feynman4life

Do you think people's label of vegans as generally self-righteous should be questioned? Most of the vegans I know will never bring up veganism to friends who don't ask; the only case in which they get called self-righteous or preachy is when they are insulted and forced into a situation where they have to defend their way of life, and even then they don't ever tell others what to do.

Although I am sure there is a number of self-righteous, "preachy vegans", but I highly doubt this is more than the rest of the population, aren't you just fuelling negative and false stereotypes about vegans by encouraging the idea that it is common? And isn't it likely that people will perceive vegans as self-righteous because people don't like what they are saying, rather than because they actually are self-righteous?

How are vegans able to be vocal about animal suffering without being perceived as preachy or self-righteous? It's not really fair for the animals if it's just "don't bring veganism up and I won't talk about animal suffering" - even though this may be the way that vegans can be perceived less negatively?

In addition, I think that maybe non-vegans can be overly sensitive about people talking about animal suffering, maybe this is why the "preachy" labels come in, when people feel defensive?