Boycotts and information

The job of convincing users of animal products to boycott them is quite a task. Why should they? “What’s in it for me?”. Perhaps it comes down to an act of faith. Perhaps it’s a matter of forecasting fashions, that one day the mass response of boycotters will divert mass dollars to non-animal products, allowing billions of animals to be released from jail. That’s the picture we can present anyway, take it or leave it.
People don’t really disagree with us about the benefit of this happening or that it will happen, but they’re fearful of a vegan diet, where it’s painful to think that so many of life’s little food pleasures would be wiped out in this one decision to go vegan. With so many people thumbing their noses at logical arguments about animal rights, meat associated diseases, eco arguments, etc. they may no longer be in control of important daily decisions they’re making. All the time a black hole of doublethink exists about animals, our ability to follow through any serious train of thought is reduced, making ethical decisions impossible.
For example: we skew the impact of something we see on TV. It’s a news story, footage of a direct action raid on a factory farm. The media shows the pictures of the conditions food-animals are kept in. Viewers are duly shocked and appalled by what they see. But they see it as a fiction, a story, having never stepped into one of these places or smelt the corruption there, first hand. (Indeed, for some decades it’s been impossible to gain entry to any factory farm, abattoir or research lab, for obvious ‘security’ reasons).
Our job is to touch people’s hearts and get people power to grow. But how? What can be done to prevent fear of life-without-animal-products? How can we allay health fears while convincing people they won’t lose taste sensations as vegetarians? How can we instil passionate enthusiasm for a boycott of animal products? Why would a person drop the “what’s-in-it-for-me?” Why be altruistic? There are too many questions for some. For others there may be many reasons why they do eventually settle into veganism, because of worsening health, worries concerning animal abuse, etc., and each individual will come to recognise their own trigger point. But it’s theirs to press, not ours.
Surely the animal rights movement is secure? It doesn’t need anything other than what is has now. Vegan activists are beavering away at the very beginning of a gigantic shift in human consciousness. We’re not after converts. We don’t want people to simply agree with us. Surely all we want is to stimulate discussion and enquiry. As communicators we shouldn’t want passive acceptance. It’s an individual’s own choice to find out what they need to know, and then to jump in when they’re ready. If that subtle process is interfered with by the urgency brigade change will be slowed and hostility to veganism increased.
We need to take up an optimistic image of forecaster, to help people imagine how-things-could-be. Let them know it doesn’t hurt, going vegan, whilst promising to be around while they take their first steps, their leap of faith. We can encourage them to know that each one who goes vegan makes it that much easier for the next one.
“Everyone’s going vegan!!” Vegans expect a snowballing effect to happen any time soon. But in reality, it may be earlier days than we think. But surely it’s just as true that envisioning creates the reality. And so we project how things might be – an extremely different, freer world, where all things are freer, including animals, including environment and including poor people. Could we handle such a world?
Back in this reality, of today, it’s food that jumps out at us. Before reaching the ideal we’ve got to be fit for it, which means we first need to know the great benefit of a change in eating habits.
The main reason a vegan diet is still regarded as a threat is because it touches on so many interrelating attitudes, and for many people that’s too overwhelming. Vegans need to convince their friends that these causes, ideas, groups, can all cross connect, between issues concerning compassion, ecology and social justice. It’s like being multilingual, it’s useful for talking to anybody, in ways they will understand. We should be communicating about all the issues so that nothing is left on the backburner. Then we’ll reap rich rewards for all concerned … not for the animal industries though!