vegan

This is not even shaming meat eaters. It's shaming hypocrites. It's actually implying the normal meat eater is at least honest.

Uh huh.

The fur industry has almost collapsed in the last few decades thanks to public distaste for wearing fur.

Vegans didn't get there by gently encouraging people to wear less fur.

They got there by raising awareness of the inhumane conditions in fur farms, and by shaming the fuck out of celebrities wearing fur.

Shame works.

Shame teaches.

Because people - people like those on this very thread, who know eating meat is immoral and do it anyway - people who don't have the willpower to overcome their addiction to meat, and let's not fucking kid ourselves, if you know something is the wrong thing to do, if you know it's morally wrong, harmful to your health, and harmful to the environment, but you can't stop yourself from doing it anyway, that is a fucking addiction...

Those people need the negative reinforcement of social shame, as well as the positive reinforcement of doing the right thing. Shame is an immediate social consequence of doing the wrong thing. You may not hear the animals screaming in factory farms, you may not see the forests that burn to grow the monocrop soy they eat, you may not be able to smell or touch or taste the CO2 that's killing the world, but when you order a burger and the server's face twists in disgust, that's an immediate social consequence that will hopefully discourage you from doing it again.

If you eat meat, you are doing a shameful thing. You should be ashamed. You deserve to feel shame. And I hope for all our sakes that shame teaches you a lesson.

I don't see this as shaming so much as calling out a shared experience every vegan has had (it's a vegan community after all).

Kind of like the "the only ethical abortion is my abortion" crowd, any discussion of the benefits of eating less meat gets flooded with the "but the beef I buy is super unique and ethical", which is never true on so many levels.

The answer is always eat less meat, but people come up with so many excuses not to that it becomes memeable in the community.

If this is shaming anybody it's not the folks trying to eat less meat, but the ones coming up with every excuse possible to not change.

To me this didn't feel like shaming, but I guess it's easy to forget not everyone here is currently vegan.

If someone is really invested with the environment and climate, they should at the least have some awareness of the consequences of meat consumption. In that case, why do others have to keep holding their hand? The world wide web is full of delicious vegan/vegetarian recipes. Why does individual responsibility/initiative stop when one is convinced that reducing a luxury good is the best option?

And there are so many options to improve. Flexitarian, pescaterian, vegetarian, plant-based or vegan. I believe it helps to not let perfect be the enemy of good. It might also depend a bit on what convictions you want to change. If climate and/or health, it might give a bit more leniency; if animal wellfare it is likely to be a strict regime.

(keep in mind, the above is about those who say to care for the environement/climate)

I agree with your sentiment, but I feel this post is about those so called "enviromentalist" unwilling to admit their mistakes.

I eat meat, and I am happy to be made fun of because of it. It is not an ethical behavior so I am trying do as little of it as possible, within my mental and physical constraints. Also plenty of actions in our life is not ethical, we are human, not saints; and it is up to us to decide what is acceptable for our own morals.

I am not pointing finger at anyone, but I feel it is indeed unhealthy for both side to be so tense all the time. Yet most of these blame are carried by vegan, because with how prevalent meat eating is (at least in the U.S.), vegans stands out. Maybe us meat eaters can also do better in that regard by allowing vegans to make a "food without murder joke" once in a while. I am sure most vegan will not think you are an utterly horrible person just because you have eatten a big mac for dinner.

Please try harder to convince us to bot be horrible and not destroy the planrt we live on. Kind of pathetic but okay.

This is the same with any advocacy groups, the loudest abrasive voice burns distain in the brains of the receiver. As a vegan, some vegans are the worst to have out there talking to people.

Out of curiosity, given that you aren't vegan, why do you think you know the best way to convert people?

Lmaooo at the carnists telling us to convince them when they can't even convince themselves