Coming together

[Sam Reynolds]

Today I have been looking through various AR groups on fb etc and see they all have a similar thread. Disagreement!
I do believe that debate is healthy but talking never saved a single life. In the time it takes to argue your point, you could have signed ten petitions, made phone calls, wrote to some ARPs.
I hope that 2011 brings some real harmony amongst the groups and that the larger organizations can start working together more and that as a movement, we can come together, draw up our global aims and be effective in achieving them. We need to stop the in fighting, backbiting and all the other ugly human traits so we can work on setting our non human friends free.
Right, I'm off to sign some petitions!

[Sam Reynolds]

I think the global objective should be that humans do not exploit, murder or abuse any non human full stop. Debate is cool but much of the rhetoric is aimed at those who already value AR. I live in the countryside, my daughter is the only vegetarian at her school. The locals hunt and shoot and have "hog roasts" at the village fête! Where I live these people and their MPs are the massive majority. That is why we are often reffered to as extremists. So the reason I advocate a coming together is so that we can spend our time educating and enlisting the "majority" to even just the basics of AR. Small steps to big things.

[Tim Gier]

Hi Sam!

I understand what you are trying to say, but I wonder, how can it happen that everyone will decide to work together? Should we expect that those who have differences with others will just ignore those differences and pretend they don't exist? Or, should we expect the differences somehow just resolve themselves without any discussion? I guess that what you are saying is that we should all put aside our differences, without ignoring them or resolving them, and get on with the work which needs to be done. Intuitively, that is an appealing idea. Would it work?

For example, suppose that one advocate puts aside their differences with another and they decide to work together. Then the second advocate asks the first one to go out and help get some petitions signed. But the petitions are supportive of something that the first advocate is opposed to. The first advocate shouldn't be expected to try to get petitions signed which he doesn't agree with, right? And, if he doesn't agree with what the petitions are trying to do, because he thinks whatever that is would be as bad or worse than the way things already are, then he has an obligation to speak out about that doesn't he?

It doesn't seem, in the end, that what you are asking for is for people to come together, draw up global aims and be effective in achieving them at all. What it seems you are asking for is that one group who disagrees with another abandon their principles for the sake of "getting along". That is exactly how it should NOT be. It shouldn't be that anyone abandon their principles, but it should be that those who disagree with each other have open and honest dialog, with the goal of resolving their differences, to find the best way forward. There are differences between those who advocate for improving how we treat other animals on the one hand, and those who advocate for ending all use of nonhumans on the other. Those differences must be discussed and while the discussion may be contentious, it doesn't have to be mean-spirited, angry or anything else of the sort.

Talking saves many lives. If you can convince one non-vegan to become vegan, then you will have saved many lives, just by talking. If by talking we can find the absolute best ways to advocate for the rights of others, then, by all means, we must be talking.

[blackpanther]

I doubt the arguing will stop......here and elsewhere.........difficult to enter someone's "intimate conviction" and question it, it seems, if you understand what I mean.

It seems once a philosopher built a theory it is difficult for him to call it in question......and surely we do the same (with our ideas).........

while we were speaking.......somebody brought me a homeless lost kitten.......one more to take care of.......here I go!