4 ms·

so vegans are smug and proselytizing, and your non-vegan daughter goes around calling what they eat junk food, trying to get them to switch diets. interesting.

beat 12y ago
I don't think you understand. She tries to teach them to cook good vegan food. She totally respects their choice to be vegan. She worries that they're eating factory food from a box rather than something more natural and healthier. She would never, ever try to make a vegan break their veganism. She will make them food that is tastier and more nutritious than what they normally eat, but is still vegan.
- RodericDay 12y ago
  I don't think you understand. She is trying to get them to eat something different (proselytizing), for reasons that she believes are important and true, even though they don't currently agree with her themselves (smug). Sounds a lot like ethical vegans to me.
  - beat 12y ago
    It's one thing to try to make people better at their own diet, and another thing to try to make them choose another diet. Not all help is proselytizing. There's a TREMENDOUS difference between "I understand you're a vegan, here's some homemade lentil stew that's better for you than the potato chips you're eating", and "You are a filthy murderer for eating that burger!", or "You're a stupid pansy who needs to eat a burger!" If you can't understand that distinction...
    - RodericDay 12y ago
      That's not the difference between proselytizing and not proselytizing, that's a difference in how you go about it. If you want to make the case that your daughter is a really nice proselytizer for healthy eating, and that vegetarians are really awful, we can just compare anecdata. You went out of your way to quote second-hand sources for "filthy murderer" vegans, suggesting it hasn't been your experience. How many people who've called vegetarians pansies do you personally know?
      - beat 12y ago
        Actually, I just made those quotes up. As for "proselytizing"... rather than bickering over the word, bicker the intent. Do you think it's a bad thing for a non-vegan to cook vegan food for a vegan? To teach them about cooking and nutrition? To encourage them to make their own food rather than eating something put in a bag in a factory? I don't see how what she's doing can be reasonably considered negative. So if it's proselytizing, then proselytizing is itself not a negative. If you think it's negative, I'd love to understand why.
        RodericDay 12y ago
        Do you think it's bad for someone to persuade someone else to stop eating factory-farmed meat? I don't see how that can be considered negative either. Can you?
        beat 12y ago
        The problem is when it stops being persuading, and starts being haranguing and elitism... using veganism as a way to feel and act superior to others. Which surely happens. As I said earlier, a vegan friend was complaining to me this week about exactly that, and he's not the first, nor will he be the last. If my daughter was just getting on the vegans she knows for eating junk food, not good food like she does, it would be one thing. Instead, she leads by example, teaching them to be better and healthier vegans. Something analogous would be a vegan making a beautiful, delicious vegan meal for a meat eater who thinks a vegetarian diet is dull and poor in nutrition. That's not proselytizing, imho.
        RodericDay 12y ago
        I'm not sure you have an unbiased perspective on what constitutes elitist or haranguing. Progressives were called sanctimonious niggerlovers, butch (women) and effeminate (men) when they rallied for the progressive issues of their day, and all of this talk about them "acting superior" seems like a lazy coat of paint on top of not liking what they're preaching. Additionally, it seems to be all second-hand, as is usually the case. I've never ran into militant vegetarians, they honestly seem like a figment of the american imagination. And at the very end you're trying to go back on admitting your daughter is proselytizing, by complimenting her cooking skills. I think you're quite confused about your principles.

beat 12y ago

I don't think you understand. She tries to teach them to cook good vegan food. She totally respects their choice to be vegan. She worries that they're eating factory food from a box rather than something more natural and healthier. She would never, ever try to make a vegan break their veganism. She will make them food that is tastier and more nutritious than what they normally eat, but is still vegan.

RodericDay 12y ago
I don't think you understand. She is trying to get them to eat something different (proselytizing), for reasons that she believes are important and true, even though they don't currently agree with her themselves (smug). Sounds a lot like ethical vegans to me.
- beat 12y ago
  It's one thing to try to make people better at their own diet, and another thing to try to make them choose another diet. Not all help is proselytizing. There's a TREMENDOUS difference between "I understand you're a vegan, here's some homemade lentil stew that's better for you than the potato chips you're eating", and "You are a filthy murderer for eating that burger!", or "You're a stupid pansy who needs to eat a burger!" If you can't understand that distinction...
  - RodericDay 12y ago
    That's not the difference between proselytizing and not proselytizing, that's a difference in how you go about it. If you want to make the case that your daughter is a really nice proselytizer for healthy eating, and that vegetarians are really awful, we can just compare anecdata. You went out of your way to quote second-hand sources for "filthy murderer" vegans, suggesting it hasn't been your experience. How many people who've called vegetarians pansies do you personally know?
    - beat 12y ago
      Actually, I just made those quotes up. As for "proselytizing"... rather than bickering over the word, bicker the intent. Do you think it's a bad thing for a non-vegan to cook vegan food for a vegan? To teach them about cooking and nutrition? To encourage them to make their own food rather than eating something put in a bag in a factory? I don't see how what she's doing can be reasonably considered negative. So if it's proselytizing, then proselytizing is itself not a negative. If you think it's negative, I'd love to understand why.
      - RodericDay 12y ago
        Do you think it's bad for someone to persuade someone else to stop eating factory-farmed meat? I don't see how that can be considered negative either. Can you?
        beat 12y ago
        The problem is when it stops being persuading, and starts being haranguing and elitism... using veganism as a way to feel and act superior to others. Which surely happens. As I said earlier, a vegan friend was complaining to me this week about exactly that, and he's not the first, nor will he be the last. If my daughter was just getting on the vegans she knows for eating junk food, not good food like she does, it would be one thing. Instead, she leads by example, teaching them to be better and healthier vegans. Something analogous would be a vegan making a beautiful, delicious vegan meal for a meat eater who thinks a vegetarian diet is dull and poor in nutrition. That's not proselytizing, imho.
        RodericDay 12y ago
        I'm not sure you have an unbiased perspective on what constitutes elitist or haranguing. Progressives were called sanctimonious niggerlovers, butch (women) and effeminate (men) when they rallied for the progressive issues of their day, and all of this talk about them "acting superior" seems like a lazy coat of paint on top of not liking what they're preaching. Additionally, it seems to be all second-hand, as is usually the case. I've never ran into militant vegetarians, they honestly seem like a figment of the american imagination. And at the very end you're trying to go back on admitting your daughter is proselytizing, by complimenting her cooking skills. I think you're quite confused about your principles.