Trying to be less of an asshole.
Due to ideas I have frequently experienced in my reading lately, and because of a desire to move away from a mental space of anger and behavior of an "asshole" nature, I would like to re-frame some of my previous anti-vegan sentiments in more precise - and less judgmental - language. As such, I am attempting to write this post in "English Prime," AKA "E-Prime," AKA "English without Is or Be." Where I feel I cannot avoid those obnoxious words, I will put them in "suspicious quotes."
I have observed, over the years, a tendency in individuals identifying as vegans of behaving in a manner not unlike those of certain religious zealots. This behavior is annoying and insulting and often full of hatred, and when I felt I could no longer tolerate such behavior, I lashed out at vegans in general with the same sort of behavior. In my loathing towards proselytization and "forgetfulness of past orthodoxies," it would seem I became guilty of the same behaviors I was frustrated with.
I still oppose dogmatism of any and all kinds, and I still detest the treatment of veganism as some kind of new religion where all must convert or perish. However, in light of what I percieve as a small percentage of vegans who do NOT display such religious zeal for their cause, I will attempt in future to better mind my own behavior.
The sort of people I tend to oppose seem to me to only care about being right. It seems to me that their belief "is" that they are right and everyone else is wrong; that not only do they think us wrong, they think us immoral, unethical, even evil. I no longer wish to give them any more support for the beliefs of theirs which I feel are in error. ("The beliefs of theirs I feel are in error" referring to their apparent perception of meat-eaters, not to their choice to eat no meat.)
I do not actually care about "being right," no matter how my words said in anger and frustration may sometimes indicate to the contrary. I simply tend to get very frustrated, and then angry, when so many people in the world seem to feel that "being right" "is" the most important thing in the universe to them. It frustrates me because this obsession with "being right" tends to cause hostility and anger, hatred and war. I would very much love to edit this obsession for "being right" out of all human brains; I think world peace would move much closer to the realm of possibility if that notion were excised from humankind. Because it seems to me that this notion has been so thoroughly pounded into our brains that I - someone who hates the obsession with "being right" - keep finding myself lapsing into the same mentality when provoked.
There. I make no claim that I succeeded completely in my quest for non-judgmental words, but I think I did fairly well.
This was cross-posted from http://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/195545.html
You can comment either here or there.
I have observed, over the years, a tendency in individuals identifying as vegans of behaving in a manner not unlike those of certain religious zealots. This behavior is annoying and insulting and often full of hatred, and when I felt I could no longer tolerate such behavior, I lashed out at vegans in general with the same sort of behavior. In my loathing towards proselytization and "forgetfulness of past orthodoxies," it would seem I became guilty of the same behaviors I was frustrated with.
I still oppose dogmatism of any and all kinds, and I still detest the treatment of veganism as some kind of new religion where all must convert or perish. However, in light of what I percieve as a small percentage of vegans who do NOT display such religious zeal for their cause, I will attempt in future to better mind my own behavior.
The sort of people I tend to oppose seem to me to only care about being right. It seems to me that their belief "is" that they are right and everyone else is wrong; that not only do they think us wrong, they think us immoral, unethical, even evil. I no longer wish to give them any more support for the beliefs of theirs which I feel are in error. ("The beliefs of theirs I feel are in error" referring to their apparent perception of meat-eaters, not to their choice to eat no meat.)
I do not actually care about "being right," no matter how my words said in anger and frustration may sometimes indicate to the contrary. I simply tend to get very frustrated, and then angry, when so many people in the world seem to feel that "being right" "is" the most important thing in the universe to them. It frustrates me because this obsession with "being right" tends to cause hostility and anger, hatred and war. I would very much love to edit this obsession for "being right" out of all human brains; I think world peace would move much closer to the realm of possibility if that notion were excised from humankind. Because it seems to me that this notion has been so thoroughly pounded into our brains that I - someone who hates the obsession with "being right" - keep finding myself lapsing into the same mentality when provoked.
There. I make no claim that I succeeded completely in my quest for non-judgmental words, but I think I did fairly well.
This was cross-posted from http://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/195545.html
You can comment either here or there.