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Quote by: CoffeeSaint  I'd like to ask my question again, if I may. |
Hi CoffeeSaint. This is an intro reply to your post #99 above which will have to come in several posts over a little time.
You put forth several ways or reasons in which one should promote vegetarians because you feel that I have not been gaining new believers to it by the way I have been putting it forth.
While I don`t agree fully with your thought on that, I do think your statements to that affect are fair enough and deserve to be considered.
First of all, I have to say my main purpose here on Volconvo is not to promote the agenda of vegetarianism or animal rights. My main reason for being here is to engage in debate because I enjoy debate and value it for improving my arguments and learning new ones against mine. But since my interests are in animal related fields, I do tend to focus on those issues for debate. However, I also am interested in religious debate and have in recent days been moving to engage in that topic as well.
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| (a)I don't see your current arguments accomplishing any of these goals[winning people over to vegetarianism], and so I wonder why you stick with them. (b)I understand that you hope to reach the audience, not your opponents, but (c) you are attacking their dietary habits and personal morals as wel
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All excellent comments!
(a) I have to ask: Here on Volconvo where people tend to hang out in certain topic forums that they are interested in and strongly opinionated on those topics, when these people enter into debate here, do they often change their opinions or their opponants'? or does the silent onlooking audience all of a sudden post after a flurry of assertions and rebuttals that they have been won over to a position? I haven`t come across that.
Those who hang out in the religion threads or the government threads are pretty dedicated to their opinions and you will see them fight for them tooth and nail -- and the silent audience of lurkers very seldom pops in to say they have been changed. I am not saying it never happens, but I would guess it is very seldom and rare. Wouldn`t you agree?
So, how could you even assume that I am not winning over an audience when that is seldom seen on any thread here on Volconvo or most other forums? Wouldn`t you think it would be unfair to hold my threads and arguments up for animals to a higher standard than others in regards to judging their success or not success? I think it is enough in forums on the internet for just the arguments themselves to be heard. It is so because there is no objective way to judge if an audience is being moved on their spectrum of belief at any moment. In addition, sometimes the information in arguments provided to the audience takes time to fester and grow within them. What they hear from an argument today may go unblossomed for weeks or months until they recall something from it and perhaps it causes them to rethink things.
I stick with my arguments on moral grounds and focus on reason being non-prejudicial because those are the points that I personally feel are most important to the issue of ending animal exploitation. Those are the reasons that caused me to change from a flesh eater. They and their reasoning rang true with me. I do not think I am so unique that only I have been or will be changed by those reasons.
Sure, I know the other arguments of health and for the environment, and I have posted on those as well. But, I tend to care more about the moral arguments.
And to tell you the truth, the moral arguments are the ones that are often the ones best suited to meet the innitial comments of those who resist the argument for vegetarianism. Innitial comments usually hinge on "prejudicial reasoning" or "might makes right." We see this in comments about "top of the food chain, we are more intelligent, animals are here to serve us, etc..."
(b) Yes, that is very true. Opponants who are dogmatic and aggessive, so long as they do not resort to dismissive behaviour or ad hominem attacks, are welcomed by me as a sounding board. Though, I acknowledge that I, too, am their sounding board if they are truly interested in seeing that vegetarianism does not become the norm for man.
More often, though, most people who take issue with those who put forth the vegetarian argument are not really interested in vegetarianism as a point to defeat; they merely have their interest piqued for the moment they come across the topic and then post on it. After that they have had enough of the debate, they will disengage and not go out of their way to seek out more debate against vegetarianism to defeat it. Vegetarians on the other hand who are animal rightists, will actively look for the next sounding board to continuously improve their arguments and knowing that they will be able to reach more people for thought on the issue.
Being well prepared for the argument is essential in moving people on the spectrum. Though, the move is often slow over time and most debators promoting the view of vegetarianism rarely get to see their audience declare they have been moved because of them.
(c) You use the word "attacking" but I would call it "prosecuting." "Prosecuting" has more of a sense of deliberate and systematic approach to it in debate grounded with reason. Wouldn`t you agree?
Yes, I know people do not like personal beliefs strongly challenged or prosecuted, but that is the nature of debate and changing thoughts. Food is very personal because often it is part of family traditions or cultures and in the end it goes into us. Can`t get more personal than that!
But here is some reason with an analogy:
If something is believed by you to be morally wrong, aren`t you obligated to proclaim it is wrong and to fight it without apologising for it? I think you are. Were abolitionists wrong to strongly oppose with harsh words condemning the culture of slavery -- that which they viewed as morally wrong? I don`t think they were and "reason" cannot say it is ok to be strong about one moral belief but not so about another just because one`s opponant does not share the same moral measuring stick as you do. If one does say that then they are resorting to dismissive defense tactics as surely as most status quo sectors do when they are challenged for change.