That would suggest a fundamental difference in practical ethics between the two cultures.
It sounds like people over there in America don’t do things because they enjoy doing them or because they’re convinced that those are the right things to do, but rather they do them to impress others or improve their social standing.
It doesn’t sound right to me, I mean a culture can’t be so totally obsessed with the self.
Right, but that would mean the „Don’t tread on me” motto is also a type of persona assumed (like veganism) by people who like being perceived as tough and unruly because that’s respected.
(I guess „persona” would be a better word for it than „the self”.)
I think you've pinpointed the reason, although unintentionally: the US is so focused on culture wars that people can't visibly follow a vegan diet without being attacked for it.
You forgot 'signalling' which is what people in the West - not just the USA - are tired of. I know I am tired of it and I'm neither an American nor in the USA.
Stating that a whole country has problems with virtue is rather stigmatising and something you'd complain about if it were about any country in what some have taken to call the "global South".
> You forgot 'signalling' which is what people in the West - not just the USA - are tired of.
No, that's implicit. If I'm tired of rock music, that mostly comes into play when I'm exposed to it in some way.
> Stating that a whole country has problems with virtue is rather stigmatising
Speaking of, someone expressing their virtue -- and caring for the well being of sentient beings simply is, it's a capacity, and it annoys the people who lack it, because it raises the question why they lack it -- isn't automatically them "signalling" anything. That's just an attempt to stigmatise it.
If we don't have empathy with victims of that, who cares what we are "tired of"? We can torture animals, but don't stigmatise us, and don't talk about how you try to avoid feeding the systems that lead to animals being tortured. You can talk about how much you like your other new hobbies, but not this one. You cannot even wear a pin. Because we're so tired and you're so oppressive, with your virtue and your signals. Have empathy with my fear of empathy, basically.
I'm not even vegetarian but I'm more tired of that than them, because it's both evil and stupid, and projects that on vegans.
> something you'd complain about if it were about any country in what some have taken to call the "global South".
Many things play into this. One is the hesitation to punch down versus a superpower that spent many, many millions to signal, to broadcast, their virtue into the whole world for decades.
Oh you went with the "rather" instead of the "quite" that's interesting. Anyway if vegans want to say "I am vegan" you'd profit from taking just a second to ask yourself why you get reflexively pissy about it.
The sibling comment has more eloquent advice, but I'll add that you're neck deep in an echo chamber if that's how you react. Being vegan, mentioning that a country is difficult to live in as a vegan, in a thread about veganism, is not about signaling. Ask the next vegan who'd been to a Global South country instead of imagining people in your head: if it was a pain, they'll say it was a pain, there is no commentary about virtue in there.
It sounds like people over there in America don’t do things because they enjoy doing them or because they’re convinced that those are the right things to do, but rather they do them to impress others or improve their social standing.
It doesn’t sound right to me, I mean a culture can’t be so totally obsessed with the self.