Why do they hate us? It’s a question that has popped into every vegan’s mind at one time or another. Is it because we brag about our size 0 jeans? Is it because we call ourselves things like “ethical vegans?” Or is it because it because we tell proud Prius owners that they could have done a lot more for the environment if they’d just switched from burgers to rice and beans instead of spending nearly $30,000 on a new car? Or is it because we say things like, “How’s that corpse taste?” Or do they slaughter gluten?
When you’re trying to find out why you, Mr. or Ms. Vegan is so thoroughly disliked, it’s important to look at who’s doing the disliking. When it comes to dislikers, the list is long. Here are some of the usual suspects.
Your minister, your doctor, your spouse, other family members, your friends, your waitress or waiter, your dentist, your boss, your co-workers, your teachers, the mailman, the person standing behind you in the grocery store, random salespeople, your personal trainer, anyone on the road who can see your bumper stickers, anyone who invited you to their Thanksgiving turkey dinner, anyone who ever lived on a farm, anyone who’s into backyard or front yard chickens, anyone who does medical research, anyone who wears leather cowboy boots, anyone who gets all their information from television and/or Family Circle magazine, anyone who used to be a vegan, anyone who relies on Chinese medicine, anyone who owns or works in an ice cream store, a cheese store or a meat shoppe, anyone who’s a hunter or a gun-owner, anyone who’s proud to be a Texan and any animal eaters on your Facebook.
Chances are as soon as you step out your front door, turn on your computer or even as soon as you wake up you’re likely to meet someone who can’t stand you because you’re a vegan. Even other vegans have been known to dislike vegans!
So the basic question remains: Is it them, the carnists, i.e. the animal food lovers or is it you, the vegan?
Of course it’s them! But because “them” is probably not reading this post, we’ll focus on you. What have you done to help create this sorry situation? A situation that is not helping the environment; not helping anyone’s health, mental or physical; and not helping factory farmed animals.
There are SOOOOO many annoying and/or infuriating things we vegans do on a daily, if not hourly basis, it’s hard to know where to start.
Hi Leslie –
Thanks for your work promoting vegan living!
Someone just sent me a link to your blog and I hope you will read my book a bit more carefully, because I never said what you say I said, actually.
Also, my Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley is in education, not in divinity.
Here’s the paragraph in question, from page 8 of The World Peace Diet :
“In contrast to plants, which naturally produce healthy and nourishing foods that involve little if any suffering, animals are routinely dominated and attacked in order to obtain the flesh, milk, and eggs we humans eat. This clearly involves suffering, for we all know with utter certainty that taking a knife and cutting into the skin of a dog, cow, cat, chicken, rabbit, or human is totally different from cutting into the skin of a tomato or grapefruit, that biting into the leg of a pig cannot be compared to biting into a fresh apple. The renowned ethologist Konrad
Lorenz once remarked that anyone who couldn’t see the difference between chopping up a dog and chopping up a lettuce should commit suicide for the benefit of society. We know today that all vertebrate animals are endowed with central nervous systems with proprioceptors that are sensitive to a variety of painful stimuli, including being cut, burned, crushed, confined, electrically shocked, and subjected to cold and heat, noxious smells, bruising, and chafing, and that they feel psychological pain as we would when they are physically confined, their babies are stolen from them, or their innate drives are systematically thwarted.”
Dear Dr. Tuttle,
I am sorry for the mistakes. I removed the offending section from the column.I will do another column to clarify and apologize.
Respectfully,
Leslie Goldberg
I read the World Peace Diet. It was the book that made me cry for 3 days and instantly converted me to veganism. There is no place in this book where Will Tuttle suggests to kill anybody. Where may I ask do you get your information, and why are you putting something like this there Miss Manners????