Black people are more likely to be vegan for reasons unrelated to moral concerns. African-Americans have much higher rates of lactose intolerance than people of primarily northern or western European ancestry.
Why wouldn't lactose intolerance in the absence of other moral concerns result in simply avoiding dairy while continuing to eat other animal products, as my milk-allergic mum does?
I wonder if this is an issue where it would actually be beneficial to make it a culture war topic? Right now my perception is that the vast majority of democrats don't care about animals and still eat meat (and in fact I've seen some extremely virulent opposition to dietary change from some progressives I know, seemingly treating vegan advocacy as an enemy cause akin to various right-wing positions), while many republicans have a false impression that eating meat lets them spite the libs or is required in order to be manly or whatever.
If the vegan movement were able to successfully frame this as a left vs. right issue, the right wouldn't change their behavior very much, but the left would dramatically cut down on their meat-eating in order to distinguish themselves from those evil republicans. 50% of the population being vegetarian is obviously worse than 100%, but it's a lot better than the <5% that are vegetarian right now. (I'm using vegetarianism as that's a much easier sell to people than full veganism.)
Counterargument: Vegetarianism would probably be a very unpopular left-wing stance and could lose democrats elections, similar to what anti-abortionism does for the right.
"Let's deliberately make this a culture war topic" is playing with fire: you might start a blaze you can't control, and there's no guarantee you wouldn't cause a backlash which makes things objectively worse than before you started. The most obvious example would be if this culture war caused R legislatures to e.g. outlaw meat substitutes, give subsidies for meat products to increase production/consumption, or just kill a whole bunch of animals rolling-coal style, just to stick it to the people they hate. Which are absolutely things I think they could/would do, based on past behavior.
Whenever you propose deliberately CW-ing something, remember that, almost by definition, you'll be making enemies who will strike back.
This is an interesting idea, and I agree that it could be beneficial in the short-term. But over the long run, I’m worried it would make “winning” even harder. If we get good enough alt proteins to replace McDonald’s chicken nuggets (costs less, tastes the same), and nobody gives a shit, then McDonald’s might actually make the switch. If it’s something that might cost them half their domestic market share they probably won’t.
This seems like a great idea. Ideally just eating chicken and eggs would be a culture war issue and the democrats become the pro beef party, but just getting animal welfare into the culture war sphere seems good.
Gay marriage used to be more of a culture war thing and now it's mostly accepted by people. Once a culture war =! a culture war.
I'm a non vegan, Republican and I'm trying to think what the most persuasive animal welfare argument would be. The best I can think of on the top of my head is encouraging Republicans to buy their meat from small businesses, ideally small farms where you can actually see the animals and makes sure that they are not mistreated.
I get my eggs from my neighbor's chicken run, and long term want to raise my own. Problems with this, it's not decreasing suffering as much as actual veganism. It's prohibitively expensive for many people, especially if the person is eating more than just eggs. Plenty of small farms still subject their animals to horrible conditions, and it's hard to tell who is and who isn't.
Pie in the sky ideas to get Republicans on board. Get a Christian to start a nonprofit that certifies farms as raising their animals in a Christian way. Jews and Muslims have specific dietary standards that are followed. If someone with the authority of the Pope did it, Christians would probably follow. I don't really see these working in practice, but maybe far enough in the future
Just based on the veg*ns I know personally, white people are more likely to go veg*an out of concern for animal welfare, black people are more likely to go veg*n for health reasons.
Black people are more likely to be vegan for reasons unrelated to moral concerns. African-Americans have much higher rates of lactose intolerance than people of primarily northern or western European ancestry.
Why wouldn't lactose intolerance in the absence of other moral concerns result in simply avoiding dairy while continuing to eat other animal products, as my milk-allergic mum does?
I wonder if this is an issue where it would actually be beneficial to make it a culture war topic? Right now my perception is that the vast majority of democrats don't care about animals and still eat meat (and in fact I've seen some extremely virulent opposition to dietary change from some progressives I know, seemingly treating vegan advocacy as an enemy cause akin to various right-wing positions), while many republicans have a false impression that eating meat lets them spite the libs or is required in order to be manly or whatever.
If the vegan movement were able to successfully frame this as a left vs. right issue, the right wouldn't change their behavior very much, but the left would dramatically cut down on their meat-eating in order to distinguish themselves from those evil republicans. 50% of the population being vegetarian is obviously worse than 100%, but it's a lot better than the <5% that are vegetarian right now. (I'm using vegetarianism as that's a much easier sell to people than full veganism.)
Counterargument: Vegetarianism would probably be a very unpopular left-wing stance and could lose democrats elections, similar to what anti-abortionism does for the right.
"Let's deliberately make this a culture war topic" is playing with fire: you might start a blaze you can't control, and there's no guarantee you wouldn't cause a backlash which makes things objectively worse than before you started. The most obvious example would be if this culture war caused R legislatures to e.g. outlaw meat substitutes, give subsidies for meat products to increase production/consumption, or just kill a whole bunch of animals rolling-coal style, just to stick it to the people they hate. Which are absolutely things I think they could/would do, based on past behavior.
Whenever you propose deliberately CW-ing something, remember that, almost by definition, you'll be making enemies who will strike back.
This is an interesting idea, and I agree that it could be beneficial in the short-term. But over the long run, I’m worried it would make “winning” even harder. If we get good enough alt proteins to replace McDonald’s chicken nuggets (costs less, tastes the same), and nobody gives a shit, then McDonald’s might actually make the switch. If it’s something that might cost them half their domestic market share they probably won’t.
This seems like a great idea. Ideally just eating chicken and eggs would be a culture war issue and the democrats become the pro beef party, but just getting animal welfare into the culture war sphere seems good.
Gay marriage used to be more of a culture war thing and now it's mostly accepted by people. Once a culture war =! a culture war.
Yup, this is DxE's explicit goal
I'm a non vegan, Republican and I'm trying to think what the most persuasive animal welfare argument would be. The best I can think of on the top of my head is encouraging Republicans to buy their meat from small businesses, ideally small farms where you can actually see the animals and makes sure that they are not mistreated.
I get my eggs from my neighbor's chicken run, and long term want to raise my own. Problems with this, it's not decreasing suffering as much as actual veganism. It's prohibitively expensive for many people, especially if the person is eating more than just eggs. Plenty of small farms still subject their animals to horrible conditions, and it's hard to tell who is and who isn't.
Pie in the sky ideas to get Republicans on board. Get a Christian to start a nonprofit that certifies farms as raising their animals in a Christian way. Jews and Muslims have specific dietary standards that are followed. If someone with the authority of the Pope did it, Christians would probably follow. I don't really see these working in practice, but maybe far enough in the future
Just based on the veg*ns I know personally, white people are more likely to go veg*an out of concern for animal welfare, black people are more likely to go veg*n for health reasons.