The majority

Where animals are concerned, a minority seems powerless to convince the free-willed majority to think compassionately about animals used for food and research, mainly because the majority loves the food it’s used to and believes in the safety of animal tested drugs that doctors prescribe. The majority prefers to believe that animals must be sacrificed to make food available and life safer. Hence it will not see things from the animals’ point of view. Nor support the liberationists. The majority would rather see the animal activists as part of a whacko cult and their protesting simply as a temper tantrum against the majority society which they can’t fit into.
Anyone who does debate the issues (to put the case against animal rights) easily wins majority support because most people want to see animal rights arguments put down, the better to maintain supplies of ‘normal’ foods and medicines. It seems depressing that so few of the majority are in sympathy with vegan principles.
But there are some distinct advantages. The majority, by turning a blind eye to the way animals are treated, also turns its attention away from what the animal rights groups are doing, letting us go about our business, and since we are largely ignored we seem to keep out of sight of the media too. Because we’re almost unnoticed, we haven’t yet been widely rubbished or ridiculed. No one wants to draw any attention to us or to what we are saying - the media don’t want to high profile this subject because they are keen not to offend either their advertisers and their majority customers. There are very few interviews with animal activists because the interviewers themselves are unsympathetic and won’t touch this subject for fear of having their own double standards shown up during an interview.
But as the movement grows we can expect things to change. The whole subject of animal use isn’t presently discussed, either around the private dinner table or in the TV studios, because animal products represent a vast market and a vast advertising revenue … but slowly and surely the majority customer is wising up. The persuasions of the animal industries are becoming less and less convincing. People are less able to avoid animal rights arguments. All the more reason why activists should come across as reasonable, intelligent and well informed information imparters.