“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the space, has a few conversations, realizes they’re surrounded by v**ns, and they have one of two experiences:
a) if they are v**n, they feel like they’ve found their people; or
b) otherwise they immediately feel out of place—maybe they’re stressing: “uh-oh, I’m realizing everyone else here is v**n, I probably need to be very cautious about what I reveal about myself, do I need to hide?”[1] This makes it hard to interact normally and they’re probably on track to silently not returning.
Compare this to a slightly different world where the word never comes up—where you just get what you expected, namely participation in an animal-protection movement which you opted into.
A dogmatic culture
The V-word is the most visible symptom of a broken movement culture causing us to (accidentally) hold a very high bar of commitment, pushing away a wide swath of people early on, right as they are getting oriented.
Imagine if climate activism were gatekept based on whether you, personally, restrict to only electric transit. In this world, common icebreaker questions are “how long have you been electric?” and “how many miles does your car get on a full charge?” You might have taken a diesel train to get there but you definitely shouldn’t mention it. If you took an Uber and the car that picked you up was a hybrid, you’re expected to, at a minimum, request them to turn off the gas engine while driving you to your destination.
I believe this world would have repelled the vast majority of the people who have ever pushed for climate action. And for no good reason!
Diet restrictions have costs, sometimes very high
Our dogmatic culture has a very steep barrier to entry.
I’ve known about the problem of factory farming for decades. I just didn’t do anything about it in my personal life because it was too hard. Now I’m committed to not eating animal products,[2] but I still feel the social costs of my commitment: fortunately not every day anymore, but I definitely feel it whenever I travel, especially I visit my family for holidays.
I think a lot of long-time v**ns underestimate the costs because they either don’t “feel” them, or have already paid and don’t remember:
Your closest family and friends viewing your refusal to eat traditional meals as a betrayal of your relationship.
Being the annoying one in the group who objects to pizza, or otherwise insists on a narrow selection of restaurants that nobody else likes.
Being singled out getting a special meal that looks unappetizing.
Having to throw out your turkey sandwiches, Kraft macaroni, chicken tikka masala, Greek yogurt, or whatever else, and figure out a whole new menu of comfort foods to meet your nutritional needs and inclinations.
Wondering if you are meeting your nutritional needs with your diet, or spending your own money on tests that most people can’t get health insurance to cover.
Minimizing and gaslighting
Worse, everyone is expected at all times to act as though v**nism has no trade-offs and is the easiest thing in the world: if you acknowledge that costs exist, you might discourage someone from trying, or make a committed person question their commitment. You’re undermining the advocacy effort!
I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but this does seem to happen online quite a lot, and I have seen it in person as well. Elizabeth (AcesoUnderGlass), who is one of the most truth-seeking people I know, wrote a long frustrated post after trying to debate v**ns online about health, and her experience didn’t surprise me. There’s an overwhelming amount of soldier mindset in these spaces. I have a lot of empathy about where this advocacy energy is coming from, but we need to try a lot harder to tamp down on it: if anything is “undermining the movement,” it’s lack of compassion and care by our community about others’ unique journeys into caring more about animals.
Celebrity chef influencer Gaz Oakley recently announced that he was no longer v**n:
there’s extremists in every group and they’re often the loudest, which gives a movement that is based off compassion a bad rep…I would never ever, ever eat industrial farmed animals or dairy. I think that is hell and I’ll avoid that at all costs.
Gaz Oakley is someone to look up to, but extremists are tearing him apart,[3] even though he still lives by and preaches the same moral framework which motivates us all on a daily basis: compassion for animals. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and through showing that you don’t have to be perfect, Gaz is likely going to bring more people into compassionate eating and animal protection. Good for him. We need more influencers and role models for people who make different types of commitments, who clearly think about the role they play in pushing for a better world, and who others can emulate. Let them not all be v**n, please!
There are lots of pro-animal people who eat meat
The dogmatic culture is kicking people out early.
The data shows that only 1-3% of people are v**n, and that trend has been steady in developed countries for decades. But it’s obvious that many more people care about animals. Animal videos, zoos, stories of compassion, nature channels. Polling shows that a supermajority are opposed to factory farming when they understand what it is. We are failing to engage people who care—and I think it’s largely because we have accidentally grown this dogmatic culture.
I don’t have rigorous supporting data, but I do have some anecdotal exceptions illustrating what’s possible when we don’t center v**nism:
The Ridglan rescue showed that there are tons of people who care about animals so deeply that they will put their own bodies on the line. I don’t have statistics for you but I know of at least two people who chose to take felony-level risks during that action who eat meat; I expect there are many more but we really didn’t talk about diet almost at all, and so I mostly didn’t learn who is or isn’t v**n. I heard many anecdotes of people who signed up for the action, made friends, trauma bonded, had a deep spiritual experience and only later did we hear that they are now moving to eat less meat, and are getting absorbed into the movement, etc. Ridglan “broke through” into the mainstream media in large part because it wasn’t perceived as a v**n thing: it was just an incredibly compelling, heroic story about everyday people participating in compassionate animal rescue.
I invited a friend to a pro-animal discussion group. He revealed that he eats meat and even had enjoyed going hunting at times. He had a valuable perspective on one of the discussion topics by virtue of not being in the “v**n bubble.” Fortunately I think we did an OK job of welcoming him into that space at that time. We can and must build a much better habit of accepting people where they are as long as they’re interested in contributing to helping animals.
I know many people in effective altruism world who eat animal products and are extraordinarily sympathetic and committed. They donate tremendous amounts of money to pro-animal causes, have a deep understanding of factory farming and the dynamics of making change in the world, and clearly care as much as I do or more—they’re just channeling their care into a different form of activism than personal dietary change.
Lastly, I see tons of activists from a wide swath of society fighting against the “Save Our Bacon” Act. It’s a huge collective, embracing everyone: local farmers who raise animals of their own, people who might eat bacon but hate to see pigs abused, states’ rights libertarians, and animal welfare activists. Again, very little mention of the V-word.
Language can change culture
The problem is the dogmatic culture. Could a cultural solution be as simple as never saying the V-word?
I actually think yes. Think of it this way: Giving a name to something is a powerful way to get people to center the thing. The term “sexual harassment” was deliberately coined in the late 1970s to name a behavior which had been going on for decades but which, prior to the term, was hard to explain as a pattern or to push back against. The term made it possible for activists to point at and explain it, and that was crucial in getting workplaces to stop it.
In our case, we want to do the reverse: stop centering v**nism, especially as an identity and an expectation. The best example I know of is Disney, who carefully taboos the terms “customer” and “employee”, favoring “guest” and “cast member”. Disney’s terminology choices shape cast behavior, which shape the guest experience.
Disney is explicitly swapping one word choice for another, whereas I’m telling you to just stop saying a particular word, forcing you to say whatever it is in more words. I’m not sure this precise intervention has any precedent. Maybe it will fail because it’s too annoying. Let’s find out!
Really? Stop saying the V-word entirely?
Yes really. Reducing animal product consumption is a valid way to make change. Just as switching to electric cars, or giving up air travel, is a way to push on climate change. We should list consumption-reduction as a thing you can do among many. And we should be clear-eyed about its benefits and trade-offs.
Aidan Kankyoku wrote a post called “V**ns are Monks” in which he sketches out a world where tons of people are pro-animal but only a few of them have ascended into the world of eschewing all animal products outright. That world seems great as an end state, but I see no route to that world except for telling a lot of activists to stop saying the V-word in public. Yes it’s a big part of your life, of course you want to talk about it, and I’m saying you have to be a lot more circumspect if you want to help build a successful movement because it’s sucking energy out of onboarding the people we most need in support right now.
Let’s make the V-word a curse word, something that you don’t say in polite company. You can talk about it with friends who you know well, but if you go into a space with strangers and start throwing around the V-word, people should take you aside and explain that’s not very welcoming, we don’t do that here. Stop talking about whether people are v**n, stop talking about what foods are v**n. It’s not helping create the culture we need.
What to do instead
My recommendations:
Icebreaker: “What made you decide to start caring about animals?”
For members of the community: “animal people” seems ok, “pro-animal community” is a bit of a mouthful but works. Suggestions on this are welcome.
You can talk all you want about consumption reduction, you can talk about activism, you can talk about cruelty and factory farming.
You can say that a food “contains animal products”—but ideally be specific about which ones it contains, since different people might care about different things.
You can also talk about “making a commitment to avoid animal products,” and it might make sense in some contexts to ask others to make such a commitment, or to talk about someone breaking their commitment.
Ultimately, you should decide on your own rules! I probably will still say the V-word occasionally, in situations where it’s just too long or annoying to say anything else, or I need to refer to the word itself. But most of the time I’m pretty sure there’s another way to say what I mean, and I’m going to try to internalize it as a curse word because I think it’s a powerful way to change our culture, build our movement and help more animals in the future.
- ^
I’ve had this experience quite a few times in other spaces, especially anti-capitalist spaces where I don’t know if I need to hide that I (e.g.) started a for-profit company and think the profit incentive is good for the world.
- ^
It took a romantic partner who I wanted to impress with my cooking. I wrote about my journey as I was transitioning to a v**n diet.
- ^
The Ed Winters piece I linked was constructively critical, but the commenters are really rough on Gaz. In general it seems like there are a lot of extremists in comments sections in this space.
I’m not involved in animal welfare, so I won’t comment on whether broadening the tent and bringing in meat-eaters is a good thing. That said, if we take that as a given, I still find this solution of tabooing “vegan” rather strange. One direct comparison we could make here would be the 10% pledge. It seems like the community orients to the 10% pledge in much the same way you’d like people to orient towards veganism? It’s a large commitment to your values. It’s to be celebrated. People talk about it openly. But you aren’t expected to have to sign the pledge in order to identify as EA, attend a meeting, post on the Forum, etc.
I would say it would be a very large mistake to taboo the 10% pledge entirely, and avoid mentioning it in polite company. There’s a lot of gap between “Everyone must sign the 10% pledge, or you’re not a real EA and should feel unwelcome here” and “Nobody should ever mention the 10% pledge in public, for fear of driving away newcomers”. EA already seems to handle this well with how the 10% pledge is used. Why shouldn’t that be the model for how to handle other large commitments that should be celebrated but not demanded?
I agree that veganism is getting in the way of animal advocacy. This post makes great points about how veganism alienates the vast majority of humanity. And to me, veganism’s effect on the majority of humanity is actually just the tip of the iceberg of the problem of how veganism harms animals:
To people in the meat, egg, and dairy industries, veganism is worse than alienating. It’s a direct threat. To someone who makes their living in animal agriculture, the word “vegan” can sound like an attack. “Vegan” can sound like, “I am boycotting all animal products because I want you, your company, and your entire industry to go out of business. I want you to fail at everything you’re trying to achieve and lose your livelihood. I hate you, all your colleagues, and your family. I think you are all fundamentally evil.”
That’s not a very friendly message to hear. It doesn’t open a farmer, farm worker, or ag executive up to want to collaborate with animal advocates. It doesn’t open a poultry-industry veterinarian up to want to consider an animal advocate’s perspective. Imagine how scary it would feel to hear a message like that. Imagine how little you’d want to network with, collaborate with, or be influenced by, someone who sends you that kind of message.
Meanwhile, the best thing for animals would be maximal collaboration and communication between animal agriculture and animal advocates. Farmers, ag executives, and others in the meat, egg, and dairy industries are the ones who have the most power to influence animals’ lives for the better. They are the most important audience for animal advocates to speak with. And they are the most important people for us to learn from. So why should we animal advocates constantly threaten them each time we open our mouths?
Nice post; upvoted. I definitely agree that on the margin it would be helpful for vegans to accept and encourage anyone who wants to help animals, and invoking veganism as a litmus test is almost always counterproductive for that.
That said, the framing of veganism as a curse word seems over-corrective to me. Following the “vegans are monks” analogy, telling someone I’m a “monk” in the right social context is positive signaling about my moral seriousness. Learning someone is a “monk” strongly updates me in favor of their moral seriousness. And yes, there are social situations where if you have a friend who’s the right kind of person, it can be acceptable to ask whether they’re interested in “taking the monastic vows”. Rather than avoiding invoking veganism entirely, I’d suggest people be more deliberate about invoking it only when they think it’s genuinely helpful.
I strongly agree with this. Veganism should remain the gold standard. Not everyone has to reach that bar to help animals, but credit where it’s due.
I would say, as a lacto-vegetarian who goes to vegan events, I never felt this way, though I can see how someone could. When asked, “How long have you been vegan?” I clarify that I’m not vegan—that I’ve been vegetarian since January, and, sometimes, that I am thinking about going vegan—and I ask them the question back. Sometimes they’re vegan, sometimes they’re not! But it’s always a nice icebreaker and a fun experience; it’s never been negative for me.
I also think a non-vegan answering the question and hearing back, “That’s completely fine!” or “Oh, that’s cool, I’m flexitarian myself, actually!” shows that the “vegan” community is not just for vegans but for all animal people.
And I do like “animal people” as a term, though. Sounds cool.
I’d also suggest “So, what’s your story?” / “What brings you here?” as an icebreaker, where the context of being at an animal-people event makes it clear what you’re asking, without assuming much.
Well said and broadly on board.
One thing I think is worth clarifying and I’m curious what others think: while it’s good to de-emphasize each individual’s personal diet choices, I’m less sure if it’s good to de-emphasize the overall mission. There is the appeal of presenting a more accessible/less radical message
For example I know many of the leaders/organizations ultimately want to see an end to factory farming. But since this could also alienate people, instead we could talk about freeing dogs, and giving states the right to end the sale and import of cruel practices like caged hens. Those individuals might get more involved only to discover later that the end goal of the orgs they volunteer with is far more radical than initially stated.
On the plus side this means that some of the more agreeable goals have a broader coalition of supporters. On the downside this can lead to people feeling duped and perceiving the movement as lower integrity; like there was a bait and switch. What do people think about this trade-off/risk?
I think there’s a goal to reduce harm and abolish factory farming and that’s a different goal then turning everyone vegan. I think it helps people to also hear they’re personally not the enemy and they’re kinda unwilling consumers of factory farms rather than them being the ones actively commiting atrocities personally. In this sense a goal of ending factory farming (as opposed to turning everyone vegan) does not seem radical at all and most people support this goal very easily even though they eat meat.
Sorry I was imprecise when I said “ending factory farming”, I should have said “ending the consumption of all animal products/meat”, which I do think is what most orgs and org leaders would ultimately want, and would be seen as radical.
I agree that ending factory farming, if we mean to replace it with smaller very high welfare farming, is more agreeable, although again I doubt most people would support it if they knew the amount of meat they could consume and the accompanying price tag.
As a non-vegan, if people tell me they’re vegan I won’t necessarily feel judged but can ensure they get a reasonable choice of food they will feel comfortable eating
Whereas if they describe themselves as a “pro-animal person” it sounds like someone who likes puppies (or if activism is implied, potentially more extreme than vegans, though of course that very much depends on how much they elaborate!). Alternatives like “I prefer plant-based food” sound like a taste preference or fad diet.
Broadly I agree with this, at least on the current margin. One minor wrinkle related to this topic is that in my personal experience people who care about animals and want to help them but eat animal products often show a lot of cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning.
I find there’s a strong desire to not turn towards the cruelty of their own diet and look for solutions that don’t point towards their own moral complicity. For example if someone mostly doesn’t eat red meat or is pescatarian, they might be more likely to deny fish sentience.
Having said that, the animal advocacy movement is prone to doing the opposite: to confer maximum moral value to all farmed animals and believe and promote every argument in favor of animal advocacy and against factory farming.
This sounds plausible to me, though fwiw I also think that this stereotype is another that makes it hard for omnivores to feel fine in animal welfare spaces. I kind of hate people assuming simply from my diet that probably I’m making epistemic mistakes that I refuse to acknowledge, or that I’m pretending to care about animals when I actually don’t.
Obv I agree there’s a strong desire not to turn to the cruelty of your own diet. I think figuring out how to allow ourselves and help each other to live with the terrible suffering in the world we’re not doing things about is one of the big challenges of effective altruism.
Thanks for raising this. I should clarify that the generalisation I’ve made largely applies outside of EA spaces, and the reverse tends to be true in EA spaces, where I find most people, vegan or otherwise, take the suffering of farmed animals pretty seriously.
I agree this is a challenge in EA, and I’m sure its gone well and poorly at different points in time. FWIW my experience over the last few years has been pretty positive where I have felt supported by friends and collaborators who are not vegan in my work as an animal advocate and personally as a vegan. Compared to other spaces I think overall we handle what is a tough dynamic fairly well.
I half agree with this, so let me lay out my position. I basically agree with most or not all of your opinions on concrete failings of animal welfare (or IME, mostly animal rights) culture, including that the emphasis on being vegan is currently overdone in advocacy. But I don’t agree that nobody should be convinced to be vegan, nor that we should taboo the word (which simply represents the ideal point on a diet continuum, although that itself will trigger many v*g*n people) because if the arguments for animal welfare actually convince people, then a lot of people being vegan (or, you know, close to it) is just what the result looks like. So we shouldn’t taboo the word, we should stop treating it as all or nothing.
Let’s start with some basics. Factory farms exist right now and cause enormous suffering. Now imagine a world where they don’t exist. Why don’t they exist in that world? Well, either because there’s no demand for animal products from suffering animals, or there’s no supply of them. Both of those run through people being convinced of the arguments—demand drops when people choose to eat differently, and supply gets restricted when there’s enough political will to regulate it away.
Take the supply side first, because I think it’s the strongest case for the author’s view. I’m sympathetic to a welfarist position here. I can imagine a farm with genuinely good living conditions, enriched environments, animals living good lives and being euthanized as peacefully as possible, and personally I think that would be morally acceptable. Many people here would disagree, but grant it for a second. Even that world needs strong political buy in, because the cost incentives always push welfare down and only sustained public pressure holds the line. Buy in comes from people agreeing with the arguments. People agreeing with the arguments comes from someone convincing them. So the convincing has to happen either way. Not everyone has to do it, and I don’t think it’s hypocritical to pay other people to do it, but it has to get done. And it is my opinion that the person doing the convincing is more credible if they have committed themselves to eating less meat, for example by committing to the ideal of being vegan. It’s a costly signal that they believe what they’re saying.
As an aside, I suspect that even in that high welfare world, meat raised to that standard would be expensive enough that most people would basically be flexitarian by default anyway.
Advocacy that says “vegan or nothing” (or more likely implies it through many “microagressions”) is bad, and marginal changes is a better narrative. But it’s obvious to everyone that vegan is the ideal, and avoiding saying that doesn’t really make sense to me. And I think in practice many people should uphold that ideal personally, for the practical benefit of the costly signal.
I understand where this post is coming from, but I disagree with it pretty strongly. I might write a full post to flesh out my disagreement, but here are my messy thoughts:
I agree with downgrading the importance of being vegan, but I disagree strongly with making it taboo.
Many vegans actually define veganism not as a diet but as an ethical position. I embrace this—I actually think we should broaden the scope of veganism. If you eat vegan normally, and for the right reasons, but make the odd exception (I’m guilty as well!) then I want to say you’re vegan.
Implicit in the framing of this post is that the thing we’re against is factory farming. For me, and I expect many animal advocates, this isn’t enough—I think all killing of animals is murder, and I’m against all of it. This distinction is important because it requires adopting a stronger moral position, which veganism reflects.
The climate change analogy doesn’t work, because emitting some GHGs is morally unproblematic—the problem is how much we emit. Eating animals, however, is always to be complicit in murder.
Yes there is a personal cost. I also experience a cost from not being allowed to murder people—but I don’t question that cost. Similarly, I never question the cost of not eating meat. I would never want to be complicit in murder.
I agree that we should embrace non-vegans in the animal rights movement. We want as many on board as possible. But I would be uncomfortable with non-vegans leading the animal rights movement. I like the ‘monk’ analogy—I want those who are seriously non-speciesist to lead.
Making it taboo is a bit like saying… “being strictly against the murder of innocent children, such that you boycott all products that require the murder of innocent children to be made? We don’t do that here. We’re against the torture of innocent children, but you go ahead and purchase fragments of their corpses if you want.” The alternative, of course is to take an approach where you view veganism as an ideal that all should strive for, but acknowledge that it’s hard, people face different challenges, and so are also not judgy of people who fail to meet that standard. My perception is that many animal advocacy groups already do this well.
I’ve had issues with the V-word as well. My biggest problem with it is it simply doesn’t represent the nuance of my own views. I often find myself easing into it; ‘I don’t eat meat’ → ‘I don’t want to support factory farming’… and then calibrate from there based off receptivity. More recently as well I’ve had more experiences with hyper-vigilant vegans who seem to be far more concerned with personal purity than impact, even if they don’t realise it.
Expressing myself as against factory farming specifically is what I’ve found to be the most effective as it doesn’t attack the identity in the same way because it’s not a commentary on diet, which people often take to be a part of themselves.
I’m unsure about specifics (maybe “curse word” is too much), but I like the general direction of thought presented here. It reminded me of Matt Ball’s “The End of Veganism”: https://mattball.substack.com/p/the-end-of-veganism