Our advice may not be appreciated

947:

As a species we’ve thrived on meat-eating. We say,  “Look at us now.  We wouldn’t be what we are today unless our ancestors had eaten meat.”  But there are two ways of looking at this – we are creators of wonderful machines, beautiful cultures and fine ideas, but we’ve also become the ultimate exploiter. If we directly exploit animals or if we simply buy foods and goods from exploited animals, we condone the present ugly system, the human-superior-to-animals system. We are what we are, and that gives us the right to exploit everything, especially animals; we imprison them, execute them and eat them, for heaven’s sake!

Vegans try to persuade others not to be involved in all this.  And that’s fair enough,  but we always deliver a king hit by making a value judgement about it,  and then letting it show.  We blow any chance we might have had,  to open some sort of dialogue,  by showing disapproval. And even if it’s just the judgemental tone in our voice,  it’s clear that we are being judgemental,  and that won’t help change people’s attitudes; each free-willed adult knows not to be intimidated by judgement.

If I want to change people’s views,  all I can do is to tell the story of cows, pigs and chickens.  There’s no need to ram home the moral of the story, since it’s obvious.  It can be information without the overtones.  We can own what we do,  refer to our own values and ethics,  but then let others see for themselves.  If we don’t like what others are doing we don’t need to condemn them to their face. Better to speak out in public, where an individual isn’t being personally targeted face-to-face;  then the heat is off them to some extent,  allowing them freedom to consider things, and come to their own conclusions based on what we say about ‘people in general’.