Omnivores are not stupid

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The Animal Rights movement - where should it be focused? I would say, focus on the consumer. Once consumers stop consuming, the whole cruelty and exploitation of animals stops. We know that it’s the ordinary consumer who stands in the way of progress on this issue, but how do we react to this?

            Here’s what I think is the wrong way: vegans hit out at the omnivore consumer, wanting to pay them back for supporting the Animal Industries, as they do. We’d like to give them a good shake. we’d like to show them the full weight of our disapproval; even if we only raise an eyebrow, we show it. And of course, it has the opposite effect to the one intended, because no one likes being disapproved of. We vegans might not say it straight out, but we imply scorn, and omnivores see it. It’s like being told, “If you eat anything ‘animal’ you’re as good as killers”. We think that much shame, thrown at the consumer, is bound to make them want to change. We try to force them to see things our way, to jolt them into awareness.

            But people don’t like being jolted. They would rather be disapproved of than obey us.

            We think we are justified though, despite the fact that we’re not getting many people to go vegan. I argue to myself that if my intentions are ‘good’, fighting the ‘good fight’ etc, that I’ll be excused treating people a bit roughly. But whatever I say, it’s water off a duck’s back. Because it’s so normal to use animals, my good intentions and shaming just don’t work. Omnivores are not stupid. They know what we are up to, so my opinions, my approach and my tactics are not appreciated. And worse. I seem like a freak, and I’m treated like one. The average householder has been ‘assaulted’ by religious evangelists who’ve come to the door, and has learnt how to handle them. It’s probably the same when handling vegans who get too enthusiastic.

We vegans don’t go around knocking on doors but we do bring up this subject of animal abuse, and we often do it unsubtly. We initiate discussion of the subject because, unless we do, they won’t. And that’s the brick wall facing us - what we say is simply ignored.

This seems intolerable to us. Here we have all these animals in living in terrible conditions and we can’t even talk about it, because it looks as if we are attacking every person we speak to, because just about every person is implicated in the very thing we want to talk about.

But not everybody. Some are more open than others. So we established vegans have to do two things. Firstly no more finger-wagging and disapproval. Secondly we must make vegan living very accessible and make what we have to say interesting. Only then can a person consider the possibilities of changing their whole lifestyle, primarily for the sake of the animals and secondarily for their own sake.