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Veganism is a Tough Pill to Swallow. Here’s Why.

“What would cause an entire society of people to leave their thinking caps at the door – and not even realize they’re doing so?” Harvard-educated UMass Boston psychology and sociology professor Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M. explores this question in her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. 

 This book could have been called “The Meatrix.” By reading it, you’ve taken the figurative red pill and you may never be the same.

 Although published in 2010, I read this at just the right time. Is the decision to reject needless animal use wherever possible and practical (veganism) just a “personal preference?” Is it an idealistic, arrogant, hypocritical, misguided, cult-like imposition on others?  What continues to stop so many people from ditching animal flesh and fluids in the age of information? To me, this book is like solving an unsolvable mystery, using real psychology, to explain the unexplainable.

I’ve highlighted some of the themes she delves into below. Whether or not you have the slightest interest in veganism, I encourage you to challenge your existing mindset and read on.

Mental Gymnastics

 The book begins by asking the viewer to imagine enjoying a roast at a dinner party, which you learn mid-bite is actually golden retriever. Even just reading this, you probably immediately feel disgusted and also are imagining the living dog, right?

“Even stranger, though,” writes Joy, “is the way we don’t react to the idea of eating cows” and the other species we perceive as edible. Most never picture the cow or feel repulsed when eating “beef.” Why is this? As she demonstrates, the answer is complex, yet far from abstract.

Humans are naturally averse to blood and killing unless we’ve been desensitized. Since we care about animals and don’t want them to suffer, a good amount of mental gymnastics are necessary in order to feel perfectly comfortable consuming them – or more specifically, consuming the tiny handful of species we have designated as edible.

To alleviate this inconsistency between our own deeply held values and our behaviors, Joy describes our three options:

1. We can change our values to match our behaviors
2. We can change our behaviors to match our values
3. We can change our perception of our behaviors so they appear to match our values (hence the mental gymnastics)

It’s the latter dominant unexamined, socially conditioned, misinformed, and/or uninformed default mode – which is anything but neutral and benign despite appearing so – which Joy defines as “carnism.” (This includes vegetarianism, which includes exploiting and killing animals for human use).