Dangerous judgements

Meat is symbolic of strength and it’s symbolic of the rich, successful life (despite the fact that most people in the West can afford to buy it). This is the problem for vegans when they are trying to communicate on this subject. Meat, rich animal foods (even luxury leather shoes) seem to be regarded as ‘quality goods’. They are attractive to our ‘trained’ tastebuds and expensive enough to make most people associate them with good living. Quality consumer items appeal to those who “appreciate the good things in life”. Vegans seem to want to deny people their pleasure because they deny themselves, acting in a ‘fox and the sour grapes’ way. And so if vegans show dislike of meat eaters and make them feel like criminals, that will be reciprocated; people will dislike vegans and the food they recommend.
As a part of the ‘vast majority group’ people do what most others do, and their conformity leads to stereotyping and the need to make judgements about others. For example, those unfortunate people whose facial features aren’t considered to be beautiful probably know that almost everyone who has ever seen them agrees that they are ‘not good looking’. It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, and it certainly isn’t fair to be making that sort of judgment but we are probably (privately anyway) in common agreement about facial beauty. And there are other things we all agree about it, and in agreeing we show our judgements are like others’ judgements, and that makes us feel ‘normal’. By expressing a judgement we show others in our group what our values and standards are.
I say someone is “ugly”, others agree. It might help us to dislike that person and give us an excuse for not being friendly with them, almost as if they deserve to be ugly, along the lines of bad people are ugly: ugly people are bad. That’s how unfair and damaging a crude judgement can be – notably for the facially challenged. For example, their whole life can be spent thinking they are ugly and being disliked and avoided because of it.
This extremely unfair judgement is one of the worst we make, and yet one that most of us are capable of making. We may say what we are thinking and, out loud, most of us would condemn that approach as being uncharitable. But inside our own heads we decide to avoid the ugly person, avoid the bad person. Or we agree with others when they make a joke of this person’s looks. We’re all capable of making unfair judgements. Ultimately these become our downfall.