Vee-Ghn

What vegans are talking about is as powerful as it comes; logic, spirit and body applaud vegan-living because it has peaceful intention. But people are put off by the association of this idea with a certain type of person. Our holier-than-though look doesn’t help us, nor does the name we use to describe ourselves. The word we use, “vegan”, isn’t particularly nice-sounding but it was the most logical contraction of ‘vegetarian’ to represent a vegetarian who takes no advantage of animals. “Vee-Ghn” sounds almost ugly - those letters put together (easy to mispronounce) doesn’t sound attractive ... but does it matter? It’s here to stay until the root cause for it’s being is removed. At the moment it stands like a brick wall between the intelligent people on one side and other intelligent people on the other.
The perception of veganism to an omnivore is very different to the life saver it has become to vegans. For them it means a living death, an ideal taken too far, a life-spoiler. On first hearing about it, it doesn’t sound credible - it sound like a threat to safety and happiness. Omnivores often feel hostile towards us for promoting it.
Vegans get used to that, and it only serves to increases our resolve to press the point, but here’s the sticking point. When we push we are perceived as confrontational - it’s almost as if each opposite view is intent on opposing for its own sake: they’d like to make hypocrites of us peace-lovers for forcing ‘peace’ on them, and we’d like to make fools of them for getting mixed up in such a crime without having to. They think we’re rebels, we think they’re suckers. And in that sort of atmosphere it doesn’t take long for a quarrel to start.
Our radical and idealistic attempt to convert omnivores (and it doesn’t happen the other way round, with them trying to convert us their way) may show we care for them more than they care for us, but the stumbling block is not about a lack of mutual care. What is between them and us must be identified by vegans since we are the initiators of this debate over animal use. We set the standards. We’re the ones speaking up.
Once the quarrelsome element is taken out of the picture then an adult discussion can take place. Then we can trade theories, and move towards some sort of consensus. Vegans need it all to be talked about, exposure, anything to give the issues the airing they deserve.