I don’t intend this blog to be anti-vegan. I intend it to be anti-veganism.
To me, it’s natural to separate the two. Vegans hate when their veganism is called “just a phase”; they counter that for some uncommitted false-hearted vegans it is, but for the true vegans it isn’t. If you are vegan for the right reasons, veganism is forever.
But the truth is that few vegans actually manage to turn it into a lifetime endeavor. There is at least one who did - Donald Watson, inventor of the word “Vegan,” but even for him I would still separate his veganism from him as an individual.
Just about every aspect of vegan thinking and behavior that I present here is something that I once thought or did. But when I gave up veganism, that vegan mentality vanished with it. It wasn’t really who I was. I had been under the influence of veganism.
A drunk person may be annoying, but they’re only acting that way because alcohol has temporarily impaired their judgment. With ideology rather than alcohol, veganism kind of does the same thing. Though I guess you could say veganism temporarily increases judgment.
It’s not that rude people, for instance, are attracted to veganism. Good-hearted people are (with the arguable exception of me). But once they accept veganism, they are forced to be rude in a lot of standard food-related situations, simply because their ideals require it. Yes, they could be polite and eat the non-vegan food that has been offered to them out of kindness, but they would have to put veganism on hold to do it. And they would probably be pummeled with guilt for doing so.
It’s clear to me that veganism is not an inherent part of anyone who accepts it, so when I critique how vegans think, act, and look, I am not ridiculing the individuals - I am chastising the veganism that currently has them in its (logically and emotionally persuasive) clutches. To me, almost every vegan is a future former vegan in disguise. So I may be offending people, but at least I am only offending them temporarily.
The last part, “how vegans look,” is the most controversial aspect of this site. A few readers have told me that they don’t have a problem with the commentary, but find the photographs of so-called sickly vegans to cross the line. The reason I don’t agree with them is that just as I separate the vegan from the vegan mentality, I also separate the vegan from the sickly appearance that veganism often bestows upon them. Vegans are only trying to do good, and this is how veganism treats them? Shame on veganism.
The problem is, even though vegans and veganism are clearly differentiated in my mind, that probably isn’t the case for most readers of this site, especially the vegan ones.
It just wouldn’t work to write about veganism purely in the abstract, independent of the people it affects. That would be like describing the shape and intention of a virus, but ignoring the symptoms of the human it infects. To talk about veganism, I have no choice but to talk about vegans. Vegans will inevitably think I am mocking them, even though that is not what I’m after.
I doubt vegans would enjoy that veganism as virus comparison. So let’s consider the girl from The Exorcist. For most of the film, she’s possessed by Satan and literally looks like hell as a consequence. If I were to post her picture and point out that she doesn’t look so good, it’s not sweet little Linda Blair that I’m commenting on, so much as the Prince of Darkness who so cruelly inhabits and manipulates her.
Alright, vegans may not appreciate that one either, but the point is that when I post pictures of vegans who look unhealthy, I am not saying that they are naturally unhealthy people. I am saying that veganism had made them nutritionally deprived, and it shows.
Critics of the photo aspect of this site seem to be in a consensus: photos cannot be trusted, someone could be having an off day, non-vegans can be sickly too, and I am being selective with photographs.
All of this is all true. I don’t claim that all vegans look pale and weak and have dark rings under their eyes, or that the photos I post are indisputable evidence of anything. But I really have noticed that when vegans look unhealthy, they tend to look unhealthy in similar ways. It’s not them, it’s veganism.
Vegans are told all the time that they look pale and sick, but they don’t believe it. I know I didn’t. I just thought ignorant meat eaters equipped with a few stereotypes about vegan complexions were out to bash a lifestyle that they didn’t understand. Even if my thinking had become cloudy, and I was tired all the time, I simply knew I was on the healthiest diet. It took me years to figure out that I wasn’t.
When I go to vegan events now and see a bunch of people who look tired, pale, deprived and hungry, it’s not that I believe these are the only sickly looking people in the world. They do seem to look worse off than average, but even that’s not the point. These people should be looking amazing! Self-disciplined people who care almost obsessively about their vitality shouldn’t be tired and weak. They should be kicking all of our asses. The only reason they’re not is that they’ve been misled.
The myth of the nutritional superiority of veganism is a dangerous one - people have destroyed their health believing in it even as their bodies try to tell them a different story. Maybe photos can at least begin to expose it for the lie that it is.
Well, yeah. Maybe.
