Friday, January 4, 2013

Vicious fighting or friendly stoushing


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For some of us the penny has dropped - we are not just plant-eaters or animal lovers, we are simply more empathetic to the plight of enslaved animals and more aware of the dangers of animal-based foods. That doesn’t necessarily mean we are nice people, but it does mean we’ve seen a pattern emerging; by dropping animal protein and generally cleaning-up our own act, we’ve been able to see the bigger picture.
            The satisfaction I get from that understanding makes me very feel grateful, and I suspect that my tendency to empathise springs from gratitude, for having the veil lifted. And even if I’m not a nice person this realisation makes me less cold hearted at least.
Moving on, past empathy, past compassion, I end up with ‘interest; this whole subject becomes more fascinating the more Í get into it. It helps me understand this human-dominated world and it lets me study more closely the reasoning of people, people who seem to me (without them necessarily knowing it) quite lost.
But coming right back to the start of all this, to where your average omnivore starts to consider ‘compassion and empathy philosophy’, it’s the start of an awareness of other global issues. And that sensitises a person to the rationales behind vegan principle.
It’s not just about the food we eat but about applying ‘vegan principles’ to daily life. It affects us on so many different levels. It might start with shopping for different food items and clothing, and then painfully struggling with cravings and addictions, but as momentum builds it has the effect of strengthening the mind; it inspires the emergence of responsibility for repairing damage. It even inspires a new identity for ourselves. So, if you move from animal-eating to eating solely plant-based foods, you begin to think more broadly, and then something else begins to form - a new self-identity.
With less aggro, less determination to win and by avoiding quarrelling, useful character traits emerge for defending animals. Their eventual liberation will come about when we no longer try to apply pressure.
Whenever we touch on what people should and should not eat, it has the potential for sparking a fight. I’m a coward in a quarrel and try to find another way. I’m not saying to NOT bravely uphold one’s position but to NOT let it deteriorate to the point where we’re fighting. Apart from the rights of animals, veganism is also about the overall ethic of non-violence. So, whenever we clash we lose some valuable ground. There’s a lot to lose if disagreement turns sour. If it gets personal.
It’s true that in Animal Rights you can lose friends by the truckload, and it will always be so unless we build a reputation for being something else. By being less aggressive, by being calm and informative and adopting a gentler way of going about things we can make our point all the more effectively. I hope that approach will spread to fellow vegans. It’s true that we do have urgent things to say. We know that the omnivore has a defence shield and we need to break through on some level. The question is, do we risk a fight over it? And if a fight breaks out how can we dampen the flames?
This brings me to ‘stoushing’, an important Australian activity. It’s not quite fighting when you ‘have a stoush’ with somebody.
In a more violent society you wouldn’t dare let your eyes meet unless you wanted to be offensive. Even in this benign country a difference of opinion about the use-of-animals sometimes feels like sitting on a volcano; here you are, you’re talking and talking, and then suddenly the temperature changes. A stoush is brewing. Suddenly you notice, in the changed tone of voice, that it’s becoming a head-on omnivore versus vegan battle. Perhaps a nerve has been hit. We seem to be heading for a full-on confrontation. Or there’s a hesitancy and the making of over-careful comments. On one level, what sparks a stoush is a sense of being offended. My offending you by something I’ve said, or you offending me, for defining me in a narrow way, as being just vegan and nothing else.
Talking to friends, strangers, kids, whoever, about this matter of animal use, inevitably I’m going to be saying something more radical than they’ve ever heard before; my knife cutting a little deeper than any other knife. So, by pre-empting this I try to keep it within the bounds of a friendly stoush; I’m cautious; I go madly back-pedalling.
My first priority would always be to maintain an atmosphere of trust, and if it’s not there I’ll try to build it. So, at first, in order to get my point across or indeed to make any sort of forward progress, I’ll bend over backwards to keep things on a friendly footing. My main concern is always to allay suspicion that I want to go beyond a stoush. To that end I’ll appear almost uninterested in making any further point you feel free to say what you want to say. I’m willing to downplay anything so as not to be defined too narrowly and avoid being labelled as only ‘vegan’.
In our society there’s a knee-jerk reaction to vegans, because vegans are, at least potentially, capable of ruining almost anyone’s day, by what they have to say.
Once you enter the public domain with vegan philosophy or, less preciously, by having a casual chat (with someone you meet on the street, about the using of animals), potentially you enter the lion’s den. Everyone’s super-sensitive around this subject. If we want to approach animal issues we have to be relaxed. They need to see that we intend to play-it-by-ear and to be entirely spontaneous, otherwise we’ll be seen as cheap evangelists.

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