As someone who ignored the pleas of my vegan sister for many many years, I have been on the gaslighting side I guess (and now feel awful about it). Then I discovered EA and became vegan, so I think there is something here about how different arguments work for different people. But, I do still really find it confusing the most people don’t care about animal suffering—I am now so totally 110% convinced, and I don’t even like animals very much, so how do animals lovers still eat meat???
I’m the same way. I don’t like animals all that much, I find them kind of gross and annoying tbh (especially farmed animals), and my favorite food ever used to be bbq, by a wide margin. But even someone like me is still able to recognize they don’t deserve to suffer for me, and stop, so how is it so hard? I feel like I’m not even all that compassionate either
I left religion, and had to explore ethics/morality beyond “whatever the bible says is right”. I went in a pretty utilitarian direction, and then arguing with my dad about how you can have morality without god, he said “but wouldn’t that include animals too?” And I initially said yes, any reasonable moral framework should be able to tell you that e.g. kicking dogs is wrong, but thinking about it more got me to veganism.
it’s definitely not reason alone, I really don’t like suffering/pain, so I’m probably more emotionally against it in general (i.e. even when it’s not me experiencing it) than a lot of people?
I will say too that I don’t dislike all animals, I like hanging out with some cats and dogs
I think it was more having the arguments put forth to me by people I thought of as more rational (my sister tends towards the dramatic in general*, I think that made it easier to avoid her arguments). But yeah having numbers and data definitely helped, and adding in the climate change POV rather than solely focussing on the more confronting animal welfare aspects. Its like, that got me over the cognitive dissonce and then once on the other side all the animal welfare arguments could suddenly sink in.
*not to be too harsh to my sister, we were also just teenagers and sisters are annoying haha, but once we were older, for actually implementing the diet in my life, she was very very helpful :)
As someone who ignored the pleas of my vegan sister for many many years, I have been on the gaslighting side I guess (and now feel awful about it). Then I discovered EA and became vegan, so I think there is something here about how different arguments work for different people. But, I do still really find it confusing the most people don’t care about animal suffering—I am now so totally 110% convinced, and I don’t even like animals very much, so how do animals lovers still eat meat???
I’m the same way. I don’t like animals all that much, I find them kind of gross and annoying tbh (especially farmed animals), and my favorite food ever used to be bbq, by a wide margin. But even someone like me is still able to recognize they don’t deserve to suffer for me, and stop, so how is it so hard? I feel like I’m not even all that compassionate either
i find this very interesting. so would you say you come by the idea of avoiding animal products mainly by reason alone?
I left religion, and had to explore ethics/morality beyond “whatever the bible says is right”. I went in a pretty utilitarian direction, and then arguing with my dad about how you can have morality without god, he said “but wouldn’t that include animals too?” And I initially said yes, any reasonable moral framework should be able to tell you that e.g. kicking dogs is wrong, but thinking about it more got me to veganism.
it’s definitely not reason alone, I really don’t like suffering/pain, so I’m probably more emotionally against it in general (i.e. even when it’s not me experiencing it) than a lot of people?
I will say too that I don’t dislike all animals, I like hanging out with some cats and dogs
I think it was more having the arguments put forth to me by people I thought of as more rational (my sister tends towards the dramatic in general*, I think that made it easier to avoid her arguments). But yeah having numbers and data definitely helped, and adding in the climate change POV rather than solely focussing on the more confronting animal welfare aspects. Its like, that got me over the cognitive dissonce and then once on the other side all the animal welfare arguments could suddenly sink in.
*not to be too harsh to my sister, we were also just teenagers and sisters are annoying haha, but once we were older, for actually implementing the diet in my life, she was very very helpful :)