Listening to opposite views

1397: 

By adopting an overall non-violent approach to life, we don’t damage our connection with people or weaken our fight on behalf of the animals.  The underlying principle of non-violence is guardianship, a care for the least defensible.  If it’s animals who are most in need of protection, then it means we must encourage a feeling of responsibility towards them.  But there’s another strand to consider - our harmlessness requires us to be patient with the die-hard omnivore.  Patient enough to allow people to change at their own rate and within their own capacity.  Their change won’t be quickened by being prodded by our own value-judgments.

         

Certainly change is urgent, certainly the horrors of animal farming must be stopped as quickly as possible, but nothing may be hurried when we are dealing with free-willed people with firmly held opinions.  One’s freedom to choose is what humans have fought so hard to win, along with one’s freedom to think for oneself.  Today we can celebrate these hard-won freedoms.  But we’ve slipped into a disregard of our responsibilities, especially those of protecting the lives of certain animals.

         

If vegans want to alter people’s views about animals, we certainly have a hard fight on our hands, but it isn’t the sort of fight that calls for aggression.  Our fight is one which connects us with people, in order to persuade them to change their attitude, but without rushing them.  We even have to listen to opposite views; listen to why someone might believe it is right to eat animals, and why they are within ‘their rights’ to do so.

Our biggest test is to show we can listen without reacting aggressively or violently.  Only then can we go that extra step - by not simply defending what we believe, but putting our point of view gently.

It’s up to us to lay out the ground rules for any discussion of these matters, in order to emphasise how we operate, and how we aim to bring about change in the true spirit of reform.  If we stray away from this code of conduct, we lose even those who are inclined to be reasonable.