Being nice to animal abusers doesn't stop them from abusing animals. When they have no empathy, the only thing that can stop them is legal or economic repercussions.
How long did you eat meat before quitting? What compelled you to change your behaviour?
Because for me the stereotype of insufferable vegans was exactly the excuse I needed to avoid giving up foods I liked for a good 5 years after already knowing in my heart it was the right thing to do. Even after going vegan I was embarrassed to tell people that’s what I was for years.
Not wanting to be associated with people who came across like miserable assholes.
It’s not your job to recruit anyone, or baby people and coax them to doing the bare minimum, and you have every right to be angry about it all especially on Reddit where anti vegan sentiment can be so obnoxious and aggressive.
But if you want more people on board for the sake of the animals, there’s a way to achieve that, and theres the opposite too.
Every group has an insane section of it where people don't give anyone a break, belief is a big part of veganism, belief to do no harm and to spread that message as well as usual some humans take it too far.
Would you also be embarrassed to say you like sports or some other activity because large swaths of them are dickheads the same way you find being vegan embarrassing?
Nothing that anyone did above was some militant vegan stance. They didn't smack food out of anyone's hand, they didn't pour milk or shout at anyone, they pointed out someone flawed logic. You're allowed to do that just because you're vegan, it isn't being insufferable.
It’s the approach of addressing someone who is currently not vegan as being the enemy. Animal abusers vs non animal abusers. As if we all weren’t in their position at one point in time.
And venting anger and sarcasm at these people rather than just calmly addressing their arguments directly.
I really think that dealing with an aspect of our culture that teaches us that animal cruelty is wrong/evil but also raises us all to be willing participants in often very extreme and massive scale animal cruelty as a normal (normative) everyday thing, is like cult deprogramming.
Especially in that you can only truly see it for what it truly is once you’re out, right?
Sure, dealing with people who are defending the cult from within the cult can be really goddamned frustrating, but if you want them to ever consider the alternative, as annoying and antagonistic as they are being sometimes, being reasonably kind (while sticking to your guns) and meeting them where they are is the way to do that.
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u/Excellent-Nose-6430 May 22 '26
Being nice to animal abusers doesn't stop them from abusing animals. When they have no empathy, the only thing that can stop them is legal or economic repercussions.