"A vegan was rude and stupid to me once the other day, so your movement has now lost any chance of me ever going vegan." - Maybe you've heard this phrase before or even said it out loud yourself. Conversations between vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters can get heated because one's diet is a very emotional topic of conversation. Some stand up for animal rights and the environment, while others feel compelled to justify their behavior. But exactly thereby meat eaters come again and again times the mentioned sentence over the lips.
In this article I would like to check with you briefly and succinctly whether it is really a logical reason to continue eating meat just because a single vegan has behaved brusquely, stupidly, snobbishly, arrogantly and rudely. Let's go!
Was the vegan really rude or does the anger have other causes?
One question in advance: was the vegan really rude? Or was the conversation just exhausting and somehow annoying? I can definitely confirm that many vegans annoy - if only because they wish, or now and then demand in a teacher-like manner, that you change your habits. In the Emotionality of the matter you can then quickly appear rude.
There are millions of vegans and also meat eaters who are rude here and there
But suppose the "herbivore" was really unfriendly. Even vegans are only human - and some people - whether meat eaters or vegans - are just unsympathetic, annoying and anything but nice. But therefore not all others are vegan and also meat eaters also automatically unfriendly!
Even as a vegan you meet unfriendly meat eaters from time to time, the Vegan jokes or provocatively eat raw meat at an animal rights demonstration. But that's not why I hate all other meat eaters in my environment. And apart from that, the unsympathetic provocations of meat eaters are not the reason, why i eat vegan or live vegan.
Would you have gone vegan if he had been nicer?
A question in which there is a lot of subjunctive, but which makes you think. People often claim in discussions that they recently spoke with a much friendlier vegan who was not so rude.
But then why is one still not vegan and instead continues to discuss with the usual Prejudices against the vegan lifestyle? Probably because the conversation was not effective and because you do not feel ready to change yourself. A nice and nodding approving vegan would logically be more sympathetic to most meat eaters. Simply because it does not demand to question one's own way of life and adapt new habits.
Weren't there meat eaters who were rude to you?
If it were really a logical reason to consume meat and animal products for the rest of one's life just because a vegan was rude to one - yes, then one would have to stop eating meat as well, because guaranteed a meat eater was rude to one at one time.
Of course, the argument is nonsense. But it can be used to quickly create a Build a barrier and evade a substantive, much more strenuous discussion.
Here I would like to give you a few more common, comparable everyday examples. They underline how absurd the argument "someone was rude to me and that's why I don't change" actually sounds:
- "A non-smoker was unkind to me the other day, so now I will smoke for the rest of my life."
- "A bicyclist was extremely rude and discourteous to me a few days ago, so from now on I will never ride my bike again."
- "A minimalist was being a total jerk to me last week, so now I buy five things a day for the rest of my life that I don't really need."
Even if someone was unkind to you, these statements simply don't make sense. It would make more sense to simply never talk to the former interlocutor again because he/she was unpleasant to you. But the connection to behaviors like smoking, the Bicycle ride, the minimalist lifestyle or veganism is out of place.
Tip: By the way, another nutrition-related example is. "Hitler was a vegetarian" - as an argument for continuing to eat meat. I have explained whether this argument makes sense in the linked article.
It's an internal contradiction that was rude to you....
"I once knew someone who wasn't nice...and so I think everything, but everything he does is complete nonsense." - Of course, this avoids having to deal with a plant-based diet and the vegan lifestyle at all for the time being. But as argument in a discussion such a strange saying makes naturally no sense. Rather, it reveals one's own, argumentative helplessness – and the cognitive dissonance. This refers to an internal contradiction, which arises, for example, from the fact that one yes Loves animals but eats their body parts anyway.
We hold: All this Animal suffering for one's own lifestyle cannot be justify it simply with the fact that once some vegan was rude to you. We all have bad experiences with other people here and there in our lives. But that doesn't automatically mean that everything these people do is bad.
I hope that this article has helped you. Do you have any questions, tips or suggestions? Then I look forward to your comment.
Be always kind to animals,
PS.: Is eating meat the new smoking? I have dealt with the answer to this question in another blog post. Have fun!
