It’s possible that people feel judged when faced with a lifestyle that might be about ethical choice. Being judged feels threatening, and the rest of the mind finds ways to justify it intellectually.
The choices I am making in my own life (I’m vegan) are obviously about what’s best for me rather than some moral superiority, but it doesn’t alleviate the reaction.
For the same reason people hate mimes. Which is to say, no one hates thoughtful vegans, or anyone with any dietary restriction; they hate people who are smug and difficult. (Just as no one hates brilliant physical actors on stage; they hate obnoxious, in-your-face street performers).
I have friends who are vegan, and we can comfortably go out to eat together because we all order what we prefer and there's no judgement on either side. I can't imagine doing that with someone who actively disrespected my choices or voiced the opinion that meat is murder.
I used to hold the same opinion as you but I realized it was out of a strong desire to be an affable peacemaker for something that is essentially concentration camps for animals. I have resisted any attempt to be vegan for years and years despite mounting evidence of the mind-boggling level of cruelty that goes on at factory farms. I just don't think we can afford to blissfully ignore it at this point. If a meat-eater can sit through the film Dominion and not change their mind... Man, I just don't know what to say. I feel like I can only afford to be affable to those meat-eaters truly ignorant at this point.
Do you also avoid any product manufactured in China, which runs child sweatshops and concentration camps for people? Or did you type the above message on a Mac?
This is a false equivalence. Buying factory-farmed meat directly supports its producers. The manufacturer of my laptop does not run the concentration camp for Uighers.
You really don't know how Chinese business operate, do you? The government owns stakes in virtually all business. Buying anything built in China directly supports the government.
I don't agree. The hate happens without provocation. Especially with older generations and with people who are not from the most urban cities.
They find out that you are the vegetarian in a group of people who are not used to seeing many vegetarians the whole discussion turns into vegetarianism with unpleasant skeptical tone. They spend whole time eating talking about my eating habits. Closer they are to you in informal settings more irritating they are.
As others have said in this thread, they seem to feel that I'm accusing them for something just because I'm vegetarian and they are in defensive.
Key point here, perhaps: People who don't eat x for religious reasons don't get this hate, at least not so that I've heard it. Jains may be weird but not hated, right?
I suppose what I'm saying is that lots people accept religious choice without thinking closely. If your choice isn't religiously motivated, they may take a look at the factory-made gloop you eat, notice that it doesn't look all that different from the factory-made gloop on the other shelf in the supermarket, and conclude (rightly or not) that your moral choice is a shallow one and despise you for your shallowness.
It doesn't matter whether you're actually shallow or thoughtful. IMO it doesn't even matter whether you eat factory-made gloop, so long as the supermarkets stock shelves full of plastic-wrapped stuff labelled "vegan" and you might be assumed to buy and eat it.
We don't hate vegans. Homo Sapiens are omnivores, and we are predators. I would say most people do Not understand why some would choose to abstain from meat, imo most would consider that quirky.
Personally I have no problem if some people wish to follow that type of diet, but it is not for me. Quirky on the other hand--that's definitely in my wheelhouse.
"This makes it a rejection of a lifestyle and a rebuke to the majority’s values"
That's the core of it, as I see it. No matter how discreet you are about it, when your choices implicitly condemn the majority's values, they won't let it go.
Take it from a teetotaller. Like most kids I didn't drink and avoided drunk people whenever I could. Unlike most kids I kept doing that. Strangely enough, I've never had as many invitations to parties - sincere ones, too - as after my peers found out I thought there was nothing for me in those parties and wouldn't go.
Even though I was easy to ignore, it was apparently preferable to get me there and get some reassurance that I didn't object THAT much to their habits.
I try to keep that it mind and not be that way with vegans. It should take more than the implicit condemnation of non-participation to make us uneasy; if it does, maybe we need to confront some things in ourselves.
> No matter how discreet you are about it, when your choices implicitly condemn the majority's values, they won't let it go.
Weird. I've lived vegan for more than a decade and I've never had anyone say more than "oh okay" when I tell them in response to something like "you should try the steak, it's really good". Important to say that I didn't care if they ate the steak, I didn't argue with them, tell them what to do or ask for praise of my superior lifestyle.
Well, are you a vegan for purely health or environmental reasons, or ethical ones?
If you follow a vegan diet/lifestyle but have no problems with anyone else's animal killing, I guess people will catch on and be relieved. But I'm also sure that if you do mind, people will catch on to that too and may give you unpleasantness over it.
I did it for spiritual/ethical reasons, but I never tried to make anybody else adopt my views. I'm sure I would have had unpleasant exchanges if I did, but it's not like I'd be pleasant to be around in that case, so that wouldn't surprise me.
My point is that I doubt it's about the "I'm vegan" part that people react annoyed to. I'm pretty sure it's the "and you should be too" part that some vegans adopt, and they are the ones that people are annoyed by.
There are several reasons why I hate vegans. First, they don't accept that they may be wrong. When you talk to them, it's like you're talking to a religious fundamentalist. Second, they lack reasonable scientific arguments and let themselves be carried away by absurd studies or internet articles. For example, I had an argument with a vegan who reproached me that there was B12 in seawater, so if you drank seawater you could have a source of B12, he had even taken the trouble to link me to the paper that showed it, but this person never read the paper, like many vegans, only focus on the title and just the first paragraph. In summary: the B12 found in the sea does not have the same structure as the B12 formed in animals, which is the most natural source and that we are genetically more adapted to consume; in addition to obtain the daily quantity of B12 of sea water, it would be necessary to process millions of litres because after reading the paper I could verify that drinking sea water would never reach the levels of intake of B12 necessary.
Third, vegans don't care about animals or the environment, they just hate humans. They call us speciesists and don't understand that we are part of a chain and that removing ourselves from that chain would only bring thousands of problems to other animals and the environment too. For example, if we stop consuming an animal X, this one by natural order will have on population and will consume more of others, until the extermination. This has already happened in my country, where a species has been protected in an absurd way and because it lacked predators it ended up killing its prey and other animals, given the competition.
Fourth, they never thought consequences. In their idealised world, vegans believe that animals would live perfectly and this is not true: we will need more and more land surface to generate more and more food (the vegan diet is very low in calories and nutrients). When the animals are loose they will begin to invade plantations and methods will have to be developed to avoid or kill animals, otherwise they will eat our only source of food (and on top of that it is the worst). We will kill animals to survive and not to feed ourselves, which will be an absurd irony.
Fifth. They're hypocrites. All their eating habits are based on reproducing the foods they need naturally: blood (tomato, ketchup), meat (vegan meat), milk (vegan milk), eggs (vegan eggs), fat (vegan butter), everything is absurd to deceive themselves and they want that for you and for the rest. What's the point of telling us that we're eating something vegan that “tastes just like meat”. When I watch vegan videos, they imitate our true natural diet with their products, because in order not to eat only fruit, vegans use many products. In addition, the products they eat are so bad in nutrition and taste that they need to be smeared in spices, sauces to hide or give another flavor to the food. Not to mention all the vegans I know eat daily like 6 pills with vitamins (not all, of course there are vitamins that you only can get from animals) and that's not a healthy, natural diet, it's just pharma industry. It is a hypocritical life of people who have mental problems, are addicted to sugar.
I find it an annoying religion, because its dogmatic and arbitrary. Just like a lot of others. And one dogma is, it presume to be logical and reasonable. Most religious don't bother with that.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 66.0 ms ] threadThe choices I am making in my own life (I’m vegan) are obviously about what’s best for me rather than some moral superiority, but it doesn’t alleviate the reaction.
I have friends who are vegan, and we can comfortably go out to eat together because we all order what we prefer and there's no judgement on either side. I can't imagine doing that with someone who actively disrespected my choices or voiced the opinion that meat is murder.
They find out that you are the vegetarian in a group of people who are not used to seeing many vegetarians the whole discussion turns into vegetarianism with unpleasant skeptical tone. They spend whole time eating talking about my eating habits. Closer they are to you in informal settings more irritating they are.
As others have said in this thread, they seem to feel that I'm accusing them for something just because I'm vegetarian and they are in defensive.
The hate is (at least that's my impression) for the people who eat this https://src.discounto.de/pics/Angebote/2015-10/1394308/17710... instead of this https://supermarkt24h.de/media/image/product/5991/md/lebensm... and talk as if there's a moral difference.
It doesn't matter whether you're actually shallow or thoughtful. IMO it doesn't even matter whether you eat factory-made gloop, so long as the supermarkets stock shelves full of plastic-wrapped stuff labelled "vegan" and you might be assumed to buy and eat it.
We will fight it all the way.
Obviously the tide can be turned, but vegans traditionally have been bad at PR.
Once faux meat comes out it's game over. In the end Vegans will have never won, technology will have.
Arguably society won most gay rights but the internet won gay marriage. Techs not all bad.... So far.
Personally I have no problem if some people wish to follow that type of diet, but it is not for me. Quirky on the other hand--that's definitely in my wheelhouse.
That's the core of it, as I see it. No matter how discreet you are about it, when your choices implicitly condemn the majority's values, they won't let it go.
Take it from a teetotaller. Like most kids I didn't drink and avoided drunk people whenever I could. Unlike most kids I kept doing that. Strangely enough, I've never had as many invitations to parties - sincere ones, too - as after my peers found out I thought there was nothing for me in those parties and wouldn't go.
Even though I was easy to ignore, it was apparently preferable to get me there and get some reassurance that I didn't object THAT much to their habits.
I try to keep that it mind and not be that way with vegans. It should take more than the implicit condemnation of non-participation to make us uneasy; if it does, maybe we need to confront some things in ourselves.
Weird. I've lived vegan for more than a decade and I've never had anyone say more than "oh okay" when I tell them in response to something like "you should try the steak, it's really good". Important to say that I didn't care if they ate the steak, I didn't argue with them, tell them what to do or ask for praise of my superior lifestyle.
If you follow a vegan diet/lifestyle but have no problems with anyone else's animal killing, I guess people will catch on and be relieved. But I'm also sure that if you do mind, people will catch on to that too and may give you unpleasantness over it.
My point is that I doubt it's about the "I'm vegan" part that people react annoyed to. I'm pretty sure it's the "and you should be too" part that some vegans adopt, and they are the ones that people are annoyed by.
Third, vegans don't care about animals or the environment, they just hate humans. They call us speciesists and don't understand that we are part of a chain and that removing ourselves from that chain would only bring thousands of problems to other animals and the environment too. For example, if we stop consuming an animal X, this one by natural order will have on population and will consume more of others, until the extermination. This has already happened in my country, where a species has been protected in an absurd way and because it lacked predators it ended up killing its prey and other animals, given the competition.
Fourth, they never thought consequences. In their idealised world, vegans believe that animals would live perfectly and this is not true: we will need more and more land surface to generate more and more food (the vegan diet is very low in calories and nutrients). When the animals are loose they will begin to invade plantations and methods will have to be developed to avoid or kill animals, otherwise they will eat our only source of food (and on top of that it is the worst). We will kill animals to survive and not to feed ourselves, which will be an absurd irony.
Fifth. They're hypocrites. All their eating habits are based on reproducing the foods they need naturally: blood (tomato, ketchup), meat (vegan meat), milk (vegan milk), eggs (vegan eggs), fat (vegan butter), everything is absurd to deceive themselves and they want that for you and for the rest. What's the point of telling us that we're eating something vegan that “tastes just like meat”. When I watch vegan videos, they imitate our true natural diet with their products, because in order not to eat only fruit, vegans use many products. In addition, the products they eat are so bad in nutrition and taste that they need to be smeared in spices, sauces to hide or give another flavor to the food. Not to mention all the vegans I know eat daily like 6 pills with vitamins (not all, of course there are vitamins that you only can get from animals) and that's not a healthy, natural diet, it's just pharma industry. It is a hypocritical life of people who have mental problems, are addicted to sugar.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There's no need to say "I'm vegan" everywhere everyday.