The mind of the omnivore

Maybe vegans are still so marginalised because we’ve got no top professionals to argue our case. Has anyone ever heard of a vegan barrister tirelessly defending the rights of animals, pro-bono? No, as yet these bright minds are engaged elsewhere ... or maybe they don’t exist. The omnivore-mind is particularly obvious amongst career people who could do serious damage to their prospects if they came out as vegan sympathisers, indeed as vegans themselves.
The ‘Animal Abuse Club’ has got it all over us. They have everything going for them. They have the power and the money, and they find it relatively easy to win the hearts and minds of the public. They’re simply selling products after all, whereas we’re trying to sell a whole raft of radical ideas; they simply want dollars whereas we want to shift a whole public attitude about using animals.
As of today the rate at which attitudes are changing, concerning animal use, is low. For us, it’s disappointing that so few people want to hear what we have to say. Most people probably think we’re quite mad.
Oh, the unfairness of it all! Is it any wonder we call them mad back. Or at least we judge them. It seems harmless enough at the time and it makes us feel better, having an adversary ... but perhaps we don’t realise how unconstructive we’re being. The more we find fault or insult everyone (everyone’s omnivore!!), the more they’ll dig their heels in. Our job is to inform, help, serve, encourage and impassion, but to try to be subliminal about it. It’s not necessary for us to defend our selves since there’s nothing to defend. They on the other hand are forced to go on the defensive. So our connection with them must never be about insulting or getting uptight or scoring points. Likely we feel boiling rage, at what happens to the animals; likely heartbroken that decent people seem so insensitive ... but judging them - what is that? Maybe our ‘boiling over’ is just a cheap way for us to find relief.
As talking vegans we often shoot themselves in our own foot, risking our own reputation and spoiling people’s good opinion of us, simply because we get quarrelsome over these issues. There’s the danger. There’s the trap we walk into - we do a clear calm argument but then get upset when there’s disagreement, then when they won’t back down we get aggressive. Some don’t, but then they feel as though they aren’t sounding ‘strong’ enough on the issues. Our biggest problem though is that we can’t see how strongly people disagree with us even though they don’t have good arguments to back up their feelings. They feel how we no longer feel.
But we know what they don’t know. It’s impossible for omnivores to experience what being vegan is like ... until they are. Therefore they have no idea how being vegan feels like a very fine thing to be. They wouldn’t know how empowering it is to stand up for something as important as animals, for whom no one else is standing up.
We, and others like us, can feel okay about our commitment to the cause, no problems there ... but most of us feel the need to proselytize. The danger is in the passion, that we so much want people to see something important that we fail to realise what capacity our subject has for reflecting some very unattractive traits - being vegan has a lot of boasting capacity. So, when we speak we give off pride, righteousness, selflessness and advice. And ours is no ordinary advice - it’s prone to knee-jerk-rejection.
To ourselves and amongst one another we can just about get away with a little self satisfaction, but to omnivores that might not look good. It works for and against - we want to pass on ‘good’ advice but we also want some hurry-up. This makes our advice seem like moral arm twisting ... and that’s when they start to think about dropping us - better to have no friend at all than a preacher-friend.