Did you know that being a vegan is illegal in Wyoming? Of course, I’m joking, but sometimes it feels that something like that could be true one day. Why are vegans hated so much? Just because we don’t want to take part in the suffering and ultimate death of another living being?
Since I started Vegan River Events and the All My Vegan Friends Meetup Group, I’ve had my share of weekly hateful messages. Here are just a few: There are not many of you, so why don’t you all get together and buy a plot of land and start your own country because you don’t like the rest of us? You only want to associate with vegans. And, how about you blog on your own damn website? (It is my website). Since you’re a food Nazi, you discriminate against people that eat meat, obviously, and you’re not compassionate in any way, shape, or form toward anybody except people that are exactly like you. You have no energy.
There has been a steady rise in people turning to a vegan diet, but, at the same time, there’s been a rising resentment towards vegans. This can range from attacks on social media to bumper stickers and worse. There’s even been a term named for this backlash: “vega phobia.”
So, what is it about vegans that is so troubling to meat eaters?
But, you know what, come to think about it, why should prejudice against vegans be any different than prejudice against other stigmatized groups, such as minorities, immigrants, women, or the LGBT community? Isn’t this always based on things about those groups that aren’t true?
The late, not-so-great world traveler and food credit Anthony Bourdain once wrote that “vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit” and called vegans their “Hezbollah-like splinter faction.”
Highlights from a recent research project on the subject:
- Meat-eaters are more hostile toward vegans who avoid eating meat because of animal welfare than to those who do so for health or environmental reasons.
- Vegans can also feel discriminated against and marginalized and receive bad vibes even from friends and family.
- Veganism causes meat-eaters to question their moral self-concept.
- People who view themselves as conservatives are more likely to return to eating meat after trying a vegan diet. This is theorized, in part, to a perceived lack of social support from family, friends, and co-workers. So why all the vitriol?
The reasons are unknown, but a few theories are floating around:
- One is that vegans make people feel guilty. People tend to interpret someone’s choice not to eat meat as a condemnation of their choices, which can cause them to become defensive.
- Meat-eaters and those on the political right feel that vegans are a threat to society and culture. That’s against the American way of life in this country. So, in this scenario, vegans are targeted not for doing something but rather for refusing to do something, the eating of meat.
- Professionals have suggested that it comes from the cognitive dissonance that eating meat produces. Most people like animals. In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental disturbance people feel when they realize that their thinking, learning, and understanding are inconsistent with their actions or are contradictory.
- By our mere existence, vegans force people to confront their cognitive dissonance. And this can make people angry.
So, what’s a vegan supposed to do in this sea of hatred? The answers are varied. However you choose to deal with this when it arises, be yourself, stick to your convictions, be safe, and know you are answering to a higher calling!