The Way to Guaranteed Success in Animal Rights
Work to enlighten and raise consciousness. Never use facts against people or try to show that certain types of people are bad, per se. Simply show facts as they are. The worth of facts, however, by themselves is very small. Any fact can be interpreted many ways. The credibility that you get for your interpretation of the facts goes back to my main point. Strive in all things to teach and emphasize JUDGMENT.
Judgment is understanding plus the ability to choose what’s right based on available options.
The world we perceive is subjective. The human always taints the experiment. The worth of our perceptions is completely and always dependent on our judgment. So strive to raise judgment in all that you are an activist for. Don’t strive to ‘do things’ to other people. All that this results in is bad imitation of what you suggest or that people are forced to obey you. The facts will have nothing to do with it. It will then be simply a matter of power, ego and the coercion of the state. A weak foundation indeed for anything pretending to affect something as deep as Nature! And indeed the results won’t last. The Law of Unintended Consequences will be at full power. Only with increased understanding will anything change for real.
In any event, it’s unlikely that all hunting is bad for all people and all animals at all times. The same with animal research. Or animal domestication. Or habitat alternation. Or human presence in the world. As with all things, it’s not the thing itself which is by definition bad. It’s how it’s used.
Draw attention to motivation and bad use in your attempt to raise awareness. Science isn’t enough, neither are ‘facts’, anecdotes, politics, emotion or even raised awareness.
No factors of human perception alone are enough. Even all of them together without active judgement will be fatally incomplete. The skill, craft and ability of judgment must be taught as a living practice so that awareness can result in real and proper change. The process of kneejerk conclusions encouraged by shallow activism has no relation to the proper depth and permanence of judgement. Fortunately, like all obligations, the possibility of fulfilling it is always available—it can be taught exactly in tandem with any other facet of ARA. Or anything else for that matter. Indeed, it is the main goal of training of any type. It’s easy to lose sight of this in our illusory, manipulative, and shallow world.
