In my several years of plant-based eating, I have never encountered someone who expressed hate for me. Based on the questions I have seen on Quorait appears that there is some amount of animosity flowing both ways between vegans and non-vegans.

Hate, in general, arises against that which:

• Encourage us to question our own perspective
• Interferes with our personal agendas

Each of those conditions can be interpreted as a threat. In some circumstances, it is easier to hate than it is to develop a reasoned and more positive response to that which is seen as a threat.

Perhaps it can be seen how each group, vegans and non-vegans, can devolve into the hating the “other side” for the threat that each perceives as being presented by the other's viewpoints and actions.

Some vegans that I have read about are very adamant with their condemnation of the behavior of non-vegans. They see the consumers of animal products as causing them harm by destroying the environment and subjecting their fellow beings to suffering. Non-vegans are a threat.

Non-vegans, I have read, can see vegans as pushy and bullying in their forcefully questioning of the behavior of eating meat and consuming of animal products. Vegans, in those cases, are a threat because they are forcing the examination of lifelong habits and perspectives.

In the end, hate is a defense mechanism and it works to minimize a threat by making the threat easier to dismiss or in extreme cases, destroy. Hate is a quick and easy tool to affect the removal of a threat.

As we talk about here on Vegan Gently - Enjoying a Happier, Healthier, More Kind Way of Life enjoying a vegan life is not about being right and making others wrong. It is about examining our own personal commitments and living in a way that best supports those commitments. Importantly, it is also about realizing that it's possible that is what we are each doing regardless of what behaviors we see being exhibited.