Types of Anti-Vegan

WIP

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article was originally intended to be a joke but as it was being worked on I realized I'm describing people who actually exist.

Most people, even if they are not Vegan themselves, are not necessarily Anti-Vegans. Anti-Vegans can be defined as individuals who are against Veganism as defined by the Vegan Society, and its adherents, for whatever reasons those may be. By extension, they also oppose the animal rights movement (specifically the sect that deals with animal agricutlure) and will actively campaign against it in any way they can.

Public opinion on Veganism has shifted rather considerably in the past few decades, what with the increasing progressive and environmentalist views amongst the general public, along with Vegan products becoming more and more commonplace. Anti-Vegans are the laggards who want society to stay in the past in terms of animal rights and, motivated by and through various means, fight against it. They come in all types, and this article presents a succinct list of the most common ones you'll likely come into contact in your journeys as an animal rights activist.

Of course it should go without saying that everyone is different, but every individual has give or take a set list of characteristics that are consistent with one group or another.

And before you get all pissy, we're working on an article making fun of the differnet Types of Vegan too, settle down.

The Ex-Vegan

Let's start with my favorite. You'll notice a trend amongst these self-proclaimed former vegans that they always feel a great need to explain and justify themselves (of course, assuming they didn't just go Vegan for like a week just so they can give themselves license to be labeled as "Ex-Vegans").

Now, not every person who quits Veganism will become an anti-Vegan, that's usually done by people who are more insecure and less-than-honest-with-themselves who will do that 180 (again, we're granting that this person took their veganism seriously for an extended period of time). Most people who quit Veganism will still view it more favorably than average, and will also likely attempt to keep their meat consumption down, though these were likely also people who didn't take it as seriously as a moral decision, and more viewed it as just a good thing to do rather than an abstention from harm. The ones we're discussing here are often people who understood that Veganism was ultimately about refraining from harming animals, and took it incredibly seriously.

Likely the biggest pitfall with these new Anti-Vegans is that it's now nigh-on impossible for them to go back to being ethical Vegans. Think about it like this: If you were to first go Vegan for ethical reasons, that was because you weren't aware of the cruelties inflicted upon innocent beings in slaughterhouses. You had a perfectly valid and understandable excuse for consuming animal products, especially since it isn't an issue that's brought up all that much in our day to day lives. But let's say you decide to go back to eating meat. You go back to supporting an industry that causes immense suffering to sentient beings. This time? Ya fuckin' knew. You don't have an excuse. It's one thing to do a bad thing without knowing the consequences, but what about when you DO know the consequences? You made a DELIBERATE CHOICE here, and to make matters worse, you're actively pushing against an ethical cause you once thought was important.

Through cognitive dissonance, they have to try VERY hard to convince themselves that quitting veganism wasn't an unethical thing to do in order to maintain the view that they are still good people, and it's really just Vegans who are a bunch of assholes. Again, a lot of ex-Vegans will acknowledge the immorality of their actions, but the insecure ones will ignore it. Try as they might to convince themselves Veganism is bad, the honest part of their brains will always be scratching at their consciousness, and though it’s struggling to communicate after having been buried in denial, it’s always there. Always telling them what they know deep down.

A common symptom of being a Vegan gone Anti-Vegan is the inability to take criticism from other Vegans. We've seen ex-Vegans complain about how mean and angry vegans are!!!11

A reason why the Vegans may have been acting rather bluntly with them is probably because the ex-Vegan started making dumb arguments he or she knew deep down were bullshit (and were probably able to refute themselves at one point). Many of us here have these this first hand, people who have been Vegan for years, maybe even decades, tout the same tired, bullshit, ignorant arguments that are typical of meat-eaters when presented with Vegan arguments. The ex-Vegans are usually only presented with completely fair and justified criticisms and took it far too personally. Really, they're usually just a bunch of babies who say Veganism is dumb anyways and they never wanted to even be in it in the first place, believing that the grapes were sour to begin with.

Sometimes they’ll take it a step further and jump on the bandwagon that Veganism is a cult, and they would go out spreading their Anti-Vegan message as those who have “escaped” the cult of Veganism to spare others from falling into the movement. This is very likely a symptom of their denial, to convince themselves that they’re rational people for resuming their consumption of animal flesh (a rational person would never stay in a cult, after all).

Admitting you're a bad person is a really hard thing to do. But those who are willing to make such a concession are those who can go Vegan a second time.

The Carnivore Dieter

Y'know it's one thing to believe that animal products are part of a healthy diet, it's something completely different to say that you only need animal products to be healthy.

To note, not everyone who follows the Carnivore Diet is an anti-Vegan, a lot of them are just following the health reccomendations of a not very reputable individual. But, most of them do in fact hate Vegans, and jump on the Carnivore diet as a way to make their hatred more pronounced.

Virtually every reputable expert and organization warns against the carnivore diet, citing the severe risks of nutrient deficiency, but it's supporters do the equivalent of plugging their ears and saying "CARNIVORE DIET IS GOOD CARNIVORE DIET IS GOOD!" when presented with these uncomfortable facts. They'll say some stuff about how the experts don't know what they're talking about, which would be quite the coincidence to insist that all of these people who've studied a field they feel passionately about are all somehow just a bunch of clueless idiots.

The Leftist

These ones are probably the most frustrating to deal with. Anti-Vegans as a whole are stubborn, but what makes the stubborness of the leftist even worse is the sheer hypocrisy. We've touched on them and their claims several times throughout the Wiki. Just to clarify however, not all Leftists are Anti-Vegan. Many of them acknowledge Veganism as ultimately something we should be doing morally and it IS consistent with their political views even if they don't practice it themselves. This section is only about the non-Vegan leftists who dismiss it entirely.

See, leftism is all about things like rights, freedom, and equality, environmentalism and fighting for the oppressed, yet consuming animal products violates ALL of these principles, quite egregiously too, so the cognitive dissonance is VERY strong with these guys. They'll give lip service about these issues and strongly condemn anyone they presume to go against them, yet when push comes to shove, the excuses for THEIR behavior come flowing out.

They'll spout some bullshit like "There's no ethical consumption under capitalism," a statement that is not only objectively false but only serves as a way to assuage their internal conflicts without needing to change anything about themselves. By this logic, if there were a hypothetical company that kills minorities, giving money to them to do so is as unethical as giving to a company that donates to civil rights causes. What they don't understand about ethics, is that in the vast majority of ethical dilemmas, there's going to be a harm done to one or more parties, and in those situations, the ethical choice is the one that results in less harm (think of it like the Trolly problem). So, since it's ethical to choose the option that does less harm, and there are companies out there that do objectively less harm than others (if you want really want to grant the incredibly dubious notion that EVERY purchase in capitalism results in some sort of harm), there IS ethical consumption under capitalism.

It's funny how they'll endlessly condemn those they believe to be the oppressors, yet think nothing of the oppression they're committing. It's great and all to want to fight for the rights of blacks, women, gays, transpeople, but why oh why do you insist on leaving animals out? Because that's the oppression you benefit from, and you're aware of this, which is why you're so hostile to Veganism. It makes you have to think about your hypocrisy. In terms of character, you're just as bad as the people you criticize.

And it's NEVER their fault, it's always the fault of the big corporations or whatever (nevermind the fact that they're willingly giving them money in order to buy products they don't need).

While we disagree with a lot of leftist ideas (mainly their opposition to capitalism, lack of sufficient evidence for their ideals, intersectionality, and in the case of anarchists, their opposition to the state), we don't believe in barring anyone from Veganism due to their political affiliations. If someone wants to be a leftist, fine, whatever, that's a seperate topic that can be discussed at another time. All we're saying is, if you're gonna talk the talk, you should also walk the walk.

The Anti-Colonizer

A sort of subset of the Leftist are the folks who view Veganism as an anti-Indigenous ideology that's based on white supremacy or something.

They'll claim that Veganism is racist and such.

The Antinatalist

If you've purused some of our articles related to philosophy, you likely have seen our articles attacking antinatalism as applied to modern humans, and criticizing it for its philosophical and practical issues. Note that we aren't criticizing people who just don't want to have kids out of a personal choice, we are criticizing those who believe that having children is in and of itself unethical. We're not going to retread all the problems with antinatalism here, please view that article for further information.

Many Anti-Vegans tend to also be antinatalists, under the presumption that it's far more effective towards ending suffering and helping the environment than veganism would be, so they feel vindicated in eating meat in light of this. It's because it's easier for them to not have kids than to go vegan so they'll use that as enough reason to feel morally superior without needing to do anything.

It's strange how the Anti-Vegan who thinks that all life is suffering and won't have kids because of that don't seem to apply this standard to animals. When applied to farm animals (a form of antinatalism we actually support), they tend to eschew their personal (pseudo)philosophy, since that would mean they'd have to stop doing something they like to do, which is a recurring trend if you've noticed. It's a pretty hard case to make that the suffering experienced by a human in a developed country throughout his or her lifetime is greater than the total suffering experienced by a cow, chicken, or a pig in a slaugherhouse, considering that 99% of humans are unlikely to ever be in a situation where they're trapped in cages their whole lives, eventually hung upside down, and have their throats slit. Even with all the problems an individual faces in a lifetime, they still on average are happy to be alive, unlike the hundred billion animals we kill every year.

As for the environment, oh boy...

Aside from again the hypocrisy from eating meat and hurting the environment, not having kids doesn't have the carbon save that they think it does.

The Freedom Lover

Similar to the Leftist and the Antinatalist, the Freedom Lover is also a massive hypocrite when it comes to the topic of animal rights, just they're usually on the other side of the political spectrum, often Libertarian (and of course its variations, ranging from traditional libertarian, minarchist, anarcho-capitalist, anarcho-monarchist). Their position can basically be summed up as "But MUH FREEDUM!" when it comes to the topic of meat consumption.

They'll arbitrarily value the freedom of humans and not the freedom of other sentient beings. They'll decry the cruelties we inflict onto animals if they were instead done onto humans (being locked in cages, mutiliation of ears, teeth, and genitals, stealing of babies, ultimately killing them for our gain) and condemn them as complete violations of autonomy and freedom. However, since they (the Freedom Lovers) benefit from this oppression and restriction of freedom in the form of foods they don't need and just like to eat, then it selfishly becomes about their freedom to restrict the freedoms of others. Of course an Objectivist is all about selfishness but 99% of those folks aren't open to reason anyway so they're a lost cause when trying to convince them of eating less meat for ethical reasons.

Why do they end the extension of freedom at the species line? The slightly less ignorant ones (those who have thought about it a little but obviously not enough) will argue that animals are not included within a social contract.

Social contracts are inherently not based on morality, they're based on a form of Game Theory (If Kristian murders Øystein, there's a good chance he'll be caught and go to prison, so that's why he'll never do it and falsely claim self-defense, not in a million years) whereas morality is based on a consideration of the interests of others. There very often is overlap between the two, but they still remain mutually exclusive, not to mention that social contracts vary significantly depending on country, region, state, etc. (though we'll leave the problems with subjective morality for another time 😁). This isn't to say social contracts aren't useful or that we don't need them, but social contracts should be viewed as a seperate entity from morality. Conflating the two is problematic for both of them; Social contracts represent the niche rules of a particular society, morality is a universal concept that applies to all sentient beings. Of course ideally social contracts should be based on morality, but there are few, if any social contracts in the world that are completely consistent with it.

Anyway, if a Freedom Lover isn't willing to accept that and insists that morality is based on social contract, they still have to contend with the limitations of it. For example, they can have a social contract that arbitrarily restricts the freedom of people from other cultures. If they argue that since they're humans and are able to join society, we can update the social contract to include other groups. Does this include mentally disabled people though who are unable to join society under the current contract? Well, perhaps we can update it to include the mentally disabled even though they can't join on their own, and give them their respective rights and privileges? What about our dogs and cats, who are unable to have any human understanding of what a social contract is? If we're gonna go that far why not have it be revised to include animals such as cows, chickens, and pigs, and do the same for them?

If the person in question says we shouldn't be including other groups or the mentally disabled then the argument stops there. They're fundamentally consistent but they aren't really arguing for a system that's thought of being, well, moral.

The thing is, they're technically not wrong that it's their freedom to consume animal products. Within the context of the law, we are free to as horrible people as we please, and consuming animal products is 100% legal in every country in the world. You can be as racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever as you can be, vote for candidates that'll wage a war so you can save a little on taxes, not give a cent you make to charity, drive a fancy sports car and live in a big mansion, and of course, eat huge quantities of meat, dairy, and eggs, and cause immense animal suffering and carbon emissions in the process. You are well within your rights to do these things, and there's no need to listen to people who criticize you. No one is going to stop you, and if you don't give a shit about being a good person, moral condemnation is obviously not enough to stop you. If you want to eat meat because you have the freedom to do so and don't care about the harms being done to other sentient beings, then it sort of just ends there.

If you want to be a good person and more consistent with your values however, maybe you'd reconsider.

The Internet Troll

Most internet forums for Anti-Vegans are echo-chambers, so they stay pretty insulated and don't significantly effect anyone else (however, we can unfortunately say the same for a lot of Vegan communities too, though the Philosophical Vegan forum is 100% open to discussions with anyone who is open minded and honest enough to partake, regardless of their diet choices). Some however will venture out into the internet with an intent of pissing off Vegans in the old-fashioned way.

These come in two types:

• TYPE A: The traditional internet troll who just likes to piss Vegans off.
• TYPE B: The more malicious internet troll who will spout nonsense in attempts to dicredit Veganism, usually in the form of fake anecdotes about feeling unhealthy, or a family/friend who went Vegan who disowns everyone in their lives who eats meat, or constantly and irrationally questioning the motives and evidence provided by vegans.

Type A

It's pretty hard to discern exactly how much ones of the type A ilk really hates Vegans. The term "Anti-Vegan" generally implies that the person has some sort of intellectual or practical objection to Veganism (as wrong and ignorant as they are), even if it's done post-hoc after feelings of resentment towards Vegans and the philosophy in itself. Internet trolls of type A however only tend to do it for the lulz, not because they have any real problem with Vegans, it's more that they just wanna see the world burn. They view Vegans as an easy target, so they get a huge brunt of this (in the early days of the forum there we had our share of people just coming on and saying "I LOVE BACON!!!" but this quickly stopped once we made it so "bacon" was changed with "penis"). They obviously don't view Veganism in a very positive light, but that doesn't automatically mean they hate it either.

These blokes usually will swarm Vegan Discords or Forums and say thinks like "mmm bacon" or post excessive pictures of meat, in an effort to upset and offend the Vegans who frequent such boards. Aside from the overly emotional Vegans with more emotion than sense, 99% of them don't get offended when they see this, they just get annoyed since it's not only spammy but it also distracts from the topics at hand. Sometimes, they'll engage in discussion, but it's almost never in good faith (which is perhaps intentional), and will spout widely debunked arguments.

It's a fair claim that many people have dipped into this whether or not they're a seasoned Internet Troll, saying stuff like "Mmm bacon" or posting a dumb meme, but these are only on occassion and aren't necessarily a reflection on how they feel about Veganism, which is more likely to be positive than the traditional troll.

Overall, these guys are more annoying than anything else, and even non-Vegan spectators would agree what they're doing is nothing more than shallow trolling and are just trying to get a reaction. As obstrusive and annoying as they can be, they're pretty harmless.

Type B

Type B trolls are the ones that are actually dangerous and almost always have a personal vendetta against Vegans. Unlike Type A trolls who just enjoy pissing off Vegans and tend to have merely a cursory dislike for Vegans, Type B guys really, really, REALLY hate Vegans, will do anything they can to deligetimize them, and will express this with their outrageous (yet still believable) stories, complete lies about the movement and many of its figures, endless demands of evidence for Vegan claims, and will be filled to the brim with Anti-Vegan talking points. They're a far rarer breed than Type A, but still lurk about, and similar to Type A, will intentionally seek out online Vegan communities.

Within Vegan discussion boards, they're fairly common, and will say whatever they can to demonize Vegans and usually, since they aren't always explicitly breaking the rules, they aren't immediatley banned on sight.

Their reasons for hating Vegans vary, whether it's just an irrational distaste, a Vegan stealing their girlfriend, feeling insecure about it, or some mixture of a multitude of motives. With the extremely prolific ones (career trolls who have been doing it for years), they tend to not be psychologically healthy, and it's probably a representation of self doubt on some level. While Type A trolls will get bored of trolling Vegans sooner or later (especially since they're banned immediately, or aren't getting the reactions they want), but Type B will go through hell and back if it means they can fight the Vegan cause.

We will parse these ones even further to differentiate them.

Type 1B

They'll either share bogus anecdotes (as fallacious as they are as the only support for a position, are still convincing and compelling to people, even though literally anyone can make up anything.

Type 2B

These guys are extremely rare, but they're one of, if not THE most dangerous type of Anti-Vegan out there.

What makes them super dangerous is that they always will seem like they know what they're talking about, since, unlike Type A trolls, they tend to be of above average intelligence. They're almost always well-versed in arguments for Veganism, and will be able to respond to them with increasingly absurd counter-arguments that get harder and more time consuming to refute, and AGAINST Veganism, clinging onto every Anti-Vegan claim they can, spouting Allan Savory pseudoscience, denial of the consensus of professionals of Vegan diets, and even denying animal ethics.

Most Vegans don't have either the patience or ability to deal with these types, which will make the troll seem like he's in the right. In their constant demamds for impossible levels of evidence, they'll appear as nothing but trying to be objective, despite the fact that the evidence they want isn't necessary to begin with, since they'll often just be going against well-established scientific consensuses (not that it matters either way, since no amount of evidence will ever convince them given that they're already set on hating Vegans).

One silver lining to them is that they'll often present new arguments for Vegans to address... never good arguments, but it's important for Vegans to be able to cover any and all objections, no matter how absurd they are, to show that ultimately, there really isn't any good argument against veganism.

The Reactionary Conspiracy Theorist

Has some similarities to the Freedom Lover, just with a higher loony ratio.

Since Veganism is (rightly) associated with the environmentalist movement, and environmentalism itself is associated with the left which faces significant resistance from the right, there's a growing opposition towards Veganism from the right; The right is already (falsely) concerned about the left censoring their speech, forcing kids to be gay, killing innocent fetuses, and bringing about a communist regime, so when Veganism is brought to the table, they view it as an attack on their rights and think the left is trying to take away their meat, the "woke mob" is coming to strip them of their freedoms as good honest hardworking 'Muricans.

Whereas the Freedom Lover argues against Veganism in a more laissez-faire, "let me be" way, the Reactionary views it as just another attack from the left. They also generally fall for a lot of the other conservative conspiracy theories, like COVID denialism, Qanon, something or other about Bill Gates.

They don't realize that Veganism also carries ethical weight to it in terms of animal suffering, but even if they do they'll think that God gave us dominion over animals and therefore we can use them for food (which technically isn't true, since according to Genesis 1:29, God gave Adam the fruit of the seeds as food).

As you can see in the case of The Leftist, the Freedom Lover, and now the Reactionary, Veganism is something that receives resistance from all sides from the political spectrum.

The “Humane” Farmer

Pop-quiz: How do you humanely kill a sentient being that doesn't want to die?

Answer: You can't.