Free-will

Everyone, each of us, has reasons and justifications for what they do. Everyone is capable of change but we cling on to our free will, not wanting to compromise the hard won freedoms of adulthood. From our earliest years as babies we struggle to assert ourselves, and at each stage of childhood we’re insisting on older kids’ privileges. We refuse to be treated as we’ve been treated up to now. We demand more freedom, more pocket money, later times to bed, then later, it’s about going out late, having sexual relations, indulging in mind altering substances. What ever is won has been hard earned. Whatever freedoms we have they let us do things on a grander scale. The initial freedoms granted us as teenagers fuel our fire, the main one being money. As we get closer and closer to being able to earn serious money we equate that with being able to enjoy adult privileges, especially all the extravagances of ‘free will’.
Now we can drive, so we can choose a car (or dream of owning one), we’re old enough to get involved in politics because we have a vote, we can eat what we like, dress how we like, entertain ourselves how we like. Temptations galore … when we come of-age. From total captivity, having been locked into childhood and obedience, now, with free will, we have a get-out-of-jail card. We can determine things in our own way. We can even avoid listening to people we don’t have to listen to. As the song says: “School is out for ever”.
If vegans are up against anything it might be an obstinacy that comes from prizing free will. This badge we adults wear lets us eat and drink what we want, and we can’t be told differently by our mothers or for that matter anyone, which includes vegan proselytisers, speaking with enthusiasm but no authority. Omnivores are determined to protect their ‘right-to-choose’ and being in the comfortable majority they have no wish to persuade vegans to be like them, whereas vegans, being so few in number, are keen to persuade omnivores to change. It’s not just because we want company but because we are convinced that everyone should be acting for the ‘greater good’. However it doesn’t gives us the right to put pressure on people to change diets, clothes, cosmetics, etc. We have no chance of succeeding that way, anyway.

A tricky balance

Vegan’s might have principles concerning their eating habits and their attitude to animals but do we fully apply the same principles when relating with each other? Some vegans are not forgiving of people who hurt animals. But this includes almost everyone in the human race. Judgement-making, when it’s about morality and values, is a slippery slope – by disapproving of almost everybody, then almost everybody feels the dislike and returns it. If we say that every person is involved in animal crimes it’s simply because they are still eating them.
People are implicated by using their money to lend financial support to animal industries. In our present society we have consumer-sponsored attacks made on ‘fellow beings’. So the question is are we, as vegans, capable of broadening our harmlessness to living without judgement, over these big issues involving aggression?
If vegans do make a value judgement about certain human behaviours it can be poison because of the personal-dislike element. It’s as if we are willing to play Russian Roulette with our relationships along the lines of “if you aren’t with us, you’re against us”. It’s easy to make enemies of non-vegans. If we, as vegans, are trying to set the standard of non-violence, we have to show generosity by looking for the best in people, and giving them the benefit of the doubt. If that sounds a bit Polly Anna the other side to this balancing act is far too dangerous. The aim is surely to be ‘on-side’ without okaying what we know they (the meat easters) actually do. We only have to separate the deed from the person. We are teachers not preachers. Vegans should investigate what makes people tick. We need to keep asking the same question - why aren’t people impatient to become vegan, and why aren’t they concerned about ‘the animal problem’? We need to put our fellow humans under the magnifying glass, to see why they go along with the routine murdering of animals, or even why they enthusiastically support it.

Home rules

If killing animals to eat them is condoned by the majority, then as vegans we need to step away from all that, yet be upfront about it by not trying to hide our boycott. In our own mind we know that we live in society but are, in some important ways, not part of it – because we don’t condone violence and specifically violently extracted foods and commodities. In that way it makes us very different to almost all other people. Our decisions are coloured differently in so many ways, not just with food and clothing but in the very way we see our world – we don’t take on the role of dominator but that of equal participator with other species.
The way that we’re particularly different though is that we have our particular rules about food. Anyone who is part of a any discipline, whether in sport, religion, academic study or personal relationships, has self-imposed rules. We devise and adopt them not just to make our own life more difficult but because it’s generally beneficial. So those who practice a ‘discipline’ (as it may be called) are very familiar with home rules.
Take the Quakers. They avoid war and don’t let themselves be conscripted. They believe disagreements can be best handled by dialogue rather than confrontation. For many years in the eighteenth century in Pennsylvania, they maintained friendly relations with the indigenous Americans and governed a whole state on the basis of non-violence. Their government eventually collapsed because people preferred the use of violence and force for solving problems, but maybe the Quakers were doomed by their own inconsistency – they hadn’t embraced the idea of being non-violent towards animals since they still killed and ate them. But they still represent today a precept of acting non-violently and perhaps also non-judgementally, and we can all appreciate the value of that. I’d like to see them become vegan because of the valuable groundwork they’ve already done regarding all humans as being on an equal footing.
Vegans and Quakers each offer an important principle to the world. One discipline, from one group, could benefit the other group in a sort of principle-exchange.

Strategy

Animal Rights needs a communication upgrade! As vegans we have our own weaknesses and they need to be addressed as much as the general public needs to address theirs, if only to keep our judgementalism in check. But speaking of the animal-eating masses, their habit of condoning killing and eating of animals is a weakness and that’s all it is. Vegans need to be able to show it for what it is, but ONLY that. No rancour, no disrespect and no value judgements. We don’t win long term commitment by inducing guilt or fear in people, only by showing we respect them and are interested in their welfare. Then we can keep them on side. Apart from wanting to be warm with people, it’s of strategic advantage to be warm. Warm translates as willing to help.
Let’s say we are together, you and I. If you look at my face, you’ll pick up all the essentials as to how I’m feeling – either I’m relating to you non-judgementally (I’ll be giving off a signal: I like you or I accept you) OR I’m being judgemental (signalling disapproval or mistrust). I might not want you to see ‘judgemental’ in me and I may not want to be judgemental, but all that’s overridden by my wanting to show off. I may want nothing more than to show my high standards. I may even be prepared to risk our relationship for the sake of this. By letting you know that I disapprove of something you do, I gamble on you finding my honesty valuable. And that shows you I’m not trying to deceive you about how I feel. But for the onlooker this may not be what they see at all – rather it will be seen as ‘covering our tracks’, blocking any opportunity of you disapproving of me.
If I’m being judgemental, it is all about values, mine and yours. It’s about me needing to establish my credentials, showing I have something to say and establishing my right to say it. If I express a moral judgement (aimed at you) you may take offence. If it’s the other sort of judgement it isn’t the same thing at all. For example, to judge the fire as hot. No one disputes that. The heat is evidence-based. That fire burns is self evident. But when I assess your values, that’s a subjective statement about my values being better than yours. My judging may not necessarily be fair or carefully researched, but because I feel it is right, I’m impelled to make my position clear. I relate my values to yours. I take it as my responsibility to impress you with my values. I may even think to shock you. What I say to you, I hope, will ‘wake you up’.
A judgement or a disapproval lands us in all sorts of deep water. It’s as clumsy an interaction as when you insult me and I punch you in the face. I do it without thought almost. I react before I’ve thought it through, and the damage is done and can only be undone with a lot of effort. This is a powerful moment, my punching you in the face. My judgement is quick, clear and almost primeval. I dislike you and I am showing it decisively. I act speedily to keep my advantage, before I can give myself time to make more considered response.
Acts like this are automatic for those who are afraid to think. Each day we make decisions without taking the trouble to consider more carefully. Perhaps that’s because we don’t have enough time or patience to consider anything much. We think and act almost simultaneously, instinctively, impulsively liking or disliking. When it comes to straight talking it might not be such a bad thing, if our friends come to know us as speakers. But if we haven’t thought carefully about it we may use the shock and attack approach and not care about their feelings or setting off a whole train of insensitivity ending us as a grand mistake. So where does that leave us? Perhaps strategically needing to be very careful about making value judgements.

Being non-judgemental

When we’re talking animal rights we use words, and it’s impossible not to expose our inner feelings when we speak. Try as we might we can’t take the judgement out of our voice if it’s already in our mind. Our words can sound benign, but if we harbour any negative personal feeling it will show in the tone of our voice, and be picked up. Anyone thinking any sort of judgement about someone’s moral values can be smelt from a distance, and be regarded as hostile. “Avoid, avoid”. So, for vegans talking animal rights, it’s almost impossible for us to win the hearts of people if we are in judgement of them.
If we wear the badge of the ‘animal liberationist’, owing to our general reputation for proselytising, we’re immediately recognised as potentially boring. So somehow we need to win people over in order to get them to stay with us long enough to listen to us. How do we do that? I would suggest by proving to them, first and foremost, that we aren’t judgemental, and if necessary to say so. To do that we first have to BE non-judgemental, truly so. We must be convinced of the futility of making moral judgements, whether it’s about the abuse of animals or about anything we consider wrong. Instead we need to see it in much the same way a doctor sees a disease, without rancour or disrespect but simply as a fault in the system, which needs help and hopefully correction. A doctor will look for a remedy to counter the destructive element, and so should we.
They say there’s cancer in everyone’s body and we have to stay healthy and keep our immune system robust to prevent it taking hold. In much the same way we need to keep a healthy resolve, to not make judgements.

Forced into peace

There’s little comfort for vegans in any stories in the media. All we hear about is how conventional food habits are flourishing. Cuisine, making full use of animal body parts, is all the rage. It’s only ever about taste experiences, variety and freshness. The TV cooks are oblivious of the animals whose bodies they use. And their use of abundant quantities of animal products is made to look like the extravagance we all deserve. There’s never a thought to the harm their rich foods do to human health let alone the harm to the animals who produce them. They are agents of indulgence and in the pay very often of the animal (and allied) industries. There’s benefit all round.
Our society is careful to elevate the chef. They do nothing to endanger the acceptability of animal produce. Vegans, on the other hand, want retribution. But our sack is empty. We have nothing coercive to fight with. This is why we seem to be silent, busting but silenced.
For those of us who are less impatient we see this to our advantage, as a movement. At this early stage we can act more effectively by not drawing attention to ourselves.
We’re in no position yet to morally browbeat. We can’t expose, we can’t ridicule, we can’t do anything of this sort to help our case, simply because our minority views are up against a vast majority attitude. Frustrating as it may be for us it’s nevertheless good training for not being too ready to judge, even in our most private thoughts. It forces us to take on total non-violence. Only by completely rethinking our attitude to those who disagree with us can we make any headway with them.

Pessimism

Pessimism is connected with things going badly wrong psychologically (some negative attitude or hatred or resentment which sours our life). It’s our pessimism making it impossible to agree to anything that might make matters worse for ourselves.
In this state of mind just holding our life together is more immediate than entertaining new ideas; dancing off into the sunlight on some adventure, exploring the human connection with … animals. Struggling to survive - in this state of thinking it’s likely we’re less receptive to sound advice. “Go away” thinking is justified by our own not-liking or trusting the person with the ‘new idea’.
When vegans take on the role of advisor, to offer what we know, we forget we need permission to come in. We need to win some trust. If we’re really compassionate, passionate and patient, we’re more likely to do just that. Then trust is established. To get to that point we need to be listening to all their reasons (for not being vegan) whilst being the compassionate all-rounder ourself. Not their judge. Trust is there if we don’t judge.
Coming back to the arsonist, judging them goes some way to satisfying the need for revenge – the wish to simply punish. The arsonist acts illegally and immorally and therefore provides a perfect excuse for everyone in the community to come together on this one matter. And because we can all take part in this judgement, we are justified in being uncharitable.
Which is what vegans sometimes do, when they hear about the latest coronary heart disease statistics. They like what they hear, because this statistic is so useful for our arguments concerning the eating of meat. Those stats do help our argument to be taken seriously but our mistake is to forget to express concern for the people with heart disease. If we ignore their tragedy we seem callous. And then our motives won’t seem trustworthy.

We want thinkers not agree-ers

If we are attempting to convince the majority that what they do is wrong (eating animals) and that they should listen to the tiny minority of vegans, we need to have something very attractive on offer. And maybe that’s what we have - without a doubt we can show the way to get off unhygienic, disease-ridden and appallingly unhealthy foods and replace them with something far better. And we also offer a way to escape involvement with horrendous animal crimes, which all consumers are part of. But there’s more. Alongside these attractions there’s the self respect in pulling away from brainwashed habits (attacking animals who can’t fight back).
Veganism stands against bullying, that’s all. It’s merely an attitude against the dominion of humans over animals and our turning them into commodities. Vegan lifestyle is cheaper, kinder, more intelligent and original – eat at a vegan household and you’ll experience food preparations, new tastes and new dishes, and the cuisine will probably be a surprise, that such food can be made from plant based ingredients.
But these are the ‘me-centred’ advantages of veganism. More significant is the attraction of advocacy, being conscience-free to act of the animals’ behalf and having no double standards weighing our arguments down. As potential activists, for the first time we are kosher. Free to speak out about the repairs needed, that could transform our species … THAT IS if enough of us take up vegan eating, etc. By moving towards being vegan (no one is totally vegan) and eventually becoming vegan, we can join a growing band of people who are concerned about the planet’s future. The same people who don’t see any form of violence playing a part. In other words by becoming vegan we allow ourselves to take a brave stand.
Vegans are brave in what they do, in their private lives and maybe also in public. Some decide to speak out, enjoy the battle despite hostility and ridicule. Other vegans choose to do it the other way, by trying to be useful and showing people their good natures. Whether we are screaming “vegan” from an orange box or arguing our case or setting an example, in whatever way we choose to express vegan principe we are doing it in the cause of the greater good. It’s something worth considering.
In terms of communicating our message and winning respect, this approach allows vegan thinking to chew over this niche idea and see it becoming the main market force. With veganism we are, effectively, selling a job-lot, including a new ‘product’, a new attitude, another whole awareness. It has to be upbeat since most people have never really thought about (and won’t want to unless it is).
More importantly, it’s a long-term set-up. Veganism is aiming at long term change. We aren’t trying to get people merely to agree with us but to think things through for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions.

The blunt instrument

The idea of Animal Liberation rescuing and liberating animals is right, and what it communicates, about the horrors of the animals’ lives in captivity, is right. And it is right to condemn those people who still continue supporting the animal industries. It’s right but does it work? Who’s left? No one is left. Everyone in the community is condemned. And therefore no one can take it seriously. It might make us feel good but it won’t work – the arsonist will continue to light fires because they’re still angry at society and the meat eating community will not be bullied into giving up their meat eating habits.
Vegans can be seen to be and very often are bullies. Even amongst one another we have vegan police types, who aren’t backward in coming forward in their criticisms of their not-quite-high-enough-reaching colleagues. So, overall, the ability of the Animal Rights Movement to carry theory into practice hasn’t worked very well, and I’d suggest that this is because we are still using the blunt instrument of judgement. And as yet, we haven’t even touched on the importance of ‘communicating with the enemy’.
We’ve found, over the years, that for all our judging and condemning it hasn’t worked quite as smoothly as we expected. There hasn’t been a mass-conversion to vegan eating or the principle of animal rights. So, can our communication failure be put down to the highly unattractive judgements we’re making? How do we come across with our harsh words and even invective?
My point is that any amount of outrage, especially from a small group of people, is largely ineffective. It’s just too easy for people to ignore us. Hence, for the vast mass of people, they can remain blissfully unscathed by protesters’ judgements. Without the support of the law (and indeed the opinion of the vast majority of ordinary people) our protest and judgement appear to be simply the ravings of a bunch of weirdos. Animal activists are deliciously ignorable. However the challenge remains and is, for some of us, a delicious prospect.

Judgement and arson

As we swelter in a heatwave, the bush (as usual at this time of the year) is burning. Houses have been lost. It was on the news. No mention of the non-human inhabitants of the bush or the domesticated animals trapped behind fences. They say the current fires were deliberately lit. There’s public fury about this and much praise for the brave fire fighters, who risk their lives mainly to save property.
The main players on the stage though are the bystanders. Fire is ugly but so are the double standards of some of those who are morally outraged by this event. Their outrage is reserved for those who deliberately light fires. Most people feel safe to speak up about this. We are selective about what outrages us - we can afford to be loud on this one but quiet about other equally atrocious crimes.
It’s interesting what fire brings out in us. As an example of a common fury, fire and arson are ripe for judgement. It’s almost exciting to have a fire so we can have something topical to talk about, where we can feel safe to judge those responsible, who are often the types of people we most dislike anyway - arsonists in particular. We’re proud to feel strongly and speak up in defence of certain victims of the arsonist, fellow humans, but humans only.
In a hot dry country like Australia, where bush fires are common, there’s no one so detested as the arsonist. They’re often juveniles with pyromaniac tendencies who are neither in control of their own impulses nor aware of being judged. They’re probably seeking recognition through destruction and perhaps they don’t fully understand what risks they’re taking, by setting fires. They cause great suffering and many deaths, mostly tragically sentient animals not to mention plant life, not to mention threats to humans. When caught the community want them severely punished, to be judged by a professional judge.
At a trial every angle is covered, witness statements, motives, background, record, mental illness, even the arsonist’s relationship with their companion animals. A judgement is made and a sentence passed.
But amateurs want to be involved – each of us wants our opinion known. Our judgement is much clumsier than the trial judge’s – ours isn’t interested in details but on justifying our thirst for vengeance. Here’s a crime that anyone can get a safe handle on and speak strongly about; our own moral outrage feels healthiest when it concerns things like arson. What’s to argue about? … the saving of lives, the saving of property, the reckless threat against both, the heartbreak over the loss of non-human life. All that outrage is expressed at a time of fire. But for another equally horrendous crime there’s silence.

When something isn’t illegal, like the killing and eating of animals, the only thing to stop it is an animal activist, making a judgement. They’re coming from their own morally outraged position, this time against those who procure animal materials. This activist is intent on shaming them (and that includes just about everybody!). They take on this responsibility simply because there’s no one else to do it. There’s no professional judge or law to protect animals, not ‘food animals’ anyway. Activists use heavy judgement about this because no one else seems to be even vaguely disturbed by the crime.
But judgement still always fails. At first glance it seems okay to have formed a judgement in the form of a strong opinion (the public’s of the arsonist, the vegan’s of the meat eater) but judging isn’t as thorough as understanding; we make judgements without enough evidence, so they’re unsupportable. Nevertheless we make them - these are relatively safe judgements, they are safe ways of venting rage, in this case against the arsonist, for lighting fires. In the same way it’s easy for vegans to justify their judgements of meat eaters, for their willingness to let animals suffer to satisfy the palate.
The meat eater is the pyromaniac’s double. They each need urgent help to cure them of similar urges - to dominate, to violate and to do it all with not a care in the world. Our judging them won’t help. It won’t help them change and it won’t do our image as Animal Rights advocates much good either.

Not letting the side down

All of us are trained from childhood to make judgements of other people - if someone seems bad or stupid or weak our judging of them makes us feel better about ourselves. We like to feel superior. It’s a god-on-my-side feeling. But by being vegan we are also trying to win recognition of the principle. It should never be about me and my enlightened position but about the crime of animal exploitation and the abolition of enslavement. Therefore we need to get a lot of people on side. We certainly shouldn’t be judging others, since we might damage the whole animal rights movement if we do. If we think we have right on our side we may make ourselves unpopular - as vegans we represent others’ interests. It’s not just our own reputation we have to think about but the reputation and safety of all concerned. By judging those who aren’t like us, it puts them off us. It turns them away from a particular way of thinking that they might have come round to in time anyway.
Memory plays tricks on us if we think that we’ve always been vegan. Apart from a very few who’ve been vegan from birth we all came from another viewpoint and along the way we’ve changed. Is it possible that we might NOT have become vegan if we’d met up with a judgemental vegan, who seemed too unattractive to identify with.
Feeling safe as a vegan should cancel out any need to be judgemental. The violence in our society is a reaction to being thought of as inferior, so we mustn’t encourage that if we don’t want to add to the problem. Violence comes out of a wish to make others feel inferior. Why would we want to do that? We’ve been taught that a dose of violence keeps people in their place or it can drag people up to our level – we presume others need improving and that we don’t? And all this is based on judgement, aggression and a disregard for the non-violence principle.

The judgement trap

Just about everyone knows how vegans view the world but how do vegans view themselves? Perhaps we think being vegan is pretty much how everyone should be, morally speaking and healthwise, but the danger is that vegans will seem as though they’re looking down from a height, perhaps boastfully, as if we are better than others. And if we think that way we might feel entitled to judge others who don’t think that way. And if we can’t get people to agree with us voluntarily we may use value judgement as a weapon against their obstinacy. If we resort to this sort of moral force, it can be seen as a subtle form of violence or aggression. It’s as if we are violating the freedom of choice, when that choice is regarded by almost everyone, the law included, as acceptable.
From an outsider’s point of view there’s something about a holier-than-thou person that is distinctly unattractive and needing to be ‘brought down to size’. Anyone who thinks themselves better, whether cleverer, wealthier, better looking or more righteous, is unattractive, simply because they seem so self satisfied.
If vegans refuse to be judgemental it changes everything. We may well have a quality which others can admire, and that counts for a lot, despite it seeming to us as too passive. Vegans often feel that if they aren’t up front that they’re being apologetic about being vegan; we’re more used to the stridency of putting our arguments into circulation, causing a disturbance to attract attention and ‘laying it on the line’. But that’s all been done before and it hasn’t built any useful momentum. Animal rights has a reputation of exposing the truth but not changing people’s minds. We have to ask why. Is it perhaps that the vegan extreme is more than people can take on board? And are we giving people a ready made excuse to avoid the truth we present by letting them think badly of us as judgmental evangelicals?
For us there are two positions to think about here: can we afford to be a benign presence who isn’t a threat or an embarrassment to others? And can we handle that self image? Surely, as vegans who knows our own strengths, we don’t need to prove anything about our self to our self. We are surely stronger if we have a completely non-violent image. As insignificant as we might be to others, we must know that our vegan principle is our own inner strength. It is there to support us when we don’t seem to be making much impact, and it can only weaken when we feel the need to boast about it. In other words being vegan allows us to remain positive and strong … as long as we never think of others as being ‘below’ us.

Exploding the myths

Vegans will always have their work cut out, persuading people to change radically. But for us it’s not just about persuading reluctant people, it’s surely also about caring for them and being useful to them, just as they are, even if they don’t appear to listen to what we say. Underneath all our anger and frustration and aggressive thoughts towards our adversaries, we have a job to do, to break the myths people are attached to and help them see things as they really are, and go on from that point.
We need to stress the same things over and over, until the penny drops – that some home truths are not as true as people believe. Many people still believe meat (and therefore animal farming) is essential for human survival, and that testing drugs on animals is the only way to have safe pharmaceuticals. People are so locked into these beliefs that we, as vegans, need to explain a different view of safety and survival, all the time emphasising compassion and the reliability of instinct in these matters. We have to persuade them to do what instinctively they know they should be doing, always within a context of non-violence.
But whatever we can get across we have to make sure we aren’t preaching, just advising. We are all hypersensitive to being criticised or being judged. We none of us like being pushed around by people who think they’re right.

World problems

There are plenty of other idea-schools contending for attention on the great issues of the day - global warming, environment, world hunger, animal welfare, and each is significant so none of them can be sidelined. But vegan mentality is the only logical starting line to all of this new approach to issues. And that is too much to handle for many people, who are already overwhelmed by world problems, and that’s before we ever get to the personal ones. Each ‘problem’ needs to be solved, one by one or preferably all together! In what ever way the problems of the world are to be solved depends a lot on attitude - do we say, “too hard, too hard” or “another day, another day”? Is there a feeling we’ll never find the answers? Are we reluctant to go beyond our mindsets to find answers? Is it all too big and too difficult?
If we do think this way, nothing will change and we’ll head straight for our own destruction.
We can’t expect politicians to fix things up for us. We need to lead the way and make our own steps forward. Small changes won’t help. Radical changes may help.

Stepping Out

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice goes looking and finds a bottle inviting her to drink. She follows the instruction, “Drink Me”, and takes a risk. She steps into the unknown. She enters another world, and her first instinct is to make friends. She meets all sorts of interesting characters but they don’t acknowledge her. She shows acceptance but they don’t reciprocate because they inhabit another world. In that world, unlike ours, they accept things as they are, undemonstrably. Theirs is not a world of change (whereas ours is). In Alice’s wonderland her characters don’t see the point of befriending her or listening to her advice. Very rude, thinks Alice. They see no purpose in following her example, and I suppose that’s a metaphor for human obstinacy.
In our world, on our ‘learning planet’, we’re given as many opportunities as we could wish for, so that change can flourish. But we hate stepping out of the familiar and into what we’re NOT used to. The “Drink Me” instruction on Alice’s bottle is not followed - kids might risk it but most of us adults wouldn’t, we’d be too set in our ways and too suspicious of entering any radically new world, even to find a new slant on our problems. I guess we’re reluctant because the new and radical seems unrealistic or even ridiculous.
But for people like vegans, we’re taking on something beyond our comfort zone. As we step away from the familiar dimension, it’s like buying a new house off the plan – it needs a leap of faith from idea to commitment. For vegans it’s a matter of boycotting commodities, and applying the idea to see what it has to offer, and then to hope for something amazing. And once found not only is it amazing but of course it’s relevant to one’s whole life, not just one part of it.
For those new to it all, looking towards vegan principle as a guide, we examine all the good arguments. Then we make an assessment. If we step onto that bridge that carries us over to a beyond-the-present world it isn’t an escape route, but it will settle us safely away from the predominantly carnivorous society. This is no holiday bridge, it’s a way across to a positional place fro which to work. By being outside, looking in, we can point to ways that our society is fundamentally flawed and repairable.
At the heart of repair is the simple principle of non-violence. To vegans harmlessness seems highly significant. But to non-vegans, who haven’t looked that far, it doesn’t represent a universal principle and so it isn’t significant enough to apply it to one’s life.
And there, between the vegan and the non-vegan, the great difference lies.
No one wants to waste time on trivial matters and veganism, to non-vegans, may seem utterly trivial in the greater scheme of things. So, vegans need explain why it isn’t. If we get a chance we have to communicate why vegan principle is significant – that it’s linked to the universality of non-violence.
Although we know what we’ve found has transformed our own lives, for others nothing like that has happened, nothing significant in their life has been transformed. For them, it’s likely, there remains a belief that no one simple principle is capable of making transformatory changes.
Vegan arguments, logics and statistics can help to turn that view around, but we need to translate everything into a language that can be understood by anyone, kids, grandparents, aunts or uncles. We have to continually return to the basics, to emphasise the importance of not being hard in our attitudes. And never cold, especially in this matter of animal treatment. Our feelings of warmth towards exploited animals is about not being cruel to weaker beings. That’s simply an anti-bullying, anti-exploitative stand. It’s at the core of what vegans need to be talking about.

Self focus

Self obsession stands in the way of self-development, so we might think to put some energy into things outside our own self interest. Maybe we do charity work, become an environmentalist or a vegetarian. But the bottom line is how much self focus there is in what we do - as in ‘my’ development, ‘my’ road to enlightenment or ‘my’ happiness. Perhaps that’s what veganism tries to point out - to be fully rounded, to see beyond self-improvement, we need another strong magnetic pull, towards empathy and compassion, the ability to ‘be with’ another, co-enjoyment, being involved with another’s problems. The more energy we put out the more impact we have and the more comes back, and yes, yes, all this has been said before, but it’s a queer turn of logic and bears mentioning yet again, that it’s a paradox: we might get more from representing another’s interests, because we can see how theirs is more important than one’s own. It requires imagination and that thing grandparents can be so good at, thinking about their grandchildren more than themselves. The pleasure they get from the children is an enjoyment combined with a particular type of self denial. One can see them being this way and marvel – they make it look so easy, to be thinking about others before thinking about themselves. Now if we apply that exquisite pleasure to earning a good reputation with the animals that brings us straight into the arms of vegan principles.
If we decide to become a vegan we have to see it not as a restriction but a liberation – it’s “the privilege and pleasure … we treasure beyond measure” that counts in the end. Veganism isn’t just about abstaining from eating certain foods, it’s about developing something all-round better. Food-wise it means healthier food, ethics-wise it means compassion, and yes, yes, that’s all very good, but what about ‘my happiness, my development’? That’s where most of us are now. tangled up in too much self and not enough un-self.
The main purpose of our lives is to succeed. Success is golden, especially when we reach our own goals. That makes for quite a lot of happiness. So, it seems logical that we need to find happiness in taking on responsibility to do the right thing … and then making sure we have enough energy to keep it up. With good nutrition and clear conscience we can work miracles. At first we make resolutions and then we settle for the ones we have a pretty fair idea we can keep.

Lambs to the slaughter

Here in Australia we’re coming up to summer. The male of the species take this season very seriously. Throughout the summer months males practise their culinary skills with Sunday BBQ in the Park, or wherever. During the cremations otherwise nice picnic spots are made uninhabitable for non-meat eaters. The smell!! Surrounded by trees and birds and all nice things the Male practises for “D” Day on January 26th (a national-pride day, when everyone gets pissed and eats lamb chops). It’s called ‘Australia Day’, or by some of us ‘Invasion Day’. It’s a day where celebrations takes the form of roasting meat over flames. This is The Great Ozzie BBQ.
A popular victim of these celebrations is the sheep. Humans’ taste for cooked young flesh means they eat the lambs of sheep. (They’re executed very young – for tender purposes!). Salivatingly, Australia Day is a day to-be-looked-forward-to. It’s celebrated by a back-to-nature fire ritual, roasting lambs over open flames. Disgusting as it may sound it’s a habit. Nobody has to think about it since it’s just the way things are done. “We’ve always done it – eaten lambs – and we like doing it and have done it so often we don’t notice what it is. And what’s more we can’t stop – we’re addicted to the taste and excited by the smell of it being cooked”.
And this is just one of the many ugly habits we have. Especially when it comes to ‘animal’ we can’t contemplate giving it up.
What troubles some of us is our own lack of self-discipline. We can’t give up smoking, can’t kick the bottle, can’t stop eating those cutlets, and if we meet people who’ve kicked their addictions it makes us feel twice as bad. We might call them ‘the self-improved’, and when ‘they’ don’t seem like us we dislike them and it’s likely we’ll come to dislike their ideas and in the end dislike the whole idea of ‘self improvement’.

But that’s not to say we don’t want any sort of self-improvement. We’d all become self-improved if it meant being rich and famous. Why waste time on being disciplined about not eating animals. Why bother, especially if it only means saving a few lambs from being executed?

Their eyes glaze over

Vegans are familiar with that look. Often too polite to tell us, but to themselves it’s “I don’t have to listen to this crap”. Most people are alert to the lead-up vegans use to get a point across, subtle means whereby we edge around to talking animal stuff. To the listener it’s not difficult to spot – when someone mentions something (that will establish the difference between one viewpoint and another “…but should we be eating animals?”) that they intend us to listen to. It’s often dripped into a conversation. One knows what’s coming and prepares to ignore it.
Certain things we learn not to be aware of. My grandparents lived on a train line, and when I was young I sometimes stayed with them and the noise of steam engines passing the window was deafening, but after a while I could sleep at night as they roared past. This switch-off ability is the same one that’s used to avoid hearing what we don’t want to hear, in this case what a vegan might be saying.
So, for us, trying to get our message across, is infuriating. All we see is a blank look, a resistance. We try to get through it but often fail … and what happens next is understandable but may be the reason why we are having so little impact on people, because we are not as battle-hardened as we could be.
It’s so frustrating that so many people simply tune out …so, we become exasperated … we try to barge past their defences …go for the jugular … dig right into people’s guilt or fear, in the hope we’ll bring them around by force. If only!
Health talk and fear of personal illness works on some level, but it doesn’t magically lead to a respect for vegan principles or an enthusiasm for animal liberation. Trying to change people’s attitudes by making them feel guilty or afraid is a sure fire way to make them run away. It’s a tactic that might have worked a hundred years ago (if there had been vegans around then, which there weren’t) but it won’t work today … because there is such an overwhelming number of omnivores. Amongst the young especially, few seem to be suffering from the foods they’re eating. They don’t seem to be consumed by guilt. For them, things seem to be working and …if it works why fix it? People identify with their peers as well as those people with attractive personalities, and so it’s easy NOT to identify with animal activists. We often seem frustrated, exasperated and aggressive. Amongst any group of people, of any age, the norm is still meat eating and switching off compassion when food’s on the table. What people do have a problem with is confrontation, especially over moral issues, where their own ethical values and self-discipline are being questioned. Free-willed people don’t take kindly to being told what to do or what to eat.

See no evil hear no evil

When vegans say “change to plant-based food” it’s about the most troubling advice anyone could be given because, on the one hand it sounds right but, on the other it goes against the grain. Veganism touches the most sensitive nerve in our body, personal survival. We’d rather live the life we know than risk a journey into the unknown.
However much vegans promise good times ahead, however fit and energetic and calm-minded they seem, basic survival instinct nearly always kicks in. It rules our head, overrides logic, compassion, the lot. At this crucial point between stage three and stage four (thinking about it and thinking about doing it), it’s only will power that keeps our minds clear enough to weigh our options - ideally, theoretically, the vegan regime seems right but in practice it means leaving part of our present life behind. Going vegan is like a second weaning.
People do hear what we say but they don’t process it, for fear of how it might affect them. When they purposely forget what they hear, it’s like tuning out the radio or closing the book. We avoid unpleasant information, and it’s easy to avoid because most others do.
Any time vegans are successful in getting others to listen, we assume more willingness on their part than they may feel. We think we’re communicating something valuable to them. They, on the other hand, simply hear a vegan speech. And they know they don’t have to listen to it, so they glaze over. It’s like when the ads come on TV and we switch our attention to something else.
Because the information is about animal suffering the whole experience of listening can be unpleasant. That’s why it’s our job to use imagination, to gauge how much unpleasant stuff we can let out, and balance it by mentioning the uplifting aspects of vegan principle.

Why people resist

The theory and practice of veganism are at odds here. Ideally and logically our arguments are very clear and attractive … to us. But the perception of them by others can be quite different. A communication wall exists between how we see it and the way others do. The logic goes something like this: we have, within vegan principles, the most inspiring statement of non-violence anyone can make, just by the sort of food we choose to eat and therefore the philosophical statement we choose to make. At every meal we prove that we’re no longer in league with the animal industries, and that qualifies us to say something groundbreaking about food and about ethics. But that’s not the same thing as having something universally interesting to impart or being invited to speak about it - what we have on offer may not be the currency that other people are familiar with. So, it isn’t just a case of announcing the arrival of a unique eating regime and automatically inspiring the meat eaters to roll over. Ideal conditions we don’t have. People are not queuing up to hear what we have to say.
So, we have to keep returning to the drawing board to ask ourselves what it is we are really dealing with? It’s not just stubbornness. It’s not only that people don’t want to be told what to do by us. It’s probably much more to do with the difficulty people are having in admitting to themselves that they are eating particular foods three times a day which ethically they should not be eating. And none of us should have been eating them, ever. But in the West we eat the wrong food and have done so at the rate of about a thousand meals per year, for every year we’ve lived. In other words no one wants to admit they’ve been wrong for so long. To restore the balance, to make things right, we’re not just suggesting that people change an occasional token item on their shopping list, but forgo favourite foods (as well as other commodities) for the sake of a higher principle, and move on into another world of plant based foods and non-animal clothing. And never look back.
Put that way it seems like a massive undertaking. For people to agree with this might seem unlikely, however the argument logically holds up. The principles vegans suggest are the best ones to live by can serve us well. Immediately they overturn an addiction to dangerous foods, and as with any addictive substance getting ‘clean’ is always going to be attractive and daunting at the same time. It’s as exciting as breathing fresh air after almost suffocating. And yet we tend to stick what is familiar. Our resistance is solid. It’s reinforced everyday in the media, in food shops, in advertising, in the nutritional advice we’re given and just by the common usage of these foods. It’s doubly reinforced by the fact that no one speaks against animal foods or farm animal treatment even though they purport to be our spiritual or educational advisers, and that’s because they are users themselves.

Solo exploring

Each of us may feel highly inspired, and perhaps we think we don’t care if no one else understands us, but in the end we will have to care enough to condense everything we believe into one single thread from which all our ideas will spring: veganism, animal rights, non-aggression, health and happiness, each one stemming from the idea of working with Nature rather than against it. The human race has been struggling to dominate Nature for a long time, and this is the cause of so many of our most serious problems. We need to find a way of going back to a more natural lifestyle. We don’t have to revert to primitive living, but just find a way to use our present sophisticated human systems and base them on vegan principles of harmlessness. Working out how to do things this way is likely to be what future discovery is all about, and the more we discover the more we will want to communicate it to others.
To do that requires a morale strong enough to overcome the odds against us. As people have found out (who’ve pursued non-violent methods, including those who’ve become vegan) there isn’t much support from family or friends or the general public or even vegan colleagues. So much of it has to be worked out on our own, and kept together without much outside help. Those of us who’ve decided to devote our time and energy to promoting animal rights have taken on this sort of challenge … perhaps with a will. There are still very few pro-active vegans in number and they are widely dispersed. Rather like foreign ambassadors, feeling very alone, unsupported, vulnerable and at times depressed by this surprising lack of support. And yet what we’ve been inspired by is of such importance that, come what may, it’s essential to maintain momentum. Animal Rights is no contemplative order. It isn’t based on prayer or wishful thinking but on the active search for solutions and a search for break throughs of attitude. It isn’t only about doing one’s duty to help animals or trying to convert people but about making the hard work we’ve taken on enjoyable; deriving pleasure and satisfaction from everything we do. And from that our solo explorations can take on a momentum of their own.

Transition stages

Feeling part of the Animal Rights Movement is just the beginning of the advantages a vegan lifestyle offers. It also helps us to develop the skills we need to communicate compassion, trust and a certain lightness of being which makes people less afraid of us. And if people aren’t afraid we’ll do a Jeckyl and Hyde on them - friendly one minute, hostile the next - non-violence is all they will see. As long as we can maintain that ‘working trust’ with people, we’re helping them get to (stage 3) where they are now open to suggestion, and willing to take this subject seriously. (See Blog 505, Persuasion, October 27th – stage 3 and 4)
The next stage (stage 4) is the first stage of being vegan, remembering how it was to be non vegan. It’s the start of knowing that it works for us and wanting others to try. And it’s perhaps the first time of realising how difficult it is to talk about this subject. It’s at this point we gather new arguments with which to change the world!

Passionate talking

Sunday 8th November

If vegan activists are in the business of talking about animals it all adds up to a great personal challenge, which can become, in itself, our main reason-to-be. The whole animal rights thing has to be one of the greatest challenges we can possibly face, whether we are struggling to change our eating habits or struggling to get the vegan message across. Unless we can deal with these struggles and find them meaningful we’ll never be able to discuss this subject with people who are still oblivious to it. The subject is broad, its implications touch every branch of life if only because the human condition is always darkened by our resorting to violence to solve our problems. There is hardly anything we do, involving others, that is not in some way improved by considering non-violence.If we try to make Animal Rights/Veganism just an ethics or health issue we will be selling it cheaply. It is all that, but so much more. It opens the inner human eye to another world in which we can find peace of mind. Vegans are, after all, developing a compassionate instinct which sends a sense of body-health and clarity-of-thinking shimmering through our very soul. But all in all, this subject gives us the chance to enjoy serious conversations which have nutritional, environmental and ethical implications, that are always more interesting than discussing the latest house prices

Hurting animals

By representing Animal Rights we have to step aside from being personally ‘right’ about animal cruelty and animal food in order to stress the importance of empathy itself, which leads to empathy for animals. At the centre of empathy is the principle of do unto others what you’d have done to yourself . If we can apply it to fellow humans why not to animals too? By taking the emphasis off ourselves and our own self development, we bring our arguments down to a very natural feeling. We all have it. It stems from a simple comparison, between the empathy we feel for our companion animals at home and our non feelings for edible animals. To hurt our own animals is unthinkable, because we know them as individuals. We know each one to have their own personality. Animal Rights is about empathetic bonds we have between ourselves and ‘the creatures’ we know. It’s likely none of us could purposely de-individualise any animal. How then can we de-individualise a farm animal? To the point where we help end its life.
When I was young I was hiking in the country overnight. In the evening I found a pigeon which had eaten poisoned bait. I looked after it overnight but it was in such obvious pain the next day I took a knife to its throat. I often think of that bird, at the moment when I had to end its life and I hope it understood why I did it. But for an animal to face the knife without their being any compassionate reason to kill it, must be like any victim facing their murderer. And yet billions of such animals face their murderers each day. There’s no one present like a kindly vet to ease the trauma, there are no anaesthetics, just the machinery (that makes the moving animal still enough so that its carotid artery … and there’s no need to continue that sentence, because the ending is obvious and the picture clear enough. The sort of death these animals meet is mind-bogglingly cruel. It’s the humans forcing the animal forward, to their execution. Think how even one animal could suffer this, let alone billions of them. Humans love animals as they do children. We have a strong sense of empathy for animals. Even trees being deforested are more empathised with than animals.
But humans pretend they can feel empathy because they know they love their dogs and cats. What feat of mental gymnastics has to happen to exclude farm animals from that same empathy? We know what happens when we effectively condemn the animal to be our slave living on death row. We know what happens when their dead bodies and their by products are called for by market demand. But how do we as individuals contribute to that demand?

Explosive material

Friday 6th November

What we say must, in part, be attractive, as if it could be something to look forward to. Then it will be easier to bear the weight of the unfolding story. Maybe this is the first time farm-animals have been considered. Maybe the possibility of a totally plant-based diet has never before been considered. And that means not much thought has been given to the cruelty side of some foods.
Whatever business we have with other people, kids or adults, we aren’t necessarily invited into their world of independent thought – it’s they who eventually decide to join a growing number of impassioned animal activists, when they are ready.
This subject is so emotionally charged, so deeply connected with daily habits, that any talk of ‘animals’ can make people feel immediately embarrassed for being in the wrong. Although proud of being sensitive, cool, intelligent and likeable, what vegans are saying can explode a few myths and puncture some of our self image. As vegans we need to show support along with the information we provide. Vegans aren’t supposed to be shame merchants.

Explosive material

What we say must, in part, be attractive, as if it could be something to look forward to. Then it will be easier to bear the weight of the unfolding story. Maybe this is the first time farm-animals have been considered. Maybe the possibility of a totally plant-based diet has never before been considered. And that means not much thought has been given to the cruelty side of some foods.
Whatever business we have with other people, kids or adults, we aren’t necessarily invited into their world of independent thought – it’s they who eventually decide to join a growing number of impassioned animal activists, when they are ready. This subject is so emotionally charged, so deeply connected with daily habits, that any talk of ‘animals’ can make people feel immediately embarrassed for being in the wrong. Although proud of being sensitive, cool, intelligent and likeable, what vegans are saying can explode a few myths and puncture some of our self image. As vegans we need to show support along with the information we provide. Vegans aren’t supposed to be shame merchants

Winning the un-won

It’s relatively easy to convince the few who are already beginning to take us seriously, but the vast majority of people on this planet are nowhere near there yet. And it’s these people who most need to be contacted. Not to change them by persuasion but to understand their fears and the ignorance behind their thinking. We have to discover the cause of their obstinacy, try to unearth their deep-set, collective prejudices. If you’re ready to let go of reluctance and admit there’s a case to answer, then vegans can speak more freely.
If we’re questioned we may have our answer off pat, sure of what we say. But we might forget how our ‘being so sure’ can come across, and not consider how someone is going to feel, when we tell them what they asked about. It’s likely to be something they didn’t want to hear so we don’t need to twist the knife. We don’t need to spark guilt. No one wants to be lectured and will react, to protect their lifestyle.
It’s just a suggestion, but whatever we want to say maybe we should halve it - surely the trick in talking animal rights is to tread carefully, even to the point of ‘throwing away’ a line or two. Anything to keep them receptive. The best way to hold people’s attention is to deliver some of what we want to say and then pull away onto something different. By pulling back just in time we avoid them being bored, losing attention and turning off. If that means putting our case more casually than we’d like to, even subliminally, then we may need to consider this approach - it might be more effective that way.
We mustn’t forget how justified people want to feel, how much they want to disagree with our basic premise (because it contradicts the whole of their lifestyle), and how little detail they really want to know. (Every new fact acts as a stinging barb of reproach).
Vegans need to hold people’s interest to educate effectively.

Hostility to veganism

It’s easy to forget just how aggressive otherwise-peaceful people can be when it comes to this subject. But it’s understandable. Whoever we are, vegans and non-vegans, we all react badly to being ‘in the wrong’, which is precisely what vegans often make quite clear when talking to non-vegans. It’s what vegans tend to do, because we feel we have no other option. But to be fair, putting people right is also partly to show off our vegan superiority. Even though we have watertight arguments, we put peoples’ backs up. And also, when we describe a new idea, it may be something people haven’t heard of before, and they fear what they don’t know. And that makes them react negatively.
As vegan advocates we must get past the shock of people’s aggression by understanding why it comes about in the first place. It’s more like a knee-jerk reaction. But often their bark is worse than their bite; they feel insulted by what we say but their objections are often paper thin. We have to get used to stupid reactions and pretend naivety, especially if we realise there’s nowhere else for our adversaries to go. In their attempt to speak intelligently, in response to vegan arguments, they often fail because there’s so little argument for them to use. When they foresee this and feel uncomfortable about it, there’s perhaps a mix of aggression, shame and indignation.
Our adversaries can only escape by using aggression or showing indifference. They might take umbrage, they might storm off in a huff, and maybe vegans feel they’ve won the day. But in the long term we lose out to a sometimes long standing hostility to all-ideas-vegan. Unless we can soften this opposition it might mean we’ll lose them altogether.

Ambassadors for animals

Being vegan and going public is a bit like being on a diplomatic mission in a foreign country. Being vegan is like working as a lawyer, representing a client – by following the sort of instructions ‘the animals themselves’ would issue (if they could instruct us!) we have to imagine them conducting themselves in a court of law. Their demeanour alone could win their case, and so as advocates we should try to adopt some of that demeanor to be their best representitives. If animals could speak their feelings they would surely NOT recommend showing hostile feelings (and when you think about it they don’t, despite their having suffered from cruel treatment on farms or vivisection labs all their lives). Since they know humans better than humans know themselves (having seen the very worst of them for so long that it’s part of their bloodline) they’ve learnt how to survive human cruelties and stupidities. They would advise us to begin our animal liberation work by first working on our fellow humans, in a slow and steady way.
Although vegans, being humans themselves, know well what human to human oppression is all about we know that we aren’t under the same sort of threat from ‘the human danger’ as domesticated animals are. But we are up against the human mentality all the same. Vegans especially can learn a lot from animals. They know NOT to draw attention to themselves, so that’s how vegans should be when talking with the hard rump of resistant meat eaters - for a time we must wait, as animals always have to, and encourage dialogue by letting them have their say first … if only because we need to earn enough brownie points from them to demand a fair hearing. We small, they big, we need them to allow us in. Then we can give it our best shot and perhaps make our mark.
Why be so ‘indulgent’ towards these people? Because they constitute 95% of our population, if not more. Most of them are at least mildly chemically addicted to one thing or another and can’t make big decisions about their life any more or they are idiot-obstinate to any good advice and must go down the tube, but amongst all these millions of people we eventually need most of them on side. Make no mistake – they will not walk willingly or happily into our arms. People are not compliant on this subject of ours. We have to win them every one, and one by one. They love their animal foods and they love their leather shoes. Like cornered rats, they instinctively do NOT like the position we vegans have taken.

Being well informed

Monday 2nd November

Eventually we all need some details. We can’t accept something until we know some few details about it, details which we’re quite certain about, independently verifiable things. If we know a few things about the things we want to talk about, it’s interesting to others. Particularly, if you’re on the Animal Rights wagon we need to ground ourselves: on ethics, nutrition and environmental issues. If young or new vegans do read up on this they’ll be happier vegans for being able at least to defend our position awhen talking to others about it,. It’s a subject that crops up a lot these days. We’re more likely to be able to speak intelligently about animal rights if we’ve done a bit of homework.
However, let’s not kid ourselves, we have a difficult position to hold here. Not because we may not be right about using animals but because we’re up against a particular type of brick wall. It’s difficult for vegans in this society because we deliver threatening ideas. Hese are the sorts of ideas that may seem improbable. They are not likely to succeed and therefore not worth attaching to. And the preposterous idea of “no more animal products at all” is uncomfortable, to say the least. So, vegans need to appear well informed and very approachable.
This is a complicated subject which can easily tie us up in knots. If we aren’t sure of what we’re saying it makes us go onto the defensive. If we get rattled it’s because we’re trying to avoid looking foolish? And so vegans, who are unable to defend their position or answer a simple enquiry, have got to be able to deal with being ‘put on the spot’ - it’s not easy to admit that we don’t know something which we’re expected to know. But just by admitting that we don’t know or that we can’t solve, we earn credibility for being honest. There’s no fooling anyone out there. If we don’t know something or we get something wrong, and then fall back on emotional and subjective replies (aggro), we lose credibility. Because we mustn’t let the team down (our fellow animal rights mates) or because, personally, we don’t want to appear vulnerable to criticism, we’re likely to use moral confrontation as our sharpest weapon. Certainly the cruelty angle is the strongest suit to play but we hold back, hold back, if we can - just as we would by holding back a trump card. It is, this whole subject, so confronting after all, especially if we attack people with slogans. Meat is murder says in effect “you are a murderer” and whether or not we think that’s true is quite beside the point. It may be so confronting that contact is broken for good and all. Strategically it’s better to withhold slogans until the last resort.
Whatever we feel inside, there’s no reason for it to show through, even if we’re talking with red necked, vegan-hating carnivores. Whatever we feel inside, about the person we’re with, if we can maintain a neutral exterior and listen without reacting, and keep talking calmly, we’ll get the respect and the go-ahead we need.
Once we’re allowed to voice our opinion, we stand a chance to audition before the greatest power in the land - people.

Teachers not zealots

The best teachers at school never lose sight of their responsibility to the students in their care. They might stand no nonsense from their students but they never withdraw their affection from them. And that’s how it should be with the Animal Rights activist: everything we say, unpopular, grim or otherwise, must be presented without being the zealot. If we’re asked to explain something, we need to have answers. And if we don’t know something there has to be an intention to find out and feed back. We can easily break our own rules. If suddenly we’re hit by a question or a comment we can’t answer, and then hide it by becoming emotional and using things like shame and guilt to ‘win our point’, that’s when people can turn against us. When vegans stop raving on about cruelty (as if no one knew it existed) and begin to refer to it calmly. When we know we can pull that off, do ‘pretend’ angry, then people begin to like us or rather stop disliking us. We can even throw in a few details, but not too many mind, we don’t want to be boring. Animal Rights can be a love story if we want it to, anything to bring a twinkle of light back from a listener.
On one level people are very well informed – most adults know more or less what’s going on out there - but what they don’t know are the details. And presumably we do, otherwise we wouldn’t be so keen to talk about it. So, in their eyes we should have some useful information to impart. And that’s why we should always be well prepared with our basic arguments. Not cynically delivering them with a smile but just avoiding that highly unattractive characteristic of the righteous missionary.