Counterproductive approaches from high moral ground

1748: 

Just as children need to grow out of their temper-tantrum stage so do adults need to grow out of their animal-killing stage; it’s ugly, it’s violent and it’s unnecessary. And from the long-term-health angle, eating food from animals is probably the most dangerous thing we could do to ourselves.

As animal activists, our aim is to get that message across, but in order to do that we have to set the stage. We first need to be seen as people who love animals and people alike. Once that is established, then we can deliver the bottom line - the need for an attitude-change in the way animals are regarded. Despite the traditional dependency on them and the mind-set most people have about this, if any changes are going to permanent ones, they must be voluntary. We need to encourage attitude change without using force or getting steamed-up with people.

Because nearly everyone is indirectly involved in exploiting animals, evidenced by the shoes they wear and the food they eat, shaming them into change will never work. If we try that on our friends we'll lose them. Our attempts to persuade and argue our case rest upon the sort of example we set, not only as vegans but as non-judgmental people. Even though our arguments seem difficult to handle, the words we use to explain them must be kind. As much as we might want to persuade others, we should be just as keen to show we're interested in self examination, so that we never come across as better-than. The trick is to show that one is no stranger to inconsistency, having ourselves been reluctant to make the very changes we now advocate others make. We don't need to say anything like, “I’m vegan, how about you?”, because apart from that being boastful, it's clumsy and separating. Whatever we have to say, it doesn’t need to be said too directly. People can pick up the message without it being spelt out too heavily; they are likely to be sensitive to overtones in the voice and body language. To be a good communicator, perhaps we should show that we are sensitive to the difficulty of change, especially when we’re with hostile or uninterested listeners.

We shouldn’t try to moralise, despite our knowing that the attack on animals is a moral matter. We should instead try to be equalizers; our being vegan only means we're at a different stage of awareness, that's all.