking how much easier it would be not to care. And I think I’m just grumpy lately–maybe it’s an aging thing. Or, at least I can always blame it on perimenopause.
jen, i love the “revoloution of imagination” line of yours. reminded me of some text from Dr. King’s “beyond vietnam” speech, where he calls for a “revolution of values.” might make a nice pairing w/ the ghandi in your post… here’s an excerpt - probably longer than it needs to be, but it’s so great i want to paste the whole thing:
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
click here for full text (and an mp3 of king’s delivery)
Tell the Ghandi story! Sorry I’m so late on weighing in on this.
BTW, I think that the distinction “being” true to your beliefs makes a lot of sense in this context.
IME, most of the time when I am being what I am most committed to, in an activist sense, it is easy, energizing, fun, etc. For me, that’s mostly around GLBT civil rights and family protections. That’s the sense I have from you when you talk about being vegan.
The tired comes in when I’m not being, I’m just doing, and I’m doing because I think I should be doing, not because I’m personally passionate about whatever-it-is. And then the guilt comes in too, because I think I should be doing the thing and maybe I am, maybe I’m not, probably I’m not doing it as if I were committed to it.
For me, this shows up the loudest around dealing with the recycling & the trash, and sometimes with figuring out how/what to feed Noah.
(Gah! Packaged baby food is silly expensive, and much of it has totally inappropriate ingredients, things that are known to have high allergen potential in babies the age that the food is being marketed towards! (Wheat, citrus, berries, to say nothing of eggs, dairy & meat.) As you know, we struggle with time for everything too. Still trying to find the right balance. I did make homemade applesauce for Noah, though.)
You know I actually wrote your sentence down before I even got to you saying you were proud of it. It is a very deep statement and deff one of the ones I will keep around me to remind me of a point of view that is so pivotal to changing the world…
You know I’ve always felt it about you and I say it still; you are one of the people I most admire. Not just for your writing; you’ve a very articulate way of putting words to primal feelings that I totaly dig and admire… but you’ve also taken a stand on things that is deff admirable in that it IS proactive, and more importantly, to refference a certain brillian individual I know, you are proactive in imagination. You’ve taken the time to think and ponder the implications not just of things going on, but the implications of your own attitue towards the world. Change begins in the self; and you are constantly challenging those things about your self that you feel are coming up short….
I often say that the real way we change the world is through our children, and baby-makin’ debates aside, the reason I see that being pivotal is because to me the main way the world changes is by individuals in it thinking differently than they do now. Its so much easier to instill that in your kids, since you to get them from when they’re very young… but its your kinda mentality that can shape a child into an intrument of change… one small step at a time.