No Stupid Questions

I have never, ever, heard someone in real life bring up veganism unless it was specifically in the context of what they eat.

The problem is, it comes up. Food is a very foundational element of social life. Sharing a meal is important, providing a meal as a host is important, and supplying food at events is customary.

Rejecting the offer to put something in their body is misunderstood as an insult.

I think it’s guilt actually. Most people deep down kind of know that eating meat is wrong, but if the whole world does it, you can’t be blamed cause you have no choice.

And then there comes someone who is not participating. Their existence breaks the logic above and implies that it’s a personal responsibility.

It challenges something people have been indoctrinated with and causes them to question their moral character.

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.

Its because they ran into the loudest, most annoying vegans.

IDK how, maybe different areas have more militant vegans, or maybe they just roll with negative stereotypes and the algorithm bs that lets the worst folks float to the top of their media feeds.

I've actively sought out vegans because they have great advice on dietary restriction resources and as long as you're respectful of their choices, they've been consistently so willing to share.

And they also really love a good breakfast, in my experience, like the local vegan group has just pages of discussion on good vegan donut resources.

I don't hate veganism.

I just don't like the militant and pompous attitude that some vegans seem to possess, that they feel that they have to flaunt their vegan lifestyles on others over.

Yes, go eat as many vegetables as you like, go eat meat alternatives and whatever. You do you, eat what you want. But I don't want to ever have someone like that coming up to my face and tell me what I'm allowed to eat in their eyes.

So, here's the thing.

Regardless of a hundred different ethical and meta-ethical theories that people espouse, what everyone actually reacts to with outrage is plausibly-generalised threat perception.

If someone's actions are directly threatening you, you'll feel anger and/or fear.

If someone's actions don't affect you or yours, but :stuff like that: being commonplace definitely would, then you will feel outrage.

If I kill people and take their stuff, you'll be very upset: you're a people, and you like stuff - and if we let the general case happen, the specifics could come bite you in the ass soon enough.

If I kill and eat animals, most people don't consider it plausibly worrying that they or little Timmy will be next. We have great big enormous taboos against eating people, so that slope just don't slip - and as a result they just don't have a problem with it.

(If I go and torment animals for lulz, then that's a very different case; people who are cruel to animals are often even worse to people, after all - and so people see that as monstrous. And again, if you want to manufacture consent for some atrociy, the easiest way is to reclassify the victims as qualitatively different. Oh good lord no, we're not killing people and taking their stuff, that would be awful. Nonono, we're killing :group: and taking their stuff, totally different proposition...)

So when vegans are horrified at people killing and eating (or breeding and milking, or whatever) animals, and go to great lengths to try and elicit that same outrage, there's a disconnect and dissonance going on. The non-vegans don't have the emotional trigger of perceived threat, so to have them keep trying regardless is seen as pearl-clutching and sleeve-tugging, like making up a sad story and loudly demanding that everyone weep about it on the spot. It's uniquely annoying. And when you combine that with (perceived) moral superiority and a hypercritical attitude, it comes across as something like a Karen with BPD. It's calling red on someone else's scene; everyone is supposed to cater to the vegan's emotional distress when there's no corresponding emotion in themselves, and honestly that just provokes people to schoolyard bullying.

That's at the core of it, I think. There's a bunch of other annoyances around it, but I think they're mostly after the fact.

Honestly if you want to make people feel that general existential threat, frame it in terms of ecological damage. Animal agriculture is horribly unsustainable and causes huge enviromnental problems, not least of which are are a truly gigantic carbon footprint. Pushing that angle would actually stand a chance of being effective, tbh. But annoyingly (from the outside), it seems that the most vocal vegans don't want people to be outraged on that basis, they want them to be outraged for the poor little lambikins, and will settle for no less. I can see their point, and I can be a stubborn bastard myself about not settling, but jesus fuck it's annoying.

Not a vegan, though I've been mostly-veggie for the last couple of years for health reasons. It's interesting how it shapes your perceptions; eating meat doesn't seem wrong to me, but it has started seeming weirdly excessive and uncreative.

To preface this all, I'm not a vegan but I support the cause. However on the west coast of Canada, a lot of shitty people use veganism as social camouflage to cover for their moral failings in other areas. I just don't trust anyone that trumpets their veganism. Just like I don't trust the overtly religious.

My list..

Sometimes they'll offer their opinions as "proof" that they're "right"

It's expensive, so often vegans are people with resources others don't have and yet they act like this isn't a thing

They're right that it's way better for the environment and it annoys me that I'm contradicting my own values on that point

There's an abuse of science at times, which always bothers me, even in the name of a good cause. If you're right, let the truth do the talking.

Just off the top of my head...

Not all vegans, etc... no actual hate involved for anyone

I guess I’m lucky I’ve never personally known anyone to preach about their diet.

For someone like myself, this all sounds overblown and just a meme/trope you see in movies and TV.

Imagine that you go to an outdoor barbecue on a bright Summer day.

And some guy who is an extreme Muslim is going around telling some women that they're not dressed in a modest enough way and that everybody should follow the Teachings of the Prophet and how life is a lot better when people follow the Teachings of the Prophet.

It's not Islam that's the problem, it's certain kinds of people, their proselytising and, worse, their trying to force or even impose their own moral values on others.

Same with Veganism and some kinds of Vegans: because it's a moral choice some of those who practice it have the very same behavioural disfunctions as religious nutters and because they're the most visible representatives of it they just cause many to draw negative conclusions about the entire thing.

I don't think many people truly hate veganism, they are just frustrated by a few of the louder vegans out there.

For example, some vegans are very judgy - they will unabashedly tell non-vegans that eating meat is morally reprehensible. They also often want you to watch brutal videos of animal abuse and slaughter, with the overt overtone being an accusation of "you are doing this. It's your fault if you eat meat."

I'm not sure how any person who isn't vegan could possibly see that as anything but unwelcome. Life is hard enough without this sort of thing.

This said, I know plenty of vegans that never do this. I think it's awesome that they can avoid meat, and I applaud and support alternatives like impossible and beyond.

Because the idea that there are vegans and vegetarians is an implied accusation of guilt to people that eat meat and animal products that are the direct result of animal suffering. Some people that don't eat animal products might be militant or preachy, but I've never met one. In fact I have only ever met the inverse, people that constantly berate people for being vegan or vegetarian. Having been one myself, I can say that for me and people I know it is the same reason religious people hate atheists; their existence implies that people that eat meat are wrong and therefore bad people. Studies have confirmed this. Here is an article from the BBC that goes over some of the studies.

100% it's just cognative dissonance. Everyone knows meat is bad but most can't come to terms that they're too weak to quit it. This is especially painful when people are confronted directly and a self-defence mechanism kicks in.

It's ok to be a bit weak sometimes, everyone has a lot of going and has to choose their battles. Our contemporary culture hates to acknowledge this thus creating a lot of binary tension.

It takes a "special" kind of person to take something so ingrained in culture and still say "I'm not gonna do that," usually a slightly crazy and/or neurodivergent person. I think this is partly why there are so many "insane" vegans, because it's self selecting for people who are outside the norm.

I don't even mention to most people I'm vegan, usually just an excuse like "meat makes me feel sick" because the average person will think I'm going to give them a 20 minute lecture.

To anyone who is the vegan who will give the 20 minute lecture, please consider if your goal is actually animal welfare, you can hardly ever debate someone out of something they like. Instead, just show people easy dishes you made that they actually enjoy (pasta with spaghetti sauce, French fries, vegetable stir fry, roasted veggies with olive oil) and you'll often find they start cooking more vegan food (or at least less meat), and also talk more positively about veganism

Because brains are wired to avoid 1) changes to habits and 2) admission of wrongdoing. Encountering a vegan makes the brain start running cover and looking for ways to discredit arguments. Often, the mental framework for dismissing "uppity" advocates already exists. There's also the force of money and industry propaganda which should be acknowledged, but in my experience people are more than capable of coming up with justifications on their own.

It's very difficult to overcome these psychological forces, but simply making the switch can remove a lot of cognitive dissonance and expose certain BS arguments for what they are.

I don't see many people hating veganism. I see a lot of people hating vegans pushing their ideology when it wasn't asked for. The simple truth is that every person has different ideologies, beliefs, priorities, and ethical systems, and what makes perfect sense to one person sounds over-prohibitive, and any attempt at dialogue to find a middle ground ends with a bunch of moral posturing.

they hate vegan preacher. how do vegan promote their ideas? by saying meat eater are murderer. by calling people meat eater. meat bad. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I think people hate vegans more than veganism. The most annoying x% makes the other (100-x)% look bad

Choose your own x I don't want dunks from either side lol