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
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.
On this note, I’d like to point to the Loud Minority problem; You have XYZ group, and within XYZ group there exists a minority that comes across as very “loud”. You can barely miss them, and because they state they’re a part of XYZ group, you start associating that group with the loud minority.
Happens with Vegans a lot, and usually people which have already associated a group with a minority within said group which annoys them do not want to learn that they are wrong, or will just refuse to accept they are wrong.
Precisely.
Personal anecdotes, there was a particular vegan at work. The smell of cooked meat made her feel sick.
Instead of doing the rational thing and taking lunch at her desk; she proceeded to insist that the break room be meat-free. It escalated into all manner of preaching, “shame on you,”- including signage, nasty emails. Shaming with “don’t you care about me?!” All sorts of victimization.
The reality was any attempt at accommodating her was met with “not enough”. The entire office in the end, according to her, needed to be a complete vegan zone.
She didn’t last long for other reasons, but none of those shenanigans really helped. (let’s just say the attitude didn’t stop at being a vegan.)
Yeah that was a wrong decision on the vegan’s part. Perhaps this sort of behavior might be acceptable in the public commons, but work is a private space where people join a company for specific purposes. Work and philosophy/politics should not intertwine.
And who knows: if she excluded herself from the breakroom during lunch without notifying others, maybe coworkers would notice and be more willing to hear her out out of a desire to socialize. It probably could have helped her effort to do this actually.
Vegans live and learn. We are part of a minority group, and with being a minority comes all of its benefits and detriments. We just need to learn that in situations like these, we often are the only vegan around people and so we need to carry our entire movement on our shoulders, whether we want to or not. Else, you get general, anecdotal sentiments the likes of which you see in this post.
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.
Has someone ever tossed your lunch out?
Yes. It was a salad made with left over carnitas, dried cranberry and a homemade vinaigrette. (Yes, I’m a little vindictive about it.)
She also tossed the front desk guys rice and beans because he included some impossible bacon.
(That was like the day before she got fired for other reasons.)
Wow. Sounds like she wasn’t helping herself or her cause.
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.
If all you can see of a movement are the annoying loudmouths, it will quickly taint the overall image of that movement, regardless of goals of the the movement itself.
Ding ding ding, got it in one, yes.
As a vegan myself, I’ve only met a handful number of other vegans in my lifetime irl, being raised omnivore for 23 years until changing.
Whenever I talk about the reasons why I made the switch to those who are curious, I always keep the militant vegans in mind and try to offer more charity than I otherwise would.
We vegans need to show the world that whether it’s diet or clothing (general use, specific use, etc.) or medicine or society (e.g. slaughterhouse workers contributing to societal psychosis) or climate or species loss or economic transparency, making the change is easy and a socially accepted thing to do.
This absolutely cannot take form as aggression against those that would be considered outside of our “group”. Any means of using coercion or manipulation to change what others do is a violation of their moral capacities. Unfortunately, humans also violate the moral capacities of more than 100 billion animals every year, so the trade-off can seem justified to some.
Every vegan needs to remind themselves that we’re doing this for the animals first and foremost. All behaviors should be guided by that principle: to reduce suffering for them as much as possible. Being militant, aggressive, and shameful to others can result in backlashes where people dig their heels in. A better way of convincing would be to give the science, show moral charity, offer easy alternatives, and illustrate factual evidence of the crimes done against animals. If we respect people to be able to change their minds given the evidence to do so, then they will.