Types of Vegan
Contents
The Consequentialist
AKA the Cool Vegans 😎
Most Vegans are consequentialist, though they still may have some confliciting deontological views.
The Deontologist
The Misanthrope
These ones are really just more cringe than anything else.
As activists, we are completely sympathetic to the frustration you feel when you see your fellow human beings who are SUPPOSED to be intelligent and understanding, trot out idiotic and ignorant arguments so they can justify to themselves consuming animal products, something that has no place in the modern age.
Where these guys go wrong however, is when they completely give up on humans and don't have faith anymore in even helping the animal rights movement, as what happened with Gary Yourofsky. Better that humans all be dead than even be Vegan. When people eat meat, 99% of the time it isn't done out of malice, it's done out of either habit since childhood, or apathy. No one likes the fact that animals need to die for it.
The main problem with this type of thinking is that it lacks nuance. Humans are not the evil, cruel, heartless monsters that they make them out to be. Most humans are not bad, they are otherwise decent people just doing a bad thing, and admitting to yourself that you're doing a bad thing is a challenge, even for the best of us, and the fact that we understand our flaws shows that we understand that there's a problem, and we've designed
If you're just going to give up on humans being good because you think we're a lost cause since we're too selfish, how would that NOT be ignoring all the other battles for justice that have been won? The battles that have been fought in the name of anti-Slavery, civil rights, anti-poverty, medicine, technology, science, humanitarianism, democracy, human rights and a million other things? Most people DO care about animals (which is why they get defensive when the immorality of meat-consumption is brought up), they just don't feel as though it's something they can do.
Really though, the only reason humans are more destructive than animals is because we are the only ones capable of being so. If other animals were able to use language and develop technology, they'd very likely being doing the same shit we're doing. If it weren't for humans, some other species would have come along to bring desutruction and fuck the environment. At least humans have shown themselves able to improve, as things have been over the past few hundred years, technologically, socially, and morally. Sure, there are terrible things happening to other humans done by other humans
From an environmentalist perspective, we can easily support our current population and thensome easily with modern technology (nuclear power, genetic modification) as well as moving towards sustainable policies, so the idea that humanity can only thrive when abusing the rest of the planet is just objectively incorrect. In fact, we'd thrive MORE if we didn't rely on destroying the environment, since ecomoderinst technology is not only more efficient, but also since the primary harms of things like climate change are pretty much going to be on humans (if you're a misanthrope, you should cheer on climate change since it'll kill a LOT of people).
For much of our history, we have never really had a major negative effect on the environment anyway, and it only really happened when the Industrial Revolution started since we really didn't know any better. Now we do know better, and although progress may be alarmingly slow, it isn't like zero steps are being taken.
The Leftist
Leftists either tend to reject Veganism (as explained in the corresponding section of our Types of Anti-Vegan article), or embrance it either out of wanting to be more consistent with their left-wing values, or think that Veganism is some sort of stance against capitalism.
We will say this as many times as need be: Veganism is NOT a political ideology, nor does it have anything to do with being a stance against capitalism. If you want to be a leftist AND a vegan fine whatever, but PLEASE do not make it out as if you HAVE to be a leftist if you want to be a "true" Vegan (otherwise, you're just plant-based or whatever bullshit pejorative they've come up with, even if you are literally paying for zero animals to be abused).
Political polarization is already a big enough problem, and we're already concerned about Veganism being viewed as a symptom of the "Woke" crowd. We want EVERYONE to go Vegan, regardless of their political affiliations. When you make it this thing that only leftists can do properly, you're cutting off the overwhelming majority of society from doing this (Hmmm, not sure how that helps animals all that much).
It's one thing for a leftist to be Vegan since they understand it's rather hypocritical to be oppressing other sentient beings and releasing greenhouse gas emissions needlessly, when your whole ideology is about fighting oppression and ensuring the well-being of the environment (in the same way a Libertarian may feel hypocritical by denying the freedom of animals and violating their respective rights), it's something completely different to then attempt to coopt what Veganism is really about and attempt to shoehorn it into whatever ideology you like and try to claim it for your own.
While it's possible and has many examples of happening with other ideologies trying to claim Veganism for themselves, it seems to be most common amongst leftists (especially since Veganism is widely understood to be better for the environment, a value supported by them).
To those we are criticising here: Veganism isn't about YOUR political goals; It's about relieving the suffering of billions of animals, and you don't need to abolish capitalism to do that. While it MAY be true that animals are treated worse when there's a profit incentive, that doesn't change the fact that regardless of what system we're under, people are going to want to eat meat. Animal agriculture is not going to magically disappear if we institute anarcho-communism or (insert leftist ideology here) When there's a high demand and a need to keep up with that it, corners will be cut.
If anything, capitalism might be one off the best chances we have of achieving a vegan world. By encouraging the production of Vegan alternatives, companies will have an incentive to transition their product lines to ones that require no animal to suffer and die. Oh wait, but these jack offs also oppose buying Vegan products from otherwise non-Vegan companies (something they label as "Plant-based Capitalism," a term so fucking idiotic I physically recoiled in pain just typing it). Fucking hell.
Which is worse? The leftist who can't accept that they're hypocrites for eating meat and will shield themselves under any excuse that's tantamount to "Capitalism fault no me", or the leftist who is hurting more animals by trying to conflate their ideology with Veganism? We don't know.
The Bleeding Heart
While the criticism by many carnists that Vegans are just crybabies who are overly sensitive about animals dying is almost always wrong, a fair few of Vegans do fall under this category. We are all affected by our emotions more than our reason, however some take it too far and base all their positions on emotion alone.
These ones have a tenuous understanding of ethics at best, and just go Vegan out of emotional reaction to seeing how horrible slaughterhouses are They won't understand why something is wrong, just that it feels wrong. They are unfamiliar with the principles of consequentialism, and are often unwitting deontologists.
They tend to falter when someone challenges them on ethics (they won't have their minds changed usually since emotion overtakes reason for them, at least not right away). And usually, they're on the younger side as well, often in their teens to early 20s, during a time when emotion and rebellion are more prominent. More often than not, the spark will burn out and they'll eventually go back to eating meat within a few years or possibly even months.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary at all that, in order for you to be an ethical vegan, you have to be an animal lover, or at the very least care a little about them. While that would certainly help, there is no need to care even a little bit about animals in order to stop eating them (You probably know nothing about the guy who lives down the street and will never care about him, but would you feel comfortable being responsible for his death?). All that's necessary is to have an understanding of ethics, that animals are sentient beings that do not want to suffer, and by supporting the meat, dairy, and egg industries, you are making them suffer.
The Overly-Squeamish
The Fruitarian
This is someone who pretty much makes the same fallacy as the Carnivore dieter, just in the opposite direction.
We need a variety of foods in our lives if we want to live long, healthy lives and fulfil all of our daily nutritional requirements. While fruits are fine to have in your diet and contain their share of nutrients, they should at most only be a small part of your diet. Your diet should primarily consist of vegetables, legumes, nuts, and grains.
The Fruitarian makes an appeal to nature fallacy of saying humans are "frugivores" (which is objectively incorrect), and we can survive only on fruits like many of our primate cousins, while ignoring the fact that many great apes have been observed consuming meat, and that, you know, we aren't fucking chimpanzees either.
If you want to be a good representative of Veganism, you should try to be as healthful as possible. If your diet only consists of fruits, you're going to be severely deficient in many nutrients, especially protein, but also many of the B vitamins, calcium, zinc, and iron.
The Identity Vegan
The Health Vegan
These ones may be otherwise easy going or absolutely insufferable. We are going to be covering the latter here, mainly because it's more entertaining.
