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.
No, it’s more than that. The level of anger you face when you point out it’s possible to live without eating dead animals is much higher than the level of anger you face when you point out that voting for Joe Biden doesn’t really help anything.
