Un articolo del Guardian si interroga sul perché le persone vegane siano cosí detestate. L’articolo inizia con alcuni esempi, come la campagna di Lagzdins che mangia uno scoiattolo crudo a una manifestazione vegana; o a Sitwell, direttore di Waitrose, che suggerisce alla giornalista che voleva scrivere articoli di cucina vegana che sarebbe meglio fare una serie in cui si uccidono i vegani uno ad uno; o di quando un attivista vegano sia stato preso a pugni in faccia durante una manifestazione per i diritti degli animali.

Il testo racconta di come questo astio sia cresciuto nel tempo, nonostante col passare degli anni via via più persone stiano passando ad una dieta vegetariana o vegana:

Once a niche interest group parodied in TV shows such as The Simpsons (in which a character describes himself as a “level five vegan” who refuses to eat anything that casts a shadow), in the past two years, vegans have been thrust into the limelight. A philosophy rooted in non-aggression has found itself at the heart of some of the most virulent arguments on social media. In November 2018, Good Morning Britain hosted a debate titled “Do people hate vegans?”

L’articolo cita anche un sondaggio condotto dalla rivista Vox, dove si dice che

vegans are viewed more negatively than atheists, immigrants, homosexuals, and asexuals,” citing a recent study by Cara MacInnis and Gordon Hodson. “The only group viewed more negatively than vegans were drug addicts.

Il Guardian continua citando vari trend che dovrebbero in teoria rendere il veganismo più socialmente accettabile: riduzione da parte dei vegani dell’attivismo, diffusione di ricette gustose e facili da preparare, influencers vegani su YouTube e social media, la tendenza verso un veganismo più accessibile. Tutte queste cose non bastano però per ridurre la stigma sociale:

In 2011, sociologists Matthew Cole and Karen Morgan observed a phenomenon they called “vegaphobia”, demonstrating that the British media consistently portrayed vegans in a negative light. In the days after her story broke, Selene Nelson, the freelancer at the centre of the Waitrose magazine row, was called “humourless”, “combative” and “militant”. In 2017, residents of the Swiss town of Aargau reportedly called for a vegan foreign resident to be denied citizenship because she was “annoying”, and the glee with which the global media retold the story revealed a widespread and casual prejudice.

Veganism’s opponents outline a host of objections to the lifestyle to justify their hostility. Per a now-familiar joke (Q: How do you know if someone’s vegan? A: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you), vegans are portrayed as preachy and sanctimonious, a characteristic that rankled among MacInnis and Hodson’s respondents in particular, who viewed “vegetarians/vegans more negatively when their motivations concern social justice rather than personal health”.

È quindi l’atteggiamento moralizzatore di una minoranza dei vegani a provocare questo odio? Secondo il Guardian, no:

And yet none of this really gets to the heart of what it is about vegans that makes people so upset. Calling them humourless or militant, sanctimonious or annoying or hypocrites – all of these terms are just smokescreens for what it is that people really feel, which is fear. Vegans are unsettling and uncanny: they live among us, speak like us, behave like us – but for one significant exception. Meat may be murder, but to some people, the prospect of life without it is even worse.

Mangiare troppa carne avrebbe ripercussioni sia sulla salute che sull’ambiente, e tante persone temono che in futuro si possa legiferare per ridurre il consumo massimo consentito di carne. Alla fine l’articolo conclude con la previsione che presto o tardi sarà necessario abituarsi ad una alimentazione, anche se non vegana, che riduca di molto il consumo di carne:

We might portray the current moment as a precipice, and the growing interest in plant-based diets as the surest way back to safety. In this interpretation, the war on vegans is the act of a doomed majority fighting to defend its harmful way of life. Vegans might well be vociferous and annoying, holier-than-thou, self-satisfied and evangelical. But as their numbers grow beyond the margins, perhaps the worst thing they could be is right.

Immagine da Flickr.