dream_weaselRiiiiiiiiibs!
Ah yes, a corpse, how appetizing
Easiest way to spot a vegan is when they constantly tell every single person around them in the loudest, most obnoxious way possible. A ridiculous ideology.
I don’t feel part of a certain ideology, but as a vegetarian I have to say meat eaters are usually among the loud obnoxious ones. It’s crazy how much it bothers some of you that I don’t eat meat.
You know what that means? It means that both among meat eaters and vegans there is a loud minority. The rest of us just wants to be left in peace.
I don’t care what you do and I am not the on educating you, if you think driving a large SUV and eating a pound of meat a day is important for your personality, whatever. But don’t complain if other people don’t find that content arousing if you post it on the internet.
I consider vegetarians to follow a lifestyle and vegans to follow an ideology. The reason I have that impression is that in my experience, as you say, vegetarians just want to be left in peace, don’t want to eat meat and generally don’t mind other people’s preferences. My experience with vegans (of which there have been many) is that there has been a clear need to seek conflict, a superiority complex and an evangelist mindset where those poor non-vegan souls need to be shown the way. I have never met a vegetarian or a meat-water who acts in such a manner. I even experienced a house-guest once who in a very overly shocked manner made comments about a photo of a deer I had hung in the guest room. This was an invasion of the deer’s privacy.
I try to be a very consequent person in general. Let me give you an example - it is my fundamental believe that privacy and control over my data is a very important thing and I think it is a bad thing to be dependent from US tech bros. This is an opinion a lot of people would agree with. I don’t use social media at all, I am a Linux fan boy etc., I am very consequent with this. But I know most of people wouldn’t do that because it makes life very uncomfortable.
If we talk about eating meat it is very similar. It is my fundamental belief that we should not torture animals, the way we are exploiting them is incredible. A lot of people would agree with that as well, especially when they would know how we really treat animals. But not a lot of them would go with the consequence of stop eating meat. Because it is very uncomfortable and they are used to it. And I can understand that, but it’s just not how I work.
I could think of more examples, such as going on your vacation by plane, which is, from.an environmental perspective a very bad thing. This is why I really try to limit my flights to the minimum. But it doesn’t always work, because, it is very uncomfortable.
Now, a lot of people agree to this logic, most of them won’t be consequential with their behavior though and will find a lot of explanations: They don’t have the money, they don’t think individual decisions make an impact, they think we are doomed anyway, they just like the taste of meat. Some of them are better than others, but in the end it is a very individual decision on where to find the balance.
Then there is the last aspect - do I try to persuade you with my political opinion, or do I rather say nah I don’t care for what you do? Let’s imagine we are work colleagues and you are telling us you are flying to Thailand for a vacation with your family - will I tell you that flying is bad for the environment? Better not, or soon nobody will talk to me anymore. If we go to the canteen and you choose the sausage instead of the vegetarian menu, do I tell you your sausage is wrong? Of course I won’t.
Do I think it is wrong? Absolutely. I think as a meat eater you are part of the problem. If we can talk like humans about this topic and you tell me “man I know it’s not a good thing so I try to reduce my meat consumption, but I really like eating meat”, I am absolutely okay with that. Like we can’t do everything right, I also buy leather shoes or drive a car from time to time. But if you tell me BBQ is your hobby and you eat meat everyday because you are scared to become too female - then fuck you.
Your deer story is an anecdote, it sounds like you met a weirdo. I have many vegans in my friend circle and I have never heard such a ridiculous story.
Diet is a very personal thing. This is the reason why people get offended very fast. Having a political belief and following through are two different things, we are human beings and life is hard.
You sound like a person with common sense, that’s exactly what we need. If we draw parallels to people’s approach to religion, I’d say this approach to vegetarianism is like a Scandinavian moderate Protestant. “My belief is my business, and I’ll keep conversations with God in a private channel”. My impression of vegans is better compared to Jehovah’s Witness or a fundamentalist Baptist group. “Because you don’t follow my way of life, there must be something wrong with you”. I eat meat, but not very large amounts. Both because I know it’s not good for my health, and also because I know that overconsumption is bad for the environment. In a regular week, my family has maybe a couple of meat meals (normally with a lot of veggies mixed in, since we mostly cook Asian food), a couple of fish meals and a couple of vegetarian meals. We love cooking curries, so the vegetarian bit is normally pretty easy. I don’t feel that I’m part of a problem by having a lifestyle like this. We enjoy everything in moderation, and years normally pass between the times I sit down with a steak dinner. I definitely think that things would improve a lot if the industrialised, profit-first factory farming would go away, and would like to see smaller local farms be able to provide instead.