First principles

Monday 6th September 2010
Why would you want to talk with me about Animal Rights? Perhaps because it’s interesting … but if you do decide to listen to me you’ll only do so as long as I’m not breaking the rules. When talking about this subject you want to know I’m not wanting to drown you, that I’ll be okay you just dipping your toes into the chilly waters.
Let me put it this way: if I want to drive my car over to your place, enter your home, enter your mind, I need a parking spot to drive in to. It’s got to be available. I need your ‘okay’, to penetrate your attitudes … and you may do just that, but I need to offer you something in return. (At first you expect the usual conversion pitch - ‘join the group’. At first you won’t be expecting benefits). So I come bearing gifts. What gifts? Gifts of advice all carefully and tastefully wrapped.
I’m driving over to your place: I’m hoping to change your mind about animals, to lead you from being omnivore to being herbivore. How do I do that without being accused of over-stepping the mark?
Perhaps there are some useful tricks of approach to be learnt, rather like going out at night to pick up a date, like the first tentative steps of intimacy. With this tricky subject, as with our first date, we don’t want to appear pushy. No lunge-threats. Talking with potentially hostile people and continuing the converstaion without losing them … it’s not immediately obvious how to do that. There’s such a huge resistance to vegan persuasion. We are even laughable. Vegans trotting out all the horror stories is as disappointing as premature ejaculation, people at first need smaller movements from us, like advice. No need to bring out all our trump cards too soon. First there’s thinking to be done - we’ve got to encourage them to be thinking about first principles. Animals are used by humans – should they be?