organicAnt, I will admit that I have filtered out your posts since I had come to picture you as a person continually yelling at others and it was exhausting to read. That being said, I enjoyed this comment and I'm glad I came across you links at the end, I intend to check them out when I have more time.

I'm not going to get into a discussion with you. I did want to share a few thoughts though. I was raised in a religious household and was a strong believer until I was getting ready to graduate college. Now, i would consider myself, to chooses the simplistic and shortest description, an agnostic atheist. The processes of getting there there however, was long and slow. Violent arguments from frustrated people used to repel me and only hardened my mind against accepting a different point of view. Writers like Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris came off as arrogant, frustrated, and unpleasant. I didn't want to agree with them.

What changed my mind was being inundated with a flood of resources to do my own research and my mind slowly changed over time. Vitriol and preaching just hardened me against the message. Something to consider. I have also stopped eating as much meat, maybe the process with repeat and in time I will become vegan, who knows?

Then again, like you said, there isn't a single best method of activism that will speak to everyone.

So I'm going to attempt to respond kind in order of the points that you raised. Bear with me.

I first read this article a few years ago. Frankly I don't eat lobster so directly, no, it hasn't changed my eating habits (because 0 remains 0) even after the first time that I read this. I wanted to revisit the article because the phrase has been getting stuck in my head and I have been using it in a metaphorical sense conversationally, and I wanted to revisit what I was referencing (first bc I like the article, second bc if you're going to reference something do it right).

If I am honest the thing that I have read on Hubski that disgusted/disturbed/really resonated with me the most about animal product consumption was this discussion here which I did comment on. I think personally that had a big impact on me because as a feminist, and a person who has had and seen shitty things happen to them and others, "rape" is kind of a hot topic. AKA I think it's horrific and don't wish to help propagate it, even on cows, and that process as described strikes me pretty clearly as inhumane. I don't want to get pregnant ever, and those cows are forced to constantly be pregnant. That would be like hell.

What I like about this article is that I think it took a topic that was very human-centered, even though it was ostensibly about lobsters, and it flipped the focus upside down. It is ironic that it is surprising to read an article about a lobster festival that focuses on the lobsters.

I also am a big fan of David Foster Wallace's writing in general, so this style appeals to me. I am also pretty familiar with it as I've read a fair bit of his work. I would say that I think DFW can be jarring at first, but now that I am familiar with his style, I know what to expect - two pages of footnotes, for instance!

I also like this article because I think it does force its readers to consider moral questions without necessarily condemning them (the readers). I like that DFW points out the "mental gymnastics" people do to avoid facing the reality of where their meal comes from. I found DFW to be a sympathetic narrator because, while the essay really is about the brutality of a mass lobster massacre, he discusses his own cognitive dissonance with that experience and I can relate to him. I think a subtle part of the article that really helps me relate to DFW is that, while the article's all about lobster and I know he spent several days at a lobster festival, I have no idea whether he decided to eat lobster or not as he began to turn over these moral questions in his head. I think this was actually a pretty great move on his part. He clearly feels torn, at minimum, about lobsters and eating meat. I think the point of the article is not to say one stance is right or wrong but to say, "These are things that bother me," and "Did you think about this?" and then leave those questions with the reader. If DFW made a choice and stated he either did or didn't eat the lobster, then he'd be telling us which moral position to take. This instead forces readers to consider the questions for themselves and come to their own conclusion. Which, by the way, I think means makes it harder for the article to polarize or divide people, and I also think it makes readers think way more than they would if DFW had taken a clear stance either way.

You know, when I shouted out to you, I was worried that I might seem ... like I was trying to tell you how to go about things. And I'm not. However, I know that the discussion of how to approach people about meat-eating has come up a lot on Hubski, often when you are involved in the situation. So I wanted to shout out to you because I wanted to say, "here is an example of something that got to me way more than just being told one thing is RIght and one thing is Wrong." People are contrary. If you tell them their view is 100% Black and White Wrong, i think they are going to cling to it much more stubbbornly than if you start to demonstrate the gray areas that surround their beliefs.

When discussions have come up about "various methods to approach this topic," it has not always seemed to me like everyone has been able to communicate what they mean clearly. So for me, this seemed a great example of the kind of communication that I found effective (on myself, of course). I was touched by this article and it made me think. That doesn't mean it works for everyone or that I'm trying to tell you this should be your approach, I realize it might have seemed that way after the fact but really that wasn't the intent.

Unfortunately, I think some people out there in the world promote veganism in ways that do not help its cause. I used to have this book. It promotes veganism. It does talk a lot about meat and dairy products and this book is actually why I decided to avoid/try to cut out dairy. I confess that if there's milk powder in some processed food I eat I don't know it, but I avoid products that are clearly dairy. However....while this book influenced me in a way... I don't really think that telling people to become vegan so they can be skinny bitches is really the motivation you want assocaited with your cause.

There are people who make veganism look good and people who make it look - maybe not bad, but maybe a little frivolous or silly. Such is the case with most if not all topics and causes. You of course should play to your own strengths. But I thought it might be valuable to point out something that had an impact on me, personally, as an alterative way the topic can be approached that does influence me more than most of your discussions have. I don't need you to modify your approach to influence me: these things have already influenced me as much as they have. I just want to say, "Hey, this is something that helped make me think more seriously about this topic."

If you hate the article you hate it and that's ok :)

Fwiw I went through all the links you provided and really enjoyed the insight into that world. But using VeganGains as an example is something you should avoid. He routinely puts people off having an open minded approach to being vegan with his abuse of people. Myself included.

Just a point I wanted to make, I knew what the link would lead to when I read vegan bodybuilder. I'll be completely honest and say I don't know of any vegan bodybuilders who would be a much better example but I have no doubt they are out there, it's just not a niche I know enough about. I do know he's a nasty one to try and be inspired by though.

I guess I shouted you out because this was an article that I felt helped me relate to you and your feelings. And I thought that you might appreciate, or be interested in, that.