*please note i deeply value and respect the vegan movement. i am just critical of how humorously it precipitates in online spaces, particularly this one. :)
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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Veganism is an -ism as well. You're getting worked up about a term that, at its core, just means that a person believes it is normal, natural and necessary to eat animals and animal products. Omnivore on the other hand means that you are able to digest and eat all kinds of food. If someone calls you a carnist, then the word itself is about as insulting as using "vegan" to describe vegans. Whatever derogatory meaning "evangelical" vegans put behind it is inferred from context or tone, not the word itself.
But NOT being vegan isn't. In 99% of cases, it's not an active choice based on values like veganism and indeed all other isms is.
Claiming otherwise while also asserting that it's morally repugnant behavior is a value judgment and a bigoted one at that
Personally, I don't eat meat most days and when I do it's from a LACK of an active choice not to do so, not a choice TO eat meat.
There's just not enough meat free alternatives that 1) taste good, 2) are within my means financially, 3) are filling enough AND 4) are within my severely ADHD-reduced ability to focus long enough to cook for myself.
As explained above, that's just not true. An evangelical vegan calling someone who eats meat a "carnist" is more along the lines of a Protestant from Northern Ireland or Scotland calling a Catholic a "fucking papist".
It's a sectarian slur, basically.
Except for the fact that it's only used in a derogatory context and tone, just like all other slurs.
Or maybe your opinion on what the term means is influenced by your biases about what vegans are like and act like towards carnists? If you interact with vegans on a friendly basis rather than assuming that they're trying to insult you or that they're calling your choices morally repugnant, you may find that it'soften used descriptively rather than to pass judgement. I have personally seen the term used neutrally more often than I've seen it used insultingly. It was also not coined as a slur: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnism by the way, Melany Joy was describing exactly what you mentioned: The pervasiveness of carnism, which makes it an unconscious automatism for many people.
Fixed that for you. Framed like that, the answer is yes: not all vegans are bigots, of course, that would ironically be a bigoted and untrue claim.
All proselytizing evangelical vegans I've ever been in contact with, many of which have been om Lemmy, have either used the word "carnist" as a slur or not at all. With the possible exception of you, though I'm not at all sold on that based on your denials of reality so far.
I never assume in advance. As I said, not all vegans are bigots. None of the few I know IRL are. A LOT of the ones here on Lemmy are, though, and they're always the ones to initiate conflict since I frankly have better things to do with my life than go actively looking for things to be offended by. Unlike said evangelical vegans.
Even if that was the case, that's still misleading as, like I've already explained, not being vegan isn't any more of an ism than being atheist is a religion.
Even if not used deliberately as an insult, it's inherently non-neutral as it infers a belief system that isn't there in 99% of cases and simultaneously lumps everyone who's not vegan together in one group like a fundamentalist religious person would lump everyone who's not a follower of their religion together as "heathens" and "apostates".
It was coined by a vegan activist to generalize about a lot of people who don't themselves consider their lack of veganism a belief system. That Wikipedia article is about as biased towards support for the topic as the one about Israel 🙄
It's a slur coined to lump people who have nothing meaningful in common together in order to make them easier to attack. It's the equivalent of calling undocumented immigrants "illegal aliens".
That's the tricky thing with biases, right? They're formed by our experiences. My experience interacting with vegans has clearly been different from yours, so that may explain why you would think I'm denying reality. Anyway, I hope you can keep an open mind when talking to vegans who use the word carnist. Not all of them are bigots :)
And also by believing unreliable sources like Melissa May and not questioning loaded terms coined to inspire and reinforce biases. Such as "illegal alien" and "carnist".
Probably because you are one yourself and thus aren't the target of their slurs and other bigotry towards people who don't follow their extremist version of vegetarism.
The fact that you blatantly are is another big motivator as well.