Shocking facts and failures

759:

I’m a stranger to you, but what if I wasn’t, and you knew that I was a vegan and you knew me as an ‘animal activist’ - how would I come across to you? When I meet you in the street and we start talking. How do I seem? I might smile, I might know you well enough to give you a hug and ask you how you are, and this happens quite naturally, without thinking. Everything remains unselfconscious. But then the conversation moves on. It wanders towards dangerous territory. We’ve probably all learned that we shouldn’t talk about sex, politics, religion and the state of our bank balance. These are either impolite or dangerous topics. Likewise, when a vegan starts talking about food and animals. If I get onto this subject, you might want to send me a warning. I try to talk Animal Rights, you warn, I pick up, I react, you react. Suddenly the atmosphere changes. We are no longer unselfconscious. Perhaps I back off. But what if I don’t?

Maybe I walk into my own trap. I think to myself, “I’ve got lots to say on this subject. And who better than with a friend”. Perhaps I’m always waiting for an opportunity to talk about this Very Important Subject. But should I?

I might say something controversial, and see how you react (I’m assuming our light hearted chat is becoming more ‘deep and meaningful’). Let’s just imagine that the subject is aired. I could deliver my Animal Rights spiel. But I could also hold my tongue. How capable am I to keep control of such a conversation? This, if it happens, is no ordinary conversation; if it’s going to have a satisfying outcome it needs to be calm and strong, but not too calm and not too strong. It’s a balancing act. If I make a bad move it will show up in the direction you take. The last thing I want is for you to change the subject.

So, this is what I try to do: I avoid sermons. I avoid any hint of personal attack. I avoid slogans. I keep the tone of my voice calm, to show my good intentions and peaceful priorities. If I have anything to say I try to keep it short. I think more is communicated by understatement than diatribe. It’s easy to lecture someone but this is supposedly a friend, and how do we treat friends? If I deliver one of my favourite ‘shock-facts’, and if you’ve heard something similar before, it will seem stale, and be irritating.

We’ve met by chance (you aren’t attending a public meeting), so I have to remember not to act like a Bible-bashing, scripture-quoting sermoniser. If I try to persuade you, I fail, because I high-jack a perfectly normal talk and make it look like a conversion rally. You will refuse to think deeply about what you don’t want to think about.

But let’s assume your conscience is pricking when you see me and hear me ‘start-up’. You interpret what I’m saying as if I’m accusing you of being able to override your conscience, if it interferes with ‘important comforts’ and necessities-of-life, like acquiring animal food and articles of animal-based clothing. I’m seeming to stir your conscience, by encouraging you to think for yourself and not follow the fashion of others. Perhaps I’m suggesting that you can’t stop yourself from overriding your conscience. But will you thank me for drawing your attention to this?

Here’s an example. This overriding of conscience is shown when we buy eggs. Everyone knows about ‘Hens in Cages’, even kids know. But it’s not necessarily ‘thought about’, it doesn’t even reach our conscience, and so it’s not acted upon.

In the main stream media, hardly anything is ever mentioned about animal issues (because almost everybody is too busy eating them to want to make them into an issue). Most people are nowhere near boycotting animal products, and in reality, they buy things every day that, upon closer examination, they wouldn’t possibly approve of. But if that’s so, then nothing can be gained by me going around exposing peoples’ guilty habits. The only thing I can do is to get people used to thinking for themselves, from scratch, but without being pressured. I don’t need to cause embarrassment to them or myself. If I overstep the mark, if I make you feel uncomfortable or less unselfconscious about what you are saying during our conversation, then you might decide to dig your heels in. You might choose to be hostile to what I’m saying, even hostile to me. And I’ve succeeded in doing the very opposite of what I wanted to do, by talking this subject over with you without keeping it balanced.