Matt and I were talking about the ways in which people can strike out against injustice. He used the particular example of vegetarianism as an ethical concern for the welfare of animals. Matt voiced his confusion about how to stand up for all of the injustices in the world. As examples, he talked about how his friend Angela sheltered animals or how another friend of his became vegetarian.
“How do you know what to fight for?”
“You pick one,” I told him.
It’s hard, if not impossible, to fight against all the injustices in the world so I told him that you pick one (or a few) to concentrate on.
“For example,” I told him. “If you want to strike out against cruel treatment of animals, then maybe you don’t have to go full vegetarian, you can eat meat less and it’ll help. Every little bit helps.” I know that purist vegetarians or vegans will disagree with me, but I believe that even just one instance of striking out against injustice somewhere is a blow to injustice everywhere.
For example, the time(s) a man decides not to rape or beat someone based on moral reasoning or a change of heart is a strike-out against injustice. The time(s) someone chooses to take public transportation rather than drive is striking out against car pollution. The time(s) someone makes a decision not to curse out someone in traffic and to accept the occurrence, let it go, and then move on with life is to send a ripple of positivity into the world that wasn’t there before.
You don’t have to be a saint or the next Gandhi, you just need to have the awareness, the motivation, and the action to change something, even if it’s something small. It takes decades for a society to change, but it can start with little things, too. Every little bit helps.
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