Vegan

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Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.

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How do you, personally, frame your veganism to carnists when asked? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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(Meme is not OC)

Instead of framing it as a question of morality, a matter of logical consistency, and/or an environmental concern, I've started taking an amoralist/egoist approach and simply saying:

"The thought of eating animal products is gross to me, and I don't want to participate in the killing of animals when it's easy for me to avoid"

Which is quite hard to refute, because its about how I feel/my experience. They can question why you feel that way but, if you exclusively respond with 'I statements,' they really have no room to argue. I also feel that this is more likely to persuade people without having to actively encourage them- it has the potential to open an actual dialogue

What are your thoughts? Do you have your own method?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If leftist: I believe that oppressing others for my own personal gain is wrong, there is no consistent framework which excludes animals from moral consideration that does not also exclude some humans. Using intelligence to rank who you're allowed to hurt is Nazi shit.

If not leftist: you know how watching someone hurt an animal makes you sad? Killing animals to eat hurts them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Lol I love both of those

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Liberty for all means all

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Anyone who is trying to argue with you about your own personal reasons for being vegan is just not really worth speaking to lol.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

To be fair, being vegan kind of implies you also want everyone else to be vegan, so it makes sense to me that people would get defensive over someone's personal reasons for it as if they're an attack on them for not being vegan.

So if I say "I think it's gross and mean to animals" they (kind of correctly tbh) hear that as "I think you're gross and mean."

Obviously there are better ways to respond to that than arguing that your feelings are invalid lol, but I do understand it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean, usually these questions aren't posed, because they're genuinely interested, but rather because they feel attacked.
And then, yeah, there's no point in delivering a logically flawless argument, they won't actually listen anyways. The only thing they'll listen for, is whether you're attacking them or not.
Formulating I-messages signals that you're not attacking them, which is probably better for resolving that situation.

Having said that, I often don't heed that advice either. I usually don't want to talk about it. If they bring up the topic and want to feel offended, I have no problem making them feel offended (by stating harmless facts), so they leave me alone next time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Truuee. Lol, I feel that.

Most often when I find myself in a situation like this, it's because a therapy client themselves or their parent/child asked, so I can't just 360 and walk away, nor be too blunt.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

More often than not, questions comes from people trying to pick a fight in my experience. But since I still want to, at the very least, make them consider reducing their meat consumption, I talk about money: how going vegan made me save a third of my previous grocery budget, taking into account all the fancy spices I've started buying since then.
I've had some success with this.