I don't want to rant about a particular campaign. I just want to share my thoughts after I had a few conversations with people about different controversial topics, including animal rights, gay rights, ecology and politics. I won't go into much detail about any of those discussions as they were civil and very inspiring and I respect the rights of the people I spoke with and I do not intend to force my opinions down their throats.

However I do want to discuss one thing all those discussions had in common, mainly disdain for the other party.
Usually when faced with a difficult topic such as one of those listed above we see a campaign of at least one of the sides (in some cases, like with gay rights, we get two sides; in the case of animal rights I only saw one side create a campaign). And though I am in favor of creating banners, billboards and posters to express an agenda, since we have free speech, I am worried that only a small part of those campaigns are actually worth anything in the long run.

I am going to use the animal rights example because I have the most data on this one (but don't worry, I won't be giving statistics and numbers). We can see people running around spilling paint on expensive fur coats and destroying hard work of another person. We have people calling other people murderers and ignorants and trying to force them to remove their furs and stop eating meat. We shove that all down someone's throat. Could a campaign like that ever work? Would you stop eating meat if someone called you a murderer and cannibal? I wouldn't. (To be honest animal meat is essential for proper neutrition if you want to have it without artificial means)

Things like this usually have the exact opposite effect - people will be annoyed, they will hate you and do the exact opposite of what you want them to either to just annoy you or because they will not to be associated with you in any way.
In my opinion, a good way to go about such campaigns is to make them perhaps not subtle but not personal. Do not call a person a murderer, let him think about what you have to say and associate murder with what they are doing to the animals they skin for furs. Let them realize by themselves what they are doing wrong. Then and only then will it truly have a permanent effect.

A good example here will be the "Here's the rest of your fur coat" campaign. Personally, I can see it's flaws with people feeling disgust at the images of skinned animals and not wanting to even look at them, but I also see the good side - people who do look and who do have furs will stop and think "Me buying this fur coat caused that animal to die for no more a reason than my vanity". If only a small percentage thinks like this and changes, it will be more than calling people murderers ever could.

Mori