Slogans and plain speaking

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I’d like to start out by suggesting we drop slogans like “Meat is Murder”; it’s a statement that’s true enough but what we’re really saying is “YOU are a murderer if you eat meat and”, by implication, “I am NOT”. Slogans are usually hackneyed (not our own original thoughts), they are often aggressive and sound like an attack. Slogans are used like sharp weapons, the use of which we believe will shock people into change. As soon as we utter a slogan we deliver a judgement, and then the shutters come down. The defensive counter-judgement is lobbed back, like, “What bitter bastards you vegans are!”, and that effectively closes down any meaningful dialogue. 

            Obviously, being vegan, I don’t want to condone any sort of animal abuse, but I do want to allow enough elbow room for the subject to be discussed. So, let me suggest some basic arguments and you can assess how they stand up.

            One can’t justify animal-use intellectually because there are just too many ugly aspects to the way they’re treated, and too many good arguments for boycotting animal-based commodities. But we need to look at things from the omnivore’s perspective, if we want to get a handle on the problem of communicating this difficult subject.

If a person is struggling with our ideas it’s because they are weighing our arguments against their own daily habits. And these deeply embedded habits are confirmed by what others do. Mostly, others don’t think about animals’ feelings; they do what they’ve always done and what their parents taught them to do and what they teach their own children to do; they simply eat the food they like to eat; they haven’t realized there is an ethical component to eating food. It’s difficult to accept that animal-based foods are wrong when we have eaten them all our lives, and humans have been eating them since history began. Such a fundamental food source isn’t easily caste aside. And since these foods are so heavily woven into the fabric of our social life, to do without them might seem to threaten the very stability of our social interactions with others.

So when I come along and shout, “Meat is murder” it doesn’t mean much. It’s ineffective and makes me seem ugly. I might think that what I’m saying is true and truth is powerful and powerful statements bring a change of attitude. But this is shoddy communication. Slogans shouldn’t be confused with plain speaking.