Talk:Carnism/Archive 4

Time to delete 'carnism'
I have looked through the three AfDs and, as I am sure you all know, the results were Delete, Delete, No consensus.

I think a move to another name might be acceptable to WP policy but this page is exactly the kind of thing that WP:NEO was intended to avoid. The reasons that I am going to propose deletion again are:

Nobody seems to know what the article is meant to be about
One editor says the article is just about the word 'carnism'. That is what Wiktionary is for; we do not have articles on just words in WP.

Some people think that carnism is about the reasons that we eat some animals and not others.

I think (based on what I believe to be Joy's own remarks) that carnism is just a name for meat eating, the opposite of veganism, as she puts it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I may be new to Wikipedia, but even I know that just because editors are unorganised in their approaches to what should be included in a particular article is not a solid argument and flies in the face of Wikipedia being an open platform of knowledge. However, while I disagree that this is a reason for deletion, it is a good point to raise, editors of Carnism need to be organised in their approaches. So far as I am aware, only a few editors are putting in an effort in changing the article to be acceptable on Wikipedia via WP:NPOV, WP:NEO and WP:RS, but they are trying to organise a wider group that seems stuck in ad nauseum debate over policies and POV without attempting to address the problems. This is just my opinion but I believe that there are several editors that would agree with me.
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:58, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So what exactly do you think this article is about? Is it just about a newly-invented word?  Is a place to explain why some people choose not to eat meat, or is it all about why some cultures eat some animals but not others?  These are three different subjects.  At present the article is being used as a WP:coatrack to push every piece of vegan rhetoric that can be found. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's about a particular social psychological model used to explain what many RS consider inconsistencies in human treatment of animals. This model posits that there is an ideology supporting conventional practices, and that this ideology is reinforced by media, habit, and invisibility. You could think of it as in the same class as cultural Marxism, which is a model proposed to explain the to-some-incomprehensible proliferation of multiculturalism in contemporary society. FourViolas (talk) 10:03, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

With a title that is a pejorative term devised by a minority to describe a majority activity the article cannot but be biased
I am not the only one to call the term pejorative, another editor in the last AfD called it, '.. topic that was named by opponents of Carnism for use as a disparaging term'.

'Carnism' is a name designed to make a point; that is not what WP is for. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter how many WP editors think the word is pejorative (even though I'm among them). No RS says it is, so the most we can do for now is point out that the concept is not uniformly accepted among mainstream social psychologists. FourViolas (talk) 01:16, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you seriously challenging the fact that 'carnism' was intended to be a pejorative term? If you must have a source to confirm what is self-evident then you could start with Joy herself.  It is quite clear from everything that she says that 'carnism' is not intended as a term of endearment. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Citing Joy's primary sources to make a case for her own pejorativity is flagrant OR. I do think the word is often used in a pejorative context, but I don't have a good source (Lord knows I've looked), so more cautious steps such as citing a balanced selection of op-ed (see ) are called for. FourViolas (talk) 10:06, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Because 'carnism' was coined and used by the minority that oppose meat eating, nearly all the sources that actually use the word are vegan or animal rights related
The more sources using the word 'carnism' the article cites the more biased it becomes. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Despite comments from several editors, including myself, no effort has been made to make the article NPOV
The problem is that with this title there is no way the article can be made NPOV. Those who want to keep an article on the subject of opposition to meat eating should look to move it to a neutral title, where a much wider range of sources can be used Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Time to go
Sorry people. I know you have put much effort into this article but you have done so in the full knowledge that some editors find the article NPOV. If you want to save your work I suggest that you look for a neutral home for the subject.

We need a final and definitive answer to whether this article should be here or not. I suggest an AfD where we try to get the widest possible community participation so that the matter can be settled once and for all. All previous AfD participants should be asked for their opinions. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Carnism is a fringe theory in the same way that Melanin theory is. By design, such pages represent one minority point-of-view about the majority. This does not make them inherently non-neutral, so long as we write in a detached manner and simply report the beliefs of others as they are reported in reliable sources. It's not bias to state a theory, even if there are those that disagree with that theory. If you believe this should be part of a larger article and should be moved to a better title, I would support that, but that's a move discussion, not a delete discussion. Stating that there has been no effort made to make this article NPOV is simply false; there is a long talk page history of working on NPOV concerns. There are different editorial opinions on what the scope of this article should be, but I don't believe there is any disagreement among those who have read the sources in full that carnism is the term used to describe an ideology that meat-eating is natural, normal, necessary, and nice in defense of the act itself. ~ RobTalk 16:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Please see above. Carnism is not a theory it is a pejorative neologism.  The page has been deleted twice yet still some people try to revive it. But it is not up to me to decide what to do, or to you.  Let us let the community decide once an for all. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:31, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * As always, you're welcome to nominate if you believe the article should be deleted. I was just offering my opinion on how that deletion discussion is likely to go, as someone who's already nominated it for deletion. WP:NOTNEO only applies to neologisms not covered in reliable secondary sources, by the way. ~ RobTalk 16:57, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course you may propose its deletion if you like. However, to save yourself and many other editors time and headaches, please consider first whether the following sources comprise "in-depth coverage in at least two independent reliable sources":
 * Braunsberger 2014
 * Freeman 2014
 * Reutenik 2015
 * Stoll-Kleeman 2014
 * Shapiro 2015
 * If they do, then we should keep the article as a description of a new concept near the fringe of scholarly meat research. WP:NEO is basically a specific clarification of what "in-depth" means, not a negation of GNG. In the future, after the article has time to grow (notice most of those sources haven't been included yet), we could discuss moving it to within something like meat paradox, but proposing deletion at this poiint is in my opinion a waste of time, as well as a strain on the patience of editors I've been bothering quite enough recently, precisely with an enormous effort to give this article a NPOV. FourViolas (talk) 21:47, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The are not the best quality sources but they do probably qualify as reliable sources and that is the main problem; they are mainly from vegan or animal rights sources. I have listed some quotes from the sources below to show their allegiance.  The other problem is that it is not clear whether sources for this article need to have the word 'carnism' in them.  If that is the case then I suspect that most of the sources you suggest are ineligible.  I the word 'carnism' is not required then the sources you suggest then the article is not really about the word 'carnism' but about meat eating in some way and should be moved to another title.


 * Braunsberger 2014 'I have received a lot of stick for being a veggie, and it offends me sometimes'.
 * Freeman 2014 'The essays include advertising and public relations analyses, audience interviews, and case studies that touch on genres ranging from science fiction in the 1970s to current “reality” television'. No 'carnisnm' in the abstarct. Is it in there somewhere?
 * Reutenik 2015 'Violence, Sacrifice, and Flesh Eating in Judeo-Christian Tradition'. Cannot find 'carnism'.
 * Stoll-Kleeman 2014 - Does this mention 'carnism' apart from a ref to Joy's book.
 * Shapiro 2015 - I_am_a_vegetarian_Reflections_on_a_way_of_being


 * Please remember that there is not, and has never been, a consensus to keep this article. There has been a decision to delete it twice though.  After trying to work with other editors here to make this article NPOV I have come to the firm conclusion that with the current title that is impossible.   Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That sounds a lot more like a move discussion than a deletion discussion, and it's a move discussion that I think is definitely worth having. There could always be a deletion discussion initiated if the move fails, if you believe the article should not exist at its current title.


 * Also, it is arguable whether there was no consensus in the last deletion discussion. It was certainly closed that way, but there were no "delete" or "redirect" arguments based in policy after the article was substantially rewritten, while there were several solid "keep" arguments following the rewrite. Several editors in support of a delete who made a comment on the discussion after the rewrite changed to a support of "keep" or "merge". Closure as "keep" would have definitely been defensible in this situation. I was fairly surprised with the way it was closed given how the discussion developed. ~ RobTalk 21:27, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I would be happy to go with a move rather than deletion provided that the move is to a name that allows the article to me written from the mainstream science and majority perspective. That is how WP articles are normally written.  The problem with the title 'carnism' is that, if you look for reliable sources using or referring to that term, you will find almost exclusively anti-meat-eating sources.  The article is therefore guaranteed to be NPOV whilst it remains here.  The reason that I talk about deletion is that I recognise that many editors have put much effort into this article.  If we cannot move it somewhere neutral then I, or maybe another editor, will propose deletion and, in the worst case, all the hard work here would be lost. Looking at the whole AfD history it looks likely to me that the AfD would succeed.


 * If we could agree to move the article to a suitable title then it could be based on a full range of sources and could be made to show both sides of the ethics of veganism. I do not think that ethics of meat eating is a suitable title any more than the ethics of eating vegetables would be.  The reason is that that title presupposes that there exists a general and widespread debate about whether to eat meat or not, and that is not a true reflection of the current state of affairs.


 * One way that I looked for to try to find a way to structure this article better is to look for a similar kind of article to use as a model. We need an article about a, not entirely positive, term invented by a minority group to describe a majority activity.  The problem is that there are very few such articles, probably for good reason.  The best I could find were Infidel and  Breeder (slang).  If you can find an article that matches this one in nature and is indisputably NPOV then maybe we could use that to help us here but I doubt that you will have much success.


 * So, I would be happy to support a move to a name that enables us to discuss the subject of why some people object to eating meat from a majority and mainstream science perspective but it cannot remain here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:57, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ethics of eating meat already exists, actually. This is distinct from that. If a move were to occur, I would say Psychology of eating meat is the name that makes the most sense for the majority of this article, although there are certain editors here who are strongly against such a move. I'm unsure how I would fall; I'd likely need to hear more of the arguments against the move before deciding one way or the other. Either way, that's the title with the best chance of success if you decide to create a move discussion, in my opinion. ~ RobTalk 10:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem with thePsychology of eating meat is that meat eating is a the norm for the substantial majority of people. To have that article would be like having an article on The psychology of not climbing mountains or The psychology of not being a Mormon.  WP articles must be written from a mainstream science and majority perspective.  I would suggest The psychology of vegetarianism or vegetarian psychology. It is the minority which needs specific justification or explanation not the normal. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:53, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm in a hurry here, but User:FourViolas/sandbox/Meat, where I'm gathering, taking notes on, and discussing material for pyschology of might be useful in this discussion. FourViolas (talk) 12:47, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Certain studies say otherwise as sourced in the meat paradox section. Either way, there is certainly an interesting psychological issue in the distinction between pet and food that appears to be entirely a cultural construct. As for not presenting minority POVs on Wikipedia, that's not entirely correct. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED, and as long as it isn't given undue weight, notable minority opinions can be written about on Wikipedia. In fact, they are regularly; see Melanin theory and other fringe theories. ~ RobTalk 18:11, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course minority opinions can be mentioned in WP but they must be identified as minority opinions not presented as generally held or mainstream science opinions. That is not what is being done here. We need to start by moving the article to a title that makes clear that this is a minority opinion, psychology of veganism for example.  Perhaps someone else can think of a better name.  Anything that makes clear that this is not a majority opinion on the subject is a good start as far as I am concerned.  If this cannot be done I am going to propose deletion again.  Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:33, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know much about move discussions, so I'll just give you all information to work with.
 * The word is rarely used in mainstream social psychological research on meat.

This book, reliably attested to be a mainstream compilation of contemporary sociological meat research, doesn't mention "carnism". Here's my own list of a few recent highly-cited sources discussing very closely related topics without using the word:
 * Boer 2005 on popular conceptions of meat production
 * Loughnan's 2014 paper on the meat paradox
 * Hayley 2014 on why individuals do or don't eat meat
 * Rothgerber 2013 on meat and masculinity
 * Graça 2015 on factors affecting willingness to eat less meat
 * De Backer 2015 on whether veg*ns are more or less philanthropic than non-veg*ns
 * Blidaru 2015 on the moral psychology of eating meat.

Comparing these papers' citation counts, using Google Scholar's tools, to those of papers like Freeman on television 'carnonormativity shows that scholars using the carnism model are the minority; Connor 2001 (a paper, not a book) has 126 citations, and Adams 1990 on feminism and meat has over 900, while Why we love dogs only 92 so far.


 * Psychology of meat eating is a big topic.

See User:FourViolas/sandbox/Meat. There's a depth of research on a wide range of topics: the meat paradox, why steaks & burgers are associated with masculinity, how contamination scandals affect people's perceptions of meat. Psychology of vegetarianism is another big, growing topic with extensive literature: see Ruby 2012 and Janda 2001. There are also many papers, such as Allen 2000 and Povey 2001 which directly compare veg*ns' and omnivores' psychology.

There are several articles to be made here. If we all work very hard to AGF and treat each other civilly and respectfully, we'll be able to do so.


 * "Carnism" is mostly discussed by those who oppose it.

Even ignoring things like https://www.tumblr.com/search/carnism or http://www.reddit.com/r/vegan, the bookends of the reliable literature are clear: the primary source of the idea (Joy) and the only tertiary source Gibert/Desaulniers agree that the concept of carnism as a discrete ideology should be used to "question" the practices involved. As Snow said above, there's lots of research in this area, and little of it mentions carnism: if I'm not mistaken, "carnism" is only ever discussed in the context of veg*nism, so it's apparently only germane to a limited area of meat research (namely, meat vs. meatless research).

I'll let those with better knowledge of WP:ARTICLETITLES figure out the implications of this. FourViolas (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Time to go (part 2)
Martin - from what I can tell, you are entrenched in renaming this article or deleting it. I believe you are in a minority in this - 4V and Rob seem undecided, but the remainder of the editors here, I believe, wish the article to stay. Please drop the stick, or raise yet another RfC or AfD where I suspect there will be a resounding "keep". People are getting fed up with this wall of words. Sorry. DrChrissy (talk) 22:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am actually trying to save the work of editors here but if you would prefer that I start another AfD that is fine. From the previous results I expect a clear 'delete'.  If we have an AfD then we should try to get as many previously uninvolved and neutral editors as possible, as well as all those who have edited or commented previously.  That way we should get a definitive, and hopefully lasting, decision.  Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:42, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually Martin, my preference is that you recognize consensus is to keep this article and you drop the stick. DrChrissy (talk) 22:46, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I heartily endorse the suggestion to give the talk page a contention break, even just for a few days. But if you count Snow and Martin, we're at 4 to 3 for some kind of move (not delete—GNG is more than amply met).
 * I am not sure what you think will be gained by a break of a few days. The point is that, if this page is deleted, the hard work that some have put in would be wasted.  I have raised a fundamental problem of NPOV.  This is a core WP policy which you ignore at your peril. I would rather work with other editors to produce an article that presents the subject from the proper POV. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * A "contention break" or "break of a few days" will allow several things @Martin Hogbin. A) It allows people to get on with their day-to-day lives for a short period, B) It will allow people to calm the f*** down, C)It will allow people to do some uninterrupted research (possibly), D) It allows for people to actually digest what is being said instead of constantly bickering. I can tell your from personal experience that a small break can allow everyone to calmly return to the table after realising what their opponents are saying
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 22:45, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think/fear that the closest analogy to "carnism" is cultural Marxism. They're both ideologies which only their respective opponents claim to exist; those described by each label reject it; and use of each term is a lightning rod in a culture war. The only difference is that this term's near-neologism status makes sources harder to find on each side (especially the "what did you just call me" side). Also, those saying "carnism" are mostly left-wingy, while those saying "cultural Marxism" are mostly right-wingy. If we take that as precedent, the solution is to argue for an enormous amount of time, and then move the article to a bigger article, animal rights philosophy or (my choice) psychology of eating meat. FourViolas (talk) 23:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * After further thought, I believe I would support a merge if Psychology of eating meat were created and fleshed out, but would not support a move prior to that. This article is clearly not a complete discussion of the psychology of eating meat, and moving the article to that title and holding it up as a complete discussion would violate WP:NPOV in far more serious ways than presenting it for what it is - a single point-of-view about a larger topic. It is not appropriate to move first and hope editors willing to solve those serious NPOV issues emerge later. On the other hand, were "Psychology of eating meat" to exist, this article would fail WP:POVFORK. That's my two cents, and the last I'll say on the subject for at least a week barring an RfC or other "formal" discussion. As others have pointed out, we've likely exhausted all arguments related to what should be done with this article, and further debate is unlikely to accomplish anything other than fatigue until uninvolved editors are brought into the mix. ~ RobTalk 03:05, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Anti-carnism POV bias in this talk section
People want to delete carnism because they don't like it and it makes them uncomfortable. There is a raging POV problem in these comments alone--people are covering up, with fancy language, that they don't like the theory. In reality, this theory is very similar to many other theories which have a wiki entry. This fancy anti-carnism POV which we are passing for neutrality is carnism at work, ironically. Meta-proof itself that we should keep the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.13.222 (talk) 13:27, 9 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Perhaps people do want to delete Carnism because they don't like the article, and maybe it is because it makes them uncomfortable. I haven't gotten that impression, though I would like to see why you feel this way. Perhaps some examples?
 * "this theory is very similar to many other theories which have a wiki entry", some examples of this would be appreciated since the burden of proof is on your keyboard/shoulders.
 * Ironically, your POV statements are what some of the editors are working against to make Carnism as WP:NPOV as possible, so that the article can be justified for staying on Wikipedia instead of being moved for deletion. I would be interested in knowing whether you are a vegetarian/vegan yourself and whether you ascribe to being "anti-carnism"?
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:01, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I assume that the IP meant anti-carnism in the sense that they're against it as being a legitimate idea, not that they're against it as an ideology. The more appropriate term would probably have been "pro-carnism" (i.e. support the ideology by suppressing the idea that it exists). I wasn't going to bother touching this originally, but I just want to point out that "other stuff exists" is pretty much never a valid argument to keep or delete something. Plenty of stuff that should exist on Wikipedia doesn't, because volunteer editors haven't taken the time to create the article yet. Plenty of stuff that shouldn't exist on Wikipedia does, because volunteer editors haven't gotten around to nominating the article for deletion yet. That's the nature of a massive online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. ~ RobTalk 10:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think the IP was writing coherently nor very well (my POV), so I took it as the spirit of the words which seemed to be pro-article and anti-Carnism (as a belief). This is what you get though when people start going all meta on you ;)
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:33, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with the IP, though I think he was talking about Martin Hogbin and Snow Rise, not you guys. The former has advanced blatantly frivolous deletion arguments and a vague, pointless RfC worded so as to attract opponents of the article (and his participation here is consistent with his broader activity on "green" topics - constantly obstructing and never contributing). The latter has made some bold claims of authority and concocted the POVFORK argument on the basis of a hypothetical body of literature on meat psychology into which this article doesn't fit - I am now convinced this literature doesn't exist, as almost everything I've found on the topic jives pretty smoothly with what's written here. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:17, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Rather than directly responding, I'll ask whether people really want to start discussing NPOV on such an antagonistic note. FourViolas (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I would not like to start discussing NPOV on an article until I was at somewhat emotionally neutral towards all involved editors to avoid bias, regardless of if I know them or not, even I am not neutral on the topic. So ... should we start discussing POV examples from the article and discuss how to make them NPOV, or continuing sniping, policy-bashing and/or creating really long argument blocks? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 08:52, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I came to this article with a totally neutral view to the word and concept. I actually see very little POV in the article - I think several editors are being influenced by their preconceived ideas and inferring a POV.  If we are to do this, we need to state specific sentences to discuss before judging the article overall. DrChrissy (talk) 10:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

My point exactly for how we should proceed. This should avoid extended debate about semantical points and instead require focus on the article content itself. So, who wants to bring the first case to Talk:Carnism? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:24, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Removal of POV template
Given the statement by 4V above, I now believe there is consensus for removal of the non-neutrality template, therefore, I have removed it. DrChrissy (talk) 11:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! FourViolas (talk) 11:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Is the Archiving Bot still working?
Just asking since it is set to auto-archive after 7 days, and yet we still have Talk:Carnism and Talk:Carnism both with comments that stop after 3rd August. We are (at time of writing) on the 13th August and yet the threads are still there? Help Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Ideology
Moved comments into separate section due to specific nature Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 01:43, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Just a note about the term ideology. Of course meat-eating is an ideology. People can argue whether Joy and others describe it accurately, but to imply that it might not be an ideology would be odd.

Once again, the issue is that there's an enormous amount of reading to do, and people are trying to write without having done it. That situation was caused in part by the AfD; editors scrambled to save the article, so something had to be written quickly. But there's lots of time now to do the research. Doing the reading will make these distinctions clearer: what's meant by ideology in this context; how the psychology and sociology of meat-eating are closely related (and in fact can't be written about separately), how the concept of carnism fits in, and so on.

Normally it wouldn't matter so much that the research be done in advance of starting to write, but where you're making decisions about content forking, and where it's not clear that the title or parameters are correct, it's important to gain a good overview before moving ahead. Sarah (talk) 16:37, 11 August 2015 (


 * I personally agree that it's an ideology, and I haven't found sources claiming it isn't. It's also clear to me, from my past week of intensive research, that peer-reviewed psychological studies of meat simply don't address the broader ideology underpinning meat eating. Psychology isn't everything, though, and other fields also study ideologies. (Joy, Gibert, Shapiro, and Gutjahr seem to be among the authors who do treat it as such.) Our coverage must follow the approach taken by sources. FourViolas (talk) 19:12, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * FourViolas, please assume that I'm familiar with the content policies.


 * I'm not sure I understand your response. Meat-eating is an ideology, if there is such a thing. That a source doesn't mention it doesn't mean it isn't. Perhaps the source thought it too obvious, or was discussing it in other terms. Sarah (talk) 14:07, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry; I'm fully aware you've been one of the strongest policy contributors. I'm talking to a group of people all at once, at least one of whom is still learning all this. Please believe, or at least assume, that I never reference or link a policy with the intention of insulting anyone.


 * I agree that it's an ideology. Some sources discuss it as such, and those are the sources we should be using. However, when 80 psychology papers to 0 "discuss it in other terms", I take that as a clear sign that, in the context of psychology, we must do so too. Otherwise, we'd be taking the information out of its proper context. In this case, that means it's not appropriate to gather literature on meat-eating psychology under a term like "carnism", except where secondary and tertiary sources make the connections for us. Perhaps this is just a misunderstanding.


 * Your idea that the psychology and sociology of meat-eating can't be discussed separately is compelling. There's lots of inter-exchange among the mind sciences on this: people like Joy, Adams, and Fiddes weave together facts from psychological research into big semiotic and sociological theories, and then folks like Loughnan and Ruby, in turn, try to empirically confirm or deny these models.


 * The challenge would be deciding how to give due weight across fields. How do you weigh a feminist-theory book with 950 citations vs. the whole subfield of "consumer psychology of meat" vs. a recent but highly-touted primary result in experimental psychology vs. a 2009 qualitative survey of meat ads in a journal with an IF of 1.5? This would be impossible to decide without some good tertiary sources. They'd have to address the sociology and psychology of meat together, go into plenty of detail, and appear agendaless (because on top of everything else, this area is always subject to violent opinions).


 * We already have a few things somewhat like that, like Rozin's entry in Katz. But I haven't yet come across even one survey with the breadth and depth necessary to guide a psychology and sociology of meat eating article. Most textbook-level sources appear to be segregated here: either "meat science", which tries not to notice ethics, or "diet psychology", which doesn't go into culture much, or "human-animal studies", which are of limited scope.


 * Also, making a combined article would likely marginalize the "carnism" paradigm even more. It would not only be competing for WEIGHT against the piles of research in my draft, but also against sociological studies of taboo formulation, against feminist critique of meat, even against agricultural sociology and the anthropology of diet. So, overall, I would lean towards keeping the topics separate, unless we can find the solid tertiary sources we'd need to combine them fairly. FourViolas (talk) 14:39, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it would be an uphill struggle to write a meat psychology article well without some background knowledge in the humanities, sociology or psychology.

It's not a question of who agrees that it's an ideology. Meat eating is an ideology, pretty much by definition. There are writers who approach it that way, and writers who don't; writers who unpack what that means, and writers who assume a basic level of knowledge. But to take a rigid approach of "meat eating as an ideology" versus "meat eating as the object of research by psychologists" versus "meat eating as something sociologists study" or "meat eating as something anthropologists study" doesn't really make sense.

What would make sense is to create Meat eating and write an article on how academics view it as a practice. Carnism would be a summary-style sub-section.

Re: the policies, the way they're being referenced on this page isn't always correct, and it's causing confusion, particularly about how to identify and use primary and secondary sources. Sarah (talk) 16:24, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Creating Meat eating sounds like a great idea, but again I could only support it if we could find in-depth tertiary or quaternary sources to guide WEIGHT concerns. Otherwise I really don't see how we could fairly balance research across vastly different fields. FourViolas (talk) 03:47, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * In an e-mail, I suggested "psychology and sociology of meat" as a topic that reflects the sources used. I notice your draft doesn't restrict itself to psych sources - for example, you rely on Fiddes' 1989 Ph.D. thesis in the subject of social anthropology. Given that it's very hard to stick to the stated scope of the article, a broader perspective might make sense.
 * I do appreciate the amount of work you've put into this project, but I also do share some of SlimVirgin's concerns from below to the effect that the way these disputes have been handled has had a chilling effect on the development of both articles. In particular, the detailed "meat paradox" stuff is excessive in the context of the other article where you have copied it over (no matter whether that article is "psychology of eating meat" or "everything of eating meat"), and your apparent intention of moving it there only to subsequently cut it down by citing UNDUE doesn't make much sense. I don't think it's a "blow-by-blow" as you suggested; rather, it's a careful attempt to accurately represent what the papers actually proved, without editorializing. I think it's relevant here, and a bit out of place there. Using summary-style would be a good solution. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, I cite Fiddes for the same kinds of things, and give him the same weight, as unambiguously "psychological" sources like Allen et al 2000 or Rozin et al 2012 (citing Fiddes 4 times). I agree it would be better to have an enormous parent article on meat eating, but since WP is not finished I feel strongly that publishing the draft would be a positive step for now.


 * I have no idea where you got the idea that I have some kind of nefarious plot to "subsequently cut down" information on the MP. Very much to the contrary, I've put hours and hours into giving even more attention to particular well-studied phenomena associated with it. The reason the section is so prominent is that, who has some familiarity with the field, suggested I do so (at User:FourViolas/sandbox/Meat), and sources like "The Psychology of Eating Animals" convinced me Snow's suggestion was reasonable. My draft covers dozens of other studies with the same amount of detail; this article does not. Gibert's article on carnism gives 1/4 page, out of 6 pages of text (1/24 total), to these studies; this article currently gives 5 out of 22 paragraphs (almost 1/4) to them. FourViolas (talk) 16:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Copyright/content forking

 * A note about moving the draft to mainspace. I hope you'll gain consensus before doing that, because the earlier consensus here was not to do it. That apart, it's important to note in any edit summaries if you copy material from Carnism, even if you've slightly re-worded it; otherwise it's plagiarism and a copyright violation. See Copying within Wikipedia.


 * Also please see WP:POV fork. It's important for that reason too not to copy things over. If you want to write a new article about the psychology of meat, it would be better to make sure that it's your own work, rather than rephrasing material other people wrote for this article, unless you're using summary-style, which would be a better approach to this situation. That is, it would be better to write an entirely new article on the pyschology (not one that leans on this article), then include a summary-style subsection on this article. That's how these situations are normally handled. Sarah (talk) 16:19, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reminder. Fortunately, I did note my copy-paste, and I'll slap up a copied on the talk page too.


 * I believe that this material, which I and others compiled for this article, is currently misplaced, because its sources never mention "carnism" or discuss the psychological factors in question as components of a unified "ideology". It should be replaced with information from Benz-Schwartzberg, Gibert, or others who specifically discuss the meat paradox in relation to carnism.


 * Perhaps you haven't had a chance to look over Draft:Psychology of eating meat yet, but it's over five times longer than the sections I copied, composed of all new material and scores of new sources. As I noted in, since exactly one of the (currently 75) sources for that article makes even a passing reference to carnism, a SUMMARY of this article would be undue&mdash;unless we can find evidence that a significant minority of dietary psychologists are interested in studying the factors underpinning meat consumption as a unified "ideology". If you have time and motivation to do this research, try looking through archives of Appetite (journal); Meat Science; the European Journal of Social Psychology and other social psychology journals; and Food Quality and Preference and related food psychology journals. I haven't yet found such evidence there. FourViolas (talk) 18:02, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, if you do copy this over at some point – and I hope you won't without gaining consensus – please note in the first edit summary that you've copied or paraphrased material from Carnism. Otherwise the diff will appear to be your own work. The point of making a note in the first edit summary is to make sure it's clear to editors in future that material has been transferred. Sarah (talk) 15:58, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The copied isn't enough? Anyway, no prob will do. With regrets to your feelings (I didn't see that "earlier consensus") I'll be moving it soon, because it's good enough to survive an AfD and soon I won't have much time to work on it myself. FourViolas (talk) 03:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to drop the WP:STICK on including the complete "Ascription" subsection in the draft I wrote. I still think the detailed version (with methodologies) is more suited to that page, and the summary version better here; but it's really not worth the effort of debating, especially as both articles are young and growing. FourViolas (talk) 03:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

POV sentences
Please bring forth the perceived POV sentences so that they may be judged by consensus. This will hopefully help to allow editors to focus on the issue of NPOV in the article's content and not get into semantical debates about the article itself. Please list each example as a new sub-heading. Appreciated, Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:24, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Just a gentle reminder to All, we should remember this article needs to be written for the average reader - our discussion about potential POV sentences should reflect this. DrChrissy (talk) 10:36, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So we should be using KISS while discussing? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:47, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I can do that. I apologize: when I write quickly without revising, I write long, confusing, wordy sentences. I'll work on that. FourViolas (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * General note: I agree with others that the article is largely a great summary of the research on "meat-eating as ideology". I think that most of the NPOV problems have been addressed. I'd like to take some material more "out of universe", letting readers know that this is only one paradigm within a big field; I'll bring up specifics. Overall, I think we could take down the POV tag; it's unfriendly-feeling, and I believe we can trust each other to keep working in good faith without it. FourViolas (talk) 11:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Although scientists accept
The source supporting this:"For example, one popular belief related to the necessity of eating meat is the idea that one cannot maintain a diet that contains enough protein without consuming at least some meat. Although scientists, including the American Dietetic Association (ADA), America's leading organization of nutritionists, have released numerous publications showing that this is not the case (see e.g., American Dietetic Association, 2009, Rand et al, 2003 and Young, Pellett, 1994), the belief is persistent."

This is a weaker claim: it is nutritionally possible for humans to get enough protein without eating meat. Our version is concise, but I think it implies too much. After all, we don't currently have infrastructure in place to feed everyone without animal protein, and the article only mentions meat—not eggs and dairy, which are also "animal protein". I propose we change the wording to:

FourViolas (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to claim WP:SILENT consensus here, as all major contributors have visited the talk page without raising objections. Revert and discuss if you disagree. FourViolas (talk) 11:47, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

These beliefs are reinforced
I know it's annoying to keep checking ourselves like this, but the mere assertion that these beliefs exist is in dispute. Piazza (merely copy-pasted in the NYM) says (my emphasis): "Joy proposes that the 3Ns are widespread beliefs that are reinforced through various social channels, including family, media, religion, and various private and public organizations." So:

FourViolas (talk) 11:54, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to claim WP:SILENT consensus here, as all major contributors have visited the talk page without raising objections. Revert and discuss if you disagree. FourViolas (talk) 11:47, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Meat paradox is carnism
These sources don't mention "carnism" (here's Fawcett). I think the "meat paradox" and "ascription of limited mental capacity" should live at Draft:Psychology of eating meat (which will be in mainspace soon), and be replaced with an author who talks about how these ideas relate to the "ideology" of meat eating, such as Benz-Schwartzberg (which I don't have access to) or Gibert. Keeping them here is OR; the sources do not directly support the statement that "the meat paradox is central to carnism". I think most of these psychologists do not accept the idea that meat eating is an "ideology": in any case, they don't say it is, and we shouldn't cite them as though they do. FourViolas (talk) 11:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think the meat paradox papers are relevant and important here. They directly address the issue which Joy said motivated her to begin this whole subject, as well as to write the book. Her idea that the classification of animals as meat affects perceptions of their mental characteristics is one of the most important parts of "carnism" and appears novel - previously, there were only results in the opposite direction e.g. this. The meat paradox papers are largely concerned with proving this theory. Even though they don't use the term "carnism", they do cite Joy's work. Also, while they don't use the term ideology, they do pretty unambiguously imply it. For example, in the 2014 review article (Loughnan2014), the abstract reads in part
 * "People who value masculinity, enjoy meat and do not see it as a moral issue, and find dominance and inequality acceptable are most likely to consume animals. Perceiving animals as highly dissimilar to humans and as lacking mental attributes, such as the capacity for pain, also supports meat-eating. In addition to these beliefs, values, and perceptions, the act of eating meat triggers psychological processes that regulate negative emotions associated with eating animals."
 * (emphasis added). The exact terminology is not used, but our article is supposed to be about the ideas, not the words. Finally, this connection isn't my OR: the article by Gibert & Desaulniers identifies the meat paradox papers as confirming Joy's theories. (p. 294) I'm not sure whether the meat paradox papers are undue in the broader context of psychology of eating meat, so I'll hold off commenting on that. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:09, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * A lot of this doesn't make sense. 1) Joy is the one who describes carnism as an ideology, and I think that's fairly uncontroversial.  Anyone who disputes that isn't really looking at the overall issue.  2) The notion that animals "lack mental attributes, such as the capacity for pain" has been debunked for more than a decade, so it's best not to say that without clarification that science no longer supports such archaic ideas.  That's tantamount to claiming that the Earth is flat.  Science is in general agreement that animals have consciousness (on a continuum) that is similar to ours, but differs greatly in terms of planning for the future and higher-order thinking.  The idea that animals don't feel pain like us is simply ridiculous and stems from pseduoscientific nonsense from several centuries ago. 3) The notion about valuing masculinity is very muddled and simply wrong.  Hunters, for example, who subsist on meat-eating, may do so in an ethical manner, realizing that factory farming is much worse for animals, and that their "culling" of certain animals may in fact be more humane and desirable.  Anthropologically, human males have cultivated a culture of hunting for various reasons.  While one could certainly categorize "masculine" traits associated with hunting culture (silence so as to avoid scaring prey, motivation and obsession to complete the task of tracking the animal, strength to persist and bring the animal down and back to the village, and boasting and telling stories about the kill) such ideas generally miss the forest for the trees and should be avoided without good evidence.  In other words, "masculinity" is a culture-bound trait and can vary greatly.  There is simply nothing "masculine" about going down to the store and buying a steak.  There is a lot of cultural baggage here, the majority of which stems from meat industry marketing tactics, not "masculinity". Viriditas (talk) 00:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) The issue isn't whether one can look at meat eating as an ideology. We and the RS agree one can. I'm trying to convince people that published psychology researchers, for the purposes of WP:DUE, never do so; accordingly, I'd like to keep the two subsections in question at the page psychology of eating meat, replacing the copies here with a shortened version based on the sources which do connect this research with "carnism". Looks like I'll have to write up those shortened sections for your consideration; I'll get on that. Sammy, over the past week I learned that "belief", "value", and "attitude" have individual, technical meanings in psychology. Hayley 2014 (p. 2) has a good discussion of this in the context of meat.
 * 2) As far as I know, nobody here is disputing the conclusions of the Cambridge Declaration (see article). Many people do, as Loughnan et al et others have found; this talk page isn't the place to convince them.
 * 3) Kindly read through Draft:Psychology of eating meat and as many of its sources as you can access. The "cultural baggage", ie culturally constructed groups of attributes collectively assigned to males, is precisely what's being studied. That "baggage" has been empirically linked to meat-eating attitudes and behaviors over and over. FourViolas (talk) 00:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * One thing that comes to mind that hasn't yet been mentioned is the sexualization of meat eating in the west aimed at men. A really good example of this are the numerous Jack in the Box commercials (see YouTube) that feature a beautiful woman eating a burger in an erotic manner. Viriditas (talk) 01:01, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if we have sources on that. For "masculine" perceptions of meat in the West and other cultures, even apparently unconnected to hunting, we certainly do. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that it matters, but there are dozens of good sources on this topic. Viriditas (talk) 01:31, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Good point, Viriditas. Carol J. Adams wrote a whole book on "The Pornography of Meat", and I've already come across a relevant paper in Critical Animal Studies. The rest of the current draft is organized according to secondary sources, so I'll see if I can find one te give hints on where to include that info. Possibly a subsection of masculinity, since sources seem to indicate you're right: it's mostly sexualized for men. A review would also tell us how much weight to give it; it does seem less explored than the meat-men connection in general. FourViolas (talk) 01:38, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There's also plenty of published research on sexual objectification in animal-rights media, particularly PETA ads. Again, I'm working on finding a secondary source for guidance on where to put this. FourViolas (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

FourVoilas, the draft is problematic, both in terms of writing style and the selection of sources. I grabbed a sentence at random: that "meat consumption is widely perceived to correlate with masculine muscle development." The first source is a 1989 PhD thesis. The second is better, but what it says is a lot more sophisticated, and it would be better to use that source's sources (Frazer, Adams, etc).

I don't dispute that this is a valid topic. But (a) to do it well would require an enormous amount of reading; and (b) it can't be created as a POV fork to get rid of carnism. That's just the wrong attitude, and it has hampered the development of both articles. Sarah (talk) 15:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I can easily address those concerns. First: "Meat: A Natural Symbol", by Nick Fiddes, is indeed a Ph. D. thesis, the only one I reference. However, it has been cited five hundred and fifty times . It would be undue not to use it, after I kept seeing it referenced in paper after paper.
 * Second: the three sources cited by Buerkle collectively but not individually support this statement. I know it's your style to directly use the primary sources, but I prefer citing the secondary source and allowing readers to hunt down the cited works if they want. After all, I'm talking to everyone here don't take this as an insult, Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources.
 * Once again, I direct your attention to . I don't want to "get rid of" this article. I think it's independently notable. I'm just saying that the "ascription of limited mental capacity" section is too detailed (blow-by-blow of methodologies and results of many primary sources), and should be shortened with the full version at psychology of eating meat. FourViolas (talk) 03:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Meat, animal consciousness
Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but after reading the section I still don't understand the punctuation in this section heading. Has this been discussed before? valereee (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, the comma replaces an "and". It's a headline thing, like "Sodas, Candy Bars Linked to Obesity, Study Finds". That section at the moment feels like a WP:CONTENTFORK of history of vegetarianism. Very soon I'll be at college, where I've already ordered a book which might give us better guidance on how to organize a section on the background of the idea of "carnism". FourViolas (talk) 13:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

photo captions/NPOV
Hi! Clicked her doing research for another article, and I'm a little concerned about the captions on the photos. "The dogs themselves would be considered food animals in other cultures" seems non-NPOV and western-centric. "Where both are food animals" seems obvious, as they're hanging side by side in a butcher's shop, so calling it out seems like WP:UNDUE. These are editiorial statements that to me seem to be trying to POV push: "All you people who think your own animal-eating choices are normal, look at this! Other cultures eat dogs!  Is that really okay with you?" :) I don't think we need either of these statements.  valereee (talk) 02:57, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Lead image caption: I have edited to reduce NPOV and Western-centrism and placed a link to Dog meat due to nature as food.
 * Justification Image Caption 2: The caption is in contrast to Caption 1 "A cow rests in the street in Vrindavan, India, where cows are revered." since cows are not considered food animals in India.
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 03:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * , I don't think that fixes it. The fact we're pointing out in this first caption that dogs are food is trying to make a point.  That's nonNPOV all by itself.  IMO the whole sentence needs to be eliminated; it's an editorial opinion.  The second caption I was talking about wasn't from the cow photo but from the butcher's shop photo of the dog hanging beside the duck or whatever, and trying to make a 'contrast' is again editorial. valereee (talk) 03:18, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * , just clarifying that the image caption 2 is for the dog and poultry picture. Check the text-coding. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 08:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure this is the ideal way to make this point (the issue has been debated, see archive 1), but the cultural variability of food species is, according to many sources, quite relevant to the "carnism" paradigm for studying meat-eating. I concur with valeree's edits. I also think this isn't a huge deal; the previous captions weren't blatantly anti-meat. FourViolas (talk) 03:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, not a huge deal. They weren't blatant.  They just felt like they were expressing an opinion by the person who wrote the caption, and that felt like it wasn't NPOV to me.  valereee (talk) 13:42, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I wrote the caption to the dog/chicken image. If there was an apparent anti-meat POV, it was certainly not intended...I eat (some) meats.  I uploaded the image to illustrate that in Western culture, we (most of us) find eating dog meat abhorrent and juxtapose this against the chicken which we (most of us) find acceptable.  Yes this is western-centric, but it was intended as an example of inconsistency in thinking, not to indicate western values are any better or any worse.  I was also thinking that for the English Wikipedia, most readers will be from Western cultures and therefore this example was more relevant.  It is balanced by the image of the cow allowed to languish. DrChrissy (talk) 14:03, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's keep the image, with the dispassionate caption. DrChrissy, I would say I sympathize, but when the issues at hand are so charged with activism and lobbying on both sides, it's better to refrain even from completely reasonable editorializing. The image authentically illustrates a phenomenon mentioned in the sources; we should avoid telling readers what to think about it. Side note: there are a billion people in India, and more of them get Internet every day. FourViolas (talk) 16:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I was not actually arguing for a change of the caption. I was simply trying to indicate that people might be mistaken by the intent behind the caption and that again people may be bringing their own preconceived ideas here.  This is an observation, not an attack or criticism. DrChrissy (talk) 16:22, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * -- my apologies, I didn't intend to imply there was any intentional POV pushing! I can absolutely see that a completely sincere good-faith edit could have created that caption, and I see absolutely zero reason to believe that there was any intentional subtle POV pushing.  It was totally just a reaction to how the caption felt to me.  I actually eat minimal meat myself and am very sympathetic to the concept of carnism.  valereee (talk) 16:38, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem whatsoever. I've just tried a rewording of the caption - comments welcome. DrChrissy (talk) 16:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds neutral to me. valereee (talk) 16:57, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear. I have tried to inject what the article is about rather than just a statement - "this is a cooked dog and a cooked chicken". I hope others agree. DrChrissy (talk) 16:59, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with that. I wikilinked beef and dog meat. Perhaps at some point we could add an illustration of a Western practice unusual elsewhere; maybe a pork chop with mention of Abrahamic (halal/kosher) proscriptions. But for now this is more than satisfactory. FourViolas (talk) 00:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, and you're all going to either laugh at me or shoot me...but without the reference in the caption to dogs being eaten, the main photo no longer illustrates the article well. I don't really think the answer is changing the caption back, but I wonder if the cooked dog and poultry photo would be a better main image? Or if that's too stark for a main photo, maybe the cow? Apologies if this has already been discussed. valereee (talk) 12:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Carnism/Archive 1. The current image vaguely references the irony of our differential relationships to food and companion animals, but isn't extremely clear. (Probably, in contemporary context, the point was more along the lines of "Norton has tasty food, Bummer and Lazarus want to eat it.") I had been advocating for #3 in Talk:Carnism/Archive 1, but there are plenty to choose from—and no clear guidance in sources or policies. FourViolas (talk) 13:20, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we are re-opening the lead-image discussion. The chicken+dog picture isn't too graphic, but is already in use and I would therefore technical oppose until a replacement is found too avoid repetitive images. I would prefer an image that shows a person choosing between a "pet-animal" and a "food-animal" meat-product as being most-appropriate since opinions now seem to be open about the lead-image. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 13:28, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * All right then, let's all make sure we're familiar with WP:LEADIMAGE. Relevant here: Lead images should be selected to be of least shock value and Lead images are not required, and not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic. FourViolas (talk) 13:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * -- thanks for those archived discussions, and I see that this has been discussed multiple times. I think the dog/poultry can hardly be described as being of least shock value.  I'm thinking maybe a pig is a great example, since pigs are one of the animals viewed in most different ways -- they can be pets, food, entertainment animals.  They're one of the most intelligent mammals that is commonly eaten.  They are seen as not-edible for reasons OTHER THAN ethics/squeamishness at unfamiliar meat -- that is, for religious reason/cultures see them as 'dirty.'  And they possibly avoid being western-centric in the lead image because in the west we do tend to see pigs as food animals primarily.  (Not sure whether I'm on shaky ground there...what I'm trying to get at is that a pig is not throwing a shock-value TO WESTERNERS photo into the lead.)   So maybe the photo of the pet pig would really illustrate carnism well -- that is, some cultures consider it dirty/forbidden for either meat or as a pet.  Other cultures eat it only.  Others eat it AND treat it as a pet.  Thoughts? valereee (talk) 14:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I could get behind that. Pigs are a locus for many meat-cultural issues: pet/food, clean/unclean, intelligent animals/brutish animals. Also, when they're livestock, they're meat-only, so the issue isn't fuzzied. This particular image isn't that strongly illustrative (for me, in a culture which supports pork eating, it just makes me think "hey, cool, a pet pig"). It's possible we couldn't get any more illustration value without adding shock value, but it would be nice to try. Hmm. Are there any fictional or otherwise famous pigs, with free images, who could illustrate these differential classifications? Pinging, who has access to a few books discussing this. Or maybe a pork label showing a happy pig? I have sources linking that kind of imagery to cognitive dissonance reduction, but not to "carnism" per se. FourViolas (talk) 18:48, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of a food label with a happy pig! I'll check WM commons. valereee (talk) 18:52, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is interesting: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Festival_du_cochon_de_Sainte-Perp%C3%A9tue_2007-08-04.jpg valereee (talk) 19:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm a little fuzzy on what a photo on flickr means as far as fair use goes, but here's this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29069717@N02/15371673202/ valereee (talk) 19:25, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yikes people - I am not really sure where this thread is going but I rather recoil at statements/arguments about animal intelligence in relation to their being eaten. It is fine to describe what image would be perfect for the lead image, but does this image exist?  Best really to source images and discuss them...if we really need to do that.  We maybe just re-inventing the wheel here. DrChrissy (talk) 21:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would think the question of relative intelligence was related to the concept of animal consciousness? That is, I'm not sure oysters, for example, are 'conscious' by the definition used in obsolete arguments.  But pigs probably are.  Wouldn't the two concepts be related w/re: carnism?  Some people don't mind eating meat from an animal that isn't self-aware.  valereee (talk) 22:04, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In my experience, when people start talking about animal intelligence and consciousness related to (not) eating animals, they are talking about an animal's capacity to experience suffering. Intelligence does not correlate with suffering in humans - People suffering from Down's syndrome hurt if you stick them with a pin, they get upset when loved ones leave them, etc.  Why would we think another species suffers less because it scores lower on a highly nebulous notion we humans call "intelligence"?  I take your point about oysters, but why have you drawn the line there?  What about octopus, squid, prawns....? DrChrissy (talk) 22:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Back to the lead image concern. The image of the entrance to a festival - IMHO has no inherent message - it will rely entirely on the caption - perhaps I am missing something.  With regards to images of "happy pigs"...I feel these are highly objectionable due to the complete contrast with the reality of the way livestock pigs are reared and the welfare concerns.  Unless we can have a very clear caption to such an image, this could easily be construed that we are advocating meat eating because life is ok for pigs. DrChrissy (talk) 23:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not me but the person carnism is theorizing about when it talks to the concept of consciousness. valereee (talk) 23:49, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Re: happy pig photo. That was actually the point -- that the pig in a chef's hat on the bbq joint sign is an example of exactly what we're talking about.  I feel like we're talking at cross purposes.  I'm not suggesting the pig is happy.  And we aren't advocating anything; we're explaining the dissonance factor. valereee (talk) 23:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Page 520 of this book discusses the phenomenon of advertisements portraying meat animals as happy to be eaten, and pp 516 et seq discuss the ways people (especially children) are taught not to think about the suffering of animals on farms (or in zoos), all this in the context of reducing cognitive dissonance about meat. This chapter in Critical Animal Studies talk a lot about unrealistic and unrealistically-happy animals in advertisements promoting animal products. Humanist psychologist Liz Grauerholtz wrote a paper I don't have access to about the "cute-ification" of animals in meat ads as a strategy for promoting meat. Unfortunately, none of these (not even the one which discusses the "cultural hegemony" of the "meat-industrial complex" uses the word "carnism", which would seem to be a requirement for a citation supporting a lead image. FourViolas (talk) 11:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * To be clear, again: I'm in agreement with you that the representation of a 'happy pig' for a pork restaurant is in aid of reducing cognitive dissonance about meat. That was my entire point in supporting that suggestion: that it illustrates one of the main points of carnism. valereee (talk) 13:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, but I feel that the chain of "carnism involves cognitive dissonance reduction"→"happy pig ads help reduce cognitive dissonance"→"happy pig ads illustrate carnism" is a bit too close to WP:OR for such a prominent feature of a page. If we could find a source directly linking this to carnism, that problem would be solved; that's why I pinged SV, who added material from sources which apparently do make this or similar connections. FourViolas (talk) 13:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, could be OR or WP:SYNTHESIS, agreed. valereee (talk) 13:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If we can't settle on something soon, I suggest we take that as a sign there's no easy representation of the topic and go lead-image-less. FourViolas (talk) 11:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought we had already reached consensus on the present lead image. While consensus can change, I see only one editor objecting to the present lead image. DrChrissy (talk) 12:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I was never thrilled with the current image, but I think it's adequate. You're probably right that we should defer to previous consensus until somebody finds a really clear improvement. If my sources from my last comment discussed "carnism" as well as hegemony and cognitive dissonance, I'd argue that we'd found it, but for now I don't see a quick positive outcome if we continue discussion. FourViolas (talk) 13:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No worries, I just was pointing out that with the opiniony portion of the caption removed, we've now got a lead photo that may not illustrate much of anything to do with carnism. But I'm not married to changing it; was just making the observation. valereee (talk) 13:34, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Psychology of eating meat
It's not quite ready for the big time (I just invited WP:PSYCH to comment), but I've put in quite a bit of work at Draft:Psychology of eating meat. I invite you all to take a look. In the course of researching and writing it, I've convinced myself that this article should not be merged there.

Snow Rise is correct that there is extensive literature on scientific meat psychology, which predates Joy by at least a century. Sammy is correct that most of it is consistent with the facts Joy cites to make an argument for meat eating being an "ideology". I have found that, in the sixty-odd sources I cite (not cherrypicking; I found them in review papers), there is exactly one mention of "carnism" or meat-eating as an "ideology", in Rothgerber 2014. In context: "For critics of meat consumption, actual behavioral change is the most socially preferable dissonance-reducing option. However, this alternative is unpopular partially because people report liking the taste of meat too much to abandon it (Rothgerber, 2012), and abstaining from meat may not be possible because of a lack of environmental resources or social networks (see Ruby, 2012) – Festinger (1957) himself identified satisfying behaviors and behaviors not possible to change as contributing to resistance to behavioral change. As a result of this and the prevailing carnist ideology (Joy, 2011), vegetarianism remains a relatively infrequent practice in the United States, accounting for 4% of the population (Stahler, 2012)."

That's it: one quasi-parenthetical nod to Joy, in the limited context of meat opposition in the U.S. It's not a true secondary source, and the other 66 sources never mention the term or concept. Clearly, discussing the "carnism" paradigm on that page would be badly UNDUE.

I have incorporated the subsection on "Ascription of limited mental capacity" into the new article. I believe it is more appropriately in context there, as none of the sources it cites mentions "carnism" or "ideology". I believe the parallel section on this page should be replaced with a brief WP:SUMMARYSTYLE sentence or two, with a main hatnote. FourViolas (talk) 16:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Hope I'm not being presumptuous but I've created a talk page for Psychology of eating meat and posted a question about construction templates being used.
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:50, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * As I'm off to college and will no longer have much time to develop it, I'm moving Draft:Psychology of eating meat to mainspace. The WP:FORKed section, #Ascription of limited mental capacity, has been cut down to WP:SUMMARY style; I still feel it would be more DUE, given the relative depth of each article, to keep the un-summarized version there instead of here, but I don't have any desire to argue that out. I've included a See also link to this page, and will add a parallel link from here to there; revert and discuss if you object.


 * A move discussion has been opened at Draft talk:Psychology of eating meat, as a bot will soon inform you all. FourViolas (talk) 22:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"Psychology of eating meat"
The usage and topic of is under discussion, see DRAFT TALK: Psychology of eating meat -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 06:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Image of meat, eggs and cheese
What is the purpose of the multi-image of meat, eggs and cheese? This needs a caption to indicate its relevance. Is it important that it is Cheddar cheese or would "Cheese" be sufficient? DrChrissy (talk) 21:49, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I mean, meat-and-more-broadly-animal-products are the basis of the phenomenon under discussion, so these images could be said to be significantly and directly related to the article's topic. We should always be watchful not to overwhelm an article with images by adding more just because we can, but I don't think we're at that point yet. FWIW, the image information says it's a stock photo of cheddar cheese. FourViolas (talk) 13:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I guess the reason I was left wondering was because "carnism" is derived from "carne" which means meat - so I was wondering where the eggs and cheese came into the subject. If we are talking about "animal products" in general, as in the first sentence, then it's ok.  By the way, perhaps we also need to include images of fish and invertebrates? Regarding the cheese, it appears to be a photo of Montgomery's Mature Cheddar.  I am fortunate to live only 5 miles from Cheddar Gorge, but I am certainly not an expert on Cheddar cheese.  I don't think the image is really representative of Cheddar cheese, but technically it appears to be accurate so I will revert my edit  ;-)  ....that's a big CHEESEY grin! DrChrissy (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think this gets into a bigger confusion: the term and the academic research seem to refer primarily to meat, but groups like http://www.carnism.org or Tumblr vegans are clearly using the term to refer to everything opposing ethical veganism. I'm having a book delivered today which will probably clear up some points about how contemporary veg*ns use the idea. That pun was brie-lly terrible :) FourViolas (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Noooooooooo! I thought that I was the master of the pun! I guess you've got to know Weyn-sleydale to tell them DrChrissy (talk) 15:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Drovers Cattle Network
There are many activist sources on the other side that we haven't been including. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the authors of respectably-published academic sources are biased, and therefore should be balanced with something from an industry lobby group. I take it that was the thinking here. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:28, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I added it because it's due in a narrow context: discussion of the term itself and its connotations. Although COI, this source is the only one I've found besides Joy and Gibert to actually discuss the connotations of the word. In an article, like this one, about a loaded neologism, it's extremely important to give readers as much context as possible for who uses and who objects to the word. If we only have three sources for that, two agreeing it's good that it challenges meat-eating and one saying it's bad for the same reason is not excessive context. Therefore I think including this source, properly attributed, does not create a false balance within the section. Biased sources are not inherently disallowed. FourViolas (talk) 04:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * If you genuinely wanted to present the mainstream view on this subject you would be better to take some material from something like compassion in world farming.


 * I do, thank you. However, I'm trying to give context for the way the word is used, and I can't find the word being discussed by that group. FourViolas (talk) 10:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Sammy, I agree with 4V on this one. Her edit presents a clearly COI quote, but, we are allowed to do this if it is presented in a neutral manner or a direct quote.  It adds to further building the article and should be replaced. DrChrissy (talk) 12:32, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I would have less of a problem with putting it in the context of other opinion pieces. So far we've carefully avoided sources like this, on either side of the discussion. (I'm not considering academic sources, regardless of their authors' personal beliefs, to be "opinion", which I think is something FourViolas disagrees with.) We keep throwing around the idea of an extra section, perhaps it belongs there. However, I will be away until Monday and may not have any time to edit. Would anyone mind tabling this question until then? --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sammy, with the greatest of respect, I don't think you can ask people to stop editing simply because you are away. My own motivation for editing here is now extremely thin given the number of very distracting, detailed arguments (not blaming you for this). I now only edit when I have sufficient motivation to.  People should be allowed to work on this article freely and when they wish.  You will of course be most welcome to comment/edit on any changes made in your absence. DrChrissy (talk) 13:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a request, not a demand, and just refers to this specific issue. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:03, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sammy, I did not say you were demanding it - the word I used was "ask". DrChrissy (talk) 14:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That's fine - forget I asked, and accept my apologies for the presumption. I'll address the question of including some partisan op-eds when I come back. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:12, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've looked more and you're right; there are many op-eds which discuss the term and praise it (mostly for the same reason this one objects to it). However, I really think it's important to include what sources think about the concept's implications: this talk page is ample evidence of that. So why don't we just add two sentences, based on many primary sources but without OR. Like this:


 * That would address Sammy's DUE concern, clearly showing that most of those who use the word approve of it. It would also include essential information on the contested nature of the word. Of course it would be ideal to have a secondary source observe this for us (did anybody find pp. 162-164 of this book discussing vegetarians' use of the word?), but this addition is verifiable, is not original research, and (with its lopsided head counts) gives due, not equal, weight. FourViolas (talk) 22:50, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd rather not claim WP:SILENT consensus on this. What do others think about this more-comprehensive POV-attributed summary of a series of primary sources? FourViolas (talk) 03:50, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry I didn't respond. I don't think it's horrible, and tomorrow I'll put together a few more sources for a statement along those lines, if you prefer. I do have some reservations - one: in contentious areas, lowering the quality of sources is rarely a good idea; two: although I think your purpose with this was to represent criticism of the "carnism" concept, I don't think this looks very good at all for the "carnist" side, having several people chime in in support of the idea, and the opposing voice be one from a beef industry trade journal. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:00, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I think that, given the word's wide use outside of academia, it is important to carefully and verifiably provide information on how and by whom it's used. If I hold that position, I can hardly ask us to WP:CHERRYPICK among available sources. Readers will be able to see that the word is sometimes associated with anti-meat advocates; there's no need or justification for editorializing. FourViolas (talk) 10:49, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I can provide about 15 opinion or low quality sources (maybe a few more) including two from "carnists." I'll put this together later today and see what you think. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Before you go to too much trouble, I'll suggest we stick to published op-eds, avoiding things like carnism.org or blogs. They tend to be easier to cite without stooping to OR or questionable summarizing. FourViolas (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm confused. If we're not citing advocacy groups, then Drovers Cattle Network obviously shouldn't be included. That would cut my "carnist" sources down to one. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Mind, I wasn't going to count carnism.org because it's primary, but what about things like the German-language Albert Schweitzer Institute source that you pointed out to me in an e-mail? --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:18, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'll try to explain better. Surveying the use of the term by partisan advocates is indeed what I'm proposing we find a way to do. I simply think op-eds are more useful than a bulletin from a vegan activist, published by a vegan group (en), because the op-eds are speaking to a more general audience and trying to be understood by people who aren't familiar with vegan arguments. I think we can also agree they're usually higher-quality than self-published blogs or unsolicited letters-to-the-editor. FourViolas (talk) 19:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm still confused. Do you want to cite advocacy groups or not? I can go either way, but if we cite Drovers Cattle Network we surely can cite the Albert Schweitzer Institute also. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think there's a subtle difference, as the DCN is a newsletter for a specific population and the ASI is an advocacy group, but it's really not that important. Let's say we just keep it to sources with a minimum level of editorial oversight: Huffington Post yes, vegan blogs no. Up to you whether to include the many clones of CAAN press releases (including the ASI). FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The Drovers Cattle Network is not a reliable source for this article, so there's no need to try to balance it with other sources. Sarah (talk) 14:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a reliable primary source for the opinion of a person whom an industry publication chose to give several opinion pieces' worth of space. It shows more editorial oversight than, say, Schott. It's being balanced against other primary sources to which similar publications have given similar space. FourViolas (talk) 14:49, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * FourViolas, please see WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, with regard to this several other issues. You removed a philosopher, and added what seems to be a meat-industy blogger.  It's becoming hard to assume good faith. Sarah (talk) 15:17, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Funny, I was refraining myself from mentioning that you. Perhaps it would be better to assume good faith on both sides; I know I am. Ruetenik was being used to support the assertion that Piazza et al. had found meat eating was supported by the 4 N's; he was not especially academically qualified to comment on the importance of those psychological experiments, and the statement was already amply cited. Dan Murphy was described as a "food-industry journalist", and his opinion, properly balanced, adds useful information to the article, as DrChrissy agreed.


 * I'm frankly surprised you would think I was intending to disrupt the encyclopedia, after the tens of hours I've put in over the past week on Draft:Psychology of eating meat. FourViolas (talk) 15:26, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The page says the article is by Brett Wessler, who appears to be a PR person, and when he worked for cattlenetwork.com was a "web content specialist."  The article is not an RS for this topic, and if it's restored I'll remove it. Sarah (talk) 15:38, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Read to the bottom and follow related links . Murphy seems to be a pro-meat-industry journalist and pundit. Clearly we disagree on this—you seem not to be acknowledging that different sources are reliable for different things—so I'll take it to WP:RSN so we don't have to keep disputing it. FourViolas (talk) 23:21, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

, a practicing research scientist, agrees the source is reliable for the cited comment (and beyond). Sammy and I were in agreement about this, too. I believe it is obvious (and that Sammy and DrChrissy agree) that information on the word's usage outside of academia is pertinent to the article. I further believe, with Sammy's apparent support, that a selection of opinion pieces in fact-checked publications, giving due weight to each, is an appropriate path forward on this.

SlimVirgin, your threat to unilaterally remove this material if reinstated, and your questioning my faith rather than requesting explanations for my actions, feel to me as though they disrupt the cooperative environment of this talk page. I'm sure you're being reasonable, but please make sure your tone reflects your willingness to cooperate. FourViolas (talk) 02:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not planning to step into this article much aside from the RSN post, but I wouldn't use my status as a research scientist for anything here. Just to clarify though, I do think the source in general is reliable for documenting a major point of view in this topic (livestock producers). Weight is where things get tricky, I'm plenty fine with the edit discussed above. I would be wary about using it more broadly "beyond" that as it's not a secondary source, but there may be specific uses if certain viewpoints are needed. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:08, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification; sorry if I exaggerated your position. FourViolas (talk) 11:45, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm adding the quote I set forth above (properly cited, of course). DrChrissy and I support it as relevant and constructive; Kingofaces43 is "plenty fine with it" as "documenting a major point of view in this topic"; Sammy1339 thinks it's "not horrible" and would like to add to it; and SlimVirgin opposes on the grounds that the Drovers Cattle Network is not a reliable source, even for the opinion of a pro-meat interest group. I consider this to be consensus in favor of addition, and I ask that the edit not be reverted until this consensus is changed. FourViolas (talk) 02:33, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * That said, complete consensus is better than supermajority consensus. I finally got hold of Iaccobo & Iaccabo, an openly anti-meat book but one published as part of American Subcultures, a series of anthropology books edited by the well-respected Bruce Jackson (scholar). The book's two pages on "carnism" support the following statement (according to me; I can type them up per fair use if this is disputed):


 * as the objector to the current content, would you prefer to replace it with this method of presenting the term's rhetorical use? Everyone else, do you have any objections to changing the current material to this? We could also add this while keeping the current material. FourViolas (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I actually would be grateful to see those two pages just of the hell of it, if you don't mind doing a copy-paste. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * No problem, I'll call it a typing exercise. I have to go at the moment, but I'll type them up this evening. FourViolas (talk) 22:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The following is text from Karen Iacobbo's book Vegetarians and Vegans in America Today provided here under fair educational use. Please don't copy it all over the place.

Carnism and flexitarians

Like meat grown in a laboratory, genetically engineered vegetables are tangible. [this has to do with the previous section.] Words, although intangible, have as much or more power thanthe material world to change the way people think of vegetarianism. A story in the Washington Post says, "What exactly is a vegetarian? The term is so liberally applied that it can describe a wide variety of eating patterns, from semi-vegetarian s or occasional meat eaters to hardcore vegans who won't let any type of animal product cross their lips. Some vegans (pronounced vee-gans) are so strict that they won't eat honey."

Vegetarians know the importance of language in their daily interactions with meat eaters and in advocating vegetarianism. Melanie Joy, PhD, EdM, professor of psychology and sociology at UMass, Boston, and author of Strategic Action for Animals, says people generally use defense mechanisms that distance themselves from the reality of meat eating. "This is because people typically need to maintain a positive moral sense of themselves; in other words, everyone needs to believe that he or she is leading a moral life."

Most people do not consider themselves to be violent, and yet eating the bodies of animals is clearly an act that is based on violence. When our actions and practices are incompatible, we experience an internal dissonance or incongruence. People typically respond to this inner conflict in one of two ways: They change their behaviors to coincide with their beliefs (e.g. stop eating animals), or they change their perception of their behaviors to coincide with their beliefs. The latter relies on a variety of defense mechanisms that serve to distance one from the reality of one's actions. Such defenses depend on language to sustain them. For instance, by referring to a nonhuman animal as it rather than she or he, we are better able to treat her or him as the object suggested by our language. Accordingly, when we refer to meat as having been something, rather than someone, we increase rather than decrease the distance between the reality of meat and the mis-represented end product of slaughter.

[the following is from Joy, in an email interview with the author]

Carnism is the word I coined to refer to the ideology of meat production and consumption, with carnists being those who choose to eat animals. I created this word because, contrary to popular belief, meat consumption is a social norm whose prevalence conceals its ideological foundation. Mear eating is therefore seen as a given, rather than a choice that is based on the belief in superiority and that it is ethical and appropriate to eat nonhuman animals, Yet, eating meat, though the norm, is reflective of nothing more that a widely held opinion that is not espoused by everybody.

Typically, it is only those beliefs which run counter to the dominant culture that are labeled. For instance, rather than name those who do not eat meat "plant eaters" or "herbivores", we have labeled the ideology beneath these practices because it is understood that vegetarianism is not merely a dietary practice, but a philosophy in which the consumption of nonhuman animals is seen as unethical, unjust, and unnecessary.

By naming vegetarianism but not its opposite, we reinforce the assumption that eating animals is an ideologically neutral and inevitable practice. When we label the beliefs beneath the behavior, however, we are in a much better position to raise awareness of individuals' choices as consumers, and to challenge the foundation upon which meat consumption stands. This restructuring of language can help illuminate the reality that corpses are not necessarily synonymous with cuisine, and that thefocus of the vegetarian movement is not merely the elimination of meat consumption, but the abolition of carnism.

Foreign language books
de-archived 22:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC) re-de-archived 15:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC) I've found a few foreign language academic books that seem highly valuable. One is Le végétarisme et ses ennemis by Renan Larue, which seems rather close to the hypothetical "Carnism in World History" that I lamented not having in an earlier discussion with DrChrissy. Presently I only was able to cite an interview with the author of the book. The others are German: Mahlke and Ferrari & Petrus. It would be great to have these. I'll be asking at WP:RX. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I read French. Larue is in my university's library, although I might be insane to think I'll have time to read and summarize it while I'm there. I'll give it a shot, though. I already interlibraryloan-ordered some sources for meat psych. FourViolas (talk) 20:41, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks like a cool book. There are three (short) pages in the introduction describing the coinage and use of "carnism", which could be very useful. However, although the term "carnisme" appears throughout the book, I'm not seeing much which is appropriate to include here. It's a historical survey of vegan-carnist debate, from Pythagoras to kashrut to ahimsa to the Vegetarian Society to the present day; very interesting, but much more relevant to ethics of eating meat than to a general discussion of the history of carnism per se.


 * I could try to isolate information about specific elements of carnism, such as how the ancient Greeks vs St. Augustine vs the Victorians justified humans' right to use animals, if you think that would be appropriate. FourViolas (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Found time to get into Larue more. Turns out there's actually a lot of the more useful second kind of information: carnist philosophy in Ancient Greece, Abrahamic religions, and modern society, all in lots of detail and presented in very fair-sounding ways. I'll work it in. Thanks for finding this, Sammy! FourViolas (talk) 15:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Publishing Draft:Psychology of eating meat
Hello all, and Happy Xmas to those who want one.

A few months ago, there was a lot of controversy on this page, and I spent a lot of time trying to reduce what I saw as an anti-meat POV. The primary problem, in my opinion, was that there are very few RS which discuss "carnism", and most are partisan, so it's difficult for editors with differing views to come to agreement. After a while, I decided it would be more productive to write about the psychology of eating meat (more broadly than the "carnism" paradigm) because there's a great deal of peer-reviewed literature on the subject, as well as a lot more empirical data, making the topic as a whole less prone to argument.

I researched and wrote a large draft, but various impediments kept it from being published. Now that I'm on break, I'd like to give it another go. Since there's currently a redirect from Psychology of eating meat to this page, we need to discuss the matter here.

I believe the material for "Carnism" and "Psychology of eating meat" are almost entirely separate. I'm assuming that proper material for "psych of" is anything reliably published by a psychology researcher about meat, and proper material for "carnism" is anything reliably published discussing "carnism" (because it's a neologism and not widely accepted in the psych literature, I believe it's OR to say, "oh, clearly these papers belong in the 'carnism' article" if the paper doesn't use the term or reference Joy). The only overlap is in the Piazza paper, which doesn't use the term but does adapt Joy's "N's" terminology, and in one paper by Hank Rothgerber where the word "carnist" appears. I think it would be better to move those to the "psych of" article, but would be happy leaving them and the whole "meat paradox" section here—it's not a big deal.

I propose to publish the draft, making any changes necessary to comply with the core content policies.

Pinging those who have offered feedback so far:, , , , , , , ,. Best, FourViolas (talk) 19:28, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I have read your Draft:Psychology of eating meat. I am impressed. It is better than Carnism in numerous ways. It is better written, and more scholarly. It does not push a PoV (and is therefore more effective at getting its ideas through to confirmed meat-eaters like me). It is about a topic, not a word: Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Maproom (talk) 08:27, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I suppose my respose would be to ask why we should have an article on the Psychology of eating meat but not on the psychology of most other normal human activities, such as eating in general, washing, or having children. There is obviously some kind of point being made. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * We actually do have articles on Food choice, on the Evolutionary psychology of parenting, and on (at least) Mysophobia. We also have articles on Traffic psychology, Police psychology, Filipino psychology, and much more.


 * However, even if we didn't, WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST is simply not how notability works. Meat psychology has been the subject of enough reliable literature to allow a properly sourced article to be written; it is therefore prima facie a suitable topic for an article. Here's a best-of list of sources proving notability.


 * If you want intuitive evidence that this is worth writing about, think about the fact that meat is one of the most socially important foods in almost any culture, or the fact that people don't want to see pictures of slaughterhouses while eating but wouldn't mind discussing carrot harvesting. Or just take the advice of Paul Rozin: "Meat should be a subject of special interest to psychologists." FourViolas (talk) 23:41, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * FourViolas, I agree that psychology of meat-eating could make an interesting article, but this is written as an essay, and much of it was created as a fork of Carnism. At one point a large chunk was copied over, though I don't know whether it's still there. I think creating it as written is just going to cause arguments, or an unnecessary article split. SarahSV (talk) 16:51, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

It has almost twice as many references as this article as is much better written. Publish it already. Jonathunder (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment. Wow. That is one of the most disturbingly POV and opinion-skewed drafts/articles I've ever seen on Wikipedia. No way is it encyclopedic. It is a cherry-picked nightmare of vegan-chauvinism, proffered as fact. Softlavender (talk) 10:12, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that's harsh, but the whole subject is necessarily going to have a bias problem. Nobody with the mindset of "People eat meat, what's all the fuss about?" is going to devote their career researching it, spend endless hours philosophising over the ethics of it, or even devote this level of effort to documenting it in Wikipedia.  90% of everything written about the ethics or psychology of eating meat is from people with a huge axe to grind, while 90% of people just couldn't give a toss.  Quite how you pull all that into one, or a small number, of encyclopaedic articles is beyond me.  It clearly hasn't happened yet or we (FourViolas) wouldn't be having another stab at it.  One practical suggestion: an article about the Psychology of Eating Meat is a far better starting point than one about the pejorative term and niche book Carnism.  It can and probably should reference that concept, but then Carnism should be a redirect.  Lithopsian (talk) 14:06, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It's true there's a lot of controversy swirling around the topic, but don't underestimate the ability of academics to dedicate their careers to a topic without bias. Paul Rozin, whom Loughnan et al. credit (p. 107) as essentially the founder of meat psychology, is not vegetarian or vegan. We have all the tools we need to write a good article: balance RS, describe disagreements among them with a NPOV, avoid OR., all I did was summarize the first few score papers and books I found in Google Scholar, including many funded by the meat industry; if you think I cherrypicked along the way, please show me the RS I've been selectively ignoring and I'll work them in. FourViolas (talk) 16:35, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Tags
The two tags on this article are frivolous and were added by the same editor who created the merge discussion and then WP:FORUMSHOPped it into a deletion discussion (while still only proposing the same merge). User:SlimVirgin attempted to remove them on Dec. 20. Since then, a few editors have claimed that the article fails GNG and is entirely synthesis, but no actual example of synthesis has been mentioned, nor has any credible reason been brought up why the numerous secondary sources do not constitute significant coverage. In fact, those arguing for the merge have not even claimed this - they have all said that the material should be merged into the book article. I think the tags should be removed. --Sammy1339 (talk) 07:21, 1 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with the tags. The article has major problems of notability and WP:SYNTH. Softlavender (talk) 07:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Subject of the article
Per what Borock wrote in the AfD, it is actually a huge problem that this article appears to be about a word, not about its actual subject. It's not consistent with the way it's used in our sources, which all accept that carnism is a thing that exists, not a putative fringe theory. I'll give some quotes showing this. To quote myself from July:


 * Joy's book (2010): "Carnism is the belief system in which eating certain animals is considered ethical and appropriate. Carnists - people who eat meat - are not the same as carnivores. ... Carnists eat meat not because they need to, but because they choose to, and choices always stem from beliefs."
 * DeMello (2012): "Melanie Joy coined the term carnism to refer to the belief system which supports meat eating."
 * Gutjahr (2013): "[Joy] identifies the normalization mechanisms that reproduce the violent system of meat consumption, as a perception and belief scheme, which is deeply internalized in the subjects (similar to an ideology), which she calls Carnism."
 * Gibert & Desaulniers (2014): "Carnism refers to the ideology conditioning people to consume certain animal products. It is essentially the opposite of veganism." Several pages later they give us "How then are speciesism and carnism to be distinguished? First, speciesism is broader than carnism. For instance, you can be vegan and consider that no animals deserve to be exploited for food or leather but still morally value the life of a horse more than that of a cow because of their belonging to a hierarchically lower-ranked species. In this case, you are probably not a carnist but, in a sense, you are still a speciesist."

Here are some other excerpts showing how it has been used.

Rothgerber (2014): "As a result of this and the prevailing carnist ideology (Joy, 2011), vegetarianism remains a relatively infrequent practice in the United States, accounting for 4% of the population (Stahler, 2012)."

Packwood-Freeman & Perez (2012): Uses carnism throughout and one of the research questions is identified as "How do the government and journalism construct America's identity as a meat-eating public? To what extent do they challenge carnism versus support carnism?" A couple more quotes: "As Joy notes, when media maintain the invisibility of animal suffering, it perpetuates the view of American carnism as 'normal, natural, and necessary.'" "Other examples of a discursive challenge to carnism include when President Clinton acknowledged that the birds each have different personalities."

Braumsberger (2014): Uses the term throughout. Some quotes: Considering the hostility that is often displayed in carnist-vegan interactions, it is timely to ask why carnists often display such a high degree of aggression and resentment toward vegans. "Speciecism has been embraced by the dominant group in the U.S., namely carnists, and it is of interest to this group tomaintain a status quo that promotes the belief that it is necessary, ethical, and appropriate to consume the meat of certain animals."

None of the academic sources dispute that such an ideology exists. This view is also strongly supported by sources that don't use the term, especially Mizelle, Brett (2015). "Unthinkable Visibility: Pigs, Pork and the Spectacle of Killing and Meat," and also the various works of Rozin who is one of the authorities on the subject.

On the other hand it is distinctly referred to as a term by a beef industry magazine and a food critic known mostly for writing about meat:,. However, these are lower quality opinion sources.

However I think we should stop pretending that the existence of the ideology called carnism is a putative, novel idea. The sources accept that it is a real thing, and the subject of the article should be that thing. I would like to go back to the opening more or less as it was in this version. Pinging SlimVirgin, FourViolas, DrChrissy, who were the main contributors. --Sammy1339 (talk) 07:44, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * , I recall that there was a push to have the first sentence refer to the term, rather than the idea. Please remove anything you think needs to go or revert to whichever version you think most appropriate. I also agree about removing the tags, as they're arguably poisoning the well. SarahSV (talk) 22:01, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Superfluous information
Some of this article's critics are actually right when they say there is a lot of chaff in here. Does anyone mind removing some of the stuff which is just background, like all the statistics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sammy1339 (talk • contribs)


 * I endorse the idea. Cut everything debatably connected, and where connection is indirect (e.g. through Gibert/Desaulniers) add an extra citation to prove it's not OR. Inelegant but apparently necessary. FourViolas (talk) 12:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * As I began about this, it's less clear what I ought to remove. I commented out most of the background information since I think that was causing the misimpression that the article was a massive SYNTH, as alleged above. However most of the non-"carnism" citations are completely benign. Lavin, for example, is cited for the dry information that "Cows are eaten in the West, but revered in much of India. Pigs are rejected by Muslims and Jews but widely regarded by other groups as edible." Most of these sources are from SV's notes and provide context in a perfectly harmless, non-controversial way. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:15, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Example of use
I shared a Care2 post as an example of use of the term in non-academic, (popular) sources - it was reverted with the edit summary "not a RS"? I don't understand the rational and I wish to have it back. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:36, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Anita Krajnc petition
added material cited to a care2.com petition relating to the Anita Krajnc case. Although the petition uses the term "carnist society", I do not believe it is an RS; there is no apparent editorial oversight. It would be possible to write reams of material sourced to such primary activist sources (cf. https://www.tumblr.com/search/carnism), but that would be inadvisable and unencyclopedic. FourViolas (talk) 03:38, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Care2 is a non-academic, popular source that is cited to demonstrate the use of the term, not to define it. The term is used in a petition statement, that has been signed by about hundred and forty thousand signatories. We are saying "Here's an example", can we not do so? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:42, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thoughts after the trim
Much better article than it appeared. There's a core of on-topic material that was hidden before - and some of the edits during the AfD brought things out and vastly improved this. This may be weird coming from me, but so long as we can keep the focus, I could see this as a good article with just a little work. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:42, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Meat paradox
A lot of material not really on topic here had a distinct different topic, the meat paradox; I've spun it off to there, and added it to the links. This, and a few minor cuts (e.g. a complete history of thought on vegetarianism). has tightened up this article and focused it on what was always the claimed subject. I think it's a lot stronger, and a fairly decent second article was fairly readily pulled from it. I think all remaining content is, at least, fairly strongly connected to the subject, while still going a bit beyond the book, with justification for inclusion.

I'm not so sure we couldn't merge it, but it's less of an issue now that some cleanup revealed this article's actual strengths. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:05, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * There is much more to say about the meat paradox than "ascription". That material is not discussed in the same RS as "carnism", so it is at Psychology of eating meat instead, where this material needs to be. The meat paradox is discussed at length in Gibert/Desaulniers, but it is discussed at much greater length in the meat psychology literature, so the WP:WEIGHT imples that Psychology of eating meat is the right home for it. Because G/D discuss it, there should be a SUMMARYSTYLE paragraph on this page about it, or at least a "see also" at the bottom. FourViolas (talk) 13:26, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Should probably merge the two, then. I have added a couple links to meat paradox already, though. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Formal merge (etc) discussions on these topics tend to be protracted and contentious, so I'm going to Boldly move the main information to Psychology of, and write up a summary version for this page following the way the sources are used in Gibert. The nice thing about the AfD being closed is that nobody need worry this is a move towards hurting the article; as Adam writes, it's not bad at all trimmed like this. FourViolas (talk) 19:30, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * All right. I've restored a slightly longer version of the Mannes paragraph which summarizes meat-paradox research in the context of carnism; redirected Meat paradox to the proper section of Psychology of; and added the full version of the "ascription" subsection to Psychology of. I'm perfectly happy to discuss this arrangement if people feel there are strong reasons it would be better to arrange the material otherwise, but I'd be delighted to be able to let this rest. FourViolas (talk) 20:00, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm missing something, but did all the content reach Psychology of eating meat? There was some material moved to Meat paradox that doesn't seem to have reached there, but I may just be stupid today. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Here, you can compare for yourself: vs Psychology of eating meat. I moved Joy's commentary to this article, and left out the pet pig picture because there was already an illustration of the same point (we can swap them out if y'all prefer). Other than that, I think I got it all. FourViolas (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see why I got confused. The intro didn't move, but I think all the references appear, so... Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:56, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Cut material
There's only two major cuts that weren't spun off to meat paradox, One might be salvageable with sources actually connecting it to this subject, the other almost certainly isn't:

"Saved from the slaughter" narratives lack a firm connection to carnism. I think that, if Joy talked about them, you could probably justify it, but, as it stands, it's a separate topic - possibly workable as a stand-alone topic - that doesn't have any obvious connection to the two main articles.

The History of vegetarianism was way too much. If the material isn't in history of vegetarianism I'd grab it and put it there, but it's way off topic here. Carnism isn't the culmination of vegetarian ideas.

Other than that, I've not removed anything significant without putting it in an appropriate article. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:14, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Honestly, I think, now that it's de-COATRACKed, there probably is enough here to justify the article, but it really needed the off-topic material removed for that to be clear. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The "history of meat culture" is well connected to "carnism" by RS, including the Larue book I never had time to incorporate (very sorry, college is busy). You may be right about the Charlotte's Web source, Unthinkable Visibility; it does not use the term "carnism", but is otherwise right on topic: how do we interact, as a society, with meat animals so as to make it easier to eat them? We can discuss that. The turkey-pardoning source, however, uses the term a lot and makes it clear that this kind of narrative is very much suitable. Thanks for pitching in to help improve the article! FourViolas (talk) 13:33, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that, even though there are sources discussing the history, it probably over-dominates the article if we go into that much detail, and it's not like we don't have a full article on the history of vegetarianism so that we have to cover it here. Perhaps if it was better focused, and, ideally, later on in the article, but...
 * As for the turkey-pardoning, I think that you make a decent case that it has a connection, though it's a bit marginal to carnism (it probably isn't a major feature of the justifications, after all, and it doesn't look like the source considers it such). Perhaps National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation - an article without any discussion - might be a better place, though I'd be careful to keep it short and very neutrally phrased, lest POV accusations fly. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:28, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think trimming the history section a little would be better than cutting it. Gibert and Desaulniers spend quite a bit of time on it. The turkey paper concludes with
 * That's an RS saying that this phenomenon is a mechanism promoting carnism (see the preceding few pages of the paper as well). There's no policy or guideline saying we need to strip the article to the bare minimum "major features" and omit everything else. Good idea about the main NTTP page; there aren't many analyses on that page, so I think it would be WP:DUE to add a brief sentence saying "Sociologist Carrie Packwood-Freeman writes that..." FourViolas (talk) 14:54, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That's not bad. Maybe if we could roll it into another heading, though, to avoid too much emphasis? I agree we don't need to just cover the major features, but I am worried that getting too indescriminate will lead to the most important parts being hidden by trivia, you know?
 * As for the history section... eh... you may be right, but at the same time, we do cover the material in at least two different articles (History of vegetarianism, Vegetarianism, probably others), so I'd say the main focus should start around speciesism, as is the case now. It was over a third of the article before the spinoff of meat paradox, anything even resembling what we had before would be over half the article. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:59, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

How about this: I've reviewed the history section, this paragraph seems useful to both summarise and focus the discussion:

Analyzing the history of vegetarianism and opposition to it from ancient Greece to the present day, literary scholar Renan Larue found certain commonalities in what he described as carnist arguments. According to him, carnists typically held that vegetarianism is a ludicrous idea unworthy of attention, that mankind is invested with dominion over animals by divine authority, and that abstaining from violence against animals would pose a threat to humans. He found that the views that farmed animals do not suffer, and that slaughter is preferable to death by disease or predation, gained currency in the nineteenth century, but that the former had precedent in the writings of Porphyry, a vegetarian who advocated the humane production of animal products which do not require animals to be slaughtered, such as wool.

I'll add it in now. I think we could possibly use a sentence or two for context before that, but wouldn't go much further. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:07, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree that that's almost as much detail as is really needed; I think I can find the full Larue book when I get back to school and fill in a few sentences to tie into the next paragraph. IIRC, Sarah felt that the paradoxicality of celebrating and "rooting for" individual animals escaping slaughter while supporting the system in general was one of the most important points to hit, and I agree that it's a striking phenomenon and seems to be right on topic. I don't remember the source(s) which actually made the connection—this is close, but maybe not strong enough. I haven't read Joy's original book, but I can glimpse her pointing this out on p. 150. I think it would be well worth fitting in. Thanks again for your contributions! FourViolas (talk) 05:43, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Think the slaughter narrative is interesting. Suppose itðs really down to whether it's best dealt with here or elsewhere, or both? Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:34, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I can't think of a better place—this is the page about sociological phenomena relating to meat justification—although I'm open to suggestions. I'll reinstate it for now with a ref to Joy to establish non-OR. FourViolas (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

"Non-academic reception"
I'm happy to see that the article has been streamlined somewhat, but I'm still a little puzzled by the "non-academic reception" section. The section seems pretty atypical for an academic subject (imagine a "non-academic reception" section in an article about a plant genus or a form of literary criticism) and doesn't seem to contain much information of value- a few websites/newspapers have published opinion pieces in which the concept is praised (reliable sources, yes, so any information of value could be incorporated elsewhere into the article?) and a meat industry website isn't keen. I went ahead and removed the section, but was reverted on the grounds that "It's useful to show notability." Leaving aside the question of whether these sources are necessary to determine the notability of this subject, notability is not about article content; once notability is established, we don't need to panic about including things just to show or prove that a subject is notable, surely? Am I interested to hear the views of others on the inclusion of this section. Josh Milburn (talk) 23:17, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * This material was my idea IIRC, although I didn't have it in its own section.


 * The motivation was that the word is almost always rhetorically charged with political implications, and it would be vaguely dishonest not to acknowledge that (I think that's what the "HOAX" idea at the AfD was about). By carefully and neutrally summarizing these openly opinionated primary sources, we can show that those opposed to "animal exploitation" find the concept useful, while some in the meat industry find it objectionable.


 * This feels like an important point to report, because any Google search makes the word's affiliations clear, and it was not easily found in secondary sources. Your point about NNC is well taken, but that wasn't the main purpose here. FourViolas (talk) 01:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps notability isn't the word, but carnism is interesting in two ways: It's an interesting philosophical subject, research paradigm, and so on - and the other sections of this article cover that in detail. But it's also a method of encouraging communication and challenging assumptions, and this section discusses the impact of that part of the term's use. The term has both simple propaganda and higher ethical/sociological/anthropological paradigm aspects; it's worth discussing the former explicitly. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:01, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok, yes, good points from both of you. No doubt it can be expanded/merged elsewhere as time goes on, but I agree that it does serve a fair purpose at the current time. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

"Meat paradox" does belong here
I can completely understand why this registered a false positive on some users' hoaxometers, but actually, the inclusion of the meat paradox information was not original research - in fact, it's arguably the central point of the topic. Gibert & Desaulniers devote a fair amount of space to it, and Mannes place it front and center as the core issue. What's happening is that different research groups are using different terminology to refer to exactly the same thing. If you think I'm making this up, look at this Psychology Today article from a couple weeks ago. It's actually a review of a video by Joy aimed at a popular audience, and the reviewer identifies the "meat paradox" as the main topic.

So basically, while the edits may have streamlined the article, they had the effect of removing some of the core ideas. I also have to question FourViolas' invocation of WP:BOLD in making these edits, since just a few days before I had suggested we go to mediation over exactly this issue.

I don't actually want to go to mediation, and the compromise I propose (not because I think it's the perfect outcome, but because I don't want to be editing this article this time next year) is to put "meat paradox" into its own article as Adam Cuerden suggested, and to write a more lengthy summary at the top of "Features" which links to it - basically following Mannes' presentation of the topic. This would enable us to present the ideas without delving into the details of the experiments, which could go in the main article. I am concerned that the meat paradox material occupies too much space in Psychology of eating meat and should probably be split anyway. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Psychology of eating meat (definitely) and Carnism (probably) are both notable per AfD discussion.
 * It is obvious that there is greater WP:Weight of sources discussing the meat paradox without referring to "carnism" than with. (AFAIK only Gibert, that psychology magazine article, and a bunch of CAAN activism makes the connection to carnism, versus lots of peer-reviewed psych papers.)
 * Therefore, if the choice is between this article and Psych of, the material should definitely be there.
 * I am not confident that meat paradox is independently notable; its independent coverage is limited to several primary sources (Bratanova, Bastian, Loughnan, Rothgerber) and one secondary (Loughnan 2014). I really do not want to go through the inevitable AfD.
 * I don't understand why you think the material is UNDUE in the Psych article. Google Scholar sorts by relevance and citation count, and half of the results on the first page of a search for "psychology eating meat" relate to the meat paradox. Google Books (for me) actually gives seven out of ten top results to this topic. If anything, the material is under-represented there.
 * Therefore, we should keep the material in the Psych article rather than spinning it out into another small article.
 * I think it's a fine idea to set the summary in this article in its own section, but expanding its coverage much further risks violating the guidelines of WP:CONTENTFORK. Thanks for discussing this, I'm sure we can work it out. If not, a tightly-worded RfC could work. FourViolas (talk) 04:45, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The problem was mainly that there was a LOT of stuff being thrown in, without ever explicitly connecting it to Joy's work. If whole sectins have only the briefest metnion of Joy or canism, it makes it look like things are going widely off-topic. I think the refocused meat paradox section is fine, but the old one looked like something thrown in to bulk up an article that didn't have enough "real" material to support it. Fixing up the article has shown that's not the case, but the lack of focus that made it look like it was just throwing everything in needs to be avoided. Cover the direct points, but don't add the huge deviation back; carnis, after all, isn't meant to be a catch-all article. Adam Cuerden (talk) 05:06, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I can accept that. I expanded it just a little, so as not to miss the main points. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks great, thank you! FourViolas (talk) 03:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"and vegan activist"
In this edit restored "and vegan activist" saying it was supported by the interview. I don't see this. Joy's activism, such as it is, consists essentially of publicizing her work, and I don't think that she was an activist at the time. The term was coined in 2001, and the interview has her saying she was getting ready to launch an activist group in 2010. In fact I don't even have an RS that says she was vegan at this time (although I think she probably was.) In the 2010 interview she's described as "a social psychologist and a professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts", not an activist. Am I looking at the wrong source? --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I restored Jay's title on the grounds that "getting ready to launch an activist group" strongly suggests being an activist. You're right, though, that the source does not describe her as such, and at the time she was using "vegetarian" as a contrastive to "carnist". However, she is the founder and director of Beyond Carnism, and her own article describes her as a "vegan activist," citing this El Mundo article. Since sourcing is disputed, I'll self-revert pending consensus. FourViolas (talk) 01:09, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I wrote that article. Beyond Carnism is just another name for CAAN, by the way (the same organization mentioned in the interview) which was founded in late 2010. I think that prior to this she was just an academic, so the qualifier shouldn't necessarily be used there. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:41, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's necessarily a bad inclusion. However, while, as I said before, there's both a serious philosophical and propaganda aspect to the term, I think the rewrite to the lead sentence was a bit well-poisoning. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)


 * There are numerous sources showing Joy to be a vegan activist, including in the article on her; it is a label she embraces if anything. Without this vital context we risk giving the false impression that this is a term used by real scientists rather than a term of art coined by a militant vegan and barely used elsewhere, which is what it actually is. Actually we should simply be honest and say that it is a term used by some vegan activists, since the AfDs show no real evidence of any other use. Guy (Help!) 09:10, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * JzG... um... you do realise this is actuallly used in published psychology stidies, right? Adam Cuerden (talk) 09:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The claim that Joy and the other social scientists who use the term are not "real scientists" is both ludicrous and offensive. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I mean, I think that gets to the heart of the issue. Her situation is not unlike that of many academics who left academia for other roles. (I think right now she is on leave from U Massachusetts, technically still on the faculty.) I think it's unwarranted to suggest that her earlier work lacks credibility because she subsequently founded a 501(c)(3). --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:04, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, regarding there being "no real use" of the term by persons other than vegan activists, see the multiple academic sources. (4V did some digging earlier and found that a bunch of them are vegetarians or vegans, but they are not "vegan activists".) Also note that Josh Ozersky and Drovers Cattle Network have used the term. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:14, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * For future reference, this review in the European Review of Social Psychology uses the term without citing Joy: I recall that the existence of such sources was a point of contention here at some point. FourViolas (talk) 03:57, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

CEVA
Should there be a distinct page for CEVA, the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy? and 'Beyond Carnism'? MaynardClark (talk) 14:00, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Why does this page exist?
Shouldn't this page be a candidate for deletion? This is an article for a made up word that's not in common usage. Ergzay (talk) 13:00, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Lots of terms used in particular academic fields aren't in common usage. There are plenty of high-quality scholarly sources, as cited in the article. If you want to nominate the page for deletion, you are welcome to do so, but I don't know if you'll get very far. This is hardly a good start; that borders on vandalism. At best, it's an unsourced claim. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:11, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Just because you don't like a certain thing, Ergzay, does that mean it shouldn't exist? Pretty much, this is used a LOT by Vegans to try and usurp Omnivores, like most people on this earth, into not eating meat and adding percieved animal cruelty into the mix.ZL3XD (talk) 10:27, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Carnist is a slur
It is used as a slur akin to nigger and kike (I officially apologize for using those fowl terms, but I wish to explain how offensive it is). Even the person who coined the term admits to it's current use as one. I don't understand why nobody has mentioned this in the article. Arglebargle79 (talk) 22:06, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. I've never heard it use as anything other than a snarl word.--Imperator-Zor (talk) 15:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * That's a pretty WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim; I always figured the slurs you mention were shocking primarily because of the ongoing histories of disenfranchisement, dehumanization, and murder of Black and Jewish people they represent, and there has been no such systemic persecution of people who support animal use. Do you know of reliable sources for your claim? Google Books and Scholar searches for '"carnist" "slur"' only find this book, which doesn't support the claim. FourViolas (talk) 03:11, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Vegans are a tiny minority who do not have any "real" power, but they act as if they do. In fact, it's a classic example of bigotry. Vegans protest restaurants and grocery stores, sometimes violently, and use slurs like "carnist" (which is, by the way, not a real ideology) in an effort to demonize omnivores. I gave two references in the main article, including one where Dr. Joy bemoans the term's use as a slur. Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:38, 24 November 2018 (UTC)


 * One of those sources (Renan Larue's personal page) doesn't mention the use of "carnist" as a slur; the other is a blog post that says it's "rumored that Melanie Joy herself dislikes current trends of vegans throwing around the term she popularized as a pejorative" but doesn't provide any evidence to back up these supposed rumors. Neither supports the claims that the term is "bigoted" or that it's "NEVER used by Omnivores do describe themselves". Per the Verifiability policy on self-published sources, it's not okay to use sources like this to make claims about third parties (e.g. "radical vegetarians and vegans" or "all omnivores"), so I'm going to remove the material. Please don't restore it without reliable secondary sources; if you're unsure about whether a source qualifies, you can bring it up here before adding it. FourViolas (talk) 14:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you consider fascist a slur? It's more like that. 2601:640:4000:3170:D47A:2B79:239D:1B09 (talk) 04:57, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Carnist is simply the opposite of ethical vegan, just as violence is the opposite of ahimsa or harmless. Being violent only points to the action, not the person. Thus "carnist" is not a slur as a "fascist" but only viewed so by omnivores due to their own guilt consciousness about the harm caused by their actions. At best, it can only be counted as a point of view. Rasnaboy (talk) 07:06, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Fascist is not a slur. If you say nigger you will be ostracized from society. You can't even say that word in mentioning its use, you would have to say "the n-word". On the other hand, fascist is used all the time, and most of the time it isn't describing something that's really fascist. 2601:640:4000:3170:D47A:2B79:239D:1B09 (talk) 16:31, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Well. Maybe I should have said "nigger" in place of "fascist". Anyway, the idea is the word "carnist" is not a slur as the n-word or other terms. Rasnaboy (talk) 18:13, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You don't need a reference to know that carnist is a slur. It is always used as a slur. Demagoguery about it being "simply the opposite of ethical vegan" doesn't slice it particularly when you say "just as violence is the opposite of ahimsa or harmless" And for crying out that unique opinion "only viewed so by omnivores due to their guilt consciousness about the harm caused by their actions" is not a psychological opinion that has any basis but the views of a tiny minority of the population. I can't believe that you would 'try that on'. I also don't appreciate the page getting vandalized by people on the basis of an extremely non-normative viewpoint who say that the rest of the world is under the burden of guilty for eating a human specific diet.Yeenar (talk) 09:41, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

The opening
Hi all, just a quick suggestion that the line in the opening - "This classification is culturally relative, so that, for example, dogs are eaten by some people in Korea but may be pets in the West, while cows are eaten in the West but protected in much of India.[1]" is factually incorrect. There are many happy dog owners in Korea and Vietnam (where they also eat dog), living in a country that eats dog does not exclude you from having dogs as pets, perhaps similar to the fact that many people all over the world keep fish as pets but eat fish. Also, the idea of cows being protected in India is very problematic as India has a huge dairy industry that contributes greatly to the suffering of cows and in general cows are not well treated in practice but only on paper.


 * I would agree that the sentence structure makes it read like some people in Korea eat dog meat but do not also keep them as pets. It may be more accurate to edit the page to read "dogs are legally eaten by some people in Korea but eating dogs is more taboo in the United States." Comparing two specific countries also seems more appropriate. --Zifmer (talk) 21:11, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

POV flag
This article presents information almost exclusively from vegan/vegetarian points of view. Several other users have raised concerns related to this. It should be re-written or expanded to include more points of view on this issue. 2601:1C0:CB00:20:D0F1:51D3:1C47:1CFE (talk) 12:52, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The sections on "Non-academic reception" and "Justification" contain relevant criticism from non-vegan POV. Tags removed. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Most biased wikipedia page I've seen
This article is obviously only touched by vegans and is essentially calling meat eaters worse people in every way which is just hilarious. 31.205.95.126 (talk) 07:49, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * All the sections are well sourced and none of the claims are personal opinions but are made by researchers and the academia in general. Since the very term is about the psychology involved in justifying meat-eating, it comes as no surprise that it'll incur the wrath of those who disagree with it. Nevertheless, as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not censored and intends to give the facts as they naturally are. Rasnaboy (talk) 08:21, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Carnism is a theory that comes from a particular perspective. As such, most of the RS about it are from within that perspective. It makes sense for the article to explain carnism from within that perspective. However, in the interests of WP:NPOV, the article should not be entirely from within a perspective that accepts the entirety of the carnism view. We should be open to and include other perspectives, where appropriate RS exist. So, do we have any RS with critiques of carnism? I used to work in this field (food psychology) and there's certainly a broad range of views on meat-eating beyond carnism and that would disagree with carnism. Bondegezou (talk) 13:03, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The relevant criticism appears in the non-academic section of this article as well as in the article on the book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. You may wish to find some kind of parity between the two. I would also suggest checking the page history, as the criticism section has changed in both articles over time. I should also note that the OP accusing this article of bias is a common, visceral reaction by most carnists who have never had their invisible belief system called out or questioned, and as such, does not mean this article is POV.  An analogous scenario is when a religious person, who grew up in a homogenous religious community, leaves their community and moves to a heterogeneous area, where there are more "nones" and different religions in evidence.  What often happens is that this person either accepts the existence of a diversity of beliefs and life stances, perspectives they were not previously exposed to in their insular town, or, as is more common, they feel persecuted and criticized since their previously dominant belief system is now in the minority, and they are unable to reconcile a difference of opinion.  This is what we see happening with these "article is biased!" posts.  We have people who come from predominantly carnist communities who are now exposed to non-carnist beliefs.  They can’t reconcile the two, so they lash out claiming the subject is biased against meat eaters; we see the exact same phenomenon in secular and atheist communities, where fundamentalist Christians perceive secularists and atheists as biased because Christianity is no longer recognized as being the dominant narrative. This is not a POV problem, this is a persecution complex problem. Viriditas (talk) 22:20, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * , please refrain from making WP:ADHOMINEM comments about other editors. Perhaps you would consider deleting or striking through such remarks? Bondegezou (talk) 16:16, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * There is no ad hominem up above. I explained why this page repeatedly gets random complaints about POV. Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I don't see any ad hominem thing in User:Viriditas's comment. They're just explaining why these articles repeatedly get such "article is biased" sort of comments even after POV concerns are duly addressed. This is evident from the earlier discussions in this and other animal rights–related pages over the years. Will try to find more RS as suggested and let's keep improving the article. Rasnaboy (talk) 04:20, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The comments made earlier were about another editor rather than about the article, the very definition of WP:ADHOMINEM. Likewise, comments like This is not a POV problem, this is a persecution complex problem do not suggest that the requirements of WP:NPOV are being taken seriously and look a bit WP:NOTHERE. Bondegezou (talk) 08:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * A person truly characteristic of WP:NOTHERE couldn't have stayed here for nearly two decades now. I think they're just trying to explain the logic behind the repeated nature of such comments/ideas. As long as the user truly intends to build this article, I can only relate it more with WP:NOTNOTHERE. With the assurance already given to improve the article with more RS, let's move on in the right direction. I think we all are very much here. Rasnaboy (talk) 11:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * All of these arguments are in the archives linked above. We’ve had users coming to this page and adding POV tags for many years based on their pseudo-argument that the article is biased because they perceive it as pejorative against meat eaters. This not a valid argument, it’s a form of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)