Check the talk

1119: 

In any conversation on serious issues such as Animal Rights I automatically check all the time, to be sure I’m not becoming too volatile, or that the conversation isn’t becoming too one sided (too much of my stuff, not enough of yours, or vice versa).  If a person is left out they’ll feel put out.  They’ll feel like they’re being lectured at.

         

I want a conversation to be interesting and worthwhile, disagreements notwithstanding.  I like it when we’re exploring pathways of thought and beliefs and, wherever our discussion takes us, in the end I’m aiming to leave on a positive note ... so, if necessary, we can resume at a later date.

         

For vegans, Animal Rights may be a deadly serious subject, and grim at times, but the up-side is in the satisfaction and meaning it helps to bring to our lives.  It makes me want to get good at it - ‘talking about it’.  No one can know everything pertaining to this subject, so animal advocates usually try to get versed in the most interesting aspects.  Sometimes it’s only our own interest in the details that keeps us from losing impetus.

         

A big part of animal advocacy is learning details, become knowledgeable, learning how to be informative.  If you get good at it you can, in theory, jolt whole attitudes.  But there’s a danger here.

         

As soon as I think I’m completely right I will certainly stub my toe. I get careless.  My arguments lean too heavily on moral imperatives.  I try to shock people into agreement.  I’ll fall back on ‘true stories’, involving the horrible conditions on animal farms and in slaughterhouses.  And sometimes it tips the scales and gets people thinking.  But it’s a ‘Will o’ the Wisp’ regard, soon enough giving way to an ingrained resistance to vegan ideas.  It’s a resistance to moral battering.

Perhaps it depends on how I say what I say.  It could be a mild mannered mention of milk, and what happens to cows and calves in the process of ‘making’ milk.  Or it could be a full-blown description of some grotesque animal torture.  I would need to be able to gauge the atmosphere, and know when it’s best to let it rest, to resist temptation of going in too hard, too soon.

         

The idea when talking to someone about all this is to live to fight another day.  By not becoming too rabid about this subject, by looking like a selfless advocate, I’m showing that I’m not trying to win personal kudos.  I’m looking more like a professional advocate, simply trying to protect my client’s (the animals’) interests.

         

As an ‘animal guardian’, I don’t stand a chance of being completely understood, but I can help win some respect for what the Animal Rights movement is trying to do.