607:
What happens when talking turns to fighting, with friends,
over ‘issue-differences’? It can be terrible but mostly we just get mildly
irritated by each other, which is usually enough to stay clear of serious controversy.
But serious talkers we are.
Nothing I like better than having the chance to talk serious-talk, with
friends. The next time it happens, our central moral and ethical positions are
ready to be defended. But if the person we are talking to feels they are on
weak ground, they foresee a possible skirmish, which might end up worse. So to
keep my best friends happy I’m inclined to not talk animal matters with them.
But isn’t that a cop out?
Here then are the two main
problem of advocating for animals - we can be identified too strongly with it
and with nothing else. That’s annoying. But secondly, it’s difficult to NOT
talk about it when so many other ideas are linked to it. I’ve never really been
able to resolve these two particular difficulties. It turns out that I either
do NOT talk animals to friends and keep them sweet, or I lose my friends by
always going on about animals, ending up with no one to hear what I’ve got to
say. In consequence I get very rusty at talking on this subject because I can’t
find anyone to discuss it with.
The opposite side of the coin is
their effect on me: the opposite difficulty would be me taking umbrage by the
things people say to me. And I’d be trying not to be too easily triggered, but
it’s very difficult. I get irritated by their obviousness, in dealing with me.
Like, when they insist on mispronouncing “vay-gen” (when everyone knows it’s
“vee-gn”) but they choose to imply the subject is too unimportant for them to
have learnt the proper pronunciation. Or using the sound of that particular
vowel to make us seem as if ‘vaygans’ are somehow vague (about what we believe).
Or like when there’s a deliberate misunderstanding, likening Animal Rights with
a cult or a religion. And my last least-favourite irritation is when the
implication is that we are part of a strict group that dictates what we may or
may not do, when people ask, “Are you allowed to eat this?” implying a contempt
for my willingness to give up normal freedoms concerning food choices. I
usually say rather testily “Yes, we can eat anything, it’s just my personal
choice NOT to”. And of course that makes me sound rather precious.
You see, we can’t win. But perhaps
that’s the whole point anyway; it isn’t about winning. Nor is it necessarily
about converting anyone. Perhaps the age has passed where we shame people into
believing the way we do, because veganism isn’t a belief in that sense. It’s
more like a logic, that even a three year old can follow. As if you’d have to
be slightly stoopid not to see the point we are making.
But we’ll always be tested, to
see if we’ll hit out when goaded. It’s the same reasoning that makes people
pretend not to know how to pronounce the word ‘vegan’ (‘veggn’ or ‘vayghan’ as
if the pronunciation is not worth learning because it describes something of such
little importance) so as to force us to correct them. But these are minor
irritations. They’re meant to shock or mock, and I believe it’s coming from their
having no ethical constraint on what they’re willing to eat; everything is
indulged in and nothing is missed out on.
It’s quite the opposite way for
us, where with vegans everything is examined. Vegans look closely at all
commodities to determine their provenance. And that’s hardly ‘vague’!
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