Knowing the Difference Between Enthusiasm and Zealotry
Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.
—Lao Tzu (trans. Stephen Mitchell), Tao Te Ching
T here’s a universal joke that goes: “How do you know if someone is vegan? Don’t worry. They’ll tell you.” On the one hand, it’s true. Vegans do talk about being vegan a lot of the time—especially new vegans, whose altered view of the world informs everything they see and say. On the other hand, vegans often talk about being vegan because they’re asked to. “Why are you vegan?” is, as we’ve already acknowledged, one of the most common questions vegans are asked, and it’s often elicited merely by the presence of a vegan—a phenomenon I call being the vegan in the room. Although some vegans lament that they’re expected to explain why they’re vegan while nonvegans are never asked to account for the fact that they eat meat, dairy, and eggs, the truth is, many people are genuinely curious about what inspires someone to become vegan. And so they ask. And we answer—often with strong emotions and great passion.
How can we not? Having had a significant shift in the way we live our lives and in the way we see the world, it’s only natural to want to share that experience. Sharing enthusiasm brings us closer to the people in our lives, it validates us, and it makes us feel good. In fact, findings from a recent study conducted at Brigham Young University suggest that just the act of sharing happiness boosts well-being.1 When we recount a positive experience to someone and receive in return encouragement and support, we feel more happiness, love, and appreciation. When the response to our positive news is apathy, negativity, or criticism, we feel deflated and dejected, which can lead to anger (see Stage Five). This is certainly the case for many vegans, who innocently share their excitement about their transformation only to be met with defensiveness, rejection, and accusations of being didactic, pushy, or evangelistic. In many cases, the vegan is just sharing their enthusiasm (often in response to inquiries). In some cases, however, they’re actively proselytizing. The stereotype of the preachy vegan is well established, and it deserves some attention.
VEGANGELISM
When I tell people that I’ve identified this stage in our vegan journey as evangelism (or, better yet, vegangelism), I’m met with a little laughter and a lot of head-nodding, because everyone knows exactly what I mean. Especially when we’re newly vegan, we’re excited, we’re passionate, and we want everyone to experience the same enthusiasm (or at least know about ours). This isn’t to say that vegans are never preachy and didactic (I’ve reserved the second half of this chapter to discuss just that) or that raising awareness about violence against animals isn’t necessary or shouldn’t be part of our advocacy (more about that in Stage Nine), but what I’m referring to here is the genuine excitement we feel having become awake—the passionate expression of “Oh my word! I had no idea, and now that I know and my life is changed for the better, I want to shout it from the rooftops!” It’s the desire to share the good news, which is exactly what evangelism is and exactly what an evangelist does.
We can be enthusiastic without being overzealous, informative without being didactic, knowledgeable without being preachy, and persuasive without proselytizing.
The word evangelism comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning “to bring good news.” (In early Greek Christian texts, evangelist was the name given to each of the four writers—or “messengers”—of the narrative gospels in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.) Etymologically speaking, an evangelist is literally “a messenger of good news,” but because it’s often equated with the religious dogma of Evangelicals and conflated with proselytizing and fanaticism, negative connotations weigh it down. The assumption is that if you’re an evangelist for something, your primary goal is to convert others to your cause, whatever that may be. Thus, anything that smacks of passionate zeal has become suspect in many people’s eyes, and ardent enthusiasm inevitably gets equated with fanatical zealotry, especially if people feel they are being sold something or are being told what to do. So, when vegans appear overly enthusiastic in proclaiming the numerous benefits of veganism, they’re often disparaged as being evangelical—in the negative sense of the word. The solution, however, isn’t to stifle our passion, hide our excitement, or silence our voices. We can be enthusiastic without being overzealous, informative without being didactic, knowledgeable without being preachy, and persuasive without proselytizing. The question is how? I think the answer lies in awareness, intention, and memory; it’s the difference between drawing people in and pushing people away.
1.Have awareness. As I emphasized in the chapter on coming out vegan, we need to be aware of the fact that people are beholden to their beliefs; if you even appear to be telling them that they’re wrong or that they need to change, they will not only be turned off by those insinuations, they may be even more protective about their beliefs/behavior. Just knowing that people are sensitive to being preached at or being “converted” is a good start, and it will help you remember that their reaction usually has nothing to do with you personally. The topic of veganism can bring up feelings of guilt, discomfort, or sadness in others; just by being the vegan in the room, you’re reminding them of the dissonance that so many of us experience and try to squelch (as discussed in section one). That’s not to say you should distance yourself or withhold the truth of who you are from others, but it does mean at least understanding that your presence may evoke strong emotions and irrational responses.
2.Share your news, then stop. If we embrace the positive aspects of evangelizing—spreading the word, sharing the news, raising awareness, and genuinely, authentically, and unabashedly expressing enthusiasm—we can have a very positive experience when we talk about being vegan. If you approach every situation with the intention to share your news without being attached to the outcome, you will have many constructive interactions, indeed. (I discuss this at length in Stage Seven, on communication.) Some readers may interpret this to mean that we should water down our message and temper our passion, but that’s not what I’m saying at all. We should absolutely be clear about our message (including if it’s about animal suffering) and present it with passion and enthusiasm (if that is indeed how we feel), but the trick is to be unattached to how the message is received—whether it’s received negatively or positively, whether someone changes as a result or not. That’s not your business. That doesn’t mean someone won’t still mistake your passion for proselytizing, but that’s also not your business. If you are genuinely expressing excitement about something and being clear in your mind about your intention, then how someone responds is not your burden to carry.
3.Avoid oversharing. Try to read the person you’re talking to and identify signals that indicate they might be annoyed, defensive, restless, or bored. Let there be silence. Let there be pauses. Even if they’ve asked you for information, people can take in only so much, and no doubt you have a lot to share. Less can definitely be more, and if you’ve conveyed your message with compassion, kindness, enthusiasm, and humor, the person you’re speaking to will be more apt to absorb and recall it, especially if you’re not overwhelming them with figures and statistics. In fact, research suggests that people are less inclined to remember the specifics of what you say and more inclined to remember how they feel being in your presence.2 If they associate you (and veganism) with hope that they can make a difference rather than shame that they’re doing something wrong, that will add even more weight to whatever specific facts you share with them.
4.Vegangelize. Don’t proselytize. It may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but in the decades I’ve been doing my work guiding people to becoming vegan, I’ve never once said “go vegan”—not in my podcast, not in my books, not in my social media posts. And yet, I hear from countless people every month who tell me they’ve become vegan because of my work. Of course everything I do is to promote the message of compassion and this thing called veganism as the way to manifest unconditional compassion and optimal wellness, but since my intention is to raise awareness about violence against animals and give people the tools and resources they need to live compassionately and healthfully, I’ve never had to tell people what to do. I might encourage them to take the 30-Day Vegan Challenge so I can provide support and inspiration, but that’s still different from telling someone to “wake up” and become vegan. Asking someone to “go vegan” is a tall order, and as a vegan advocate, it means your success or failure is dependent on that person changing both their worldview and their behavior. We all know how hard it is to change our thinking about something, and we know how it is equally difficult to change our behavior. There’s a difference between expressing how much I love being vegan and saying “and you should be vegan, too.” It’s the difference between being an evangelist (one who shares a message) and a proselytizer (one who tries to convert). It’s the difference between being enthusiastic about your beliefs and dictating that others should live by them.
5.Remember your story. Ironically, the awakening we experience can also give us amnesia. Having awakened, it’s easy to forget that we were once unaware. In sharing our story with others, we need to include the parts of the tale that preceded our becoming vegan or “plant-based.” In recalling and recounting our own cognitive dissonance, our own resistance to change, and even our own affinity for the taste of meat, dairy, or eggs, we’re more inclined to make connections with other people. Because nonvegans may already have their defenses up, bracing themselves for a sermon, they probably don’t expect to have anything in common with you. Sharing the fact that you, too, once enjoyed eating animals will give them something to identify with and aspire to—If you can do it, so can I—rather than feel that their situation is unique and that change isn’t possible.
FUNDAMENTALISM
This all sounds lovely, you might be thinking, but it’s not enough to just share the good news, is it? The passion we’re compelled to share when we become vegan isn’t just about the joy we feel having had an epiphany; it’s about the urgency we feel knowing that humans cause the suffering and death of billions of animals every year, or knowing that millions of humans could be saved from preventable diseases and deaths related to the consumption of animal-based saturated fat, cholesterol, and protein. If others were aware of this too, then we could end all this suffering. That’s the news we need to share, you might say. It’s not enough to talk about how great it is to be vegan; we need to talk about how awful it is for the animals destined for human consumption. We need to wake up the public about the institutionalized violence against sentient beings, the systematic destruction of ecosystems, and the devastation we’re causing to our own bodies through our insatiable appetite for meat, dairy, and eggs.
This is all true, and later I address how to find your voice (Stage Seven) and how to advocate effectively (Stage Nine). This stage, however, is about finding the balance between expressing your passion for being vegan and dictating that others become vegan, because if we don’t find this balance, not only will we live in a constant state of dissatisfaction, we will never transcend the public perception about what it means to be vegan—and let’s be honest: the public perception of veganism isn’t all that positive. In a recent study, 47 percent of all participants felt negatively toward vegetarians and even more so when they felt that vegetarians considered themselves to be morally superior to nonvegetarians.3 Extrapolate that to vegans, and the percentage is probably even higher. Preachy. Pedantic. Dogmatic. Fanatical. Evangelical. Zealous. Militant. Sanctimonious. Judgmental. Holier-Than-Thou. On Their High Horse. Extremist. Fervent. Fundamentalist. These are just some of the more negative adjectives often used to describe vegans, and though they don’t describe most vegans, they are the stereotype, and sometimes stereotypes are true (otherwise they wouldn’t be stereotypes). Notice that our passion is almost never described in less provocative terms. We’re not called enthusiasts, fans, or devotees. The descriptors for vegans are, in fact, the same ones used for religious zealots, and indeed veganism is often likened to a cult.
Strictly speaking, veganism lacks the features commonly seen in organized cults: a single charismatic leader, sexual or economic exploitation of its members, and a methodical process of indoctrination, otherwise called “brainwashing.” But literal definitions aside, people do have the perception that:
Veganism consists of a set of rigid rules and doctrines.
Veganism’s focus is on ideology and purity.
Vegans “force” their views on others.
Having your own interpretation of veganism is forbidden.
Unfortunately, these perceptions don’t come merely from a larger cultural bias against veganism; they come, in part, from vegans—or more accurately, from vegan fundamentalists. Although some vegans might bristle at being called fundamentalist due to the negative connotations of that word and its association with conservative religious views, just a cursory understanding of religious fundamentalism makes the parallels all too apparent.
Fundamentalism in the religious sense refers to a coalition of American Protestants who oppose theological liberalism, modernism, and rationalism and who insist on the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible. More broadly, in both religious and secular contexts, a fundamentalist is a person who “adheres strictly or dogmatically to the fundamental tenets or principles of any subject, discipline, or movement.”4 Fundamentalism in the general sense is characterized by rigid adherence to certain doctrines, scriptures, ideologies, or principles; intolerance for diversity of opinion; and belief in the “importance of maintaining in-group and out-group distinctions”5—with an emphasis on purity and the return to a former ideal.
Looking at the main features of fundamentalism, it’s not hard to recognize its presence in the vegan community. (I’ve generally used Christian fundamentalism here for illustrative purposes, but fundamentalism is prevalent in other religions as well.)
Fundamentalists believe in the authority of a written word. For Christian fundamentalists, it’s the Bible in its current form. For vegan fundamentalists, it’s one particular iteration of the definition of veganism.
Fundamentalists believe in the inerrancy of that written word. For Christian fundamentalists, this means that they believe that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired and cannot be changed or disputed. For vegan fundamentalists, it means that the singular definition of veganism attributed to Vegan Society founder Donald Watson is definitive, authoritative, and incontestable, despite the fact that it was devised and continually revised by various founders and members of the UK Vegan Society from its very beginning and throughout the mid-twentieth century.
Fundamentalists rigidly adhere to rules, ideologies, and dogma without question. For religious fundamentalists, these rules are manifested as doctrines, sacraments, commandments, observances, and laws. For vegan fundamentalists, these rules are manifested in intolerance for exceptions, mistakes, incremental steps, imperfection, or differences in philosophy. People who say they’re 99.9 percent vegan are denounced for not being 100 percent vegan, and laws that improve the welfare of farmed animals are condemned (because, fundamentalists would argue, they still condone a system of oppression). Moreover, the very act of questioning certain aspects of veganism or acknowledging that there are gray areas is interpreted as being a disloyal or inauthentic vegan.
Fundamentalists are intolerant of nuance and diversity of opinion and exile those who don’t agree with their perspective. In both religious and secular fundamentalism, those who don’t conform are considered heretics or traitors and are silenced, ostracized, or otherwise punished. In vegan fundamentalism, dialogue is shut down by dismissing perceived dissenters as not being “real” vegans, banning them from online forums, and even shouting down and silencing speakers at public events.
Fundamentalists believe in the importance of maintaining in-group and out-group distinctions. Religious fundamentalists dismiss out-groups as infidels. Vegan fundamentalists take moral audits not only of nonvegans (an obvious “out-group”) but also of those who self-identify as “plant-based.” In other words, even when people abstain from eating animal flesh and fluids, vegan fundamentalists consider them part of the out-group and characterize them as frauds or imposters if they’re not doing it “for animals.” Justifying the distinction, they cite their own authoritative understanding of the word vegan, assert their exclusive claim to the word, and marginalize those who interpret it differently. Conversely, “plant-based fundamentalists” also create in-group and out-group distinctions, dismissing vegans who eat “processed” foods or who don’t follow a strict diet of whole foods as “junk-food vegans.” The groups get factionalized further still, into “abolitionists” versus “welfarists,” for example, or, in the health arena, those who are raw-foodists, WFPB (whole-foods, plant-based), SOS-free (salt/oil/sugar-free), HCLF (high-carb, low-fat), and so on.
Fundamentalists excommunicate, banish, or shun members as punishment for not adhering to doctrine. Different religions practice various forms and severity of excommunication—from completely severing someone’s ties to the church to allowing them to partake in some aspects while denying them access to others. Vegans can’t “kick people out of the club,” because there is no homogenous club, but they can deny people legitimacy and identity. Vegan fundamentalists decry the use of the label “vegan” for anyone who doesn’t tick all the boxes of what they say vegan means, and they call anyone who doesn’t submit to their interpretation “fake vegans.” It may not be a literal excommunication, but it is a kind of rhetorical excommunication.
Veganism may not be a religious cult, but it certainly can have the trappings of secular fundamentalism. Or, to be more accurate: when we see veganism as the goal to attain rather than as the means to attaining our goals, we risk ensnaring ourselves in fundamentalist thinking and behavior. The goal is to live in such a way that doesn’t intentionally cause harm. The goal is to live according to compassion or wellness. The goal is not to live according to veganism. That would imply that there are rules and doctrines to live by, which is not what being vegan is about. When we think being vegan is the badge to wear or the destination to reach, we treat it as an ideology and obsess over trying to be perfect and pure. If we see veganism as the goal rather than as the means to attain our goals, not only do we miss the point of what it means to be vegan, we also lead a frustrating existence filled with anger and judgment, and people who might otherwise be interested in using veganism as a tool to reach their own goals (of not hurting animals, of being healthy, of helping the Earth) will be repelled.
The goal is to live in such a way that doesn’t intentionally cause harm. The goal is to live according to compassion or wellness. The goal is not to live according to veganism.
The consequences of vegan fundamentalism aren’t merely petty online exchanges and virtual chest-beating. They are tribalism, rigidity, close-mindedness, chauvinism, and hostility—all of which distract from the larger goals of protecting animals from harm or of achieving wellness. The average person who stops eating meat, dairy, and eggs isn’t looking for a tribal identity; they’re just looking to manifest their compassion or eat more healthfully. Labeled as selfish for abstaining from animal products only for health reasons, they’re forbidden to call themselves “vegan” by the fundamentalists who guard the word as jealous lovers. Rather than embrace potential allies, fundamentalists reject anyone who fails the impossible litmus test they’ve devised—and which no one, even them, can pass.
It’s a very human impulse to see and be seen in terms of identities, especially those that are important to us, but there are downsides to seeing everything through this lens, including feeling that groups similar to our own undermine the very nature of what makes our group unique. Social psychologists even have a name for this—they call it categorization threat or distinctiveness threat: when groups too similar to our own threaten the special identity of our group. This may explain why people who self-identify as “ethical vegans” spend so much time criticizing people who stop eating animal products for health reasons. It also may explain why people who self-identify as “plant-based” spend so much time criticizing people they consider “junk-food vegans.” These groups may have different underlying goals, but ironically, it’s actually the commonalities between them—the choice to stop eating meat, dairy, and eggs—that create the tension. Tobias Leenaert, author of How to Create a Vegan World, contemplated this phenomenon on his blog, The Vegan Strategist:
Maybe a club that gets too big is a threat to our identity too. Maybe after a while we are not feeling exclusive or special enough anymore, and that might be why we need to make sure entrance to our in-group doesn’t become too easy. The membership fee, in this sense, has to be high enough. The vegan police is there to guard the door.6
This connects to what Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of minor differences: “the phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories and who are related to each other in other ways who are engaged in constant feuds and in ridiculing each other—Germans and South Germans, the English and the Scotch, and so on.” In our case: animal welfarists and animal liberationists; “ethical vegans” and “health vegans”; and all the subcategories within. In being obsessed with our minor differences, we lose sight of our major goals.
It’s not that we shouldn’t have an ideal to aspire to or a code to live by, but when ideology becomes a holy relic to be worshiped rather than an aspiration and a guide, we’ve lost the plot. When we become more attached to the belief system than to the potential for that belief system to help us accomplish our goals, we’ve forgotten our purpose. We mistake the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself.
Remaining engaged but unattached means setting out to inspire rather than setting out to convert. Attracting rather than proselytizing. Being enthusiastic rather than evangelical. So, speak up, speak out, share the good news, be a messenger of compassion, evangelize, and vegangelize! And then . . . let go.
When ideology becomes a holy relic to be worshiped rather than an aspiration and a guide, we’ve lost the plot.
Several years ago I received an email from a woman named Christina that perfectly articulates the need to walk that line between speaking your truth and remaining unattached to the outcome:
I was in the evangelizing stage for a long time when I made the transition to unconditional compassion. I would re-post almost everything I found on the internet about animals. As expected, this just turned people off and probably made a lot of Facebook friends hide my posts. Since then, I have been very careful about what I share. Now, when I post things, I want them to have impact. Recently, an animal protection organization released some footage about wool and lambskin. I already knew about the problems with wool, but I know that many of my friends buy wool often. So, I felt that it was something I needed to share. Instead of just throwing it up on my Facebook page as I had in the past, I made sure to write my own heartfelt message to go along with it. I acknowledged that I need to be careful about what I post online so that I don’t overwhelm people but that I felt this was important because wool and lambskin are so popular. I spoke my truth—and stepped back. I actually did not expect to get any responses. I expected the post to be ignored, as past ones had. But it seems that this one actually touched my friends, many of whom left comments about how they had no idea about the treatment of sheep, saying how good it was to be informed. Even my leather-wearing mother, who has mocked my vegan lifestyle, responded saying that she cried while watching the video and reading the article. Even this small thing gives me so much hope. It gives me hope that if we are thoughtful and intentional, we can slowly wake people up to the truth. It takes discipline to speak my truth without following my natural instinct to scold and guilt people, but that just makes them angry and turns them off to the message.
Indeed, the anger we inspire is the anger we internalize, and it’s anger we turn to next. Anger is what follows when our vegan message fails to inspire friends and family to become vegan, when we spread the word about the atrocities committed against animals only to be ignored. The more we encounter resistance and apathy, the more frustrated we feel, and the more strident we become. Anger follows evangelism, because it’s at this stage that our own hope begins to wane, when we see the magnitude of the cruelty animals endure, when we feel frustrated that even though we’re part of the solution, everyone else is creating the problem.