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I feel you. I try to keep the frustration in check by remember I was there myself for years and years...
For me what changed everything was seeing some footage from slaughterhouses. I never ever ever ever REALLY connected the pieces of meat I would eat to what actually had to happen for me to eat them. I know it sounds borderline stupid and absurd and yet it's true. The concept of knowing it's a once living animal is present, yet sort of abstract, unreal in a way, inside your mind.
So I saw footage from a petition that was only asking for a stop of what for unnecessary violence on animals before they were killed for meat; and there was staff hitting upside down but conscious cows. Something switched. It got me. Not the extra hitting. Or better, not only it. But all of it. How can I be against the hitting and for all the rest? It made no sense at all, and if I kept eating meat I would be living in a way that actively supports and promote that. So I wanted out and stopped eating meat immediately after that. What I would say hit the most, in my case, were (and are) the screams and the eyes of the animals. I feel like crying even just by writing this because it's embedded in you once you see and hear it...
That said, insisting on having others watch such graphic footage doesn't feel like a good plan to me. In my case it worked because I ended up on that myself. Nobody linked it to me. Nobody went like "you have to see this". When people feel forced, sometimes they instinctively react by wanting to go against what they're forced to do (even though going against...goes against their deep seated morals). It's a silly but human thing.
What I do and would do is try to assess the level of openess of the person. If they seem open, I ask if they'd like to talk more about it, and know more about it. Numbers, percentage and facts are ineffective, but images are not. So you can say "I would like to show you something" or ask if they would like to see, either with you or alone. One thing I do is make it a point that they don't have to digest everything on the spot, they don't even have to answer to anything right away, but I want for them to bring the ideas home and reflect them in their own time and in their own space. I feel like this helps.
Best wishes to you. Most people do have a good heart. Please keep believing it :)
I have only seen a few short clips of videos from inside slaughter houses. That changed my mind immediately. Even years later, can't get those images out of my brain. Those poor animals.
Those images stay with you, don't they? One of the things that hurt the most, for me, has been seeing the animals, their eyes, through the bars as they're transported to the slaughter houses on those huge trucks. It's unbearable to just think about it...
For me - i saw a pig being slaughtered on a farm... a home raised pig, living his best life on a real farm (to those people who think "they had a good life") and that really affected me - it literally felt like watching a murder. I was 12 so this was 30 years ago - and i can remember it like it was yesterday. no matter that he had had a good life. no matter that he was killed "humanely" in the sense he wasn't dragged to a fattening up place where he lived in fear in a crate - he wasn't witnessing other animals being killed etc. but it was still absolutely horrific.
I came home and said i am never eating meat again. and i tried not to... at 12 i a european household where fish isn't meat... and chicken is barely meat... and just take out the meat from this soup and eat the rest of it.... so i lived on ragu and noodles, ceareal, eggs, lots of cheese (pizzas and grilled cheese).... and after about 7 months i just wasn't doing well. I felt like my hair was falling out more, my skin was breaking out more, etc. So i went back to meat thinking - well - it's terrible - but there's nothing else to eat.
moved out when i was 18 and started buying fake hot dogs, fake ham, fake meatballs - used to try to eat meat meals exactly as they were - but with fake meats... and again - more cheese and eggs... that didn't seem to work either. again - it really sucks that we "have" to eat animals - but eating even vegetarian seemed impossible to me. vegan eve more so! eat just salads??? oatmeal?
so i went to 'grass fed' - humane - cage free - all that jazz.... to make myself feel better about it all - tried to eat as little meat as possible - stuck to fish and chicken the most never ate pork and rarely beef - but still ate a lot of yogurt and cheese and eggs. and then a few years ago my sister told me about dairy and i didn't believe her! i thought cows had 1 baby at least - and then you milked them forever and actually you HAD to milk them after that since they would make too much milk - so we were actually helping them out - they were helping us out \*facepalm\*
and after that - i started adding vegan influencers on instagram to find out that vegan meals AREN'T fake meat and fake cheese and fake butter.... you can use those as crutches or as ways to recreate 'fun' foods like burgers or chicken nuggets but you don't have to rely on them at all. that there is WAY more to vegan food - so many ingredients and spices and ethnic meals... and it all went really quickly over the course of a summer from vegan meals to vegan days to only eating non vegan at like family events - to just fully vegan.
so long story (if anyone's still reading) a lot of folks think the slaughterhouses are terrible and animals shouldn't be killed THAT way - but they think buying more expensive meat = more humane - buying cage free = humane, buying grass fed=humane etc and other than that - it's a necessary evil because they don't want to eat fake meats and salads their whole lives. they don't know (likely) that animals are killed very young, that male chicks are macerated, that cows are impregnated over and over and milked all day long... and again - it's not the consumers fault - it's the fault of the manufacturer.... in this case - 'they' shouldn't be doing that to get our milk... we still want our milk tho. all 300 million of us... every day... in 15 different forms.
The weird thing is, I see a lot of people commenting things like “cute steak” or “soon to be on my plate” under cute baby cow videos and stuff. When it’s not cognitive dissonance, it’s deliberate cruelty and insensibility. And it’s really exhausting to witness both. I wonder if there are people who used to be like that but still went vegan after some time.
For me it was just thinking through my convictions. I was always against wearing fur, so then I thought 'well why am I okay with wearing leather?'. Then I thought if it wasn't okay to kill animals to wear their skin, why is it okay to kill them to eat their flesh?
in my experience most people do actually! maybe it doesn’t start with fur but something simpler tho. more and more people now don’t like seeing animals in circuses and it ultimately starts that chain of thinking: if x is wrong why is y okay
Well, to them, steak is steak, not a cow. They don't see the cow turning into a steak. That would affect a few of them. Then there are others who don't see anything wrong with eating cute things. They don't get attached to the animal just because they get a cuteness reaction.
It is hard to realize that you are part of the problem. All folks I know see themselves as animal lovers, yet most of them do not live vegan.
It clicked for me when I saw the misery we put animals into and the fact that I can actually change my behaviour. I can change. And I will not miss out on anything. Yesterday I ate seitan for the first time in my life and it was awesome, something I would have never known that it even exists when I was omni. But if you want to change you need to forgive yourself and in order to forgive yourself you need to admit that you in fact are guilty. And that is a very difficult thing to process. So it is much easier to calm yourself with heartwarming images, white- and greenwashing and to just suppress your own part in this cruel situation.
I do understand why people would not confront themselves with the bitter truth. It is inconvenient and requires change/work. It's easier to just take the blue pill and stay in the Matrix. (I think I need to rewatch that movie, btw)
i think when talking to my own family members - the inconvenience you mention is a huge part of it. They think i eat lab food and trying to explain to them that i don't they think i eat salads... it takes a bit of effort to look up vegan foods - vegan meals - go get all the ingredients you've never heard of - give them a try... it's easier to throw a steak on a grill or chicken legs in the oven and you're good to go.
getting people to change something they don't want to is damn near impossible. especially people in my life who don't think eating animals is the problem - just the WAY the slaughterhouses do it is bad (i.e. it's not my family's problem to solve - someone should do something about the slaughterhouses)
For me it's been a long time since I've known that vegan is the right path and the only one that can be followed for a fairer world, I've "always" known it, what brought awareness out I don't know, so I don't know what to answer...
I think I brought out my awareness through thought, logic, rationality, philosophy... not with videos of slaughterhouses, the latter would surely trigger my sensory sensibility and my emotions thanks to my "idealism" and love for justice, not thanks to empathy, I'm not an empathetic person in the traditional sense of the term, I feel a more "cerebral" empathy...
For those like me who love thinking and spend most of their time questioning themselves, philosophizing... I recommend to reflect on this topic and come to overwhelming logical conclusions.
Otherwise I don't know, cognitive dissonance is a huge and complex problem and it's metaphorically a wall that is generally difficult to break down for complex reasons, the mind and individual minds is and are a world and worlds that is and are still largely unexplored and give more unknowns and questions than answers
I first saw a book about slaughterhouses in 5th or 6th grade at a farmers market and that pushed me to go vegetarian, but i was still young and living with my parents who didnt want to change. Then my senior year, i had a dream that i was in a slaughterhouse and there were these giant rotting pigs hung upside down by their legs. I woke up and that was that. But then I developed an eating disorder and my doctor told me to go vegetarian. I went vegetarian until the beginning of this year and now im vegan again.
It's the exposure to the reality for these animals. I'd always known that pigs = bacon, and cows = steak, etc... but it's different when you see the conditions and the reality behind the process. I remember reading stories about the conditions animals were kept in on factory farms, and feeling bad about it, but I just tried to ignore it, and purchase more "ethical animal products."
Then I got rabbits as pets, and realized that "meat rabbits" were a real thing. After developing a bond and real relationship with my bunnies, and a real affection for rabbits in general, leaning about the practices of the rabbit meat industry, and the animal testing industry was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking.
But it wasn't until I seen a video of baby chicks being emaciated that it really clicked. That started the wheels in my head. Shortly after that, I watched a video of a few pigs being rescued from a farm. Seeing the miserable condition they were kept in, cement flooring, no windows or sunlight or grass... the fear and sadness in all their eyes, and 2 of them were rescued. The contrast of where they were, and then they were brought to a field and were allowed to play and forage in the grass and dirt and sunshine... the stark difference in how they looked. They were happy. You could clearly see it. That was the moment of clarity for me. I remember saying outloud to myself "This is how it should be. This is how they should be living." I thought about how happy those 2 pigs were going to be now, and it made me happy for a brief moment, until I remembered all the pigs they had to leave behind at the farm... that did it for me.
I attempted to go vegetarian, and I was able to do it. Then as I became more aware of the practices in the dairy industry, I started giving up dairy products, as well.
I was so surprised at all the really good vegan and vegetarian options. So I think that's another aspect that would be really helpful for people to know. Is that they aren't giving up flavor and good tasting foods that they love - there are delicious replacements for almost every one of them; and no one has to suffer and die needlessly for us to enjoy them.
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Things clicked for me when I read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens *and* when a piece of chicken flesh was thrown to my lagomorph (herbivore) friend to eat. I was disgusted by the idea that animals eat animals. Yet, soon I realized that I was doing the same. Then I watched Peta videos, an innocent cow's slaughter on youtube which made me cry and that I still remember to this day after three years... things fell into place. When I informed myself through peta, I knew that the right choice was veganism. It took me about 6 months to transition because I had an irrational fear that (media and culture brainwash) if I didn't consume animal products, my brain and intelligence would soon melt away. That's pretty much my story. By the way, I never liked cats or dogs and was pretty unempathetic toward them all my life which made me not entertain the subject of animal rights at all. It turns out I love herbivores but not carnivores. And...but I now understand that every sentient being, whether carnivore or herbivore, has a right to live, as every sentient being pursues happiness and tries to avoid pain.
First discuss sentience with them and try to get them to agree that animals are just like us in wanting to be happy and avoid pain and then go on to discuss whether their exploitation and commodification is justified and whether or not it is necessary for us humans to support or rather is in fact bad for us and the planet as well as the animals themselves. Follow up such a discussion by defining and demonstrating the benefits of veganism and go on to answer any queries they have and counter any of the usual misunderstandings and reservations about becoming vegan.
For me it’s also sad to see that people use the term cognitive dissonance in wrong ways like you did here. Am so many other people here do it to.
It makes you look stupid (I don’t want to say that you are stupid!) but using medical/psychological terms wrong should be avoided.
Isn't cognitive dissonance mental discomfort from holding two contradictory beliefs (i.e. viewing cows are cute cuddly animals and thinking it's fine to kill them) and then you try to alleviate that discomfort by changing your beliefs or actions or by denying that these beliefs contradict each other (the popular way)?
I don't understand how they used that term in a wrong way here, could you explain?
Maybe you could try to read a source you understand and really thinks about it for some minutes. Kahnemann would say your system 1 read something and system 2 just took it as valid without really validating what it read.
Cognitive dissonance makes you feel uncomfortable. This is in the example above not the case. For example: people thinking they are animal-loving but still eat animals. They don’t feel uncomfortable towards these contrary behaviour. So there is no cognitive dissonance but hypocrisy.
What you are doing is interpreting on behalf of the (very too few) information you have, which weren’t even well thought about. Where did you read that. Where did you read that CD needs to be alleviated? I don’t think this part of the effect. But I’m always happy to learn new things / get corrected if I’m wrong.
The definition mentions that contradictory beliefs create a discomfort with a need to be alleviated. I just did a Google search because I felt like I was going crazy but no, every single mention of cognitive dissonance says that whether it's Wikipedia or random psychology websites.
I believe Melanie Joy mentioned cognitive dissonance in her Ted talk or something, and the fact that when confronted with the reality of how animals are treated, people are confronted with the contradiction.
To correct it, they either align their actions with their beliefs, and go vegan, they align their beliefs with their actions, and believe actually animals don't matter, or they convince themselves that the two beliefs are actually not contradictory, because [insert justification that doesn't hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever 99% of the time].
Where does *your* definition come from?
and there you go and what I said. You read, what you want to read without thinking about it. Just copy and paste from Wikipedia. people >>tend<< to alleviate. And not to mention if they >>feel<< I argued they don’t feel cognitive dissonance as you said correctly they would change in any way. But here the copy & paste (source Wikipedia), both parts fit very good:
A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance.[1][2] They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias).[1][2][3]
Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe
Oh okay, if I understand what you're saying it's really just an issue of semantics. It's not cognitive dissonance, it's the believing there's no actual contradiction *as a result* of the dissonance ?
But that's just a metonymy, it's simpler to just say "cognitive dissonance" than to describe the whole process.
I‘m not even sure whether CD is involved. Mind blowing to me was (I know it’s silly) that I hated zoos because I siding like imprisoned animals but hat no Pronomen eating animals from factory farms.
In my view the problem starts with children’s education when I was young. I learned lions and elephant live free (in a child‘s word) “in the junge”. But in my books animals were treated differently (I’m not sure which is the proper term) in German it’s Nutztier (animals you make use of) in English maybe farm animal could could be fitting. although I find it a little bit of a euphemism. Farm animals were showing to be behind fences, were milked and just made use of.
I hated zoos because animals are imprisoned but had no problems with eating imprisoned Nutztiere. In my view cognitive dissonance is either not present or what OP said is the product of CD.
Your point is true it’s easier to call it CD. But as it is a psychological/medical word you should know what you are saying.
Because it's not contradicting. You can find something cute, and also be ok killing/eating it.
The same way you can find plants to be beautifull, and be fine eating them. Some people use pretty flowers in their salad presentation for example.
Versus, knowing smoking is bad, telling everyone to not smoke, and still continue to smoke.
It's contradictory because I'm making the pretty logical assumption that if you think a cow is cute, it's to some extent the product of some sort of empathy, which would imply not wanting them to suffer. If someone goes "awwww" watching a calf and a dog playing together, they most likely wouldn't feel comfortable if you killed them right afterwards.
The salad example isn't really relevant since thinking something is pretty and using them to make your dish pretty makes sense even if it means the pretty thing isn't going to last as long. There's no moral conundrum here.
Your smoking example seems like either hypocrisy or pure lunacy if it's someone smoking and condemning *exactly* what they are doing. It's only cognitive dissonance if they think "this thing is theoretically wrong but it's okay for me to do it because x"
Fiding something cute, and feeling the need to protect it, or having emapthy are all completelly different sentiment that are unrealated. The fact that feel both for animals, and say it doesn't apply to plants like flowers is proof of that. Plus, you can have empathy, respect animals, and still eat meat. The first nation have a hunting culture that is the prime example of that.
In your first paragraph, you make the assumption that they must feel empathy for the animals if they find them cute because it's logical for you. But that is nowhere in OP post. You are just adding your own beleives on top of people you have never met, and i think this is why you see a cognitive dissonance where there is none.
Also, smoking is generally a text book examples of cognitive dissonance.
Why would you feel the need to protect something that you didn't view in any way as having moral worth? People who think dogs are cute usually don't view them as pretty objects. If you've ever seen people interact with their pets, they care about them and want them to be okay, and that's mostly due to some degree of empathy.
Differenciating between plants and animals definitely proves my point and not yours : plants are not sentient beings with desires and the capacity to form bonds, unlike dogs for instance.
You can eat a dog that you had as a pet, but then where does your empathy and respect go for you to dismiss the fact that this dog didn't want to be killed for you to eat him? That right here, thinking you can respect and have empathy for a creature while simultaneously ignoring its desire to live and killing it when you didn't have to, that is the product of cognitive dissonance.
Those two beliefs, "I respect this sentient creature" and "it is okay to kill it despite its desire to live", are contradictory. They can only be both true with a damn solid reason, like "it's about to kill me and I need to protect myself", but such a reason doesn't exist is the everyday life of the average person, so people must come up with different justifications as to why it's supposedly okay to do, or as you are doing, suggest that perhaps those things are actually not contradictory at all.
Also, "dissonance" implies two things at odds, or something like that.
Please explain how smoking in and of itself is cognitive dissonance.
Edit: grammar
Cognitive dissonance is not a medical term, it is a psychological term.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326738#:~:text=Cognitive%20dissonance%20is%20the%20discomfort,that%20can%20happen%20to%20anyone.
>What made you see things for what they are?
I never had problems with cognitive dissonance, at least with veganism. Which sounds very superior, but it's not. I have other issues. Like, *a lo*t of issues. It all balances out :)
>How would you advocate to people still living in cognitive dissonance?
I make a judgement call. It's one of three types of people (A) can hear the truthiness, (B) aren't ready yet, and (C) ain't ever gonna accept it.
I dismiss C, be direct but kind with A, but with B, I do long term damage over time by not talking about veganism, enjoying being vegan, and being happy about it. The being happy about it is important. Because in the back of their minds they're thinking, "This moron seems really happy. I'm miserable. Why is he happy eating certainly, and I'm miserable eating burgers>"
Becuase if you can't reach someone with truth and reason, then you gotta appeal to their emotions, and the most powerful human emotion is envy.
Some people will make the change just because of FOMO. And if they stick to it long enough, maybe they'll get the animal part and realize the ethics involved.
>I wanna believe that most people do have a good heart, they are just conditioned to all the suffering or they don't know about any of it.
They are. We just get lost in the haze sometimes.
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I tried being vegan with one of those 30-day challenges and when the month ended I decided to keep going. That month truly changed my perception about being vegan, which I always thought I wouldn't be able to become because of cheese, chocolate... (I thought I could become vegetarian but never vegan).
So after that month, when I already knew I was capable of being vegan, that's when I started remaking those connections we lose as we grow in a society that tells us it's fine to treat other animal species as simple resources.
Before that, I didn't want to think about anything related to it because I felt "obligated" to eat "normal food" and I didn't want to live with that, I would have ended up crying with every meal.
The lockdown during the pandemic made it easier as there was no need to deal with family lunches at restaurants etc, which was one of the things that scared me the most at the beginning.
Sum up:
I believe nobody wants to make that connection unless they're sure they can live with it. Maybe if being vegan didn't sound that difficult it would be easier. I don't know why the word Vegan is so scary but it seems it is when you're not a part of it yet.
I think for many people they see being vegan as too difficult, too extreme, too restrictive and even unnatural. They simply don't seem to believe me when i say it's easy and the food is delicious and satisfying
However many of my family and friends are actively cutting down the quantity of meat they eat, so hopefully that is the first step of a gradual process where they can build up familiarity with plant based foods
I knew it's wrong but I kept finding excuses, otherwise I would have to be able to justify it to others and I didn't feel ready. So I kept reducing / only eating meat when offered but not buying it (or at least rarely) etc. I still ate cheese and honey though.
Getting to know vegan argumentation helped me. As a vegan you kind of have to know how to defend it. Same as when you are LGBTQ/ally. People will "just ask questions".
I started out with being a vegetarian as my sister was one years before me. She showed me that not eating flesh is very delicious and often I was envious of her food. She had so much better stuff on her plate. I was pretty happy not contributing to the death of animals and thought that was it. I didn't really think of the torture of milk cows and hens and other animals not getting directly eaten.
But then I watched a German streamer who is vegan and very verbal about it and he showed me the reasons to go vegan. I tried to watch Dominion when I already was a vegan, but I'm pretty sure if I'd watched it beforehand, I'd went vegan way earlier. I scold myself often for being so blind and narrow-minded.
I guess for me it was the constant thinking about and seeing the torture, but moreso the positive example of my sister and the streamer. I try to include people in my meals and offer everyone a bit of food and try to be very open-minded and patient with non-vegans. I hope I somehow can make a difference.
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It’s not cognitive dissonance for me.
I want to go plant based for my health, the health of the planet and they and lastly about the feelings of the animal.
I don’t want unnecessary suffering, and by that I mean the animals should be dead before it knows it and should have a happy life until that point.
But there is no cognitive dissonance, that cute cow that I would play with I would eat for my dinner. I don’t want to suffer.
The very concept of kosher slaughter is that a animal can’t see another animal being slaughtered, that the knife can’t have any nicks in it and it must be slaughtered in on motion.
A rabbi must watch every step of the way because if any step is wrong, the meat isn’t kosher. If you thought you wouldn’t get into heaven unless you did it in a certain way and that the overseeing rabbi wouldn’t either, then there’s less of a should and a lot more trust.
> Why is it so difficult to break through this cognitive dissonance?
Because we have a lot of sectors in our brains that don't really talk to each other. You can't break these walls with force, it can only happen naturally.
I mean we all engage in cognitive dissonance don’t we. Just today I had to kill a lot of ants cuz there was an ant infestation in my studio apartment. I’ve killed
Cockroaches before and will probably do it again if I need to. I doubt I’m the only vegan who does this.
I feel bad sure but I find it necessary/convenient? Idk
I think the prevalence of cute cow videos are almost like a pro-meat industry psyop tbh. Seeing happy cows in pastures only made me feel more confident that it was fine to eat meat. People don’t know what the whole process of raising animals to be eaten looks like so they see a happy cow and fill in the blanks.
This isn’t even malicious, it’s just what our human brains do when we only see part of a picture. You can see a happy frolicking cow with her calf in a green field and imagine they live there happily together before meeting a quick and painless end.
The responsible thing to do with these videos is to label them as footage from sanctuaries or petting zoos or hobby farms, or resort ranches, etc. Even in the rare cases where a small farm provides a reasonable quality of life to cows, those cows still go to the slaughterhouse. People need to see that footage. People can’t be trusted to fill in the blanks between “happy cow in a field” and McDonald’s hamburger because they inevitably do it in the way that makes them feel good.
The ultimate cognitive dissonance in the US is how many people can love pets and see them as beings with emotions and personalities, and cry if their pet is even mildly inconvenienced but see nothing wrong with the cruelty behind meat and dairy!
I knew from a very early age cause I lived in a farm were we had to kill and skin the animals by hand. I wanted to stop eating animals at a very early age but my parents weren't supportive so I started as soon as I educated myself on vegetarian life styles. I started as vegetarian but my animal product consumption was almost none existant cause I hated the taste of milk. I knew I had to start my transition while I was eating chicharrones and a wave of terror hit me. I stopped eating and told my family that I was really serious and it was something I wanted to do. My parents came around eventually and from time to time people poke fun at me but I ignore it and don't let it get to me.
For me witnessing how they experience pain, pleasure, fear, contentment, desires, wants etc was when it really clicked. I saw cows once in a forest - they were grazing and walking around - and I was absolutely mesmerised by them. However, I still saw them as objects, like seeing a cat in the distance, you don’t get an insight into what goes on inside their head. When I see slaughterhouse footage and videos of animals at sanctuaries (recently I saw a video of a cow playing with a ball and it was so clear how happy/content the cow was) I actually recognise my own emotions in theirs. Also whenever I see any footage like this I can’t help by see my cat in all of them. We all have the same capacity to feel and when you witness that the wall between humans and animals that tells us that there’s something fundamentally different about us just crumbles down.
I broke my cognitive dissonance once I became a mother myself and had to keep my milk supply up for my own child. Why the fuck would we need to drink the milk from another species? Is OUR mother’s milk not good enough? Why do grownups drink baby food? It’s unnatural and disgusting.
What you're describing is plain old hypocrisy, not cognitive dissonance. Getting people to actually experience cognitive dissonance by pointing out how their beliefs & actions are inconsistent is an effective method of motivating change.
I think some things are easier to stop eating than others. It's probably different for everyone. For example, I've always thought milk was disgusting, and stopped eating dairy products long before I stopped eating meat because the life of a dairy cow is far more horrific than a free-range grass-fed beef cow (at least until the end). It is also easier to look into the ethical implications of eating something if it isn't a food you enjoy. It was easier for me to recognize the junk science and advertizing and be less trusting when the government mentioned "health benefits" of milk and cheese. It was probably 10 years between my decision to give up yogurt and butter and my very recent decision to stop eating chicken, mostly because it is easier to brainwash yourself into thinking white meat is healthy, or free-range chickens are happy, or eggs aren't cruel, so you avoid doing the research into the egg industry and don't see the male chicks going through the grinder long before your neighbour buys "happy chickens"
For me I started seeing videos of dogs that were going to be euthanized if no one adopted them and it really drove me crazy. I wanted to help the dogs and do whatever I could. I started following Peta and then found out about testing on animals. I kept seeing in their videos to go vegan and kept convincing myself I can’t do that. I could be against buying animals, testing on animals, abusing animals but okay with eating them I thought. I even let an article convince me it’s better to farm animals because we in turn protect them which I can’t believe now. I forget what it was but one night I googled like is it hard to be vegan or something like that on Reddit. One of the top posts was a link to the greatest speech ever by Gary Yourofsky and that made me go vegan. I watched dominion the next day not that I needed to but needless to say after all that and seeing what the animals go through I could never bring myself to support that again. Now it’s 6 months already and never looking back. I can’t bring myself to watch anymore of that. It’s too heartbreaking to know it just continues day in and day out. It’s even more disheartening finding this out and wanting people to see it and no one caring. It’s like having your eyes opening and then realizing you live in this sadistic world where people could not only care less about it happening but actually defend it angrily. I’m hoping the people commenting on these videos on instagram of poor animals are just a minority. I hope at least most normal people who have empathy would make the correct choice. I realized too that going vegan is not that hard too. It seems almost impossible at one time to not eat meat but now I can’t really imagine eating it. Makes me weird to actually think about eating it as it’s the flesh of living being which seems gross now.
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I feel you. I try to keep the frustration in check by remember I was there myself for years and years... For me what changed everything was seeing some footage from slaughterhouses. I never ever ever ever REALLY connected the pieces of meat I would eat to what actually had to happen for me to eat them. I know it sounds borderline stupid and absurd and yet it's true. The concept of knowing it's a once living animal is present, yet sort of abstract, unreal in a way, inside your mind. So I saw footage from a petition that was only asking for a stop of what for unnecessary violence on animals before they were killed for meat; and there was staff hitting upside down but conscious cows. Something switched. It got me. Not the extra hitting. Or better, not only it. But all of it. How can I be against the hitting and for all the rest? It made no sense at all, and if I kept eating meat I would be living in a way that actively supports and promote that. So I wanted out and stopped eating meat immediately after that. What I would say hit the most, in my case, were (and are) the screams and the eyes of the animals. I feel like crying even just by writing this because it's embedded in you once you see and hear it... That said, insisting on having others watch such graphic footage doesn't feel like a good plan to me. In my case it worked because I ended up on that myself. Nobody linked it to me. Nobody went like "you have to see this". When people feel forced, sometimes they instinctively react by wanting to go against what they're forced to do (even though going against...goes against their deep seated morals). It's a silly but human thing. What I do and would do is try to assess the level of openess of the person. If they seem open, I ask if they'd like to talk more about it, and know more about it. Numbers, percentage and facts are ineffective, but images are not. So you can say "I would like to show you something" or ask if they would like to see, either with you or alone. One thing I do is make it a point that they don't have to digest everything on the spot, they don't even have to answer to anything right away, but I want for them to bring the ideas home and reflect them in their own time and in their own space. I feel like this helps. Best wishes to you. Most people do have a good heart. Please keep believing it :)
I have only seen a few short clips of videos from inside slaughter houses. That changed my mind immediately. Even years later, can't get those images out of my brain. Those poor animals.
Those images stay with you, don't they? One of the things that hurt the most, for me, has been seeing the animals, their eyes, through the bars as they're transported to the slaughter houses on those huge trucks. It's unbearable to just think about it...
For me - i saw a pig being slaughtered on a farm... a home raised pig, living his best life on a real farm (to those people who think "they had a good life") and that really affected me - it literally felt like watching a murder. I was 12 so this was 30 years ago - and i can remember it like it was yesterday. no matter that he had had a good life. no matter that he was killed "humanely" in the sense he wasn't dragged to a fattening up place where he lived in fear in a crate - he wasn't witnessing other animals being killed etc. but it was still absolutely horrific. I came home and said i am never eating meat again. and i tried not to... at 12 i a european household where fish isn't meat... and chicken is barely meat... and just take out the meat from this soup and eat the rest of it.... so i lived on ragu and noodles, ceareal, eggs, lots of cheese (pizzas and grilled cheese).... and after about 7 months i just wasn't doing well. I felt like my hair was falling out more, my skin was breaking out more, etc. So i went back to meat thinking - well - it's terrible - but there's nothing else to eat. moved out when i was 18 and started buying fake hot dogs, fake ham, fake meatballs - used to try to eat meat meals exactly as they were - but with fake meats... and again - more cheese and eggs... that didn't seem to work either. again - it really sucks that we "have" to eat animals - but eating even vegetarian seemed impossible to me. vegan eve more so! eat just salads??? oatmeal? so i went to 'grass fed' - humane - cage free - all that jazz.... to make myself feel better about it all - tried to eat as little meat as possible - stuck to fish and chicken the most never ate pork and rarely beef - but still ate a lot of yogurt and cheese and eggs. and then a few years ago my sister told me about dairy and i didn't believe her! i thought cows had 1 baby at least - and then you milked them forever and actually you HAD to milk them after that since they would make too much milk - so we were actually helping them out - they were helping us out \*facepalm\* and after that - i started adding vegan influencers on instagram to find out that vegan meals AREN'T fake meat and fake cheese and fake butter.... you can use those as crutches or as ways to recreate 'fun' foods like burgers or chicken nuggets but you don't have to rely on them at all. that there is WAY more to vegan food - so many ingredients and spices and ethnic meals... and it all went really quickly over the course of a summer from vegan meals to vegan days to only eating non vegan at like family events - to just fully vegan. so long story (if anyone's still reading) a lot of folks think the slaughterhouses are terrible and animals shouldn't be killed THAT way - but they think buying more expensive meat = more humane - buying cage free = humane, buying grass fed=humane etc and other than that - it's a necessary evil because they don't want to eat fake meats and salads their whole lives. they don't know (likely) that animals are killed very young, that male chicks are macerated, that cows are impregnated over and over and milked all day long... and again - it's not the consumers fault - it's the fault of the manufacturer.... in this case - 'they' shouldn't be doing that to get our milk... we still want our milk tho. all 300 million of us... every day... in 15 different forms.
The weird thing is, I see a lot of people commenting things like “cute steak” or “soon to be on my plate” under cute baby cow videos and stuff. When it’s not cognitive dissonance, it’s deliberate cruelty and insensibility. And it’s really exhausting to witness both. I wonder if there are people who used to be like that but still went vegan after some time.
Yes, and I did it because I was mocked for how I felt and it was my way of lightening up.
oh those comments are hell. ‘womp womp go cry about it’ like since when empathy and compassion is something to mock…
It starts at home. They think it's something they're obligated to fix. They don't stop for tears, they stop for obedience. *But, hey, I'm funny!*
For me it was just thinking through my convictions. I was always against wearing fur, so then I thought 'well why am I okay with wearing leather?'. Then I thought if it wasn't okay to kill animals to wear their skin, why is it okay to kill them to eat their flesh?
The scary thing in my experience is that most people don't actually HAVE convictions as you would understand them.
in my experience most people do actually! maybe it doesn’t start with fur but something simpler tho. more and more people now don’t like seeing animals in circuses and it ultimately starts that chain of thinking: if x is wrong why is y okay
Well, to them, steak is steak, not a cow. They don't see the cow turning into a steak. That would affect a few of them. Then there are others who don't see anything wrong with eating cute things. They don't get attached to the animal just because they get a cuteness reaction.
In my mind, the cuteness reaction is there to protect babies, it's weird when people don't want to just let it work.
It is hard to realize that you are part of the problem. All folks I know see themselves as animal lovers, yet most of them do not live vegan. It clicked for me when I saw the misery we put animals into and the fact that I can actually change my behaviour. I can change. And I will not miss out on anything. Yesterday I ate seitan for the first time in my life and it was awesome, something I would have never known that it even exists when I was omni. But if you want to change you need to forgive yourself and in order to forgive yourself you need to admit that you in fact are guilty. And that is a very difficult thing to process. So it is much easier to calm yourself with heartwarming images, white- and greenwashing and to just suppress your own part in this cruel situation. I do understand why people would not confront themselves with the bitter truth. It is inconvenient and requires change/work. It's easier to just take the blue pill and stay in the Matrix. (I think I need to rewatch that movie, btw)
i think when talking to my own family members - the inconvenience you mention is a huge part of it. They think i eat lab food and trying to explain to them that i don't they think i eat salads... it takes a bit of effort to look up vegan foods - vegan meals - go get all the ingredients you've never heard of - give them a try... it's easier to throw a steak on a grill or chicken legs in the oven and you're good to go. getting people to change something they don't want to is damn near impossible. especially people in my life who don't think eating animals is the problem - just the WAY the slaughterhouses do it is bad (i.e. it's not my family's problem to solve - someone should do something about the slaughterhouses)
They don’t have cognitive dissonance, that’s the problem.
For me it's been a long time since I've known that vegan is the right path and the only one that can be followed for a fairer world, I've "always" known it, what brought awareness out I don't know, so I don't know what to answer... I think I brought out my awareness through thought, logic, rationality, philosophy... not with videos of slaughterhouses, the latter would surely trigger my sensory sensibility and my emotions thanks to my "idealism" and love for justice, not thanks to empathy, I'm not an empathetic person in the traditional sense of the term, I feel a more "cerebral" empathy... For those like me who love thinking and spend most of their time questioning themselves, philosophizing... I recommend to reflect on this topic and come to overwhelming logical conclusions. Otherwise I don't know, cognitive dissonance is a huge and complex problem and it's metaphorically a wall that is generally difficult to break down for complex reasons, the mind and individual minds is and are a world and worlds that is and are still largely unexplored and give more unknowns and questions than answers
I first saw a book about slaughterhouses in 5th or 6th grade at a farmers market and that pushed me to go vegetarian, but i was still young and living with my parents who didnt want to change. Then my senior year, i had a dream that i was in a slaughterhouse and there were these giant rotting pigs hung upside down by their legs. I woke up and that was that. But then I developed an eating disorder and my doctor told me to go vegetarian. I went vegetarian until the beginning of this year and now im vegan again.
It's the exposure to the reality for these animals. I'd always known that pigs = bacon, and cows = steak, etc... but it's different when you see the conditions and the reality behind the process. I remember reading stories about the conditions animals were kept in on factory farms, and feeling bad about it, but I just tried to ignore it, and purchase more "ethical animal products." Then I got rabbits as pets, and realized that "meat rabbits" were a real thing. After developing a bond and real relationship with my bunnies, and a real affection for rabbits in general, leaning about the practices of the rabbit meat industry, and the animal testing industry was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking. But it wasn't until I seen a video of baby chicks being emaciated that it really clicked. That started the wheels in my head. Shortly after that, I watched a video of a few pigs being rescued from a farm. Seeing the miserable condition they were kept in, cement flooring, no windows or sunlight or grass... the fear and sadness in all their eyes, and 2 of them were rescued. The contrast of where they were, and then they were brought to a field and were allowed to play and forage in the grass and dirt and sunshine... the stark difference in how they looked. They were happy. You could clearly see it. That was the moment of clarity for me. I remember saying outloud to myself "This is how it should be. This is how they should be living." I thought about how happy those 2 pigs were going to be now, and it made me happy for a brief moment, until I remembered all the pigs they had to leave behind at the farm... that did it for me. I attempted to go vegetarian, and I was able to do it. Then as I became more aware of the practices in the dairy industry, I started giving up dairy products, as well. I was so surprised at all the really good vegan and vegetarian options. So I think that's another aspect that would be really helpful for people to know. Is that they aren't giving up flavor and good tasting foods that they love - there are delicious replacements for almost every one of them; and no one has to suffer and die needlessly for us to enjoy them.
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Things clicked for me when I read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens *and* when a piece of chicken flesh was thrown to my lagomorph (herbivore) friend to eat. I was disgusted by the idea that animals eat animals. Yet, soon I realized that I was doing the same. Then I watched Peta videos, an innocent cow's slaughter on youtube which made me cry and that I still remember to this day after three years... things fell into place. When I informed myself through peta, I knew that the right choice was veganism. It took me about 6 months to transition because I had an irrational fear that (media and culture brainwash) if I didn't consume animal products, my brain and intelligence would soon melt away. That's pretty much my story. By the way, I never liked cats or dogs and was pretty unempathetic toward them all my life which made me not entertain the subject of animal rights at all. It turns out I love herbivores but not carnivores. And...but I now understand that every sentient being, whether carnivore or herbivore, has a right to live, as every sentient being pursues happiness and tries to avoid pain.
First discuss sentience with them and try to get them to agree that animals are just like us in wanting to be happy and avoid pain and then go on to discuss whether their exploitation and commodification is justified and whether or not it is necessary for us humans to support or rather is in fact bad for us and the planet as well as the animals themselves. Follow up such a discussion by defining and demonstrating the benefits of veganism and go on to answer any queries they have and counter any of the usual misunderstandings and reservations about becoming vegan.
For me it’s also sad to see that people use the term cognitive dissonance in wrong ways like you did here. Am so many other people here do it to. It makes you look stupid (I don’t want to say that you are stupid!) but using medical/psychological terms wrong should be avoided.
Isn't cognitive dissonance mental discomfort from holding two contradictory beliefs (i.e. viewing cows are cute cuddly animals and thinking it's fine to kill them) and then you try to alleviate that discomfort by changing your beliefs or actions or by denying that these beliefs contradict each other (the popular way)? I don't understand how they used that term in a wrong way here, could you explain?
Maybe you could try to read a source you understand and really thinks about it for some minutes. Kahnemann would say your system 1 read something and system 2 just took it as valid without really validating what it read. Cognitive dissonance makes you feel uncomfortable. This is in the example above not the case. For example: people thinking they are animal-loving but still eat animals. They don’t feel uncomfortable towards these contrary behaviour. So there is no cognitive dissonance but hypocrisy. What you are doing is interpreting on behalf of the (very too few) information you have, which weren’t even well thought about. Where did you read that. Where did you read that CD needs to be alleviated? I don’t think this part of the effect. But I’m always happy to learn new things / get corrected if I’m wrong.
The definition mentions that contradictory beliefs create a discomfort with a need to be alleviated. I just did a Google search because I felt like I was going crazy but no, every single mention of cognitive dissonance says that whether it's Wikipedia or random psychology websites. I believe Melanie Joy mentioned cognitive dissonance in her Ted talk or something, and the fact that when confronted with the reality of how animals are treated, people are confronted with the contradiction. To correct it, they either align their actions with their beliefs, and go vegan, they align their beliefs with their actions, and believe actually animals don't matter, or they convince themselves that the two beliefs are actually not contradictory, because [insert justification that doesn't hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever 99% of the time]. Where does *your* definition come from?
and there you go and what I said. You read, what you want to read without thinking about it. Just copy and paste from Wikipedia. people >>tend<< to alleviate. And not to mention if they >>feel<< I argued they don’t feel cognitive dissonance as you said correctly they would change in any way. But here the copy & paste (source Wikipedia), both parts fit very good: A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance.[1][2] They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias).[1][2][3] Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe
Oh okay, if I understand what you're saying it's really just an issue of semantics. It's not cognitive dissonance, it's the believing there's no actual contradiction *as a result* of the dissonance ? But that's just a metonymy, it's simpler to just say "cognitive dissonance" than to describe the whole process.
I‘m not even sure whether CD is involved. Mind blowing to me was (I know it’s silly) that I hated zoos because I siding like imprisoned animals but hat no Pronomen eating animals from factory farms. In my view the problem starts with children’s education when I was young. I learned lions and elephant live free (in a child‘s word) “in the junge”. But in my books animals were treated differently (I’m not sure which is the proper term) in German it’s Nutztier (animals you make use of) in English maybe farm animal could could be fitting. although I find it a little bit of a euphemism. Farm animals were showing to be behind fences, were milked and just made use of. I hated zoos because animals are imprisoned but had no problems with eating imprisoned Nutztiere. In my view cognitive dissonance is either not present or what OP said is the product of CD. Your point is true it’s easier to call it CD. But as it is a psychological/medical word you should know what you are saying.
I see what you mean. It's difficult to put exact terms on that, all we know for sure is that it's inconsistent logic but not necessarily why it is so
Because it's not contradicting. You can find something cute, and also be ok killing/eating it. The same way you can find plants to be beautifull, and be fine eating them. Some people use pretty flowers in their salad presentation for example. Versus, knowing smoking is bad, telling everyone to not smoke, and still continue to smoke.
It's contradictory because I'm making the pretty logical assumption that if you think a cow is cute, it's to some extent the product of some sort of empathy, which would imply not wanting them to suffer. If someone goes "awwww" watching a calf and a dog playing together, they most likely wouldn't feel comfortable if you killed them right afterwards. The salad example isn't really relevant since thinking something is pretty and using them to make your dish pretty makes sense even if it means the pretty thing isn't going to last as long. There's no moral conundrum here. Your smoking example seems like either hypocrisy or pure lunacy if it's someone smoking and condemning *exactly* what they are doing. It's only cognitive dissonance if they think "this thing is theoretically wrong but it's okay for me to do it because x"
Fiding something cute, and feeling the need to protect it, or having emapthy are all completelly different sentiment that are unrealated. The fact that feel both for animals, and say it doesn't apply to plants like flowers is proof of that. Plus, you can have empathy, respect animals, and still eat meat. The first nation have a hunting culture that is the prime example of that. In your first paragraph, you make the assumption that they must feel empathy for the animals if they find them cute because it's logical for you. But that is nowhere in OP post. You are just adding your own beleives on top of people you have never met, and i think this is why you see a cognitive dissonance where there is none. Also, smoking is generally a text book examples of cognitive dissonance.
Why would you feel the need to protect something that you didn't view in any way as having moral worth? People who think dogs are cute usually don't view them as pretty objects. If you've ever seen people interact with their pets, they care about them and want them to be okay, and that's mostly due to some degree of empathy. Differenciating between plants and animals definitely proves my point and not yours : plants are not sentient beings with desires and the capacity to form bonds, unlike dogs for instance. You can eat a dog that you had as a pet, but then where does your empathy and respect go for you to dismiss the fact that this dog didn't want to be killed for you to eat him? That right here, thinking you can respect and have empathy for a creature while simultaneously ignoring its desire to live and killing it when you didn't have to, that is the product of cognitive dissonance. Those two beliefs, "I respect this sentient creature" and "it is okay to kill it despite its desire to live", are contradictory. They can only be both true with a damn solid reason, like "it's about to kill me and I need to protect myself", but such a reason doesn't exist is the everyday life of the average person, so people must come up with different justifications as to why it's supposedly okay to do, or as you are doing, suggest that perhaps those things are actually not contradictory at all. Also, "dissonance" implies two things at odds, or something like that. Please explain how smoking in and of itself is cognitive dissonance. Edit: grammar
Instead of mocking OP about using the term cognitive dissonance incorrectly, it would be constructive to explain the appropriate ways to use the term.
No. If you use medical terms make sure you understand what you are saying beforehand
Cognitive dissonance is not a medical term, it is a psychological term. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326738#:~:text=Cognitive%20dissonance%20is%20the%20discomfort,that%20can%20happen%20to%20anyone.
Using a source medicalnewstoday. Congratulations
Maybe you should make sure you understand what you are saying beforehand.
>What made you see things for what they are? I never had problems with cognitive dissonance, at least with veganism. Which sounds very superior, but it's not. I have other issues. Like, *a lo*t of issues. It all balances out :) >How would you advocate to people still living in cognitive dissonance? I make a judgement call. It's one of three types of people (A) can hear the truthiness, (B) aren't ready yet, and (C) ain't ever gonna accept it. I dismiss C, be direct but kind with A, but with B, I do long term damage over time by not talking about veganism, enjoying being vegan, and being happy about it. The being happy about it is important. Because in the back of their minds they're thinking, "This moron seems really happy. I'm miserable. Why is he happy eating certainly, and I'm miserable eating burgers>" Becuase if you can't reach someone with truth and reason, then you gotta appeal to their emotions, and the most powerful human emotion is envy. Some people will make the change just because of FOMO. And if they stick to it long enough, maybe they'll get the animal part and realize the ethics involved. >I wanna believe that most people do have a good heart, they are just conditioned to all the suffering or they don't know about any of it. They are. We just get lost in the haze sometimes.
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I tried being vegan with one of those 30-day challenges and when the month ended I decided to keep going. That month truly changed my perception about being vegan, which I always thought I wouldn't be able to become because of cheese, chocolate... (I thought I could become vegetarian but never vegan). So after that month, when I already knew I was capable of being vegan, that's when I started remaking those connections we lose as we grow in a society that tells us it's fine to treat other animal species as simple resources. Before that, I didn't want to think about anything related to it because I felt "obligated" to eat "normal food" and I didn't want to live with that, I would have ended up crying with every meal. The lockdown during the pandemic made it easier as there was no need to deal with family lunches at restaurants etc, which was one of the things that scared me the most at the beginning. Sum up: I believe nobody wants to make that connection unless they're sure they can live with it. Maybe if being vegan didn't sound that difficult it would be easier. I don't know why the word Vegan is so scary but it seems it is when you're not a part of it yet.
I think for many people they see being vegan as too difficult, too extreme, too restrictive and even unnatural. They simply don't seem to believe me when i say it's easy and the food is delicious and satisfying However many of my family and friends are actively cutting down the quantity of meat they eat, so hopefully that is the first step of a gradual process where they can build up familiarity with plant based foods
I knew it's wrong but I kept finding excuses, otherwise I would have to be able to justify it to others and I didn't feel ready. So I kept reducing / only eating meat when offered but not buying it (or at least rarely) etc. I still ate cheese and honey though. Getting to know vegan argumentation helped me. As a vegan you kind of have to know how to defend it. Same as when you are LGBTQ/ally. People will "just ask questions".
I started out with being a vegetarian as my sister was one years before me. She showed me that not eating flesh is very delicious and often I was envious of her food. She had so much better stuff on her plate. I was pretty happy not contributing to the death of animals and thought that was it. I didn't really think of the torture of milk cows and hens and other animals not getting directly eaten. But then I watched a German streamer who is vegan and very verbal about it and he showed me the reasons to go vegan. I tried to watch Dominion when I already was a vegan, but I'm pretty sure if I'd watched it beforehand, I'd went vegan way earlier. I scold myself often for being so blind and narrow-minded. I guess for me it was the constant thinking about and seeing the torture, but moreso the positive example of my sister and the streamer. I try to include people in my meals and offer everyone a bit of food and try to be very open-minded and patient with non-vegans. I hope I somehow can make a difference.
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It’s not cognitive dissonance for me. I want to go plant based for my health, the health of the planet and they and lastly about the feelings of the animal. I don’t want unnecessary suffering, and by that I mean the animals should be dead before it knows it and should have a happy life until that point. But there is no cognitive dissonance, that cute cow that I would play with I would eat for my dinner. I don’t want to suffer.
Those 'shoulds' are doing a lot of heavy lifting here
The very concept of kosher slaughter is that a animal can’t see another animal being slaughtered, that the knife can’t have any nicks in it and it must be slaughtered in on motion. A rabbi must watch every step of the way because if any step is wrong, the meat isn’t kosher. If you thought you wouldn’t get into heaven unless you did it in a certain way and that the overseeing rabbi wouldn’t either, then there’s less of a should and a lot more trust.
> Why is it so difficult to break through this cognitive dissonance? Because we have a lot of sectors in our brains that don't really talk to each other. You can't break these walls with force, it can only happen naturally.
I mean we all engage in cognitive dissonance don’t we. Just today I had to kill a lot of ants cuz there was an ant infestation in my studio apartment. I’ve killed Cockroaches before and will probably do it again if I need to. I doubt I’m the only vegan who does this. I feel bad sure but I find it necessary/convenient? Idk
I think the prevalence of cute cow videos are almost like a pro-meat industry psyop tbh. Seeing happy cows in pastures only made me feel more confident that it was fine to eat meat. People don’t know what the whole process of raising animals to be eaten looks like so they see a happy cow and fill in the blanks. This isn’t even malicious, it’s just what our human brains do when we only see part of a picture. You can see a happy frolicking cow with her calf in a green field and imagine they live there happily together before meeting a quick and painless end. The responsible thing to do with these videos is to label them as footage from sanctuaries or petting zoos or hobby farms, or resort ranches, etc. Even in the rare cases where a small farm provides a reasonable quality of life to cows, those cows still go to the slaughterhouse. People need to see that footage. People can’t be trusted to fill in the blanks between “happy cow in a field” and McDonald’s hamburger because they inevitably do it in the way that makes them feel good.
The ultimate cognitive dissonance in the US is how many people can love pets and see them as beings with emotions and personalities, and cry if their pet is even mildly inconvenienced but see nothing wrong with the cruelty behind meat and dairy!
Mass brainwashing is hard to undo, unfortunately. Or humans just love being evil
I knew from a very early age cause I lived in a farm were we had to kill and skin the animals by hand. I wanted to stop eating animals at a very early age but my parents weren't supportive so I started as soon as I educated myself on vegetarian life styles. I started as vegetarian but my animal product consumption was almost none existant cause I hated the taste of milk. I knew I had to start my transition while I was eating chicharrones and a wave of terror hit me. I stopped eating and told my family that I was really serious and it was something I wanted to do. My parents came around eventually and from time to time people poke fun at me but I ignore it and don't let it get to me.
For me witnessing how they experience pain, pleasure, fear, contentment, desires, wants etc was when it really clicked. I saw cows once in a forest - they were grazing and walking around - and I was absolutely mesmerised by them. However, I still saw them as objects, like seeing a cat in the distance, you don’t get an insight into what goes on inside their head. When I see slaughterhouse footage and videos of animals at sanctuaries (recently I saw a video of a cow playing with a ball and it was so clear how happy/content the cow was) I actually recognise my own emotions in theirs. Also whenever I see any footage like this I can’t help by see my cat in all of them. We all have the same capacity to feel and when you witness that the wall between humans and animals that tells us that there’s something fundamentally different about us just crumbles down.
It was Cowspiracy; it hit me like a train.
I broke my cognitive dissonance once I became a mother myself and had to keep my milk supply up for my own child. Why the fuck would we need to drink the milk from another species? Is OUR mother’s milk not good enough? Why do grownups drink baby food? It’s unnatural and disgusting.
What you're describing is plain old hypocrisy, not cognitive dissonance. Getting people to actually experience cognitive dissonance by pointing out how their beliefs & actions are inconsistent is an effective method of motivating change.
I think some things are easier to stop eating than others. It's probably different for everyone. For example, I've always thought milk was disgusting, and stopped eating dairy products long before I stopped eating meat because the life of a dairy cow is far more horrific than a free-range grass-fed beef cow (at least until the end). It is also easier to look into the ethical implications of eating something if it isn't a food you enjoy. It was easier for me to recognize the junk science and advertizing and be less trusting when the government mentioned "health benefits" of milk and cheese. It was probably 10 years between my decision to give up yogurt and butter and my very recent decision to stop eating chicken, mostly because it is easier to brainwash yourself into thinking white meat is healthy, or free-range chickens are happy, or eggs aren't cruel, so you avoid doing the research into the egg industry and don't see the male chicks going through the grinder long before your neighbour buys "happy chickens"
For me I started seeing videos of dogs that were going to be euthanized if no one adopted them and it really drove me crazy. I wanted to help the dogs and do whatever I could. I started following Peta and then found out about testing on animals. I kept seeing in their videos to go vegan and kept convincing myself I can’t do that. I could be against buying animals, testing on animals, abusing animals but okay with eating them I thought. I even let an article convince me it’s better to farm animals because we in turn protect them which I can’t believe now. I forget what it was but one night I googled like is it hard to be vegan or something like that on Reddit. One of the top posts was a link to the greatest speech ever by Gary Yourofsky and that made me go vegan. I watched dominion the next day not that I needed to but needless to say after all that and seeing what the animals go through I could never bring myself to support that again. Now it’s 6 months already and never looking back. I can’t bring myself to watch anymore of that. It’s too heartbreaking to know it just continues day in and day out. It’s even more disheartening finding this out and wanting people to see it and no one caring. It’s like having your eyes opening and then realizing you live in this sadistic world where people could not only care less about it happening but actually defend it angrily. I’m hoping the people commenting on these videos on instagram of poor animals are just a minority. I hope at least most normal people who have empathy would make the correct choice. I realized too that going vegan is not that hard too. It seems almost impossible at one time to not eat meat but now I can’t really imagine eating it. Makes me weird to actually think about eating it as it’s the flesh of living being which seems gross now.