An Animal Rights/Vegan Activists' Strategies Article used with permission from All-Creatures.org

George Cassidy Payne reflects on his own vegan journey and discusses how veganism goes beyond diet and personal purity—it is a choice to extend our compassion to all beings and stand up against violence in all its forms.

Veganism and Nonviolence: A Call for Radical Compassion
From George Cassidy Payne
June 2025

Images from Canva

“The question is not, 'Can they reason?' nor, 'Can they talk?' but 'Can they suffer?’”
—Jeremy Bentham

In my backyard garden, groundhogs feast on my ripening tomatoes. I’ve watched them—eyes wide, bodies low to the soil—as they harvest what they did not plant. Just beyond the fence, I once saw a hawk dive in a flash of feathers, talons locking onto a field mouse in the grass. No hesitation, no cruelty, just hunger and instinct. Life consumes life. Even the soil, rich with decay, feeds the roots that feed us. And yet, I am not a hawk. I am not a groundhog. I have choices. And those choices, especially about what I eat, carry enormous moral weight.

I haven’t always lived up to my values. The truth is, I’ve been on a long, complicated journey with food—or, more precisely, with what we call food. Because “food” can be a euphemism too, hiding suffering behind packaging, marketing, and convenience.

I’ve gone from eating only vegetables, fruits, and nuts, to embracing veganism, to sliding back into eating meat and animal products, sometimes without much thought. I’ve fasted for days and even weeks, tested raw diets, intermittent eating, and reckless indulgence. Some of these phases have lasted years. Others have lasted days. But of all the ways I’ve nourished—or numbed—myself, veganism is the only one that ever felt like a full-body yes. A resonance with something greater. A path that brought me closest to life itself.

It wasn’t about perfection. It was about integrity. Alignment. Listening to what my soul was asking for and how my body responded when I stopped treating other beings as ingredients.

Gandhi taught us that true nonviolence—ahimsa—must extend to all living beings. That’s not easy in a culture where violence is institutionalized and invisible: in factory farms, slaughterhouses, dairy tanks, fishing trawlers, and the economic systems that normalize suffering. Food becomes not just sustenance, but complicity.

Vegetarianism, while a step, often clings to industries that profit from pain. Dairy cows endure forced pregnancies and separation from their calves. Chickens and pigs are mutilated and caged, their lives engineered for maximum output. This is not nourishment, it is exploitation dressed up as nutrition.

Veganism, at its root, is a refusal. A rebellion. A spiritual stance that says: I will not eat suffering.

As Lynnea Bylund of the Ahimsa Peace Institute puts it:

“Veganism is a living expression of ahimsa, nonviolence, extended beyond human relations to include all sentient beings and the Earth itself. To consume with compassion is a sacred act of aligning our values with our choices. Yet in a world where many struggle simply to meet their basic needs, where it may take two, three, or even four incomes to sustain a household, compassion must also extend to the circumstances of each person’s life. Choosing a path that minimizes harm, however imperfectly, invites us into a deeper peace, one that seeks not purity, but sincerity. In this way, veganism is not a restriction but a radical expansion of love.”

Her words ring true in my own experience. I don’t always walk the walk. I fall short, often. But I know I’m not alone. I know there’s help, and that this path is not about perfection but about direction. A movement toward wholeness.

Nonviolence, after all, isn’t passive. It’s a discipline. A daily choice to move in harmony with the kind of world we want to create. A world where energy is sacred, not extracted. Where life is respected, not consumed mindlessly. Veganism is not just a diet. It is a reorientation of the spirit.

Even in the garden, dilemmas arise: Do I fence out animals? What do I feed my cat? How do I balance care for one species with care for another? These are not questions with clean answers, but they’re questions worth asking. Because asking them keeps us awake.

As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, “Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.” Every nonviolent movement—whether for civil rights, climate justice, or animal liberation—springs from this well.

Organizations like the Ahimsa Peace Institute and Campaign Nonviolence remind us that the violence we inflict on animals is inseparable from the violence we inflict on workers, on the planet, and ultimately, on ourselves. To confront one form of exploitation is to unmask them all.

So I return to the garden. I return to the plate. I return to the question: What kind of energy do I want to take in? What kind of world am I feeding?

Veganism is not a personal purity test. It is a public declaration of love.

It’s the path that has a heart.

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About the Author
George Cassidy Payne is a freelance journalist, poet, and suicide prevention counselor based in Rochester, NY. He serves as Program Advisor at Agape Haven of Abundance, a grassroots nonprofit supporting the well-being and creative development of young women of color. His work explores the intersection of justice, spirituality, and personal transformation.

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: June 11, 2025
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