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해방정치연구소 2025. 09. 26
<살리는 대화, 살림터뷰>
지구라는 유한한 행성에서 인간과 비인간, 사회와 환경은 복잡하게 얽혀 살고 있습니다. 기후생태 위기의 시대, ‘살리는 대화’는 그 얽힘 속에서 변화의 가능성을 고민하고 연구하는 이들의 이야기를 담습니다. ‘착취’아닌 ‘돌봄’으로, ‘구획’이 아닌 ‘연결’로 바라보는 세계를 탐색합니다. 인간이 그어놓은 경계를 넘나들며 시대에 필요한 질문들을 던지고 더 나은 공생을 위한 실마리를 함께 찾아갑니다.
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멜라니 조이는 사회 심리학자이자 비거니즘 운동가이다. 육식주의(Carnism)이란 개념을 만들고, 육식주의에 대항하는 단체 <Beyond Carnism>을 창립했다. 육식주의의 문제를 알리기 위해 대중 강연에 나서며, 2013년 비폭력과 불상생 원칙을 지키는 사람에게 수여하는 아힘사상을 수상했다. 그녀의 책 《우리는 왜 개는 사랑하고 돼지는 먹고 소는 신을까》는 육식주의를 지탱하는 주요한 믿음 체계를 분석한다. 또한 《나의 친애하는 비건 친구들에게(Beyond Belief)》 라는 책을 통해 각자의 신념을 넘어 채식주의자가 채식을 실천하지 않는 사람들과 어떻게 관계를 맺고 소통할 수 있는지에 대해 이야기한다.
멜라니 조이 인터뷰
Q1. 당신의 최근 관심이나 연구 분야는 무엇인가요?
| 세계 여러 나라에서 비건들이 서로 소통하거나 협력하는 데 큰 어려움을 겪고 있어요. 예를 들어, 비건끼리 온라인상에서 서로 비난하거나, 같은 팀에서 일하면서 갈등이 생기기도 하죠. 이런 갈등은 운동의 에너지를 많이 소모하게 만듭니다.
저는 이 문제를 해결하기 위한 방법을 찾고자 웹사이트(Infighting.org)를 만들었어요. 이 웹사이트는 제가 최근 출간한 책 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》와도 연결되어 있습니다. 이 책은 부당함에 대한 인간의 심리를 다루고 있는데요, 제가 쓴 《우리는 왜 개는 사랑하고 돼지는 먹고 소는 신을까》와도 주제가 닿아 있어요. 특히 이 책은 우리가 비인간 동물—특히 농장 동물—을 착취하는 심리가 여성이나 사회적 약자, 그리고 환경을 억압하고 착취하는 심리와 동일하다고 설명합니다.
Q2. 《나의 친애하는 비건 친구들에게》라는 책을 쓰게 된 계기도 궁금합니다.
| 저는 오랜 시간 동안 육식주의(carnism)—특정 동물을 먹도록 만드는 보이지 않는 신념 체계와 심리—에 대해 이야기해 왔습니다. 전 세계를 돌며 수천 명에게 비거니즘과 효과적인 소통 방법에 대해 교육해 왔죠.
강연이 끝난 뒤, 많은 비건이 이렇게 말하곤 했습니다. “비건이 되기로 한 건 제 인생에서 가장 중요하고 힘이 되는 결정이었어요. 하지만 그 이후 소중한 관계들이 무너졌고, 충격과 혼란을 느꼈어요.” 저는 오랫동안 관계 상담가로 활동하며, 비건 실천 이후 많은 사람이 관계 속에서 깊은 소통의 어려움을 겪고 있다는 걸 알게 되었습니다. 비건 개인에게 큰 고통을 줄 뿐 아니라, 비거니즘 운동의 에너지도 소모는 중요한 문제였습니다.
이 책은 비건들이 관계 속에서 겪는 어려움을 이해하고, 이를 치유하고 개선해 갈 수 있도록 돕는 도구를 제공합니다. 또한 논비건 친구나 가족에게도 선물할 수 있도록, 관계 회복의 가교가 될 수 있는 책을 만들고자 했습니다.
Q3. 비거니즘을 실천하며 충돌과 갈등을 마주하고, 소중한 사람들을 잃기도 한다는 것에 공감합니다. 그렇다면 이러한 갈등은 왜 발생할까요?
| 비건과 논비건의 관계가 무너지고 소통이 어려워지는 데는 세 가지 주요한 원인이 있습니다.
첫째, 비건도 결국 사람이기 때문에 관계와 소통에 어려움을 겪습니다. 대부분의 사람은 건강한 관계를 맺고 갈등을 효과적으로 해결하는 법을 배우지 못한 채 살아갑니다. 그래서 ‘윤리’나 ‘생존’ 같은 민감한 주제가 오갈 때, 대화는 더 격해지기 쉽습니다. 비건과 논비건 간의 갈등 역시 이런 배경에서 비롯됩니다.
둘째, 육식주의(carnism)라는 보이지 않는 신념 체계가 작용합니다. 대부분의 논비건은 동물을 먹는 것이 자연스럽다고 여기는 문화적 조건 속에서 살아갑니다. 이 체계는 그들이 동물을 먹는 권리나 익숙함이 위협받을 때, 즉각적인 방어 반응을 일으키게 만듭니다.
셋째, 비건들도 특정 심리적 어려움을 겪습니다. 많은 비건이 세상의 잔혹한 현실을 깨닫고, 깊은 충격과 트라우마를 경험합니다. 이는 긴장과 분노, 절망으로 이어지며, 정신적 불안정 상태를 만들 수 있습니다. 특히 가까운 사람들이 축산 동물에겐 무관심한 태도를 보일 때, 비건은 좌절감과 고립감을 느낍니다.
요약하자면, 비건과 논비건 간의 관계가 어려운 이유는 첫째, 갈등 해결 교육의 부재, 둘째, 육식주의의 방어적 심리, 셋째, 비건의 심리적 불안정성 때문입니다. 하지만 우리는 이런 패턴을 바꿀 수 있습니다. 자신을 돌보고, 관계와 소통 방식을 배우며, 육식주의 심리를 이해하는 법을 익힌다면, 더 깊고 의미 있는 관계를 만들어갈 수 있습니다.
Q4. 사람들이 육식주의를 깨닫는 데에 개인적 경험은 매우 중요한 것 같습니다. 어떻게 우리의 논비건 친구들이 육식주의의 문제를 깨닫게 할 수 있을까요?
| 정말 좋은 질문인데요, 저는 이렇게 말씀드리고 싶어요. 우리는 사실 누구에게 무엇을 하도록 강요할 수 없습니다. 우리가 할 수 있는 유일한 일은 사람들이 우리의 메시지를 들을 가능성을 높이는 방식으로 소통하는 것이에요.
지금, 이 글을 읽고 계신 비건들에게 말씀드리고 싶은 것은, 사랑했던 사람들과의 연결이 끊어지는 건 굉장히 슬픈 일이지만, 이를 해결하기 위해 “당신이 비건이 되어야 우리가 다시 연결될 수 있다”라고 생각할 필요는 없다는 것입니다. “당신이 비건이 된다면 우리가 더 이상 싸우지 않을 것이다”라는 생각은 대체로 효과가 없습니다.
주변 사람들을 비건으로 만들려 하면 할수록, 그들은 비거니즘에 저항할 것입니다. 중요한 것은 비건이 아닌 사람들과도 연결될 수 있다는 것입니다. 핵심은 주변 사람들에게 비건이 되라고 요구하는 대신, 그들이 당신의 지지자가 되도록 요청하는 것입니다. 저는 다음과 같이 말하는 것을 추천합니다.
“당신과 비거니즘에 관한 이야기를 공유하고 싶어요. 당신을 바꾸기 위해서가 아니라, 비건이 내 삶에서 얼마나 중요한지 당신이 알아주길 바라기 때문이에요. 왜 내가 동물을 먹지 않는지, 왜 테이블 위에 놓인 죽은 동물을 보면 아픈지 이해해 줬으면 좋겠어요. 당신을 바꾸려는 게 아니라, 단지 내가 왜 이렇게 느끼는지 알려주고 싶어요.”
Q5. 동물해방물결은 홀스타인 소 5명을 위한 생추어리를 운영하고 있습니다. 그 과정에서, ‘적’이라고 여겼던 축산업자들과도 연대할 수 있음을 느꼈습니다. 다른 한편에서 소들의 습성이나 성격을 잘 알고 있는 사람들이니까요. 그렇다면 비거니즘을 실천하지 않는 사람들을 우리의 편으로 포섭하기 위해선 어떤 전략이 필요할까요?
| 여러분이 해오신 일들은 정말 멋지고, 공통점을 찾는 것이 얼마나 중요한지를 잘 보여주고 있습니다. 사실 우리가 겪는 문제는 믿음의 차이뿐만이 아닙니다. 비거니즘과 육식주의의 대립이 아니라, 이러한 신념 아래에 자리 잡은 사람들의 관계입니다. 서로를 존중하고 대화할 수 있는 관계를 어떻게 만들어갈 것인지가 핵심입니다. 공통점을 찾는 것은 가장 중요한 방법이겠죠.
저는 전 세계 모든 사람에게, 특히 세상을 바꾸려는 비건들에게 이런 접근이 매우 중요하다고 생각해요. 저는 관계적 문해력(relational literacy)을 구축하는 것이 중요하다고 생각하는데요. 관계적 문해력은 복잡하지 않습니다. 타인의 존엄성을 존중하며 소통할 때, 즉 “나는 당신을 이 지구에 있는 또 다른 존재로 보고, 당신을 부끄럽게 하거나 판단하지 않을 것이며, 당신의 관점에 열려 있다”라고 전달할 때, 우리의 대화는 크게 변화할 수 있습니다.
저는 비건들이 관계적 문해력을 키우는 것이 매우 중요하다고 생각합니다. 또한, 세상에 있는 많은 사람에게는 비건이 되는 것이 어려운 일처럼 느껴진다는 점을 기억하는 것도 중요합니다. 축산업자들이나 주변의 사람들에게는 비건이 되라는 요구가 매우 큰 부담으로 다가올 수 있습니다. “당신이 비건이 되어야만 해결될 수 있다”라거나 “비건이 아닌 것이 문제다”라고 생각해서는 안 됩니다. 대신, 사람들에게 해결책이 될 수 있는 다양한 방법을 제시하는 것이 중요합니다. 기부자가 되거나 축산업 방식을 바꾸는 등의 방법으로도 해결책 일부가 될 수 있겠죠.
Q6. 우리가 논비건인 사람들과 소통하는 방법을 알아도, 그들과 소통하면서 느끼는 슬픔이나 외로움 같은 감정은 사라지지 않는 것 같습니다. 이런 감정들은 어떻게 잘 다룰 수 있을까요?
| 비건들이 슬픔과 고통을 느끼는 것은 건강한 반응이라는 점을 인식하는 것이 중요합니다. 육식주의는 사람들이 특정 동물을 먹도록 조건화하는 보이지 않는 신념 체계입니다. 이 신념 체계는 일련의 방어 메커니즘을 중심으로 조직화되어 있습니다. 이 방어 메커니즘은 사람들의 인식을 왜곡하여, 축산 피해 동물에 대한 공감에서 멀어지게 하고, 정의라는 가치에 반하는 행동을 하게 만듭니다. 그리고 자신이 무엇을 하고 있는지조차 깨닫지 못하게 하죠. 반려동물을 애지중지하면서도 치즈버거를 먹는 행동 사이의 모순을 보지 못합니다.
육식주의는 이러한 심리적 메커니즘을 유지하며 생존합니다. 이 심리적 메커니즘 중 하나는 비건에 대한 부정적인 고정관념을 심어주는 것입니다. 비건들이 육식주의에 대해 도전하면, 오히려 비건들이 편향적이라고 비난받습니다. 육식주의는 비건을 지나치게 감정적이고, 예민하다고 생각하도록 만듭니다.
이러한 부정적인 고정관념은 과거에도 여성의 참정권을 주장했던 페미니스트들을 “히스테릭”하다며 침묵시키는 데 사용되었고, 노예제 폐지를 주장했던 운동가들을 “감상적”이라며 무시하는 데 사용되었습니다. 비건들이 슬픔을 다루기 어려워하는 이유 중 하나는 이런 부정적인 고정관념을 내면화했기 때문이에요. 우리가 슬픔과 고통을 느끼는 것은 건강하고 정상적인 반응입니다. 문제는 오히려 슬픔을 느끼지 않는 것이죠. 지배적인 문화 속에서 무관심한 태도는 훨씬 더 심각한 문제입니다. 따라서 슬픔을 다루려면, 그것이 건강하고 정당하다는 것을 인정해야 합니다.
Q7. 한국의 사회정치적인 일들을 이야기해 보고자 합니다. 최근 한국에선 오랜 입법 운동과 논의 끝에 개식용 종식 특별법이 통과되고 시행 중입니다. 저희 단체에서는 개를 넘어, 닭, 돼지, 소 등 다양한 동물을 대상으로 하는 축산업을 종식시키고자 노력하고 있습니다. 이러한 목표를 달성하기 위해선 어떤 전략이나 아이디어가 필요할지, 오랫동안 비거니즘 운동을 이어온 선생님의 의견이 궁금합니다.
| 정말 큰 질문이고, 간단한 답은 없는 것 같아요. 왜냐하면 각 문화는 독특하고, 그만큼 다양한 과제를 가지고 있기 때문에 각각에 맞는 접근법이 필요합니다.
저는 동물 운동에서 다른 사회 운동과 함께 연대하고, 최대한 협력하는 것이 정말 중요하다고 생각합니다. 제가 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》라는 책을 쓴 이유 중 하나는 동물 정의(animal justice)를 운동의 영역에 포함하기 위해서였습니다. 여기서 동물 정의는 ‘동물 해방’, ‘동물 권리’, ‘동물 옹호’ 등을 모두 포괄하는 용어라고 할 수 있습니다.
인간의 권리, 사회적 정의, 기후 정의를 위해 일하는 사람들이 동물 정의가 이들과 깊이 연결된 문제라는 점을 인식하는 것이 매우 중요합니다. 하나가 없이는 다른 하나도 온전히 실현될 수 없기 때문입니다. 다른 사회 운동들에 대해 배우는 것이 중요한 이유는 이를 바탕으로 다른 운동을 지지하고 우리와 연결할 수 있기 때문입니다.
또한, 축산업 문제를 끝내는 것은 다른 “이즘(isms)”들을 종식하려는 사람들의 지원 없이 어렵다는 점을 인정해야 합니다. 육식주의는 하나의 ‘이즘’으로 볼 수 있으며, 이는 억압의 한 축과도 같습니다. 공장식 축산이 농장 동물뿐만 아니라 인간과 환경에 끼치는 해악까지 이해한다면, 우리는 더 많은 연대와 협력을 만들어낼 수 있을 거예요.
꼭 비건이 아니더라도, 동물권 운동에 함께할 수 있다는 점을 알리는 것도 중요해요. “당신이 완전히 식단을 바꾸지 않아도, 우리를 지지할 수 있어요”라고 말하는 것이죠. 이렇게 열린 태도는 더 많은 사람을 이 운동으로 초대하고, 함께 연대할 수 있는 기반을 만들어줄 거예요.
Q8. 연대와 동맹을 형성하는 데 있어 우리와 타자를 연결하는 다리를 건설하는 것, 공동의 이해를 찾는 것이 굉장히 중요하군요.
맞아요, 사람들이 비거니즘을 더 쉽게 지지할 수 있도록 만드는 건 정말 중요해요. 지금 비건 운동에서 자주 들리는 메시지는 “비건이 아니면 문제의 일부이고, 비건이 되지 않으면 해결의 일부가 될 수 없다”는 식이에요. 하지만 많은 사람들은 아직 완전히 비건이 될 준비가 안 됐거나, 그렇게 할 생각이 없기 때문에 “그럼 나는 이 운동을 돕지 않을래” 하고 마음을 닫아버리게 됩니다.
어떤 비건들은 고기를 먹는 사람을 위선자라고 부르기도 해요. 하지만 이건 큰 문제예요. 현재 전 세계 인구 중 비건은 약 1%에 불과해요. 모두가 비건이 될 필요는 없어요. 단지, ‘비건 세상’을 만들기 위해 열심히 활동할 비건이 충분히 많아지면 되는 거예요.
우리는 비건이 아니어도 동물권 운동에 참여할 수 있도록 문을 열어줘야 해요. 동물을 위해 가장 많은 영향을 미친 사람들의 일부는 비건이 아니었어요. BBC나 글로브 같은 큰 언론사에서 육식주의와 비건에 대해 보도해 수십만 명에게 메시지를 전한 기자들이 그랬죠. 우리 단체 기부자 일부도 비건이 아니지만 이 운동을 진심으로 지지하고 싶어 하죠.
우리는 사람들이 이 운동을 돕는 걸 더 쉽고 자연스럽게 느끼도록 해야 해요. 연구에 따르면 대부분의 사람은 공장식 축산에 반대하고 있어요. 지금 우리가 소비하는 동물성 제품의 약 95%가 바로 이 방식으로 생산되고 있죠. 사람들에게 공장식 축산을 없애는 데 함께하자고 말하는 건, 매우 현실적이고 많은 사람이 공감할 수 있는 요청이에요.
Q9. 마지막으로, 한국에서 비거니즘을 실천하고 있는 당신의 친구들에게 지지와 격려가 담긴 메시지를 남겨주세요.
저는 2015년에 한국을 방문했었고, 그때 활동가들에게 큰 영감을 받았습니다. 당시 비건 운동은 아직 초기 단계였고, 점차 성장하는 중이었어요. 지금은 그때보다 많이 성장했다고 들었습니다. 물론 아직 주류 운동이 아니고, 한국에서 비건으로 산다는 것에 큰 어려움이 따른다는 것도 알고 있습니다. 오해받고, 고립감을 느끼고, 우리가 언급한 감정들로 인해 혼자라고 느끼는 경우가 많을 거예요.
그래서 두 가지 말씀을 드리고 싶습니다. 첫째, 오늘날 한국에서 비건으로 사는 모든 분은 개척자입니다. 개척자가 되는 것은 정말 어려워요. 매일 자신이 생각하는 진실에 따라 살아가는 것은 엄청난 용기와 확신이 필요하죠. 특히 사회적 압박이 크고, 자신이 하는 일에 대한 사회적 무지가 팽배한 상황에서는 더욱 그렇습니다.
둘째, 당신의 일이 얼마나 중요한지 과소평가하지 마세요. 한국에서 비건으로 살고, 비거니즘을 알리고 있다면, 정말 어려운 일을 하고 계신 겁니다. 여러분은 자랑스러워하셔도 됩니다. 여러분 덕분에 동물들이 도움을 받고 있을 뿐 아니라, 다음 세대의 비건들은 여러분 덕분에 아주 다른 삶을 살게 될 것입니다. 내일의 비건들은 오늘의 비건들처럼 고통받지 않을 거예요. 마치 오늘날의 여성들이 50년 전 여성들과는 전혀 다른 삶을 살고 있는 것처럼요. 이는 당시 모든 어려움을 감수하며 노력했던 페미니스트들 덕분이지요.
여러분의 노력에 감사드립니다.
살리는 대화, 살림터뷰 더보기
정치학을 가르치고, 정치 과정 속 동물의 민주적 대표성의 실현을 고민하는 영국 정치학자 앨러스데어 코크런. 동물 보호와 복지의 언어를 넘어, 인간과 비인간 동물의 이익을 함께 고려하는 정치를 고민하는 이야기가 궁금하다면? 지금 앨러스데어 코크런과의 대화를 확인해 보세요!
Interview with Melanie Joy
Q1. Could you share your recent areas of interest & research topics?
| So I have a new website that we recently launched from my organization <Beyond Carnism> and it's called It's <Infighting.org>. And you know I don't know what the situation in South Korea is like but in many countries around the world, vegans are struggling to communicate with and relate to other vegans in a way that is effective. And you know so we see for example vegan advocates attacking each other sometimes online or vegans who are working in teams together not communicating or collaborating effectively. And this is taking a lot of energy out of the movement.
And so we launched <Infighting.org> to talk about this problem and how to work to heal and repair this problem. It is connected to my newest book or my most recently published book which is called 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》. This book is about the psychology of injustice. It's basically like what I wrote about in 《Why We love Dogs Eat Pigs and Wear Cows》. And so basically the book explains how the same psychology that causes us to exploit non-human animals, you know farmed animals is the psychology that causes us to exploit and abuse women and you know people who are disadvantaged for various reasons and the environment. This is also the same psychology that causes us to fight each other as vegans instead of to work together more collaboratively.
Q2. I am also wondering why did you write the book 《Beyond Belief》.
| I had been giving talks about carnism — which is the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals — and the psychology of eating animals for a long time. And many people, thousands of people, you know, I was giving talks all over the world and also trainings to vegans on how to advocate more effectively, how to communicate about veganism more effectively.
And after my talks and workshops, people were telling me over and over again — many vegans were coming to me and saying — that the choice to become vegan was one of the most important and empowering choices of their lives. But their sense of empowerment and inspiration quickly turned to shock and horror when they discovered that their relationships and communication were breaking down, and they were thinking like, what's going on?
And so I realized — and I was also a longtime relationship coach, I had been working in the relationship space for a very long time at this point — and I realized that this relationship and communication breakdown that was happening with vegans so often was causing a lot of suffering to vegans, and it was also taking a lot of energy out of the vegan movement.
We know that healthy relationships are essential for people to thrive. People in healthy, connected relationships basically do better in every aspect of life. They are more successful at what they set out to do, they're less at risk for mental health problems and physical health problems, and so on. And yet, vegans were losing so many of their important relationships and getting more and more frustrated, more and more exhausted, and more and more misanthropic — and that word, I don't know how easily that translates, but misanthropy is a dislike or hatred of humanity — more and more angry. And so vegans were becoming not very good ambassadors for the cause.
And so I decided to write this book for vegans in relationships, to really help them understand — and a book they could give to non-vegans in their life — so they could really understand what causes this breakdown and what are some of the tools to repair it.
Q3. I understand that practicing veganism often involves conflict and confrontation, and sometimes even losing people we care about. Why do you think these conflicts arise?
| So there are three main reasons. One reason is because vegans are people, and people in general do not get any formal training in how to have healthy relationships and how to communicate effectively. So, you know, I often say that it's shocking to me that most of us have to learn complicated geometry that we might never need to use, and we don't get a single formal lesson in how to be healthy relational beings and how to communicate effectively. And so most people struggle in relationships and communication. Most people, when they have a difference of opinion or a difference of need from another person, end up in a conflict, in an argument. When the stakes are even higher — when we're talking about an issue that's ethical and that's about life or death — it becomes even more difficult to have these conversations. So one reason that we have such conflict among vegans and non-vegans is because vegans are people, and people don't have formal training in how to navigate differences and conflict.
Another reason is because of the psychology of eating animals. This is what I call the psychology of carnism. When people are not vegan or not really aware of what veganism is and what it means, they are looking at the world through the lens of carnism — the invisible belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals. They have inside of their minds a certain psychology or a mentality that is designed to make them defensive against anyone or anything that challenges their right to eat animals or their comfort eating animals. So that's an automatic — you know, many vegans have this experience: all you have to say is “I'm vegan,” and it's like boom, this wall goes up. Or suddenly you start getting attacked. Or, you know, you can share facts with people and they'll start debating you even though they know nothing about the issue. Suddenly they become experts on veganism, and, you know, they call you biased when you're explaining how the dominant carnistic system is biased. So there's this mentality of non-vegans that causes defensiveness and that causes conflict and makes it very difficult to have a conversation. When we understand this mentality and how to communicate around it, we're in a much better position.
The third reason for such relationship and communication breakdown is that vegans also have a certain psychology that can make it very difficult for us to communicate effectively about veganism. And when we become vegan — most of us anyway, many, many people — we wake up to the fact, it's like we were asleep, and we wake up to the fact that we are living in the middle of a global atrocity, a global catastrophe. For many people, this is a traumatic experience; it's a shock. And then we start learning more about what's happening to the animals in the world and to the planet, and we become more shocked and more horrified and more and more traumatized, and we feel this incredible sense of urgency to change the world and end the suffering. This is all normal — it's normal. And even though it's normal, it can cause us to become dysregulated. You're dysregulated when your nervous system is out of balance.
We can start to feel this tightness inside of us and become very reactive, and we can start to feel a little bit like, you know, desperate when the people around us — our friends and our family, who we know are good people — we see them acting in ways that are compassionate, maybe to our family dog or to other people, suddenly put up this wall and tell us something's wrong with us because we're trying to help them understand that compassion for farmed animals is no different than compassion for dogs and cats and humans. So this psychology and this level of trauma — and we can talk about this later — but many vegans have become traumatized from what we become aware of, and then we continue to watch these videos and to see these graphic images, and we become more traumatized. And this trauma inside of us keeps us dysregulated, and that makes it really hard for us to have conversations with people, because the conversation can get very intense very quickly.
So these are the three main reasons that relationships and communication break down between vegans and non-vegans. In my experience, the good news is that it does not have to be this way. When we understand how to change the way we relate and take care of ourselves and the psychology of carnism, we can really change a lot of our relationships.
Q4. Personal experience seems to play a crucial role in recognizing the realities of meat-eating culture. How can we help our non-vegan friends become more aware of the problems of carnism?
| Well, that is a really great question, and I would say, number one: we can't really make anybody do anything. So many vegans — what we can do, right? All we can do — we can't force somebody to change. All we can do is communicate in a way that increases the chances that people will hear our message. That's all we can do.
And I would say to vegans watching this now, many vegans, what happens is that it's very painful when you lose your sense when the people around you are resistant to this message, and when you start having these conflicts. Many vegans discover that they can't feel connected to the people in their lives that they used to be connected with, and disconnection is painful. And so, in order to fix the problem, many vegans believe, “I need to make you vegan.” When you're a vegan, then we will be connected again and we will stop arguing. Often, that doesn't work.
Most people watching this probably know: the more you try to make the people in your life vegan, the more they resist your veganism. That often happens. And so the key is to remember that, you know, you can be connected with people even if they're not vegan. The key is to, instead of asking the people in your life to become vegan, ask them to become an ally to you — a vegan ally. And you don't have to use this term, but I recommend saying to the people in your life, “Listen, I would really love to share information about veganism with you — not to change you, but to help you understand me. It's important to me that you understand enough about veganism, because veganism is so important in my life, so you understand why I care about this so much, why I don't eat animals, why it hurts me to see dead animals on the table. I'm not trying to change you, I just want you to understand me, so I would love to share some information with you.”
So this way, you know, what many vegans discover is that when the people in their lives become what I call a vegan ally — somebody who's not vegan but they support vegans and they support veganism — the relationship changes. So, for example, in my life, with my family — some of them are now vegan, many of them are not — but in the early days, nobody was vegan. But they said, “Hey Melany, we're not vegan, but we understand why you are, and we really respect what you're doing.” We don't feel like we're ready to do that yet, but we really respect what you are doing. And they didn't tease me, they didn't put me down, they always made sure to have vegan food for me, and I felt very respected.
Q5. We’d also like to share a bit of our own experience. We run a sanctuary for five Holstein cows, and through this work, we’ve come to realize that it's possible to build solidarity even with those we once considered adversaries—such as livestock farmers. After all, they often have deep knowledge of the animals’ personalities and behaviors. Given this, what kinds of strategies might be effective in bringing people who don’t yet practice veganism into our movement?
| It's so wonderful what you've done, and the fact that, you know, you're making such a really important point — which is finding common ground. Because the problem that we have is usually not our difference of belief, right? The problem is usually not so much veganism versus carnism. Underneath these differences, underneath our ideologies and our beliefs, is a relationship between people. And that's what you're talking about — like, how do we create a relationship where we can be open to talk to each other in a way that's respectful and connecting? And finding common ground is an important way to do that.
So it's really important to build — and I believe this is true for everybody in the world, not just vegans, especially for vegans because we're trying to change the problems in the world — so it's important to build what I call relational literacy. That's the understanding of, and ability to practice, healthy ways of relating.
And relational literacy is not complicated. You know, it's based on a lot of principles and practices, but it's very basic tools and skills that anybody can learn if they want to learn them. We have resources on our website. I wrote a whole book on practicing relational literacy called Getting Relationships Right. I talk about that, and also in Beyond Beliefs. When you learn to communicate with a person in a way that honors their dignity — that says, like, “I see you as another being on this planet; I'm not going to try to shame you; I'm not going to judge you to the best of my ability, and I'm open to your perspective” — that can change a lot in our communication.
So often when we're communicating, you know, we overfocus on the content of a communication — that's what we're talking about. We try to think about how to get the words right and how to get the facts right, and we underfocus on what's called the process of communication. The content is what we're talking about; the process is how we are communicating — and the process matters more. So if you think about a conversation you had, like, six months ago or a year ago, it's possible that you forgot the whole content. You don't even remember what you talked about. But you probably still remember how you felt in that conversation. The process determines how you feel.
When your process is healthy, that means you are looking at the other person, you're honoring their dignity, you are not seeing them as an inferior person in some way, and you're communicating respectfully. I can talk more about this if you want. When your process is healthy, you can talk about anything without arguing — if the other person is willing to do that too. And when your process is not healthy, you can't talk about anything without arguing.
So it's really — for vegans, I think it's really important to build relational literacy skills, which are very much focused on communication. Communication is the primary way we relate. And also to remember that for many people in the world, it doesn't feel possible to become vegan or to just go vegan — it's the people in your life or the farmers that you're talking about. For many people, going vegan is asking too much.
What we can do, though, is we need to not think that either you're vegan and you're part of the solution, or you're not vegan and you're part of the problem — but we give people different ways to be a part of the solution. You can become a donor, and you can change the way that you do farming. There are lots of things you can do to be part of the solution.
Q6. Even when we know how to communicate with non-vegans, the feelings of sadness or loneliness that often come with those conversations don't seem to go away. How can we care for and manage these emotions while continuing this work?
| You are right, vegans feel a lot of grief and a lot of sadness, and I think that’s normal and that’s healthy. I think it’s really important to realize that. So let me talk briefly about carnism, you know, because for vegans who are not familiar with this, understanding carnism can really help you heal as a vegan in some ways.
Carnism, as I said, is the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals, and it’s organized around a set of defense mechanisms. These are psychological defenses that distort people’s perceptions so that they disconnect from their empathy for farmed animals and act against their value of compassion or their value of justice without even realizing what they’re doing. So they can pet their dog and eat a cheeseburger at the same time and not see a contradiction in those behaviors.
Now, carnism keeps itself alive — like other unjust systems — it keeps itself alive by keeping this mentality alive, and this mentality distorts people’s perceptions also of vegans — of anything that challenges the carnistic mentality. And one of the ways that happens is through causing people to believe in negative stereotypes of vegans.
So, for example, when a vegan challenges the bias of the dominant culture, they're called biased. You know, as I said earlier, people don’t realize that whenever we study nutrition, we actually study carnistic nutrition, because carnism is the dominant system. Carnism causes us to stereotype vegans as well by thinking of vegans or perceiving vegans as overly emotional, as sentimental, as too when we're like, you know, too sensitive. And maybe you hear this, you know, as well — “Oh, you sensitive animal lovers,” or whatever.
Well, a person who’s overly emotional or too sensitive is not rational, and a person who’s not rational is not worth being listened to. So thinking of vegans as overly emotional is a way of shutting down the vegan message. It’s a form of what we say in English: “shoot the messenger.” If you shoot the messenger, you don’t have to take seriously the implications of their message.
And this same negative stereotype was used to silence feminists who were advocating for women’s right to vote, who were called hysterical and overly emotional. It was used to silence anti-slavery abolitionists, who were called sentimentalists because they were fighting against slavery, right?
So what happens — and one of the reasons that vegans can struggle with our grief — is because we believe in these negative stereotypes. We think something’s wrong with us when we feel sadness and when we feel grief — “Oh, I shouldn’t be feeling this way.” We need to realize that the emotion of grief and sadness is healthy. It’s a healthy, normal response to the atrocity of carnism.
A much bigger problem is the fact that people don’t feel grief. A much bigger problem is, like, the numbing and apathy of the dominant culture — that is much more psychologically problematic.
So to handle our grief, we need to acknowledge that it’s healthy and it’s legitimate. And we need to — vegans need to — protect ourselves against overwitnessing. So many vegans keep watching these terrible videos of animals being slaughtered, and they keep looking at the graphic images and telling each other about them, and this is causing us — it’s feeding our trauma, it’s causing us to feel worse and worse.
Don’t look at those things. Don’t hear about those things if you don’t absolutely have to for your job — and even then, be very limited in doing that. You have to protect yourself, because otherwise the trauma is too much.
Q7. I would like to talk about some sociopolitical things in South Korea. Recently, after a long period of legislative campaigning and public debate, a special law to end dog meat was passed and is now being implemented. Our organization is working to go beyond dogs and bring an end to the animal farming industry as a whole, including chickens, pigs, and cows.
To achieve this goal, I would love to hear your thoughts—what strategies or ideas do you think are necessary, based on your long experience in the veganism movement?
| Yeah, I mean that's a really big question, and I don't have any easy answers to that because, you know, every culture is unique and has unique challenges and therefore requires a unique approach.
Um, it is, I think, really important to work together to the best of our ability, you know, in the animal advocacy movement with other movements that are aligned with us. One of the reasons I wrote my book 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》 was to help put animal justice — which is the phrase that I use for, you know, you might say animal liberation, animal rights, animal advocacy, however you want to put it — you know, I think they all fall under this umbrella of animal justice, you know, justice for animals. I think it's really important for us to help put animal justice on the map of justice movements so that people who are working for human rights, or justice for humans, social justice, and for climate justice recognize that justice for animals is an intimately interconnected cause, and we can't really have one without the other.
So one thing that's important is to learn about other movements — other justice movements — so that we as vegans are informed and we can support those movements, maybe not as advocates because we only have so much time, but certainly in our messaging.
And many vegans unfortunately do things that are problematic for other movements. So, for example, in the United States — sometimes in many places actually — you know, using images of women who are objectified, women in bikinis or objectified women to promote animal rights turns off feminists and people who really understand social justice, instead of building bridges.
So if we understand, you know, the needs and the experiences and the values underlying other justice movements, we're better able to unify with them and work together and invite them into our movement.
And also to recognize that — like, I think a big barrier to us creating these bridges and these alliances that we need to create — because carnism is going to be hard to end without the support of people who are working to end other isms. It’s one ism, you know — you can say it’s a spoke on a wheel — understand sort of the nature of carnism and how it gets expressed, and see the ways that factory farming and animal farming is harming not only farmed animals but humans and the environment, so that we can create these alliances.
And to make sure that we don’t have this idea that if you’re not vegan, you cannot be part of the movement to end animal farming. And that's a big barrier to our movement. I believe we need to be able to invite people in and say, I think a lot of people would support the work that we do if they didn’t think they have to completely change their own diet.
Q8. It’s clear that in building solidarity and alliances, constructing bridges that connect us with others and finding common ground is extremely important!
Yeah, totally — and making it easier for people to support veganism. Because right now, a lot of vegan messaging says, “If you're not vegan, you are part of the problem. You can't be part of the solution unless you're vegan.” And for many people, they are not ready or willing to become totally vegan, so they throw up their hands and say, “Okay, you know, I'm not going to help this movement.”
People — you know, vegans — call people hypocrites if they eat animals and are also trying to help the cause. That's a big problem. I mean, right now vegans are only like one percent of the global population, and we don't need everybody to become vegan to create a vegan world — we just need enough people to be vegan enough.
And when we invite people in to be allies, we invite them to use their influence however they can, even if they're not vegan. So, for example, some of the people in my experience who have done the most for animals are non-vegans. They're journalists who write for, you know, like the BBC or, you know, The Globe or whatever — you know, El País, like huge newspapers — and they publish articles about carnism and veganism that reach hundreds of thousands of people. And they're not vegan, but they want to help. Some of the people who donate to vegan organizations like mine are not vegan, but they want to help.
So we need to make it easier for people to help this cause. And most people — you know, studies have shown — most people are against, at least, they're against factory farming. And factory farming is where, like, something like 95 percent of carnistic products come from. So asking people to help end factory farming is a very reasonable ask to the mainstream population.
Q9. Finally, could you share a message of encouragement and support for your friends who are practicing veganism in South Korea?
Absolutely, as I said, I was in South Korea a number of years ago — I'm pretty sure it was 2015 — and I was very inspired by the activists I met there. What I saw there was that the movement was young and it was starting to grow, and I know it's grown — I've heard that it's grown a lot since then. And it is still very not mainstream, of course. You know, being a vegan — I know in South Korea — comes with a price, you know: feeling misunderstood, feeling isolated, and, you know, feeling alone with some of these emotions that we talked about.
So I want to say a couple of things.
Number one, anybody who is a vegan in South Korea today is a pioneer. You know, a pioneer is somebody who is leading a movement. They are on the front lines of critical change. It is really difficult to be a pioneer. It takes so much courage, it takes so much conviction to be able to get up every day and live your truth when there's so much social pressure and so much social ignorance as to what you're doing.
So if you're a vegan today, you're promoting veganism today in South Korea, you are doing a job that is very difficult and that is so important. And don't underestimate the importance of what you're doing. And I think you should be very proud of yourself, because not only are animals being helped, but vegans of the next generation are going to have very different lives because of you. Vegans tomorrow are not going to suffer like vegans today — just like women today have a very different life than they did 50 years ago, thanks to the feminists who did all the hard work.
So I just thank you.
살림터뷰 ⑤
비건 아니면 안 된다?
좌절하지 않고
비거니즘 실천하기
해방정치연구소 2025. 09. 26
<살리는 대화, 살림터뷰>
지구라는 유한한 행성에서 인간과 비인간, 사회와 환경은 복잡하게 얽혀 살고 있습니다. 기후생태 위기의 시대, ‘살리는 대화’는 그 얽힘 속에서 변화의 가능성을 고민하고 연구하는 이들의 이야기를 담습니다. ‘착취’아닌 ‘돌봄’으로, ‘구획’이 아닌 ‘연결’로 바라보는 세계를 탐색합니다. 인간이 그어놓은 경계를 넘나들며 시대에 필요한 질문들을 던지고 더 나은 공생을 위한 실마리를 함께 찾아갑니다.
인터뷰이 소개
멜라니 조이는 사회 심리학자이자 비거니즘 운동가이다. 육식주의(Carnism)이란 개념을 만들고, 육식주의에 대항하는 단체 <Beyond Carnism>을 창립했다. 육식주의의 문제를 알리기 위해 대중 강연에 나서며, 2013년 비폭력과 불상생 원칙을 지키는 사람에게 수여하는 아힘사상을 수상했다. 그녀의 책 《우리는 왜 개는 사랑하고 돼지는 먹고 소는 신을까》는 육식주의를 지탱하는 주요한 믿음 체계를 분석한다. 또한 《나의 친애하는 비건 친구들에게(Beyond Belief)》 라는 책을 통해 각자의 신념을 넘어 채식주의자가 채식을 실천하지 않는 사람들과 어떻게 관계를 맺고 소통할 수 있는지에 대해 이야기한다.
멜라니 조이 인터뷰
Q1. 당신의 최근 관심이나 연구 분야는 무엇인가요?
| 세계 여러 나라에서 비건들이 서로 소통하거나 협력하는 데 큰 어려움을 겪고 있어요. 예를 들어, 비건끼리 온라인상에서 서로 비난하거나, 같은 팀에서 일하면서 갈등이 생기기도 하죠. 이런 갈등은 운동의 에너지를 많이 소모하게 만듭니다.
저는 이 문제를 해결하기 위한 방법을 찾고자 웹사이트(Infighting.org)를 만들었어요. 이 웹사이트는 제가 최근 출간한 책 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》와도 연결되어 있습니다. 이 책은 부당함에 대한 인간의 심리를 다루고 있는데요, 제가 쓴 《우리는 왜 개는 사랑하고 돼지는 먹고 소는 신을까》와도 주제가 닿아 있어요. 특히 이 책은 우리가 비인간 동물—특히 농장 동물—을 착취하는 심리가 여성이나 사회적 약자, 그리고 환경을 억압하고 착취하는 심리와 동일하다고 설명합니다.
Q2. 《나의 친애하는 비건 친구들에게》라는 책을 쓰게 된 계기도 궁금합니다.
| 저는 오랜 시간 동안 육식주의(carnism)—특정 동물을 먹도록 만드는 보이지 않는 신념 체계와 심리—에 대해 이야기해 왔습니다. 전 세계를 돌며 수천 명에게 비거니즘과 효과적인 소통 방법에 대해 교육해 왔죠.
강연이 끝난 뒤, 많은 비건이 이렇게 말하곤 했습니다. “비건이 되기로 한 건 제 인생에서 가장 중요하고 힘이 되는 결정이었어요. 하지만 그 이후 소중한 관계들이 무너졌고, 충격과 혼란을 느꼈어요.” 저는 오랫동안 관계 상담가로 활동하며, 비건 실천 이후 많은 사람이 관계 속에서 깊은 소통의 어려움을 겪고 있다는 걸 알게 되었습니다. 비건 개인에게 큰 고통을 줄 뿐 아니라, 비거니즘 운동의 에너지도 소모는 중요한 문제였습니다.
이 책은 비건들이 관계 속에서 겪는 어려움을 이해하고, 이를 치유하고 개선해 갈 수 있도록 돕는 도구를 제공합니다. 또한 논비건 친구나 가족에게도 선물할 수 있도록, 관계 회복의 가교가 될 수 있는 책을 만들고자 했습니다.
Q3. 비거니즘을 실천하며 충돌과 갈등을 마주하고, 소중한 사람들을 잃기도 한다는 것에 공감합니다. 그렇다면 이러한 갈등은 왜 발생할까요?
| 비건과 논비건의 관계가 무너지고 소통이 어려워지는 데는 세 가지 주요한 원인이 있습니다.
첫째, 비건도 결국 사람이기 때문에 관계와 소통에 어려움을 겪습니다. 대부분의 사람은 건강한 관계를 맺고 갈등을 효과적으로 해결하는 법을 배우지 못한 채 살아갑니다. 그래서 ‘윤리’나 ‘생존’ 같은 민감한 주제가 오갈 때, 대화는 더 격해지기 쉽습니다. 비건과 논비건 간의 갈등 역시 이런 배경에서 비롯됩니다.
둘째, 육식주의(carnism)라는 보이지 않는 신념 체계가 작용합니다. 대부분의 논비건은 동물을 먹는 것이 자연스럽다고 여기는 문화적 조건 속에서 살아갑니다. 이 체계는 그들이 동물을 먹는 권리나 익숙함이 위협받을 때, 즉각적인 방어 반응을 일으키게 만듭니다.
셋째, 비건들도 특정 심리적 어려움을 겪습니다. 많은 비건이 세상의 잔혹한 현실을 깨닫고, 깊은 충격과 트라우마를 경험합니다. 이는 긴장과 분노, 절망으로 이어지며, 정신적 불안정 상태를 만들 수 있습니다. 특히 가까운 사람들이 축산 동물에겐 무관심한 태도를 보일 때, 비건은 좌절감과 고립감을 느낍니다.
요약하자면, 비건과 논비건 간의 관계가 어려운 이유는 첫째, 갈등 해결 교육의 부재, 둘째, 육식주의의 방어적 심리, 셋째, 비건의 심리적 불안정성 때문입니다. 하지만 우리는 이런 패턴을 바꿀 수 있습니다. 자신을 돌보고, 관계와 소통 방식을 배우며, 육식주의 심리를 이해하는 법을 익힌다면, 더 깊고 의미 있는 관계를 만들어갈 수 있습니다.
Q4. 사람들이 육식주의를 깨닫는 데에 개인적 경험은 매우 중요한 것 같습니다. 어떻게 우리의 논비건 친구들이 육식주의의 문제를 깨닫게 할 수 있을까요?
| 정말 좋은 질문인데요, 저는 이렇게 말씀드리고 싶어요. 우리는 사실 누구에게 무엇을 하도록 강요할 수 없습니다. 우리가 할 수 있는 유일한 일은 사람들이 우리의 메시지를 들을 가능성을 높이는 방식으로 소통하는 것이에요.
지금, 이 글을 읽고 계신 비건들에게 말씀드리고 싶은 것은, 사랑했던 사람들과의 연결이 끊어지는 건 굉장히 슬픈 일이지만, 이를 해결하기 위해 “당신이 비건이 되어야 우리가 다시 연결될 수 있다”라고 생각할 필요는 없다는 것입니다. “당신이 비건이 된다면 우리가 더 이상 싸우지 않을 것이다”라는 생각은 대체로 효과가 없습니다.
주변 사람들을 비건으로 만들려 하면 할수록, 그들은 비거니즘에 저항할 것입니다. 중요한 것은 비건이 아닌 사람들과도 연결될 수 있다는 것입니다. 핵심은 주변 사람들에게 비건이 되라고 요구하는 대신, 그들이 당신의 지지자가 되도록 요청하는 것입니다. 저는 다음과 같이 말하는 것을 추천합니다.
“당신과 비거니즘에 관한 이야기를 공유하고 싶어요. 당신을 바꾸기 위해서가 아니라, 비건이 내 삶에서 얼마나 중요한지 당신이 알아주길 바라기 때문이에요. 왜 내가 동물을 먹지 않는지, 왜 테이블 위에 놓인 죽은 동물을 보면 아픈지 이해해 줬으면 좋겠어요. 당신을 바꾸려는 게 아니라, 단지 내가 왜 이렇게 느끼는지 알려주고 싶어요.”
Q5. 동물해방물결은 홀스타인 소 5명을 위한 생추어리를 운영하고 있습니다. 그 과정에서, ‘적’이라고 여겼던 축산업자들과도 연대할 수 있음을 느꼈습니다. 다른 한편에서 소들의 습성이나 성격을 잘 알고 있는 사람들이니까요. 그렇다면 비거니즘을 실천하지 않는 사람들을 우리의 편으로 포섭하기 위해선 어떤 전략이 필요할까요?
| 여러분이 해오신 일들은 정말 멋지고, 공통점을 찾는 것이 얼마나 중요한지를 잘 보여주고 있습니다. 사실 우리가 겪는 문제는 믿음의 차이뿐만이 아닙니다. 비거니즘과 육식주의의 대립이 아니라, 이러한 신념 아래에 자리 잡은 사람들의 관계입니다. 서로를 존중하고 대화할 수 있는 관계를 어떻게 만들어갈 것인지가 핵심입니다. 공통점을 찾는 것은 가장 중요한 방법이겠죠.
저는 전 세계 모든 사람에게, 특히 세상을 바꾸려는 비건들에게 이런 접근이 매우 중요하다고 생각해요. 저는 관계적 문해력(relational literacy)을 구축하는 것이 중요하다고 생각하는데요. 관계적 문해력은 복잡하지 않습니다. 타인의 존엄성을 존중하며 소통할 때, 즉 “나는 당신을 이 지구에 있는 또 다른 존재로 보고, 당신을 부끄럽게 하거나 판단하지 않을 것이며, 당신의 관점에 열려 있다”라고 전달할 때, 우리의 대화는 크게 변화할 수 있습니다.
저는 비건들이 관계적 문해력을 키우는 것이 매우 중요하다고 생각합니다. 또한, 세상에 있는 많은 사람에게는 비건이 되는 것이 어려운 일처럼 느껴진다는 점을 기억하는 것도 중요합니다. 축산업자들이나 주변의 사람들에게는 비건이 되라는 요구가 매우 큰 부담으로 다가올 수 있습니다. “당신이 비건이 되어야만 해결될 수 있다”라거나 “비건이 아닌 것이 문제다”라고 생각해서는 안 됩니다. 대신, 사람들에게 해결책이 될 수 있는 다양한 방법을 제시하는 것이 중요합니다. 기부자가 되거나 축산업 방식을 바꾸는 등의 방법으로도 해결책 일부가 될 수 있겠죠.
Q6. 우리가 논비건인 사람들과 소통하는 방법을 알아도, 그들과 소통하면서 느끼는 슬픔이나 외로움 같은 감정은 사라지지 않는 것 같습니다. 이런 감정들은 어떻게 잘 다룰 수 있을까요?
| 비건들이 슬픔과 고통을 느끼는 것은 건강한 반응이라는 점을 인식하는 것이 중요합니다. 육식주의는 사람들이 특정 동물을 먹도록 조건화하는 보이지 않는 신념 체계입니다. 이 신념 체계는 일련의 방어 메커니즘을 중심으로 조직화되어 있습니다. 이 방어 메커니즘은 사람들의 인식을 왜곡하여, 축산 피해 동물에 대한 공감에서 멀어지게 하고, 정의라는 가치에 반하는 행동을 하게 만듭니다. 그리고 자신이 무엇을 하고 있는지조차 깨닫지 못하게 하죠. 반려동물을 애지중지하면서도 치즈버거를 먹는 행동 사이의 모순을 보지 못합니다.
육식주의는 이러한 심리적 메커니즘을 유지하며 생존합니다. 이 심리적 메커니즘 중 하나는 비건에 대한 부정적인 고정관념을 심어주는 것입니다. 비건들이 육식주의에 대해 도전하면, 오히려 비건들이 편향적이라고 비난받습니다. 육식주의는 비건을 지나치게 감정적이고, 예민하다고 생각하도록 만듭니다.
이러한 부정적인 고정관념은 과거에도 여성의 참정권을 주장했던 페미니스트들을 “히스테릭”하다며 침묵시키는 데 사용되었고, 노예제 폐지를 주장했던 운동가들을 “감상적”이라며 무시하는 데 사용되었습니다. 비건들이 슬픔을 다루기 어려워하는 이유 중 하나는 이런 부정적인 고정관념을 내면화했기 때문이에요. 우리가 슬픔과 고통을 느끼는 것은 건강하고 정상적인 반응입니다. 문제는 오히려 슬픔을 느끼지 않는 것이죠. 지배적인 문화 속에서 무관심한 태도는 훨씬 더 심각한 문제입니다. 따라서 슬픔을 다루려면, 그것이 건강하고 정당하다는 것을 인정해야 합니다.
Q7. 한국의 사회정치적인 일들을 이야기해 보고자 합니다. 최근 한국에선 오랜 입법 운동과 논의 끝에 개식용 종식 특별법이 통과되고 시행 중입니다. 저희 단체에서는 개를 넘어, 닭, 돼지, 소 등 다양한 동물을 대상으로 하는 축산업을 종식시키고자 노력하고 있습니다. 이러한 목표를 달성하기 위해선 어떤 전략이나 아이디어가 필요할지, 오랫동안 비거니즘 운동을 이어온 선생님의 의견이 궁금합니다.
| 정말 큰 질문이고, 간단한 답은 없는 것 같아요. 왜냐하면 각 문화는 독특하고, 그만큼 다양한 과제를 가지고 있기 때문에 각각에 맞는 접근법이 필요합니다.
저는 동물 운동에서 다른 사회 운동과 함께 연대하고, 최대한 협력하는 것이 정말 중요하다고 생각합니다. 제가 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》라는 책을 쓴 이유 중 하나는 동물 정의(animal justice)를 운동의 영역에 포함하기 위해서였습니다. 여기서 동물 정의는 ‘동물 해방’, ‘동물 권리’, ‘동물 옹호’ 등을 모두 포괄하는 용어라고 할 수 있습니다.
인간의 권리, 사회적 정의, 기후 정의를 위해 일하는 사람들이 동물 정의가 이들과 깊이 연결된 문제라는 점을 인식하는 것이 매우 중요합니다. 하나가 없이는 다른 하나도 온전히 실현될 수 없기 때문입니다. 다른 사회 운동들에 대해 배우는 것이 중요한 이유는 이를 바탕으로 다른 운동을 지지하고 우리와 연결할 수 있기 때문입니다.
또한, 축산업 문제를 끝내는 것은 다른 “이즘(isms)”들을 종식하려는 사람들의 지원 없이 어렵다는 점을 인정해야 합니다. 육식주의는 하나의 ‘이즘’으로 볼 수 있으며, 이는 억압의 한 축과도 같습니다. 공장식 축산이 농장 동물뿐만 아니라 인간과 환경에 끼치는 해악까지 이해한다면, 우리는 더 많은 연대와 협력을 만들어낼 수 있을 거예요.
꼭 비건이 아니더라도, 동물권 운동에 함께할 수 있다는 점을 알리는 것도 중요해요. “당신이 완전히 식단을 바꾸지 않아도, 우리를 지지할 수 있어요”라고 말하는 것이죠. 이렇게 열린 태도는 더 많은 사람을 이 운동으로 초대하고, 함께 연대할 수 있는 기반을 만들어줄 거예요.
Q8. 연대와 동맹을 형성하는 데 있어 우리와 타자를 연결하는 다리를 건설하는 것, 공동의 이해를 찾는 것이 굉장히 중요하군요.
맞아요, 사람들이 비거니즘을 더 쉽게 지지할 수 있도록 만드는 건 정말 중요해요. 지금 비건 운동에서 자주 들리는 메시지는 “비건이 아니면 문제의 일부이고, 비건이 되지 않으면 해결의 일부가 될 수 없다”는 식이에요. 하지만 많은 사람들은 아직 완전히 비건이 될 준비가 안 됐거나, 그렇게 할 생각이 없기 때문에 “그럼 나는 이 운동을 돕지 않을래” 하고 마음을 닫아버리게 됩니다.
어떤 비건들은 고기를 먹는 사람을 위선자라고 부르기도 해요. 하지만 이건 큰 문제예요. 현재 전 세계 인구 중 비건은 약 1%에 불과해요. 모두가 비건이 될 필요는 없어요. 단지, ‘비건 세상’을 만들기 위해 열심히 활동할 비건이 충분히 많아지면 되는 거예요.
우리는 비건이 아니어도 동물권 운동에 참여할 수 있도록 문을 열어줘야 해요. 동물을 위해 가장 많은 영향을 미친 사람들의 일부는 비건이 아니었어요. BBC나 글로브 같은 큰 언론사에서 육식주의와 비건에 대해 보도해 수십만 명에게 메시지를 전한 기자들이 그랬죠. 우리 단체 기부자 일부도 비건이 아니지만 이 운동을 진심으로 지지하고 싶어 하죠.
우리는 사람들이 이 운동을 돕는 걸 더 쉽고 자연스럽게 느끼도록 해야 해요. 연구에 따르면 대부분의 사람은 공장식 축산에 반대하고 있어요. 지금 우리가 소비하는 동물성 제품의 약 95%가 바로 이 방식으로 생산되고 있죠. 사람들에게 공장식 축산을 없애는 데 함께하자고 말하는 건, 매우 현실적이고 많은 사람이 공감할 수 있는 요청이에요.
Q9. 마지막으로, 한국에서 비거니즘을 실천하고 있는 당신의 친구들에게 지지와 격려가 담긴 메시지를 남겨주세요.
저는 2015년에 한국을 방문했었고, 그때 활동가들에게 큰 영감을 받았습니다. 당시 비건 운동은 아직 초기 단계였고, 점차 성장하는 중이었어요. 지금은 그때보다 많이 성장했다고 들었습니다. 물론 아직 주류 운동이 아니고, 한국에서 비건으로 산다는 것에 큰 어려움이 따른다는 것도 알고 있습니다. 오해받고, 고립감을 느끼고, 우리가 언급한 감정들로 인해 혼자라고 느끼는 경우가 많을 거예요.
그래서 두 가지 말씀을 드리고 싶습니다. 첫째, 오늘날 한국에서 비건으로 사는 모든 분은 개척자입니다. 개척자가 되는 것은 정말 어려워요. 매일 자신이 생각하는 진실에 따라 살아가는 것은 엄청난 용기와 확신이 필요하죠. 특히 사회적 압박이 크고, 자신이 하는 일에 대한 사회적 무지가 팽배한 상황에서는 더욱 그렇습니다.
둘째, 당신의 일이 얼마나 중요한지 과소평가하지 마세요. 한국에서 비건으로 살고, 비거니즘을 알리고 있다면, 정말 어려운 일을 하고 계신 겁니다. 여러분은 자랑스러워하셔도 됩니다. 여러분 덕분에 동물들이 도움을 받고 있을 뿐 아니라, 다음 세대의 비건들은 여러분 덕분에 아주 다른 삶을 살게 될 것입니다. 내일의 비건들은 오늘의 비건들처럼 고통받지 않을 거예요. 마치 오늘날의 여성들이 50년 전 여성들과는 전혀 다른 삶을 살고 있는 것처럼요. 이는 당시 모든 어려움을 감수하며 노력했던 페미니스트들 덕분이지요.
여러분의 노력에 감사드립니다.
살리는 대화, 살림터뷰 더보기
정치학을 가르치고, 정치 과정 속 동물의 민주적 대표성의 실현을 고민하는 영국 정치학자 앨러스데어 코크런. 동물 보호와 복지의 언어를 넘어, 인간과 비인간 동물의 이익을 함께 고려하는 정치를 고민하는 이야기가 궁금하다면? 지금 앨러스데어 코크런과의 대화를 확인해 보세요!
Interview with Melanie Joy
Q1. Could you share your recent areas of interest & research topics?
| So I have a new website that we recently launched from my organization <Beyond Carnism> and it's called It's <Infighting.org>. And you know I don't know what the situation in South Korea is like but in many countries around the world, vegans are struggling to communicate with and relate to other vegans in a way that is effective. And you know so we see for example vegan advocates attacking each other sometimes online or vegans who are working in teams together not communicating or collaborating effectively. And this is taking a lot of energy out of the movement.
And so we launched <Infighting.org> to talk about this problem and how to work to heal and repair this problem. It is connected to my newest book or my most recently published book which is called 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》. This book is about the psychology of injustice. It's basically like what I wrote about in 《Why We love Dogs Eat Pigs and Wear Cows》. And so basically the book explains how the same psychology that causes us to exploit non-human animals, you know farmed animals is the psychology that causes us to exploit and abuse women and you know people who are disadvantaged for various reasons and the environment. This is also the same psychology that causes us to fight each other as vegans instead of to work together more collaboratively.
Q2. I am also wondering why did you write the book 《Beyond Belief》.
| I had been giving talks about carnism — which is the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals — and the psychology of eating animals for a long time. And many people, thousands of people, you know, I was giving talks all over the world and also trainings to vegans on how to advocate more effectively, how to communicate about veganism more effectively.
And after my talks and workshops, people were telling me over and over again — many vegans were coming to me and saying — that the choice to become vegan was one of the most important and empowering choices of their lives. But their sense of empowerment and inspiration quickly turned to shock and horror when they discovered that their relationships and communication were breaking down, and they were thinking like, what's going on?
And so I realized — and I was also a longtime relationship coach, I had been working in the relationship space for a very long time at this point — and I realized that this relationship and communication breakdown that was happening with vegans so often was causing a lot of suffering to vegans, and it was also taking a lot of energy out of the vegan movement.
We know that healthy relationships are essential for people to thrive. People in healthy, connected relationships basically do better in every aspect of life. They are more successful at what they set out to do, they're less at risk for mental health problems and physical health problems, and so on. And yet, vegans were losing so many of their important relationships and getting more and more frustrated, more and more exhausted, and more and more misanthropic — and that word, I don't know how easily that translates, but misanthropy is a dislike or hatred of humanity — more and more angry. And so vegans were becoming not very good ambassadors for the cause.
And so I decided to write this book for vegans in relationships, to really help them understand — and a book they could give to non-vegans in their life — so they could really understand what causes this breakdown and what are some of the tools to repair it.
Q3. I understand that practicing veganism often involves conflict and confrontation, and sometimes even losing people we care about. Why do you think these conflicts arise?
| So there are three main reasons. One reason is because vegans are people, and people in general do not get any formal training in how to have healthy relationships and how to communicate effectively. So, you know, I often say that it's shocking to me that most of us have to learn complicated geometry that we might never need to use, and we don't get a single formal lesson in how to be healthy relational beings and how to communicate effectively. And so most people struggle in relationships and communication. Most people, when they have a difference of opinion or a difference of need from another person, end up in a conflict, in an argument. When the stakes are even higher — when we're talking about an issue that's ethical and that's about life or death — it becomes even more difficult to have these conversations. So one reason that we have such conflict among vegans and non-vegans is because vegans are people, and people don't have formal training in how to navigate differences and conflict.
Another reason is because of the psychology of eating animals. This is what I call the psychology of carnism. When people are not vegan or not really aware of what veganism is and what it means, they are looking at the world through the lens of carnism — the invisible belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals. They have inside of their minds a certain psychology or a mentality that is designed to make them defensive against anyone or anything that challenges their right to eat animals or their comfort eating animals. So that's an automatic — you know, many vegans have this experience: all you have to say is “I'm vegan,” and it's like boom, this wall goes up. Or suddenly you start getting attacked. Or, you know, you can share facts with people and they'll start debating you even though they know nothing about the issue. Suddenly they become experts on veganism, and, you know, they call you biased when you're explaining how the dominant carnistic system is biased. So there's this mentality of non-vegans that causes defensiveness and that causes conflict and makes it very difficult to have a conversation. When we understand this mentality and how to communicate around it, we're in a much better position.
The third reason for such relationship and communication breakdown is that vegans also have a certain psychology that can make it very difficult for us to communicate effectively about veganism. And when we become vegan — most of us anyway, many, many people — we wake up to the fact, it's like we were asleep, and we wake up to the fact that we are living in the middle of a global atrocity, a global catastrophe. For many people, this is a traumatic experience; it's a shock. And then we start learning more about what's happening to the animals in the world and to the planet, and we become more shocked and more horrified and more and more traumatized, and we feel this incredible sense of urgency to change the world and end the suffering. This is all normal — it's normal. And even though it's normal, it can cause us to become dysregulated. You're dysregulated when your nervous system is out of balance.
We can start to feel this tightness inside of us and become very reactive, and we can start to feel a little bit like, you know, desperate when the people around us — our friends and our family, who we know are good people — we see them acting in ways that are compassionate, maybe to our family dog or to other people, suddenly put up this wall and tell us something's wrong with us because we're trying to help them understand that compassion for farmed animals is no different than compassion for dogs and cats and humans. So this psychology and this level of trauma — and we can talk about this later — but many vegans have become traumatized from what we become aware of, and then we continue to watch these videos and to see these graphic images, and we become more traumatized. And this trauma inside of us keeps us dysregulated, and that makes it really hard for us to have conversations with people, because the conversation can get very intense very quickly.
So these are the three main reasons that relationships and communication break down between vegans and non-vegans. In my experience, the good news is that it does not have to be this way. When we understand how to change the way we relate and take care of ourselves and the psychology of carnism, we can really change a lot of our relationships.
Q4. Personal experience seems to play a crucial role in recognizing the realities of meat-eating culture. How can we help our non-vegan friends become more aware of the problems of carnism?
| Well, that is a really great question, and I would say, number one: we can't really make anybody do anything. So many vegans — what we can do, right? All we can do — we can't force somebody to change. All we can do is communicate in a way that increases the chances that people will hear our message. That's all we can do.
And I would say to vegans watching this now, many vegans, what happens is that it's very painful when you lose your sense when the people around you are resistant to this message, and when you start having these conflicts. Many vegans discover that they can't feel connected to the people in their lives that they used to be connected with, and disconnection is painful. And so, in order to fix the problem, many vegans believe, “I need to make you vegan.” When you're a vegan, then we will be connected again and we will stop arguing. Often, that doesn't work.
Most people watching this probably know: the more you try to make the people in your life vegan, the more they resist your veganism. That often happens. And so the key is to remember that, you know, you can be connected with people even if they're not vegan. The key is to, instead of asking the people in your life to become vegan, ask them to become an ally to you — a vegan ally. And you don't have to use this term, but I recommend saying to the people in your life, “Listen, I would really love to share information about veganism with you — not to change you, but to help you understand me. It's important to me that you understand enough about veganism, because veganism is so important in my life, so you understand why I care about this so much, why I don't eat animals, why it hurts me to see dead animals on the table. I'm not trying to change you, I just want you to understand me, so I would love to share some information with you.”
So this way, you know, what many vegans discover is that when the people in their lives become what I call a vegan ally — somebody who's not vegan but they support vegans and they support veganism — the relationship changes. So, for example, in my life, with my family — some of them are now vegan, many of them are not — but in the early days, nobody was vegan. But they said, “Hey Melany, we're not vegan, but we understand why you are, and we really respect what you're doing.” We don't feel like we're ready to do that yet, but we really respect what you are doing. And they didn't tease me, they didn't put me down, they always made sure to have vegan food for me, and I felt very respected.
Q5. We’d also like to share a bit of our own experience. We run a sanctuary for five Holstein cows, and through this work, we’ve come to realize that it's possible to build solidarity even with those we once considered adversaries—such as livestock farmers. After all, they often have deep knowledge of the animals’ personalities and behaviors. Given this, what kinds of strategies might be effective in bringing people who don’t yet practice veganism into our movement?
| It's so wonderful what you've done, and the fact that, you know, you're making such a really important point — which is finding common ground. Because the problem that we have is usually not our difference of belief, right? The problem is usually not so much veganism versus carnism. Underneath these differences, underneath our ideologies and our beliefs, is a relationship between people. And that's what you're talking about — like, how do we create a relationship where we can be open to talk to each other in a way that's respectful and connecting? And finding common ground is an important way to do that.
So it's really important to build — and I believe this is true for everybody in the world, not just vegans, especially for vegans because we're trying to change the problems in the world — so it's important to build what I call relational literacy. That's the understanding of, and ability to practice, healthy ways of relating.
And relational literacy is not complicated. You know, it's based on a lot of principles and practices, but it's very basic tools and skills that anybody can learn if they want to learn them. We have resources on our website. I wrote a whole book on practicing relational literacy called Getting Relationships Right. I talk about that, and also in Beyond Beliefs. When you learn to communicate with a person in a way that honors their dignity — that says, like, “I see you as another being on this planet; I'm not going to try to shame you; I'm not going to judge you to the best of my ability, and I'm open to your perspective” — that can change a lot in our communication.
So often when we're communicating, you know, we overfocus on the content of a communication — that's what we're talking about. We try to think about how to get the words right and how to get the facts right, and we underfocus on what's called the process of communication. The content is what we're talking about; the process is how we are communicating — and the process matters more. So if you think about a conversation you had, like, six months ago or a year ago, it's possible that you forgot the whole content. You don't even remember what you talked about. But you probably still remember how you felt in that conversation. The process determines how you feel.
When your process is healthy, that means you are looking at the other person, you're honoring their dignity, you are not seeing them as an inferior person in some way, and you're communicating respectfully. I can talk more about this if you want. When your process is healthy, you can talk about anything without arguing — if the other person is willing to do that too. And when your process is not healthy, you can't talk about anything without arguing.
So it's really — for vegans, I think it's really important to build relational literacy skills, which are very much focused on communication. Communication is the primary way we relate. And also to remember that for many people in the world, it doesn't feel possible to become vegan or to just go vegan — it's the people in your life or the farmers that you're talking about. For many people, going vegan is asking too much.
What we can do, though, is we need to not think that either you're vegan and you're part of the solution, or you're not vegan and you're part of the problem — but we give people different ways to be a part of the solution. You can become a donor, and you can change the way that you do farming. There are lots of things you can do to be part of the solution.
Q6. Even when we know how to communicate with non-vegans, the feelings of sadness or loneliness that often come with those conversations don't seem to go away. How can we care for and manage these emotions while continuing this work?
| You are right, vegans feel a lot of grief and a lot of sadness, and I think that’s normal and that’s healthy. I think it’s really important to realize that. So let me talk briefly about carnism, you know, because for vegans who are not familiar with this, understanding carnism can really help you heal as a vegan in some ways.
Carnism, as I said, is the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals, and it’s organized around a set of defense mechanisms. These are psychological defenses that distort people’s perceptions so that they disconnect from their empathy for farmed animals and act against their value of compassion or their value of justice without even realizing what they’re doing. So they can pet their dog and eat a cheeseburger at the same time and not see a contradiction in those behaviors.
Now, carnism keeps itself alive — like other unjust systems — it keeps itself alive by keeping this mentality alive, and this mentality distorts people’s perceptions also of vegans — of anything that challenges the carnistic mentality. And one of the ways that happens is through causing people to believe in negative stereotypes of vegans.
So, for example, when a vegan challenges the bias of the dominant culture, they're called biased. You know, as I said earlier, people don’t realize that whenever we study nutrition, we actually study carnistic nutrition, because carnism is the dominant system. Carnism causes us to stereotype vegans as well by thinking of vegans or perceiving vegans as overly emotional, as sentimental, as too when we're like, you know, too sensitive. And maybe you hear this, you know, as well — “Oh, you sensitive animal lovers,” or whatever.
Well, a person who’s overly emotional or too sensitive is not rational, and a person who’s not rational is not worth being listened to. So thinking of vegans as overly emotional is a way of shutting down the vegan message. It’s a form of what we say in English: “shoot the messenger.” If you shoot the messenger, you don’t have to take seriously the implications of their message.
And this same negative stereotype was used to silence feminists who were advocating for women’s right to vote, who were called hysterical and overly emotional. It was used to silence anti-slavery abolitionists, who were called sentimentalists because they were fighting against slavery, right?
So what happens — and one of the reasons that vegans can struggle with our grief — is because we believe in these negative stereotypes. We think something’s wrong with us when we feel sadness and when we feel grief — “Oh, I shouldn’t be feeling this way.” We need to realize that the emotion of grief and sadness is healthy. It’s a healthy, normal response to the atrocity of carnism.
A much bigger problem is the fact that people don’t feel grief. A much bigger problem is, like, the numbing and apathy of the dominant culture — that is much more psychologically problematic.
So to handle our grief, we need to acknowledge that it’s healthy and it’s legitimate. And we need to — vegans need to — protect ourselves against overwitnessing. So many vegans keep watching these terrible videos of animals being slaughtered, and they keep looking at the graphic images and telling each other about them, and this is causing us — it’s feeding our trauma, it’s causing us to feel worse and worse.
Don’t look at those things. Don’t hear about those things if you don’t absolutely have to for your job — and even then, be very limited in doing that. You have to protect yourself, because otherwise the trauma is too much.
Q7. I would like to talk about some sociopolitical things in South Korea. Recently, after a long period of legislative campaigning and public debate, a special law to end dog meat was passed and is now being implemented. Our organization is working to go beyond dogs and bring an end to the animal farming industry as a whole, including chickens, pigs, and cows.
To achieve this goal, I would love to hear your thoughts—what strategies or ideas do you think are necessary, based on your long experience in the veganism movement?
| Yeah, I mean that's a really big question, and I don't have any easy answers to that because, you know, every culture is unique and has unique challenges and therefore requires a unique approach.
Um, it is, I think, really important to work together to the best of our ability, you know, in the animal advocacy movement with other movements that are aligned with us. One of the reasons I wrote my book 《How to End Injustice Everywhere》 was to help put animal justice — which is the phrase that I use for, you know, you might say animal liberation, animal rights, animal advocacy, however you want to put it — you know, I think they all fall under this umbrella of animal justice, you know, justice for animals. I think it's really important for us to help put animal justice on the map of justice movements so that people who are working for human rights, or justice for humans, social justice, and for climate justice recognize that justice for animals is an intimately interconnected cause, and we can't really have one without the other.
So one thing that's important is to learn about other movements — other justice movements — so that we as vegans are informed and we can support those movements, maybe not as advocates because we only have so much time, but certainly in our messaging.
And many vegans unfortunately do things that are problematic for other movements. So, for example, in the United States — sometimes in many places actually — you know, using images of women who are objectified, women in bikinis or objectified women to promote animal rights turns off feminists and people who really understand social justice, instead of building bridges.
So if we understand, you know, the needs and the experiences and the values underlying other justice movements, we're better able to unify with them and work together and invite them into our movement.
And also to recognize that — like, I think a big barrier to us creating these bridges and these alliances that we need to create — because carnism is going to be hard to end without the support of people who are working to end other isms. It’s one ism, you know — you can say it’s a spoke on a wheel — understand sort of the nature of carnism and how it gets expressed, and see the ways that factory farming and animal farming is harming not only farmed animals but humans and the environment, so that we can create these alliances.
And to make sure that we don’t have this idea that if you’re not vegan, you cannot be part of the movement to end animal farming. And that's a big barrier to our movement. I believe we need to be able to invite people in and say, I think a lot of people would support the work that we do if they didn’t think they have to completely change their own diet.
Q8. It’s clear that in building solidarity and alliances, constructing bridges that connect us with others and finding common ground is extremely important!
Yeah, totally — and making it easier for people to support veganism. Because right now, a lot of vegan messaging says, “If you're not vegan, you are part of the problem. You can't be part of the solution unless you're vegan.” And for many people, they are not ready or willing to become totally vegan, so they throw up their hands and say, “Okay, you know, I'm not going to help this movement.”
People — you know, vegans — call people hypocrites if they eat animals and are also trying to help the cause. That's a big problem. I mean, right now vegans are only like one percent of the global population, and we don't need everybody to become vegan to create a vegan world — we just need enough people to be vegan enough.
And when we invite people in to be allies, we invite them to use their influence however they can, even if they're not vegan. So, for example, some of the people in my experience who have done the most for animals are non-vegans. They're journalists who write for, you know, like the BBC or, you know, The Globe or whatever — you know, El País, like huge newspapers — and they publish articles about carnism and veganism that reach hundreds of thousands of people. And they're not vegan, but they want to help. Some of the people who donate to vegan organizations like mine are not vegan, but they want to help.
So we need to make it easier for people to help this cause. And most people — you know, studies have shown — most people are against, at least, they're against factory farming. And factory farming is where, like, something like 95 percent of carnistic products come from. So asking people to help end factory farming is a very reasonable ask to the mainstream population.
Q9. Finally, could you share a message of encouragement and support for your friends who are practicing veganism in South Korea?
Absolutely, as I said, I was in South Korea a number of years ago — I'm pretty sure it was 2015 — and I was very inspired by the activists I met there. What I saw there was that the movement was young and it was starting to grow, and I know it's grown — I've heard that it's grown a lot since then. And it is still very not mainstream, of course. You know, being a vegan — I know in South Korea — comes with a price, you know: feeling misunderstood, feeling isolated, and, you know, feeling alone with some of these emotions that we talked about.
So I want to say a couple of things.
Number one, anybody who is a vegan in South Korea today is a pioneer. You know, a pioneer is somebody who is leading a movement. They are on the front lines of critical change. It is really difficult to be a pioneer. It takes so much courage, it takes so much conviction to be able to get up every day and live your truth when there's so much social pressure and so much social ignorance as to what you're doing.
So if you're a vegan today, you're promoting veganism today in South Korea, you are doing a job that is very difficult and that is so important. And don't underestimate the importance of what you're doing. And I think you should be very proud of yourself, because not only are animals being helped, but vegans of the next generation are going to have very different lives because of you. Vegans tomorrow are not going to suffer like vegans today — just like women today have a very different life than they did 50 years ago, thanks to the feminists who did all the hard work.
So I just thank you.
