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Opportunity Knocks!

While at a recent Counting Crows concert in West Palm Beach FL, Elena and I were able to have a quick vegan advocacy conversation with two women working the concession stand.  One of them, upon reading my vegan-themed t-shirt, said, “I like your shirt!” and mentioned that one of her daughters is vegan “and keeps trying to convince me, but it’s really hard…”  I took the opportunity to suggest to them that “Whatever you think is ‘hard’ is really just a habit pattern you’re used to, so all that’s needed are a few relatively minor changes in habits.”  They both seemed to agree with this point.  Knowing we only had a few more seconds before they’d need to move on to help other patrons, I added:

“The real change is aligning your behaviors with the morals you already have that tell you animals are not just ‘things’ to be used and killed for personal pleasure.  If you saw someone out here stabbing a dog to death, you’d stop them, right?”  They agreed.  “If you saw someone stabbing a pig or cow or chicken to death, you’d stop them too, right?”  Again they agreed.  “So all you need to do is stop supporting the things you already know are unacceptable and match your behaviors to your morals.  If you need help, visit us at www.VeganEducationGroup.com and we’ll be here for you.”

They thanked us and we moved on.  We felt the conversation was productive and that we’d maximized the time we had available with our audience to a) challenge the “living vegan is hard” myth and b) to make clear that living vegan is not a dietary choice but rather a choice to be ethically consistent by respecting the rights of other sentient non-human individuals not to be used as disposable, replaceable objects and killed for no better reason that to satisfy human pleasure.  Had more time been available, we might have been able to employ Socratic questioning to allow our interlocutors to draw their own conclusions, however this seemed the most efficient strategy considering the situation.

It Is What It Is… And It’s Not What It’s Not

Aside from the advocacy we did employ, it should be noted that we did NOT (nor do we ever) find it necessary or valuable to:

• suggest they watch any number of documentaries containing gory footage of horrific animal abuse
• suggest they watch documentaries that conflate veganism with eating a plant-based diet
• suggest they consider taking a vegan “challenge” or direct them to organizations/websites that promote such speciesist ideas
• suggest they take speciesist “baby steps” toward veganism such as vegetarianism, Veganuary or Meatless Mondays
• suggest that “if you just eat yummy vegan food, you’ll be vegan in no time!”

We find that the people with whom we speak are able to grasp the simple idea that individuals of other species are exactly that – individuals and not objects to be unjustly exploited, used and slaughtered to satisfy human pleasure, convenience and monetary gain.  We find that the people with whom we speak have an innate respect for the lives, dignity and rights of others – no matter the species – and that through a bit of conversation and their own imagination, they begin to realize and understand they have been actively participating in something they believe is morally abhorrent.  We do our best to help them see that the only just and logical choice going forward is to live vegan.  We find that the people with whom we speak can and do respond positively and respectfully to clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education.

World Wide Web

Thank you to all the inspiring unequivocal vegan educators all over the planet working to dismantle speciesism by having conversations like this every single day with people who may not realize they’re living in opposition to their own morals and just need some solid information, like I did, to start questioning their choices and aligning their morals with their behaviors.  With every conversation, we move closer to achieving a vegan world.