While I agree that there are notable differences between “vegans” and “carnists” in terms of group dynamics, I do not think that necessarily disagrees with the idea that carnists are anti-truthseeking.
“carnists” are not a coherent group, not an ideology, they do not have an agenda (unless we’re talking about some very specific industry lobbyists who no doubt exist). They’re just people who don’t care and eat meat.
It seems untrue that because carnists are not an organized physical group that has meetings and such, they are thereby incapable of having shared norms or ideas/memes. I think in some contexts it can make sense/be useful to refer to a group of people who are not coherent in the sense of explicitly “working together” or having shared newletters based around a subject or whatever. In some cases, it can make sense to refer to those people’s ideologies/norms.
Also, I disagree with the idea that carnists are inherently neutral on the subject of animals/meat. That is, they don’t “not care”. In general, they actively want to eat meat and would be against things that would stop this. That’s not “not caring”; it is “having an agenda”, just not one that opposes the current status quo. The fact that being pro-meat and “okay with factory farming” is the more dominant stance/assumed default in our current status quo doesn’t mean that it isn’t a legitimate position/belief that people could be said to hold. There are many examples of other memetic environments throughout history where the assumed default may not have looked like a “stance” or an “agenda” to the people who were used to it, but nonetheless represented certain ideological claims.
I don’t think something only becomes an “ideology” when it disagrees with the current dominant cultural ideas; some things that are culturally common and baked into people from birth can still absolutely be “ideology” in the way I am used to using it. If we disagree on that, then perhaps we could use a different term?
If nothing else, carnists share the ideological assumption that “eating meat is okay”. In practice, they often also share ideas about the surrounding philosophical questions and attitudes. I don’t think it is beyond the pale to say that they could share norms around truth-seeking as it relates to these questions and attitudes. It feels unnecessarily dismissive and perhaps implicitly status quoist to assume that: as a dominant, implicit meme of our culture “carnism” must be “neutral” and therefore does not come with/correlate with any norms surrounding how people think about/process questions related to animals/meat.
Carnism comes with as much ideology as veganism even if people aren’t as explicit in presenting it or if the typical carnist hasn’t put as much thought into it.
I do not really have any experience advocating publicly for veganism and I wouldn’t really know about which specific espistemic failure modes are common among carnists for these sorts of conversations, but I have seen plenty of people bend themselves out of shape persevering their own comfort and status quo, so it really doesn’t seem like a stretch to imagine that epistemic maladies may tend to present among carnists when the question of veganism comes up.
For one thing, I have personally seen carnists respond in intentionally hostile ways towards vegans/vegan messaging on several occasions. Partially this is because they see it as a threat to their ideas or their way of life or partially this is because veganism is a designated punching bag that you’re allowed to insult in a lot of places. Often times, these attacks draw on shared ideas about veganism/animals/morality that are common between “carnists”.
So, while I agree that there are very different group dynamics, I don’t think it makes sense to say that vegans hold ideologies and are capable of exhibiting certain epistemic behaviors, but that carnists, by virtue of not being a sufficiently coherent collection of individuals, could not have the same labels applied to them.
While I agree that there are notable differences between “vegans” and “carnists” in terms of group dynamics, I do not think that necessarily disagrees with the idea that carnists are anti-truthseeking.
It seems untrue that because carnists are not an organized physical group that has meetings and such, they are thereby incapable of having shared norms or ideas/memes. I think in some contexts it can make sense/be useful to refer to a group of people who are not coherent in the sense of explicitly “working together” or having shared newletters based around a subject or whatever. In some cases, it can make sense to refer to those people’s ideologies/norms.
Also, I disagree with the idea that carnists are inherently neutral on the subject of animals/meat. That is, they don’t “not care”. In general, they actively want to eat meat and would be against things that would stop this. That’s not “not caring”; it is “having an agenda”, just not one that opposes the current status quo. The fact that being pro-meat and “okay with factory farming” is the more dominant stance/assumed default in our current status quo doesn’t mean that it isn’t a legitimate position/belief that people could be said to hold. There are many examples of other memetic environments throughout history where the assumed default may not have looked like a “stance” or an “agenda” to the people who were used to it, but nonetheless represented certain ideological claims.
I don’t think something only becomes an “ideology” when it disagrees with the current dominant cultural ideas; some things that are culturally common and baked into people from birth can still absolutely be “ideology” in the way I am used to using it. If we disagree on that, then perhaps we could use a different term?
If nothing else, carnists share the ideological assumption that “eating meat is okay”. In practice, they often also share ideas about the surrounding philosophical questions and attitudes. I don’t think it is beyond the pale to say that they could share norms around truth-seeking as it relates to these questions and attitudes. It feels unnecessarily dismissive and perhaps implicitly status quoist to assume that: as a dominant, implicit meme of our culture “carnism” must be “neutral” and therefore does not come with/correlate with any norms surrounding how people think about/process questions related to animals/meat.
Carnism comes with as much ideology as veganism even if people aren’t as explicit in presenting it or if the typical carnist hasn’t put as much thought into it.
I do not really have any experience advocating publicly for veganism and I wouldn’t really know about which specific espistemic failure modes are common among carnists for these sorts of conversations, but I have seen plenty of people bend themselves out of shape persevering their own comfort and status quo, so it really doesn’t seem like a stretch to imagine that epistemic maladies may tend to present among carnists when the question of veganism comes up.
For one thing, I have personally seen carnists respond in intentionally hostile ways towards vegans/vegan messaging on several occasions. Partially this is because they see it as a threat to their ideas or their way of life or partially this is because veganism is a designated punching bag that you’re allowed to insult in a lot of places. Often times, these attacks draw on shared ideas about veganism/animals/morality that are common between “carnists”.
So, while I agree that there are very different group dynamics, I don’t think it makes sense to say that vegans hold ideologies and are capable of exhibiting certain epistemic behaviors, but that carnists, by virtue of not being a sufficiently coherent collection of individuals, could not have the same labels applied to them.