For example, the vast majority of people who claim to vegetarians, are not, but claim to vegetarians for the status.
Got a cite for that? Vegetarianism might be a questionable indicator of nonconformity, but I’d be much more willing to believe that vegetarianism’s become common enough in a broad spectrum of subcultures to be disqualified as such than that a vast, or even a simple, majority of professed vegetarians aren’t actual vegetarians. Perhaps modulo some wiggle room for culturally mandated meat-eating, like Thanksgiving turkeys in the US.
Now that I think about it, actually, it’s a non sequitur either way. The hypocrisy/sincere profession ratio of a feature doesn’t tell us much of anything about how acceptable it is in the mainstream: I’d expect many more people to claim to have Mafia ties than do in fact, but membership in a criminal fraternity is almost by definition nonconformist!
Got a cite for that? Vegetarianism might be a questionable indicator of nonconformity, but I’d be much more willing to believe that vegetarianism’s become common enough in a broad spectrum of subcultures to be disqualified as such than that a vast, or even a simple, majority of professed vegetarians aren’t actual vegetarians. Perhaps modulo some wiggle room for culturally mandated meat-eating, like Thanksgiving turkeys in the US.
Now that I think about it, actually, it’s a non sequitur either way. The hypocrisy/sincere profession ratio of a feature doesn’t tell us much of anything about how acceptable it is in the mainstream: I’d expect many more people to claim to have Mafia ties than do in fact, but membership in a criminal fraternity is almost by definition nonconformist!
Merely a personal observation. I do however have a cite for the proposition that vegan is conformity, and omnivory a sinful deviation.
Citing a source that aims for humor rather than accuracy is a lot more helpful if you’re aiming for flippancy rather than credibility.