Small point here but unless you think that even after adjusting for partisanship working-class or rural Americans are more likely to oppose animal welfare action, I would take out the part about working class and rural and just leave right-wing. Otherwise, it just detracts from epistemic value as people create stereotypes about what political parties’ voting bases look like.
I’d guess that does still hold after adjusting, but I did take it out.
One thing is that I’d guess working class, rural people are more likely to work in some area at least adjacent to the meat/fish/food industry, and so the vegetarian movement would go against their livelihood, which might make them more likely to oppose it. To be clear, I’m not blaming those people. I think the city-dwelling meat eater who deliberately shields themselves from the unpleasant sight of the process that makes their food is much more troublesome.
Also, working class areas just don’t have vegan food available as much.
I’m sure many farmers do care about their animals.
I have opposite intuition actually—I’d guess that people closer to animals have more empathy for their suffering. Either way I think this is mostly orthogonal to the cultural values of masculinity you are talking about.
As someone who spent quite a bit of time in cattle country in Canada, I can say that your intuition is right. People living by these animals do truly tend to care are about them. On the other hand, killing them is central to their entire way of life and the core of their economy. Without the animals, there would be no rural for much of Canada. Additionally, the difficulty of even modern rural life seems to create a certain hardness that is okay with animal death/suffering and that hardness exists alongside their love for their animals.
Small point here but unless you think that even after adjusting for partisanship working-class or rural Americans are more likely to oppose animal welfare action, I would take out the part about working class and rural and just leave right-wing. Otherwise, it just detracts from epistemic value as people create stereotypes about what political parties’ voting bases look like.
I’d guess that does still hold after adjusting, but I did take it out.
One thing is that I’d guess working class, rural people are more likely to work in some area at least adjacent to the meat/fish/food industry, and so the vegetarian movement would go against their livelihood, which might make them more likely to oppose it. To be clear, I’m not blaming those people. I think the city-dwelling meat eater who deliberately shields themselves from the unpleasant sight of the process that makes their food is much more troublesome.
Also, working class areas just don’t have vegan food available as much.
I’m sure many farmers do care about their animals.
I have opposite intuition actually—I’d guess that people closer to animals have more empathy for their suffering. Either way I think this is mostly orthogonal to the cultural values of masculinity you are talking about.
As someone who spent quite a bit of time in cattle country in Canada, I can say that your intuition is right. People living by these animals do truly tend to care are about them. On the other hand, killing them is central to their entire way of life and the core of their economy. Without the animals, there would be no rural for much of Canada. Additionally, the difficulty of even modern rural life seems to create a certain hardness that is okay with animal death/suffering and that hardness exists alongside their love for their animals.
I also have that intuition.