“I’m outraged!”

Some decades ago “outrage” was powerful. There was even a saying made popular after 1975 - “Maintain your rage”. But all that heavy emotion, in the name of outrage, effective enough at the time, got us nowhere, well, actually, to where we are now, profoundly un-outraged. Animal Rights Outrage is now a whimper.
In the beginning, in the earlier days of the Animal Rights movement, anger made quite an impact. But that “incredulity-angle” doesn’t do it for people any longer. It doesn’t have the same impact today. Been there, done that ... and sooo predictable.
Where I always go wrong, and many others too, is that we use the one weapon only, and it gets blunt from overuse. The heaviest club we hit people with is ‘the horror’. We don’t need much encouragement to whip out our ugly pictures and frightening stats. We even have quotes. And stories of encounters. And we even learn to tell jokes at our own expense. All sorts of sales pitches ... if vegans get a chance to present our case, we take it.
We vegans will use almost anything to communicate our message. But we get careless. Like other passionate people, ‘ going on’ about their favourite subjects. Sometimes we go over the top, and say too much, and perhaps that’s forgivable, even admirable ... however (as oftentimes already stated) how far do we take it with people who are not on our wavelength? We go around telling people “where we’re coming from”, and then it’s not long before we get a reputation. Maybe people do half listen and half digest but probably they also half reject and half dislike the messenger too. Reception is a mixed bag. Positive reaction may be encouraging but it’s not necessarily maintained. Responses are, overall, disappointing We have to get used to that.
But clearly enough, what we have to deal with and how we deal with it is the make or brake of “Project Animal Freedom”. At this early stage progress is painfully slow, people are still so set in their ways. Vegans can either enlighten or entrench attitudes. It’s the value judging which does the major damage to our cause.