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Once You Know Something, You Can't Not Know
It”: An Empirical Look at Becoming Vegan
Barbara McDonald 1
USDA Forest Service
In spite of a growing body of vegetarian literature, there
remains a lack of information about how people learn to become
vegan. Using qualitative methodology, this research identified a
psychological process of how people learn about and adopt
veganism. Elements of the process include who I was, catalytic
experiences, possible repression of information, an orientation
to learn, the decision, learning about veganism, and acquiring a
vegan world view. Noteworthy observations include individual and
temporal variation in the use of logic and emotion, the
centrality of reading, the repression and recollection of
undesirable information, and the importance of two types of
learning tasks to successful vegans.
Vegans are people who object to the use of nonhuman animal
products for food, cosmetics, clothing, and
vivisection—virtually all invasive activities involving nonhuman
animals. In the United States, adopting such a lifestyle is a
major change from the normative practice and ideology of human
dominance over nonhuman animals. Veganism appears to be related
to a propensity toward alternativism in other areas of life
(Hamilton, 1993), and eschewing the use of all animal products
represents a lifestyle change that necessarily involves all
areas of life. How do people make such a remarkable change? A
possible explanation might be offered by Mezirow's
transformation theory (Mezirow, 1991, 1995, 1998), which
predicts that such lifestyle change will follow a ten-step
process that pivots on dialogue, reflection, and action.
Mezirow's transformation theory has been widely discussed in
adult education as an explanation of how adults learn to make
major lifestyle changes. The ten steps, which Mezirow says can
occur in any order, include a disorienting dilemma,
self-examination, and critical assessment of assumptions. They
also include recognizing that discontent and transformative
experiences are shared, exploring new options, planning a course
of action, acquiring new skills and knowledge, trying new roles,
renegotiating relationships and building new ones, and
reintegrating the new perspective into one's life. A central
triad, upon which the ten steps depend, includes critical
reflection, democratic dialogue, and reflective action.
As part of a larger study, I discovered that Mezirow's theory
does not explain the process of learning to become vegan
(McDonald, 1998). The research presented here is in answer to
the question, “How do people learn to become vegan?” —the first
question in my investigation of Mezirow's transformation theory.
An online literature search of publications in education,
psychology, and social sciences failed to find research on how
people learn to become vegetarian or vegan. In fact, I found no
reference to any social science research using the keywords
vegan or veganism. Vegetarian literature was more numerous
(Adams, 1995; Beardsworth & Keil, 1992, 1993; Dietz, Frisch,
Kalof, Stern, & Guagnano, 1995; George, 1994; Hamilton, 1993;
Rozin, Markwith, & Stoess, 1997; Walker, 1995). None of these
articles, however, focused on the learning process. One study
reported four reasons for becoming vegetarian, including
personal health, concern with animal cruelty, concern for world
hunger, and environmental concern (Dietz, Frisch, Kalof, Stern,
& Guagnano, 1995). Krizmanic (1992) reported that almost 25% of
vegetarians surveyed said that animal welfare, the environment,
or ethics was the most important reason for adopting their diet.
Vegetarianism was also explored as a case study of moralization,
in which previously morally neutral objects or activities become
moral (Rozin, Markwith, & Stoess, 1997).
These studies, however, do not shed light on the process of how
some people become vegetarian. Even more intriguing is why some
vegetarians become vegans and others do not, considering that
most vegetarians have access to information about the
similarities and interrelationship between the meat and dairy
industries. Stepaniak (1998) noted that the ethical position of
vegans differentiates them from vegetarians: “Because veganism
encompasses all aspects of daily living, not just diet, it is
inaccurate for people to define themselves as [vegan] simply
because they have adopted the vegan mode of eating” (p. 21).
Becoming vegan represents a major change in lifestyle, one that
demands the rejection of the normative ideology of speciesism.
With only three % of Americans claiming they had not used
animals for any purpose within the previous two years (Duda &
Young, 1997), veganism represents an alternative ideology and
lifestyle (Hamilton, 1993). How do people learn about this
alternative ideology, and how do they learn to change their
lifestyle?
Method
As a practicing vegan, I wanted to employ a perspective and
methodology that would enable me to use my own experience to
enhance understanding of how other vegans have learned; yet I
wanted the story to be their own. My adoption of veganism,
following years as a vegetarian and animal rights activist, was
triggered by the loss of a long-time canine companion. My
journey as a vegan in mainstream society and my familiarity with
the personal and social issues surrounding veganism informed the
interview protocol and data analysis.
However, because I wanted to know the path that others had
traveled, I chose a phenomenological perspective. Typically in
phenomenology, the researcher attempts to remove his or her
biases from the research. To enable the incorporation of my own
understanding, I chose heuristics, a modification of
phenomenological methodology (Moustaskas, 1990). Heuristics
explicitly recognizes the impossibility of neutrality in
research and enables the researcher to study phenomena with
which he or she has had intense experience.
I used a naturalistic design to collect interview data from
twelve vegans. Purposeful sampling was used, beginning with the
June 1996 nationwide March for the Animals in Washington, DC. I
employed snowball sampling to further identify vegans from a
small core of vegans identified at the March. To increase the
probability of interviewing committed vegans, I interviewed only
those who had been vegan for at least one year (Table 1). I used
an unstructured interview protocol, with the primary purpose of
allowing each participant to share the story of how he or she
learned to adopt a vegan lifestyle. Although I asked for
clarification or elaboration regarding their learning, most of
my contribution to the interviews was to keep the participants
from straying away from their stories.
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Table 1
The Participants
Age Sex Vegetarian Vegan Profession
Cary 31 M ~12 ~10 Attorney/Real estate Developer
Drew 26 M 6 5 Youth counselor/
Former army ranger
Franz 38 M 16 7 University professor
Janet 52 F 7 7 Law student/Former
occupational therapist
Lanny 40 M 2.5 2 Structural architect
Lena 40' F ~14 ~13 Graphic artist
Lisa 42 F 1.5 1.5 Secretary
Lucille 85 F ~6 ~5 Grandmother
Michelle 60's F 10 N/A Wife/grandmother
Sean 23 M 5 4 Tattoo artist
Roger 23 M 6 ~4 Body piercer
Maire and Will 40's F&M 7 ~4 Secretary/Corporate mgr
~ = Approximately
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I first read the interviews in their entirety, noting initial
impressions. I constructed a narrative of each participant's
story, which I sent to the participant for review. Open and
axial coding were used to create categories, following the
procedure outlined in Strauss and Corbin (1990). Following axial
coding, I employed the paradigm model to organize the emergent
categories around a central phenomenon. Strauss and Corbin
(1990) recommended that the researcher tell the collective story
analytically, based on the results of the categorical
organization. I found it more productive to develop the
collective story from the initial narratives, constructed in the
form of a schema, from the first reading. I checked each
narrative against this collective schema. Then I enlisted three
participants to review the schema, asking themif it rang true
from their perspective. The resulting model is a psychological
schema of the process of how these vegans learned about veganism
and how they adopted a vegan lifestyle.
Findings
The Process of Learning to Become Vegan
The process of learning to become vegan was rooted in the
individuals' sense of who they are and how they fit in the
world. During the learning process, the individual passed
through a number of experiences diagrammed schematically as a
general process of learning to become vegan (Figure 1). The
elements are described below and defined in Table 2.
Figure 1 The Process of Learning to Become Vegan - Not Available
Online
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Table 2
Elements of the Vegan Learning Process
Who I Was - The background and experiences that made the
participant who they were prior to the learning experience.
Catalytic Experience - The experience that introduced the
participant to some aspect of animal cruelty, and resulted in
repression or becoming oriented.
Repression - The repression of knowledge.
Becoming Oriented - The intention to learn more, make a
decision, or do both.
Learning - Learning about animal abuse or how to live as a
vegetarian or vegan.
Decision - Making the choice to become vegetarian or vegan.
World View - The new perspective that guides the vegan's new
lifestyle.
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Each individual came to the learning event with a unique
personal and cultural history, identified in this study as who I
was. These histories shaped their original world views and, for
most of the participants, influenced their learning to become
vegan. For example, most of the participants claimed to have
been “animal people” all their lives, which they felt may have
helped them become more receptive to information about animal
cruelty.
Information on cruelty served as a catalyst to one of two
reactions. In two cases, individuals reported a reaction
interpreted as repression. These participants put the
information in the back of their minds until a later time, when
another catalytic event facilitated its recall. A second, more
common reaction was to become oriented in one of two ways:
either to learn more about animal cruelty or to decide to become
vegetarian or vegan and, subsequently, to learn more about
animal cruelty and how to live as a vegetarian or vegan.
Over time, the participant adopted a world view characteristic
of vegans, represented by a belief in the equality of human and
nonhuman animals. This world view became the foundation for an
ethically-based praxis. The following discussion examines each
stage of the process in more detail.
Participants' Testimonies
Who were these people before they became vegans? Most of the
participants had a prior love of nature and of “pets” but did
not see the connection between their companion animals and food
animals. Before becoming vegan, most of the participants felt
that they had always been compassionate and caring to nonhuman
animals, but they had compartmentalized their compassion. Will
described it this way:
We consider ourselves to be animal people, and compassionate,
but it was cats and dogs, and pets, and you always felt
compassion for them, but that was kind of compartmentalized, in
that you didn't really think about the rest of the animal
kingdom.
Although most of the participants had always been “animal
people,” they had not made the connection between nonhuman
animals and the food they ate. Lucille, Lanny, Cary, Roger,
Lisa, Will, and Maire all expressed amazement that they had not
seen the connection. Cary, for example, said,
When I saw hamburgers or steaks, I never put two and two
together. I used to eat tongue, which is a Jewish delicacy. I
never even knew what it was. It's that disguised. Even though
they say the word tongue, I never knew it was that.
Roger, a young body piercer, said that he
...had lots of pets. Dogs. Cats. I also had an uncle that had a
farm where he raised cows. I used to go up to my uncle's farm
and play with cows and never made the connection where the meat
came from until later in life and I was like, whoa! It's crazy.
I loved the cows. I played with the cows.
Lena, atypical of the participants, said that she did not have a
strong affection for animals when she was young. Nevertheless,
she recalled numerous events involving companion animals during
her childhood. Janet observed that childhood affection for
animals is not exceptional: “I remember I was heartbroken when
my pet frog [died]. Absolutely devastated me. But I don't think
that's anything unusual. I think other children were the same
way.”
In summary, most of the participants felt affection for nonhuman
animals prior to becoming vegan. Their compassion excluded food
animals, because they did not see the connection between the
animals they kept as pets and the animals they consumed as food.
Catalytic Experiences
Catalytic experiences presented information to the participant
about animal cruelty and resulted in further action.
Participants usually encountered more than one catalytic
experience. The catalytic experience triggered one of two
responses. Most participants became oriented to further learning
about animal abuse. Alternatively, a few participants repressed
the information, only to have it resurface at a later time. Most
participants who became oriented to further learning did not
make an immediate decision. These participants became open to
learning about animal abuse and eventually made the decision to
give up animal products.
For Lanny and Lisa, the catalytic experience was akin to a
religious conversion. Lanny, who had learned about animal
cruelty but had not yet decided to go vegetarian, made the
decision one day while sitting reflectively in a bottomland
pasture. Lanny's life had not been turning out as he thought it
might, and he had gone outside to think about it. While he was
thinking, he looked up and exchanged a long and pensive gaze
with a buck standing on the hill above him. He said,
I just decided not to eat meat anymore. Just all of a sudden,
that afternoon, for whatever reason, whether it was a force that
made me decide, I don't know. But, it was that instant that I
decided to give up meat.
Lisa converted to veganism after watching a video on animal
cruelty. She described her reaction to the video this way:
I watched the video. It was almost like, it was like they say,
the curtain was pulled back. The truth was made known. I felt
like I had been born again. It was like there is no turning back
now. Now I know the cruelty that exists.
The catalytic experience was often, but not necessarily,
emotional. An intense emotional reaction to the catalytic
experience usually also included a cognitive interpretation that
enabled the participant to immediately comprehend, as well as
feel, the consequences of the new knowledge of animal abuse.
Cognition typically manifested recognition of the power
relationship between human and nonhuman animals and was fed by
negative emotions, such as guilt, sadness, and anger.
Rarely was a decision made or did learning occur without an
interaction between emotions and cognition. Participants often
described their understanding as immediate, exemplified by
Michelle's statement: “I thought, my God, I just didn't realize
what things went on, I really didn't.” Although Will had had
catalytic experiences before, followed by his repressing
information about animal cruelty, he described the cognitive and
affective impact of the catalytic experience that resulted in a
decision:
Yeah we hit the decision point because once you were face to
face with certain facts that, it's like, once you know something
you can't not know it. So once we saw those issues, and saw
those tapes, and saw the slaughterhouse, and all that, we both,
that afternoon, we were sitting there thinking, I have to [go
vegetarian].
Janet's second catalytic experience also occurred after she had
been learning about animal cruelty. Janet had raised a young
mockingbird she called Chirp. One day, Janet left Chirp outside
unattended, and one of her dogs killed him. She felt guilt,
pain, and grief. That evening while Janet was cooking, she
experienced an epiphany: “I cracked an egg and I thought God,
that's like a baby Chirp. When that happened, I thought I'm
gonna be a vegetarian. And I never went back.”
The emotions felt during the catalytic experience were typically
negative ones: pain, shock, guilt, sadness, or depression. Lisa,
like Michelle, cried as she first learned about animal cruelty.
Lena told about her emotional reaction to a video about
vivisection, saying, “It affected me so dramatically. It just
broke my heart. I have never had [anything] to [have] such an
effect.”
Emotions seem to have been one of the major defining
characteristics of the more memorable catalytic experiences. The
decision to become vegan following a period of vegetarianism was
more often rational. Will and Maire, for example, spent a lot of
time discussing veganism before they decided to make the
decision. Maire noted that they “really consternated over
[becoming vegan]. That ended up being a big decision, a big
conversation, with us.” Drew, who examined animal rights
literature for about a month before making his decision, said
his decision was “mostly rational. I just decided I did not want
to contribute to the big...meat machine anymore...I would not
say it was emotional.”
The Repression of Information
Two of the participants heard about animal cruelty but did not
immediately respond to it. These participants repressed
information about animal cruelty, only to have it reemerge at a
later time. Cary, for example, read an article on veal when he
was 16 years old. He said the story “hit me hard.” Regardless,
he put the information into the back of his mind and went on
with his life. When I asked him if he was unable to make the
change because of family pressure, Cary said,
Not even my family, but my dietary habits. I had never hardly
met a vegetarian until college. So, I'm really going way off on
a loop if I'm going vegetarian in high school....I mean you
can't go vegetarian if you don't eat vegetables.
Will also found a way to hear, but not respond to, the
information on animal cruelty. After learning about the clubbing
of Harp Seals, he and Maire began receiving information about
animal cruelty in the mail and were slowly becoming active in
animal rights. Still, they remained meat eaters. When I asked
Will how other people could hear the information but not act on
it, he replied,
If they accept this as really being the truth, then there is a
moral decision that has to be made, and if I make that decision,
then I'll have to quit wearing leather, I'm going to have to
quit eating meat. There's a denial there. But that's very
strong. That's very very strong. I mean, people can rationalize
things very easily....So they block it out, and throw a big
rationalization in it that says, “Well that's what they say, but
that's really not the truth.
Becoming Oriented
Following a catalytic experience, the participants became
oriented to further learning. For some, this orientation
included making a decision to go vegetarian or vegan. For
others, the orientation was toward learning about animal abuse,
how to live a new lifestyle, or both. Becoming oriented provided
clear direction for the participant.
When a participant became oriented toward learning about animal
abuse or about living a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, the
decision was made consciously and purposefully. As Lanny noted,
information about animal cruelty is “not front page news.”
Learning about animal abuse and how to live a marginalized
lifestyle required a clear commitment to learn. Lisa's words
describe this commitment: “There's no turning back. Now I know
the cruelty that exists. I've been learning and studying and
reading ever since.” Will and Maire were disturbed by the
brutality of the Harp seal hunts, which they learned about from
a TV special: “We were really shocked at that, and so we started
getting more information about [animal cruelty].”
Becoming oriented required openness to new information and the
potential of a new and challenging lifestyle. Lena noted that
“you have to start opening yourself up to different things.”
Cary was struck by the atmosphere of openness at a vegetarian
conference he attended: “It just came together...and people were
very open. You know, no blockers on.”
Learning
Becoming oriented and open facilitated learning about animal
abuse, how to live a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, or both.
Participants became self-directed, goal-directed learners.
Learning about animal abuse and learning a new lifestyle was, in
retrospect, guided by an ethical praxis of compassion. As they
learned, participants became more convinced of the moral
rightness of their direction. Lisa assuredly pronounced,
I feel like I have been born again. I feel like I am still on a
path to enlightenment.…It's been a spiritual transformation for
me. It was like, yes! God has led me to this.
Participants learned through reading, thinking, talking, and
becoming involved in animal rights or vegetarian-related
activities. Dialogue was one strategy attempted to learn, teach,
or cope with the stress of adapting to their emerging
perspective and lifestyle. Often, conversations with others were
one-sided, heated, or fraught with the intention to persuade.
Many of the participants' families and friends argued with or
trivialized the vegetarian or vegan decision, and eventually
everyone stopped discussing it. Lanny, Lena, Roger, Lisa, Drew,
and Will and Maire described situations where discussion became
futile between themselves and family or friends. Drew, not
hiding his lingering anger and frustration, shared an experience
he had with his parents:
[My wife and I] went out and visited [my parents], and one of
the big issues that caused an argument was that they said that
[my wife] was giving my mom dirty looks when we were eating.
That was totally fabricated....We never talk about that anymore.
I guess they just assume we are some kind of weirdos.
For most participants, lack of support from family and friends
caused hurtful feelings. Lanny's family, for example, won't
discuss his diet with him anymore. After they argued for a
period of time, Lanny sadly concluded, “Yeah, it did hurt a
great deal, that they would not accept me and the choices I
made.” He expounded, using this example:
When I was trying to think of a menu for Christmas day, in
talking it over with my parents and my family, it came to the
point where I realized they were not going to eat anything I
cooked if it was vegan....They would have nothing to do with it.
And so, after a lot of thinking about it and soul searching, I
finally decided to go with something that was not vegetarian. It
made me feel bad that my values were not important enough to
everybody else in my family.
Some of the participants were able to discuss what they were
learning with family and friends. This happened most often when
the family member or friend was open-minded, sympathetic to the
vegetarian or vegan position, or was also a vegetarian or vegan.
Drew's wife and her grandmother, for example, were vegetarian
before Drew met them. Cary's family was supportive, as long as
he could prove he was getting the appropriate nutrients. Sean's
parents had experimented with vegetarianism, and his words
reveal how support may facilitate learning:
For about five years of my life, my parents were very strict
vegetarians. I was a young 13, 14, 15 years old. I was
rebellious. I'm gonna eat meat. They switched back and saw that
I was getting a little curious about vegetarianism, and they had
so much literature and so many books and so much to say. So it
was really helpful, getting that from your parents.
Reading was a primary way of learning for every participant. For
those like Michelle and Sean, reading was the main and almost
exclusive source of information. Sean explained,
After being vegetarian for less than a year, I was just so
curious as to why people take it to a further extent such as
veganism. So I started reading a lot of books by John Robbins
and Peter Singer, who are some of the top authors that speak on
factory farming, animal liberation, and veganism. It attracted
me so that I wanted to take it to the next step.
Likewise, Roger learned about vegetarianism and veganism through
reading: “That's when I fully made the step. When I read the
literature, seeing how the dairy industry was just a destructive
machine, so I made that step.”
Although much of the literature was in the form of
organizational newsletters or brochures, often the impact of a
single book was enough to push the participant to further
learning or to a decision. Cary's words exemplify this
experience:
I read Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. That was the other main
source. It really was that, when I was deciding to go
vegetarian, definitely, that put me over the top and introduced
me to other aspects of agriculture that I also never heard
about.
Literature from cookbooks, magazines, and animal rights and
vegetarian organizations was used to help the vegetarian and
vegan learn everything from the philosophical basis of veganism
to how to cook and read ingredient labels. Lanny and Michelle
learned almost everything by reading cookbooks. Lanny said,
Once I chose to give up meat, my first thought was, I need to
learn what else I can cook. So I went to the library, checked
out cookbooks to get recipes. And through reading the preface of
the cookbooks, I guess that's where I learned the term vegan,
not really through anything else. I learned it through reading
of the cookbooks and realizing that vegetarian is one thing, but
vegan encompasses quite a bit more.
The participants used literature both to learn and to teach. One
of their most frequently used ways of educating was giving
literature about animal cruelty to others. Participants learned
through experience that dialogue was usually ineffective as a
method of teaching others. Lena gave an example:
The guy who is my mechanic, apparently I took him something on
vegetarianism a while back, but when I was in there the last
time he said, “You gave me some stuff on vegetarianism a while
back. I don't know what I did with it. I really wasn't ready for
it then, but could you send me some more stuff. I'm really
considering this.
Most of the vegans also learned through some form of animal
rights activism. Lena became active in a vegetarian society,
where she writes a newsletter and sits on the board of
directors. Drew became well-informed by preparing for
appearances on radio and television shows. Cary was elected to
the leadership of an animal rights organization. Janet lobbies
state legislatures for animal protection legislation. For
example, Janet and a friend, “along with some animal
activists…worked to get [the mandatory spay and neuter law]
passed.” All these activities required the vegan to be well
informed.
Making the Decision to Eliminate Animal Products
The decision to become a vegetarian or a vegan was made either
immediately after a catalytic experience and the orientation to
such a lifestyle or following some period of learning. If the
decision was made temporally close to the catalytic experience,
it was typically more emotional than if it was made after a
period of learning. Typically, the vegan decision was made after
a period of learning, in which the logical inconsistency of
being in favor of animal rights but continuing to eat animal
products was pondered. As they reflected, talked, read, and
became active, the vegetarians-turned-vegan recognized this
logical inconsistency between their beliefs and their actions.
Lanny explained,
I would think about.being a vegetarian but still using milk or
still putting cheese in stuff. I would learn more and then
decided, where do you draw the line? What's the difference? So
why not cut out all animal products, not just in food, but in
clothing, in my house, you know, live a truly cruelty-free
lifestyle.
Will talked about the relationship between learning and making a
decision and how some vegetarians can rationalize not becoming
vegan:
An animal doesn't die for this [milk and cheese, for example].
And that's their thing, and they'll come to some point where
they may change. But, for us, it's like, you know, when you look
deeper, you really see that there are other things behind it,
there may be some conditions that's worse than if [the animals]
were slaughtered....
The decision to become a vegetarian or a vegan was often seen in
retrospect as a fit. Reflecting on the decision to go
vegetarian, Will commented that becoming vegan “was something
that [we] just had to do.” Roger, Lisa, Franz, and Michelle also
noted that the decision to be vegan, in retrospect, was
inevitable. It felt comfortable, and once made, was final. The
vegans in this study felt that their decision to become vegan
was in harmony with the greater scheme of things. Franz
rhetorically asked, “How could I be spiritual and in harmony
with [the animals] if I mistreated any one of them”.
The Transformed World View
The vegans' transformed world views were shaped by a felt
connection with nonhuman animals and with nature, the moral
rightness of veganism, and by experiencing the world as a
vegetarian and vegan. Advocating for the welfare and rights of
animals became a dominant purpose of the transformed world view.
A central feature of this world view was that animals were no
longer viewed as food. Lanny, for example, explained why Indians
do not eat cows, even though there is hunger in India: “...they
understand that that cow is not food. It is a being. And to
them, a holy being. So, I would be that way now myself.” Janet
echoed this sentiment: “When people say 'Isn't it hard?' and
I'll say 'No,' because...I made that connection that it was
flesh, that it was not food. I told my mother it's kind of like
if I were eating you.”
Other features of this world view were that animal protection
extended to all areas of life. Major changes had to be made in
virtually every area. Maire noted this necessity, explaining
that even a vegan's wardrobe and accessories had to be
renovated. Lanny, Lisa, Lena, and Franz described an affection
for the nonhuman world that extended to caring for nature. Lena
commented,
It's like I have a much, much greater respect, certainly for all
living things, and of course plant life. I don't even want to
pull weeds really. It's sort of like, why do I have to kill this
weed? It has a right to be there.
The participants especially expressed a feeling of connectivity
with nonhuman animals. Often, that connection was made tangible
by the animals' ability to feel pain. Almost every participant
mentioned the recognition of this close association with human
feeling. Cary expressed this shared ability to feel pain as a
bond between human and nonhuman animals: “The dogs, the cows,
they certainly feel pain, and yeah, that's a big thing. I mean,
it's like a bond.”
Sean explained how the feeling of being connected is also a
spiritual feeling. He noted that the earth is a “living
breathing organism” and that everything on it is “intertwined.”
He added, “You definitely have a spirituality to it.”
The vegans in this study experienced a major shift in their
world view. They transformed themselves from people who used
animals for convenience, desire, or a perceived necessity to
people who, in Lena's words, live by the “general philosophy
[of] harmlessness to all.” This philosophy was expressed as an
ethical praxis in the way they live their lives. By becoming
vegan, they rejected the normative ideology of animal domination
by taking a different path and by educating others whenever they
had the opportunity. They resisted institutional power by
choosing cruelty-free products and by engaging in protests and
other activism. They accepted personal relationships by ceasing
to argue with friends, family, and acquaintances. Instead, they
gently tried to educate when they could, and otherwise they
taught by example.
As they moved through the process of learning to become vegan,
participants had to reintegrate themselves into society.
Although at times they felt like removing themselves from
society, they knew that they could serve the animals best by
facing the challenges of being vegan in a sometimes-hostile
society. Will said,
To just check out of society, to me, would have less of an
impact because you would be written off as a total lunatic and
wacko, than living in society and say, this is where I'm driving
the stake in the ground and saying this is who I am and these
are the choices I'm making.
As marginalized individuals, most of these vegans sought the
comfort of solidarity in fellowship with others who feel as they
do. But between those times of fellowship, they had to reconcile
their philosophy and lifestyle with the need to maintain their
marriages, friendships, and family and work lives. Each of the
participants in this study had either done this or was in
process of doing so. Lisa, the newest of the vegans I
interviewed, was continuing to find her place in society. She
said, “I'm still confused. I'm still working through all of
this.” During correspondence for member checking, I wrote in
Lisa's narrative,
Lisa feels that others in the movement do not understand her,
and she in fact does not fully understand herself. These people,
she thinks, have been vegetarian or involved in animal rights
for so long that they forget how painful it is at the beginning.
Lisa responded to this passage by underlining and starring the
last sentence, and writing “YES!!!” Lisa clearly was working
through her feelings and her new knowledge and was working to
develop a new identity. She spent a year looking for a new
church home that would appreciate and understand her respect for
animals. I recently received a letter and a business card from
Lisa, announcing her new profession as a reiki healer for people
and their companion animals.
Although each story is unique, the vegans followed the same
general path from an omnivorous to a vegan lifestyle. A common
outcome of the vegan lifestyle was a desire to educate others
about animal cruelty. Although the vegans had been through the
process, they felt frustrated by the inability to communicate
what they had learned. Often rebuffed, or worse, for their
efforts, they modified their approach to become less invasive
and feel more accepted by others.
Discussion
If one of the goals of vegans is to educate others (Stepaniak,
1998), we must better understand how people learn to become
vegan. To better understand the adoption of a vegan perspective,
it is important to identify commonalities in the stories of
individuals experiencing such change. This research indicates
that for these vegans, a common path emerged that, although
generalized, also allowed for the telling of individual stories.
Models such as the one constructed can guide educational
efforts. Before this model is adopted, however, it should be
further explored with a larger sample of vegans. One of its
limitations is its psychological emphasis. It does not give
voice to the rich social milieu in which these vegans learned.
Further analysis, which was beyond the scope of this paper,
revealed psychological experience inextricably embedded in
social relations and the dominant ideology of human superiority
(McDonald, in press).
As noted, Mezirow's transformation theory did not explain
adequately the learning process of vegans. Transformation theory
overestimates the role of democratic dialogue, as these vegans
found little opportunity for such dialogue. Transformation
theory also pivots on the individual's critical reflection on
assumptions. I found little evidence for such reflection in the
narratives of these vegans. Finally, as noted in other
critiques, Mezirow's transformation theory fails to account for
the power of the normative ideology to shape the learning and
practice of vegans over time (McDonald, in press).
Noteworthy Points
Considering the findings of this research, a number of points
are noteworthy. First, this was a study of successful and
committed vegans. They are the ones who listened, considered,
and accepted the information about animal cruelty as truth.
Although two vegans described repressing such information for a
time, this research does little to shed light on the important
phenomenon of repression. Repression may be a key factor in why
many individuals hear about animal cruelty but do not act. More
research is needed on why and how information about animal
cruelty is repressed or ignored by otherwise sensitive and
caring individuals.
A second point to emerge from this research is the importance of
both logic and emotion in the learning of vegans. For some
vegans, logic was the primary cognitive tool used to process
information. For others, affect and emotion guided the learning
process. For most vegans, the importance of logic and emotion
varied across time. More often, emotional trauma appeared
initially, followed by rational consideration of information.
Veganism, therefore, was more often a rational decision,
especially if it had been preceded by a vegetarian lifestyle.
Both logic and emotion, For every vegan, however, both logic and
emotion played a role in the learning process. Recent reports
from neuroscience, such as the work of Damasio (1994), support
this finding, highlighting the mutually supportive roles of
emotion and reason. Educational efforts for veganism, therefore,
should acknowledge the value in recognizing both, while
recognizing that individuals will likely respond more to one
over the other and, in time, may even change their receptiveness
to one over the other.
Another consideration is the importance of openness as a
critical characteristic of eventual acceptance. Openness is
probably related to an orientation to learn, as well as to the
resurfacing of repressed information. It is easy to identify
those individuals who are immediately open to learning about
veganism and more difficult to know which individuals will
eventually allow their repressed emotions and logic into their
conscious thoughts. James (1902) described the repression of
information as an “unconscious way in which mental results get
accomplished” (p. 202-203). Vegans interested in teaching others
should not necessarily be discouraged by an apparent lack of
interest or gentle resistance but should provide enough
information to plant a seed that may, after a period of
dormancy, sprout into the daylight.
The Willingness to Learn
That initially resistant people can recall repressed information
about animal cruelty with a new willingness to learn and that
most of the vegans in this study reported a lifelong fondness
for nonhuman animals indicate that people may have a
biologically- or socially instilled connection to nonhuman
animals. Janet, one of the vegans in this study, thought that
most children feel a bond with nonhuman animals.
Wilson (1993) would agree with Janet. He stated that people have
an “innately emotional affiliation...to other living organisms”
(p. 31). Kellert (1996) concurred, but added that this
affiliation is a reflection of values rooted in “weak biological
tendencies...requiring learning and experience if they are to
become stable and consistently manifest” (p. 26). Thus, Kellert
argued, affection toward animals may be latent in almost
everyone. In American society today, however, he noted that
people have less opportunity for learning and experiences that
enable those tendencies to be manifested.
If Kellert is correct, a transformation to veganism may be one
manifestation of the innate biological affiliation with life.
Others, however, are not as sure. Grier (1999) proposed that the
child-animal bond was a construction of American Victorian
society in an effort to instill the values of kindness and
civility in boys. Nevertheless, few would argue that in today's
society children typically feel a connection to nonhuman
animals. This connection may be rekindled as an adult by a
recognition of that bond. As participant Cary noted, the most
obvious bond that we have with nonhuman animals is our mutual
ability to feel pain.
Another important finding to the vegan movement is the
centrality of reading to the learning of vegans. These vegans
learned from books, cookbooks, newsletters, magazines,
brochures, and other written information. Pivotal to the success
of such information is its perception as being true. Recognizing
this potential pitfall in educating non-vegans, Phillips (1999)
recently called for all vegan-related information to be
“impeccably accurate” (p. 1). This study indicates that when
people accept animal cruelty information as true, they are
compelled to either act on it, repress it, or deal with the
moral implications of knowingly supporting cruelty to nonhuman
animals.
Finally, learning about veganism was separated into two
conceptually different tasks. These tasks correspond to what
Mezirow (1991), borrowing from Habermas, called communicative
and instrumental learning. Communicative learning has to do with
ideas, such as the idea of institutionalized animal cruelty,
animal rights, and veganism. Instrumental learning concerns the
skills needed to live a vegan lifestyle, such as how to cook,
order food in restaurants, and read ingredient labels.
Participants indicated the centrality and interdependence of
both kinds of learning to their vegan journey. Thus, if others
are to be successfully educated about the vegan lifestyle, they
must understand the ideological basis for veganism as well as
learn the tools for living a vegan lifestyle.
Summary
This research highlights a number of considerations that may aid
vegan educational efforts. First, the path to a vegan lifestyle
may be similar across a variety of individual experiences.
Although more research is needed to confirm the validity of the
presented model, it provides a starting point for understanding
how people learn to become vegan. Second, we need a better
understanding of why people repress undesirable or uncomfortable
knowledge, as well as why it may resurface at a later time.
Third, we need to attend to both the logical and emotional
aspects of veganism, recognizing the interdependency of both as
well as the variable dominance of one over the other. Fourth,
although we should look for signs of openness in the people we
talk with, we should not avoid giving information to people who
are resistant. They may recall our words later with a new
willingness to learn. Fifth, we should continue to develop and
use written materials of all kinds. We, must ensure, however,
that our information is accurate, since it is acknowledgment of
the truth that spurs change Finally, we should always provide
for ideological learning as well as “how to” put the vegan
ideology into practice.
These observations, based on the narratives of twelve vegans,
provide a starting point for a more empirically based
understanding of learning to become vegan. From a personal
perspective, I hope this research will provide guidance to help
others with their activism. From a professional perspective, I
hope it stimulates increased academic interest in the profound
adult learning challenge that veganism represents.
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Note
1 Correspondence should be addressed to Barbara McDonald, Social
Scientist, USDA Forest Service, 320 Green Street, Athens, GA
30602-2044. E-mail: barmac@bigfoot.com
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