Hacker News Reader

Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

People mock vegans because of the sanctimony you often hear as the justification, and because of perceived superficiality.

If you hear someone is vegan because of some religious reason, there's a long cultural tradition behind that and there's a degree to which people cannot escape their culture.

But the vegans that are mocked are typically the upper middle class urbanites who

- Have no idea what they are actually eating instead of not eating meat

- Would like to signal to the world how good they are

- Have no real time / money / convenience constraints on whatever ethical choice they decide to choose

- Seem sort of juvenile in that their deeply felt convictions may quickly change to some other deeply held position

This is not to say all vegans are like this, or that veganism itself is actually wrong, but the caricature is the stuff of comedy. Who doesn't have a friend that's dabbled in some ethical choices that only they could see the necessity of?

View on HN

I've heard about this stereotype a lot.

Just like I have heard about muslim or black stereotypes a lot.

I've not met any of them.

Sure, I saw them online.

Youtubes and "influencers" on instagrams are a terrible, terrible way to assess a population. Take any topic, soon the algo recommendation will make you cringe.

But IRL ?

A good third of the people close to me are veggies/vegans, me included. I've never seen anybody trying to convert anyone, preach, signal value or guilt trip others. We participate in BBQ, find workarounds and make sure everybody is happy when we invite people at diner.

In the mix I have 2 nurses, a person still paying her student loan, a young couple with a new born and an old person earning minimum wage: they do have "real time / money / convenience constraints".

And we talk regularly about "what [we] are actually eating instead of not eating meat". Recommending products and places, reading product compositions, and adjusting diets according to the new studies we came across.

Now I understand that "the caricature is the stuff of comedy". Vegans are a good topic for laughing. I mean, we do weird stuff, it is indeed funny. Sometime I look at my day and think how much crap my teenage self would have given me if he saw me doing that.

But I've yet to meet the vindictive ignorant proselyte vegans you are describing. I'm sure they exist. There are assholes everywhere, but I don't think eating meat or not conditions it. Statistically, there are smug aggressive idiots, and again, statistically, some of them must be vegan. Correlation. Not causality.

> But IRL ?

I think this is the key distinction. I worked with a former coworker that's vegan. Didn't convert anyone, preach, or guilt trip. When I mention that I do like cheese, but can't have it due to lactose intolerance, he told me to try some of the vegan cheese he's got.

Not quite cheese, but tasty. I'd spend money on that.

However, there are also your militant, preachy, virtue signalling bunch that go and protest a rib fest that's more of a small fair for the local suburb. And at least in my life, I've seen more of these protesters than people like my former coworker who chooses to keep a vegan diet.

Just like how I've met far more evangelical bunch trying to convert me to whichever religion they're backing, and has to twist any conversation into some topic about god. But I've only met three highly regarded individuals who are practicing the good of their religion better than any of those evangelical folks, and you wouldn't know they're practicing. They're not there to convert you, or to guilt you, or to signal virtue.

I had the silly thought of attempt to engage in a discussion online, and mention the protest. Most people who actually go to rib fest isn't going there because they have a blood thirsty desire to kill a lot of pigs. They see it as a convenient topic to get a bunch of friends and family to spend time together. To give this person credit, he/she was also engaging in a discussion. However, that particular point of view is that having a rib fest is to meant as an attack on them, as if rib fest created particularly as an affront to vegans.

I knew then, at least with that person, there's only agreeing to disagree.

I don't find veganism weird. I don't find my former coworker to be a good topic for laughing. I don't find the concept of veganism, or vegans to be a caricature.

I do find the evngelical, virtue signalling, guilt tripping people to be a caricature, whether they're under a religious banner or a dietary banner.

You sounds as if you have a very small diversity of people you interact with. I have met just about every stereotype. While they are usually a loud exception to the rule, there are enough commonalities for the trope to be created in the first place. Your entire comment reads like a excersize in ethics oneupsmanship.

I've met some.

I used to date a vegan. They were great. I ate lots of vegan food. Some of it was good, some of it wasn't. I still end up eating vegan meals often, but not intentionally. They suffered no hypocrisies and we often discussed the nature of their beliefs without incident.

There are several flavors of vegan hypocrisy, and they all stem from a lack of philosophical consideration:

* "I won't eat anything with a face."

* "cow farts"

* "Everybody can afford to be vegan."

* Using "The Jungle" as a proxy for modern slaughterhouse conditions. (Heck, thinking about it, even "Fast Food Nation" is starting to become a little dated.)

* Vegans with cats or dogs as pets. Dogs do poorly on vegan diets, while cats must eat meat; there's often a lurking contradiction about animal rights somewhere in there.

* Vegans who crush house spiders.

* Introducing vegans to Jainism is always hilarious; they almost never have heard of Jains and are surprised to learn about people that are even more religious about animals and morality!

That all said, it's been nearly a decade since I've run into anybody like this, and perhaps it is a juvenile form of veganism that only manifests at universities and bars.

We all live in contradictions. That doesn't make you a bad person, just human.

You are yourself against slavery (I hope:)), while typing this comment on a machine with some parts made by slave children.

If you go that way, everybody is an hypocrite, and we are loosing the sense of the word.

Hardly! Hypocrisy should always be examined. Let's take your example. I am currently typing on a computer, it's true, and indeed it likely contains minerals and parts made by slaves. The computer was sold to me by local wage-slaves. The computer was produced not just by humans, but also by robots[0]. We can thus see that slavery is not ended in the world, and that there are several axes (geographic, economic, (in)human) upon which we can still improve our efforts to understand and end slavery.

We become better people by learning, by examining, and by seeking to eliminate hypocritical beliefs within ourselves.

[0] The word "robot" has a fascinating history of its own. This quote is a good portal to the past: "Sulla isn't a person, Miss Glory, she's a robot."

But how real is that? What you see happening is this archetype that probably only represents a minority of vegans, and it gets blown up out of proportion and all of a sudden this is what you're talking about whenever you're talking about "vegans". You see it time and again, whether it's coeliacs, environmentalists, vegans, or any other out-group that goes against the grain of established ways of doing things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com