I’m not coming here to berate those who used to be carnists. We’ve all been there so there’s no judgment from me. I genuinely want to understand the thought process and underlying psychology of these responses.
When you used to support carnism, did you all say “I don’t care” as a defense mechanism?
Did you genuinely not care at the time, but grew to care later on?
Were you just saying “I don’t care” so that you wouldn’t have to grapple with vegan arguments
Did you say “I don’t care” as a way of indirectly telling the vegan that you can’t beat me so don’t even try?
Were you lying through your teeth cause you found good vegan arguments inconvenient for your lifestyle?
Was “I don’t care” just a response to help you cope and continue denying reality?
I promise that none of these questions are coming from a place of judgement. I’m only here to make an honest attempt at understanding.
I initially found these types of responses to be upsetting but I’m putting my personal feelings aside so I can understand you and become a more effective advocate. I ask that everyone else in the comments be respecful to other vegans who used to obstinate.
Yes, I was indifferent. I buried my emotions with medications. I was taken advantage of and forced to work on a pig farm at a recovery center sponsored by a religious organization after I got clean. I could never eat meat again after entering and witnessing their pain. I was unable to use I don’t care anymore, and it took an additional seven years to establish the same link with the dairy business.
Mascarenha • 17 hours ago | Edited 16 hours ago
I wasn’t concerned enough.
I was aware of animal abuse. However, I was surrounded by meat eaters. I reasoned that perhaps it didn’t matter, perhaps it was too difficult, perhaps giving up meat was harmful, or perhaps it was simply too costly.
That is, until someone asked me outright how a self-professed Christian like myself could not care about kindness and compassion? It made me pause and reflect. I responded to my inquiries over a few months. It was significant. Though a little difficult, it is worthwhile. Giving up meat is not bad for you. Being vegan is also far less expensive—instead of being excessively expensive.
If everyone else didn’t care, I didn’t see why I should either. Veganism has always seemed radical to me, as it has to everyone I know. That’s why my response to “I don’t care” was more along the lines of “why should I care if everyone I know doesn’t?” I was scared that if I showed compassion, I would become an outsider. Acting as though I don’t care was therefore easier than acknowledging that I do, changing appropriately, and risking being viewed as an extremist by those around me.
I used food as a drug to bury my feelings, feeling my ultimate human experience was entitled to it, and imagined that by my graciousness the animal could be psychically or spiritually assisted through a swift death (I seriously thought this. Saying it aloud is a different thing.)
I thought the judgmentalism of vegans indicated that their path was the wrong one because nonvegans were simply more “content” And I now see that as a symptom of the drug (animal flesh) that causes not genuine spiritual contentedness, but a dull stupor-like complacency, which was the reason I was losing arguments and kept losing arguments.
Also wielding “mind over a matter” as somehow a virtue in itself, taking comfort in the defiance and the “grounded, realistic” aesthetic of meat and milk products that made me feel oh so pastoral, and rational.
I worked at the meat industry as a holiday job while I was a university student. I would have become a vegetarian then, but it was unthinkable because I was raised in a big household with my parents. I eventually lost track of this. There was never a thought of indifference, only a lack of consideration. I practiced vipassana meditation much later, and the experiences I experienced there led me to become vegetarian 26 years ago, and vegan 21 years ago.
Eating animals is just one more habit that is difficult to overcome. It is simple to stick to your habits when you are not confronted with the truth of what you are eating. Thus, regrettably, I didn’t give a damn and would belittle vegans and vegetarians. I couldn’t change until I seen the cruelty.
What I would have mostly said, I believe, is that while vegan arguments are persuasive, human nature is so flawed in many other areas (e.g., our domestic politics barely seem to give a damn about the world’s most suffering citizens) that there is always a huge disconnect between compassion and action. And even as a vegan who successfully donates, I’m not sure that I would say anything different now. My life is still incredibly affluent, and even though there is terrible suffering all around me, my mind continues to obsess about trivial issues.