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.