Are you saying carnists don’t experience cognitive dissonance about eating dead animals? Because they do. Why would carnists get so irrationally angry at the mere existence of vegans if they didn’t? “Oh, you’re vegan? Well I’m going to eat an extra burger today, just to spite you.” Carnists say that shit so often it’s a damn meme, and you think they’re not facing cognitive dissonance. Why do carnists hate it when you call their “food” what it is: corpses? They know that’s what they eat, but they hate being reminded of that fact. That’s like, textbook cognitive dissonance right there.
That’s like, textbook cognitive dissonance right there.
‘Cognitive dissonance’ is about as real a thing as Oedipus complexes. It was proposed by some authors in the 50’s to explain why people felt uncomfortable when they were put on the spot and had their views challenged as part of some study. There’s no logic short circuit in the brain that trips everytime some law of formal logic gets violated.
There is something in a carnist’s brain that trips and causes them to lash out at vegans, that is undeniable. Maybe we shouldn’t call it “cognitive dissonance”, but if not, we need a new term for it, because it’s real, I’ve experienced it.
People don’t like getting dunked on or looking intellectually inferior. Simple as.
When a vegan makes even a halfways cogent argument, the carnist gets mad not because he knows he’s wrong, but because he knows he’s right but can’t muster the intellectual tools to show that.