Do People Argue With You When They Find out You're A Veggie? (salad, animal)
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But if you have made yourself so inflexible in your avoidance of an entire class of foods (outside of a clinical allergy), and you imply to your host that she is a pre-human brute lacking in your refined culture and civilization, than you are in for an argument, if not polite contempt.
how does the mere fact of being vegetarian imply ANYTHING about your hypothetical omnivorous host? guess what dude, my diet is MY diet and only says something about me, not you. what a distressing life you must lead if you feel like every moral (or environmental, or health-related) choice that anyone makes is a judgment on your own choices. hint: most people do not give a crap what you do. you should probably stop worrying about what they do as well.
i mean, yes, if a person says "no thank you, i won't have any meatloaf because it's made from dead cows and people who eat dead cows are evil scum", yeah, i guess it's justified to argue with them. but who actually says that?
Oh, yes, people sometimes will give you crap for being a vegan/tarian if they find out. Either they won't care or they will make a big deal out of it. I never could understand why a person makes a big deal out of someone's eating preferences. I could understand if you ate something weird like liquified rabbit, but I don't see how excluding meat and dairy is weird by any stretch of the imagination.
I think that one of the reasons that people tend to argue with vegetarians is the number of vegetarians who are judgmental about those who don't share their particular diet. Yeah, yeah, I know, you don't ever do that, but look through these threads at the number of posts by people who say that they don't judge others for not being vegetarian and then go on to talk about eating corpses and other such lovely visions that make it absolutely clear that when they say they're not being judgmental they're lying through their teeth (maybe as much to themselves as to others) and are very, very judgmental and not at all good at hiding it. Heck, read many of the threads where this isn't the topic of discussion and see the choices of words used by some. Get enough of those (and they are legion), and when someone says they're vegetarian most people who aren't are going to react as if they're being judged. If vegetarians don't want to be considered judgmental they're probably, fair or not, going to have to look to their fellow vegetarians who give vegetarians a bad name in that regard as one source of the problem if it's to be solved, and come down on those who judge omnivores just as hard as they come down on omnivores who judge vegetarians.
Personally I couldn't care less if people are "offended" if I turn down eating corpses. Imagine how offended the animals are that are killed by the millions, every day, after a life of abuse and torture. I think it is unethical to kill other living, feeling beings for no reason, just to have them on my plate. No one has to starve if they do not eat meat, we aren't living in the cavemen days and it is not about survival anymore. Strangely enough in this country people freak out if people eat cats and dogs in other cultures, yet they think it is perfectly normal and acceptable to eat cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and whatever else they can get their hands on. THAT is offensive, trying to live life not harming other living beings is NOT.
Fortunately I don't have that problem with my friends and family as almost all of them have adopted a meat-free, cruelty-free diet. And the few of our friends left who haven't yet figured it out know not to mess with us about it!
Some of my friends who have become vegan really surprised me when they did, because they really loved eating meat, and cooking meat dishes. But once they learned the truth they happily switched, and I was thrilled, and excited to share my collection of cookbooks with them.
I have a large, heavy-duty canvas bag that holds my meat-free cookbook collection, and it has made the rounds to all of my vegan and vegetarian friends. We keep passing it around, adding to it when we find new recipes we love.
Whenever I hear of another coworker or friend who has given up meat, the first thing I do is let them borrow my bag of cookbooks.
Fortunately I don't have that problem with my friends and family as almost all of them have adopted a meat-free, cruelty-free diet. And the few of our friends left who haven't yet figured it out know not to mess with us about it!
Some of my friends who have become vegan really surprised me when they did, because they really loved eating meat, and cooking meat dishes. But once they learned the truth they happily switched, and I was thrilled, and excited to share my collection of cookbooks with them.
I have a large, heavy-duty canvas bag that holds my meat-free cookbook collection, and it has made the rounds to all of my vegan and vegetarian friends. We keep passing it around, adding to it when we find new recipes we love.
Whenever I hear of another coworker or friend who has given up meat, the first thing I do is let them borrow my bag of cookbooks.
There you go. By your own statements, your default attitude is that people are cruel and ignorant if they do not adopt your own personal dogma, which you will defend with the militant zeal of a Crusader. Where is there room for argument, or even reasoned discourse, against the opening assertion that disagreement is both morally and intellectually defective and indefensible?
You may be right. But that doesn't make everyone else cruel, or unaware of truth. Cruelty is a moral state of mind, and not all truths lead in the same simplistic direction.
There you go. By your own statements, your default attitude is that people are cruel and ignorant if they do not adopt your own personal dogma, which you will defend with the militant zeal of a Crusader. Where is there room for argument, or even reasoned discourse, against the opening assertion that disagreement is both morally and intellectually defective and indefensible?
You may be right. But that doesn't make everyone else cruel, or unaware of truth. Cruelty is a moral state of mind, and not all truths lead in the same simplistic direction.
But I do think people who eat meat are unaware---there is a disconnect about what they are eating. They don't really visualize or think about the chicken being raised in inhumane conditions and then killed just so they can eat some chicken. And how could killing (with the preceding inhumaneness of how meat animals are raised and the pain of being slaughtered and the ending of a life) be considered anything but cruel?
There you go. By your own statements, your default attitude is that people are cruel and ignorant if they do not adopt your own personal dogma, which you will defend with the militant zeal of a Crusader. Where is there room for argument, or even reasoned discourse, against the opening assertion that disagreement is both morally and intellectually defective and indefensible?
The term "cruelty-free" is in common usage in the veg*n community, as well as the companies that market to it. Here's a brief history of the term cruelty-free, and here's a site on shopping cruelty-free.
IMHO, your reaction to missik's use of the term says more about your attitude on the subject than it does about hers.
The term "cruelty-free" is in common usage in the veg*n community, as well as the companies that market to it. Here's a brief history of the term cruelty-free, and here's a site on shopping cruelty-free.
IMHO, your reaction to missik's use of the term says more about your attitude on the subject than it does about hers.
You mean because I have revealed that I resent being called "cruel" because I live my life with different priorities than she does? She may travel in circles in which the word "cruel" does not have its standard dictionary connotations, but that doesn't make it acceptable in general discourse.
It seems to me that the topic of this thread is the argumentation that arises alongside vegetarianism, and my input is that characterizing a behavior as "Cruel" is inappropriate in civil discussion. Perhaps, if she will acknowledge that meat-eating is not cruel (in a recognized ethical sense), in spite of the "common usage", it will say something more about her attitude.
You mean because I have revealed that I resent being called "cruel" because I live my life with different priorities than she does? She may travel in circles in which the word "cruel" does not have its standard dictionary connotations, but that doesn't make it acceptable in general discourse.
I disagree, and I'll point out that this is the Vegetarian forum which is, by definition, one of those "circles" in which veg*ns travel .....
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
It seems to me that the topic of this thread is the argumentation that arises alongside vegetarianism, and my input is that characterizing an advocacy as "Cruel" is inappropriate in civil discussion. Perhaps, if she will acknowledge that meat-eating is not cruel (in a recognized ethical sense), in spite of the "common usage", it will say something more about her attitude.
Obviously, there are many people who think eating meat IS cruel -- in a recognized ethical sense. You don't, and that's your perogative, but that doesn't make it an untrue characterization.
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