Wanting to talk

Sunday 4th July, it being American Independence Day I’m asserting my own independence today to say something … I’m sorry it’s a ‘thousand-worder’. I “want to talk”!!


We should rub along together, and insist on it. The potential of our “omnivore - vegan interface” lies in talking together, understanding where each is coming from. Probably, for the omnivore, they haven’t thought much about ‘animal issues’ before, and for the vegan it’s likely we’ve forgotten how we came to ‘it all’ in the first place. What were our triggers at the time? What are people’s triggers now?
When talking’s happening we’re alive! Perhaps out of the blue the ‘subject’ comes up. The issues spring out ‘loudly’. Sometimes you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. Vegans are familiar with this. They’re used to seeing the resistance-shutters coming down. And so quickly too, especially if you’re already known to be ‘a vegan’. It’s weird, suddenly the spotlight falls on us. “Speak”. So the big question is, at that precise moment, how do we pitch what we have to say?
‘They’ may genuinely want to find out certain things, but hoping not to cop a lecture. What a vegan might want to say is less that they’ll be allowed to say. For us it’s a case of guessing how genuine the interest is and why they’d be commenting or questioning. It’s intended to evoke a response from ‘the vegan’. In all of this interplay, if we’re given the go-ahead to speak we need to know we have the right also NOT to comment. To drop it where we sense a violent element wanting to find a reason to cut our throat. Less extreme was the time I was talking on a crate at Hyde Park Corner, giving a talk and answering question about the kangaroo situation in Australia, and I was heckled so badly by one person who made so much noise that I couldn’t be heard. In such situations it’s important for animal advocates to question “why am I having this conversation in the first place?”
Apart from that personal safety issue there are other ‘safety’ issues to consider. Our own violence may be far too dangerous to show. If we’re advocates for animals just to get the chance to knock other people’s views on the head that’s one type of activist, but there is quite another: those vegans who genuinely want to assist … to help bring the general consciousness on a bit.
For genuinely non-violent advocates for animals who wish to communicate on this subject, the trick I think is to focus on helping (I hope that doesn’t sound too corny!) Our intervention into other people’s understanding is by their permission only. Otherwise whatever we say is definitely going to “put them off”, and if not put-off the core ideas then turned off by the spruiker of them.
Omnivores have certain rights, but they are also (expletive-deleted) maddening. Most of us would be familiar with these tricky conversations with omnivores, on important matters. We’ve seen the ducking and weaving that goes on. It’s horrible to behold and so, perhaps this is where we should show our first act of kindness, in pretending not to have noticed! Seriously, we aren’t talking animal rights in order to make fools out of people.
Talk can be inspiring - if we can get damp tinder glowing we may get a fire. The conversation may roar like a fire up the chimney, and yet all through we must know we will leave as good friends. At other times it doesn’t work. It turns into a bun fight over who is MOST RIGHT.
When we do get talking with non-vegans we, and not usually they, know how fundamental this subject is. Others, because they don’t know (or maybe don’t want to know), try to treat it frivolously. We do have a position we hold – that this is a serious subject. It can’t possibly be regarded as a frivolous subject. Nor is this subject one of those nice dinner table conversation pieces, which we can “just agree to disagree about”. Well, yes we can … anyone has the right to ‘leave it at that’ if they want to – there’s no law that says you HAVE to listen. So, assuming we are all volunteers-in-conversation, ask yourself this, why would an omnivore want to bring the subject up, and then be prepared to go on with it?
Maybe it just happens. But I suspect that it often happens and suddenly a great chasm appears in front of our feet and in the heat of the moment we forget who we are, we think the feelings of the other person don’t matter, and whoops, we did a ‘wobbly’ on them.
They felt it. You could see that. And they saw you see it … and so a heated conversation starts off on a poor footing. But there are other sorts of conversations. Calmer ones. And it’s these which allow both sides to perform their act and at the same time put on a little show of respect towards each other.
If we get a question about veganism we can expect it to be asked out of a genuine respect for our principles. But why is a question asked in the first place? Maybe the other person is ‘showing an interest’ but not necessarily asking out of a ‘fascination to know’. It could be a show of manners. Maybe our friend wants to learn a few things from us. But motives can be quite different and since, half the time, we don’t know who we’re talking to (and on this oh-so-sensitive matter) we can never be quite sure until after our first words are out, at what level we should be pitching to them. They may have their own agenda, anything from having a quick dig at us to an intention to bring on a full scale moral punch-up. The question again: Why would an omnivore want to discuss ‘veganism’ with a vegan?
That is such a central question for vegans that when we get clear about that we’ll have it in the bag. But that’s another matter. For the time being I’d like to get inside the vegan head and think out loud. Why am I wanting to talk?
From a vegan’s point of view it may be decision time: which way to go for the best sales ‘pitch’. I’d like to suggest that it’s not quite a case of: “I mustn’t offend my friend therefore I must soften my position”, it’s more “I must make it attractive, a gift, a service I’m wanting to perform”. Can I “affectionately deliver the argument, show good intention as well as emphasise the self-benefit of it all. Vegans need to talk, they need to be patient enough to wait for the invitation to talk. But at the end of the “day” we have to be able to say to the other person, “Take it or (if you’d prefer) leave it”. You can lead a horse to water …