Fears

773:

In the ongoing attempt to find ways of making contact with people, about the plight of farm animals, I keep meeting resistance; people being reluctant to start the ball rolling or even allowing this subject to open just a crack.

            Talking about animals (farm animals, food-animals) brings on fear, distaste and discomfort - the fears are strong enough to make most people want to switch off whenever this subject is mentioned. I suppose there’s fear of losing the enjoyment of eating our favourite foods, and I suppose shame must come into it too, supporting ugly farming practices. Another fear, that one’s sensitivity has been blunted by the daily habitual use of animals that provide us with food. There isn’t much that can be done about these fears - so long as animals are being used to feed us. But it isn’t the job of those who advocate for animals to encourage ‘the thought of inferiority’. (I’ll return to that theme in the next blog)

            If we, as vegans, care for people at all, we don’t need to generate more fear; fear hardly helps communication. If we are trying to get across the extent of suffering of animals, we know that it doesn’t take much to trigger all these fears in people. Ideally we want people to find out what is happening ‘out there’ and decide for themselves how important that information is and what they should do about it, if anything.

            Our job is surely to act as a conduit for information, to ask people to listen to what we have to say, and to trust that we aren’t trying to attack them.

            We want you to draw near; any threat of accusation makes people want to run away.