1427:
When advocating Animal
Rights, we need to speak up as strongly as we can but with a soft enough body
language, so as not to frighten anyone off. One hint of a sneer and we’re done for!
I want you to see in my face
and hear in the tone of my voice that I’m NOT wanting to win my argument at any
cost. From my position, nothing is going
to be expressed so emotionally that I hurt another person’s feelings. It’s likely that the person we’re speaking
with has very little idea that anything is so very wrong with what they do or
eat or wear. That’s their perception and
it’s entrenched, ingrained and accepted.
However strongly we may feel about animals having rights, we can’t crack
their perception with just a few well-chosen words. Our first job is simply to engage. Then, by establishing this preliminary (that I
won’t come across as an evangelist about to sermonise) no one feels threatened.
It’s possible they might even want to
know more.
I’d prefer to err on the side
of coming across as a nice person. I’d
prefer to be seen as someone who can talk freely and say almost anything I want
to, without seeming to be threatening. Animal
Rights is the most difficult subject in the world - it makes people feel edgy. Consciously or subconsciously there’s a cloud
of guilt floating through the sky, and it’s not as if we’re talking about the
weather - this is a storm brewing which is all about the moral code by which
we, as a society, operate.
Vegans have what might seem
to others as a radical view about why we shouldn’t use animals for anything. But, personally, I have another view too,
about why we should be sensitive to each other. And that means I don’t want to humiliate you
or antagonise you. I want to be prepared
for differences to arise and still show that I'm able to deal with them calmly.
People aren’t so delicate in their words
about us as we should try to be about them. They’ve had less practice, and they’ll be less
familiar with the arguments about animal issues. Nor are they as aware of volatile reactions
surrounding this particular subject.
I get extreme responses,
where someone is reluctant to agree to too much, because they’ve got more to
lose than me. If they do agree, they
fear that they'll be opening themselves up to possible attack, as if they might
then have said to them, “So, if you agree, why aren’t you a vegan then, etc.”.
In terms of arguments vegans
hold the best hand which we can play to our best advantage. We don’t have to rub it in their face. This is not about who has the cleverest
arguments. If a person is listening to us (talking ‘vegan’) that’s a big step
for them to make, in itself.
It’s incidental that they
disagree with us about animal rights and that they are almost certainly still
animal eaters - my main concern is for them (and of course for the animals they
are eating). That's enough to impel me
to want to talk things through with them. I reckon I have something that could add
quality to their life. But it's not a
one way street. They almost always will
have something valuable to add to mine too; adding to my better understanding
the reasoning behind the omnivore mind.
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