Reply To: Meat eating and the flexitarianism
Although I am reluctant to feed this thread as it harms the Party’s image, there’s a revealing article here on why vegans are so unpopular (and so why it’s bad for the Party’s image to be seen to be sympathetic towards them):
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/why-people-hate-vegans-greggs-sausage-roll/
“Deep down it’s a matter of ‘Why are you making me feel that your norm…should be imposed on me?’ It’s really about feeling threatened. “People have a tendency to feel questioned even when they are not being questioned,” he adds. Food author and presenter Stefan Gates agrees that many meat eaters fear that their lifestyle is under threat and likens tensions in the UK surrounding veganism to the issue of gun control in the US. “It’s a case of, ‘You’ll take this ham sandwich out of my cold, dead hand’”, says Gates.
I must confess that that’s my kneejerk reaction and that of many other workers. And in fact of most Party members as shown b the overwhelming opposition to the suggestion at our last delegate meeting that only vegetarian food should be served at our summer school.
We are really not doing ourselves any favours by going on and on (and on) about this. It upsets most workers and members and our replies upset vegetarians and vegans. So we lose out on both counts.
Incidentally, some climate change activists put off ordinary people by also giving the impression that their lifestyle is being challenged (as Dave B has already pointed out).