People Behaving Badly

1984:

There are those who don’t feel badly about behaving badly, nor about condoning the abuse of animals for food and clothing, as if it’s of no significance. It’s as if they are impelled to cause damage, to take a full part in the whole cruel system of animal abuse, but don’t know how to pull back. Better behaved people can see better the part they play, moderate their urges, and try to minimise their damage.

         

As advocates for the animals, we get disappointed by those who are pulling in the opposite direction. We might want to give up on them, exasperated.
         

When I get talking to people who behave badly, but may not seem to care, I nevertheless find they’re worth getting to know, if only to find out how they justify their views on animals. I try to talk to them, ask them how they feel about ‘all this’. At the same time, I try to make them feel at ease, by eliminating any hint of judgement from what I’m asking. I try never to show any trace of disapproval. Not that I don’t feel it, but I don’t want to show it, since I’m curious to learn about them.

If we can ask questions of them, as if they were asking themself the same questions, then we have a better chance of influencing a change of attitude, without igniting ego-resistance.

If we can spend time with people who not only disagree with us but adamantly oppose the whole concept of ‘animals having rights’, we might get closer to the general point of view shared by very many others. On this subject of ‘carnism’, people put animals in a special category. Their own companion animals are much loved whilst ‘food’ animals must be completely un-loved. However illogical their arguments may seem to us, our job as animal advocates is to get deeper inside this way of thinking. And that’s made easier the more we become familiar with their arguments. It’s easy for vegans to forget the rationale we ourselves might have used, to justify our own eating and clothing habits in the past.