this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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People overlook vegetarianism and semi-vegetarian lifestyles as an option too much and it is not helpful that real life examples of vegetarian cultures, get co-opted by Vegans purists as "Vegan cultures" in easily disproven claims- thus hurting the whole movement
I've had debates with vegans on something similar:
I'm not vegan, I'll never be vegan. That's a complete non-starter for me.
What I have done is reduce my meat intake from 2/sometimes 3 meals a day to 1 meal per day - occasionally (less than once per month) two. Once Lab-grown meat is a viable alternative on cost/taste/texture, I'll be all over that. I still won't be vegan. Even if I reach a point where no animals are harmed from my diet.
I believe it is far easier to convince 1 Million people to do this than it would be to convert 100,000 people to full veganism. A Million people doing this would save Billions more animals per year than 100,000 vegan conversions and maybe even in itself convert a few of those people to full veganism along the way.
They're never interested. It's all or nothing. Black or white. Vegan or Animal killer. They usually have issues with lab grown meat, as well.
It's as though they're a member of an elite club and membership is more important than actually saving animals.
I mean, most vegans would still commend your effort to reduce animal product consumption.
But from a moral standpoint, simply eating less animal products really doesn't have much value. Imagine using your argument for other moral dilemmas.
"Racism is wrong, so I reduced the amount of racial slurs I use to only 1/3"
"Rape is wrong, so I only rape on Mondays now" (in reference to meatless Mondays)
I hate to be so militant about it, but you either think animal abuse is acceptable or you don't.
Now, what I do think could be a moral standpoint, if you really want to still be able to eat meat, is to only eat "humane" meat. I put "humane" in quotes because even farmers with the best intentions are still killing animals young. I don't personally believe any animal product can be humane, but even then I can recognize that any animal that was raised on a pasture and ate real food is more ethical to eat than one in a factory.
So if you genuinely only ate pasture raised beef and chicken (and you were sure about it), then I would say that is quite honorable.
I don't eat meat or dairy, so i technically i'm a vegan, right? But i wouldn't identify as a vegan. When someone cooks and says: oh i forgot that you are vegan, and i used butter, still eat it. When i'm at a bbq and there is a steak leftover, and no one eats it and it goes to the trash, i would eat it. I find the idea of factory meat absolutely repulsive therefore i don't support it in any way. Once i talked to a vegan guy, and he was super weird so we didn't have a lot to talk about. I told him something like: when i was a kid i was really into chicken wings, and now in hindsight, i don't think chicken is actually good. And he said: oh, you are one of THOSE people. Meat eater are like pedophiles, once you fucked a kid, you'll always be a childfucker.
Eh... Okay, i'll just stand over there and make sure to never talk to you again
this is called flexitarianism and is totally valid in terms of not wasting food and cohabitating in society. unfortunately some vegetarians would bully a person like you since ideological purity is more important than not wasting food to them
*Some vegans
I've never seen a vegetarian bully someone for not being purist enough. Vegans however do it constantly and even harass vegetarians
perhaps
they are great conversations about why people are so annoyed by vegans and most of the time it's not because vegans are harassing or pushing their agenda, it's more a question of how we perceive ourself when comparing ourself to others.
it's due to cognitive dissonance.
For me it is usually due to how incessantly preachy and judgemental some vegans are. I respect their choices and consistent choice of morality. But people tend to get annoyed when someone else feels the right to dictate their morality to them. See also: religious nuts.
I totally understand your point of view and think that your perception is valid. If you try to analyse why you find them preachy and judgemental it could be interesting.
For example would find them so annoying if you agree with them? Is it the discourse that annoys you or the person? Is it your belief system being challenged that annoys you or the facts that are being stated?
It's always intersting to understand why we feel that way when we are challenged, and veganism is one of a few topic that can create what we called in psychology reactance, an interesting topic.
Veganism is really different than religion tho, cause it is totally backed by science (regarding food production, waste issue, C02 and sentientism) and a logic construct.