Mean Girl Vegans

By David Mills Published on June 1, 2018

You’d think they’d be the nicest people around, all flowers and butterflies, all peace and harmony and goodwill. Vegans, they won’t eat animals or use them in any way. They’re all about cherishing life. They’re the Let the sun shine in, Brother sun, sister moon, Let it be people.

But no, not always. According to an article in The Atlantic, “Vegans popular on social media often get bullied when they fall short of their fans’ diet demands.” Judging from the article, that “often” should be “always.” Jordan Bissell explains: “food bullying has become a major issue within the online vegan community itself.” The bullying can get brutal.

The Angry Banana Girl

“Freelee the Banana Girl,” a very popular YouTube vegan, for example. She “has equated eating meat with murder, torture, and rape. When she comes across well-known vegans or celebrities who don’t measure up to her standards, she calls them out online, and encourages her followers — nicknamed ‘fruit bats’ — to do so.” Some followers seem to take “call them out” to mean “attack without mercy.”

A Word for Vegetarianism

As I say in the article, many vegans make veganism look bad, because they’re so angry and extreme. But there’s much to be said for not eating meat, as many conservatives have noted. It expresses the Christian understanding of creation and our God-given stewardship of the earth, including animals.

People who don’t go as far as vegetarianism see the need to care for animals. Slavery abolisher William Wiberforce and many of his Evangelical peers helped found the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals way back in 1824.

That hero of conservative Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI, criticized the “industrial use of creatures.” He said: “Geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”

Even conservatism’s flagship magazine National Review has published sympathetic articles on the subject. Mary Eberstadt ties our treatment of animals to the culture of death. “Wanton cruelty to animals, of the sort that is now pitiably routine, is arguably part and parcel of that same culture, and it further deadens the general moral sense at a time when it’s needed most.” She became a vegetarian for that reason.

See Kathryn Jean Lopez’s sympathetic NR interview with Charlie Camosy. She talked to him after his book For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Actionappeared.

Camosy describes not eating meat as part of the pro-life way of living. “Pro-lifers oppose abortion because of a prior, more general commitment to nonviolence and concern for vulnerable populations,” he says. Though they aren’t as important as unborn children, animals are one of those vulnerable populations.

“Using the language of justice, the Church teaches that we ‘owe’ animals kindness,” he says.

“Given the horrific conditions in which chickens, pigs, turkeys, and other animals are raised and slaughtered, when we cooperate with factory farms by buying their meat, we also make a mockery of our duty to treat animals with kindness.”

A once-popular YouTube vegan, Alex Jamieson, had to start eating meat for her physical and mental health. An established biggie in the healthy eating movement — she helped create the anti-fast food documentary Super-Size Me — she should have gotten a pass. Nope.

Jamieson waited a year to tell her audience, she was so worried how they’d respond. She had reason to worry. “Many vegans she considered to be her friends refused to speak to her again once she began to eat meat. One woman emailed her and wished her dead.”

In a few conversations with vegetarians and vegans, I’ve heard the same story. Any back-sliding enrages some other vegans, who a second before were their best friends. Any deviation from an individual’s personal definition of veganism can enrage them as well.

Of course, many vegans really are all flowers and butterflies. But some considerable number are all sharks and scorpions.

Why So Mean?

Why get so mean about how someone eats? Who, you know, cares? It’s not as if they like cats or the New York Yankees or show some other sign of faithfulness to the Prince of Darkness. They just don’t eat meat or eggs. They don’t wear leather or fur. They want soy burgers instead of hamburgers? Great. Takes all kinds to make a world.

I think there is a reason many vegans get so mean: Because they have made veganism their religion. As the writer says: “Many vegans have made spreading awareness of the ‘evils’ of eating animals central to their identities.” That’s the key. Veganism does what a traditional religion does. It tells them who they are. Because it does that, it tells them what to do and not do, so they can be true to who they are.

Veganism makes itself a religion in other ways. It creates a community of the like-minded. That community knows itself to be separate from and in many ways opposed to the rest of society. Veganism has an absolute moral code: Don’t ever ever ever eat meat. It’s always threatened by worldliness (eating meat) and loses members (supposedly 84%!) who give in to the world’s temptations (hamburgers!). Strait is the vegan gate and narrow is the way.

As a religion, veganism suffers two big problems: 1) Their god demands perfection but does not offer grace. And 2) Vegans can’t agree on what exactly that very, very demanding god really wants. (If you want a scholarly discussion of this, here’s one.)

The Demanding Vegan God

Remember, I’m taking about the vegans who are all sharks and scorpions. I sympathize with the others. See the sidebar.

Here’s the first problem. Their religion’s god says, “Thou shalt not eat meat or wear skins or fur, ever, upon pain of damnation.” You can’t be an imperfect vegan. It’s all or nothing. You’re either saved or damned. You can repent and return, but it’s all up to you. That god won’t give you any help. You can only be saved by being perfect.

Compare that with Christianity. You can be an imperfect Christian. In fact, God expects it. Christianity’s God says, “You must do all these things and not do all those things. Your entrance to the Kingdom depends on it. Except you and I both know you’re going to fail a lot, so I’m gladly going to forgive you whenever you ask.”

Here’s the second problem. The vegan religion’s god demands perfection. Worse, vegans can’t agree on what that god really wants. As Bissell explains, “Being a ‘perfect vegan'” means

a vast variety of things to different people: There are gluten-free vegans, refined-sugar-free vegans, raw vegans, “Raw Til 4” vegans (who only eat cooked food after 4 p.m.), high-carb and low-fat vegans, and the small but vocal group of junk-food vegans, who try out vegan versions of popular treats.

Who’s to say which is the real veganism, the true religion? No one. All they can do is fight for control, and fight they do.

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Christians do this too, we must admit. We have our own snakes and scorpions. But most of us don’t get so angry about our differences. We love the same Lord who showed us how to love other people. We have the authority of Scripture and the Church to help us discern the true religion. And we trust a God who will forgive us for being wrong about it. The vegan religion doesn’t offer that.

The Vegan Religion

As a religion, veganism’s sectarian, with every sect claiming to be the true faith. All the sects serve a demanding, unforgiving God. It’s a deadly combination for a religion. You must be perfect, but you can’t be sure how to be perfect.

I think that explains the vegan violence online. When it’s a religion, it’s a bad one.

 

Follow David Mills on Twitter at DavidMillsWrtng.

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