PETA has struck again. My fiance let me know yesterday that her sister has become a vegetarian after watching one of those disgusting chicken videos. Those get those preteens every time! Afterwards they become vegetarians for anything from a few weeks to a few years then…well it’s just too much of a hassle. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I am a vegetarian myself, for many of the same reason PETA promotes the lifestyle. However, what PETA does is frustrating.

It is like the abortion people whose idea of a “peaceful protest” is to roll strollers filled with bloodied babydolls around school campuses, like they did last week at Notre Dame.  What does this accomplish? 

Classic rhetorical theory (the study of the power of words)  consists of three elements: pathos, ethos, and logos. Logos is the appeal to the logic of individuals. Ethos is the appeal to the sense of character–that you are trustworthy and a good source to listen to. Pathos is the emotional appeal.  The three ought to be held in balance in order for a message to be accepted by an audience. If you lose one, your message doesn’t get through to a majority of your listeners. For example, if you have no ethos then no one will trust what you are saying and no matter how logical or emotionally valid it is, you will be ignored. Likewise if you make no sense in the minds of your listeners it doesn’t matter how good of a person you are, they won’t listen.

The lesson here is clear: protests like the violent PETA videos or the abortion pictures of aborted, bloody fetuses serve only one of the three elements: pathos. They get you on shock value.   Sure there may be some great logic behind the cause and many good authorities can hold the same opinions, but all this is lost in the pure overwhelming disgust.  Once that shock wears  off and the disgusting images fade from sight, what is left to make an impression?  There is no argument or logic to fall back on and the violent method of portrayal causes the source to look like a nut so there is definitely no trust in the character of the organization. Even though people do like a good emotional argument, they don’t tend to like methods that openly exploit their emotions like seeing a dead, bloody fetus or a brutally butchered cow does.  In the end these methods only win those who already have the logos and appropriate sources of pathos  to join the cause anyway. But those people are already on board. 

For the rest it tends to cause the opposite result: the people are much less likely to support those nutty “animal rights” groups. The same goes with the those “treehuggers” and “crazy anti-abortionist.” It gives the impression that they will do anything to get their viewpoint through and makes it difficult to take seriously. Again, unless you already believe what they are doing. 

The end result is that this kind of tactic tends to work best on young teenagers who are suseptible to the raw emotional appeals. Yet unless those teenagers develop some of their own logic for sticking with the cause, they will normally fizzle out after the shock value wears off. In the end, those same early supporters might end up more bitter about the experience, feeling that they were somehow taken advantage of.  

Come on PETA, you should know all of this. They teach it in your basic public speaking class, which is a required class in most majors in most colleges. Surely someone over there took it.

Picture Credits: BitchBuzz and PETA (They go well together)