In Praise of Vegans and Vegetarians
Why carnivores get angry with plant-based eaters.
People have lots of opinions about vegans. Now we finally know why.
For some, a vegan so much as existing can trigger all kinds of feelings of rage and annoyance. The stereotypical image of a preachy, heavily tatted hipster vegan or vegetarian still dominates western cultural imagination––even though globally, most vegetarians are Indian and probably have no idea what PETA is.
According to a new study, carnivores are like bullies. They don’t actually hate vegans or vegetarians. Who they really hate is… (cue the introspective music) themselves.
“A new study suggests it’s not the lifestyle itself, but how it makes others feel about their own choices. Spoiler: not great. Scientists say that for many carnivores, seeing someone happily munch on a meat-free meal brings up a cocktail of envy, insecurity, and quiet rage.”
That’s when the light bulb went off. Of course. That makes total sense.
It all reminds me of when, while still living in Cleveland, it would come up in conversation that I purposely didn’t own a car.
The response was almost always some form of the following:
“Well, I need a car to do X, Y, and Z.”
The tone turned immediately defensive. They’d explain why they needed a car or try to poke holes in my preference not to own a car, even though I wasn’t trying to start a debate.
“But how would you get to X?”
“There’s a bus.”
Cue classicist guffaw.
“What if there was an emergency and for some reason-I’m-making-up-on-the-spot, there’s no bus or train running to where you need to go?”
The back-and-forth would continue until I agreed that, in whatever scenario they concocted, I would admit to needing a car. And this admission in my part would seem to justify their car ownership or use across the board, kind of like when a meat eater says, “but what about lions!? Should they be vegetarians!?”
“Well, no. They’re not meant…”
And then they tune out, because all they wanted to hear was some version of “it’s okay to eat meat” or “it’s okay to drive everywhere” to feel vindicated of whatever wrong they think they might be guilty of.
The anger is wild on both counts, because I’ve never told someone they should get rid of their car or that they should be a vegetarian or vegan. Yet there’s often this defensiveness as if my personal preferences are a judgement on their character.
But the defensiveness makes sense when you consider this study, suggesting that meat eaters are actually judging themselves.
“Do I really need to eat meat that much?”
I suspect the answer to that questions is: “No.”
But change is hard! Doubly so when you don’t actually want to change. Ditching my car and becoming vegetarian was easy for me because they were my preferences. Nobody was preaching to me to make these changes. I actually think the approach of some vegan-friendly organizations to aggressively shame people is idiotic and probably makes people double down on their meat eating.
I find the revelation from this study that vegans elicit feelings of “contempt” and “anger” among meat eaters particularly interesting, because it’s the vegans and vegetarians who are so often portrayed as the ‘difficult’ ones. Recently on a trip, I overhead a guy say that he would never date a vegetarian as a rule.
“Why?” someone asked.
The guy’s eyes bulged with surprise, incredulous that the answer weren’t as obvious as the color of healthy grass. They might as well have asked him, “Why wouldn’t you date an axe murderer?”
“Have you ever tried to go out to eat with a vegetarian?” he shot back before mimicking an imaginary vegetarian with a whiny voice (vegans and vegetarians seem to always have whiny, prepubescent voices in the imagination of meat eaters where we live rent free). “Do they have anything vegetarian?”
Oh, the horror! Someone you hope will later do unspeakable acts to your tiny schmeckle deigned to inquire if a restaurant will have something they might like to eat. What a trash human.
It’s funny how for some meat eaters, inquiring for vegetarian or vegan food options is an offense so outrageous as to warrant social exile. In the meantime, we have to listen to them bitch and moan about what they could possibly eat at a vegan or vegetarian restaurant as if they’ll wither away should they not consume flesh for every single meal.
(Keep in mind, this whole eating-meat-all-the-damn-time thing is a wildly recent development in human history and not a particularly healthy one no matter how you look at it.)
The truth is, I’ve yet to meet a vegetarian or vegan who doesn’t care deeply for animal welfare or isn’t worried about the disastrous environmental impact of industrialized agriculture. But I have met meat eaters who remain unmoved by the heinous conditions of pigsties, chicken coops, and cattle sheds––conditions any carnivore would rather remain ignorant of than come face to face with the reality of their dinner.
You can tell yourself all you want that you get your meat ethically sourced from a local farmer who hums lullabies to their cattle for years before sending them out for slaughter. But do you know that’s how the restaurant you’re sitting down at gets their meat? Even so, in what world does a server admit, “Nah, bro, we get the cheapest shit we can on the market. Our pork is chock full of chemicals to make them as abnormally large as possible. They live truly miserable lives.”
We all lie to ourselves to excuse our worst behaviors. I certainly do it.
“I gotta take that overseas flight because people just need this story.”
No, you dummy. You just want a cool experience. Getting paid to do a story is a bonus.
This newsletter currently sits at 321 subscribers. That’s too many for me to know who exactly reads this thing. But considering vegans are just 1% of the global population (vegetarians are roughly 22% thanks largely to India), I suspect most of you are meat eaters. The last thing I want to do is alienate any of you, especially because I’ve just launched paid subscription plans that I hope you’ll consider!
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That shamelessness aside, I’m not here to preach. Like I said, I don’t think it works anyways––no matter the cause. But I will say, if the mere existence of a vegetarian or vegan starts to spark feelings of, as the study says, fear, envy, contempt, and anger, then perhaps a bit of reflection is in order.
The science is in. It’s not me, it’s you.
(That’s a rhetorical you. I think you’re great! No self-reflection necessary, whatsoever.)
What else is new?
Read this: I wrote about run streaks ( no, not that kind) for Outside. One of the folks I interviewed, Jim Pearson, has gone for a run every day for the past 55 years. Hot damn, that’s consistency!
Next adventure: On Thursday, I’m heading out to Alsace, France to run the Trail des Celtes 50K. It’ll be my first true ultra marathon of the year.