The mainstreaming of animal exploitation goes on and on. It is not hidden away in some dark corner. It’s not a secret. It is right there in front of us every single day, but the trick is that the violence is made to feel normal.
From an early age we are taught a set of stories that smooth everything over. Animals are happy. Farming is wholesome. Meat is inevitable. Language does a lot of heavy lifting here. Killing becomes processing. Body parts become products. Suffering becomes efficiency.
Veganism is about seeing this suffering for what it is… and doing something about it.
Read more below.
Veganism often gets talked about as if it is a dietary preference. Swap this for that. Try oat milk. Have you seen this new cheese? But for many of us who have committed to the lifestyle, it eventually becomes clear that veganism is not just about food.
It is about refusing to accept normalised violence as the cost of business as usual.
What makes animal exploitation so alarming is not just the harm itself but how carefully it is sanitised. Slaughterhouses are placed out of sight. Workers are silenced. Cameras are banned. We are encouraged to love animals in theory while consuming them unquestioningly.
That contradiction is not accidental. It is essential.
When people react angrily to veganism, it is rarely about protein or taste. It is about discomfort. Veganism quietly exposes the fact that something widely accepted relies on routine harm. It challenges the idea that violence is inevitable or necessary. That is unsettling, especially when you have been taught your whole life not to look too closely.
This is why jokes about vegans being extreme or annoying are so common. Ridicule is easier than reflection. A meme is easier than asking why an industry requires so much secrecy. A cheap laugh is easier than admitting that compassion might demand change.
What I find fascinating is how selective society can be about what counts as violence worth caring about. We rightly recoil from cruelty when it is visible or personal. We condemn abuse, exploitation, and injustice in many forms. But when violence is institutionalised and profitable, it becomes invisible. It becomes background noise. It becomes tradition.
Veganism disrupts that invisibility. Not by shouting, although sometimes shouting has its place. More often it does so simply by existing. By opting out. By saying I see this violence and I choose not to participate. That quiet refusal can feel threatening to others because it removes the comfort of ignorance.
After decades of being vegan, it can feel obvious to me now. Of course we do not need to harm animals to live well. Of course building entire industries on suffering is indefensible. But I have to remind myself that this clarity did not come from nowhere. It came from being willing to listen to the discomfort and to question what I had been told was normal.
The important thing to remember is that this refusal is not just individual. It is collective. Every person who opts out weakens the argument that violence is unavoidable. Every vegan product on a shelf, every plant based option on a menu, and every conversation sparked by our choices chips away at the illusion.
Veganism does not ask us to be perfect. It asks us to be honest. Honest about where our food comes from. Honest about who pays the price. Honest about the fact that violence only remains acceptable when it is hidden and unchallenged.
The truth is simple and that is what makes it powerful. The violence is not a side effect, it is the point. And once you see that, choosing veganism stops being just a lifestyle choice and starts being an act of quiet, persistent resistance to violence.
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‘We are encouraged to love animals in theory while consuming them unquestioningly.’
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Great article. Powerful words.