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Everything I've seen suggests to me that most people's annoyance with perceived "preachy" vegans comes from cognitive dissonance around being forced to confront

Everything I've seen suggests to me that most people's annoyance with perceived "preachy" vegans comes from cognitive dissonance around being forced to confront that vegans have a good point. Why confront real issues when you can make a bacon joke and say "oh, I could never give up cheese"? It's like when talking with someone who is very disciplined about exercise. Many will say something like "wow you're so lucky to have such good genes" to deflect from the fact that they're just not willing to put in that level of work. And I say that as someone who is not vegan, and is pretty lax with exercise.

unanswered 5y ago
> being forced to confront that vegans have a good point That you/they take it as a moral right to force people to do anything, even to consider some point, demonstrates the very moral corruptness that people hate about vegans.
- JadeNB 5y ago
  > That you/they take it as a moral right to force people to do anything, even to consider some point, demonstrates the very moral corruptness that people hate about vegans. I think in no other context on Hacker News, which is a hive of far-reaching intellectual curiosity, would it be taken as a negative to claim that confronting someone with a possibly uncomfortable point would be taken as moral corruption. (Note that 'forcing' here is not in the sense of, say, using physical force to compel someone; it is just in the sense of presenting information, so that people's only possible responses are to consider that information or somehow to ignore or discount it without acknowledging it.)
- delecti 5y ago
  The power of an argument is plainly not "force" in its own right. Nit picking a figure of speech like "forced to confront" is not a persuasive point.
SllX 5y ago
The end goal of the radical vegan moralists is to legally reshape my cuisine and the cuisine of the majority of people to match their preferences. Not all vegans share that view but often independently come very close to it or could still be swayed into a more radical world view. Deflecting is a polite way of terminating a conversation that can otherwise get very ugly and end friendships and/or further entrench and radicalize the counter-party in the conversation; not a concession to the quality or lack thereof of their points. Or to put it another way, when someone suggests I try a vegan diet, my first instinct is respond in a respectful way with an understandable and relatable reason why I will not, not to hammer them in the face with the truth that I will continue to guiltlessly eat God’s creatures until the day I die and I will raise my kids the same way.
- kaycebasques 5y ago
  It seems like you're strawmanning and radicalizing our conversation here a bit by focusing on radical vegan moralists. As a vegan of 2 years I can tell you that a supermajority of the vegans I know would not endorse *legally* reshaping anyone's cuisine. The radical segment of any social movement is usually the minority. Your argumentation here seems similar to completely denouncing Christianity, Political Party XYZ, or even Silicon Valley because of its most radical segment.
  - SllX 5y ago
    Note that I gave no indication that they were more than a fringe and pointed out that they were not well representative of vegans as a whole. Radicals are by definition the fringe and don’t need additional qualifiers, particularly in a sentence that was loaded with them (vegan moralists are also not representative of vegans; many vegans are vegan for pure dietary reasons or personal preference). My real point was this if you read past the first paragraph: if you care about politeness, keeping friendships and not hammering people in the face with what you actually think, you know, all the things that can further radicalize people, then deflection is the best course of action. This deflection should not be viewed as an implicit concession that somebody has a good point.
nitrogen 5y ago
most people's annoyance with perceived "preachy" vegans comes from cognitive dissonance Let's consider other "preachy" sources to see if this argument holds weight. Consider replacing "vegans" in this sentence with morally motivated religious evangelists of any kind, or morally motivated pro-/anti-abortion activists, or morally motivated homophobes, or MS/Apple/GNU fanboys/girls. So no, it's not that people think the preachy group might have some kind of point, it's the preachiness, smugness, and righteous superiority itself that is the problem. The idea that this one group with such a narrow focus has discovered the one true superior way is what's the problem. It's counterproductive to whatever goals the group claims to represent. Moral guilt tripping is a lazy way to shortcut arguments.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  What if no one is guilt tripping but the other side is just uncomfortable as hell with their own easy acceptance of the status quo?
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    That right there is the textbook definition of guilt tripping. This line can be applied to literally every side of every argument. It has no content, no explanatory power, it's just another excuse for attempted manipulation.
  - cheese_goddess 5y ago
    How about "meat is murder"? You don't think that's guilt tripping? Or that it's actually an extremely aggressive thing to say that's likely to upset some people?
jrm4 5y ago
I do think it cuts both ways; veganism is extremely strange. The strangeness does not prove that it is good or bad -- but absolute veganism (as perhaps distinguishable from other historically popular, frequently religious diet practices) is wildly out of line with nearly all humans in all of human history -- and could reasonably appear to be overly simplistic. So, I think the "vegans that are complained about" are nearly always the folks who don't much take this into account.
- boston_clone 5y ago
  Conversely, it can easily be argued that it is paradoxical to normalize the slaughter and consumption of animals while simultaneously holding the belief that they should be protected (e.g. animal abuse laws). Approaching how we life our lives primarily from an ethical lens can lead to all sorts of uncomfortable or strange conclusions, however.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    Exactly, one day no human will consume meat. There are many reasons why but the popularity of it now stems from humans dealing with starvation--which we are still dealing with. If I have a variety of vegetables and grains I don't even think about meat. We are privileged to be able to not eat meat. It is something I give thanks for. We glorify it but the act of eating meat is not dignified. The time we can salvage any sort of dignity is by not killing the animal, not processing it, and eating only the parts that deemed worthy by our culture (the tender parts that chew easily).
    - jrm4 5y ago
      "One day no human will consume meat." If I had some time-travel-y way to bet my entire life savings against this prediction, I would.* (*yeah, someone's going to get persnickety here. As long as humans are around, I believe some are going to eat meat.)
      - logfromblammo 5y ago
s1artibartfast 5y ago
I think this could be part of their reaction, but a bigger part is a natural inclination to belittle people who claim to have a moral High Ground or superiority. In my experience, begin to frame things as a personal choice that they made without implying judgment on others simply don't get the same response
4eleven7 5y ago
Vegans do have a good point, however, for the majority of the population food is just something that they crave, eat for taste, or because it is thrust in their face daily by corporations. They aren't doing it for the sake of killing, and therefore the point that vegans make isn't something people consider nor care for. I personally think your diet should be based on nutrition, with morals and the environment following a close second.
- boston_clone 5y ago
  That's the rub, though - we know that vegetarian (including vegan) diets are nutritionally complete and applicable at virtually all stages of life [0], yet people make choices that result in hundreds of billions of animals being slaughtered each year. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies eating meat is extraordinarily pervasive [1]. 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat...
  - KSteffensen 5y ago
    Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering an animal for meat if that animal has been raised in good conditions and the actual killing happens with a minimum of pain and fear for the animal? I get why foie gras is problematic, but I don't see the problem in a leg of lamb.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      > Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong. There needs to be at least a base agreement on some ethics before diving into an ethical debate, and if you don't see a problem with needlessly killing animals, then this exchange will be worthless. Extend the reasoning of how we know it's wrong to raise and kill a human for our own consumption to animals, and we arrive at veganism. Please see my second citation in the parent comment for a better overview.
zamadatix 5y ago
> comes from cognitive dissonance around being forced to confront that vegans have a good point. The problem on polarized issues is rarely "one side knows they have no good points and are just trying to avoid that the other side does". Really this mindset would be part of the preachyness problem in the first place, the idea that the only reason people don't like this side is they know this side is right so why aren't they just admitting it! > Why confront real issues when you can make a bacon joke and say "oh, I could never give up cheese"? I agree with this but probably in a different meaning than you meant. It's not by default "I don't want to deal with the consequences of their valid stance so I'll deflect until it goes away" it's a "I really don't want to deal with the religious guy handing out bibles when I'm just going to the café for a coffee, I'll just joke with him I couldn't live without <choice of sin here> every night instead of risking dealing with a surprise preachy interaction again". The interaction gave no hint of who actually had or knew they didn't have the right stance about religion. > It's like when talking with someone who is very disciplined about exercise. Many will say something like "wow you're so lucky to have such good genes" to deflect from the fact that they're just not willing to put in that level of work. In some situations like this example they probably know they aren't doing the right thing, in others (as given in the example above) that's not the case. That some topics are so is not evidence one way or another about another topic being so. The only common theme is that it was uncomfortable for the person deflecting, not the reason it was uncomfortable.

unanswered 5y ago

> being forced to confront that vegans have a good point That you/they take it as a moral right to force people to do anything, even to consider some point, demonstrates the very moral corruptness that people hate about vegans.

JadeNB 5y ago
> That you/they take it as a moral right to force people to do anything, even to consider some point, demonstrates the very moral corruptness that people hate about vegans. I think in no other context on Hacker News, which is a hive of far-reaching intellectual curiosity, would it be taken as a negative to claim that confronting someone with a possibly uncomfortable point would be taken as moral corruption. (Note that 'forcing' here is not in the sense of, say, using physical force to compel someone; it is just in the sense of presenting information, so that people's only possible responses are to consider that information or somehow to ignore or discount it without acknowledging it.)
delecti 5y ago
The power of an argument is plainly not "force" in its own right. Nit picking a figure of speech like "forced to confront" is not a persuasive point.

SllX 5y ago

The end goal of the radical vegan moralists is to legally reshape my cuisine and the cuisine of the majority of people to match their preferences. Not all vegans share that view but often independently come very close to it or could still be swayed into a more radical world view. Deflecting is a polite way of terminating a conversation that can otherwise get very ugly and end friendships and/or further entrench and radicalize the counter-party in the conversation; not a concession to the quality or lack thereof of their points. Or to put it another way, when someone suggests I try a vegan diet, my first instinct is respond in a respectful way with an understandable and relatable reason why I will not, not to hammer them in the face with the truth that I will continue to guiltlessly eat God’s creatures until the day I die and I will raise my kids the same way.

kaycebasques 5y ago
It seems like you're strawmanning and radicalizing our conversation here a bit by focusing on radical vegan moralists. As a vegan of 2 years I can tell you that a supermajority of the vegans I know would not endorse *legally* reshaping anyone's cuisine. The radical segment of any social movement is usually the minority. Your argumentation here seems similar to completely denouncing Christianity, Political Party XYZ, or even Silicon Valley because of its most radical segment.
- SllX 5y ago
  Note that I gave no indication that they were more than a fringe and pointed out that they were not well representative of vegans as a whole. Radicals are by definition the fringe and don’t need additional qualifiers, particularly in a sentence that was loaded with them (vegan moralists are also not representative of vegans; many vegans are vegan for pure dietary reasons or personal preference). My real point was this if you read past the first paragraph: if you care about politeness, keeping friendships and not hammering people in the face with what you actually think, you know, all the things that can further radicalize people, then deflection is the best course of action. This deflection should not be viewed as an implicit concession that somebody has a good point.

nitrogen 5y ago

most people's annoyance with perceived "preachy" vegans comes from cognitive dissonance Let's consider other "preachy" sources to see if this argument holds weight. Consider replacing "vegans" in this sentence with morally motivated religious evangelists of any kind, or morally motivated pro-/anti-abortion activists, or morally motivated homophobes, or MS/Apple/GNU fanboys/girls. So no, it's not that people think the preachy group might have some kind of point, it's the preachiness, smugness, and righteous superiority itself that is the problem. The idea that this one group with such a narrow focus has discovered the one true superior way is what's the problem. It's counterproductive to whatever goals the group claims to represent. Moral guilt tripping is a lazy way to shortcut arguments.

datavirtue 5y ago
What if no one is guilt tripping but the other side is just uncomfortable as hell with their own easy acceptance of the status quo?
- nitrogen 5y ago
  That right there is the textbook definition of guilt tripping. This line can be applied to literally every side of every argument. It has no content, no explanatory power, it's just another excuse for attempted manipulation.
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  How about "meat is murder"? You don't think that's guilt tripping? Or that it's actually an extremely aggressive thing to say that's likely to upset some people?

jrm4 5y ago

I do think it cuts both ways; veganism is extremely strange. The strangeness does not prove that it is good or bad -- but absolute veganism (as perhaps distinguishable from other historically popular, frequently religious diet practices) is wildly out of line with nearly all humans in all of human history -- and could reasonably appear to be overly simplistic. So, I think the "vegans that are complained about" are nearly always the folks who don't much take this into account.

boston_clone 5y ago
Conversely, it can easily be argued that it is paradoxical to normalize the slaughter and consumption of animals while simultaneously holding the belief that they should be protected (e.g. animal abuse laws). Approaching how we life our lives primarily from an ethical lens can lead to all sorts of uncomfortable or strange conclusions, however.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Exactly, one day no human will consume meat. There are many reasons why but the popularity of it now stems from humans dealing with starvation--which we are still dealing with. If I have a variety of vegetables and grains I don't even think about meat. We are privileged to be able to not eat meat. It is something I give thanks for. We glorify it but the act of eating meat is not dignified. The time we can salvage any sort of dignity is by not killing the animal, not processing it, and eating only the parts that deemed worthy by our culture (the tender parts that chew easily).
  - jrm4 5y ago
    "One day no human will consume meat." If I had some time-travel-y way to bet my entire life savings against this prediction, I would.* (*yeah, someone's going to get persnickety here. As long as humans are around, I believe some are going to eat meat.)
    - logfromblammo 5y ago

s1artibartfast 5y ago

I think this could be part of their reaction, but a bigger part is a natural inclination to belittle people who claim to have a moral High Ground or superiority. In my experience, begin to frame things as a personal choice that they made without implying judgment on others simply don't get the same response

4eleven7 5y ago

Vegans do have a good point, however, for the majority of the population food is just something that they crave, eat for taste, or because it is thrust in their face daily by corporations. They aren't doing it for the sake of killing, and therefore the point that vegans make isn't something people consider nor care for. I personally think your diet should be based on nutrition, with morals and the environment following a close second.

boston_clone 5y ago
That's the rub, though - we know that vegetarian (including vegan) diets are nutritionally complete and applicable at virtually all stages of life [0], yet people make choices that result in hundreds of billions of animals being slaughtered each year. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies eating meat is extraordinarily pervasive [1]. 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat...
- KSteffensen 5y ago
  Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering an animal for meat if that animal has been raised in good conditions and the actual killing happens with a minimum of pain and fear for the animal? I get why foie gras is problematic, but I don't see the problem in a leg of lamb.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    > Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong. There needs to be at least a base agreement on some ethics before diving into an ethical debate, and if you don't see a problem with needlessly killing animals, then this exchange will be worthless. Extend the reasoning of how we know it's wrong to raise and kill a human for our own consumption to animals, and we arrive at veganism. Please see my second citation in the parent comment for a better overview.

zamadatix 5y ago

> comes from cognitive dissonance around being forced to confront that vegans have a good point. The problem on polarized issues is rarely "one side knows they have no good points and are just trying to avoid that the other side does". Really this mindset would be part of the preachyness problem in the first place, the idea that the only reason people don't like this side is they know this side is right so why aren't they just admitting it! > Why confront real issues when you can make a bacon joke and say "oh, I could never give up cheese"? I agree with this but probably in a different meaning than you meant. It's not by default "I don't want to deal with the consequences of their valid stance so I'll deflect until it goes away" it's a "I really don't want to deal with the religious guy handing out bibles when I'm just going to the café for a coffee, I'll just joke with him I couldn't live without <choice of sin here> every night instead of risking dealing with a surprise preachy interaction again". The interaction gave no hint of who actually had or knew they didn't have the right stance about religion. > It's like when talking with someone who is very disciplined about exercise. Many will say something like "wow you're so lucky to have such good genes" to deflect from the fact that they're just not willing to put in that level of work. In some situations like this example they probably know they aren't doing the right thing, in others (as given in the example above) that's not the case. That some topics are so is not evidence one way or another about another topic being so. The only common theme is that it was uncomfortable for the person deflecting, not the reason it was uncomfortable.