We are all familiar with the stereotype of the mean, angry vegan, shouting about animal cruelty and calling meat eaters ‘murderers.’ But even if we can’t condone that kind of behaviour, surely we can understand it?
I know there are angry vegans out there. I know a vegan was probably very rude to you one time, or maybe more than once. They snapped or yelled at you, or told you to just leave them alone for asking what you thought was an innocuous question. They may even pretend they’re the reason you won’t go vegan, or that vegans like them are the reason people won’t listen to animal rights activists. But I just want to take a minute here, not to apologise for that behaviour, since, vegans are made to do enough of that, but hopefully to help you understand it a little better.
It is likely difficult for you to grasp just how often vegans are asked the same questions, or challenged in the same ways. I cannot even count the number of times people’s first response to finding out I’m vegan is to point out that “plants feel pain too,” or ask me about the suffering of crop workers. These may feel like original objections to you, what you will get back from us is usually a rehearsed, well-worn response. “Yes, I know not everyone can go vegan. Yes, we know that veganism isn’t a perfect lifestyle either. No, I don’t think I’m better than you.” There are times though, when the response you will get will be much less polite, or when someone approaches you with obvious anger at the fact that you eat animals. This is not effective advocacy and I don’t endorse aggression, but I do understand it. For you, this might be an odd, one-off exchange with one of the few vegans you’ve ever met, but for us, these conversations are part of our daily reality.
Conversations about whether or not animals should have rights, why it is moral to eat a pig but not a dog, and whether it is okay for an animal to suffer for your taste preferences, are probably just academic questions for you. They are of interest, perhaps fun to debate, but they don’t keep you up at night. For us, the stakes are high very indeed. You may not believe that this is the case, but most vegans became vegan precisely because of what we learned about animal agriculture, and after all that research we’ve done, after participating in the same debate over and over, we are likely more informed on what is done to animals than you are. I have even encountered farmers who know shockingly little about the wider industry outside of their own products or country.
The “city folk” stereotype about vegans often does hold true, most vegans live in cities (as most of the world population do). But it is not the case that we are uninformed just because most of us didn’t grow up next to a cattle farm. Many of us have seen these atrocities for ourselves, we have seen calves bellow for the mothers they barely knew, visibly frightened pigs being forced into the slaughterhouse, and sheep bleating for the lambs taken from them to be slaughtered. We have either watched the footage that you refuse to, or visited farms as part of our activism to see this suffering for ourselves.
So how could we not be emotional during conversations about this suffering? For you, questions of how animals are to be treated are purely academic because it doesn’t feel like it affects you, but these are deeply emotional issues for us because we are connected to them and the results of these decisions in a way that you are not. Besides, we are all impacted by what animal agriculture corporations do, given the catastrophic environmental impact of farming animals, and the damage they do to our communities – all subsidised by our taxes.
When we are having conversations about animal rights and trying to persuade people to go vegan, we know that depending on this conversation, sentient beings will live or die. We know that if we can get you to commit we could save thousands of lives, or condemn them to suffer if we fail. Is it not understandable then, that when you trivialise, laugh at, or “agree to disagree” in a conversation like this, some of us may become upset? Vegans are subject to almost constant mockery for our beliefs, we are far from oppressed but we are attempting to stand up for those who are, and being dismissed and reviled for it. We know that if we get upset, or angry at the trolling, the jokes about animals having their throats slit, and the “mmm bacon” comments, we will simply be just another “over-emotional” or “angry vegan” stereotype. We try to avoid falling into that trap, but it is not always easy, and even the most experienced vegan will slip from time to time.
Eating animals is normal to you, but the vegan you are talking to sees you as guilty of something they find abhorrent. Try to imagine attempting to have a reasonable conversation with someone about why they shouldn’t kill kittens for fun, or organise a dog fight. These may seem extreme examples, but this is exactly how vegans see eating animals; that you are guilty of paying someone to breed, exploit, and slaughter animals purely for your pleasure. It is difficult enough to talk to and advocate to someone whose actions you find despicable, but to then be expected to remain cheerful and courteous while doing so? That is not an easy thing, and I suspect most who condemn “angry vegans” would find it just as difficult to rationally and calmly talk to someone who enjoys eating dogs or harming other humans. Whether or not you are angry about anyone’s behaviour is a matter of perspective, but we’re all being dishonest with ourselves if we claim to never lose our tempers about how other people choose to live their lives.
It doesn’t help that we are constantly policed on how we speak to others about activism. The line “people would be much more likely to listen to you if you were nicer about it” will be familiar to any vegan, as will the fact that this is completely untrue. Spending half an hour in the vegan tag on any social media site will show you just how much ridicule, insults, and baiting even the most calm and rational vegans are subjected to. You can be as kind and patient as you want and often still receive the same, deeply hostile treatment.
Recently, in responding to a post about dairy calves, I politely informed someone about the typical life of a dairy cow, the common time between pregnancies, artificial insemination. This was nothing offensive or that couldn’t be found with a quick search on Ecosia.org. I can recall a particular incident where I was explaining to a blogger why we oppose eggs, and if they were interested in some resources on how to replace them with plant-based alternatives, then feel free to send me a message. They took me up on that, and promptly sent me a picture of a chicken having their head cut off. This is not all that unusual. The truth is, what people want us to be isn’t calm, rational, and cheerful, what they want is for us to be silent.
As unpopular as this opinion may be, I think there is a very real place for anger in advocacy. Aggression, personal insults, and vindictiveness are never justified, but being angry in the face of so much cruelty is more than understandable. When we display this anger we are constantly told that people would be more likely to listen to us if we were gentle, and while this may be true for many people, for others being called out is exactly what they need. Different methods work for different people, and angry advocacy has proved effective in many movements aside from our own. This controlling of exactly how we should speak when we advocate is rightly dismissed as tone policing with advocates of any other stripe, but vegans are consistently told they need to be sunshine and rainbows even when we’re discussing what are atrocities of the most violent nature. Can anyone really expect that of us?
It may be then, that we need to apply that well-known social justice adage to veganism, as we do to other movements. “If you are not angry, you are not paying attention.” We are paying attention, and that is what makes being calm, rational, and objective so difficult. I am very aware that a patient, logical approach is far more effective more often than anger is, it is what I strive for in my activism. You will rarely see me lose my cool. That doesn’t mean that I don’t understand and support angry activism, too. When we look at the situation of animal suffering, how we are breeding, exploiting, and killing them in their trillions, destroying our forests, and putting the long-term survival of our planet in danger for the sake of cheeseburgers, isn’t anger the appropriate response?
It is certainly better than apathy.