I get so scared to interact with the vegan users on here. And I am on their side.
But like why do I see people getting harrassed and banned for like admitting out loud they love cheese too much so that they haven’t been able to find a replacement yet but they are looking?
Why does veganism manifest in such a scary way here? Speaking as someone who participates in non-scary vegan commities 😭I wish the vegan movement so much success and I don’t want that to result in a schism on here but I feel like doing harrassment and name calling doesn’t work well. Just like, be kind.
Look at it like that: Many people become vegan because they realize that there is no magical difference between humans (or dogs, cats and so on) and the animals who are raised to be slaughtered. We all feel pain, fear and grief. So a society that kills sentient animals and eats or wears parts of their dead bodies is not too different then one which does that with their fellow humans. How angry would you be to live in such a horrible society?
The only reason to not being angry all the time is, that I needed more than 30 years to realize those things myself. How we are handling most animals, how we are torturing and killing them is normalized. It is really hard to get from “steak yummy” to a vegan world view. How can I expect that other people change their ways just like that?
It is still fucking sad and I totally get, why some vegans are so angry. Live and let live is the most cynical shit one could say in this situation.
I’m a mean vegan because I used to be a carnist, and mean vegans changed my mind. The people on vegancirclejerk are fucking hilarious. I stayed for the memes, and then I changed my diet because I felt guilty. The best possible thing you can do as a vegan is make carnists feel guilty. It works.
Interesting. I was a triggered vegetarian and didn’t like those guys calling me a cheese breather (I’m still ambivalent towards them). When I became a vegan it was because of the non-drastic stating a fact people, not because of the jerks.
So maybe we need both – and many more forms of activism?
I can absolutely defend and relate to being angry :) I can absolutely defend being a “mean vegan.” I can absolutely defend being disruptive and proselytizing and refusing to live and let live.
I cannot defend verbal harrassment. That’s not “being mean,” that’s using your position as a vegan as a token to do emotional abuse.
Disclaimer
This comment may not be about you. If you are the person in the first paragraph we have a lot in common! My criticism is of those represented by the second paragraph and if that’s not you my apologies and much love 💕
MLK said it best, so I’ll just quote him directly:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
When moderates advocate for “kindness” or “civility”, they’re advocating for negative peace; the absence of tension. Vegans advocate for positive peace; the presence of justice. When activists advocate for positive peace, in the face of those who deny said justice, tensions rise and moderates fall back to this common trope.
The people in Washington listened to MLK because he was radicalising hundreds of thousands of people, and if his demands were not met, the politicians worried that those people would start listening to Malcolm X. The radical and moderate sides of any movement exist in symbiosis. They are the carrot and the stick, working together. The owning class likes the carrot much better than the stick, so they give credit to the carrot. But you need radicals so that you can say “look who’s coming for you if you don’t listen to me”. It’s good cop bad cop.
Holy shit you did not just quote MLK at me saying people who eat cheese should not be harrassed!
That is a disturbing twisting of both veganism and MLK. :(
Once again I participate with so many vegan individuals in ways that do not involve harrassment campaigns. Here is a list of direct action that I consider constructive:
animal rescue
investigations of animal abuse
leafleting
inline education campaigns
protests and marches
restaurant sit-ins
graffiti
civil disobedience
many more
Again I cannot believe I am saying this, but there is no credible evidence that MLK participated in harrassment against individuals admitting minor disagreement. Attacking a person who admits to eating cheese, like maybe 60% of the world population, accusing them of being a rapist constantly and repeatedly, and calling that “advocacy for positive peace,” is really really fucking sad. It is absolutely terrifyingly in bad faith to quote MLK in defense of such behavior.
disclaimer
Maybe this isn’t you, I haven’t checked your account history so keep that in mind. You have my apologies if you aren’t doing verbal abuse. :)
My criticisms of others in the Lemmy community who do verbal attacks do hold, though. I am just glad they are the minority in real life and only seem to exist online.
Why should people committing unjust acts be allowed to commit them in peace? Where is the peace for their victims if we do not speak up? The MLK quote seems entirely fitting.
While the civil rights movement was largely “peaceful” (loaded word with little meaning), it was also incredibly disruptive. People in the movement were very rude to moderates who advocated in favor of negative peace while reaffirming their appreciation of the status-quo.
MLK’s position here was not that the people within the civil rights movement needed to be more respectful to white moderates. His position was that the moderates were the issue. The people who consistently advocated for negative peace were the issue.
The leaders of vegan movements also don’t generally go around attacking the moderates of our time who appreciate the status-quo and advocate for negative peace. There are individuals that do attack moderates, just like there were individuals in the civil rights movement who literally physically assaulted white moderates (much worse than calling someone a cheese-breather and having their feelings get a bit hurt). Again, MLK did not draw attention to these fringe cases because the actual issue were the moderates themselves. Some might even say the racists deserved to be beaten, and that’s not even something I would necessarily argue against.
Veganism is the same. The issue is not the people who are a bit rude online to bloodmouths/carnists. The issue is the moderates themselves, their constant advocacy for negative peace in place of positive peace needs to be shut down unequivocally.
There are individuals that do attack moderates, just like there were individuals in the civil rights movement who literally physically assaulted white moderates
Yeah, precisely. Put simply my goal is to call out the fact that these individuals are having an outsized influence on Lemmy. I have no criticism of vegan leadership as a whole. I just hope we can continue to call out the toxicity that is present on Lemmy until a more constructive and representative-of-the-whole community exists on here. 💙
To a leftist there are two kinds of people in the world: people who are with me 110%, believe everything I believe to the last letter, and are willing to punch people in the face to that effect, and enemies who must be crushed
yeah, this is why i need a fediverse version of tiktok/reels.
i think we can be quite kinder versions of ourselves when we have the constant reminder there is a living breathing person on the other side of the username :)
I get so scared to interact with the vegan users on here. And I am on their side.
But like why do I see people getting harrassed and banned for like admitting out loud they love cheese too much so that they haven’t been able to find a replacement yet but they are looking?
Why does veganism manifest in such a scary way here? Speaking as someone who participates in non-scary vegan commities 😭I wish the vegan movement so much success and I don’t want that to result in a schism on here but I feel like doing harrassment and name calling doesn’t work well. Just like, be kind.
Look at it like that: Many people become vegan because they realize that there is no magical difference between humans (or dogs, cats and so on) and the animals who are raised to be slaughtered. We all feel pain, fear and grief. So a society that kills sentient animals and eats or wears parts of their dead bodies is not too different then one which does that with their fellow humans. How angry would you be to live in such a horrible society?
The only reason to not being angry all the time is, that I needed more than 30 years to realize those things myself. How we are handling most animals, how we are torturing and killing them is normalized. It is really hard to get from “steak yummy” to a vegan world view. How can I expect that other people change their ways just like that?
It is still fucking sad and I totally get, why some vegans are so angry. Live and let live is the most cynical shit one could say in this situation.
I’m a mean vegan because I used to be a carnist, and mean vegans changed my mind. The people on vegancirclejerk are fucking hilarious. I stayed for the memes, and then I changed my diet because I felt guilty. The best possible thing you can do as a vegan is make carnists feel guilty. It works.
Interesting. I was a triggered vegetarian and didn’t like those guys calling me a cheese breather (I’m still ambivalent towards them). When I became a vegan it was because of the non-drastic stating a fact people, not because of the jerks.
So maybe we need both – and many more forms of activism?
I can absolutely defend and relate to being angry :) I can absolutely defend being a “mean vegan.” I can absolutely defend being disruptive and proselytizing and refusing to live and let live.
I cannot defend verbal harrassment. That’s not “being mean,” that’s using your position as a vegan as a token to do emotional abuse.
Disclaimer
This comment may not be about you. If you are the person in the first paragraph we have a lot in common! My criticism is of those represented by the second paragraph and if that’s not you my apologies and much love 💕
MLK said it best, so I’ll just quote him directly:
When moderates advocate for “kindness” or “civility”, they’re advocating for negative peace; the absence of tension. Vegans advocate for positive peace; the presence of justice. When activists advocate for positive peace, in the face of those who deny said justice, tensions rise and moderates fall back to this common trope.
That’s fair but there’s also a practical question of efficacy. Malcolm X did not convince white people to change.
MLK brilliantly straddled the line between speaking up and alienating people.
The people in Washington listened to MLK because he was radicalising hundreds of thousands of people, and if his demands were not met, the politicians worried that those people would start listening to Malcolm X. The radical and moderate sides of any movement exist in symbiosis. They are the carrot and the stick, working together. The owning class likes the carrot much better than the stick, so they give credit to the carrot. But you need radicals so that you can say “look who’s coming for you if you don’t listen to me”. It’s good cop bad cop.
Holy shit you did not just quote MLK at me saying people who eat cheese should not be harrassed!
That is a disturbing twisting of both veganism and MLK. :(
Once again I participate with so many vegan individuals in ways that do not involve harrassment campaigns. Here is a list of direct action that I consider constructive:
Again I cannot believe I am saying this, but there is no credible evidence that MLK participated in harrassment against individuals admitting minor disagreement. Attacking a person who admits to eating cheese, like maybe 60% of the world population, accusing them of being a rapist constantly and repeatedly, and calling that “advocacy for positive peace,” is really really fucking sad. It is absolutely terrifyingly in bad faith to quote MLK in defense of such behavior.
disclaimer
Maybe this isn’t you, I haven’t checked your account history so keep that in mind. You have my apologies if you aren’t doing verbal abuse. :)
My criticisms of others in the Lemmy community who do verbal attacks do hold, though. I am just glad they are the minority in real life and only seem to exist online.
Why should people committing unjust acts be allowed to commit them in peace? Where is the peace for their victims if we do not speak up? The MLK quote seems entirely fitting.
While the civil rights movement was largely “peaceful” (loaded word with little meaning), it was also incredibly disruptive. People in the movement were very rude to moderates who advocated in favor of negative peace while reaffirming their appreciation of the status-quo.
MLK’s position here was not that the people within the civil rights movement needed to be more respectful to white moderates. His position was that the moderates were the issue. The people who consistently advocated for negative peace were the issue.
The leaders of vegan movements also don’t generally go around attacking the moderates of our time who appreciate the status-quo and advocate for negative peace. There are individuals that do attack moderates, just like there were individuals in the civil rights movement who literally physically assaulted white moderates (much worse than calling someone a cheese-breather and having their feelings get a bit hurt). Again, MLK did not draw attention to these fringe cases because the actual issue were the moderates themselves. Some might even say the racists deserved to be beaten, and that’s not even something I would necessarily argue against.
Veganism is the same. The issue is not the people who are a bit rude online to bloodmouths/carnists. The issue is the moderates themselves, their constant advocacy for negative peace in place of positive peace needs to be shut down unequivocally.
Yeah, precisely. Put simply my goal is to call out the fact that these individuals are having an outsized influence on Lemmy. I have no criticism of vegan leadership as a whole. I just hope we can continue to call out the toxicity that is present on Lemmy until a more constructive and representative-of-the-whole community exists on here. 💙
To a leftist there are two kinds of people in the world: people who are with me 110%, believe everything I believe to the last letter, and are willing to punch people in the face to that effect, and enemies who must be crushed
You are talking about conservatives, why would you call them leftists?
ew no not at all what i am saying
Oh no. This whole thing quickly turned into yet another opinionated divisive fedposting shithole.
I don’t think real conversations of the type you would respectfully have in person exist on the Internet anymore.
I thought maybe this place would be a little smarter than that, but it kind of sucks now.
yeah, this is why i need a fediverse version of tiktok/reels.
i think we can be quite kinder versions of ourselves when we have the constant reminder there is a living breathing person on the other side of the username :)
Well you seem cool. Just don’t let the authoritarians rub off on you
The people you are describing arent the ones being harrassed. Its the elitists who make eating meat their religion and shaming any who dont