promotion of veganism

At first, when we’re going vegan, there’s a mixture of concerns that we have about ourselves. And that’s just in our private lives. Alongside personal worries, there grows a concern for others, the animals and for people, especially people we know who are bogged down in speciesist thinking. That concern leads on to our wanting to promote veganism and non-speciesism, but it isn’t easy. There’s not much out there to help us. Promotion is tough because veganism still has so little social momentum of its own. All we can do, if we have the energy, is to keep the issues alive. And along the way, deal quietly with any personal problems (about our own vegan lifestyle), at least until the ‘good idea’ is established in our own lives. It all takes time, developing it and then practising it, but that’s relatively simple compared to the complexities of promoting. Many live private vegan lives, they keep quiet and so no one is affected. Others are out there under the noses of everyone, advocating veganism to anyone they meet. But neither really promote veganism.
There are those others of us who like to see ourselves as dynamic activists and who dream of living in a vegan world, but we aren’t necessarily very effective at communication. We question the old methods and find them wanting, so why do we fail? Perhaps because the changes we want to see are so fundamental and seem to most people so radical. We almost have to expect NOT to be stunningly successful. There’s so much to deal with on so many different levels. We have to look after our own image as well as the image of the idea itself. We have to make our ‘good idea’ attractive enough to be habit forming if taken up – quite a task! If that seems unlikely then the even greater hurdle is to get other vegans to discuss promotion ideas. And it’s here where the big problem may be. Success may only be possible if we can be as equals amongst ourselves. We need to own our difficulties, stresses, failures because we all experience them. The more we can show what each of us is going through, for better or for worse, the better we can understand each other, and then the better we can solve the promotion problem.
And while some might have been at veganism longer than others, no one knows the definitive way to live or sell this idea because everyone thinks differently. The closer we are when talking, the clearer the communication is going to get. The more at ease we are with our subject and the people we are with, the more effectively we can get something across that is dear to our heart. Apart from all the information we’d like to impart, we should spare a moment to explain the most central truth. That we, as vegans, are all undergoing the same journey, hopefully a less judgmental one, and there are no ‘right’ answers to communication. The only thing we can be sure about is that the principles (of veganism) are unshakeable and potentially world-transforming. Now that sounds attractive enough to make promotion seem a fairly straightforward business!!!