Judgement face.

So I finished reading Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World Version 2.0: Revised, Expanded & Updated by Jenna and Bob Torres just now. I never did find that “Vegan Freak” forum that people were talking about. However, I have concluded that these authors were definitely spreading the right message about how to communicate veganism to others in their book. Negatively impassioned endorsement of one’s beliefs is not recommended. It is stated to be counterproductive. I’d like to expound on that.

San read my last post on the blog and told me that she was surprised I had never heard of the online “vegan culture” that involved ethical vegans tagging pictures of food on Tumblr with words such as “murder” or “corpse” or “dead flesh.” While I would not necessarily disagree with these tags or wish to euphemize the issue of animal cruelty, making harsh public judgments on others using only trigger words and using these trigger words within posts not related to animal rights seems wrong to me and counterproductive.

We all have different beliefs. We all think that we’re right. Telling someone they are wrong without circumstantial and factual evidence and a clear understanding of that person’s world view will not change their mind. In fact, it may make them want to rebel against your argument further. I’ll update this later with a citation containing text evidence from a psychological study relevant research (assuming Blondie can find the sheet for me). Later the next day...

Blondie found it. The article is titled:

How facts backfire

Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains Here's the link. Check it out: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

That copied and pasted a lot bigger than I expected...

Anyway, Vegan Freak is a good book to read and it provides some great advice to vegan peeps. I’m still working on finding a time to post the excerpts from The China Study along with my own summary and commentary. Presently, I’m trying to read all of my library books before I return them on Wednesday.

Bean out.