Force

1815: 

If we make veganism just about health and a cruelty-free lifestyle we sell it short. It’s an attitude more than anything else, which can stimulate a whole new way of thinking. It produces a new flow of energy. It broadens our view, so that we can examine opposite views without feeling like a traitor to the cause.

Because it feels right, being vegan, you don’t have that immediate defensiveness when being questioned about it. Vegan principle is broad enough to stimulate original thought, turning conventional ways of living upside down and yet allowing people to come to their own conclusions and make their own decisions.

It might be my aim to promote a radical change of attitude but if I use guilt and fear to strengthen my argument, I won’t succeed. If I seem too persuasive it’s as though I don’t have enough confidence in what I’m saying. And if I get aggressive it will seem like an ambush; just one slightly raised eyebrow when I say “I’m vegan” is enough to give the wrong impression, as if I’m a little too safe, too right, too boastful. Just by feeling the tiniest bit morally superior is as obvious to the person we’re talking to as it might be unobvious to ourselves; I hardly know I’m doing it - when the tone of my voice carries with it a disapproving value-judgement.

I might have a lot to say about the wrongness of animal exploitation or the wisdom of living a non-violent lifestyle, but before I start to speak out, I might need to unravel a lot of my own attitude before I can start to talk productively and effectively on this subject.    Just because I think I’m right doesn’t mean my approach is right.