The majority

The minority always seems powerless to convince the free-willed majority to think compassionately, especially about animals used for food and research. The majority loves their familiar foods and believes in the safety of animal tested drugs. The majority prefers to believe that animals must be sacrificed to make food available and life safer. Hence it will not see the bigger picture and certainly not see things from the animals’ point of view. They won’t support the liberationists, and would rather see animal activism as a whacko cult, rather like any disgruntled person’s protests being more like a temper tantrum against a society which they can’t fit into.
Anyone who does debate the issue, putting the case against animal rights, has majority support because most people want to see animal rights arguments put down, the better to maintain the status quo. They want their supplies of ‘normal’ foods and medicines. It’s depressing that so few are in sympathy with vegan principles.
But for vegans there are distinct advantages. The majority, by turning a blind eye to the way animals are treated, also turns its attention away from what the animal rights groups are doing, letting us go about our business, laying the foundations whilst keeping a low profile in the media. Because we go almost unnoticed, we haven’t yet been widely rubbished or ridiculed. No one in the media wants to draw any attention to us or what we are saying because they’re keen not to offend either their advertisers or the consumers. There are very few articles written about farm animals and few interviews with animal activists because the interviewers themselves are unsympathetic. They don’t want to touch this subject for fear of having their own double standards shown up during an interview.
But as the movement grows we can expect things to change. The whole subject of animal use isn’t presently discussed, either around the private dinner table or in the TV studio because animal products represent a vast market and a vast advertising revenue … but slowly and surely the majority customer is wising up. The persuasions of the animal industries are becoming less and less convincing. People are less able to avoid animal rights arguments. That’s all the more reason why activists should come across as reasonable, intelligent and well informed communicators.