Article 12. Making Mischief

Even on such a serious subject as animal rights, there has to be a ridiculous side, the human side, which can always show how humans are behaving absurdly. For us there’s so much scope for making mischief here. there’s even more scope if we are poking fun at ourselves at the same time. If we can show that we value our own vulnerability then we imply seeing the same value in others. If we can show that we are incapable of being spiteful, it makes us seem far less dangerous and what we say just that much more intriguing. There is so much material appropriate for ‘send-up’ in our fellow humans - the meat eater who doesn’t look carefully at his food, who doesn’t think carefully about its origin, who is the ultimate victim of circumstance ... then there’s the activist who focuses so intently on important issues that they forget how to communicate and become misunderstood and labelled ‘weird’. They make excellent targets for parody.
Those without ideals can be made to look foolish while those with ideals and too much zealotry are also good for a laugh! The ultimately shallow guys who follows the crowd, who have plenty of ‘social cool’ but very little else, they’re laugh-at-able too. What we’re talking about here is mischief mixed with harmlessness. If we keep a light-touch to what we’re saying, even when we’re being critical, then we establish ourselves as having a sense of humour. We don’t seem to be taking ourselves too seriously, if only to let what we do have to say about the important issues be taken that much more seriously.
The light touch allows us to go further than sermonising. The combination of dynamic mischief-making and non-violence lets us say almost anything we want to say - and get away with it. Point made: no hurt feelings. Just a few lightly bruised egos and some self-deprecation to release any tension in the air.