The Public Discourse Around Veganism Is Frustrating

People just say the darndest things

Veganism is one of the topics where it seems like people’s brains and hearts both go totally out the window when they discuss it. When one mentions that they’re vegan, a common response is to say “I’ll eat twice as much meat just to cancel out their effect.” Imagine if a person said this about any other effort to do good. “I’ll beat twice as many children, so that the anti child-beating activists don’t have any effect.” Even if the pro-choice position is correct, it would be barbaric to respond to a pro-life person’s impassioned plea by declaring that you’ll get an extra abortion just to offset their impact.

There are, of course, a litany of utterly brain-dead arguments that people make for meat-eating, which I’ve refuted here. Most of the things people say to defend their meat-eating are just flimsy transparent rationalizations that would never convince anyone whose brain was functioning. And yet these things are said constantly.

But worse than that is the bizarre polarization around the topic. People act like all vegans are raging woke leftists (I’m obviously not, nor is, for example, Michael Huemer) and that anything that makes vegans upset is part of the noble quest of owning the libs. For example, in this video, Gabe Poirot declares “Woke Liberal Vegan Woman Gets Destroyed By Piers Morgan 😂🤯.” The video provides no evidence that the woman is, in fact, woke—it’s just assumed that any vegan must be.

How does Piers DESTROY the woke liberal vegan? He . . . eats a burger in front of her. Hahahaha, what a great refutation. And he’s just one of many who pulled this idiotic stunt.

Imagine this being done for anyone else arguing for a controversial ethical view. Would you own a pro-lifer by getting an abortion in front of them? No, obviously not. Would you own a person who supports a minimum wage increase by paying your workers low wages in front of them? No. It might upset them because they think you’re doing something deeply evil. But it turns out that upsetting people by doing evil things is not owning them. If I killed someone’s child in front of them I would upset them, but I would not own them, because I wouldn’t have argued against their view, just made them mad. If your desire to own the libs has overtaken your desire not to participate in grotesque evil, then you are not smart or mature enough to think for yourself. You have devolved into dumb internet edgelordism rather than serious thought.

Another example of the cringey low-IQ right-wing anti-veganism comes from Nick Fuentes who said (he was quoting someone else but said he agreed):

when I hear people tell us not to eat meat I want to ask what's wrong libtard you gonna cry piss your pants maybe shit

Again, imagine this being done for any other movement. “When I hear people tell us not to get an abortion I want to ask what’s wrong libtard you gonna cry piss your pants maybe shit?” This would be idiotic and vile. But because veganism is associated with left-wing politics, owning vegans is seen as part of the noble craft of owning the libs. So saying anything, however braindead as long as it claims to own vegans is seen as heroic.

There’s no necessary connection between far-left politics and veganism. We can discuss the sociological reasons why far-left people are disproportionately vegan, but you don’t have to have any particular political views to think you shouldn’t torture sentient beings for trivial reasons. It’s depressing how many people’s analysis of complex ethical issues boils down to an apelike screed “TRIBE says VEGAN bad MEAT good—me eat meat!”

The quality of the public discourse on meat eating is just so goddamn low. People will say that meat-eating is a personal choice as if that settles it. No, if you’re causing others grievous harm then it’s not just a personal choice, you’re doing something immoral that you should stop doing. No one calls Jeffrey Dahmer’s decision to eat people a personal choice.

It seems like people don’t grasp that vegans think eating meat is wrong. If they didn’t think it was wrong, then most critiques would be justified—if you just had random subjective dietary preferences that you wanted others to follow, that would involve being a sanctimonious ass. But I don’t know how people get this impression—how fucking stupid do you have to be to think that vegans who say you shouldn’t eat meat before giving arguments for why it’s wrong to eat meat are not making a moral case? Are the people who say this stuff cognitively impaired? What is going on? Are they able to reason in other aspects of their life? Can they drive, dress themselves, or eat by themselves?

Ethical veganism is a serious position believed by lots of high-ranking philosophers, including, for example, libertarian ones—it’s not just a belief of left-wing ideologues. It’s not the kind of thing that can be suitably dismissed with childish insults or smears. It requires genuine thought, something that most of the rabid anti-vegans are seemingly incapable of. As a consequence, they launch their insipid attacks, levying mockery instead of argument. Because veganism is unpopular and seen as an object of public ridicule, those who just follow the status quo have an excuse never to think about it or confront the grisly torment that they dispense on a daily basis.