Educate...or ventilate?

One of the quandaries I found myself in (and still do) from time to time is encountering someone who exhibits either ignorance and/or obliviousness re veganism. (I'm always sort of stunned at how many folks that eat animals say they "love" animals...although 20 years ago I probably would have done the same thing.)

It's at that point the dilemma presents itself. Do I want to point out the horrors of harm to 'animals' that a non-vegan way of living causes...and thereby almost invariably evoke defensiveness and maybe anger and/or upset (ventilate)?

Or...do I want to try to educate someone and perhaps nudge them toward behaving in ways that are less harmful?

Do I want to educate...or to ventilate?

The folks over at Faunalytics offer the above image to illustrate the approaches that have been found to be the most effective for educating folks. If you want to ventilate...well...you can figure out how to do that.

Usually ventilating results in feeling self-righteous about yourself and ensures...however...whomever you're going off on will probably forever figure vegan folks are thoroughly obnoxious and weird.

Educating...by the way...is a heck of a lot harder than ventilating...and I'm not kidding. That's probably why so much more ventilating goes on than educating. It's really easy to get the defensiveness going and little learning happens once that occurs.

Someone once said, "Nobody can get browbeaten into being a good person".

So...educate or ventilate?

Each one teach one. (I've liked that saying from when I first heard it)

Just think, if everyone who is vegan managed to get just one other person to live vegan...then a vegan world is quite possible.

The Washington Post

wrote a story that sort of says the same thing I wrote in my last post.

Their headline was: President Trump has made 3001 false or misleading claims so far.

I didn't see their story before I posted...but...there ya go.

The president

lies...a lot. Here's a link to a story on the New York Times website which was posted in December of 2017 that lists some of them. Links to stories that show the untruth of Trump's statements follow each lie.

A few examples from the first part of the story:

"JAN. 21 “I wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)  JAN. 21 “A reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine.” (Trump was on the cover 11 times and Nixon appeared 55 times.)  JAN. 23 “Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” (There's no evidence of illegal voting.)....."

I clearly remember, from a long long time ago, when President Johnson was castigated for having a "credibility gap" (a euphemism for lying), especially in regard to his statements about the Vietnam war. Looking back, Johnson was a piker compared to the flim-flam artist who currently occupies the white house.

The U.S. has a long long history of our "leaders" lying...Trump isn't the first president to lie...but he might be first one who lies more than he speaks truth. I guess that's "progress".

I'm convinced that "lying" is a foundational organizing principle of this nation. We (the U.S.) began by murdering Native Americans and enslaving Africans and calling ourselves the "land of the free".

With that sort of beginning and then teaching our school children those sorts of awful and absurd contradictions without taking them apart and wrestling with their inconsistencies...it's quite understandable that most citizens don't place much emphasis on truth telling.

In that respect Trump exemplifies what is maybe the central characteristic of a "real" American.

Jeez.