Current attacks on...

...veganism.

Recently I have been seeing a lot of attacks on veganism. I feel they are unnecessary and quite cheap for they haven’t even been thought out. More to the point many of these attacks assume a lot about the persons they are directed at. It is simply another form of categorization and stereotyping. It also forces convention down with a heavy hand before thinking much about what they are really attacking. I write this simply to clarify anything. Let me make that clear because I am not writing this to tell anybody to go vegan. Please make sure you understand that.
The main problem I have with these attacks is the idea that anyone who decides to choose a vegan diet must be doing so on the grounds that they are more righteous than those who don’t; that they are doing it for simply to be good and/or cool. This seems to be an insecurity on the level of the meat eater that perhaps they are simply a) too weak willed to step outside of the life they have been thrown into and to look back with neutral eye, and therefore feel at threat by those who make changes like this to their lifestyle. This is clearly not the case however, as some people who continue to eat meat do so on grounds that they have rationally thought out. I am not here to categorize. Perhaps b) they believe the choice of diet change from the vegan to have been simply about the fact that they feel bad that particular animals are suffering and therefore the question is raised as to exactly what can feel pain and other such specifics. This isn’t quite right either. In some cases perhaps the vegan is thinking only of himself when he decides to withdraw from animal products, but I know in my own case I decided to go vegan because I had educated myself on the reality of some areas of the animal product trade and decided on rational grounds that this effects the nature of various species being treated as a means to an end. I then saw that there exists many an alternative, making a vegan lifestyle sustainable and even quite appealing for more than one reason. I didn’t make the decision so that I could tell everyone else how righteous I am and how hip I now feel to be in with an out crowd, in fact I don’t feel the need to make a public display of my dietary choice at all. What I won’t accept is being made to feel like an idiot for my choice as if I didn’t think about it before but rushed after a new up and coming cool thing to do like a moth to a flame.
More to the point I realized when I went vegan that this was a choice that only affected me and therefore I of course wasn’t to preach such an idea to anyone else. I believe in each and every individual’s freedom and responsibility to choose their own lifestyle and not to have one handed down to them nor preached upon them. Therefore I feel that I have a right to eat what I like without someone else’s opinion thrown in my face, and I feel that I deserve this treatment for the fact that I don’t throw my opinions in anyone else’s face. I am not saying don’t question anything like veganism, it is still relatively new and it’s moving quickly. But just think before you launch attacks, questioning something is one thing but striking mindless blows is another. The worst part is being called a ‘pussy’ or a ‘fag’ for choosing this diet because it brings in other unnecessary hateful stereotypes and proves the idiocy of the attacker at a further level.