Comment by jorvi

Comment by jorvi 2 days ago

You're a reasonable / pragmatic vegan. Vegans that won't eat meat because of the kill are ideological / dogmatic vegans.

There's even a small amount of vegans that consider lab meat to be something immoral (how they loop their head around that one, I do not know).

I'm currently dating a girl that's vegan and is super chill about it, but when I was 16 I dated a vegan girl also. My mother made two separate dishes for her, one specifically with esoteric stuff she would like (Christmas being special and all that). Then my mother made the mistake of quickly flipping some burning food with some meat in it, then using the same spatula to muddle the vegan dish. That girlfriend immediately said she would not eat that dish.

I nearly decided to break up with her at that moment.

I'm never quite sure it it's anecdata, but it always feels like there are much more obnoxiously stringent vegans than there are obnoxious meat eaters.

On the other hand, I've seen firsthand how vegans have to consistently defend their lifestyle choice, because by making that choice they reveal the "default" was never really that. Same with those who chose to be sober.

r00fus 2 days ago

These dogmatic vegans aren't born that way - they're created by a completely unethical farming environment and detachment from farm life as /u/partition mentioned.

As I grow up I am beginning to realize just how many "bad personalities" and "horrible life choices" are really just driven by a poor environment - and that speaks more of our society and governance than the individuals.

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dowager_dan99 2 days ago

part of Western society ethos is our quick action within any sort of realm to "pick X; be a dick about it"

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papertokyo 2 days ago

I absolutely love this characterization of modern discourse.

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SoftTalker 2 days ago

> Vegans that won't eat meat because of the kill are ideological / dogmatic vegans

I've never met any other kind of vegan person. If they were concerned only about the living conditions of the animals, then they would eat free-range ethically-raised meat. They don't. Even if it's really free-range and not what the government allows to be called "free-range."

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kelnos 2 days ago

Eh, not sure I buy that interpretation. Ensuring that the meat you eat only comes from ethical sources is hard, especially if you eat at restaurants, or if you eat food that other people have cooked. (Do you really want to be that person who goes to someone's house for dinner and on-the-spot refuses to eat because their host isn't sure of the provenance of the meat?) It can also be significantly more expensive. It would be entirely reasonable to decide to give up meat rather than deal with all that, if it matters to you.
And on top of that it does make a statement about one's values. Even if someone was ok with doing all that homework, they might want to give up meat as a form of protest against all the factory animal farming out there.

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meowface 2 days ago

I think I and most vegans also wouldn't eat it. It has nothing to do with rudeness or even the specific ethics of that situation or something. Just I wouldn't be able to physically stomach it. I would feel guilty but I wouldn't be able to eat it.

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jack_pp 2 days ago

Best course of action imo is watch yourself in that moment, understand that people are going above and beyond for you even though they don't fully understand you, they are trying to accept you. I'd go to the bathroom, try to reason with myself that no animals are being killed specifically for you, the accidental touch won't give any flavour to your dish and it's all in your head. There's no ethical issues whatsoever in that situation.
If after that you still can't make yourself eat it then you should apologize, explain it to them, tell them you tried to make yourself but couldn't and I bet you'd get a LOT more sympathy.

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