Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Religion: Vegan Candor in Vegan Proselytization
Veganism is a religion. Vegans dislike talking about it in this way, and, in fact, they may angrily deny it. (In general, vegans get violently pissy when you are anything but completely accepting of their religion.) But if you look at the internal communications among vegans,you'll observe the same disingenuous behavior that you do among other proselytizing religious groups. For example:
1. Nothing is more important than gaining more converts.
Take a look at this page. I find it to be very interesting and revealing. In it the author lists the following problems that Vegans exhibit with "information" when trying to win converts. It includes:
If we are going to make such extraordinary claims in our literature, they must be backed up with overwhelming proof in that literature if we expect people to believe them.
Note that the author does not raise the question of the "extraordinary claims" possibly being falsehoods, but instead that they be backed up with "overwhelming proof." In other words, "Lie all you want, but make sure it looks really well-supported."
Unwarranted generalization is a related problem, such as taking the results from a single study (e.g., heart attack rates of vegetarianscompared to nonvegetarians) and generalizing those rates as facts for the entire population. Often this is done when there are other studies indicating more conservative figures, or even opposing conclusions.
Note that this is done "often."
Another problem is connecting unrelated or loosely-related facts, such as arguing that one should be vegan to avoid sterility.
Perhaps we can call this "playing hard and loose with the facts." Par for the course for Vegans (and all religious proselytizers).
The author states in his conclusion:
Getting accurate, complete, and unbiased information can be difficult. Until 1999, some of the information in Vegan Outreach's pamphletshad been based on secondary sources. When we finally had the time to go to the original sources, they often did not correspond to what was being attributed to them.
Yes, getting accurate, complete, and unbiased information is difficult, but since when was being accurate, complete, or unbiased more important that winning converts? The cavalier attitude that the author displays toward honesty and integrity betrays this common sentiment amongreligious proselytizers.
2. Don't be up front about the fact that your lifestyle will suffer if you convert, and try and diminish this fact if it does come up.
Christians almost never share the difficult, personal struggles that they have to face as Christians. Those facts just don't make it into the sales pitch. Likewise, I'm sure you remember Christians saying things like, "Christians have lots of fun!" and "Christianity isn't just a big list of rules." Again, let's visit the page I was ripping up for another choice quote:
In order not to scare off potential vegans, some advocates rarely mention any difficulties in being vegan. This can backfire by not preparing people well for a vegan diet. Our experience indicates there are a large number of people who become vegetarian or vegan, don't feel healthy, and go back to meat-eating. As one nutrition professor recently told Jack, "You're the only vegan I know. I know a lot of ex-vegans,but no vegans."
Wow, Vegan apostates! Who would have thunk! You don't hear of those folks all that often, do you? Notice that you have to be "prepared" for a vegan diet. Apparently, it's a difficult, inferior lifestyle.
Now let's turn our attention to this page. There are some interesting quotes in it as well:
Always, always, always remember: Veganism isn’t a dogma. Veganism is about stopping suffering. Let me say that again, as a 17-year vegan: Veganism is not a list of ingredients or a set of rules. Being vegan is about doing our best to help animals. So it requires thought, not a checklist.
The parallels continue: "Not a checklist" verses "not a big list of rules." "Veganism isn't a dogma. Veganism is about stopping suffering" verses "Christianity isn't a religion. Christianity is a personal relationship with god."
In the same vein, I went years refusing to eat with meat-eaters. Please be aware that many meat-eaters read your non-attendance as either deprivation, self-righteousness, or both, and that’s the sort of club nobody wants to join. “You can’t even go to parties, can’t go out toeat, whatever. Who wants to live like that?”
Don't reveal the difficult, personal struggles you have to face as a Vegan. I'm sure Christians can relate with potential converts seeing the Christian lifestyle as "deprivation" and "self-righteousness." That's because it is. Veganism is those things, too: self-righteous asceticism. It sounds like this: "I'm better than you because I don't do the sinful things that you do."
Because on some level, everyone knows that animals are treated badly and most people know that animal flesh is not good for them.
Animals are inferior to humans and affording them the rights that humans have is illogical. Furthermore, it seems that the author is fain to admit that Veganism is not good for humans, perhaps even more harmful than "animal flesh" is. How about we all much on some death cap mushrooms? It would be vegan, after all.
And for any Vegan reading this: that I am "cruel" for being an omnivore is Vegan dogma. It has no basis in reason or upon any fact that I derive pleasure from causing the death or pain of some other critter. And the only reason that such "cruelty" is wrong is because a person who expresses such cruelty is more likely to do the same thing to another human.
1. Nothing is more important than gaining more converts.
Take a look at this page. I find it to be very interesting and revealing. In it the author lists the following problems that Vegans exhibit with "information" when trying to win converts. It includes:
If we are going to make such extraordinary claims in our literature, they must be backed up with overwhelming proof in that literature if we expect people to believe them.
Note that the author does not raise the question of the "extraordinary claims" possibly being falsehoods, but instead that they be backed up with "overwhelming proof." In other words, "Lie all you want, but make sure it looks really well-supported."
Unwarranted generalization is a related problem, such as taking the results from a single study (e.g., heart attack rates of vegetarianscompared to nonvegetarians) and generalizing those rates as facts for the entire population. Often this is done when there are other studies indicating more conservative figures, or even opposing conclusions.
Note that this is done "often."
Another problem is connecting unrelated or loosely-related facts, such as arguing that one should be vegan to avoid sterility.
Perhaps we can call this "playing hard and loose with the facts." Par for the course for Vegans (and all religious proselytizers).
The author states in his conclusion:
Getting accurate, complete, and unbiased information can be difficult. Until 1999, some of the information in Vegan Outreach's pamphletshad been based on secondary sources. When we finally had the time to go to the original sources, they often did not correspond to what was being attributed to them.
Yes, getting accurate, complete, and unbiased information is difficult, but since when was being accurate, complete, or unbiased more important that winning converts? The cavalier attitude that the author displays toward honesty and integrity betrays this common sentiment amongreligious proselytizers.
2. Don't be up front about the fact that your lifestyle will suffer if you convert, and try and diminish this fact if it does come up.
Christians almost never share the difficult, personal struggles that they have to face as Christians. Those facts just don't make it into the sales pitch. Likewise, I'm sure you remember Christians saying things like, "Christians have lots of fun!" and "Christianity isn't just a big list of rules." Again, let's visit the page I was ripping up for another choice quote:
In order not to scare off potential vegans, some advocates rarely mention any difficulties in being vegan. This can backfire by not preparing people well for a vegan diet. Our experience indicates there are a large number of people who become vegetarian or vegan, don't feel healthy, and go back to meat-eating. As one nutrition professor recently told Jack, "You're the only vegan I know. I know a lot of ex-vegans,but no vegans."
Wow, Vegan apostates! Who would have thunk! You don't hear of those folks all that often, do you? Notice that you have to be "prepared" for a vegan diet. Apparently, it's a difficult, inferior lifestyle.
Now let's turn our attention to this page. There are some interesting quotes in it as well:
Always, always, always remember: Veganism isn’t a dogma. Veganism is about stopping suffering. Let me say that again, as a 17-year vegan: Veganism is not a list of ingredients or a set of rules. Being vegan is about doing our best to help animals. So it requires thought, not a checklist.
The parallels continue: "Not a checklist" verses "not a big list of rules." "Veganism isn't a dogma. Veganism is about stopping suffering" verses "Christianity isn't a religion. Christianity is a personal relationship with god."
In the same vein, I went years refusing to eat with meat-eaters. Please be aware that many meat-eaters read your non-attendance as either deprivation, self-righteousness, or both, and that’s the sort of club nobody wants to join. “You can’t even go to parties, can’t go out toeat, whatever. Who wants to live like that?”
Don't reveal the difficult, personal struggles you have to face as a Vegan. I'm sure Christians can relate with potential converts seeing the Christian lifestyle as "deprivation" and "self-righteousness." That's because it is. Veganism is those things, too: self-righteous asceticism. It sounds like this: "I'm better than you because I don't do the sinful things that you do."
Because on some level, everyone knows that animals are treated badly and most people know that animal flesh is not good for them.
Animals are inferior to humans and affording them the rights that humans have is illogical. Furthermore, it seems that the author is fain to admit that Veganism is not good for humans, perhaps even more harmful than "animal flesh" is. How about we all much on some death cap mushrooms? It would be vegan, after all.
And for any Vegan reading this: that I am "cruel" for being an omnivore is Vegan dogma. It has no basis in reason or upon any fact that I derive pleasure from causing the death or pain of some other critter. And the only reason that such "cruelty" is wrong is because a person who expresses such cruelty is more likely to do the same thing to another human.
