Embarrassing dinners

1429:

What is involved in the art of talking, if it’s not just tossing ideas about and keeping them afloat for a while?  And these ideas, we should be keeping them interesting and entertaining.

Perhaps the problem with most Animal Rights ideas is that they don’t have much ‘toss’ in them, and they aren’t entertaining.  For those who dislike the subject, it’s the very opposite of interesting.  It’s more like cringe-making.

         

It gets seriously embarrassing when conversation moves onto the matter of animal slavery and the need for its abolition.  For the ‘abolitionist’ it’s abolition or nothing.

         

It seems that the subject either provokes outrage or un-interest.  You’re either involved in it up to the hilt or you're wanting to sweep it under the carpet.  You’re either vegan or not.

The reason for such extreme opposite feelings, and the reason the subject is so contentious, is that it’s so very personal.  If you’re a vegans you’re implacably on one side of the fence and non-vegans, by dint of what they eat every day, are on the other.  Animal eaters prefer not to give the matter much thought, animal-eating being so habitual.  Every time they go food shopping or eat a meal, they pointedly avoid thinking about ‘this subject’.  If pressed, they’d be forced to admit that animals are not worthy of much consideration.  But this is more like a non-thought connected to a daily practice than a deeply held conviction.

Imagine a gathering, one evening, seated around the dinner table.  If there’s a vegan present there’s going to be a plate of different-looking food in front of the vegan.  And then it’s much more difficult to sustain this ‘non-thought’, because it’s so literally ‘in your face’; there’s obviously different food being eaten, that to comment on it is virtually unavoidable.  To comment or not comment; to risk an explanation and the possibility of that being discussed - who wants that at dinnertime?  Food, or rather the ethics of choosing to eat certain foods, is not a favourite topic of dinner conversation.  And unsolicited, it would be thought the height of bad manners and insensitivity if the vegan were to make an adverse comment about the food others were eating.

But often that is exactly what does happen, if not around the dinner party table then around the family dinner table.  A vegan making adverse comments about the food, and mentioning the ‘eating of corpses’, is hugely resented.

Other than complimenting the cook or praising the quality of the produce, food is not normally analysed too closely or adversely, in order that the enjoyment of eating isn’t spoiled.  The provenance and origins of the animal foods (likely to be leading to the reason for vegans being vegans) is avoided.  But whenever these matters are approached, especially when instigated by said vegan, it is probably going to be remembered.  So that next time, at any similar gathering there is one notable absentee, the vegan.

Meat eaters don’t like inviting vocal vegans around to meals.  In fact there’s no time when the meat eater wants to run the risk of being assaulted by a vegan’s views.  So if I ever get an invitation to eat amongst a bunch of meat-eaters, and if the subject of why my plate is different comes up, then I keep any discussion lively but short.  I don’t look for agreement, and I often make some self disparaging remark to soften the impact of what I might have said.  I keep things informative and non-value judging, without things getting personal or threatening ... so that if or when we do meet again, we’ll all still be on speaking terms.