Holding back

882: 

Assuming, as vegans, we enjoy talking about Animal Rights with non-vegans, and assuming I’m not an animal-bore, and assuming I still have some friends left to talk to, then any sort of discussion on this subject is a help to me. Talking, conversing, exchanging opinions helps to solidify where I stand on each issue. As I talk, I express my opinion and I’m prepared to stand by it.  Discussion is very useful - I need the practice. I should take any chance I can get, and not be too fussy when people don’t agree with me. Their reasoning behind disagreeing is none of my business. I can’t necessarily fathom that, or know the truth of why they think the way they do.  

Anyone I’m speaking with has a right to their own views. It’s not up to me to try to change them. And also, I don’t have the right to treat them like experimental subjects. These are real live people, some of whom might be strangers, some close friends. It’s not compulsory, for you to speak to me about animals. If you do, it’s you who decides that. You decide to participate with me, on the basis that I’m a friendly person, who holds perhaps, a different opinion to you.

The make or break of any human-to-human connection is how we communicate with each other, the quality of it. The unwritten rule of any serious conversation, on any topic, is surely that we can agree to disagree at any point, if we think we’re edging too closely to endangering the essential nature of our present relationship. We might be speaking with people who already know us, who may even love us for who we are.

If they do, it’s on the understanding that we remain true to this rule, and that includes not getting heavy with them or trying to ‘ethic’ them out. On this one subject, they have a probity shield, by being part of the same daily activity as everyone else. They hold a confidence shield in common with seven billion others. With any other human being on the planet, none of them will criticise another’s eating habits, or get heavy about food and animals.

In other words, omnivores are not afraid to slap me down, even my closest friends, for fear I’ve gone troppo, or I’m being hysterical. I’m just ‘going through a phase’. It’s appropriate to get heavy with me, to snap me out of it. However, things have changed of late. Veganism isn’t esoteric any longer. You even see the word printed on commercial products, although admittedly not often in Australia, more often in places like Britain. It’s more hesitant, the slapping-down, these days. But within, it’s different. The feelings omnivores feel, about vegans and what we stand for - many would like to spray us with ‘image-deterrent’. Like the mosquitto, we are an irritating presence in Society.

In our Western societies, where there are so many well educated and economically-advantaged people, ‘the vegan-type’ is quite well known. Some know quite a few things about us (not necessarily accurate). But how we are perceived is, again, none of our business. Whether we like it or not, if we represent certain values and principles, we come across as like a moral shock wave. Offensively so. Which makes us people to be roundly disagreed with. Some are keen to out-argue us. But few, and rarely. I wish there were more brave discoursers around.

 For us, vegans, advocates, activists, liberationists, abolitionists, we’re urgent. We want to get this compassion-revolution on the road. Discussing matters amongst ourselves, we agree on the significance of ‘compassion’. We talk about it a lot. And individually, we discuss it inside our own heads. We exude it and have belief in it and want to talk about it. All the time!! And so this is the heart of a very tricky problem: we come across as O.T.T.

In my first-home country of England, I can hear them saying that we “don’t-half fancy ourselves”. So, there’s something of a caution to be heeded here.

The omnivore also has to be cautious but in an entirely different way, for different reasons. So, aware of this caution and that caution, I know that when I steer the conversation round to that tabooed subject , your alarm bells ring. I not only see this happening frequently, I foresee it. So, I’m suggesting that we vegans, instead of going in hard, do the very opposite. We have such a powerful message that we should underplay it. Why?

I admit it’s got a similar ‘look’ to being ashamed of something, but of course it’s not the case here - shame is low listed amongst problems facing vegans, it’s one things absent when you’re vegan. No, this hold-back is for a good reason. In nearly every encounter I have with people, when it’s inevitable they’ll be put on the defensive, I jump ahead of this. When offered a plate of cakes, my first instinct is to beware, when I mention “I’m vegan”, as soon as that’s known, everything changes. I can hear the wheels turning, to defend one’s values, fearing an ethics-attack from said vegan.

Which is why this subject, coming up, usually comes up alongside refreshments, at home, in cafes, at friends’ places. At first I seem hyper-sensitive or just a fussy eater. And only later is that shown not to be the case. It’s the inevitability of this being the way vegans are seen that needs me to take that into account. I might have to bite my lip, bide my time, bow to the power of perception, and say far less than I’d like to.