This is ironic because the argument concedes vegan ideology, it’s just attacks them for not doing more. At this point the carnists are not really arguing, they’re negotiating terms of surrender.
Most meat consumers already suspect vegans are right. We get aggravated because we’d rather ignore that question. And a vegan threatens to force the issue, even in our own mind. If you’ve ever wondered why vegans inspire automatic hostility, ridicule, and derision it’s because they threaten a carnists identity as a good person just by existing.
I’m not a vegan (yet) but I have a lot of respect for those who are. I would love to see some developments in cruelty-free lab grown meat and just hope it won’t be full of shit.
I consider myself a flexitarian, I adopt puppies, give them a good life till they’re about 2 years old, then humanely slaughter them and eat them. The stuff I don’t eat I backfeed to the next round of puppies.
I am so with this post, what I do is so much more sustainable and humane than anything that happens on a farm. Extremists harrassing me should fund lab grown meat instead. Really this is more ethical than eating beans because of crop deaths.
This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. It’s almost into not even wrong territory. I think you should contact a philosophy department and ask them why they haven’t considered this.
Your mistake here was saying “puppies” too early. You have to lead with a couple paragraphs of how you’re a flexitarian who has a farm and humanely raised animals like pets and then slaughters and feed them to your family.
Then list off the animals you exploit, cows, pigs, dogs, chickens, cats and ducks. Then their brain gets hit with the dissonance of “wait why did I support this and then stop the second they said ‘dog’?” That jarring experience can work for the intellectually honest type.
Saying it too early means they can categorize your post as satire easily and not engage with it at all mentally.
Eh, mostly I’m just pointing out how stupid this is to anyone with half a brain in their head.
We have animal rights legislation and morals for reasons, and nobody who like protests whaling gets criticised for not growing fake whale meat. You might disagree on where the line should be but it’s just outing yourself as someone with underdeveloped theory of mind if you don’t understand why people might feel strongly about it being further down the tree of life.
Don’t farmers specifically not form bonds with the animals they intend to slaughter? Isn’t it socially acceptable to eat dogs and cats in some countries? Personally, raising your own meat and slaughtering it for consumption does indeed sound like the best way to go about it.
yes yes an yes.
The best thing for a vegan to do is to keep being a vegan. Seriously, just keep on doing it.
It doesn’t mean evangelise, it doesn’t mean denigrate, it means just carry on doing what works for you.
If you’re insulting other folks, or trying to push a lifestyle, odds are folks don’t dislike you because you’re vegan.
This comment section gonna be spicy~
Tbh I kinda agree with you, calling someone a murderer or rapist for eating meat is overboard; however the biggest issue I have is the pretentious and self-righteous attitude that vegans have. Like, cool, you don’t eat meat, good for you! I agree that commercially raised farm animals are often abused, and that even animals raised by small, private farms don’t always get to lead their best lives.^1 At the same time though, you’re not making your cause look good.
Yes, I might honestly be a better person if I stop eating meat, dairy and buying any form of animal product; but I’m also gonna be associated with assholes with overinflated egos. I’m distanced enough from the slaughter that the overinflated ego is more of a turnoff than the slaughtering of animals.
Is that how it should be? No, but that’s how humans usually work. The object perceived to be closer is a higher priority than the object perceived to be further away. Animal slaughter is perceived as being further away than being associated with assholes, so the fear of being associated with assholes is a greater “threat” than the inhumane treatment of animals.
Be a vegan if you want, or don’t. You’re honestly probably a better, healthier person if you’re vegan (though you probably have your head up your ass about it), because your diet and spending habits are less likely to contribute to climate change, animal cruelty, and because you have to be conscious about what you eat, your food is likely healthier.
Just… Don’t be an ass about it, dude.
Instead of accusing people of being “carnists”, talk about a good (totally-not-vegan) dish you had recently. Instead of accusing people of murder, talk about the pros and cons of real leather vs faux leather.^2 Instead of telling people they’re animal rapists, talk about new sources of cow’s milk.
I swear I recently read about a technically vegan blue cheese that won and then got disqualified from a cheese competition because the milk it was made from was technically synthetic cow’s milk that had been derived from fungi or something. Talk about that shit. That is pretty fucking cool. Fungus milk that’s virtually identical to cow’s milk? That’s awesome!
Meat eating and the damage it causes is far off in most people’s rear-view mirrors, and many people don’t know or don’t have time to find ways of getting off the meat highway. They don’t know about alternatives or up-and-coming technologies related to meat substitutes. Being an ass is only going to turn people away; if you really care, then you’ll understand that you have to take people’s hands and take baby steps with them. And no, you can’t get angry when they mess up. You’re helping a baby to walk, if you get angry then they’ll just get angry, demoralized, frustrated with you or themselves, or something else, and you risk them giving up. If you actually care though, then you don’t want them to give up, and that means you have to grit your teeth and bear it when they complain about how something sucks or admit they have a “guilty pleasure” like dairy ice cream.
Some additional notes:
^1 imo meat should only be harvested from animals that have died from age-related causes. “But the meat will be too tough!” Yeah? Hispanic people figured out how to deal with that a long time ago. Make fajitas! I still eat meat anyway though, despite knowing they’re slaughtered and don’t die of old age.
^2 when it comes to leather, my experience is that natural leather lasts a lot longer than faux leather, and faux leather tends to use plastics. Additionally, I’ve heard that while “leather is a byproduct of the meat industry” is mostly a myth, it’s my understanding that there are “ethical” ways of getting leather, e.g. by taking cast-offs that’d normally be trashed, leather harvested from animals that have died from old age; you just have to be very conscious about where you’re buying leather from. I’d be curious if anyone knows about any non-petroleum-based faux or lab-grown leathers. I mean, it’s literally just skin, how hard can it really be to grow that in a lab?
How come you’re so opposed to the concept of, like, self-esteem that you think it’s worse than death? Like, someone having high self esteem is a worse thing in your emotions than something dying. Why is pride worse than death to you?
I love being an annoying vegan because it was annoying vegans who made me go vegan. I was once like you, I knew the animal ag industry was fucked, but I still liked eating meat and dairy. Then eventually the cognitive dissonance caught up to me and I realised that enjoying meat and dairy wasn’t a good enough excuse to support a cruel industry that is quite literally destroying the planet.
At least you’re not in denial about what you’re supporting and you’re not spreading misinformation. I’m chill with that, but I think you’re wrong about what’s effective at converting people to veganism.
PS: people make pineapple and cactus leathers nowadays, I’ve heard of a mushroom based one, too. Not sure on how the durability and longevity compares just yet but it seems pretty tough so far. Also not sure on the processes involved and how ‘clean’ they are.
Lol, yeah, same. r/VCJ helped me go vegan too. My first time there was so confusing and anger inducing.
Nooooo, because shame and insults are clearly the best ways to get people to switch over to your ideology. /s
It worked on me. I went vegan because I was ashamed of eating meat. If you’re not a vegan then I don’t think you have any perspective on what’s effective at getting people to go vegan.
so if i and enough other people think your a fool and deride you long enough because you got peer pressured and bullied into making your dietary decisions youll switch back to eating meat ?
No, you can’t make me feel guilty for not eating dead animal, it doesn’t work like that.
Why /s
/s
I get so scared to interact with the vegan users on here. And I am on their side.
But like why do I see people getting harrassed and banned for like admitting out loud they love cheese too much so that they haven’t been able to find a replacement yet but they are looking?
Why does veganism manifest in such a scary way here? Speaking as someone who participates in non-scary vegan commities 😭I wish the vegan movement so much success and I don’t want that to result in a schism on here but I feel like doing harrassment and name calling doesn’t work well. Just like, be kind.
Look at it like that: Many people become vegan because they realize that there is no magical difference between humans (or dogs, cats and so on) and the animals who are raised to be slaughtered. We all feel pain, fear and grief. So a society that kills sentient animals and eats or wears parts of their dead bodies is not too different then one which does that with their fellow humans. How angry would you be to live in such a horrible society?
The only reason to not being angry all the time is, that I needed more than 30 years to realize those things myself. How we are handling most animals, how we are torturing and killing them is normalized. It is really hard to get from “steak yummy” to a vegan world view. How can I expect that other people change their ways just like that?
It is still fucking sad and I totally get, why some vegans are so angry. Live and let live is the most cynical shit one could say in this situation.
I’m a mean vegan because I used to be a carnist, and mean vegans changed my mind. The people on vegancirclejerk are fucking hilarious. I stayed for the memes, and then I changed my diet because I felt guilty. The best possible thing you can do as a vegan is make carnists feel guilty. It works.
Interesting. I was a triggered vegetarian and didn’t like those guys calling me a cheese breather (I’m still ambivalent towards them). When I became a vegan it was because of the non-drastic stating a fact people, not because of the jerks.
So maybe we need both – and many more forms of activism?
I can absolutely defend and relate to being angry :) I can absolutely defend being a “mean vegan.” I can absolutely defend being disruptive and proselytizing and refusing to live and let live.
I cannot defend verbal harrassment. That’s not “being mean,” that’s using your position as a vegan as a token to do emotional abuse.
Disclaimer
This comment may not be about you. If you are the person in the first paragraph we have a lot in common! My criticism is of those represented by the second paragraph and if that’s not you my apologies and much love 💕
To a leftist there are two kinds of people in the world: people who are with me 110%, believe everything I believe to the last letter, and are willing to punch people in the face to that effect, and enemies who must be crushed
ew no not at all what i am saying
MLK said it best, so I’ll just quote him directly:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
When moderates advocate for “kindness” or “civility”, they’re advocating for negative peace; the absence of tension. Vegans advocate for positive peace; the presence of justice. When activists advocate for positive peace, in the face of those who deny said justice, tensions rise and moderates fall back to this common trope.
Holy shit you did not just quote MLK at me saying people who eat cheese should not be harrassed!
That is a disturbing twisting of both veganism and MLK. :(
Once again I participate with so many vegan individuals in ways that do not involve harrassment campaigns. Here is a list of direct action that I consider constructive:
- animal rescue
- investigations of animal abuse
- leafleting
- inline education campaigns
- protests and marches
- restaurant sit-ins
- graffiti
- civil disobedience
- many more
Again I cannot believe I am saying this, but there is no credible evidence that MLK participated in harrassment against individuals admitting minor disagreement. Attacking a person who admits to eating cheese, like maybe 60% of the world population, accusing them of being a rapist constantly and repeatedly, and calling that “advocacy for positive peace,” is really really fucking sad. It is absolutely terrifyingly in bad faith to quote MLK in defense of such behavior.
disclaimer
Maybe this isn’t you, I haven’t checked your account history so keep that in mind. You have my apologies if you aren’t doing verbal abuse. :)
My criticisms of others in the Lemmy community who do verbal attacks do hold, though. I am just glad they are the minority in real life and only seem to exist online.
Why should people committing unjust acts be allowed to commit them in peace? Where is the peace for their victims if we do not speak up? The MLK quote seems entirely fitting.
While the civil rights movement was largely “peaceful” (loaded word with little meaning), it was also incredibly disruptive. People in the movement were very rude to moderates who advocated in favor of negative peace while reaffirming their appreciation of the status-quo.
MLK’s position here was not that the people within the civil rights movement needed to be more respectful to white moderates. His position was that the moderates were the issue. The people who consistently advocated for negative peace were the issue.
The leaders of vegan movements also don’t generally go around attacking the moderates of our time who appreciate the status-quo and advocate for negative peace. There are individuals that do attack moderates, just like there were individuals in the civil rights movement who literally physically assaulted white moderates (much worse than calling someone a cheese-breather and having their feelings get a bit hurt). Again, MLK did not draw attention to these fringe cases because the actual issue were the moderates themselves. Some might even say the racists deserved to be beaten, and that’s not even something I would necessarily argue against.
Veganism is the same. The issue is not the people who are a bit rude online to bloodmouths/carnists. The issue is the moderates themselves, their constant advocacy for negative peace in place of positive peace needs to be shut down unequivocally.
There are individuals that do attack moderates, just like there were individuals in the civil rights movement who literally physically assaulted white moderates
Yeah, precisely. Put simply my goal is to call out the fact that these individuals are having an outsized influence on Lemmy. I have no criticism of vegan leadership as a whole. I just hope we can continue to call out the toxicity that is present on Lemmy until a more constructive and representative-of-the-whole community exists on here. 💙
Oh no. This whole thing quickly turned into yet another opinionated divisive fedposting shithole.
I don’t think real conversations of the type you would respectfully have in person exist on the Internet anymore.
I thought maybe this place would be a little smarter than that, but it kind of sucks now.
yeah, this is why i need a fediverse version of tiktok/reels.
i think we can be quite kinder versions of ourselves when we have the constant reminder there is a living breathing person on the other side of the username :)
Well you seem cool. Just don’t let the authoritarians rub off on you