We have a strong argument

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Vegans have grown up. We’re past wanting nursery teas and crap food (mostly animal-based foods that make people fat and sluggish and ill). Our boycott protects the animals but it also keeps us well away from non-foods. That’s one great advantage for vegans. Call that ‘self discipline’ if you like, but it’s really just a blessed release from a daily dosing of poison.

            For those who’re already vegan, the great challenge isn’t how to stick with plant-food but how to convince others of the advantage of it. First it’s a matter of getting a hearing. Second it’s a matter of keeping up our own morale in the face of constant rejection. Our relationship with non-vegans often seems to be on shaky ground. At first we’re chatting away, and then this subject comes up (‘animals’ and ‘food’) and suddenly we notice how they bluntly change the subject, and it’s weird that they often think we haven’t noticed.

They don’t like our passion and we don’t like being dismissed. Both sides have grievances, so what can be done? We vegans can’t fight back since we’re so few and there are just too many of them. All we can do is reflect on the inner assurances of our own moral and ethical position. But we’re left with a lump in our throat. We can’t let it go.

The upshot of all this is not usually a pretty story. We go away and begin to harbour grudges, saving our angriest judgements for the ‘big boys’, who vivisect animals or sell cattle or run factory farms or abattoirs. Then, when we get no satisfaction there we turn our wrath back onto the consumer … and that means just about everybody. We wage judgemental war on the world. That’s all we can do.

But maybe there’s a more effective, non-judgemental way to initiate change. It starts within the mind of the Animal Rights advocate, firstly by acknowledging that we’re in a far stronger position than we seem to be; although hopelessly outnumbered, we have a rationale which must eventually be discussed, and it will be our opportunity to have our say.

Our strongest argument is that we hold to non-violence and applying without any exceptions; and it’s this central value which others can hardly be opposed to. If it worked for us, jolting us out of our own dark corners, it can work for anybody.

Honesty, kindness and all the things we’re hopefully brought up to believe in, are values anyone can respect. But what if that isn’t enough to be convincing? Can we hurry things on by disapproval? I doubt it. It’s only when the private and personal agreement is reached that a person will come out.

Surely, a better way to approach the disparity of views is to emphasise that we’re all in ‘this’ together. The vegan advocate’s job is surely to find ways of dealing with common problems by interacting with others and not by separating away from them. Humans are wonderful planners and communicators and visionaries. It’s simply a matter of getting away from the second-rate self-gratifications in order to see things in a bigger way.