Can Meat Eaters be Easy to Offend?

[maninahat]

I tried being a vegetarian right around the time I was dating the daughter of a cow farmer. My views didn't exactly wash with her or her parents, and I think that they felt it was their god given duty to try and snap me out of it by either randomly challenging my philosophy, or just by giving me meat at meal times (I might think eating animals was wrong, but so is waste and being a bad guest). Others do the same things as well - not everyone, naturally, just the occasional boorish person who treats my preferences as an affront.

So yes, I think that if you happen to let slip you are vegetarian, people will take some kind of exception to it. It is most likely the stereotype that vegetarians are being picky, hippie, sanctimonious, smug bastards that make non-vegetarians think it is okay to start pontificating back at them.

 

[Dizchu]

So you mean "Easy" as shorthand for three paragraphs of bitter ranting, and you wonder if people other than yourself are thin skinned?

Bitter ranting? Not once did I insult anyone, not once did I accuse anyone of anything, not once did I judge people for what they eat. I merely noticed a pattern of behaviour (that, may I remind you, others have noticed too) and wondered why it happens.

It's classic deflection. I don't even criticise your diet, just point out that knee-jerk reactions exist to these criticisms and as a result I get... a knee-jerk reaction. Combined with an ad-hominem tangent.

I think it's simpler, based on the OP's responses and OP post, they just wanted to start some predictable shit. This seems to be the normal mode of discourse for loudly self-proclaimed vegans.

Spoiler alert: I'm not a vegan and even though I only stopped eating meat recently (around a year ago), I've noticed this behaviour for around a decade before that.

Jokes. You're seriously complaining about jokes in a thread titled "are X easy to offend". You do realize the inherent hypocrisy of it, do you not? No one's that innocent.

I don't find the jokes offensive though? I think some of them are pretty funny. I think misogyny is a bad thing but I still chuckle at certain "sexist" jokes at the expense of women (though self-awareness is necessary).

I said this before, the "jokes" appear to be a prefab response. Much like "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" or "get back in the kitchen". They're meant to be flippant deflections of criticism, an admission of "I have nothing to contribute".

So essentially, you made a gross assumption based on overevaluating a small response by a vocal minority and memetic jokes. Here is your problem.

Yes it is a vocal minority, but it's a persistent one that gathers a lot of support. As I said, others in the thread have noticed this behaviour. The reason why I think it's worth talking about is because it's an inversion of how people generally tend to think these discussions go. People assume that those that don't eat meat are pushing their diet in other peoples' faces, yet a number of people have noticed that the opposite is true.

That's what I was interested in discussing. Interestingly the thread has been a tad self-fulfilling. I noticed that some meat eaters are really easy to provoke and wondered why that was, explicitly stating that I hold no judgements (because I'd be judging the majority of the planet and seeing as I still consume animal products, myself), and the response was "wow these damn vegans again", "what's wrong with eating meat?", "wow you're so judgemental".

I've responded calmly, I have little emotional investment in this discussion (rather it was motivated by curiosity), yet what I'm saying is considered aggressive. Sure, maybe I should not have assumed that my experiences are consistent with other peoples' and I admitted that. This is a topic that necessitates emotional distance to even discuss, given the sheer weight of the subject.

 

[maninahat]

Most people eat meat, so if 6+ billion people are all one way, then they're not "Easy to offend" by definition, they're normal.

People on the majority can't be easy to offend by definition...

I think a few pages in your dictionary must have got stuck together.

So says you. If you want to see a majority of people get offended, just drop the word "Privilege" in a discussion.

 

[Dizchu]

I'm wondering how this thread might have gone if I were a meat eater and explicitly stated that.

 

[Aesir23]

Yes and no? When you have a group that numbers in the billions you're going to get people from all across the spectrum. Are some easy to offend? Yes. Are some of them assholes who will jump on someone just for mentioning they're vegetarian? Yes.

The reasons why can be somewhat interesting although some people do it just to be antagonistic and those guys are tend to be jerks regardless of their targets. However, you have to admit that vegetarians/vegans don't generally enjoy the most wonderful reputation with a lot of people, something that isn't helped by the fact that PETA was the face of vegetarianism for quite a number of years. In the case of quite a few overly aggressive meat-eaters I wouldn't be surprised if they were getting in a pre-emptive strike as a way to try and quickly shut up a potentially preachy vegan/vegetarian.

I'll admit that almost none of my experiences with vegans/vegetarians that I've met in-person have been positive. They were encounters that usually consisted of people approaching me while I was trying to eat in a communal setting in order to tell me about how I was a horrible person for what I ate, how people like me were why animals suffered, etc. It usually went on until I told them in no uncertain terms how little I cared about what they were saying to me at that moment.

Regardless, I'm logically aware that most vegans/vegetarians won't be preachy (since they also number in the millions to billions) so I've never tried to get in a "pre-emptive strike" or so nobody has made me aware. Unfortunately, the nature of the encounters I have had still cause me to get a bit wary and think "Here we go" when someone does mention they're vegetarian. It's something I'm trying to improve with but it still happens on occasion.

 

[Lightknight]

Okay before you accuse me of shoving my views down anyone's throats, this is not an argument about animal rights. As far as this thread goes, I don't care whether you eat animals or not.

We all know the jokes about vegans. "How do you know if someone's vegan? They'll tell you!" We've all seen the stereotype about vegans and vegetarians being smug, we've seen jokes at their expense because "we didn't get to the top of the food chain just to eat grass".

Interestingly though, I've found that meat eaters can be really easy to offend. I've seen many take criticisms of the meat industry very personally, which often results in lashing out. Accusations of aggression on the part of vegans, desperate proclamations of how "tough" they are or how humans have "evolved to eat meat". Because they are the majority group they tend to have a lot of support. Which just makes me wonder, if they have such strength in numbers and they honestly believe what they're doing is morally/ethically okay then why do they have such knee-jerk, emotional reactions?

Again, not judging meat eaters here. I'm just curious about why many of them are quick to get defensive if they're the vast majority.

Since only 8% of humans worldwide are vegetarians, you just made a comment that 92% of people are easily offended. (Fun fact, 84% of vegetarians and vegans go back to eating meat, 53% within the first year, which means there are actually 31% of vegetarians/vegans that actually make it more than a year without meat and then just go back to eating it. Makes you wonder what percentage of the remaining 16% are religious vegetarians that have external motivations to remain so compared to people who just have moral objections to the meat industry)

I haven't read the subsequent posts yet, but have you figured out yet that you just realized humans in general are easy to offend? We are evolved to care about what people say so we fit in with each other better. It is highly advantageous for us to care even if it can lead to embarrassment in the short term.

Society punishes people who stand out and behave contrary to the general society. Whether you like it or not, you are a minority as a vegetarian or vegan (Vegans are particularly ridiculed due to their avoidance of eggs and milk which do not harm animals if humanely obtained). The reason vegetarians or vegans are seen as particularly smug, is because many will frequently talk about their avoidance of meat as though they are better than the rest of society. You make a claim that the meant industry does X (not entirely true because some brands do X and some brands do not) and in doing so have instantly made the claim that you're doing what is right and the people you're speaking to are doing what is bad, ergo you are better (whether you intend to do this or not). That fits the definition of smug quite nicely even if you aren't particularly guilty of this yourself. "Meat eaters" don't think they're better, just that they're normal by definition which is technically true. This is why a commonly cited reason for vegetarians to go back to meat is a desire not to stand out.

Basically, people will get mad if you try to claim something they enjoy is wrong. Me personally, I want humane treatment for animals whenever viable but if we had to cause them to suffer for some reason then I would just consider it part of what has to happen to give us omnivores meat. No offense or care to be had at someone saying that the cows weep for a week before I get my steak. I mean, other animals hunt down their prey in the wild, terrifying them and then gnaw on their bodies until they die from blood loss. We go to great lengths to make the death as quick as possible with one blow to the brain. We've even learned how to organize the process in a way that doesn't terrify the cow (which has an added benefits of better tasting meat). The biggest concern now is living conditions while alive and this has spawned a major secondary free range market for a lot of meats just because we (meat eaters) care about that. If someone tries to guilt me because of what happens after the moment a cow gets a bullet to the brain then I'm going to laugh at them. Oh no, X happens to the lifeless corpse? Don't care, nothing is suffering. If you tell me that they're amputating limbs from animals to serve them fresh then I'm going to have a problem. Well... unless it's like SUPER delicious I guess... why is this making me want to try veal? [/joke]

Humanely procured meat does taste better (except in the case of veal) and is generally paid more for. There's an entire market for it that people objecting to the meat industry should be willing to support if their political beliefs were consistent.

 

[Lightknight]

I guess you got your answer, meat eaters are easy to be offended, just look at some posts here

Vegan is the future, only someone really blind can't see that, it's just a matter of time, I eat meat, simply because salmon and good steaks are really really good and I haven't eaten something vegan as good as those (tho since few people I know are vegan I barely try it), and I'm to lazy to learn how to cook vegan, but that's because how I grew in a society where eating meat is standard and now it's hard to let go of it, but naturally, the most responsible choice will prevail as times passes and eating meat will becomes rarer and rarer as time goes.

Help me out here, is this satire? If so, Poe's law is strong with this post.

The future is likely to be ethically harvested or even lab created meat. Most people have absolutely NO ethical quandary with the natural consumption of meat. The majority only have issues with inhumane treatment of food sources.

Vegan food wouldn't need to just get better, it would need to be able to replace the taste and texture and role of all other meat and would have to establish health benefits (believe it or not, but soy beans have their own range of hormonal health risks).

Here's a fun question for vegans and vegetarians. If labs created meat (and they already can) that tasted exactly as good as current market meat but was just formed in a lab as the muscle rather than having ever been a living creature, would they eat it? If not, why? Keep in mind that at this point it would functionally be like a meat plant had been created.

 

[Fallow]

The only group I've found that cannot be easily offended are of the post-humous variety.

Strangely though, the only place where I've found hyper-defensive carnivores is Slashdot.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I skimmed this thread a bit but I can't seem to find anywhere examples of meat-eating people being 'offended'. This is about the closest:

Are you telling me you've never seen a response like "mmm bacon is delicious" or "my food eats your food" when vegans say something publicly? I mean I suppose it's not something you see in open conversation often outside the internet, but look at any comments section on articles or videos that criticise the meat industry and you'll see this behaviour.

But that isn't being offended. Its just not. Its what we call in the UK "taking the piss". Its sardonicism directed at preachy Vegans. Its a wind-up.

I mean I'm seriously confused here. There's a difference between taking the piss out of someone and being offended by what they said. Do people not realise this?

 

[Silvanus]

Here's a fun question for vegans and vegetarians. If labs created meat (and they already can) that tasted exactly as good as current market meat but was just formed in a lab as the muscle rather than having ever been a living creature, would they eat it? If not, why? Keep in mind that at this point it would functionally be like a meat plant had been created.

Yes, absolutely. Suffering is my only concern.

In fact, it's not the eating of meat I have a problem with; its contributing to demand. When circumstances arise in which I can partake without doing so, I'm fine with that.

 

[Politrukk]

It's simple.

Vegans wish to convert others to also become vegan.


Those others are meat eaters.

People tend to take offence to obnoxious people trying to "educate" them the entire time.

I skimmed this thread a bit but I can't seem to find anywhere examples of meat-eating people being 'offended'. This is about the closest:

Are you telling me you've never seen a response like "mmm bacon is delicious" or "my food eats your food" when vegans say something publicly? I mean I suppose it's not something you see in open conversation often outside the internet, but look at any comments section on articles or videos that criticise the meat industry and you'll see this behaviour.

But that isn't being offended. Its just not. Its what we call in the UK "taking the piss". Its sardonicism directed at preachy Vegans. Its a wind-up.

I mean I'm seriously confused here. There's a difference between taking the piss out of someone and being offended by what they said. Do people not realise this?

no they don't sadly

 

[Lightknight]

Here's a fun question for vegans and vegetarians. If labs created meat (and they already can) that tasted exactly as good as current market meat but was just formed in a lab as the muscle rather than having ever been a living creature, would they eat it? If not, why? Keep in mind that at this point it would functionally be like a meat plant had been created.

Yes, absolutely. Suffering is my only concern.

In fact, it's not the eating of meat I have a problem with; its contributing to demand. When circumstances arise in which I can partake without doing so, I'm fine with that.

So then, how do you feel about meat specifically harvested ethically? There is a demand for this and you can likely find it in local stores. Cows that were actually allowed to roam farm land and graze who also were also killed quickly and humanely.

If you could know that's how your meat was acquired, could you eat it?

 

[Cycloptomese]

I take a different stance as a meat eater. I strongly encourage every person to become a vegan/vegetarian or whatever. That means more meat for me!

 

[Dizchu]

But that isn't being offended. Its just not. Its what we call in the UK "taking the piss". Its sardonicism directed at preachy Vegans. Its a wind-up.

I mean I'm seriously confused here. There's a difference between taking the piss out of someone and being offended by what they said. Do people not realise this?

I think I expressed this point with ambiguous examples. My main point was that people get really defensive (and there needs to be an "offense" to defend against), and seeing as this is the internet, people often resort to short copypasta quips. It's the same mentality that results in people responding with "I'm gonna carry a pistol into Starbucks to spite you" to criticism of open carrying. Who says something like that unless a nerve has been touched?

It's essentially "how dare you". A defense of something seen as sacrosanct.

Since only 8% of humans worldwide are vegetarians, you just made a comment that 92% of people are easily offended.

Err, no I didn't? I didn't say "meat eaters are all pussies that can't take criticism", I said "meat eaters can be easily offended" specifically as the result of criticism of the meat industry. It's an industry that's not going away any time soon, most cultures openly support or promote it and it's assumed the default.

It's like saying "gamers can be easily offended" in response to disproportionate backlashes against minor things. It doesn't mean that every gamer is an outrage machine, it means that such backlashes are easy to trigger. I think feminists can be easy to offend, that doesn't mean every single feminist is an extreme SJW waiting for an excuse to lash out.

You make a claim that the meant industry does X (not entirely true because some brands do X and some brands do not) and in doing so have instantly made the claim that you're doing what is right and the people you're speaking to are doing what is bad, ergo you are better (whether you intend to do this or not). That fits the definition of smug quite nicely even if you aren't particularly guilty of this yourself.

I don't think I'm inherently better for not eating meat, no. It's the same reason I don't feel better than others for recycling. With the former it was my attempt at relieving cognitive dissonance. I consider it as a personal achievement rather than something I should be congratulated for, it's a weight off my shoulders. In the grand scheme of things, me not eating a burger or not throwing plastic into a landfill isn't going to save the world, but it's a way for me to be more logically consistent with my values.

Ultimately that's how I think veganism and vegetarianism should be treated. But regardless of that, the meat industry is a gigantic industry with a worldwide influence. Criticism of it is necessary, you hardly have to be a vegan or vegetarianism to endorse environmentalism or animal welfare.

Basically, people will get mad if you try to claim something they enjoy is wrong. Me personally, I want humane treatment for animals whenever viable but if we had to cause them to suffer for some reason then I would just consider it part of what has to happen to give us omnivores meat.

This tends to be a common mentality. I doubt many people can watch slaughterhouse or battery farm footage, regardless of how much meat they eat. When a lion is shot for a trophy or a dog is left to die in a ditch, there are visceral reactions to it. People obviously care about animals, but a lot of stuff they'd wince at happens behind closed doors. Not just with animals either, humans often work in unregulated sweatshops or mines to keep up with the absurd demands of consumers. Skyscrapers in the Middle East are admired for their immensity, but the workers that were paid bugger all to build it are often overlooked.

There's an entire market for it that people objecting to the meat industry should be willing to support if their political beliefs were consistent.

Sure, I can get on board with that. It's a compromise but unlike many, I think compromise is good. I'm not one of those people who believe that the only two options for supplying energy are solar highways and fracking. Similarly, I don't think the eradication of such a huge industry is necessary, let alone possible.

 

[Lightknight]

Since only 8% of humans worldwide are vegetarians, you just made a comment that 92% of people are easily offended.

Err, no I didn't? I didn't say "meat eaters are all pussies that can't take criticism", I said "meat eaters can be easily offended" specifically as the result of criticism of the meat industry. It's an industry that's not going away any time soon, most cultures openly support or promote it and it's assumed the default.

It's like saying "gamers can be easily offended" in response to disproportionate backlashes against minor things. It doesn't mean that every gamer is an outrage machine, it means that such backlashes are easy to trigger. I think feminists can be easy to offend, that doesn't mean every single feminist is an extreme SJW waiting for an excuse to lash out.

You framed the comment as meat eaters by contrast to vegetarians. You didn't say "some people who eat meat" but rather "meat eaters" (we are omnivores, by the way). The conclusion being that some quality of being a meat eater contains within it a propensity for getting butt hurt even if you aren't describing each subset of the set. This, ironically (in that it had the opposite effect of the desired one), comes across as smug and exactly the sort of example vegetarians and vegans produce that give them that kind of name. If you are doing this unironically then this is quite interesting. Perhaps a followup question could be made to ask if vegetable eaters may be entirely unaware of when they're acting superior? (tongue in cheek, fyi)

I don't think I'm inherently better for not eating meat, no. It's the same reason I don't feel better than others for recycling. With the former it was my attempt at relieving cognitive dissonance. I consider it as a personal achievement rather than something I should be congratulated for, it's a weight off my shoulders. In the grand scheme of things, me not eating a burger or not throwing plastic into a landfill isn't going to save the world, but it's a way for me to be more logically consistent with my values.

Ultimately that's how I think veganism and vegetarianism should be treated. But regardless of that, the meat industry is a gigantic industry with a worldwide influence. Criticism of it is necessary, you hardly have to be a vegan or vegetarianism to endorse environmentalism or animal welfare.

If you believe that what you're doing is right/good, does this not mean that you believe people who aren't doing what you're doing are doing wrong? Do you really disassociate your own moral values from how more people should behave?

This tends to be a common mentality. I doubt many people can watch slaughterhouse or battery farm footage, regardless of how much meat they eat. When a lion is shot for a trophy or a dog is left to die in a ditch, there are visceral reactions to it. People obviously care about animals, but a lot of stuff they'd wince at happens behind closed doors. Not just with animals either, humans often work in unregulated sweatshops or mines to keep up with the absurd demands of consumers. Skyscrapers in the Middle East are admired for their immensity, but the workers that were paid bugger all to build it are often overlooked.

Don't confuse being willing to accept some pain in animals with being ignorant of it. Your logic wouldn't explain the vast majority of human history where many of us slaughtered animals we caught for survival.

Look, I was offered a chance to slaughter a chicken at a friend's farm for me to take home and eat. I decided that I needed to see and be part of the process as a meat eater and so I did it. While I successfully performed the task in one swipe without causing undue harm to the animal, it absolutely should be left up to the professionals who can do it almost every time without having to strike the animal a second time. It is erroneous to think that these factories are doing a poorer job than we've ever done in the past. The main issue we see now is in the living quarters of the animals.

Sure, I can get on board with that. It's a compromise but unlike many, I think compromise is good. I'm not one of those people who believe that the only two options for supplying energy are solar highways and fracking. Similarly, I don't think the eradication of such a huge industry is necessary, let alone possible.

So, let's say someone offered you meat from their farm. You knew that the cow was well taken care of and when the time came was quickly dispatched in a way that it wasn't even aware was about to happen. A real-world example of this would be if I'd gone halfsies on a live calf with a neighbor (see, my home sits on 6 acres of unused farmland so these are the kinds of options I have). The idea was that calves are cheaper and will eventually grow into a full cow which itself will be several times cheaper than store meat. So imagine a free-range cow that grazed normally and was treated well. Not locked in a confined area or force fed grain up the ass or anything like that.

Would you be willing to pay for and/or eat that meat? Or is the humane treatment irrelevant to your personal consumption of meat? Also, how would you view a person whose only source of meat is from sources like this. Would you view them as being as conscious as vegetarians/vegans towards animals or less than because they still consume animals?

 

[Silvanus]

So then, how do you feel about meat specifically harvested ethically? There is a demand for this and you can likely find it in local stores. Cows that were actually allowed to roam farm land and graze who also were also killed quickly and humanely.

If you could know that's how your meat was acquired, could you eat it?

I would still avoid buying it (as I do now), though I have much less of a qualm about ethically-sourced meat than I do about the other stuff.

Really, I think there's only so far you can consider it "ethically harvested". It's a hundred times better than battery farming, no question there; a thousand times better. But it's not going to be ethically neutral if it involves killing a thinking creature.

It's simple.

Vegans wish to convert others to also become vegan.

What, all of them? Is it a requirement? The vegans I've known never made any move to convince me (or anyone else I've seen them interact with); maybe they need to hand in their vegan cards.

 

[K12]

It's simple.

Vegans wish to convert others to also become vegan.


Those others are meat eaters.

Erm... what? Vegans don't eat meat and dairy (and apparently honey which I find rather over the top)
Since when does belonging to a group automatically make you a . This sounds about like "gay recruiters" style thinking to me.

You could argue that ethical veganism implies that making others eat less meat is a good thing but this is going to depend a lot on how you justify your exclusion of meat from your diet and how you consider moral responsibility to work... that is not a simple issue.

Even if there is the intention to convince others (which is not an unusual or automatically negative thing for people with a particular moral belief) this won't automatically be a smug, obnoxious "Sigh, how silly you are, let me set your thinking straight" kind of exercise. That assumption (and the occassionally over the top reaction to it) by meat-eaters is exactly the thing that this thread was asking people about.

 

[aba1]

I have known plenty of vegetarians and vegans and honestly never had a problem. They were all typically just happy I wasn't being a dick and trying to force meat on them so they left me alone about my choices.

 

[ecoho]

Okay before you accuse me of shoving my views down anyone's throats, this is not an argument about animal rights. As far as this thread goes, I don't care whether you eat animals or not.

We all know the jokes about vegans. "How do you know if someone's vegan? They'll tell you!" We've all seen the stereotype about vegans and vegetarians being smug, we've seen jokes at their expense because "we didn't get to the top of the food chain just to eat grass".

Interestingly though, I've found that meat eaters can be really easy to offend. I've seen many take criticisms of the meat industry very personally, which often results in lashing out. Accusations of aggression on the part of vegans, desperate proclamations of how "tough" they are or how humans have "evolved to eat meat". Because they are the majority group they tend to have a lot of support. Which just makes me wonder, if they have such strength in numbers and they honestly believe what they're doing is morally/ethically okay then why do they have such knee-jerk, emotional reactions?

Again, not judging meat eaters here. I'm just curious about why many of them are quick to get defensive if they're the vast majority.

I can only speak my opinion here but it is probably because the minority tends to screw over the majority in this fucked up world. also I could care less about an animal too stupid to keep itself alive on its own like say a domesticated turkey which have been known to drown themselves in the rain, and yes I know wild turkeys are smarter and can even fly.

oh and the fact that most vegans and vegetarians ive met have never had a good answer for why they do what they do, because its not healthy, doesn't stop the slaughter of food animals, or do anything worth while.