Being well informed

1538: 

Animal Rights is a broad subject to learn about.  It touches on so many things including ethics, nutrition, environmental concerns and modern husbandry.  Animal advocates are expected to be knowledgeable about all of this if they want to speak intelligently on the subject, well, at least have a working knowledge anyway.  It isn’t enough to cite cruelty to animals as the one reason to be vegan, although that’s likely to be the primary reason.  There are in fact so many other reasons, and it’s good to be able to speak about each of them.

         

But, however many arguments we put up and however many details we might offer, we always have difficulties overcoming the initial shock of what we suggest - “What, no more animal products at all, food, clothes, shoes, zoos?”.

         

It’s a long list of 'don’ts'.  It makes boycotting all things with animal content sound too much to take on.  At first you think you'll never manage to do it, because it's obvious that becoming vegan is one huge decision and not to be taken lightly.

Understanding this mind barrier helps us not to become too self-righteous.  On the one hand, for most vegans who are 'there', it’s seems so simple - we don’t use anything with animal connections and we're by now used to that.  But to others, contemplating it, it’s daunting.  And because of that, it is also embarrassing to be confronted with something that seems too difficult, when normally brainpower or willpower will let us take on almost any reasonable challenge.  So this matter of ‘becoming vegan’ has to be thought of as UNreasonable.  It calls for some means, any means, of putting this challenge down as being anything but real.  The proposition to 'be vegan' has to be opposed at all costs, if only to defuse the embarrassment of being shown to be in the wrong or too frightened to try 'doing it'.

When we encounter this sort of opposition, it’s rather obvious that it’s an emotional response rather than a well thought-out intellectual position being taken up.  So we have to be confident about what we’re saying and not get too easily rattled.  We have to be able to deal with being put on the spot.

Whatever we feel inside, whether it be passion, anger, well-informed, frustrated or a failure, we need to take care not to show it, especially if we’re talking with red necked, vegan-haters.  Or even with people who are used to being able to win their philosophical arguments, and who don’t take kindly to anyone who can make them look less-than-clever.

Whatever we think about the person we’re with, if we can maintain a neutral exterior and listen without reacting, and keep our own talk calm, we’ll maybe win some grudging respect.  And that is all that’s needed for us then to be given the go-ahead, to speak more openly and more fully.  Once we’re allowed to voice our opinion and flesh out our arguments, we’ll have a better chance to reach people.

I think the trick is not to too obviously win the argument.  In many of these sorts of encounters, understatement is our best  friend.