The hit-out

525a 

Being vegan, I focus on both me and ‘them’ - that’s surely the idea of being vegan, being passionate and concerned for ‘food’ animals. But the passion is misjudged. It reeks of the zealot.

            I succeed in making zero impact on omnivores. They can’t trust me (perhaps any of us?) and worse, they don’t like me (perhaps any of us?) and that helps justify their disliking of What We Say. And that, of course, fits neatly into maintaining the status quo of traditional attitude.

            Vegans give up an ‘eat-what-you-like habit-of-easy-choices’, in order to set a difficult example. We can’t afford to be seen as hobby-advocates. And particularly, we can’t have any double standards. If veganism’s about nothing else, it’s about that.

            But if exemplary behaviour gets difficult to keep up, it’s mainly because we’re seething inside, about cruelty. And almost 100% of people in our community don’t seethe, being so well trained (in turning a blind eye). When I sound off about ‘cruelty to farm animals’ I’m ignored, thinking no doubt, “Here he goes again, on about the same old thing”.

            I conclude: I can get with people by being professional, civil and affectionate, and not showing too much emotion. Why should we let our face or body language express an emotion - passion - and be seen identifying ourselves by it? For what reason? Do we do it to make people sit up and listen? The trouble with that approach is that it’s scary. It frightens people who listen to our ‘dangerous views on animals’. And a frightened person gets annoyed and deaf all at the same time.

            I prefer to drive off the subject instead of driving onto to it.

            I think this way:

1.They need to know I’m on their side, theirs and the animals’.

2. And that I know the difficulty of ‘not being anything-yet-with-the-animal-thing’.

3. And lastly, that I don’t care for making value judgements (I try not to stray that way anyway).

            Overall, I suppose it’s my approach, the one I feel most at home with, but I don’t mean getting ‘pally with the enemy’, I merely mean making the communication-machine work better. We vegans should be setting a good example, especially for those of us who’ll still try to be communicating in decades to come.

            “Our Cause”, our Fight, our arguments, our trying-to-grab-people’s attention - whatever I identity with, it’s open to misinterpretation.

            Do we, as the father asks his pregnant daughter of the boy in question -  does he (read, do we) have good intentions? Vegans need to be seen having good intentions. I think it’s what others must see of us, first up.

            So, if only for that reason, we all need to find our own ‘most convincing approach’. Any of us might like a good old barney with people who disagree with us, but I’d suggest that we resist getting our rocks off just to gratify our urge to hit out.