Confronting – does it work?

1008: 

Here I am, eating dinner with others, seeing what they’re eating, and I feel the urge to make a comment on their ‘animal food’, wanting them to know why I’m eating something different. I comment. The ‘already-converted’ will say “Yes, we agree”, and that’s what I want to hear, some easy agreement. Others say nothing. Their silence indicates disagreement. They’re eating and enjoying their animal-food. They don’t want to hear what I have to say, so if I carry on voicing my views, talking about Animal Rights or vegan issues, I’m guaranteed to set off alarm bells.

Omnivores won’t listen when I criticise their food, especially if they already feel a bit guilty about their position on animal farming. Understandably, to them, speaking like this during a meal is excessive chutzpah.

But for some devil-may-care activists, any time is a good time to state their case – they’d say that these people deserve to be confronted. And maybe they do, but free-willed people know they can walk away (or in this case ignore me, but nevertheless seethe). And if they do they are lost to us, sometimes for ever. So, who wins then?

The alternative to this bulldozer approach is for us to strike a balance when talking about Animal Rights. Face to face we can judge if there’s an interest in hearing what we’ve got to say. If not, then perhaps they’re building a brick wall against us; and it’s the stone-wallers who’re the very people we should be trying to reach.

We think animals deserve to have a life of their own, but the vast majority haven’t thought about it - the question hardly ever arises, and if it did it would seem like an absurd question.

But in those few countries where the question of animals having rights is more often discussed, there’s an initial willingness followed by alarm and the setting up of defensive barriers. There’s no other subject that hots up quite so quickly.

What happens? Maybe someone like me attempts some crude moral bludgeoning. I’m thought to be unrealistic. Soon, our talk goes pear-shaped. Nothing much moves on. No bridge-building, no attitude changes, lots of self-justification. To the meat eater, animal- based foods are as natural as breathing fresh air. We can talk about the horrors of factory farming or the violence of the abattoir but to most people, a meal is just a meal. They can’t associate what they have always eaten with an act of violence.

If there’s any curiosity it’s only academic – the concept of animals having rights or being protected from exploitation isn’t realistic, it isn’t applicable to the personal lifestyle of everyday living. Maybe what we say is a shock when we say it, but it passes quickly. To all intents and purposes, it’s forgotten about as quickly as possible. There’s no compelling reason to remember what we’ve said. When reality kicks in, the grind of daily life leaves no space for change. Not this scale of change anyway.