becoming responsible for change

To choose to do something responsible we need a certain generosity of spirit. If we feel passionate enough, then our arguments about the no-use-animal principle will take us beyond just improving their welfare. We will begin to see them altogether differently, not as commodities but as irreplaceable individuals who need our help. If animals are to be released from slavery, it will only come about because we’ve been thinking about them and fixing things up for them on a permanent basis. They initially need to be released into a protected environment where they are no longer required to reproduce for the purpose of humans making a profit.
But how are free-willed, autonomous people ever going to be convinced of this principle? It’s radical, inconvenient and often advocated by righteous sounding people. To make the change of attitude seem attractive to them, advocates need to look carefully at how they communicate their message. First up, we need to stop haranguing people into agreement. Even if they begin to agree with us, they’ll always slip back to old habits after we’ve left, unless we’ve been able to convince them to make a permanent step forward. Becoming vegan is one big step, not merely in changing from a traditional diet to a plant-based one, but from a position of self-interest to altruism.
Out of respect for the difficulties of making such a change, we need to be honest and not hold back on the many personal and practical implications of such an attitude change. Swapping new habits for old ones starts with food because that’s the first thing on the mind of anyone considering this change. But we also need to talk about boycott and withdrawing support from a whole destructive society-based system. Stepping aside from the norm in order to help establish another normality.