A shift towards a vegan diet is not fully about the rights of animals, but also those of us humans. The mechanized process that brings us the bacon (literally, as it were) also involves human cogs. These human beings involved in the slaughter of animals for food day in and day out are desensitized and dehumanized. Their jobs involve the repeated and brutal slaughter of unwilling, fully aware and resistant victims. A pause of empathy or compassion creates a slow-down in the line and in production, so these natural human emotions must be shoved down, repressed, and forgotten. The animals slaughtered are viewed as products and nothing more. No high-volume, mechanized slaughter can be performed with compassion (and, I'd argue, no slaughter at all can be compassionate based on the very nature of the act). The built-up frustration, anger, and sometimes drunkeness of the workers is taken out on those most vulnerable, adding to the horror of their impending deaths, and surely leaving behind psychological scars on those who commit these acts. In the book Slaughterhouse, one worker is quoted as saying, "Animal abuse is so common that workers who've been in the industry for years get into a state of apathy about it. After a while, it doesn't seem unusual anymore. Animal abuse is so commonplace nobody even thinks about it."
In communities where slaughterhouses open, crime rates have been shown to increase. This violence and apathy makes it's way out from behind the walls of the animal agriculture infrastructure and into the lives of the husbands, wives, and children of these workers. Into the community. Into the homes and lives of those who have done nothing else but lived in a town where a slaughterhouse has set up shop.
Think of these people as children. These workers were not born with the instinct toward this inhumane treatment of their fellow being, but the cruel, fearful, and painful work environment has made it's mark. Either that, or some other horrific life experience has led this person to seek out a situation where they can take out their unresolved emotions on those who are defenseless (were the victims human, or even those animals we call "pets," this action would be considered predatory). If not one of these, then every single animal agriculture worker in the world who routinely commits acts of abuse against these animals is what... pathologically insane? If that is the case, then why are we content to eat their victims?
The cruelty against the animals who become our food extends too to those who are used as machines to create our food. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated so that they can remain constantly pregnant and capable of milk production. They will, however, never see a bull in their lives. The semen used to impregnate them is collected by human hand. This process, while clearly sexually abusive to the animals (the machine which is used to impregnate cows and pigs is sadly and accurately called by the industry itself the "Rape Rack"), is degrading to the human beings who do this work to survive.
And how could a job like this allow anymore than just that? Basic human survival. While many of us have jobs that are slightly less than satisfying, compare your "boring desk job" to one where you are paid to kill, torture, and rape living beings capable of fear, pain, and horror. What healthy personal satisfaction comes from a job like this? A paycheck and the ability to provide? Perhaps, but shouldn't we aim higher? As consumers, we have the ability to create a marketplace where we support industries that employ our fellow human beings to do ethical, humanizing, fulfilling work providing a product that does not stem from fear, hatred, or frustration. Where our dollars are not funding the continual downgrade in both animal and human rights. It IS possible and you are even more instrumental than you think.
