Not becoming too heavy

To most vegans I suppose the subject of Animal Rights is fascinating, and we do love to talk about it. Pointing out the potentials there for humans as well as the animals. In our effort to get the subject across, we can converse, argue, debate or … quarrel. We can put our case patiently, point by point, but however carefully we try to persuade, this subject matter may not touch others where it counts, especially (or because) they feel negatively about us. If we do get to discuss this subject and if things get heated, how do we keep the focus on track without it falling into the personal inference? How do we stop it becoming personal or getting right out of hand, even becoming violent? Surely, here, we’re trying to sell and one never sells something by becoming aggressive. Trying to sell is not the same as simply justifying one’s own position in what we believe. The urgency and focus always has to be on the rescue bid for the animals, and for this we need to sell the idea and build its momentum. The answer to the best outcome here is in the numbers of people who feel our empathy for them and who come on-side with us for the animals, but also with us as people with whom they can identify. If we are simply salesperson-wanting-results and not the empathiser, our adversary might feel as though they’re being railroaded. Anyone with such a watertight moral philosophy as vegans have is likely to be tempted to take liberties with people in order to recruit them. And often these liberties include ‘anything-goes’, anything right up to violence itself.
So, where does it come from, this determination to say our piece, to sell a belief, even to provoke someone in order to get a reaction? Why, when things aren’t going our way, are we willing to confront? Or if the shoe is on the other foot and it’s us being confronted, what does it feel like and how do we handle it? If we do take our conversation out to the edge, how do we pull back in time? How do we let any bad feelings blow over, especially within that vital microsecond, before we’ve gone too far?
I think it all comes down to how much we care about them and their potential support. The last thing we need to be doing is getting personal, judging values, becoming antagonistic or even privately disapproving. The odour of dislike is not difficult to spot. By disciplining our urge-to-judge someone, because of the attitudes they have, vegans best represent the nature of the animals for whom they’re advocating. Surely their foundation of non-violence should be ours too, in everything we do or say.