No Stupid Questions

I respect other people's choices in what to consume, and I expect the same respect in return. I have no problem with people being vegan or vegetarian. In fact, most people I work with are from India and are vegetarian. We eat lunch together most days and no one has any problems with each other.

Unfortunately most vegans I know are extremely pushy and judgemental about their diet/lifestyle. They do not respect my choice in what to consume. This used to causes some preemptive judgements on my part, where I would get defensive immediately about my dietary choices, because I assumed they were judging me. Over time I have learned to control this reflex.

I can only assume that many people have had the same experience as me, and jump to the same conclusions.

My experience around any opinion where there is a default option, the vast majority will accept the default without thinking. Then when presented with an alternative by someone who has actively chosen to not chose the default, people become highly defensive as if they did do their due diligence, whether or not they actually did. Depending on where you live, the defaults change, but being that humans are tribal, differences in lifestyle naturally create friction. In parts of America, you drive an SUV, use an iPhone, and eat meat. Whether or not they actively or passively chose that lifestyle, when someone doesn't conform to what is expected there will be friction. How people react to that friction is up to them, but again, the default is to be critical of them and encourage conformity.

There are some very militant vegans out here on Lemmy, equating eating meat with rape and murder and generally being annoying without actually contributing to the discussions.

They are actively harming their cause. So much so, I suspect them of actually being trolls trying to make vegans look bad.

Or they are just dumb as a brick and don't understand common discourse. That's possible too.

Because the Internet makes it easy to more forcefully express strong opinions, from both parties.

It's very easy to run into vegans on the Internet who will call you an unethical monster for eating meat, which if you don't think of yourself as an unethical monster, can be a bit offensive.

You also run into non-vegans who can't get it through their heads that that's not every vegan on earth, or even just the Internet or likely even that conversation.

It's much harder to call someone an animal hating monster or a pretentious condescending asshole face to face.

Some people feel judged for eating meat if they learn that you're a vegetarian or vegan. As veganism appears more extreme, it causes a stronger reaction.
These people don't like being judged, so they seek to judge you instead. If they can judge you for not eating meat, you can't judge them for eating it, or so they feel.
Some vegans being quite obnoxious in their attempts to convert others, doesn't improve things. Rather, it helps those who dislike vegans to reaffirm their beliefs that all vegans are silently judging them all the time.
All of this is just my theory.

I have nothing against veganism as a dietary decision, I'm actually seriously considering it for health reasons and for easier food preparation.

I am sick of veganism as a moral high horse, especially with hypocrisy in the background. I have a friend constantly ordering stuff, including vegan ingredients, from Amazon of all places. If he's going to low-key admonish me for hurting animals, I'd expect him to care about the Amazon warehouse employees to a similar degree. Unless it's all just posturing.

Vegans simply existing make people feel uncomfortable, so defense mechanisms in the brain trigger.

Since it’s an ethical stance, and people at least deep down know that killing innocent animals for 5 minutes of taste pleasure is wrong, but they don’t want to change themselves.

So the brain tries to rationalize how it’s definitely not wrong and really the vegan is wrong, and/or demonize the position to shield itself from the discomfort of knowing.

Basically psychological defenses kick in to defend unethical behavior that someone highlights by simply existing.

I can't stand the proselytizing powered by privilege on so many planes. Whether it's cost, availability, or time, people have many reasons for being mUrDeReRs. Nobody likes being condescended over things that are barely in their control as it is.