Seen a lot of posts on Lemmy with vegan-adjacent sentiments but the comments are typically very critical of vegan ideas, even when they don’t come from vegans themselves. Why is this topic in particular so polarising on the internet? Especially since unlike politics for example, it seems like people don’t really get upset by it IRL
From what I have seen, it more stems from the activism vegans are engaged in more than the actual veganism.
I think there’s nothing wrong with explaining your ideas and why you believe them to those willing to listen, but I can see why pushy activism for any cause can get annoying quickly. There are often Jehovah’s witnesses outside my local supermarket, for example, but they only give you a pamphlet if you specifically approach them
It’s not just pushy, it’s judgemental and vitriolic
Oh, you eat meat, murderer? Your shoes are made from the skins of defenseless creatures. The sugar you’re so callously adding to your coffee was processed with ground-up bones, you unredeemable monster.
Even the arguments for veganism that aren’t built on animal cruelty still take on an air of moral superiority. Don’t you care about the planet and future generations? How dare you trade carbon emissions for the temporary comfort of a bacon cheeseburger!
The vegan movement has always been associated with anger and contempt, even if it is justified.
And it’s history stems from religious ideology.
Edit: oh you downvoters. Go look it up. A woman had a vision from God that said “don’t eat things with faces”. Dead serious - that’s where it started.
All the sciencey justifications today are post-hoc rationalization.
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In my experience it’s usually more like: Them: here have some of this meat thing Me: No thanks Them: why not it’s really good try some Me: i don’t eat meat Them: but why? Me: to reduce animal cruelty and environmental harm Them: wow how dare you be so judgy
I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to not offend this type of person in this situation and frankly I don’t think it’s my fault or my problem they’re offended. My theory is that that agree with my reasons but rather than change or live with the cognitive dissonance they just lash out at anyone that reminds them they could be living more ethically even if they basically MAKE them say it.
Blaming vegans for that is bullshit, frankly
Some people see “to reduce animal cruelty” as judgy because that’s just how nature is. The moral superiority comes from you acting like you’re somehow above everyone and everything else. It’s entirely in your wording and the implications that if you eat meat, you enjoy animal suffering vs seeing it as a natural outcome of nature.
In my experience, your first sentence sums it up nicely.
They assume a moral high ground because they’ve adopted a diet that is generally deemed healthier and better for the environment (I don’t always agree with this).
But unless they’re also doing all the things we could all do better (e.g. not buying new, not upgrading the the latest and greatest, not taking 40 minute showers, not eating out every second day), they’re only somewhat less guilty of environmental damage than the average person, but they’re taking a generally undeserved “holier than thou” position and then shoving it down your throat. This isn’t everyone, and I don’t really care what you eat, but these are the vegans that get under my skin.
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I’ve never once in the last decade seen a single vegan post other than recipes. What I do see is constant posts about how “vegans are always throwing it my face/holier than thou”, “I’m gonna eat extra meat because vegans make me feel bad”. I really don’t think vegans are the problem, I think these fools fall for every single piece of beef industry propaganda that comes across their screens.
Back on reddit there were those who had alerts set every time the word came up across the site, then they’d brigade the fitness and health subreddits with their vegan crew to derail any conversations. It was really annoying. No clue if that’s still a problem because lolreddit
I’ve been a vegetarian for 15 years. People IRL often do get offended if you tell them you don’t eat meat. I try my best to avoid saying it because it often leads to being lectured about proteins. Everyone suddenly becomes a nutritionist when you explain why you don’t eat meat.
As a life-long vegetarian, this has been my experience as well.
Yeah. I try not to mention it to people if I can avoid it. I work construction and am surrounded by manly men tring to out man each other. I had one guy offer me bear jerkey and got bent out of shape when I declined. He wouldn’t stop. He just kept on me about why I didn’t eat meat. After about an hour of him asking again and again why I don’t eat meat I said “meat’s another word for dick and eating dick is gay”. As problematic as it was, it worked.
It never cases to amaze me that a 250pound dude with a 40oz soda in one hand and a mouthfull of gas station pizza thinks he has the responsibility to lecture me about nutrition.
“meat’s another word for dick and eating dick is gay”. As problematic as it was, it worked.
It’s both sad and hillarious that this worked. I wonder if you created a new vegetarian as well
Why do they believe you only find protein in meat?
Some essential amino acids are difficult to find in adequate quantities on a vegan diet. If you don’t vary your protein sources or make sure you are getting the right amino acids, then you may develop a deficiency, which can lead to poor health or even be fatal.
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Do-gooder derogation Basically, some people perceive others’ moral choices as criticism or as some kind of bragging.
Holier than thou attitude from new vegans whose world view changed overnight and cognitive dissonance on the part of non vegan with the need to deflect than to make substantial changes.
There’s a ton of vegans who exist without trying to force their way of life on everyone, but the ones who do dominate the conversation and can be off putting.
Just like with everything else that people make into a lifestyle or part of their identity. Most are cool, but there’s always a vocal minority of dillweeds that take it way too seriously or use it to judge others that aren’t part of their pack.
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This argument is the same one anti-abortionists use.
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How is it?
Edit to address your edit: Still the same argument anti-abortionists use.
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I’m saying that what you are saying is the same as anti-abortionists saying that abortion is murder.
It’s not going to convince anyone who doesn’t think the exact same as you on the subject because it relies on beliefs that not everyone has.
How would you frame the vegans as the pro-choice activists in your hypothetical situation?
What they really hate is being guilt tripped into changing their dietary habits.
EDIT: To be clear, I support veganism. I’m saying the people who react apprehensively to veganism are choosing willfully ignorant bliss. To choose a high meat diet is to deny reason and give into what the animal in us wants.
Usually it’s not veganism, itself. Rather, it’s the vegans.
Specifically the annoyingly loud, self-righteous, insists-everyone-must-join-them vegans.
Unfortunately, most people only really see this sort of vegan- rather than the more common, average sort of person who happens to also be vegan.
I do think they are annoying but a necessary type of annoying that will help humanity progress. The same type of annoying as people who claimed women had rights and African Americans were not inferior.
Humans treat this planet like shit, we have zero respect for living beings and the ecosystems. Anyone who gets angry if someone calls them out for supporting animal abuse is just immature and selfish. Like they’ll just deny they are doing something wrong.
I’ll probably never stop eating meat until stuff like Beyond Meat becomes mainstream. But I won’t pretend I’m not a straight up asshole to these animals for supporting their torture and murder. The times I’ve been called out I’ve embraced it instead of denying the obvious.
In 150 years humans will look back in shame at what we did to those animals.
Pointing out the consequences; the climate damage, all that is one thing. Respectful conversation.
Actively tossing out people’s lunches isn’t going to convince anyone of anything, though. Suddenly that person is now the face of vegans for everyone in the office.
Protests, sure. But when it comes to interpersonal relationships…. Yeah. Doesn’t help.
Ah yeha, agreed. If they get physical, fuck that. I’m sure that’s just like 1% or less of vegans. We can’t judge a whole group for the actions of a few.
I do not like being told by someone that i need to become vegan because they have become vegan.
I don’t think you’ve understood the arguments for veganism lol
Of course proponents of a position/philosophy/political stace also subscribe to those beliefs. There are not many misogynists arguing in favor of feminism.
Counter argument: Problem is not too many cows. It is too many people.
So just kill yourself then, it’s literally that easy? Or are you suggesting to kill other people so you can keep enjoying your McTasty? Carnists are weird AF
You have restricted your diet, yet the hatred pores from your vegtable fueled/addled brain.
I think you have proven my point.
Thank you.
How have I proven your point? Your argument was to get rid of people, I just guessed you also offer yourself up? Otherwise what makes you think you can suggest to kill other people?
The same reason people hate leftists, feminists, trans athletes, “gamer girls”, people on welfare, blacks, etc. An image the right cultivated of the group, out of convenient easily-hateable annoying people in it that they could use to create a generalization/stereotype out of. It’s something that’s able to happen to any group, I could portray any hobbyist or activist in this way the same exact way as these “annoying” groups are portrayed, but the right is particularly willing to just flat out lie, slander, and cheat their way into making countercultural/anti-status-quo groups look as absurd as possible, to the point that the majority of the population falls for it (even those that don’t consider themselves to be conservative).
I’ll make a comparison. Conservative/“anti-sjw” thumbnails often have a picture of some angry-looking rainbow haired woman, usually the same few, in order to be like “look how irrational and crazy these feminazis are, she must hate men so much” and like 4 out of 5 of those times it’s a picture of a woman that was protesting a literal neo-nazi gathering or something, not some sort of radical crazy man-hating feminist. But the internet has conditioned the average person to look at someone like that and immediately think they’re an irrational “feminazi”, and conservatives showing these pictures everywhere and making 100 videos on the same person makes people subconsciously believe they’re rampant and have a massive (and bad) grip on society.
Same kind of thing happens with vegans, you have the same 10 or so internet vegans people use to portray veganism that conditions people to think poorly of the concept “vegan”, and when these influencers are confronted about it they say “I don’t hate veganism, I just hate the annoying vegans” then they go onto Twitter to complain about the vegans and how they’re irrational for not eating meat and their brains must be de-evolving or something. They know what they’re doing, but they can hide behind plausible deniability, and the majority of viewers fall for it.
Veganism is more or less a 1st world phenomenon. Most humans, especially in the past, did not have the luxury to choose what they could eat. They ate what they could get and if they got access to meat and animal products they ate it because it has high nutritional and caloric value. Even the vegetarian Indians who don’t eat meat foe religious purposes still have eggs, milk, etc.
It feels disconnected with the human struggle.
In addition, it’s sort of meaningless in the grand scheme of things. OK. You don’t eat meat to protect domesticated cows. In reality, those cows would not exist in the first place. So really, you’re advocating to eliminate the species of domesticated cattle.
In addition, our modern society requires massive amounts of energy which is often generated by fossil fuels. Even if a society uses 100% solar, they’re importing products from countries like China that burn coal.
So you’re pumping out carbon emissions that will inevitably result in mass extinctions anyway. It seems like a meaningless protest against the inevitable. You say let’s exterminate the cows to save them from suffering on one hand and with the other drive to work talking on your iPhone with the A/C turned up- contributing to the destruction of infinitely more animals.
The only real way to stop is for everyone to give up every modern luxury and live in a log cabin in the woods. And for the vast majority of the population to die off.
It just feels like pissing into the void but doing so with moral superiority.
Having said all that, I empathize with many vegans. But those are some thoughts on why people may look down on vegans.
Wow, you ticked like half of the Vegan Bullshit Bingo.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy. Please engage, don’t just watch. Start wherever you like, but start!I looked through out of curiosity and I believe you can say with a bit of a stretch that I hit about 3.
I’m never going to go vegan. I was raised in a part of South America with a very strong cattle / meat culture. I don’t want to live without nice steaks every week.
If that means some animal has to live in what’s essentially slavery then it’s the price I’m willing to pay.
Just like we’re both willing to live with poor 3rd worlders mining lithium and cobalt for us in abysmal conditions so that we can communicate on our fancy electronic devices.
The system is a pyramid. Is it our fault we were born near the top? Reminds me of the part in the Bible, the rich man comes up to Jesus and asks him what he should do to get into heaven
Jesus says “sell all of your belongings, give the money to charity, and follow me”. What’d the rich man do? He cried.
The point is that people wanna be good and ethical but don’t actually want to give up quality of life. It’s not just veganism, it’s for everything. Capitalist/imperialist exploitation, climate change, etc.
Try to lead by example, sell your stuff and follow Jesus.
It’s the fandom mostly. I like using Linux but I don’t think you are immoral for using windows. Rick and Morty is funny but I don’t think Rick is someone to take any advice from. CrossFit seems to work for most people who stick with it but it is one of many options. I won’t apologize for being an atheist but I don’t think you are stupid for not being one.
The problem with Veganism is the problem with monotheism. There is one proper way to live and all the others are wrong and awful.
That and the lying. I won’t deny that there are farmers who abuse their animals, that is a problem that can be dealt with through the legal system, but you can’t sell me a sack of lies claiming that I abused the cows I milked growing up. Because I know I didn’t.
But what about disagreements that aren’t just about preferences, but about right and wrong? Vegans don’t view it as the type of question that’s like, “Do you like Kirk or do you like Picard?” but rather as the type of question that’s like, “Is it ok to beat your children?” The proper way to live is to not beat children and all other ways are wrong and awful. Framing the question as merely about individual preferences and not about morality is assuming the conclusion.
I won’t deny that there are farmers who abuse their animals, that is a problem that can be dealt with through the legal system, but you can’t sell me a sack of lies claiming that I abused the cows I milked growing up.
The legal system has no interest in addressing the vast majority of animal abuse, and there’s a lot of money in it which means enough political influence to ensure that never changes. The vast majority of produced goods relies on abusive conditions. It is possible to produce animal products without abuse, but removing abuse from the system means less will be produced, which means a reduction in consumption is still necessary.
What if I told you the quiet part loud? I don’t think every life is fundamentally created equal.
I’m a farm boy turned liberal and if you’re going to argue about climate change and the benefits of a vegetarian diet in that respect, you’ve got the right of it and I’ll eat less meat (I’m trying). If you’re going to say “cow abuse is child abuse!” I will personally come murder a cow for you and eat it with you (or against you, I guess?).
You are barking up the wrong tree and have missed the point whenever you come to this argument. Plants and animals grown for food ARE. FOR. FOOD. and you will not turn me to your way of thinking by crying foul about their treatment. I would love to minimize animal suffering / I am not into animal torture, but you’re just not going to get there unless you’re literally demonstrating widespread suffering for sport of livestock animals. If there was a raccoon outside right now screwing with my dog or my kid or my house or whatever I would absolutely end it and not lose a second of sleep, without considering it’s children or parentage or treatment.
I am who you are dealing with and who you are trying to convert. The “proper way to live” has nothing to do with it. I grow food, I eliminate pests, I eat the food I intended to raise. Cow, corn, pig, dog, cat, unicorn, etc: it gets to grow and flourish as much as I can provide, then it gets harvested to eat, unless it is invasive then it gets summarily removed.
It’s not about callousness or disregard for the beauty of life, my situation has just been fundamentally different than yours unless you also spent childhood raising your own food.
Do I know you?
If you accept that there are moral/ethical problems with eating meat (contribution to climate change, health concerns, animals being killed and eaten, whatever), and choose to eat meat anyway, and encounter a vegan, what has to happen?
You can accept that they are making a better choice, but then you have to accept that you’re making a worse choice. Most people are cowards and protect the ego at any cost. Rather than shrugging and saying “yeah, i should eat less meat. Good for you taking the high road”, which requires accepting that you’re not being the best, you can instead grab onto any reasons why no it’s really them that sucks. That’s easier, more comfortable, and doesn’t require any painful introspection or changes.
It’s the same mechanism when people get mad at cyclists, pedestrians, people who go to the gym, people who don’t shop at Walmart, whatever. They’re doing something that makes you feel bad in comparison. Most people are terrible at that and will lash out instead of doing anything productive.
Alternatively, or maybe additionally, people are really tribal, and once they adopt the idea that vegans (or cyclists, or people driving small cars, or people wearing sandals, whatever) are in the outgroup, then they enjoy being hostile to them.
People are ego driven emotional morons. All of us. Me, too. It’s terrible.
You can accept that they are making a better choice,
That’s exactly where it starts. You simply assume that vegans are the better people. And then you preach. That’s exactly what people dislike in vegans and similar people.
You can accept that they are making a better choice, but then you have to accept that you’re making a worse choice.
No, people don’t dislike vegans or vegetarians because of their choices, they dislike them because they lord their, what they think “better” choice over others. And create in- and out- groups via labeling.
Being vegan or vegetarian means that you have to spend more money in the store to buy food, because meat is heavily subsidized compared to vegetarian options. Also, because being vegan/vegetarian is not the default, many products are overpriced.
Another point is that a healthy and varied diet using only vegan or vegetarian food doesn’t come so natural, so you have to research this more, which means you have to spend time, which again is a commodity.
So it is not just about good or bad, it is also about privilege and class. So people should not go around making statements about other people making “worse” choices.
No one likes being criticized and labeled a monster by an ignorant prick. They way too frequently act like every egg comes from a half zombie chicken that’s kept in a little box and tortured just for fun, or that a cow couldn’t possibly end up in a cheeseburger after living its best life. Factory farming is bad for lots of reasons, but it’s not characteristic of the entire industry.
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I don’t hate veganism. It’s a dietary choice and that’s fine. What I hate is vegans. They’re always pushy and judgmental and hateful and sometimes even destructive in their activism. They’re an annoying group of people and I just don’t want to have to deal with them.
Veganism is not a dietary choice it’s a lifestyle choice. Diet is just a big part of it but not the whole thing.
Then what would we call someone who makes the dietary choice but none of the other lifestyle choices? How would they identify in a restaurant setting? The answer is “vegan”. In the same way that I’m vegetarian but don’t care if I wear leather shoes.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying that English lacks the words that would let you be precise. We need a word for people who are vegan in diet, and don’t care to bother the rest of the world about it. That’s why OPs question keeps coming up.
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Do people say that in restaurants? I’ve actually never heard it.
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