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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
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Asklemmy
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I always wonder where people are going that this seems so common. I've been relatively low meat for a while, what's called half-vegetarian/flexatarian. My experience is that most vegans/vegetarians just want to share their favorite recipe.
In my experience, this usually comes from people defending half-measures, which is fundamentally wrong from the vegan point of view, and thus the claws come out. If you aren't going against the "correct" stance, vegans are very chill, as someone who is low meat as well I am working on eradicating that (which at this point is more of a social problem than individual).
I mean as a grumpy vegan it basically seems like hanging out with someone who's like "Look, we're reducing bombing hospitals but we still want to take the land" or something. It is a fundamental disconnect which still frames other living beings as things you can extend or revoke consideration from depending on how much you want what you get from killing them.
Would fewer non human animals be exploited in a meatless Monday world? Yes. Would that world still be an unimaginably cruel and hideous Holocaust of suffering created for selfish reasons by beings who know better? Yes.
Okay, but if you live in a world where hospitals are being bombed continuously, and you can push for bombs to not be dropped on Mondays, why would you ever not want that? Sure, it still won't be the reality you want to live in, but it's a step in the right direction. And if you can get people comfortable with Mondays, then that creates a much easier platform to talk about, "look that wasn't so hard, why don't we also include Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and keep going from there".
In my experience, the majority of people I interact with who aren't vegan feel like the going 0 to 60 on full veganism is way too difficult and intimidating, especially when all their friends and family still eat meat.
Like I empathize with the moral dilemma militant vegans find themselves in, but if the world doesn't match your ideals, is throwing a tantrum and vilifying people the best way to change hearts and minds?
This is the debate about the israel-gaza conflict all over again
Not wanting to rehash the same arguments over and over again when if you were genuinely interested you could find thousands of crystalised dialogues on the internet going over them is part of the reason we ban shit like this on vtc.
Do you expect to convince a lot of people you're right with this approach? If you want to get a lot of people to agree with you, it's not enough to have all the right ideas written down somewhere. You do have to educate and persuade, that's just a fundamental part of any social movement.
When you're hanging out with your friends do you call over every racist you see in the hopes of convincing them that they can be better?
I strongly suspect that you too find places where you can disengage from horror and just exist without constantly defending your ethics and being dogpiled by a world that thinks you're at best misguided and at worst a cultural traitor.
I mean look at this, I explained why these spaces seem hostile in an extremely neutral and non-judgemental way and immediately got people who do not share my values at all tell me how I'm doing my values wrong because I'm not catering to them 24/7. It's exhausting.
We're not talking about hanging with friends and interrupting a conversation to call out them out over ethics. We're talking about people coming to you and engaging with you directly on this topic. It's hard to imagine a scenario more conducive to changing someone's mind, but you do have to put in effort instead of just dismissing them.
"I empathize but don't think you have the best approach" is not hostility. It's a disagreement.
Go check the modlog for the sort of shit that gets removed.
Infinite patience for "I'm curious about veganism, what motivates you?" or "I need X for my work, what vegan replacements are there" zero patience for "Lol vegans do you eat almonds you're evil and dumb and go fuck yourself".
Anyway I'm done with this. If you want to be convinced to be vegan you'll find a way. If you just want to vent at me because someone was rude to you once and you have a bee in your bonnet then pay me for therapy :p I said I'm not interested and you replied again so I'm blocking so that we both disengage.
Yep, that's what I'm trying to get at! Thank you for putting it in better words!
You're all through this thread being very sympathetic to vegans 🤨 I wish you luck following your heart as I think it is probably a kind one.
I wouldn't count on it