Why are some vegans so obnoxious toward others?

Answer 1

Most vegans aren't.
Because of the cruelty involved in what flesh eaters consume, vegans feel so much compassion for the animals murdered. Please remember that you nor I were GRANTED our Rights to live by other humans, in the same way that we haven't GRANTED Rights to the animals. We all deserve to live happily, and not be slaughtered in such an unnecessary way. That said, I've been vegan for a very long time, and I've not been 'obnoxious' to anyone. I just grieve.

Answer 2

Most vegans are not obnoxious towards others, although non-vegans may perceive them that way.

Most vegans grew up much like you did. Our parents fed us meat, eggs, and dairy, and our teachers (and sometimes doctors) told us that we had to eat them in order to be healthy. We were (and still are) bombarded by advertising that reinforces those ideas.

Many of us associate our parents, teachers, and doctors with strong emotions. Advertising intentionally plays on our emotions.

In order to understand the role of emotions, we need to take a brief look at how your brain works. Your primitive brain (sometimes called your lizard brain) is part of your limbic system, which governs emotion and controls the 6 F’s: fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing-up, and fornication. Within the limbic system, there are two structures called the amygdalae. You have one amygdala on each side of your brain.

When faced with a stimulus, the amygdala instantaneously turns your emotions on, without your having to think about it. This helps you respond to a threat even before you’re consciously aware of it. Think of ducking when something flies by your head, or jumping at the sound of a loud bang.

Here’s the problem: your amygdala responds to intellectual threats the same way it responds to physical threats.The amygdala is also responsible for forming and storing memories associated with emotional events. And because our early memories are more emotional than rational, they are stored in the amygdala.

Your core beliefs are the beliefs you cherish most deeply. They usually develop from childhood and are compounded by life experiences. Core beliefs are inflexible, rigid, and extremely sensitive to being challenged.

Over time, your amygdala helps you form these core beliefs and build a worldview out of them. Linguist George Lakoff called these core beliefs frames, and wrote that, “To be accepted, the truth must fit people’s frames. If the facts do not fit a frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off.”

Your amygdala helps you protect your worldview by rejecting facts that do not fit. The defense that it mounts causes you to more than reject the message, but also to reject the messenger.

When an uncomfortable truth is laid in front of you, all you can do is turn a blind eye and try to forget about it before your next meal, and of course hate the person who is making you feel so uncomfortable.

Rather than acknowledge the truth and accept that supporting cruelty is wrong and selfish, people have a tendency to curse the messenger for trying to protect animals from suffering. They verbally attack vegans, who are only trying to spread kindness and compassion, as a “preachy,” annoying, obnoxious threat. They attribute violent intent to the vegans, complaining that the vegans keep “shoving” their views at non-vegans.