> Dori points out to me that vegetarians often like to
> tell you what *you* are
> doing *wrong* whereas we paleofolk for example, like
> to focus on healthful
> benefits of our favorite foods. This has been my
> observation too.
>
> So what do you think? This correlation is too much
> of a coincidence. Could a
> long term vegetarian diet be directly related to
> such hostile behavior?

I dunno.  I'm sure one could find plenty of examples
either to prove this or disprove it depending on what
one's agenda happened to be.  Isn't Gandhi the
poster-boy of the "Peaceful vegetarian" stereotype?
It seems to me that almost every group I've ever
belonged to has, at times, gotten pretty
self-righteous about their own
beliefs/aestethics/methods/ideologies/whatever, while
at the same time perceiving "the enemy" as being very
hostile and aggressive.  For example, I grew up in a
Catholic household.  I like Catholicism, I really have
few problems with it, I think it is a very
misunderstood and unfairly maligned religion these
days.  My best friend is gay, and I'm very involved in
punk/indie/fashion/art related subcultures. So I go
home and hear my (home-schooling, subsistence organic
farming and hunting, holistic-health homeopathy using,
meat-eating, breast-feeding, etc) family talk about
"militant feminists and homosexuals" aggressively
pushing their anti-family, anti-life, propaganda at
the world (they don't hate the sinners, mind you, just
the "sin").  And I hang out with my friends and hear
them talk about the rich repressive Catholic church
aggressively forcing censorship and rigid morality
upon us, and the raw-foods vegans complain about the
loud instinctos forcing their gory detailed accounts
of raw meat eating upon the raw-foods lists, and I
guess I just kind of feel like every group does this
to some extent.  I tend to think I'm right and
everyone else is wrong, whenever I really believe
something, but because my "strong" beliefs change so
often and so drastically, I end up feeling a bit
ridiculous about my former zealousness. That hardly
seems to prevent me from doing it again though.

Maybe poor health in general, regardless of specific
cause, is what makes people more likely to be
antagonistic?

-lara

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