On Demonstrating Against Circuses and Rodeos

People go to circuses and rodeos for “entertainment.” Many are hostile to any “killjoys” who want to spoil it. So, depending on their character, there are several familiar ways they resolve the “conflict”:

1. IGNORANCE OR DENIAL: “The animals are not suffering”
2. DEFENSIVENESS: “Those who demonstrate for animals are over-sensitive’” or “You should demonstrate for people rather than animals”
3. HOSTILITY: “Those who demonstrate for animals are self-righteous busybodies or aggressive extremists”
4. APATHY: “I don’t care if animals are hurt”
5. PSYCHOPATHY: “Animals are there for us to do whatever we want with”

Few people, there to entertain their children, are ready to say “I now realize it’s terrible and I will take my children home.” And virtually none of them will decide on the spot to become vegans — although of course everything that can be said about animals suffering for entertainment, which is unnecessary, can be said about animals suffering for clothing, which is also unnecessary, or for meat/dairy/eggs, which is also unnecessary, except in some impoverished or subistence environments. Only (some) medical research faces the troubling question of life-saving necessity.

So my own strategy has been just to silently hold up images that show the suffering, offering pamphlets to those who willingly take them, and answering questions if asked. Those who ask are usually in category 1 (ignorance or denial) and sometimes 2 (defensiveness). They truly don’t know, or don’t want to believe the horrors. And there is some hope that some of them will change their minds once they know — not on the spot, but eventually. I never argue, and don’t even enter into discussion at all with categories 3-5, because it is useless and it only provokes them to become more hostile toward animals, their suffering, and those who try to defend them.

I don’t know of a poll, but I believe (or at least hope) that although categories 3-5 are more aggressive and they are also the ones we notice and remember, the most numerous ones are categories 1 and 2 — decent people, with hearts, but unaware of the suffering — and that they are the ones who may later reflect and eventually change.