Reaction to Vegan Principle

1419:

You won’t find many vegans who don’t have a lot to say about why they are vegan.  You won't find many non-vegans eager to listen, either.  Most vegans know what it’s like to be misunderstood, ignored or reacted badly to.  It pisses us off.  We might resent our negative reactors, but it's important to bear in mind that this is not about us, our feelings or our resentments.  We are fighting a long uphill battle for animal rights.  We have to do our best to communicate what we think is important to those who think it's unimportant.  Showing how we feel, resentment, etc, runs counter to communication.  We have to learn to swallow our personal feelings in all this.  But it's difficult to hide feelings.

It’s not just about NOT making judgements about people who don’t agree with us, it’s about not showing our judgements.  We must try to seem impartial.  But it’s difficult to seem unemotional, to NOT declare our feelings too strongly or too quickly, especially when we're trying to get something unpalatable across.  And then we are handicapped by people expecting us to be judgemental, and that's mainly what they are reacting to.  Value judgments are expected.  And from our point of view, however unhelpful they might be, they can slip out, in even the slightest tone of voice or raised eyebrow.

The challenge for us is to appear calm when someone proudly boasts about their eating of animals (perhaps goading us).  It’s expected that the vegan would condemn this - it's what’s being looked for from us.  And if we can’t rise to the challenge, if instead we give them what they expect, it gives them good reason to label us as 'Vegan Nazi'.  They have every right to hate our value-judging.  They’re quick to accuse us of being aggressive, however careful we’re trying NOT to be.

So, it might go something like this – neither wants to be hated by the other, but we still both want something robust to be discussed; I’m trying to be guarded, you’re being hypersensitive, we both want something more to happen than just a polite exchange.

Is this sometimes why either side of the debate will attempt to go for broke, to be aggressive, make some small-but-sharp value judgement, not in so many words necessarily, but by implication? (For example, the vegan implying that all omnivores are hypocrites).  Perhaps what happens is that what we mean, but don't quite say, is transmitted almost telepathically.

Whatever happens, however careful we each think we are being in our exchanges, inevitably something in the air can change.  With words, tone of voice, body language or even by our non-reaction and silence, either side is perceived by the other, either justly or unjustly, to be either attacking or overly defensive.  If this is so, then one of the initiatives for vegans is to set standards of interaction and discussion, for it's almost always us who wants to engage the non-vegan, not the other way round.  So it's beholden upon us to be aware of  how WE come across.  More people are put off by our approach when talking on this subject than by the perceived blandness of the vegan diet.