This text is my answer to Dr. Will Tuttle’s challenge to name what are the three most important themes in his book as I was taking his course in 2011. I would love to hear your take on it if you have read his book. If not, go grab a copy of the World Peace Diet as it is maybe the most important book you will ever read.
2. Cruelty to animals and science and religious reductionism
Humans have to cultivate compassion to all. There is nothing in religion or science that justifies pain to animals. It has been showed many times now that most “research” in laboratories on animals are totally unnecessary and barbaric. There is even less excuses nowadays to experiment on animals when so many alternatives are available. Most drugs that have been tested on animals and considered “safe” have been showed to be harmful to humans in the end. Being on a vegan diet should also reduce the need for medication and bring back sanity in science. At least, it is my hope that this happens one day. As long as there is a large money incentive to torturing animals in labs, it will not change. As for religion, all of them proclaim a message of compassion. Jesus is thought to have been vegetarian as well as the Prophet Mohammed. Buddhism and Hinduism are religions that technically include vegetarianism in their philosophy. But we know for a fact that humans love to interpret religion to meet their own agendas. So just like religious authorities (Christianity) used to say that women had no soul, they still don’t accept that animals also have a soul and a karma as well. We see here in both science and religion that there is a need to extend compassion beyond the so-called needs of mankind and stop seeing animals as just inferior machines here on earth to serve us.
3. Social programming
What I think is the most important aspect taught in the World Peace Diet is how social programming and what we have been told since birth affects everyone on this planet. This is the recurring theme of the book. We are programmed, and we need to deprogram ourselves to free ourselves and therefore free the animals too. Veganism is a total rejection of the status quo, of the ingrained values of society at large. When we go Vegan, we make a statement that we will not accept cruelty to animals, we will not accept the lies of the medical community regarding health, we will not accept the brainwashing we get constantly from our piers, our families, the government, etc… When we eat animals, we eat pain, fear, torture, and chemicals from this and from what we inject in them and that makes us sick. This is the most powerful statement of the book. It teaches us to be free. And by being free, we help free animals and other human beings as well. It is a win-win situation. We also free the planet from our greedy polluting habits, whether they are physical or psychical. I believe that emphasizing the liberating aspect of Veganism to people is the most rewarding aspect of being a World Peace Diet Facilitator or being a Vegan in this society. I think the most brilliant thing I’ve read recently is your quote of Chuang-tzu. I love your take on it when it comes to people:
Very good! I would just add to part 2 that part of the reductionism is reducing other species to commodities or property, which then allows perpatrators to do what they will them, same as what happened with atrocities against women and in the human slave trade. To harm another, first we must reduce them to something below ourselves; reduce them from a someone to a something.
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@DannyVeganBatman – Very true Danny. I was trying to get everything included. There is so much to think about.
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