Dealing with certain preliminaries first

Vegans who promote Animal Rights need to understand the size of our task. And the manner of it. People have changed over these past 40 years. We are amongst children of the Information Age. They’re discriminating (as we were in the 1970s, but they have access to more information to ‘discriminate’ with. Today it isn’t enough simply to pass on information and expect to wow people with it, today there’s more cynicism and suspicion - no one’s taking in all the new information available, just the bits they want. We who ingest are information-saturated. As communicators of ideas nothing is very straightforward, especially if the idea isn’t immediately appealing ... if it’s an inconvenient idea, like veganism.
Today, bombarded, softened up by the sheer volume of information being put out, we become pliable (so the commercial and political interests hope anyway). The aim is to intentionally misinform us, to install beliefs and credibilities into our minds, to cauterise individual thinking. They have succeeded if we follow the crowd, if we do as we’re told (as per ‘advice’). Once people have settled into lifestyle habits they’re more or less unshiftable, no different to any chemical addiction since most of the addiction to animal products concerns food and the taste sensation of it.
This is a massive hurdle for vegans, convincing people they’ve been duped, especially about their food. And yet why would they believe us, or want to or trust us enough to? There’s so much misinformation in circulation today that anything too new, too radical or too inconvenient goes into the ‘unbelievable’ basket ... or the too-hard basket.
We need something special to break through all of that. Something all-encompassing, for it’s likely that most people will have no trouble accepting that the vegan diet is great for slimming. And good for other self benefits too, but veganism is more than a diet for personal food-advantage. On a deeper level it suggests a whole other rationale for life. A different way of thinking.
Everything about being vegan, and everything stemming from it, gets the brain cells moving faster. It lets us see potential. It transforms. It addresses a lot of allied issues. Now if, for whatever reason, we’re drawn to it, if we’re receptive to the reasoning behind it, then it’s likely we’re also becoming cool with Animal Rights. We’ll hear what vegans are saying about animals and their ‘right to a life’. Whilst not necessarily agreeing with us at first, they may be ready to consider giving our arguments a fair hearing.
...Unlike those who are most decidedly NOT drawn to it. For them, everything about veganism is either unclear, unbelievable or unattractive. As animal advocates we have wear that. (I suppose that’s what this blog attempts to discuss - how to get the reluctant and the semi-reluctant to the starting post … which means getting them to listen and respond as honestly as they can). For us it’s probably the hardest part of all, juggling the responsibility with the privilege of it and the trickiness of it.
How do we expose the misinformation? How do we get people to believe we’re telling the truth? How do we address our own shortfalls of unapproachability? Perhaps that’s the main purpose of this blog, to weave a path through this undergrowth, so that we can better incite enough empathy to get people considering the plight of exploited animals.