The Looming Judgement

1563: 

My attitude to you as a meat eater, when I seem to show antipathy towards you, guarantees things will going badly between us. As soon as you feel I’m judging your values, you become defensive. You’ll probably neither like me nor what I’m saying. You probably won’t trust me. You’ll want to catch me out.

When I start (talking Animal Rights) I should fix up this trust thing straight away, almost before I open my mouth. I need to assess where you stand, and see if this might be a touchy subject for you. I need to listen, to sense your mood, in order to give the impression that I'm a proper listener not just someone pretending to be interested, waiting for my turn to counter attack. Neither of us might know if we're about to jump down one another’s throats.

Whatever I think about your point of view, even if I already know it or can guess it, mine doesn't need to be stated outright, there and then, because it will soon enough be obvious.  Something I start to talk about, if it pertains to animals, is sure to give me away. You'll know soon enough where I stand on the issue, or can guess, and you'll look for an excuse to end any chance of a potentially confronting dialogue. For our part, we can't help these hidden messages being guessed at.

My strategy would be to edge towards outlining our arguments and values but NOT too soon. If I speak up too directly (save the animals, no-killing, vegan-or-nothing, etc.) and give myself away first up, you'll assume I'm busting to convert you. Or at least, I'll be wanting to make you feel 'wrong' and to make me seem 'right'. Possibly you'll think I'm out for revenge, like one of those true meathead-haters who needs to make you feel guilty. It might come across as if I'm thinking-at you, “There’s nothing else I can do to stop you doing what you do, unless I impose my judgement on you”. But to you, that wouldn’t make sense. Perhaps, it's barely crossed your mind that food could be an ethically contentious issue; what you do is nothing much different to what everyone else does. Eating meat is quite legal, and you'll be thinking-back-at me, “Everyone’s ‘exploiting animals’, in one way or another, so why pick on me?”

So that's where things stand: these two opposite judgements loom over this subject of ‘using animals’.