renoise user on kvr

[howtobecalm79]

another here bought it a few weeks ago and dumped reason goodbye piano roll

[noylis]

Renoise Rocks my main Daw

[JO512]

Even amongst groups of self-declared progressives or anti-bigots, it seems to be that vegans are the one group of people that it’s still “perfectly acceptable” to target with bigotry. That’s uncool.

What's really uncool is every Vegan on the planet having to tell everybody else that they are a vegan, or about how great veganism is, or meat being murder, or meat being poison, or any other crap they want to spout without any provocation, nobody cares if you are a vegan, but hey you thought you would spout it because somebody made a joke.

I have some experience with all this. And I only bring it up because someone else, a non-vegetarian, brought it up. In my case, I have never shamed anyone, never bragged about not eating meat, never condemned anyone, and never bring it up unprovoked. But it comes up constantly if I eat with others and they see that I am not eating meat. They challenge me about it. I am constantly having to defend it. People get offended by the very fact that I am not eating what they eat. One of my brothers has even on multiple occasions, with some hostility, said something about "those vegan nutcases" as if he forgets who he is talking to. I've never given him any grief about his diet. And we get along well otherwise.

When I first stopped eating meat, I encountered tremendous resistance in friends and family. Some seemed like they even felt betrayed, like I was stating my refusal to be involved with their whole way of life, like I was rejecting them. It was as if, to some degree, I was divorcing my family. Now they are used to it and they tolerate my ways. But at Thanksgiving or anything like that, when I am not eating turkey, it always comes up, and someone always makes the tired argument that plants suffer just like mammals. It's absurd! And people constantly talk about what moralistic, holier-than-thou assholes vegans and vegetarians are. In my experience, most of the assholery flows in quite the opposite direction.

I've also been with people who didn't realize I don't eat meat and heard them talk shit about vegetarians and vegans. I've known only a few other meat-abstainers and their experience is similar to mine. On one occasion, I saw someone who grew up in a ranching family really take a girl to task over not eating the meat served at a volunteer clean-up event at a local climbing area. He was pretty much in her face about it. All she did was not take some of the meat. She was then asked why, and it turned into this big thing that everyone was talking about.

What it really comes down to is that my very abstinence from doing something they do makes meat-eaters feel judged and defensive. It apparently comes across to them as condemnation. Maybe they feel guilty and my refusal calls attention to what they already feel uncomfortable with at some level. So they go on the offensive. They'd be much more comfortable if nobody was deviating from traditional eating practices.

Having a vegetarian around at a meal is like having someone who refuses to drink at a party. Nobody who wants to indulge likes to have an abstainer around. And often people will pressure that person to participate.

I live in a rural, conservative part of Colorado where many hunt and fish and where you often see big diesel pickups rolling coal with big "Prius repellant" stickers on their giant exhaust stacks. Where I live, I often see bumper stickers and T-shirts that take potshots at vegetarians. I walked into a sporting goods store a while back that had anti-vegetarian shirts lining the racks, probably half the shirts they were selling! If I were to declare my eating habits with a bumper sticker like they do, I'm sure my vehicle would be vandalized!

It seems that choice of diet is now part of identity politics and tribal warfare. This society is tearing itself apart along every fault-line. Putin smiles.