Winning the un-convinced

1540: 

It’s relatively easy to get a person to listen who is ready to admit that Animal Rights is a serious issue, but the vast majority are stubborn.  They’re nowhere near addressing their deep set prejudices about animals.  They want to believe that animals were ‘put here’ for humans to use.

         

If we, as vegans, are asked a question we may have our answer off pat, and be quite sure it’s accurate.  But for them it’s not enough.  They really want to know, by the way we answer questions, what we are like - they want to know about us as much as they want to know the answer to their question.  They need to know whether we're nut-cases or not.  So, for our part, to straight-answer a question is not enough, since we have to remember how our answer might sound to the questioner.

Before we answer questions, we have to ask ourselves how someone is going to feel when we tell them what they've asked about, but which they’ll probably not want to hear about?  In answering, it’s easy to twist the knife, to remonstrate, to garnish our answers with a little barb of guilt.  And that usually works in our favour for about two seconds, until they realise they’re being lectured at, at which time they react - it's not what they expect and it's not what they want.  They kick back, not just to protect the little luxuries of their lifestyle but the other things which affect their relationships, opinions and beliefs.

This is why whatever we want to say should be at least halved.  Surely the trick in talking Animal Rights is not only remembering NOT to twist the knife but to tread carefully over the red hot coals we’ve slipped under their feet.  If they feel offended then we must be able to sniff that out so quickly that we take that into consideration; saying less than we intend, even to the extent of ‘throwing away’ a line or two, just to keep things on an even keel.  I think the best way to hold people’s attention and keep them on-side is to deliver some of what we want to say, and then pull back in time to avoid them turning-off, first.  If that means putting our case more casually than we’d like, then it might in the end be more effective that way.

We can’t afford to forget how justified people want to feel, how much they want to disagree with our basic premise and how much they want to stop listening.  We’re trying to inhibit each of these reactions at the same time as passing across useful information.