Not being too obvious

1660:

It’s understandable, with so much guilt about animal cruelty and meat-eating, that most thinking people who are still meat-eaters spend a good deal of time beating-themselves-up about it all. They end up feeling depleted with shame about the mess they're involved with and their inability to clean up their own lives. Personal shame is turned inwards, forcing a feeling of being overwhelmed.

For any of us, if we can't fix up our own personal shame-making habits, we don't think we'll be able to influence any other big issues. If we can’t get a clear run at major global problems because they are too complicated, we give up trying to run at them at all. And since we believe everything is out of our control anyway, we're likely to look back at our own lives with similar pessimism. We ask ourselves, for instance, why we should go to all the inconvenience of taking on a vegan lifestyle, when it just seems to be so masochistic.

Animal consumers are practising members of an animal-abusing society. The Kill-Club thrives in every corner of the globe. Most people are umbilically linked to it, so they continue to feed the very problems they’d like to be trying to solve.

When we do take a moment to consider things logically, we see that so many of the world’s problems can trace their origins back to animal exploitation. Once we can see the part we play in all this and want to do something about it, we may feel as though we’re on the move. But often we decide to pull back for fear of getting out of our depth. We decide to only go half way. We make little reforms instead of making thorough changes. Eaters of red meat switch to eating chicken and fish, the vegetarians stop at another ‘half-way’ point. Neither gets close enough to the problem to feel quite free of animal exploitation, and therefore get to a position where they can be an effective advocate for the animals.

Only vegans have shaken off all compliance and therefore feel equal to becoming effective advocates. But since these are such early days, the winds of change are still only barely perceptible breezes; evidence of broad change is not exactly noticeable.

Because we can't see the results of our efforts, we arrive at a point where we become disappointed. We try to bring our views to the attention of others only to find that no one notices what changes we've made in our own lives nor do they notice what we are saying. They even make fun of us with the intention of putting us on the defensive. Or, in an attempt to pre-empt ridicule, we try showing off, by telling everyone what we’ve done and why they should too.

Inevitably we get a bad reaction which disappoints us further. Then we get angry (obviously frustrated because no one’s paying attention). Then we go for broke, we get angry, but still no one changes.

         

With such a vast majority still using animals for food and pleasure, it's likely that nothing will substantially change all the time we animal advocates focus only on the wrongs of ‘attacking animals', because we are also using an attack strategy against those who disagree with us. Perhaps we shouldn’t be phased at all by disagreement, but see it as evidence of our stimulating opinion about something they'd prefer to voice no opinion about.

         

If we don’t come across as unlikeable, when we’re not agreed with, then it’s more likely something of what we are saying will sink in, be it ever so subliminally.