Talk:Carnism

RfC concerning this article

There is an RfC concerning this article and the article on veganism. All editors here are invited to comment there. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:38, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Not neutral - I am commenting here since I don't think it makes sense to evaluate the articles together. Viewing this article as as someone with vegetarian tendencies and a huge supporter and donor to the Humane Society, I say with hopefully little bias that this article is not neutral. Examples: calling it an "unquestioned default", implications of animal cruelty, implying all or most meat eats suffer from cognitive dissonance which then must be "moderated", comparisons to vegans suffering from the same oppression as women/feminism, and generally no arguments "for" Carnism that are not cast in a negative light. 217IP (talk) 02:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

217IP, you are, of course, free to comment here but it would be useful to hear what you have to say on the RfC page. What makes the NPOV status of both articles clear is the discrepancy between the two. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:55, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

4V's copyedit and subsequent discussion

Thanks for your input! I'm currently working on addressing some of those concerns, please don't edit the article yourself for a few minutes to avoid a WP:Edit conflict. FourViolas (talk) 02:18, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

All right, go ahead and take your turn if you like. I will remove "unquestioned default" when I figure out which source(s) support it, as it implies that it ought to be questioned. I toned down some claims and backed off others, especially when sources did not directly support the wording. Almost all the sources cited which aren't intended as activism are scientific studies of the cognitive dissonance caused by the meat paradox, so I don't think we can leave that out while respecting the balance of opinions presented in reliable sources, but there, too, I hewed back to "negative emotions" instead of "moral conflict", and cut language ("attempt") implying most people actively experience moral unease about omnivory. I think it's fair to have a brief paragraph, clearly labeled as vegans' POV, saying "vegans think carnism is really bad, and compare it to what feminists call 'the patriarchy'". FourViolas (talk) 02:46, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Violas - I think you're doing a great job. I would mention however, that having a section specifically outlining vegan POV seems to fall under WP:UNDUE: "articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects". It seems like this section can be removed and simply have a see also:Ethics_of_eating_meat since it is duplicating content anyway. I could see how it can be argued to include this if, like the ethics page, at least half the page discussed a non-vegan perspective. Since this article essentially doesn't include non-vegan POV at all, it seems especially egregious to include a vegan POV section. In my opinion, this article should really be focusing on the discussion of the word Carnism as a neologism rather than trying to replicate the ethics article. 217IP (talk) 03:18, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

@217IP: We have a lot of material on vegan opinions about carnism, and its place in vegan discourse. I kept this section extremely brief because of the type of concern you cite, but given its prominence in the sources we can't eliminate it altogether. Regarding "unquestioned default," that's not my language, but we have many sources saying essentially that and none contradicting it, so I don't see a problem. Our job is to represent what sources say, not what people expect to see, and we are already bending over backwards to avoid including criticism of the central "pro-carnist" ideas, like the 4Ns, which, please note, are not refuted despite that we have multiple sources, including academic papers with dozens of citations, criticizing these arguments harshly without mincing words. @FourViolas: I found your most recent edit a bit unhelpful as it mostly uses more qualified language to say the same thing, sacrificing flow and readability without changing the POV, and contrary to what you suggested on the other page it's not acceptable to violate WP:OR to create the appearance of neutrality. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:53, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it is important to keep WP:BIASED in mind for the sources used in this article. The sources are not required to be unbiased, but the way the article is written must remain unbiased despite the wording used in sources. In that particular example (unquestioned default) it would be much better for NPOV to include those words as a quote of an author and to not make it the second sentence of the article. The same would also apply to the implication of animal cruelty - that's a better example of something that really might be improved if quoted as WP:BIAS demonstrates.217IP (talk) 04:07, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

The sources in this article are mostly reputably published academic books and journal articles. WP:BIASED is about partisan sources. The only sources in the article that this guideline could be construed as applying to are The Center for Global Nonkilling, whose book is cited only for two very non-controversial claims, and Gary Francione's website, which is cited for opposition to the carnism concept (albeit from a different direction than some editors want to see.) The two things about you are objecting to are basically agreed on by all the sources, so it would make no sense to attribute them or put them in scare quotes. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:17, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Throwing in my two cents. As one of the people who's expressed neutrality concerns, I actually agree with Sammy that it would be silly to omit this. Acknowledging that this idea is prominent in vegan discourse and is mainly advocated by vegans actually helps check any undue weight given to vegan sources by acknowledging where these ideas come from. If anything, I'd like to see that type of language expanded (which was done a bit in FourViolas' recent copyedit). ~ Rob^Talk 04:09, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it is fine to recognize vegan support of Carnism and the views they share. I don't think it's fine to have a sentence discussing how vegans view their plight in the same way feminists view the patriarchy and it doesn't make sense to me for the vegan POV to have it's own section when this can be easily summarized elsewhere in a single sentence or two. 217IP (talk) 04:20, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hi there, Sammy. I'll itemize, you (and everyone) can respond. I was well aware of WP:VALID, as you may remember from the AfD and elsewhere. However, as Rob explained, we're dealing with a word used exclusively by partisans, and so we need to make more of an effort to seek objective language (not pro-meat; objective) rather than rephrasing without changing the partisan tone.

Current	Suggested	Reason
Central to this belief system is a classification of only certain animal species as food, for example, cows and pigs in the West, which justifies treating them in ways that would be regarded as animal cruelty if applied to species not regarded as food,	Carnists accept that certain animal species classified as food, such as cows and pigs in the West, are treated in ways that would be regarded as animal cruelty if applied to certain non-food species, such as dogs.	More concise, specify that only some species get protection (slitting a beetle's neck isn't, legally speaking, animal cruelty), "justify" is loaded (implying challenge)
social psychologist Melanie Joy	vegan social psychologist Melanie Joy	WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV
apparent paradox	perceived paradox	it ain't apparent to everyone, and the psych papers treat the term "paradox" at arms' length
in which people who would otherwise oppose harming animals engage in behavior that requires them to be harmed.	in which people who oppose harming animals in general engage in behavior that requires food animals to be harmed.	equally supported by sources, clearer, hints towards rs-attested "solutions" to the dissonance (foreshadowing—great literary technique for complicated issues)
Psychologists suggest that this is enabled by the "Four Ns,"	Psychologists suggest that negative feelings evinced by this conflict are counteracted by the "Four Ns,"	independent editors objected to "enable", so changed to clinically objective psych terminology
==earlier ideas==	put "For most of history, human use of animals as food has been considered natural and normal." before Plutarch	WP:Due, privilege majority/mainstream viewpoints over minority/fringe
before Plutarch	<!-- Is giving a blockquote to the most disgust-appealing anti-carnist argument really NPOV? -->	Well, is it? We could easily summarize Plutarch's points without mentioning gore (easy target for accusations of appeal to emotion)
orthodox views	conventional views	"orthodox" implies a codified sense of "rightness" (ortho-, straight); where the ideology in question is tacit and implicit, "conventional" is more appropriate
Meat-eaters attempt to moderate this moral dissonance in a number of ways.	This can produce negative emotions if not mitigated.<ref name="Loughnan2014" /> Meat-eaters resolve this dissonance in a number of ways.	[change to wording I added, as in several other places] Sources cited here don't imply "meat guilt" is omnipresent or unsurmountable for meat-eaters.
trivialized the link	made light of the link	not great wording, but "trivialize" is loaded in implying topic is not trivial
===denial of animal mind===	This is a psychologically effective strategy, because beings who are perceived as less able to suffer are considered to be of less moral concern, and therefore more acceptable as food.<ref name="Loughnan2014" /><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Waytz|first1=Adam|…</ref>	further detail, supported by new source, mitigating concern repeatedly raised that carnist "coping mechanisms" were being straw-manned and undefended
bias subjective perceptions	influence subjective perceptions	we shouldn't say whether it's inappropriate to change perceptions
hierarchical ideologies	hierarchical or authoritarian ideologies	just as well sourced as the other, also relevant
== Vegan discourse ==	== In vegan discourse ==	describe how "carnism" is used, avoid WP:COATRACKing vegan arguements (more work needed)
dominant normative ideology	postulated dominant normative ideology	at least one RS already in the article (Francione) rejects the definition

And a moment of self-indulgent whining: I'd be feeling friendlier if you had left the parts you agreed with up and specified your concerns here, per WP:ROWN, so I'll take a break for now so I can edit when I'm at my best. FourViolas (talk) 04:21, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

1. "Carnists accept" is not a good phrase, for reasons previously raised by SlimVirgin. It implies conscious endorsement (she objected to the term "endorse".) It also calls people "carnists" which might be read as pejorative. I would try to avoid that unless the term is self-applied.

2. "Vegan social psychologist Melanie Joy" - no way. This is no more acceptable than writing "black physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson" when citing his comments on a racial issue. Besides, WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV is explicitly about biased statements of opinion. This passage is about who coined the term.

3. I understand "apparent" as almost a synonym of "perceived," and since the papers by Loughnan, Bastian, Piazza all assert this without equivocation, we shouldn't be trying to introduce doubt where there is none in the sources.

4. There's no important difference in these sentences other than a superfluous "in general" and "food" making the second version a little clunkier. This is not affecting any POV issue that might be there as the two versions have the same meaning.

5. This might be okay, although again, we shouldn't avoid saying what the sources say because people think it looks bad. This again is really not much more than a way to say the same thing with more words.

6. We don't need extra invisible comments in the wikitext. I thought the quote was relevant for its historical interest, and because efforts to paraphrase Plutarch would lead to questions about what he really meant. It's balanced by Descartes' position which immediately follows, an on which I had originally expanded a bit. Also though, I originally had this section at the bottom, and I believe you moved it to the top.

7. Moving sentences around often disrupts flow as happened here. This sentence ("For most of history...") sets up Descartes' position, not Plutarch's. Furthermore Plutarch's position is earlier and is more directly relevant to the central idea of the article.

8. Orthodox vs. conventional: there's not much difference but "orthodox" implies they were standard views, not just widely held ones.

9. Your new text is fine here, except I would remove "if not mitigated" as being not exactly what the source says.

10. "Made light of" is just not accurate, as it implies joking or something. They didn't give much attention to it at all - i.e. marginalized, or SV's better word, "trivialized" it.

11. No objection to this (my original phrasing was "color subjective perceptions").

12. I don't see the point of the word "in."

13. All the sources which comment on this agree it is a dominant ideology. Nobody can seriously argue this, and Francione doesn't - in fact he argues that everybody already knows that it's a dominant ideology, and opposes using the word for that reason.

I'm sorry if all this is a bit harsh but I didn't see much useful in these edits. For the most part changing all these picayune issues of phrasing just messes up the text and creates non-sequiturs without addressing any NPOV issues that might be there, because you're not actually changing the meaning. (By the way, this is why "unquestioned default" is back in the second sentence now. Somebody had rearranged the sentences so that a couple of them didn't quite fit together - there was a sentence that began with "this" and the referent of "this" was three sentences away - so I restored the original sentence order.) --Sammy1339 (talk) 05:09, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it's more important to make the language as dispassionate as possible before wordsmithing for flow. I can see how you think changing words without changing facts is "picayune", but when multiple independent editors raise neutrality concerns we can't try to dismiss them, and at least two of the concerned (Rob and 217) thought I was on the right track. So I'll propose retweaks, trying to reconcile both of our rationales.

1 "Carnism accepts that…" (implication: this is the state of affairs, carnism has no prob, objected words gone)

2 "vegan social psychologist…" This I will argue for. Race is a permanent genetic/cultural attribute, but veganism is a choice and a stance. The situation is more like that of "white supremacist author Jared Taylor wrote 'when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears.'"

3 Meh, not a huge deal. "paradox" is qualified by "apparent" or "perceived" because some think it can be fully resolved and therefore isn't a paradox. I think "perceived" is blander, and my goal here is primarily to remove surprisingly forceful language only used by one party.

4 The version I proposed differentiates the classes of animals treated differently, making it sound less prima facie paradoxical. Could we combine to make "…who would otherwise oppose harming animals engage in behavior that requires food animals to be harmed"?

5 I agree it's inelegant, but since you agree it's synonymous and it was WP:Controversial let's leave the ugly version for now.

6 [reordering] put "most of history, it was considered natural" first, after Plutarch "Beginning in the 17th century, the mainstream position was supported by…" It's just pushy-sounding to give the avowedly minority view the more prominent place.

7 [blockquote] "…wondering how 'the first man…ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived." It's a great quote, but long and graphic. This preserves the skeleton of his idea and some of his rhetoric while keeping his opinion within the bounds of the paragraph.

8 "conventional views" standardized by whom? I think "conventional" has a more accurate flavor of passivity.

9 "can produce negative emotions" sure, it's chilly enough like that. "attempt as implying it's a difficult task.

10 "marginalized" is a great objective word for "cramming into the edges". "Trivialized" was mine, actually.

keep ===denial of animal mind=== change, then?

11 "influence" glad we agree

12 "in" localizes, clarifies that we're moving to a particular universe of discussion. Agree it's barely worth discussing.

13 "postulated" all the sources who accept it agree it's dominant, but some reject the whole concept, so the concept is one postulated by certain activists rather than universally agreed to exist. us v. them is not the point, even though the issue is controversial.

Thanks for being willing to discuss so thoroughly! This kind of work is not much fun, but essential to crafting a careful consensus on a fiery topic. FourViolas (talk) 23:54, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

1. This is a little uglier, and the meaning is a little different. I'm not getting what the POV problem was supposed to be here. SlimVirgin's earlier objection to my own text also stands, and I think she was right: the sources indicate that this state of affairs is not consciously endorsed.

2. "Married heterosexual supreme court justice John Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion." No. "Meat-eating ethologist Marian Dawkins wrote Why Animals Matter." No. We don't passively put labels on people in order to discredit them. Once again, WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV applies to biased statements of opinion, and in that case the person's opinions should be mentioned, not her lifestyle choices or other affiliations. This sentence does not mention a biased statement of opinion: it says that she coined the term carnism, that's all. She did this in her capacity as an academic, just as Roberts wrote his dissent in his capacity as a judge. We don't add labels to suggest bias, whether we think people are biased or not.

3. Glad we could agree on this. (And multiple sources say this, by the way.)

4. That's not quite what the sources say. Loughnan2014 (review article) defines it as follows: "This reflects the “meat paradox”: Most people care about animals and do not want to see them harmed but engage in a diet that requires them to be killed and, usually, to suffer (Herzog, 2010; Joy, 2010; Singer, 1975). Despite this suffering and premature death conflicting with peoples’ beliefs about how animals should be treated, most people continue to eat meat."

5. I disagree for aforementioned reasons, but I'll let this one go.

6. I think it should be kept chronological and with the more relevant idea at the top. It doesn't make sense to move from the 17th century to the first. Perhaps this would be less of a problem if the whole section were moved down to the end where it was initially; then we wouldn't be leading the article with Plutarch's position.

7. I'm against producing an original bowdlerization of a famous quote of Plutarch. Maybe it's the snob in me. But might the suggestion in 6 resolve this concern also?

8. This is really extremely minor, but if we said "conventional," we would have to say conventional when, because Singer's views are no longer unconventional in bioethics. This leads us to make another statement seemingly supporting the "anti-meat" position. Sticking with "orthodox," we can avoid that, because the connotations of that word are such that "orthodox" views stay orthodox for some time after they are superseded in popularity. You could change "orthodox" to "the then-conventional" if you want.

9. But we can't just say they're successful - the Piazza paper goes into how some people are and some aren't, to varying degrees.

10. I'd prefer to keep your word then; don't see what's wrong with it. You can change it to "marginalized" if you prefer that for whatever reason.

11. Good.

12. Really it doesn't matter right now. My thinking in omitting the "in" initially was that I have a couple academic sources that are about carnist v. vegan debates (which I have not yet included for NPOV reasons - they are not at all flattering to the carnists) and I was thinking of this section as meaning "discourse about veganism" rather than "discourse by vegans" although at present three sentences worth of the latter is all that's there.

13. I assume you are referring to Francione, who is the one and only person, as far as I'm aware, who could be said to dispute this idea. But he really only disputes the "invisible" part. Anyway, look at the context of this sentence; it clearly refers to how it's framed by certain vegans. That, combined with the fact that all the secondary sources agree on this, makes me think there is really not a need to complicate this statement. Besides, giving extra weight to Francione's views is hardly what those who think this article is POV are looking for.

Thanks again for laying everything out so clearly. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:12, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

1 I don't see how "justify" is more passive than "accept". How about: "This belief system has different standards for appropriate treatment of food animals (such as cows and pigs in the West) and non-food animals (such as dogs).

2 This might need its own discussion. It's not about discrediting Joy; it's about making clear that the concept is discussed almost exclusively among vegans, which is essential to understanding the topic. Here's some OR, as permitted on talk pages: Desaulniers, Freeman, Perez (IV), Joy, Gibert, Gutjahr, Braunsberger, and DeMello are all vegans or animal-rights activists. That's every author' in the first column except for Rothgerber and Flamm, about whose personal life I found no info (and Rothgerber doesn't say "carnism"). That's strong evidence, if any is needed, that "carnism" is endemic to a relatively small, activist population, and we have to find a way of getting that info into the article.

3 Would you be okay with "perceived", then?

4 That's true, but he's a vegan citing three vegans (except Singer eats oysters). He and his sources reject the Carnist Distinction. The other source has a different defn, at least in the abstract, more about denying mind. Still, he's a (contested-neutrality) RS and we're not.

5 implemented, making my Strunkian grandmother roll in her grave

6 &7 Move to the bottom implemented. Plutarch is more relevant, that's true. How about leaving him first and complete (or less trimmed), but emphasizing his fringe status by following up with "However, his view has never gained widespread acceptance" with a citation to, say, a prevalence-of-vegetarianism study with a sentence on historical trends?Wait, I remembered a different idea I had for this. What if we cut the Plutarch to "…arguing that eating meat is unnatural and repulsive despite being considered normal, " and then putting the full quote right there in the reference? That way we can avoid bowdlerizing and put the notable early anti-carnist position first, but also dodge my objection, that giving the only blockquote to a graphic anti-carnist appeal is undue.

8 Singer's views are still unconventional in the livestock industry (an RS tradition we've been ignoring, although it avoids the question of carnism in favor of welfarism, if anything). He practically created bioethics, as a field of people who liked his ideas. This is probably too much fuss about "orthodox", which can stay if other people don't object.

9 I don't think "moderate" implies "fully extirpate", even though the latter is closer to true most of the time.

10 Changed to marginalized, sorry. It's not that I don't agree with "trivialize", but marginalize is dispassionate: "pushed to the edge", not "made smaller than deserved"

12 I put in "in", when we figure out how to include your sources without giving them undue weight we can switch back.

13 I guess I'm importing the argument about whether patriarchy exists (it does, of course, but anti-feminists deny it categorically to hijack debate). But you're right that context makes it clear we're describing what vegans say about it, so I'll assent to leaving out "postulated".

It's nice to work these out one by one. Keep up the good discussion! FourViolas (talk) 16:44, 14 July 2015 (UTC) edited 17:37, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

1. I don't see any reason to recast the whole sentence; you're removing the idea that this distinction is central to the theory. How about just changing "species" to "some species" to exempt the beetle-cruelty thing that you brought up?

2. In light of your excellent work, I'd like to find a source that makes clear that "carnism" is mainly used by animal rights advocates. I'm still opposed to passive labeling, and will be until we label every non-vegetarian who comments on an animal rights issue as "meat-eating so-and-so." I think in that perspective it's obvious how inappropriate this is. Also, I don't actually have a RS saying that Joy was vegan when she coined the term. I strongly suspect that she was, but all I have is a source in Spanish saying she gradually transitioned to veganism at some time, without specifying when. It's likely this was before 2001, but if not she certainly wouldn't be the first person who's views conflicted with her diet: Peter Singer wasn't a vegetarian until many years after he wrote Animal Liberation, and still is not a vegan. Again, in any case, mentioning people's diets is a bit off the point.

3. Sorry, I misread your last post and thought we agreed on that. I don't see a reason to change it, and per my original comment, since there's no equivocation in the sources we shouldn't introduce any in our text.

4. We can't create an original definition.

5. Condolences to your late grandmother.

6&7. That's a bit of OR. I don't really see the problem as the next sentence does emphasize what you said we should emphasize. "His view never gained widespread acceptance" is just wrong; he was hardly the only ancient vegetarian. We could expand on the Cartesian position, as I tried to do in my original rewrite, but part of it was removed.

8. I think "orthodox" is the most painless way to deal with this; it avoids getting us into another POV discussion.

9. "Moderate" isn't in the article now. I don't think the paper supports "fully expiate" at all; on the contrary it indicates most people still experience some discomfort.

10. That's fine.

12. Also fine, though I hope it's alright if change it when the section is expanded.

13. Good then.

Thanks a lot for your hard work. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:22, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

1 I still think "justifies" is loaded, and right at the beginning like that will set people en garde against POV. Could I change "which justifies treating them" to "and considering it acceptable to treat them"?

2 You're right that it's more important to explain that the term is mostly confined to the animal-advocate community than it is to pry into our authors' refrigerators. I've started a section below to handle that, since it's hard to find a RS outside that community which has bothered to note this.

3 I still think "apparent paradox" is stronger than most people would like, but you're right that no RS directly contests its paradoxicality. So I'll concede this one to WP:MAINSTREAM.  Done

4 Loughnan likes characterizing it as some form of "How Are We Able to Love Animals and Love Eating Animals?" or …love meat but [2]. This formulation, "animals good meat also good" rather than "hurting animals bad hurting animals good", seems also to be the one more often repeated by scholars: [3], [4], [5]. So what if we changed that sentence and the previous (half-redundant) one to Joy stated that she wrote the book to examine the meat paradox, a phenomenon in which people oppose harming animals but nonetheless eat meat. and source it to the better interview, Loughnan 2010 and one or two of the above non-Loughnan links? I would prefer that formulation of the MP because it's more RS popular and (or because) it's less pushy, and is more open to the possibility that people can find ways to resolve it—fallacious ways, perhaps, but ways. (Side note—we need to restructure the article to get the lead's cited info into the body and write a new, shorter, uncited, unchallengeably neutral lead per WP:LEAD.)

6/7 I'm really attached to the idea of putting the quote in the ref, right there for people to float over, and summarizing the quote in less inflammatory or at least more concise language. As in "Plutarch, who in the first century CE defended the vegetarianism of Pythagoras and expressed revulsion for flesh-eating. Would you be willing to summarize the quote in a way you think is "directly supported" by Plutarch?

8 How about "popular views"? That's statistically unassailable, then and now.

9 Sorry, "mitigate". ("Moderate" is in the next sentence.) Rothgerber is discussing a lab situation where people are forced to consider the source of meat; I was noting that most people never even do that if they can help it. The point is that, one way or another, most non-vegans spend most of their lives not feeling guilty about their diets, and "attempt" insinuates they do.

10, 12, 13  Done

Thanks for hanging in there! FourViolas (talk) 04:24, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

1. Can you propose a wording that preserves the causal relationship implied by "justifies"?

2. I'll consider this specific issue closed now that you've stated the below discussion.

4. You're right that some sources phrase it this way, but if you look at where the sentence is placed in the article, we do too, and your formulation would remove the "paradox" part of the meat paradox, reducing clarity for those who don't make the connection. Also note that one of your sources - this one - is about a completely different "meat paradox", and the others refer to Loughnan's definition which is the one in our article, and do so in a way that makes the context clear. The source you listed that gives the most complete definition has "Reflecting on the “meat paradox”, Loughnan et al. (2014) note that most people find animal suffering emotionally disturbing and do not want to see animals harmed, but engage in a diet that requires them to be killed and usually to suffer (Herzog, 2010; Joy, 2010; Singer, 1975)." This is pretty much exactly what we have in the article, plus a little embellishment about suffering.

6&7. This suggestion is a bit out of line with policy. WP:MOSQUOTE says "Quotation should be used, with attribution, to present emotive opinions that should not be expressed in Wikipedia's own voice..." and "Concise opinions that are not overly emotive can often be reported with attribution instead of direct quotation." This quote is a perfect example of something that should be quoted directly, and this type of blockquote is more or less standard. See Atwater's quote in Southern strategy for an excellent example of use of a blockquote to present an important, but highly emotive (indeed, offensive) long statement. In both these cases (Plutarch and Atwater) the contents are emotional, and that's specifically the reason why a direct quotation should be used. It's not a reason to exclude them. Your suggestion to push the quote into a note is strange: notes are for exactly representing tangential things which might derail the main text. There is certainly no policy which says Wikipedia should fight against itself by including things and also hiding them from view. Either it's in the article or not, and I think it belongs.

8. Again, this begs a question: popular with whom? Philosophers? The public? I highly doubt anyone else will have a problem with "orthodox".

9. It's really not clear to me that any of the sources say this, though. I don't claim to know how often the average person thinks about where his meat came from.

Thanks again and here's hoping we're almost done. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to jump in late, but I've been dealing with an issue with a WikiProject I'm involved in. Hope I'm not too late to contribute something, especially given that I was one of the original "complainers".

1. I think the causal relationship is part of what makes "justifies" sound loaded. A causal relationship leads people to believe that carnists can only justify eating meat through some mental gymnastics, which isn't fully neutral. "Allows" preserves at least part of causality but isn't as strong.

4. I think it's clear in context that this definition is attributed to a specific source, and represents their thinking. I do not see a neutrality issue with the original phrasing.

6/7. However much I may personally dislike the way this quote presents these ideas, if there is a specific quote dating to the first century that acts as an origin to carnism, it belongs in the article.

8. This is not something to get into a major disagreement over, but I prefer "conventional". Orthodox has religious connotations which bring about ideas of righteousness to many people. Orthodox ideas also change, so it has the same problem of when as conventional. I don't see a reason to choose a term with potentially religious meaning over one without.

9. I'd suggest a simple alternative change here. Keep the original text and insert "may", to read as "This can produce negative emotions which meat-eaters may attempt to mitigate in a number of ways". This removes the sense of certainty that meat-eaters definitely confront this (not supported by sources) without making a claim that they don't regularly confront this (also not supported by sources).

I'm about to go on a vacation, so this may be a hit-and-run contribution. I'll try to pop in at least once more before I go. ~ Rob^Talk 04:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I can endorse all of Rob's points. For 4, I've added a sentence so it doesn't just say "Plutarchism was opposed by Cartesianism, which was bunk."FourViolas (talk) 04:31, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I can agree with almost all of this. For 8, if you don't like "orthodox", can we say "then-conventional"?

Contemporary convention is still to assign animals diminished moral status on the basis of their species. In context, we're discussing cultural conventions as much as academic trends. FourViolas (talk) 06:10, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I think we're discussing academic trends - at least I was when I wrote that. And now we get into a lot of fine points - Singer didn't necessarily oppose discrimination on the basis of species, nor did Ryder; rather the notion was that animals are "on a continuum" that includes humans; also, they didn't oppose discrimination for reasons they did see as morally relevant. These kinds of views are not "unconventional" in academia anymore, as your NYT article from earlier on made clear (in fact, decried.) They are, however, still not the orthodox views. I don't necessarily mind using "conventional" but that point ought to be clarified or somehow avoided. --Sammy1339 (talk) 06:17, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I think "then-conventional" is clunky, but get your point. How about "prevalent"? That word makes clear that it's speaking about a specific time, and the "In the 1970s" that precedes it supplies which time. ~ Rob^Talk 13:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

• Procedural note: Let's have this conversation in the RfC so it gets exposure to a wide variety of uninvolved editors. Splitting the discussion between two places is silly, and this will also help turn the RfC into something useful rather than a referendum on the current state of this article. ~ Rob^Talk 05:16, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, that RfC makes no sense, it's extremely vague, doesn't suggest any specific NPOV violations, and ties together two tangentially related articles. To split off the whole talk page discussion to another page would create undue disruption and stop us from getting anything done here. --Sammy1339 (talk) 05:28, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

The RfC asks a perfectly simple and straightforward question in a neutral way. There is an enormous discrepancy in style and content between two articles on closely related topics. There is no reason that one RfC should not deal with both. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:53, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing the term's use primarily among anti-carnists

As several people have noted, the term "carnism" is primarily used among those who oppose meat-eating, and is used for the purpose of criticizing it. As I noted above: Desaulniers, Freeman, Perez (IV), Joy, Gibert, Gutjahr, Braunsberger, and DeMello are all vegans or animal-rights advocates. That's every author in the first column except for Rothgerber and Flamm, about whose personal life I found no info. (As Sammy pointed out, those are mostly the sociologists, not the psychologists, and the psychologists might have a different profile. Still, it's notable info.) Without this fact we can't claim to give a fair picture of the idea of "carnism". However, it's tough to find a published source noting this fact. So in this section, let's try to find one.

This section fo Gibert might work:

Hence, it could be said that carnism is a descriptive concept with a normative import. By naming a psychological fact—the perception of meat and animal products depends on a pervasive ideology—the concept of carnism makes people aware of it and allows them to challenge their perceptions, and therefore move away from the violence in their lives that had before seemed inevitable.…Thus, the concept of carnism allows to change perspective. Beside the question “Why are some people vegan?” appears this new one “Why some people are not?”

Ideally, we'd have a secondary source observe this for us, but if we're careful and have consensus we could restate this ourselves, as something like Martin Gibert and Élise Desaulniers say the concept of carnism can be used as a tool to challenge the "violence" of animal exploitation." That's pushing OR, though, and we still need a source noting that vegan discussion boards and partisan sociologists (and Hank Rothgerber) use the word a lot, while few other people do. FourViolas (talk) 04:24, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

As Rob suggested above, the natural place to do this would be the Vegan Discourse section, which needs expansion anyway. However doing it will be a delicate process and I hope you won't mind if I defer this question for a few days as I don't have the most time right now. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

No problem, thank you! If people complain before then, some stuff might get BOLDly written in the meantime. FourViolas (talk) 05:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm losing steam on this one. I just wasted over an hour searching all my engines for strings like "carnism 'the term is'", "carnist pejorative", "carnism 'used by'", and so on, and I realized I had hit the bottom of the barrel just now when I literally clicked this somethingawful forum, in which repugnant people are encouraged to troll Tumblr users identified by their use of the hashtag "#carnism", because it's apparently "exclusively used by horrible people. The people trolling those horrible people don't really use it. All the fat-acceptance tags, by comparison, are mostly trolls at this point, and most of the ones that aren't are boring." If that's what strikes me as a potentially useful source, it's time to throw in the towel. Anyone who can manage to find a source at this point will earn my surprised admiration. FourViolas (talk) 02:48, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

When you have a non-mainstream topic used primarily by a specific group, it is not our job to discover the truth of the term or phenomenon (WP:OR applies heavily). We simply report what is out there in the sources. If carnism is ever picked up by mainstream sources, we can adjust, but for now we just need to attribute a definition to a specific source and move on. It is completely fair to note in the lead and body that research on this idea has been conducted primarily by groups opposed to eating meat or certain treatments of animals related to eating meat. We shouldn't phrase this in a way that undermines carnism as an idea, but simply attribute it. Something like "Early research and inquiries on carnism were supported mostly by sociologists opposed to eating meat" is a factual statement that appears neutral to me. This could go late in the lead and probably also in the vegan discourse section in some form. Thoughts on side-stepping using the vegan definition this way? ~ Rob^Talk 03:25, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

That's precisely what I'd like to add, yes. The problem is that the only source we have for it is my OR at the beginning of this section. If everyone agrees that the info is important to an encyclopedia entry on carnism, and that your wording is good, we can add it per WP:IAR. FourViolas (talk) 17:05, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

A concept that shares many relevant similarities with this one is homophobia - a pejorative term coined by a psychologist to describe a dominant cultural norm, shared by the majority of people. The lede of that article doesn't mention that the term originated with psychologists who supported LGBT rights, though of course this is true. Likewise, everyone knows that patriarchy is a term primarily used by feminists, but it is likewise discussed as a concept, without mentioning who uses the concept until a body section on "feminist theory" - this is consistent with our article's "vegan discourse" section. I think placing this type of statement in the lede is a bit of a non-standard thing to do, and breaking the rules for it probably isn't justifiable. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I think, in this case, its use is so restricted that it would be justified to point out its usage more prominently. However, my argument is still IAR, and without consensus that's out. So I would be fine with using the "in vegan discourse" section to clarify that "early research and discussion of carnism were primarily conducted by sociologists [and activists] opposed to eating meat," and then someday adding something analogous to "Use of homophobia, homophobic, and homophobe has been criticized as pejorative against LGBT rights opponents.[1]" FourViolas (talk) 19:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

If we have a source for that, I'm not opposed to including it on this or any other day. Although I don't think the situation is any different from that at homophobia, which is a word almost exclusively used by pro-LGBT people, and about which it could equally be said "early research and discussion of homophobia were primarily conducted by psychologists [and activists] in favor of LGBT rights." --Sammy1339 (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

By "someday" I meant after a pro-carnism RS makes the effort to rebut the term, as O'Donaghue and Caselles did "homophobia". FourViolas (talk) 19:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's WP:OR to say "Some of the early advocates of carnism were vegan (such as .....) or animal rights activists (such as .....) with references for each one. If you list specific people and use non-general language like "some", I'd say that each person's status as a vegan/animal rights activist is a specific sourceable fact, and it's not synthesis to simply list them. On the other hand, using more general language such as "most of the early advocates" or failing to list names is probably OR. ~ Rob^Talk 20:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead with "several sociologists and psychologists… and listed the four most-cited authors within our article for whom I could find a source. Rothgerber was among them, but interestingly not Loughnan, who occasionally makes carnist apologia when discussing his studies. FourViolas (talk) 00:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Images

I restored SlimVirgin's lead image as I think this is more relevant as an illustration of human behavior towards animals, which is what the article is about. I really don't care for the Gaegogi image at all, as it lacks illustrative value: it doesn't appear to be anything but a stew, so all of the information is in the caption, which makes it a bit of a useless image. I also am concerned that FourViolas explicitly chose it as the most "appetizing" image found at dog meat, which, while not a POV problem per se, is nevertheless not a valid criterion for picking an image. There are other images of dog meat which are, for one thing, clearly of dogs. I think the one in the Vietnamese market also illustrates an interesting cultural difference in the way meat is presented to consumers in Asia versus the West, and for this reason, combined with the fact that it clearly shows a dog and not just meat which for all I knew before reading the caption might have come from a platypus, I would have picked this one. Then there's the removal of the supermarket image; while 4V was right that this wasn't the most helpful image, as most readers will have seen the meat aisle of a supermarket, the "NPOV" reason for which it was removed concerns me. For the record, Martin has objected to literally every image at this article and veganism, including one of the sun, as being "promotional", and at list of vegans wanted to remove all the images because he found the fact that vegans have faces to be POV. I don't believe we should take these concerns seriously. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I removed the supermarket despite not understanding the objection because it is essential, when consensus-building, to concede the points you don't feel strongly about. I chose the least nightmare-inducing image (I was looking at commons:Category:Dog meat) because

• a) meat-eating is the topic, not butchering, and most discussion focuses on dinner-table dilemmas and emphasizes the fact that the violence is at a remove;
• b) choosing one of the other, gorier images felt WP:GRATUITOUS and tasteless, and because "look at that tasty…DOG MEAT!?" is already forceful;
• c) with MH already criticizing our imagery as too anti-carnism I didn't want to pick an image similar to those used by anti-meat campaigns; and
• d) (related to GRATUITOUS) I think WP is more credible when it feels less impassioned or inflammatory.

Even if you want to promote vegan views, you can't go very far towards the look or language of beyondcarnism.org before people will immediately dismiss the article as vegan propagandists hijacking WP, and that discredits WP and veganism at the same time. I take all good-faith concerns seriously, and I don't see evidence that MH is only here to disrupt the encyclopedia.

@DrChrissy: I know it's not very polite to "call in a debt" by asking one's thanker to chime in, but would you mind explaining why you approved of this particular switcheroo? FourViolas (talk) 04:50, 16 July 2015 (UTC); edited 06:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Also, the boshintang may require a caption to make itself clear, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how pardoning turkeys was an illustration of endorsing meat culture until I hunted down and read through the linked article, which is one of the most clearly non-neutral we cite. FourViolas (talk) 05:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I did not include the dog meat image or suggest doing so. All I said was that, if I had, I would not have chosen the very least informative image. WP:GRATUITOUS does not cover situations where there is a reason to favor one image; on the contrary, it conflicts with your view that graphic images should be avoided because they are graphic.

I'll let the bit where you accused me of advocacy go because I don't have the time to answer it. However I'll note that other editors have expressed similar concerns that MH's behavior is disruptive, and his position on images of all kinds has been uniform. I can provide diffs to support this but I don't want to start litigating.

I don't believe the dog meat image belongs as the lead image. It's likely to only make sense to someone who has read the article already, and there is no interesting content in the image itself. --Sammy1339 (talk) 05:36, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify my position on the image further (since I hope that is what we are talking about) there are two points in WP:LEADIMAGE that I believe favor the turkey pardoning. One, it is (at least claimed as) a representation of the article topic, whereas the dog meat image is used to make a point about something relevant to the topic and discussed in the article, and two, per your own reasoning the dog meat image may be seen as shocking, which is something specifically to be avoided in lead images, though not elsewhere. --Sammy1339 (talk) 05:50, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I thought that a direct illustration of a meat-related culturally-dependent taboo was about as direct as one could get. There can be no literal depiction of a belief system, after all, and it's much more rapidly comprehensible. And as for shock, that's why I don't want the "dog on a stick :'(" image, and I think the pause occasioned by looking at dispassionately portrayed gaegogi is commensurate with that of seeing deportees lined up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FourViolas (talk • contribs) 02:17, 16 July 2015 FourViolas (talk) 14:48, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The dog meat image currently in the article is pretty great, in my opinion. It looks appetizing until you read the caption, which is exactly the sort of image that helps illustrate what "carnism" is all about. It forces people to think about the potential contradiction of the meat paradox; that's exactly what an article on the meat paradox/carnism should do. Having said that, I think that confrontation doesn't belong in the lead in the interests of retaining readers. How many American eaters of meat will click away if the first thing they see on this page is dog meat? Not to mention that there is a specific source that cites turkey pardoning as an example of carnism. As a side note, please remember to sign your posts. There have been a few unsigned posts in this discussion. ~ Rob^Talk 13:07, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)No, the dog meat was mine, and I was pretty pleased with it. I'm really surprised to hear that you think dogflesh is more difficult to connect to the topic than an obscure, jocular, US-specific politicking ritual; maybe someone else would care to chime in on this. I was citing GFFENSE to say that if it's quite possible to illustrate "meat taboos are culturally relative" without being graphic, we should do so. Also, my point a) stands.

I very much didn't intend to accuse you, or Martin, of agenda-pushing, and I've struck my comment as I can see how my hypothetical could be misread. It's pretty apparent that this entire topic is a tinderbox, where productive discussions can be rapidly hijacked by POV accusations and counteraccusations, and I'm doing my best not to set off any such fuses. I apologize to all parties for any offense taken. FourViolas (talk) 06:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

@FourViolas: Thank you for striking your comment. About the image, I think the highest representative of American public society engaged in a ritual endorsing meat-eating while simultaneously giving a symbolic nod to the idea of wanting to protect animals from harm is about the most perfect and comprehensive illustration of what is being called carnism that I could possibly hope for. I also think that this image is indeed shocking, because the likely reaction of many readers will be in your words, "look at that tasty…DOG MEAT!?" That seems like a pretty unambiguous typographical representation of shock. --Sammy1339 (talk) 06:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

@FourViolas: Happy to chime in. I was about to remove the turkey image myself before FourViolas beat me to it. My main reason for believing this is not an appropriate lead image is that it is so very, very US-centric. Sorry guys, but I suspect the rest of the world has virtually no idea what is going on here! So, we non-US citizens have to scurry away and do research about what "turkey pardoning" is before we even get to start thinking about what "carnism" means. The image also raises other distracting questions: Why is the picture of Bill Clinton doing the pardoning and not the current president - does this imply that Clinton believed in carnism whereas Obama does not? The turkey shown in the image is the highly inbred type that is eaten almost throughout the world, I don't know of a country where eating turkey is taboo - how does this illustrate "carnism". This is actually one of the few cases where I would rather see no lead image (as a last resort) than the turkey pardoning image.DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a good point. If you don't know that Americans always eat turkey at Thanksgiving, let alone that the president has annually put on a little turkey-saving circus ever since Lincoln's son Tad apocryphally made friends with dinner, the image is even more confusing and doesn't carry much meaning even after you figure out what's supposed to be going on.
@Rob: Thanks for your comment. I have a feeling that the neutral-to-positive tone of the boshintang image will substantially deflect visceral revulsion in favor of a "wait, huh" response.

Would it be okay if I conducted an informal RfC by putting the stew first for now, and then asking a few friends:

==Carnism image== Hi, we need a focus group's opinion. Could you tell me what your immediate reaction to the lead image and caption at Carnism is?

We could work from there. The subjective value of images is notoriously hard to pin down once one is used to them. FourViolas (talk) 14:48, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

If you're selecting the focus group, be careful to avoid WP:CANVASS. In particular, you'll need to be careful not to over-represent vegan voices in this conversation. But the question sounds good. ~ Rob^Talk 14:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I would avoid widening the discussion. There seem to be enough voices here. I've had a look at wikicommons and I'm suggesting some other potential lead images.

Man eating meat while his pet dogs watch - image 1

Don't eat the swans - image 2

Man eating meat - image 3

Various types of meat. - image 4

Man shopping for meat - image 5

Plate with meat - image 6

Pet cat eating beef - image 7

DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for the images leaking into the next thread. I can hat these when discussion has finished. I should also have saif the captions are my own words and are totally up for discussion.DrChrissy ^(talk) 15:02, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think any of these images really illustrate carnism. I don't see any connection to the meat paradox or the dichotomy between pet and food. While we should avoid a US-centric image if there is a high-quality international example, something that's US-centric is still preferable to something that has little connection to carnism at all. We can always update the caption on the turkey pardoning to better explain the significance. Something like "While it is traditional to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, the American president pardons a turkey each year at the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation." Readers from all backgrounds can understand the potential contradiction there, especially if we relocate the image to the body. Readers would then read about the meat paradox before looking at the image, and be able to understand the point being made. ~ Rob^Talk 15:43, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for finding these. This is a hard concept to illustrate. I agree that none are perfect, although #1 presents the dichotomy (but is old and not very visually interesting) and #6 has kind of a minimalist classiness. I actually wouldn't mind more voices, and the people I'm thinking of have never edited animal rights topics to my knowledge and have a good reputation for not disrupting consensus. Could I go ahead with my idea? FourViolas (talk) 15:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Rob13 But where is the paradox with the turkey image? Many cultures eat turkeys all year round and, as I indicated before, this is a highly inbred animal which would never be kept as a pet as they can hardly walk by the age of slaughter (only 16 to 22 weeks of age). I actually thought image 1 showed the paradox well. The man is eating one form of meat and his pet dogs (a meat which he wouldn't eat) are watching him. @ FourViolas please go ahead with your idea - mine was simply an opinion and not a very strong one at that.DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:01, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

@FourViolas: I don't think that an RfC is necessary, as we already have multiple editors here and have been nitpicking every little issue in this article. About the images, I would go with 1, which illustrates the concept nicely, or 5, which is simple and straightforward, and at least shows a human interaction with the food, without the gross factor of the man messily eating. The turkey pardoning can go down to the position in the article where it is mentioned, since consensus seems to be against keeping it as the main image. @DrChrissy: About why Clinton was chosen, that was SV's pick, and while no matter which president were selected people could have raised similar questions, I think the decision to pick the president who was vegan for a time was particularly wise as it minimizes the potential for polemical interpretations. --Sammy1339 (talk) 16:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I had no idea that Clinton was a vegan! Sorry, that subtlety was lost on me. How about another approach - We create our own multi-image. I've posted an example below.

Carnism

Various cuts of dog meat

File:Nureongi dogs.jpg

Nureongi dogs, a Korean landrace raised for meat production

DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The turkey pardoning shows carnism by depicting a national event where we allow one animal to go "free" while mass-slaughtering and eating the exact same animal in a slightly different context. As for showing any images of cuts of meat, is that not somewhat inflammatory when paired with the image of dog meat? I think we need to be careful not to make a claim (direct or implied) that eating beef is the same as eating dog. ~ Rob^Talk 16:25, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea of a montage, like the one at Woman (but smaller). How about four plain images of beef, pork, dog, and horse, ready to eat, with one label at the bottom labeling them and stating that each is eaten in some cultures and taboo in others? FourViolas (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Will get started on it. @Rob, If there was a new belief that cheese should be a preferred food, would we use this image

. It means a lot to people in the UK, but I suspect it means very little to people in the US.DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:48, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I could be persuaded on a collage of various prepared meats if the label indicates a region where each is eaten. I think that's the most neutral way to do it. Just throwing dog meat next to beef without the context that dog meat is eaten in certain parts of the world could feel to some people like a deliberate attack on meat-eating in general, even if it is not intended that way. The context should prevent that. ~ Rob^Talk 18:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

We could do that, but it might get complicated. Pork is eaten worldwide, but Jewish people around the world do not eat pork. Beef is the same for Hindus. Horse meat is not widely eaten in the UK, US, Australia but is eaten in France, Belgium and many other parts of the world. Dog meat is eaten in several countries, but do we list these individually in a caption? Are we over-thinking this?DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Listing a single country or region for each is fine (either that does eat it or doesn't). If we had pictures of pork, dog meat, beef, and live octopus (all prepared), the caption could be: "Pork (top left) is often not eaten by Jewish people. Dog meat (top right) is popular in China. Beef (bottom left) is commonly eaten in the United States. Live octopus (Is there a specific name for this?) is available in South Korea." Anything longer than that would be too much for a caption. Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but my immediate thought as a meat-eater would be to click away if one of the first things I saw was dog meat and beef presented together without context. I'd expect a vegan attack on my choice to eat meat, and I'd peace out of there. Maybe that's irrational, but I don't think it's a response that's very far outside the normal. ~ Rob^Talk 19:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

If we were to write "Dog meat (top right) is popular in China", I would expect that to be challenged. It seems to be popular in some provinces but not others. Even if we write "Dog meat is eaten in China", I would expect people to say "But it is eaten in many other countries - why are you picking on China". It is for partly for this reason that I suggested some slightly tangential images such as the "Don't eat the swans". They might not get the whole message across (will any image?) but it will be remembered and this hopefully transfers to the article's subject.DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you think anyone would object to the more vague (but equal in terms of context) "certain regions of Asia"? I don't see the point of removing an on-topic image that can be explained in a more thorough caption to replace it with an image that is only tangential. ~ Rob^Talk 22:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would raise concerns because it is almost certainly eaten in places outside of Asia. I'm not entirely sure why geography is important here. This is about a belief system which can occur in any place around the world. We can explain geographical issues in the body of the article, but to try to get this over in the caption of the lead image is, I think, asking for too much.DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:26, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

My concern is that my US-centric instinct when I see dog meat placed next to beef, in the absence of the context that dog meat is eaten in many places, is to assume the author is making the claim: "Eating beef is like eating dog, and eating dog is disgusting. You are disgusting." Rational? Maybe not, but it is common for people to think defensively when the things they do are compared closely with things they perceive to be very negative. How about getting rid of specifics and going something like "Beef, dog meat, live octopus, and pork are all important parts of certain cultural cuisines." That removes specifics of geography, so should solve your concerns. My major issue is just making sure that the caption appropriately places the image in context. ~ Rob^Talk 17:07, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I like that caption. It introduces the concept that carnism can be brought into question by intercultural comparison, but does so extremely factually and gently enough that it wouldn't scare people off. FourViolas (talk) 17:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Tags

The POV and systemic bias tags were added by a relatively new editor in a drive-by fashion, and no concrete recommendations have been made. Barring any suggestion of what additional sources should be represented in the article, can these be removed? I also wonder about the wisdom of having a POV tag on the article while there is an open RfC specifically about whether the article meets the requirements of NPOV. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:20, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The systemic bias tag can clearly go in the absence of additional sources, I think. I'd like to see the POV tag stay up temporarily, as it could bring more attention to the neutrality discussion going on at talk right now, with the understanding that it will be removed very soon when the current talk page discussion is over. ~ Rob^Talk 04:24, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't like the tags, but I think it would be less than impeccably correct to take down POV while complaints remain unaddressed. We have to respond to accusations of bad faith by Ghandianly demonstrating good conduct. Sysbi is unjustified until someone finds those missing invisible pro-carnist RS. FourViolas (talk) 04:57, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

"Unquestioned default"

User:Martin Hogbin and User:Lithopsian both objected specifically to "unquestioned default", saying that it unfairly implied the default ought to be questioned. As I explained above and in my edit summary, I agree with them, and the phrase is redundant next to "hegemony" and "invisible paradigm", which are both less rhetorically charged. I am restoring its removal. FourViolas (talk) 05:04, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

That's fine. I'll restore "prevailing" then, which is supported by sources including Rothgerber2014, because this needs to be said. --Sammy1339 (talk) 05:39, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that prevailing is a good replacement. It keeps the notion that this is a potentially widespread ideology without giving the impression that the readers are being instructed to question this. ~ Rob^Talk 13:10, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good,  Done with that FourViolas (talk) 14:50, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for not being too helpful!

It has been suggested that I should help build a consensus on this article. The problem is that the article is so obviously biased that I cannot get beyond the fist line. The word is a neologism invented with the specific purpose of attacking meat eaters. This is how I think that the article should start.

Carnism is a pejorative word invented by vegan and social psychologist Melanie Joy to describe meat eating. It was popularized by her 2009 book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Hogbin (talk • contribs) 13:48, 16 July 2015‎

References

I am a meat-eater and I do not take this article as an attack on me. It points out that I am a hypocrite. We are all hypocrites in one way or another. This is simply a fact of life. By the way - please sign your posts.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

When a christian works on atheism and starts to view the concept as a personal attack, it is best not to work on that article. Kind regards, Timelezz (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

DrChrissy, not everyone thinks that you are a hypocrite. Some people think that there are good reasons for eating cows and not dogs. Also, the idea that eating something is cruelty is not shared by everyone. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Timelezz, who said anything about personal attacks. Are you saying that Melanie Joy did not intend the term to be pejorative? It is li9ke calling people who do not believe a particular religion 'unbelievers' or 'infidels'; although those terms are perfectly correct they are not neutral terms, they are pejorative terms used to describe people who are outside religion. The whole article is written in the language of veg(etari)anism. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Martin! Thanks for coming to help.

Your proposal is legitimate. For a claim like this, in which we ascribe a particular intentionality to those (including academics) who use this word—putting strong connotations in their mouths—we will need a very strong source. I searched Google Web, Books, and Scholar for "carnist pejorative" and "carnism derogatory" and similar, and I found many sources, but none has a chance of passing RS: I found urbandictionary and a vegan on YT to support your position, and reddit, tumblr, and a vegetarian blog (among others) to argue that the term isn't, or probably isn't, or at least shouldn't be intended to be, pejorative.

It might be more fruitful to look for a source to specify that the term is mostly used among vegans and vegetarians, and to allow readers of our article to make their own inferences from the fact that the label is rarely self-applied. We already have a section for that search, #Sourcing the term's use primarily among anti-carnists, above. FourViolas (talk) 21:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to understand my point.

There is no need for us to use the exact words in sources, in fact it is better for us to describe what the sources say in our own words. There is no doubt that Joy's book was critical of meat eating and it is fairly clear that she coined the term 'carnism' to reflect the views stated in her book. Even so I do not insist on using any particular word, just that this article (and Veganism) use language that properly reflects the status of their subjects. At the moment is is written using almost entirely from veg(etari)an sources. This would be like writing an article on Christianity using only quotes from the Bible (and there are plenty who would do that given the chance). The fact that there are very few neutral sources on the subject of carnism does not mean that we must bias the article towards supportive sources.

Throughout the whole of human history the majority of people and cultures have eaten meat and considered this to be acceptable. This article therefore represents a minority opinion on the subject and we must make that clear, from the start. Perhaps you would like to suggest a way of doing that. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:41, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

You may be conflating two different issues. The article doesn't say "you shouldn't eat meat" - if it did, it would be presenting a minority opinion. Rather, the article is about the idea that there is a culturally relative ideology underlying meat-eating. None of the sources cast doubt on this, so we're not justified in having our text do so. Your proposed version just confuses the issue, and is not supported by sources. Now, as for the point that the term has seen the most use among vegans or animal advocates, which FourViolas provided strong evidence of earlier, we're looking for a way to include this information, but we don't have a source that says this, exactly. --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:24, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

You say [my emphasis], 'the article is about the idea that there is a culturally relative ideology underlying meat-eating'. That is absolutely correct;the article is about an idea, of a minority group and it should read that way. The article actually reads in reverse, describing meat eating as carnism, which it calls a belief system, and presenting a minority group's opinions on meat eating as fact. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:13, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we should tell readers who uses the word, once we have an RS to say it for us. See #Sourcing the term's use primarily among anti-carnists. Until an RS says that "carnism" doesn't exist, that it's a foolish concept describing what ought to be called "reg'lar eatin'," and that humans think about beef, eel, dog, rabbit, and lettuce in essentially identical ways, there is no justification for introducing doubt as to the existence of carnism. FourViolas (talk) 22:28, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Dear Martin Hogbin,

• it is not Wikipedia's intention to correct terms that are being used. If a word that is commonly used, could be interpreted as derogatory, Wikipedia still should not correct the literature, but has to follow the literature.
• I doubt whether it is derogatory. Carnism is just a contraction of carne (meat) and (ism). Do you have any reliable sources that show us that Melany Joy means a "pejorative word" by it, and had the "specific purpose of attacking meat eaters" when "inventing" the word? Without reliable sources to back that claim, it seems a point of view on your part. Kind regards, Timelezz (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

If you want a source to show that carnism is a derogatory term, how about Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows by Melanie Joy. The whole purpose of the book is to attack meat eating. Here is a quote from it : "[The] way we as a society envision eating and animals is contradictory and insidious".

Please do have a read that article as its style is much better than this one. Although it contains much of the same arguments and ideas as this article it properly attributes them to Joy, rather than presenting them in WP's voice. That is what I am complaining about here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:10, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

@User:Martin Hogbin Martin, if you have information like that, why not edit the article with it? If you provide a page number, I will insert it.DrChrissy ^(talk) 12:14, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

That article is a description of one book by one author, so naturally the ideas and assertions discussed are properly attributed to her. This article summarizes the consensus analysis of dozens of sociologists and psychologists, so we mustn't act like the "meat paradox" or "subconscious devaluation of food animals' sentience" are controversial ideas until other psychologists or sociologists say they are. That said, we should find consensus on some wording of "Joy wrote the book to challenge the 'contradictory and insidious' way society thinks about meat-eating," or more significantly and generally explain that many authors who discuss the term oppose the ideology (the task we're working on in #Sourcing the term's use primarily among anti-carnists). FourViolas (talk) 12:40, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

@Martin Hogbin: Controversial statements about meat-eating can be attributed to several of the authors who wrote about this subject; on the other hand, some of the sources, especially the research articles by Loughnan and Piazza, use neutral language and are not "attacking" anybody. Certainly we have no source saying anything like "carnism was invented to attack meat eaters" or that it is an offensive or questionable concept. I purposely didn't include any statements by Joy or others that you (having you in mind specifically) would regard as inflammatory, and I feel like this is sort of a catch-22: if I had included such statements, you would surely hold that up as an example of POV writing, whereas now you are complaining that they aren't there. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:17, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Collage images

I have created 2 draft collages as possible lead images. The first is of the meats only. To my mind, this might not be very helpful for the reader to understand the concept which is the meat paradox. So, I made a second one where the meat dish is placed next to the animal it came from. Both images are drafts and can be improved (e.g. I cut the horses head off!) Let's discuss.

Cow, pig, horse and dog meat prepared for eating

Collage created for carnism page. Shows meat and the animal.

DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:22, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Here's a counterproposal, labeled "3". It's dispassionate, extremely obvious, and avoids too-pushily breaking down the meat-animal barrier (per the article, doing so is prima facie anti-carnist). Since carnism is the culture of meat-eating, it's unambitious and logical to illustrate it with ready-to-eat meat. As with the Doctor's suggestions, it's wide open to countercounterproposal. FourViolas (talk) 22:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

3 Beef, dog meat, horse meat, and pork. Some meats consumed in certain cultures are taboo in others.

My concern with both your collage and my first collage is that they simply show pieces of meat. These collages could easily be lead images for "carnivory" or something like that. However, what we are dealing with here is that there are inconsistencies in the way that cultures view animals as acceptable for eating or not. Classification as pets seems to be the most obvious inconsistency, but there are others such as religion and simple repugnancy (e.g. octopus or insects for many people in the West). I feel we need to get this central inconsistency over somehow in the lead image, but I feel that showing 4 lumps of meat which are not all that distinguishable from each other does not convey this inconsistency pictorially. Please note this is a criticism of my own suggestion also.DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

That's true, and I appreciate your willingness to self-criticize. However, I think we're mixing up carnism and the MP again. The lead image should illustrate the topic, not summarize the article. Carnism is simply the belief system of those who support meat-eating; the meat paradox is an interesting and very widely-discussed component of carnism, the part which points out that carnism is sometimes pretty weird. The article, appropriately, reflects the sources' emphasis on the MP, but I don't think it's a problem that the image is primarily about meat, not meat-related cognitive dissonance. I've tweaked my proposed caption from "Humans eat meat from various animals" so it now mentions something salient to carnist psychology, but is still utterly undeniable. FourViolas (talk) 22:50, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see where you are coming from now! I was thinking that the word "certain" in the first sentence of the article was indicating that other animals were not considered as food. Would I be right in thinking then that "carnism" is equivalent to "human carnivory"?DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

No, you had it right the first time. Carnism is defined as the prevailing set of beliefs that support meat-eating; in the main this means the idea that certain animal species are food, but it doesn't extend to classifying all animals as food (in any culture, I think). One of the central ideas that was developed in the studies of the meat paradox was that the classification (which Joy held to be arbitrary) itself led people to perceive different animal species differently; e.g. viewing dogs as smarter than pigs, when in fact pigs have some cognitive abilities that dogs lack, such as the ability to recognize objects in a mirror. This was part of Joy's early theories, but the term "meat paradox" was coined later. So the meat paradox (inconsistency in people's thinking about animals) is held to be a feature of carnism. TL;DR: carnism is the set of ideas behind "human carnivory", which include the classification of animals as food or not. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:59, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, it's more like "the psychology and cultural traditions supporting meat". It's human carnivory along with its socio-psychological reasons and regulations. Sam collected the scholarly defns above, in #Definition is confused. That's why I think it makes sense to illustrate it with meat, and even more sense to do so while emphasizing the way people think about certain meats. It's really a thorny problem. FourViolas (talk) 23:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree, Sammy: carnism is the ideas behind meat (among which treating and thinking of dogs well and sows abominably is a notably weird and attentionworthy feature). Given that, do you endorse something along the lines of my proposed picture as illustrating a) meat, b) cultural relativity in food-species identification, and c) cultural relativity in respect/love-species identification? FourViolas (talk) 01:30, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with the middle one. I'm still of the view that images of just meat are not very helpful, as most meat looks roughly the same, so I prefer the one showing the animals. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:41, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Please remember that my RfC was about comparing this article with Veganism. I am not in any way proposing that we should include enticing pictures of meat. My point is that both articles should contain neutral pictures, the purpose of which is to elucidate the few readers that might not know what meat and vegan food look like, and maybe add a bit of visual interest to the page. We should not be promoting or discouraging anything. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:49, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings about the images and my preference, prior to the collages, would have been the black and white image 1 which minimizes any potential shock. Post-collage, I prefer images that show the animals. It's not likely to be productive to argue about how subjectively appealing the images of food are. The thing is, nobody snaps a photo of food and says "Hey! Everybody look at this not-very-appetizing, but also not-at-all-gross, entirely neutrally-presented dish!" If you insist that type of photograph, you won't have many options to choose from. --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:31, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Sammy1339. Pre-collage Image 1 conveys the principle quite clearly once this is understood from the text. The middle collage showing the animals also does this. We could use images of the animals interacting with humans to perhaps make this clearer.DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:43, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Let's go with 1, then. Images can be visceral, and the less dramahz the better. I'll put it in captioned "A man eating meat, watched by two pet dogs", and move Clinton down.

DrChrissy, I think your addition to the caption ("…which themselves would be considered as food in other cultures") is okay, but a little long and not completely necessary. People will get the idea that it's kind of odd to be eating one (dead, food) animal while looking at other (live, companion) animals, even if it doesn't occur to them that some people would be happy to eat the dogs too. What do others think? FourViolas (talk) 22:35, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

@User:Slimvirgin I had no idea the lead image had a story behind it! Great link!DrChrissy ^(talk) 15:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

See also section

One of the challenges that we've identified with the article is that it's very difficult to find RS that specifically address pro-carnist views. It is much easier to find RS that specifically addresses the pro-meat-eating stance in similar articles, though, and I believe linking to some of these articles (and from those articles to carnism) can help place this article within a larger neutral dialogue. I'd like to see a "See also" section with Ethics of eating meat at the bare minimum. I'm not terribly familiar with similar articles, so any suggestions on what else could go there would be appreciated. ~ Rob^Talk 18:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I have no problem at all with adding a "see also" section. However, some editors are strongly against these and argue if it is sufficiently related to the subject matter, it should be in the text and linked. Isn't Ethics of eating meat something that should be written into the text?DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I consider it more prominent to keep it in the "See also" section, which is preferable in this case. I'm likely disagreeing with consensus there, though. If someone were to boldly edit this link into the text in a way that makes sense, I wouldn't object. ~ Rob^Talk 21:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I've boldly added an SA section, because I don't have a problem with it and I agree with your reasoning. Its links can, and probably should, be worked into the text sooner or later. Hope you aren't interrupting your vacation for this—relax, you've earned it! FourViolas (talk) 22:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I fly out to Florida tomorrow morning and I think I'm all packed, so I'm good to participate today. Thanks for the concern, though! ~ Rob^Talk 22:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

In the See Also section, do we need a couple of links to meat-animal production (farming) systems?DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:39, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

More sources

Here are some good sources I just found: Ruby/Heine and Bilewicz et al.

We need to continue clarifying (as we just did in #Images) the difference between the meat paradox and carnism. I think we could mostly just move the two sentences on the MP down to the second paragraph of Attributes, replacing them with a summary per WP:LEDE, and tweak to emphasize that the MP is an especially thought- and research-provoking feature of carnism, the part where animals' perceived "humanity" (intelligence, sentience, cuddliness) conflicts with animal edibility. FourViolas (talk) 19:07, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Am I correct then in thinking carnism is an unquestioning classification of animals as "meat" or "non-meat" whereas the meat paradox occurs in people who have thought about various attributes of the animal and decided as a consequence either to eat, or not eat, that species of animal?DrChrissy ^(talk) 13:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Not as I understand it.

• Carnism is the set of all the ways meat-eaters think about meat.
• Carnism treats some animals as meat and others not.
• When this seems illogical—when Westerners eat pigs who are smarter than their pet dogs, or when cultures arbitrarily disagree on which animals to eat—it's a paradox, called the "meat paradox".
• People resolve the meat paradox by telling themselves the animals they eat, which are already chosen for them by their culture, are dumber and less sensitive than the animals they love (also chosen by their culture).

Does that make sense? FourViolas (talk) 17:15, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Ah! I see now. Thanks.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:24, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Removed text about pre-history of meat-eating.

The text added in the bottom section created a SYNTH, particularly in using the word "therefore" to make a false implication. Mind, it is incontrovertible that human carnivory is natural, and it seemed to be the purpose of this passage to affirm this. However, there are two problems. One is that the implication that this is the reason why eating meat has historically been viewed as natural is obviously wrong, as people were ignorant of these facts until relatively recently. Two, because of NPOV reasons, if we include arguments supporting the 4Ns, we should also include the counterarguments which are well supported by our sources. The particular relevant point here would be to point out the naturalistic fallacy. I'm in no way opposed to expanding the article in this way, and in fact there are good reasons to discuss the "naturality" of meat-eating in this context, especially to debunk complicated nonsense such as appears on the ethics of eating meat talk page. However this should be part of a neutral discussion of all the arguments, and given the way our sources lean, I've been reluctant to do that. I especially worry it will lead to bringing in other, weak sources which creates WP:OR problems, as happened a bit with the Hsiao paper and NYT essay contest. I also think this ought to be done in a different section, while this section should stay on point. There's really not much need to reiterate what everybody already knows: that meat has been eaten throughout history. On the other hand if other editors feel it's important to say this ahead of Plutarch, it probably wouldn't be too harmful. About Aristotle, I think its tangential and worry that including such things will lead to repeating all the information at ethics of eating meat and history of vegetarianism. --Sammy1339 (talk) 19:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to mention the origins of carnism before the origins of anti-carnism. FourViolas (talk) 19:40, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

It does, but we'd need a source directly addressing that. The implication that carnism arose because humans naturally eat meat is OR. What we can say, in the absence of a source saying where carnism came from, is something like, "Eating of meat has been universal to nearly all cultures throughout history." I'm sure we can source such a statement - my only issue with it is that everybody knows this already, so it's just fluff. However if you think this helps for NPOV reasons, go ahead. --Sammy1339 (talk) 19:50, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but it's the kind of neutral-sounding fluff about whose absence people have been complaining. I'll get on it in a little while. FourViolas (talk) 19:53, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I feel strongly that there should be a statement about how long meat has been eaten for - not everybody does know this and it is obviously relevant. I take the point this could be seen as synth if we link it to "normal", so let's avoid making the link. By the way, perhaps this section should be called "History". Regarding Aristotle, I thought this made a nice time-line of the way humans categorise animals - maybe not as meat, but as "different".DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:05, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, it might make a timeline of the way Greeks categorized animals but obviously that subject is extremely complicated in global perspective; furthermore Aristotle's views may or may not have been widely accepted in his time, I'm not sure. Many of his contemporaries were ethical vegetarians. But I really think all this is tangential.

As above I have no problem with making clear that early humans ate meat, but since the only relevance of that fact to this article is to lend credence to the "first N", I think it's fair to then mention the naturalistic fallacy which is pointed out in several of our current sources. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:41, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the views of Aristotle are just as relevant to the article as des Cartes' which we discuss. Neither specifically mention meat eating (as far as I know), more a perceived difference between humans and other animals. I think the Aristotle info should be re-inserted along with sources you have regarding ethical vegetarianism in his time. This would be balanced, informative and relevant to the article.DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:03, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

My inclusion of Descartes' views was a little questionable, as they are not actually mentioned in the other sources. I committed this sin for two reasons: one, to give context to the subsequent section on "speciesism," and two, because so much of the body text was about de-mentalization of animals, I thought it relevant to mention that the people studied came from a culture where animals traditionally were completely de-mentalized. About including Aristotle's concepts of soul, and vegetarianism in ancient Greece, I can't see that there is any reason to do this. Why not include ancient Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese perspectives on animals? What about all the intervening history? I'm not qualified to write this, and it's already been written elsewhere, at history of vegetarianism. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:14, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree the Cartesian point of view is important and should be retained. I just think it seems inconsistent to then not include Aristotle. They both would have been part of the lead up to thinking about speciesism. Who knows, perhaps Descartes developed his ideas based on Aristotle's. And you are correct, why not include ancient Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese perspectives on animals? Is this article limited only to carnism in Western culture?DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:22, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

It's just that this leads us very far astray from the sources, doing a huge amount of original research. Maybe someday there will be a book called "Carnism in World History", but for now, our sources deal mainly with the present, and haven't commented on this. There's also the fact that I simply wouldn't know where to begin, and I'm neither willing nor able to tackle this huge problem. If someone did this, it might make a new article, something like "historical conceptions of animals," which this article could then have a stub-section about with a "main article" link. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:33, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

So do we get rid of both Aristotle and Descartes?DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:08, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

If you want to keep Descartes, I won't object; if you want to remove it, I also won't object. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:15, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Gallery image

Opening a discussion about the gallery image I recently inserted. First, I have noted that I accidentally used the same image of dog meat as used in the first section - one of them needs to go, which one? Second, I think the gallery image should be at the top of the article rather than at the bottom.DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:00, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

@DrChrissy:This gallery is fine on my laptop but doesn't come out right on my desktop: the third image goes into another row. It's also a little strange that it shows meat in inconsistent stages of preparation, and that one of the images is repeated from the images above. Do you mind if I swap it out for the multi-image you created? --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

The moving image within a gallery is doing what it is supposed to - I think to accommodate different screen/device sizes. The "different stages" is a tricky one. There is only one image of horse meat that I can find, so I don't believe there are other options Unless we move to a different meat). What stage would people prefer to see? I am also mindful of shock images. In my own opinion, I would be quite happy to show images of hanging cooked dogs because I believe we should not sanitise such issues, but I believe other editors on this article would not approve ( I am respecting different sensitivities). By the way, on the Dog meat article there is an interesting image of a cooked dog hanging next to a cooked chicken. I have been waiting for someone to object to the image saying it is "objectionable" so that I can ask them whether it is the dog or the chicken which is objectionable. To my mind, it is the perfect image to illustrate speciesism. Sammy, please use the multi-image back if you wish.DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll do that soon - just tried including the collage image and couldn't get it to look right. We also need a better horse image; I'll try fixing it up. To the other point though, there's no policy-based argument against including ugly images, except as a leading image. I'd rather have the image from the Hanoi market for several reasons I mentioned before, or the dog and chicken. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:49, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Sammy, I am still not entirely sure which image you are talking about. I am going to have to recreate any of the collages as when I created them earlier, I did not have the correct attributions - I only ever intended them as drafts. Is the collage the one containing 8 images - meat on the left, animal on the right? If it is, should we get images on the right which include humans interacting with the animal? Perhaps even interacting with them as pets? I'm not exactly sure where you want to use this collage or what message you are trying to convey.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:02, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

The dog/chicken image is good because it shows what most in the West regard as acceptable next to the unacceptable, so that's on-topic. But is it a chicken? I'd have said a goose. Sarah ^(talk) 16:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I will insert the image and call it "poultry" - I too was not 100% it was a chicken but we in the West are used to seeing huge birds selected for massive and rapid growth. The bird in the image might have just been scratching around in someone's yard.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for adding it. "Poultry" is safer. It was more the shape that made me think it's not a chicken (particularly the head and neck), but I'm not sure. Sarah ^(talk) 17:41, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I was going by the shape of beak, possible comb on the head and the lack of webbed feet. Anyway - "poultry" covers all possibilities. Nice image of the walking pig by the way!DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Per anti-ethnocentrism (if I may be so bold as to assume y'all are mostly Western) it would be nice, in the long term, to find a combination which almost everyone would consider partly acceptable and partly unacceptable, such as beef+eel+pork, or something. But that's not a big deal for now, as even most canivores know dog meat is a charged topic. FourViolas (talk) 22:11, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Infrahumanization

Many of our sources use the term "infrahumanization" to describe the process of thinking about human-used animals as less "intelligent, rational, sensitive, mature, lingual, refined, civil, and moral" (from Bilewicz). It's a good term, and very relevant to the topic, so I was thinking of replacing my much-too-long Carnism#Denial of animal mind or capacity for suffering section title. On the other hand, it's a long and confusing word, and highly technical. On the other other hand, it's Latinate, which in English corresponds to dispassionate-sounding, and passion (POV) is an issue which has been repeatedly raised in general. What do y'all think? FourViolas (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

hmmmmmm...I like the word (it's new to me) but my own opinion is that it is a little too technical. If you don't like the current heading, what about "Denial of animal suffering". Suffering can occur without animals having theory of mind.DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Good idea, but both lowered estimates of suffering and lowered estimates of cognition are discussed. Do you think it makes sense to split the section? FourViolas (talk) 20:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Rozin

Hi FourViolas, the Rozin paragraph in this section should ideally come first. The research referred to in the next paragraph took place after Rozin's call for more research, and according to another source because he called for it. Sarah ^(talk) 05:58, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree it's logical to cite the pioneer before those who responded to his work, but I think it creates a problem with due weight in the article as a whole. Most sources on carnism never mention Rozin or "moralization", and giving him a paragraph at the beginning of "Attributes of Carnism" is confusing.

Here's an idea (fully subject to reversion and further discussion): because the idea of "carnism" as an ideology wasn't developed and popularized until after Rozin's papers on omnivory, I'll put your paragraph at the end of the "earlier ideas" section. That makes sense to me, at least, because he was an influential and notable predecessor to contemporary research on carnism proper. FourViolas (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I like the Rozin section and agree it might be better placed in the "Earlier ideas" section.DrChrissy ^(talk) 13:24, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the article is that it lacks narrative flow, and I think moving that has made it worse, so I hope no one minds if I move it back. Joy coined the term carnism, but she wasn't the first to write about these ideas, and Rozin is a major figure in food psychology. Sarah ^(talk) 14:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree it lacks narrative flow which was partly the reason why I introduced Aristotle earlier, but there did not seem to be much support for this.DrChrissy ^(talk) 14:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

There's a significant academic literature about the psychology of meat-eating that can be tapped into, and then the flow will suggest itself. But it's a mistake to stick to sources that use the word carnism, because this isn't an article about a word, and it would mean you'd have no sources before 2001. FourViolas, I'm in the process of adding more Rozin and restoring the order in which he was first added, so I'll have to revert your latest edit when I put that in. Sarah ^(talk) 14:37, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, strike that, I'll try to work it in. Sarah ^(talk) 14:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Take your time, I'll keep my hands off for a while. As long as we have a rock-solid defn of carnism which allows us to include "meat psych" more generally, that's great. Thanks! FourViolas (talk) 14:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I combined the "Earlier ideas" sections into one background section. This is followed by "Attributes of carnism," which begins with Rozin calling for more research, discusses ambivalence, missing link between animals and food, etc, and ends with Joy's definition of the term carnism.

Then comes the "Cognitive dissonance" section, which is now one section, rather than split up. Whether that's the best heading I don't know, but the previous version split up ideas that were closely linked, so I feel they're better combined, unless the section gets a lot longer.

I'm unsure about the "Vegan discourse" section and what function it has; I would say merge this into the rest of the article. I also swapped Clinton for Obama, and moved the image to where we discuss pardoning turkeys. Sarah ^(talk) 15:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

We should have a section on the meat paradox, which is central to this. Sarah ^(talk) 16:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• Some more changes: I tightened the lead; changed some headings, including Background to History; moved the Four Ns higher; added an image of a cow in India to juxtapose it with the dog stew; split the cognitive dissonance section in three and called it Dissonance reduction; added a sub-section on "saved from slaughter" narratives, and moved the turkey image into it; and did some general copy-editing. Sarah ^(talk) 19:22, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• More: Removed some "me too" sources; added footnotes describing the meat paradox; added refs; added schemata (did this today or yesterday); rmvd that some of the early researchers were vegan because it looked odd, and as written it wasn't correct (true of Joy, but of the others mentioned one wrote one paper about turkey pardoning, and one co-wrote a tertiary source – most of the people writing about this haven't said whether they're meat-eaters, vegetarians or vegans).

Removed from vegan discourse section that "vegans may argue that carnism is based on the objectification of animals," etc, because all the sources argue this, not only vegans; added a "meat paradox" section and made the cognitive-dissonance material sub-sections of it; did some general copy-editing; rmvd the dog-meat image from the gallery because it's in the article. Sarah ^(talk) 16:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to reinstate the sentence on the anti-carnism of early researchers. There was strong consensus for it, and it was the only remaining hint that describing meat culture as "carnism" is almost exclusively done among vegans and animal-rights advocates. Writing an article on "carnism" that implies the term is in general use is tantamount to disinformation.

I'd like to see the section on ascription of limited mental capacity given more prominence, as it's based on multiply corroborated, objective, falsifiable experiments, while much of the rest of the article is non-mainstream sociology.

Precisely because the term is often used in open propaganda (I'm using the word nonjudgementally, in the Upton Sinclair sense), I'd like the images, especially, to be beyond suspicion of being manipulative or even suggestive. The "dog on a stick :'(" image in particular I find unjustified, because it combines two quite rare features of the local variety of carnism—selling recognizable carcasses, and eating dog—in a way which many people around the world (including the photographer) find shocking rather than thought-provoking. I strongly urge us to find images which most readers will consider dispassionate.

Other than that, thanks for your efforts, SV! You've been putting in many hours on this, found great sources, and written great prose. FourViolas (talk) 21:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Several vegans

FourViolas, about restoring this, I see what you're trying to do, but it looks odd. What early research did Carrie Packwood-Freeman conduct? I'm aware of one 2012 article on the turkey pardoning, and she's neither a psychologist nor sociologist. Joy, yes. If Hank Rothgerber conducted early research on it (do you have examples?), and is a vegan and a psychologist or sociologist, that makes two. Most people writing about this haven't discussed their own diets, and if we're going to single out one group, it raises the question as to whether we have to single out meat-eaters too. Sarah ^(talk) 21:46, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I picked researchers sloppily, pretty much on the basis of how often we ourselves cited them. Rothgerber's work has been heavily cited (btw, he's looked into many aspects of carnism, including pet ownership, masculinity, and vegan-vegetarian-carnist relations, and we should work him in more), and I was being self-consciously non-recentist by defining the first decade or so of any field to be "early", even if that period is ongoing. Gibert/Desaulniers have also been widely referenced, and are also vegan (gibert in french, desaulniers in french); I'd still like to work in their "normative import" (see #Sourcing the term's use primarily among anti-carnists, because it's true and relevant: most people who talk about carnism do so with the intention of working against it, and the only way we can make a fair article in light of that is by allowing an RS (indeed, one which encourages this use of "carnism") say it. Piazza is a vegan, too [6], and an influential voice in carnism studies.

On the other hand, Brock is "not a vegetarian" ([7] 2:30), and neither is Rozin ("likes all foods"). Loughnan probably eats meat too (Once you start watching people (including yourself!) eat meat…). Are you listening, btw, User:Martin Hogbin? Those three are the core of the psychological research into, and definition of, the meat paradox and attendant moral dissonance. Here is an essay by Brock about the psychological, moral, and cultural features of carnism; we have peer-reviewed sources saying the same things, but I thought you might want to hear an omnivore scholar articulate them.

Anyway, I'm going to add Piazza as an early vegan scholar, remove Packwood-Freeman as not a formative voice in the field, and incorporate G/D's assertion that the concept of carnism can be utilized against the system of carnism. I will optimistically pretend to myself that that will put an end to objections that the article fails to attribute its ideas properly. For fairness, and for the sake of the article's broader credibility, I think it would be great to find a way to point out that important research on the meat paradox and other aspects of carnism has been conducted by psychologists who are themselves carnists. FourViolas (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

But as you said, several aren't vegetarians, so I can't see the point of mentioning that some are. It has the effect of "othering" those researchers, and therefore the research, even though much of the source material has been written by people who eat meat or haven't said whether they do. It seems a little misleading and OR-ish. Sarah ^(talk) 17:05, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

There was widespread consensus—Rob, Sammy, and Martin, at least—that this was a fair addition, that the people who use the term usually have a particular perspective on animal rights, and that this fact was important to an objective, comprehensive article about carnism. As I said, I'd love to get the new info about Loughnan, Brock, and Rozin into the article as well. Ideas? FourViolas (talk) 17:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see widepread consensus for it. It's important not to fall into the trap of negotiating things away for the sake of a quiet life. We're writing for the reader, not for individual editors who turn up here. We have to follow the content policies, which means using appropriate sources and representing the views of those sources in a way that fairly reflects the positions they express (not that represents the likes and dislikes of particular editors). That's what NPOV means.

So if you have a source that says this research is conducted by vegans and that this matters, we can look at it. I think you won't find such a source, at least not an informed one, because it's clear that meat-eaters figure prominently among the researchers too, including several not yet added as sources. It's also clear from Francione's position that some ethical vegans will argue against the concept of carnism. So it's a very mixed bag.

Re: the new info about Loughnan, etc, I don't know what that is. Can you elaborate? Sarah ^(talk) 17:24, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem is clearly laid out in WP:Neologism: there are precious few sources which have anything to say about the word "carnism", and that ties our hands as we try to explain why some of the premises of our authors' thinking are objectionable (to multiple uninvolved editors at the RfC, for example). Rob said it was "completely fair" to note in the lead and vegan discourse section that much research on carnism has been done by animal rights advocates, as long as we made sure not to "undermine carnism as an idea". Sammy objected to putting it in the lead, but approved of the attribution in general per analogy with homophobia. Martin agreed in a different section, saying repeatedly that the ideas in the article which originated with veg*ns must be labeled as such.

The new info, which would address your tit-for-tat while adding to the article's credibility in non-vegan readers' eyes, is that Brock is "not a vegetarian" ([8] 2:30), neither is Rozin ("likes all foods"), and Loughnan probably eats meat too (Once you start watching people (including yourself!) eat meat…). FourViolas (talk) 17:54, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

This isn't an article about a word, but about a concept. Not all the sources call it carnism. Joy named it, but others (including meat-eaters) have discussed it in almost identical terms, so the range of sources is fairly broad.

As for the suggestion, that is original research. If you want to add that, you would need to find a source that discusses it. For you to use personal websites, etc, as sources for people's eating habits is OR. It's also irrelevant whether someone eats meat or not, as you can see by the fact that academics with disparate views (and diets) are reaching similar conclusions. Sarah ^(talk) 18:17, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

All right then, I'll take out the lifestyle information. I'm not comfortable myself using faculty bios as sources, and I think the GD quote is enough to make it clear that opponents of carnism like to use the word "carnism". FourViolas (talk) 18:38, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm not keen on the quote either, or calling them vegans. Their role in this is to have written one article for a tertiary source. That's it. Yet they're being focused on heavily simply becase they're vegans. Again, this is OR. Meat doesn't once say (that I can see) "according to meat-eater Professor Smith ...).

The fact is that the ideas, research and arguments in this article are not coming from the vegan community. Joy is a vegan and she coined the term. Most of the other researchers are either meat-eaters or don't say. To create a section "in vegan discourse," we would have to find vegan researchers who make particular use of the concept, argue that it's useful or that it isn't (e.g. Francione). Very little of that has appeared, and Francione's is on his website. We can use it, per WP:SPS, but that we're having to support that section with OR, a self-published source, and people who've written one article for a tertiary source, is a bit of a red flag. Sarah ^(talk) 18:58, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I've removed that quote per UNDUE and because it ends the article on a polemic note, whereas until that point it's mostly based on academic research. I think we should try to merge the rest of the section into other sections or rework it in some way. Sarah ^(talk) 19:37, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

With respectful apologies, I'm replacing it. https://www.tumblr.com/search/carnism, https://twitter.com/search?q=%23carnism, and https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=carnism+forum are all incontrovertible (primary) sources for the fact that the word is predominantly used by people who oppose the ideology. The quote is from a scholarly reference work on animal ethics, was written by and for academics, and makes it clear that the "normative import" of the idea is to facilitate criticism of the belief system. It is entirely DUE to quote from an encyclopedia entry on a polemically-charged concept which discusses the rhetorical aspect of the idea. It is also DUE to devote at least some space to acknowledge the term's users' characteristics. FourViolas (talk) 20:43, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

When there's a strong objection to a new addition, the usual process is WP:BRD, rather than restoring it, so I'd appreciate it if you would revert yourself. It's not a scholarly source, and the quote is UNDUE and inappropriate, especially to end on. The tone of the article is otherwise very different, and was improving. The last two sentences of the quote are also poor English, which doesn't help. Sarah ^(talk) 21:17, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Quote

I'm moving this here so we can reach consensus about whether to add it. As I see it, it damages the article, particularly as an ending. Perhaps there's another way to read it, but it looks to me like pure advocacy. The quote is:

By naming a psychological fact—the perception of meat and animal products depends on a pervasive ideology—the concept of carnism makes people aware of it and allows them to challenge their perceptions, and therefore move away from the violence in their lives that had before seemed inevitable.…Thus, the concept of carnism allows to change perspective. Beside the question “Why are some people vegan?” appears this new one “Why some people are not?”

The problem in particular is "move away from the violence in their lives," as well as the fact that the English is poor in the last two sentences. In addition the sources are not notable academics; one isn't an academic at all. I can't see any reason to devote such an important part of the article to them. Sarah ^(talk) 23:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't have the chance to self-revert. BRD is not my preferred model, but I can work with it.

An article called "Carnism" in the Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, edited by the Kellogg Professor in Agricultural Food, and Community Ethics at Michigan State University, is in my opinion an extremely good source for information on carnism, a matter relating to food and agricultural ethics. That article is the only academic work dedicated exclusively to the concept of carnism, and devotes more than a full one of its five sections to the "normative [anti-carnism] import" of the idea. If you disagree that the source is reliable or deserves inclusion, I will take it to the WP:RSN.

The quote is intended to represent—indeed, formally describe—the use of the idea in vegan advocacy. Every other significant contributor to this talk page has agreed that such use needs to be covered in the article. The primary sources I just linked (tumblr, twitter, and google) show that the concept does indeed have greatest currency by far within the vegan/animal-rights movement, and it is a serious omission to let our readers think otherwise.

It's true that the last two sentences are ungrammatical. I would accept replacing them with the previous two sentences: "To put it otherwise, showing that edibility depends on culture sheds light on an additional point: perception of edibility is morally arbitrary. Pigs deserve no more than dogs to be eaten." This eliminates the ellipsis, and is equally representative of vegan rhetoric on the subject.

If you particularly disagree with the quote's placement at the end, we can discuss rearrangement. FourViolas (talk) 03:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Gallery

If others want the meat images at the end, that's fine, but I'm not keen on them because they're not that informative. I did like DrChrissy's images of the meat next to the animals. Is everyone else wedded to keeping the gallery as it is? Sarah ^(talk) 18:21, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Not at all, although I'm a bit trepidatious of choosing an illustration which explicitly attacks something (deliberate ignorance) which is a salient feature of carnism. FourViolas (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Others have possibly guessed my views on this already, but I also believe showing multiple images of plates of un/cooked meat is rather unhelpful. Some images like this can be useful if they include images of parts of the animal (e.g. I can think of one image with several pieces of dog meat and a cooked dog's head on it, clearly identifying where the meat is from). We/I could create several multi-images exemplifying the classification causing the inconsistency, e.g. "Pet" (Dog, Cat, Guinea-pig), "Vermin" (rat), "Learned aversion" (spider, octopus). I am aware these are Western values, but we must remember that all articles are "work in progress" - we do not have to present a 100% completed article.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:43, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I've made the gallery invisible for now. Sarah ^(talk) 19:39, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

New tweaks to lead

I like them! The new version is objective, concise, and clear. Thanks, SV! FourViolas (talk) 13:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

For reasons similar to those in #Several vegans above, and to help address the concerns of Rob, Martin, myself, and the commenters at Talk:Veganism#RfC, I've added a sentence with two SPS stating that "Joy intended the term to be used to facilitate challenging the practice of meat consumption." and a similar one where her coinage of the term is discussed. The other quotes make her intention clear to readers; making them explicit is essential to Wikipedia's nonpartisan status. FourViolas (talk) 15:12, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I think this is pushing a vegan position again, so I'm going to move or remove them for the reasons discussed above. I'd appreciate if you'd gain consensus for additions like that, and even more if you would wait until the article is better developed. There are lots of sources not yet added (sources with different political views). Your focus on quoting Joy, especially adding her to the lead, means that, when those sources are added, the lead and other parts won't reflect the source material. Sarah ^(talk) 17:47, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I wish you wouldn't. I'm trying to develop the article, as I have been doing. The lead can change to reflect the body as the body changes. If this back-and-forth is too frustrating, please work in draft space for a while. FourViolas (talk) 18:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I also think that the vegan/vegetarian POV is being pushed a little too far with comments about what authors eat or don't eat. Their dietary habits are totally irrelevant to this article. If I write a scientific article about the welfare of hens in battery cages, does it matter whether I eat their eggs or not? It is what the authors have said/written and can be verified that is important. I also do not understand why edits should be made on the basis of an RfC at another page. If an RfC for this page is needed, it should be here - not elsewhere, and we should not have to click over to the other page so that we can reflect on edits being made here.DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I was trying to address Martin and others' concerns that we were presenting opinions exclusive to vegans as though they were universally accepted. Thanks largely to SV, the article is moving to focus on academic study of the idea, eschewing its frequent use by activists (such as https://www.carnism.org) as mostly not well-reported-on enough to support neutral coverage, so there is less vegan opinion in the article to "make excuses for". Also, I've found evidence that many researchers on meat psychology are not, in fact, animal-rights activists or veg*ns, which ought also to allay Martin et al.'s concerns. We might want to make an FAQ about that: Q: Hey, this sounds like a bunch of vegan propaganda! A: Feel free to raise specific concerns, but at least three of the lead researchers we cite most eat meat.

As I note below, we should be careful with sources such as DeMello 2012 or Freeman 2011 who state within their analysis that the authors are animal-rights advocates; if the authors think their politics are relevant to what they have to say, our readers may conclude that they're "just" vegans making vegan arguments, not scholars doing research. FourViolas (talk) 22:04, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Article development

I think there may be a misunderstanding about how articles are (ideally) written, so I'm hoping this will help. Neutrality on Wikipedia doesn't mean (to use an extreme example) "two plus two equals four on the one hand and five on the other." There's no need to seek "balancing" material for each and every point. That's a form of original research and involves editors imposing their personal views on the article, then balancng those with more personal views from the other direction, with sources picked to accommodate them.

Instead, we gather the best-quality primary and secondary sources that have discussed this issue, and read them. For an article like this, that means academic sources, mostly psychologists. There are a lot of sources about this topic, and it's going to take weeks to read them. Some use the term carnism. Most don't but are clearly talking about the same issue (i.e. a ubiquitous ideology that leads to certain paradoxes), and they come from different political directions.

Once those have been read, we summarize what they say (not what we believe), with views represented in rough proportion to their representation within the source material. It will be weeks before we have a first draft ready. If people would allow that work to be done, it would be very helpful. Sarah ^(talk) 17:02, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Hear, hear. I agree that the article should be built around evidence-based pyschological research, dip into the more-subjective sociological discussions, and briefly mention less-academic usage. That will help a lot with neutrality concerns.

Is this in response to anything specific from above?

I agree that it's been tricky to keep working on the article while it's been being "discovered" by lots of RfC visitors. Do you think some form of draft-space version would be helpful? I'm not familiar with standard practice in that area. FourViolas (talk) 17:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Can you give examples of "the more-subjective sociological discussions"?

What I meant was that it's important first to do the reading, then decide what to add to the article and judge whether it has been done neutrally, not the other way round. Sarah ^(talk) 17:55, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

• Freeman & Levanti-Perrez 2011. "Our discourse analysis is informed by an animal rights perspective that acknowledges that nonhuman animals are fellow sentient individuals who deserve to be valued inherently rather than instrumentally as tools/property."
• DeMello 2012 "My ethical perspective was formed…by my long involvement in the philosophies and practices of animal rights"
• Diamond 1974 "I write this as a vegetarian"

These people have outstanding intelligence and acuity and ideas, and deserve some inclusion. However, relying heavily on subjective analyses whose authors mention their own opinions will inevitably expose the article to accusations of bias. Data is much more robust, and contentious information needs robust citation. FourViolas (talk) 18:24, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I think this is going to be my last response because this is too time-consuming. What people eat is irrelevant. The DeMello article was published by Columbia University Press. Cora Diamond isn't a sociologist. That article (the version we use) was published by Oxford University Press. You question these sources while adding something from all-creatures.org to the lead. This is what I meant about misunderstanding how to use sources. Sarah ^(talk) 18:35, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm very sorry, I didn't intend to dissuade you. The relevant information is that they reference their own opinion within their analysis, not that they have a particular diet (two out of three don't actually mention their diet).

The Veganpalooza interview was a self-published source (per WP:Interviews), properly attributed as POV per WP:SUBSTANTIATE, to give information about the intent behind the word's coinage per previous consensus. Of course, you've been here much longer than I have, so feel free to correct my sourcing practice if you still see problems. FourViolas (talk) 18:44, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I really have doubts whether the Veganpalooza interview can be considered RS. It is obviously a pro-vegan organisation, so how can we be sure it published the interview/asked the the questions in a neutral way.DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Statements made by interviewees should be treated as self-published information, as long as nobody suspects the interviewee said things they didn't mean, per WP:Interviews. WP:SPS are a special kind of RS, reliable about the author's professed beliefs and nothing else. In that interview, Joy repeated several versions of the statement that the idea behind the word was to challenge the idea, and never published a correction later, so I thought I could treat it as a fair source for "Joy intended the word to be used against the ideology." However, the whole thing was just backup confirmation, as Joy says the same thing clearly in her own book, which I also cited, so I don't mind that Sarah removed that ref. FourViolas (talk) 22:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Sources

I'm leaving this in case people see me swap one source for another, and wonder why.

It's best to avoid tertiary sources, such as encyclopaedia articles, when writing articles like this. These usually summarize the secondary-source material. They're useful when trying to establish notability, and also useful when showing how an issue is broadly viewed (although this works only when it's a high-quality article). But otherwise it's better to use the primary and secondary sources directly.

So when I find that tertiary source X in 2015 is simply repeating the view of secondary source Y in 2012, I'm removing X and adding Y instead. Sarah ^(talk) 17:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvements and the explanation. FourViolas (talk) 17:35, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Can we please avoid websites such as allcreatures.org? We're already pushing it using Francione's website, but I'm hoping I can find him saying something similar elsewhere. The article needs to be kept on track as an academic exploration of an idea. Sarah ^(talk) 18:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

It's a strong self-published source for an important (per earlier consensus) element of the idea. The ideas presented are fully attributed per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV; I'm hardly endorsing the idea that carnism must be challenged. I'm an academic myself, and greatly prefer the academic side of the discussion, but the concept is frequently invoked outside of academia, with strong connotations which need to be mentioned. The sentence I added is objective and factual, and does not impugn the intentions of other scholars who use the term (as other editors wanted).

All that said, I can look for an interview hosted elsewhere in which Joy explains the intent behind her coinage if you want. FourViolas (talk) 18:31, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I have to reiterate what I said before: that there is no good reason to put this information in the lede section, for the same reason similar information does not appear in the lede sections of homophobia and patriarchy even though we all know what sort of social views people who use those words on twitter and tumblr are likely to have. Joy coined the term carnism, but she doesn't own it, and her views and reasons are already given enough space. Citing WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV here really makes it sound like we're making an argument that the whole concept is propaganda and the reader must be warned of this - this is not supported by the sources. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:58, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the status quo post gracila virginem, with Joy's agenda in the body but not the lead, is an appropriate reflection of the secondary sources. Joy's intention is currently a relatively nebulous passive-tense syllogism: Joy compared carnism to patriarchy, arguing that both are dominant normative ideologies that go unrecognized because of their ubiquity. Naming ideologies allows them to be examined and questioned. I'd like to present Joy's propagandistic intention behind the word more clearly; the sources, WWLDEPWC and the removed interview on Understanding Carnism and Cultural Conditioning, are very strong on this.

I'll go along with disregarding the widespread use of the idea among social media activists and "lay" vegans, as long as secondary sources don't comment on them and as long as we scrupulously avoid mirroring their rhetoric (in the images for example). FourViolas (talk) 23:22, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

POV tag

@FourViolas: Template:POV indicates this tag is for serious issues of balance which are supposed to be explicitly discussed on the talk page, and is very clear this is supposed to be about balancing RS, and not about representing the views of the public. I think we have dealt with at least a dozen of the issues and what remains is a contentious question about attribution of the whole "carnism" concept which we can't exactly source. (This was in the article anyway last time I removed the tag.) What are the outstanding serious issues? --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I replaced the tag partly as a token of good faith towards the uninvolved editors who keep responding to a vague RfC with vague assertions that the article is biased. I agree that, per guidelines and common sense, we can't do that indefinitely.

I do have a serious concrete concern of my own, though. It's not just about attributing Joy's intent behind inventing the term (which is very clearly sourceable); more generally, we keep citing sources, such as those I specified in #Article development, who themselves feel it is important to tell their own readers that their perspective is that of animal-rights advocates, and (except for "abolitionist Gary Francione") we are citing them without any indication that their position is other than the mainstream one. That bears repeating: our authors themselves acknowledge that they are minority voices, and we don't. If other sources were saying "We eat meat ourselves, and our research has determined…", then that would be appropriate information to include as well.

I've tried adding a quote from an encyclopedia on food ethics stating that using the word can offer the option of rejecting the ideology; I've tried a Rob- and Martin- and you-approved observation that many carnism researchers are anti-carnists; I've tried noting that Joy invented the word as a weapon against the structure. I haven't yet found solid consensus on any of these delicate, factual, sourced ways to let the article clearly present the fact that not all the ideas in the article are independent of animal activism, so I think the POV tag is still justified.

Interlude: I do understand that the article is orders of magnitude better than the one that entered AfD, and I'm grateful for all of your patience and hard work. When I look at the article, I feel like our collective hundreds of hours spent reading sources have not been wasted. FourViolas (talk) 00:27, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I too have been thinking that the POV tag should be removed. User talk:FourViolas, while it is very collegiate for you to include the opinions of others in your edits stated in an RfC elsewhere, their comments about this article really should be appearing on this Talk page. Otherwise, when future editors read these pages to see how consensus was arrived for this article, they will become completely lost. At the very, very least, please provide diffs, but in my own opinion, if this article requires an RfC, it should be here and not elsewhere.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes. That is very much the minor of two reasons for the tag. Please respond to the other. FourViolas (talk) 18:23, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the POV tag should be removed. It's being used as a weapon and bargaining chip. Tags are intended as a last resort, and only if there are policy issues, not just because someone doesn't like something. Sarah ^(talk) 18:25, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Please respond to the substance of my comment. I don't like the tag either and will be happy to remove it if I know the concerns (based on the NPOV, specifically ATTRIBUTEPOV, policy) will be addressed. FourViolas (talk) 18:35, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

@User:FourViolas I think the other reason you are arguing for the template (please forgive me if I am misreading) is that the eating habits of the authors of some of the cited sources somehow make this article non-neutral. I do not believe that is the case. We, as editors, can place non-neutral attributed comments/quotes/ideas as long as we include contra-arguements so that the article overall is balanced. I am really not sure that the life choices of authors have any relevance here - it is what they have said, and the way they have said it.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:44, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that's not actually what I meant to say. I think the relevant information is that the authors themselves tell us, within the source we're quoting, that they have a particular political position on the issue. They can eat whatever they like, but when they tell us they're animal rights advocates we need to relay that to our readers.
It seems like we're at impasse on this, though, so I'm going to request comment. See below soon. FourViolas (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I and two other respondent to the RfC consider this article to be non-neutral. The tag should remain until there is a consensus. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

This is obviously not a head count, but there are 3 editors making regular contributions directly to this page who believe the tag should be removed. Perhaps, for the record, you would post diffs to the arguments in the RfC to which you refer.DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:31, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

User talk:FourViolas have a look at the Speciesism article (I'm sure you have many times previously, but perhaps not in relation to this concern). I see this as being a very similar article to Carnism in that a new term was coined to describe human attitudes toward animals. The identity of the person that coined the phrase is Richard D. Ryder, however, his name does not even appear in the lead. There is a subsection "Origin of the term" in which his animal rights stance (and popularisation of the term by Peter Singer) is discussed. Perhaps we should adopt this approach? Keep Joy out of the lead where her eating habits, political views, etc. are perhaps undue detail for that section, but identify these later in the article. It would be nice to get a lede that is stable, even if other parts of the article remain somewhat "volatile". It may also be worth remembering that we do not necessarily have to provide in-line citations in the lede.DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Courtesy note: I don't receive pings when you link my user talk page, only my user page itself. Just wanted to make sure you knew. FourViolas (talk) 23:14, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I like that idea, because the sources I like best deal only with objective research, not activism like Joy's. But if I'm being honest, almost all sources which use the word "carnism" not only mention but discuss Joy's coinage and ideas, including DeMello, Gibert & Desaulniers, Benz-Schwartzberg, Freeman, Gutjahr, and so on. I've been wondering if the best solution might be to move the whole page to Psychology of eating meat per WP:NEOLOGISM, which discourages articles named for terms which have few sources about the term per se. What do you think?FourViolas (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the courtesy note. I would not be in favour of moving the article. We have the basis of a good article here, but as you have indicated, the problem is that for some areas, we are struggling to find references because the term is so young. Despite this, I believe we do have sufficient references for this to be a stand-alone article. In an ideal world, I would suggest we all stop editing, wind the clocks forward 2-3 years, and then come back to it.DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:28, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm very much against moving the page, for several reasons. Psychology of eating meat is a related but different topic, which deserves its own article. Carnism has been discussed not only in the context of experimental psychology (which are the sources you say you like, I guess because they are more sciencey) but also in terms of social theory, by Joy, DeMello, Gutjahr, Packwood-Freeman, Gibert and Desaulniers, and others. Even if you think all these people are engaged in "activism", that doesn't make their contributions non-notable. (Anti-feminists use the same argument to dismiss essentially the entire subject of women's studies, and it's fortunate that Wikipedia doesn't.) WP:NEOLOGISM obviously does not refer to an article like this. As for the fact that most of the sources mention or cite Joy, it's standard practice in academia to give credit. The sources also build on Joy's ideas, and make it clear that "carnism" is not synonymous with her work. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Maybe a split could be proposed in the future. Sociology is very much a respectable science, but when I'm not allowed to specify which sociologists put themselves in which camp it feels impossible to create a neutral article out of partisan sources. The psychologists don't act as though their own positions are relevant, the way some of the sociologists do, and I think they're both right. I was saying that each of the sources I mentioned explains, when it introduces the word, that it was coined by Joy and developed in WWLDEPWC and describes her ideas, and red flags wave in my head when I think about excising that one specific oft-repeated carnism←→Joy sentence as we write our own introduction. FourViolas (talk) 02:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Writing

Regardless of NPOV issues, the writing is deteriorating. Recent edits (FourViolas and Martin) left the lead starting with: "Carnism is a term was coined in 2001": the first section (Martin) saying: "Cartesian mechanism denies that animals are conscious and maintained that they were simply automata ..." and another section (Martin) saying: "A series of studies of moral reasoning around the meat eating found four main reasons ..."

FourViolas and Martin, please allow the article to be written. It isn't possible to do the reading and develop the article with this going on. Sarah ^(talk) 20:03, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the second, it deflects from the main point of the section and misrepresents the source by conflating examples of arguments with general types of arguments (4Ns), and the heading is not exactly accurate as there is a distinction between why people say they do things and why they actually do. (Lots of research on vegetarians, for instance, reveals that social groups are a bigger factor than beliefs in maintaining their diet.) I don't think anyone who read the source would have made these changes. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:49, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Not to assign blame, but all I did was remove "vegan" from "coined by vegan sociologist Melanie Joy" against my own wishes. Please don't get owny; I've been contributing hours and hours of sources and prose, too. FourViolas (talk) 21:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

You're right: that version shouldn't be attributed to you. There was a lot of confusion there, partly caused by the fact that I botched an edit and then self-reverted. --Sammy1339 (talk)

No big deal :) FourViolas (talk) 21:54, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed RfC

Is the following wording acceptable?

In this article, when we cite works which explicitly endorse a particular political opinion on this issue, should we make reference to that opinion, as in a book by psychologist and animal rights advocate Melanie Joy? FourViolas (talk) 21:54, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

No, it isn't acceptable because it poisons the well. As a matter of interest, why won't you let the article be developed first? A lot of volunteer time that could be spent reading and writing is being spent addressing your concerns instead. Sarah ^(talk) 22:00, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I thought that, precisely because we've spent a long time in good-faith disagreement over whether a particular attribution practice is acceptable, it would be nice to get a specific answer to that important issue from uninvolved editors so we can stop. I didn't, and don't, think that an RfC is an admission of permanent or general failure to reach consensus; after all, many specific issues have already been raised and resolved here.

This exact issue has been present and contested ever since the AfD, and is important, in both of our opinions, to the neutral presentation of the article. FourViolas (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Please don't bring an RfC here for that reason. I strongly suspect an RfC will require a lot of editing energy, create a lot discussion (which may get heated) and then will almost certainly be closed with "No consensus". This issue is something that can be settled by the regular editors here who are all remaining calm and polite, despite having different viewpoints.DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

FourViolas, I think you underestimate the effect these discussions have on morale. It's the time it soaks up, but also the knowledge that it's pointless, because the article is going to change as it develops, so the whole thing is premature and enthusiasm-killing. I've seen it many times. Issue A gets settled after much debate, then issue B, then issue C. Weeks later you look around and the writers have fled. So you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's, but the article will remain under-developed for years. Sarah ^(talk) 00:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

All right. I'm confident that this will remain an issue for a long time into the future, because as DrChrissy noted we seem to be several years too early for the uninvolved meta-analyses to have come out. However, I'm a young Wikipedian, and I'll take your word for it that RfCs are dangerous. (That information should be added to WP:RfC.) I'll try another WP:DR technique. Let's resolve this. Per WP:Deadline, we can keep editing while we decide how to handle this. FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Consensus-building on attributing politics

Template:CB-position Note: WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV is the idea this is based on, but it doesn't immediately solve the problem in this case, because it applies only to "biased statements", and we can't agree on which statements are biased. FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Peer-reviewed academic papers are extremely intentional with their words and ideas. In academics, all ideas have to be kept track of (that's what citing is for), and ideas which serve to promote certain positions, or rest on contested premises, must be properly attributed. That's the obligation these authors are fulfilling when they tell us what camp they're in. Omitting that information implies the default: that these authors are representative of the mainstream opinion in their field. When the sources themselves explain that that is not true, we have to as well. FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment I'm not sure I follow this line of reasoning. I am an active researcher and publish articles on animal behaviour and welfare in international peer-reviewed journals. I have published articles which confirm mainstream thinking, I have published articles which strongly challenge mainstream thinking. In neither case have I been asked to disclose which "camp" I am in. To be honest, even I don't know which camp I am in.DrChrissy ^(talk) 13:27, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It would appear that, when you publish, your ideas are required to be directly verifiable enough (and you're clearly nonpartisan enough) that your personal opinions are essentially immaterial. That's the case for most of our sources. In some of the sources we cite, however, the authors make explicit statements like "Our discourse analysis is informed by an animal rights perspective"; I want to take that declaration as prima facie evidence that the authors' politics are relevant to the conclusions they reach, and therefore I want to pass on the labelling information they provide. FourViolas (talk) 21:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support, in-article declaration similar to my own edit, regarding partisan alignment of Ms. Joy, allows readers to understand the contexts of statements better and allow WP:DUE weight to be clear. *Sigh*, that edit is likely going to reverted though, judging from the comments on this and the Vegan talk page. Nice work in helping to coordinate the effort as well User:FourViolas.

Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 02:18, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Full disclosure: Dr Crazy 102 edited the article in response to an RfC bot, and I then informed them on their talk page about this discussion. FourViolas (talk) 02:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is simply never done for those of the opposite alignment, and I think most editors would object if it were. Can you imagine reading about "meat-eater and animal-welfare-opponent René Descartes"? As with every other article, biased statements of opinion should be attributed per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, but this should not be done every time we cite a source. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

If non-animal-rights-advocating sociologists don't declare their position in their papers, that simply indicates that their position is accepted (by the peer/editorial review board) as the default position, the position readers will assume they have if no other information is given. For example, sociological writers who are not black supremacists do not bother to specify that information when they write about race. This is a false-balance situation. FourViolas (talk) 03:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Also, if you like the ideas at WP:Method for consensus building, you could play along by posting your own position on the issue so we can see it clearly. FourViolas (talk) 10:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment In my area of academia, most peer-review is done blind (the referees assess a paper without knowing who the authors are), so I don't see how the authors can declare a political stand-point.DrChrissy ^(talk) 13:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the source that FourViolas is mainly thinking of is the discourse analysis on the inverse turkey sacrifice, wherein the authors state that they are informed by animal-rights theory. When citing that, it may or may not be appropriate to mention this perspective, depending on what part of their analysis is cited. Another example I can think of is Joy's 2001 Satya paper, where the editor identifies her as an animal-rights advocate in a short bio - this made it into our article via recent edits of Martin Hogbin and 4V. For me this one is a borderline case, as the passage can in fact be construed as including an opinion of Joy's. When we apply this more broadly though, it can become a problem, especially when we use a publication whose author has view A and there is another author who says the same thing and has view B or doesn't declare his views at all - this happens at a number of points in the article, especially in the multiple places where SlimVirgin has replaced Gibert2014 (which she regards as a tertiary source, and which doesn't declare a bias) with primary and secondary sources. We ought to stick to the scope of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, which covers opinion statements. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:30, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a principle which has caused controversy about several sources, as well as nonspecific controversy about giving too much weight to animal-rights advocacy without attribution. The idea I'm basing it on is this: if you, DrChrissy, were refereeing a paper which was obviously (to you, an expert in the field) "informed by [the author's] long experience with the practice and philosophy of animal rights advocacy"—if, to take an extreme example, the author took for granted the assertion that chickens have a mental life as sophisticated as humans'—and the author talked as though their assumptions were standard among animal behaviorists and didn't allow that their viewpoint was only common among extreme anti-speciesists, wouldn't you object and (at the least) ask that a paragraph be added explaining that the author held a minority position? FourViolas (talk) 14:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

But this is a straw man argument. That's not what's going on here. There also seems to be some assumption that minority positions have to be attributed, but majority positions don't. That's not supported by policy, which requires attribution of the positions of authors cited for their opinions regardless of whether they are common opinions or not, and does not require attribution of the positions of authors cited for objective statements. As I've said, in the turkey case, the authors' stated perspective should be mentioned if enough details of the analysis are mentioned to make it relevant. However I'm not aware of an author who thinks that birds are as smart as people. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:11, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It's none of our business which positions are attributed within their works. I'm saying that when and only when they are, it's logical to conclude that they're relevant. If minority partisanship is more often declared, that's probably because readers naturally assume that writers are in the majority camp (if one exists) unless specified otherwise. FourViolas (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

User:FourViolas It wouldn't work quite like that. If we have a statement in a science paper, "chickens have a mental life as sophisticated as humans", this is such an extreme claim, so far removed from mainstream, it would certainly require a major re-write. The author would be expected to cite the sources they believed justified the statement. As a referee, I would know, or look up, those references and then make a judgement on whether the statement was justified on the basis of these. I don't recollect ever having seen a paragraph that alludes to an author's political viewpoint to explain why they have made a statement. There is often a "statement of conflict of interest" submitted with the paper, but even this does not require a political statement. The affiliation of the author must be disclosed, but this is usually a University - so no political viewpoint there. In general, science relies (or should rely) on the information contained within the paper, not the identity or political viewpoints of the author.DrChrissy ^(talk) 15:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

All right, thanks for the step-by-step. Sorry to have chosen such an out-there example. So, do you think that, if the source itself does talk about the authors' political viewpoint as though it's relevant to the discussion, we should attribute that opinion when discussing the research? FourViolas (talk) 16:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Question There is a lot of time being spent on this and we do not appear to be getting very far. WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV states "Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with attribution" (my emphasis). What statements are we discussing here?DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

ATTRIBUTEPOV isn't really precisely relevant. It's basically a restatement of WP:SUBJECTIVE: if you want to say "X is the best!" say instead "RS Foo asserts that X is the best." However, common sense and the fact that Francione is labeled "abolitionist" imply that we all understand labels are at least sometimes necessary. I opened WP:VPP#Labeling sources to ask about this in general. FourViolas (talk) 16:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment Somebody there says we should decide this by local consensus, "but should probably favor not using the descriptors." FourViolas (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Of course, but it is not enough just to attribute statements of a minority philosophy to their authors. The the tone, style, and content of the article must reflect and make clear to our readers that 'carnism' is a word invented by a minority to deprecate the philosphy of the majority. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

If it is pertinent in a wikipedia article then, yes, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. I have concerns here though. Firstly, this is a page about "carnism". Several of the sources have their own WP article and I feel much of these discussions should be on those article Talk pages rather than here. Second, we need to be accurate with our labels. Paul Rozin is described as a "Food psychologist". There is no WP article on this career, so should he be labelled as such? Third, where does this all stop? We use Duncan and Bekoff as sources, yet both have ideas that might not be considered mainstream. We do not use them for statements, but if their work is "coloured" by their viewpoints, do we need to indicate this?DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. FourViolas calls herself an "occasionally activist vegan," [9] and, perhaps because this matters to her personally, has been using personal websites and similiar to collect information about the sources' diets, which she wants to add to the article.[10][11] She argues that pointing out that several sources eat meat will "add[...] to the article's credibility in non-vegan readers' eyes." [12] In other words, we're supposed to write "psychologist and meat-eater X argues ...".

  Attribution of opinion (WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV) involves naming sources, not describing their lifestyles. The academic sources writing about carnism are meat-eaters, vegetarians, vegans, animal-welfare advocates, animal-rights advocates, and unknown, just as historians who write about the Holocaust are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, none of the above. We cite them all as "Holocaust historians." I have no problem with saying of Joy, when we discuss in the "Meat" section that she coined the term carnism, that she's an animal-rights advocate, but to split the academics up according to politics and diet would be OR and would verge on being offensive. Sarah ^(talk) 17:20, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

My activism is absolutely exclusively off-wiki; the diff you cite shows that, even as a brand-newbie, I was scrupulously careful not to inadvertently push my own IRL POV. I am proud to have received confirmation that I have fulfilled WP:OWB#11: an editor who will not be named emailed me to say that my POV here was impossible to determine. On this article, my goal has always been to correct what I (and many others) perceive as a clear pro-veganist bias.

I have, for example, copyedited the whole article to remove tendentious language [13], fixed rhetorically-charged language [14] [15] [16], and advocated on this page, for a very long time and against strong opposition, for us to stop pretending that vegan literature is mainstream literature. For this work, I have been strongly commended by the wholly uninvolved User:Snow Rise [17] and awarded a barnstar by this page's nominator for AfD, User:BU Rob13 [18].

My positions have changed somewhat over the past few weeks, as open-minded people's opinions change when they engage in good-faith dialogue. I already accepted your point that implying a researcher's radio interview is important to understanding their work is SYNTH [19]. If you read the yellow box at the top of this section, you will notice that I am only proposing we include information about our sources' politics (not lifestyles), for reasons I just re-explained to Martin [20]. That means I'm asking for phrases like A study conducted by animal rights advocates concluded that most media reporting on [the turkey pardon] marginalized the link between living animals and meat, while celebrating the poultry industry, not the straw man you cited. FourViolas (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Mixed: I disagree that next to every source, we should include whether they eat meat or not. There are compelling arguments here that doing so is unreasonable, cumbersome, and would never be applied if the situation was reversed. I do think that including one line somewhere in the article that states something of the effect "Some of the advocates of carnism were vegan, including X, Y, and Z" is within policy and helps with neutrality. If we avoid language that implies a majority (such as "many") and include specific names, then each name can be a specific cited statement of fact. This would not violate WP:SYNTH. On the other hand, claiming most advocates or even many advocates were vegan is likely synthesis. I can't really side support or oppose, since I support the idea behind this RfC while opposing the suggested implementation. Consider this a !vote towards attribution, given that the attribution is done minimally and with care to avoiding WP:OR concerns. ~ Rob^Talk 21:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Template:CB-proposal I apologize for the misunderstanding. Support as proposer per self and Rob above. FourViolas (talk) 21:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I suggest that the solution we came to in the course of the extensive 13-point negotiation above might still be the best one: we should expand the "vegan discourse" section to explain how "carnism" as a concept fits into pro-vegan ideology while providing full attribution of the allegiances of the authors whom we will inevitably cite for biased statements. However I've been reluctant to do this, fearing it will simply open up a new battleground, especially because after a lot of searching I really have nothing from the pro-carnist side to balance it against. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose This will be an extremely cumbersome method of editing because if we need to include political view points, these must be verifiable. So, using Sammy's example above ""meat-eater and animal-welfare-opponent René Descartes"?" could easily become "meat-eater and animal-welfare-opponent René Descartes"? Looks rather ugly to me. I also believe there is huge scope for OR and POV-pushing by political attribution. Another point that I don't think has been made is that this approach is time-stamped for living persons. The author of a source may be an -ist, -ologist, whatever, one day, but not the next - We are in danger of stating that a living person has political views which they may have changed (this problem must be dealt with somewhere else, but I wonder how this would be applied here)DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:30, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Could you clarify whom you're opposing? FourViolas (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Clarification I am opposing the OP "Position: When we cite sources which declare their authors' politics, we should briefly mention those politics."DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Clarification: That proposal, and the clarified version, would only apply to sources which themselves discuss their authors' politics. If we cite a work by Descartes in which he doesn't explicitly disclose whether or not he supports the animal rights movement, we wouldn't label him either way because that would be OR. If we cited a work in which the author mentioned that she was speaking from a animal-rights standpoint, we would describe the work as written by an animal-rights supporter, regardless of the author's previous or later changes (or clarify in a note that she has since changed her mind, if RS say so). FourViolas (talk) 23:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I was !voting on the original position as you posted at the beginning of this thread. I copied and pasted this into my message. If the goal-posts have been moved, then I am getting rather tired of this and I think I would rather use my effort to build content.DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Support as an equally acceptable alternative, and will start something in my sandbox in a while if nobody beats me to it. I think segregating academic and activist usage would help the article's clarity and fairness, and would be justified per Due with the many sources gathered at http://www.carnism.org/resources/press-kit FourViolas (talk) 22:30, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose again for the reasons stated above. FourViolas, you can't reset the discussion just because you don't get the desired response. Sarah ^(talk) 00:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose As per my comments above.DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought that clarifying that labels like "vegetarian" and not-in-the-actual-source labels were off the table would satisfy everyone's concerns. My mistake, clearly. I'd ask you to offer a compromise or comment on Sammy's, but Snow changed the discussion. FourViolas (talk) 01:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Coining background or ambivalence?

Would anyone mind if I moved the information in the body about Joy's coining of the term from "Meat eating#Ambivalence" to the end of "Background"? That feels much more natural to me. The coining, as we've been discussing, is only the background to most of the research into the idea, and it doesn't seem right where it is. FourViolas (talk) 03:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

You really do need to listen to what other independent editors say

So far the two uninvolved editors who have expressed clear opinions agree that this article is biased. Yest my edits to try and improve make the artiocle more neutral and encyclopedic are being routinely reverted.

Examples are:

Carnism is a prevailing belief system that supports the killing of certain species of animals for meat.[2] The term was coined in 2001 by psychologist Melanie Joy and popularized by her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2009).

Please can someone explain why my , very mild, change of wording which give a true and encyclopedic description of what the neologism 'carnism' is has been reverted to a form that implies that it is a regularly used English word. It is in no published dictionary that I know of.

Carnism is a term was coined in 2001 by vegan psychologist Melanie Joy and popularized by her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2009)[2] to describe the prevailing belief system that supports the killing of certain species of animals for meat.

Similarly this:

"Four Ns"

A series of studies published in 2015 found that the "Four Ns" – "natural, normal, necessary, and nice" – accounted for the majority of American and Australian meat-eaters' stated justifications for consuming meat. These hold that humans are omnivores (natural), that most people eat meat (normal), that vegetarian diets are lacking in nutrients (necessary), and that meat tastes good (nice).[13][36]

Meat-eaters who expressed these views more strongly reported less guilt about their dietary habits, suggesting that they are an effective strategy for resolving cognitive dissonance. People who endorsed such arguments tended to objectify animals, have less moral concern for them and attribute less consciousness to them. They were also more supportive of social inequality and hierarchical ideologies, and less proud of their consumer choices.[13]

Is not an encyclopedic description of the subject but language from a book promoting a particular POV and inventing new, facetious, terminology to trivialise views opposed to veganism.

My version...

The reasons people do eat meat

A series of studies of moral reasoning around the meat eating found four main reasons that people gave for eating meat. These reasons are that humans are omnivores, that most people eat meat, that vegetarian diets are lacking in nutrients, and that meat tastes good.[13][35]

Meat-eaters who expressed these views more strongly reported less guilt about their dietary habits, suggesting that they are an effective strategy for resolving cognitive dissonance. People who endorsed such arguments tended to objectify animals, have less moral concern for them and attribute less consciousness to them. They were also more supportive of social inequality and hierarchical ideologies, and less proud of their consumer choices.[13]

...retained all the facts but was neutral and encyclopedic. By all means improve it but, in the light of RfC comments, wholesale and immediate reverts of my edits is not right. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

As the editor arguing hardest for your position, I can see why the edits were reverted.

• The first one makes the sentence rather long and confusing. Further, while others object to politically labelling Joy in the lead, period, I think "vegan" is not as good as "animal rights advocate", since we don't know exactly when she became vegan, and veganism can be a dietary choice unrelated to politics. (Joy was originally a carnist, then a vegetarian for purely health reasons, now an ethical vegan).

If the English is not the best, improve it, do not just revert; that is one of the rules of the game. I have no objection whatever to "animal rights advocate", in fact I agree that it is a better description of Joy. Had my wording been changed to use that term I would have regarded it as constructive and cooperative editing. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

That's what it is now, in the body. For the lead, we should find consensus. FourViolas (talk) 13:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

There is no consensus for what we have in the lead now. It misrepresents the subject matter. I would be happy with my wording with your changes. What do you say? Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

My position is above. FourViolas (talk) 14:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• Piazza's terminology, which comes from peer-reviewed data-based studies, is not "facetious" "pro-vegan" language; it's careful, technical, psychological jargon. You can tell because the meat-eaters Bastian Brock and Steve Loughnan (see #Several vegans) use almost identical language. We can't simply assert the 4Ns, we have to say that "they hold that X", because they are each contested in many reliable sources. (We just haven't been including the rebuttals.) For example, the American Dietetic Association (hardly a vegan apparat) rejects the "necessary" argument. FourViolas (talk) 10:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, what was wrong with my version? It contained all the same content but in neutral language. The terminology the "four Ns" is not neutral. Firstly it implies that there is a widespread debate about why we eat meat. This debate is mainly restricted to a few partisan sources. It is a trivialising term which adds nothing to the arguments except to make the opinions of some authors sound more authoritative than they are. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:VNT, we shouldn't try to know better than the editorial board which approved that paper. If an RS objects to "4N", we can add that objection; it's not useful for us to argue connotations without sources. FourViolas (talk) 13:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Indeed we have no right to tell the authors how to best make the point that they want to but we are not writing a paper we are writing an encyclopedia and we are the ones who decide on the language and style to be used here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Would you like to play by the rules of the above game by stating a position in a {{cb-position}} template, or supporting an existing one, so we can take your position into account when compromising? FourViolas (talk) 10:55, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

My position has always been clear it is WP:NPOV. That is not something we should compromise on.

I am an editor just like you and I am following the rules of the game. I made some fairly mild edits to improve the neutrality and make the language more encyclopedic in the hope that other editors would work with me to improve the article. Rather than do this they just have been reverted.

We are some way through an RfC and the response has been disappointing but those editors, including one vegetarian, who have chosen to answer the question asked have agreed that the articles (mainly this one) are not neutral. Many regular editors here do not seem to accept fact. The rules of the game require us to take account of other, particularly previously uninvolved, editor's opinions. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

We're all working for what we think is NPOV. NPOV is about balancing sources, not balancing editor's non-source-based opinions, so RfC editors on such a broad question are only helpful if they take the time to familiarize themselves with the extensive secondary literature before answering. The currently live specific NPOV question is whether it's appropriate to label authors' politics every time we cite sources which declare those politics. We're very much in the D of many simultaneous BRD cycles, so reverts are not meant personally. FourViolas (talk) 13:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

The game rules do tell us that we must take account of other editors' opinions, whether or not you think they have properly familiarised themselves with any particular literature. In the end, content is decided by consensus, from which no one is excluded. That is particularly so in this case as I am only talking about style and language. I have not challenged any of the content of the cited sources only the way that it is presented in WP. That is solely a matter for editors here; sources do not tell us how to do that.

Regarding your claimed 'live specific' question that is a minor detail compared with the obvious systemic bias currently within the article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I think attributing positions to our sources, instead of implying that they are mainstream in their fields, would go a long way towards giving the reader proper context to understand these ideas and where they come from. FourViolas (talk) 14:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

That would help but the whole tone of the article needs to reflect the fact that the neologism 'carnism' is a word devised by a minority to deprecate a majority activity. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:12, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

That's OR until somebody writes a History of Veganism in the 2010s and explains that. Repeating sources' own assertions about themselves isn't. FourViolas (talk) 16:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

You should read what WP:Neo has to say on the subject. Here are some quotes which apply here.

'Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted, as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term'.

'To support an article about a particular term or concept, we must cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term. [my bold]

'Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:14, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I suggested moving the article to Psychology of eating meat above in #POV tag, for the same reasons. Consensus was against it. FourViolas (talk) 21:34, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Break 1

*Perhaps it is time to re-examine that consensus. I have tried to avoid getting involved here because of time constraints, but seeing that very little head-way has been made in resolving the logger-heads in even small points here (and the reasons why), I think may have access to some sourcing that some will find useful in contextualizing matters. In my opinion, this article should explicitly be titled (and housed at the namespace for) Meat paradox (or as FourViolas suggests, something to the effect of Psychology of eating meat). I think this could very much provide the pivot point that would allow us to contextualize and treat the rest of the information in the article in a way that begins to address its numerous and deep issues with regard to WP:Neutrality, WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOTABILITY, and just generally abysmal consistency with encyclopedic tone. As others have noted previously, the wording of the article (including especially the lead) currently lends to it a quality common to WP:ATTACKPAGES, except for the atypical aspect that in this case the parties being criticized are not individuals or niche groups but rather the vast majority of the human species. While some (mostly primary and/or low quality) sourcing has been provided to try to squeeze past WP:NEOLOGISM on technicality, a neologism this term remains, used in very few reliable sources, and being virtually non-existent in common parlance. The term and these few WP:UNDUELY applied sources are then used to leverage a narrow evaluative perspective, predicated on a strong ideological stance, rather than an encyclopedic discussion of the concepts involved.

But if this article were not based on that neologism and the baggage that comes with it, we'd have an opportunity to discuss the root concepts which govern propensity towards meat-eating and the choices that people make with regard to it, which absolutely is a topic of relevance and a field of inquiry with a significant amount of research and sourcing behind it, but the vast majority of which is not treated under the topic of "carnism" nor in any way connected to it, much of it predating the term (which is not utilized anywhere in the research literature) by many years. There is a core topic to be discussed here, which can be thoroughly sourced and contextualized, but it has to be treated in a neutral and encyclopedic fashion. And that means divesting ourselves of the current approach which tries to present the choice to eat meat as a "belief system"; that's just not accurate to how most humans cognitively process their dietary choices, nor to the vast majority of the sources which have explored the psychology behind these choices. I'll try to give a very brief discussion of the history and current standing in research on the topic of how people develop their tastes in food, but I won't have time to appropriately source all of this today, so I'm going to stick to the broad strokes. The thinking is largely governed by the sub-discipline of cognitive science known as evolutionary psychology. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, EP approaches the human mind (and the behaviour it produces) in terms of adaptive benefit, in exactly the same way that evolutionary adaptation explains our physiological features.

Evolutionary psychology is particularly useful at explaining behaviours which seem to us to be counter-intuitive or paradoxical in modern life, because many of these behaviours that seem downright illogical in a contemporary context begin to make a lot more sense when you consider the advantages they would give to hunter-gatherers and (though I know this seems counter-intuitive to those who don't have a background in genetics or biology broadly) our brains have not really adapted much at all in the 150,000 or so years since we became the "anatomically modern" species that we are today (150,000 years being a blip in terms of evolutionary time and selective pressures). As it happens, our behaviours with regard to food (what we crave and what disgusts us) has become a real testbed for EP, because they give a really clear window into these kinds of vestigial behaviours. In a hunter gatherer context, you needed to be able to pick up on the ques of your fellow band members as to what was safe to eat and what was not safe to eat, because much in your environment might be poisonous or otherwise dangerous, and thus having a built-in mechanism that caused you to create clearly-defined boundaries on what was acceptable and what wasn't (based on what the other people around you accepted) was a huge benefit and a major part of learning to safely exploit your environment in a species that met its large dietary needs from a variety of sources. This disgust impulse has been handed down to us now in the form of cultural food preferences which persist even though a majority of us now live in a context where food processing and safety have eliminated many of those risks. If we really wanted to rely on meat with limited ecological impact while also moving towards an arguably more humane system, we'd be eating insects, since we now have a detailed understanding of which species are safe -- but in the hunter-gatherer context, nothing was more risky than biting into a bug, so most of us retain a strong disgust impulse with regard to them. Somewhat similarly, while one culture might view dog as a delicacy, another views it as likely to be "unclean", and in most cases these choices are just accidents of history with regard to what was available in one region compared against another; though it's also true that other psychologically factors (for example our emotional attachment with regard to which animals are considered "pets") also have an influence.

Regardless of whether you buy the framework presented above as an explanation for how our disgust modules arose, there is no doubt that this kind of environmental-tuning of our innate prejudices towards meat (and all forms of food) is hard-coded into our brains and our behaviour. Research has repeatedly verified (and in any event, any parent can tell you) that when children first start on solid food, they will generally eat whatever is put in front of them, but very quickly children begin to become very finicky eaters (this becomes particularly noteworthy around the age of a year and half to two years of age, about the time that they would have needed to start discerning for themselves how to select food in a primitive context). Their tastes often shrink from "anything offered" to a very limited spectrum of what they deem acceptable foods. Those preferences then largely stick for childhood and then throughout adulthood they very slowly expand again. But with regard to certain foods which are deemed disgusting in the cultures and peer groups they belong to, they may never be able to stomach them at any point in their lives.

So the "meat paradox" is a bit of misnomer, in that it makes perfect sense as an adaptive trait for the simpler context that we lived in for the vast majority of our history up until "just" thousands of years ago (again, nothing in evolutionary time), even if it seems very strange to us today. It's just one of a countless number of examples where, even when we have new information that casts our decisions in an illogical light, we often still cannot "out-think" our instincts. But calling these choices a "belief system" is inaccurate and nonsensical, because most people make these choices merely on impulse and without cognizant choice. It is mostly those (including some of this article's authors) who have conceptualized these tendencies within a moral framework relating to animal rights, who think of these choices in more explicit terms. We could be discussing all of this; these have been topics of inquiry in cognitive, social, and evolutionary psychology for decades and the sourcing is just sitting there waiting for us to utilize it and contextualize human attitudes towards meat in an objective, encyclopedic fashion. But it means leaving behind the activist stance upon which this article has been repeatedly created by single-purpose accounts (and then appropriately deleted for). And I think that starts with moving away from the neologism as the namespace (though it can certainly still be utilized within sections of the article) and towards a title which will allow a much broader usage of our ample sourcing on the core topic.

Apologies for the length of this post (and appreciation for those who wadded through it in its entirety). This is simply a very complex topic and I believed the science behind it needed to be explained in some detail in order to steer this mess towards consensus on how best to present the subject in an encyclopedic context. I will do my very best to try to supply the relevant sources in the coming days in order to help improve the verifiability and contextualization of our treatment of the topics involved here, but it may be a slow process as my time for editing is incredibly limited at present and stretched between other obligations. Snow ^{let's rap} 23:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I would very much like to see psychology of eating meat developed into an article, and in fact I have been collecting sources on that subject for a while. However, as I've said before, it's a different subject from carnism. In the first case, as a putative belief system, carnism is about other things than just psychology. In the second case, the psychological studies which build directly on Melanie Joy's ideas are only a small part of the much larger body of work on the psychology of meat.

Let's for the sake of argument assume an extreme version of your position: that "carnism" is a concept endemic to a small population of activists, developed for the sole purpose of attacking meat-eaters, and lacking any support in psychological research. (Of course I do not believe this is true.) Even in this case, I think it is inarguable that, even as a propaganda idea, it easily passes the notability bar for a standalone article. We have already hashed this out at the AfD, and the current version of the article has plenty of sources, even if you discount the experimental psychology sources. So, your proposal to merge this concept into a different article, then reduce it to nothing by citing UNDUE, would simply leave a new article to be written solely on the "propaganda" aspect of this concept.

Of course, the experimental psychology sources shouldn't be discounted. Even though they are only a small part of a larger body of work on the psychology of meat, they are the specific small part that directly tests Melanie Joy's ideas. The paper by Piazza et al., for example, is dedicated to testing whether the specific patterns of reasoning Joy identified as being central to the "carnist" belief system are actually borne out when people are asked to reason about their food choices. The papers by Loughnan, Bastian, and Bratanova, similarly, unambiguously build on Joy's ideas about carnism.

Part of what you're saying about the psychology of food choices is absolutely true, of course. It's definitely the case that the main factors in people's attitudes towards food are mainly determined by visceral emotions that have an evolutionary basis, especially feeling disgusted by unfamiliar foods. However, this article is not simply about the fact that people eat some animals and are disgusted by others. The main point here is that people perceive the mental characteristics of animals differently according to whether people eat them. As the sources in the article show, this extends even to unfamiliar or fictitious animals. A source added by SlimVirgin, Ruby's 2012 article, indeed identified disgust as the main factor in determining what people wanted to eat, but also found that this disgust was strongly predicted by perceptions of an animal's intelligence, and that this phenomenon varied greatly across different cultures, clearly indicating that perceptions of food animals are cultural, not innate.

I think you misunderstand what the "meat paradox" means. It is the cognitive dissonance entailed in the apparent contradiction between typical views about animal welfare and typical views about the appropriateness of eating meat. Whether or not you think that's a real thing, there are sources on it, and it's clearly something that can't be explained by evolutionary psychology alone. Fundamentally it's a cultural phenomenon, a common but not universal one, which is not experienced by those who have completely consistent views, such as those who totally deny the moral relevance of animals, or who believe that the way meat animals are treated is completely acceptable.

As for your assertion that it's nonsense that people's attitudes about what animals are food and how food animals should be treated ought to be considered as constituting a "belief system", we simply don't have a source saying anything like that. We have a bunch of academics endorsing the idea, including Gibert, DeMello, Gutjahr, Packwood-Freeman, Rothgerber, and Joy herself. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thank you, Snow RIse, for the major contribution towards straightening this out. I agree with your position, and would be happy to split the article into Psychology of eating meat (the middle sections) and Carnism (the "Background" and "Vegan discourse", latter fleshed out and properly attributed from https://www.carnism.org/resources/press-kit. However, I think there might be some issues to resolve among ourselves as we go ahead with a move/split proposal, and a lot of us are already quite tired of talk-paging. I suggest that, before we get into this, you all join me for a pleasant cup of tea together. FourViolas (talk) 01:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Hey, I'd like to claim credit for finding and adding Ruby/Heine [21] :). I agree that Carnism should be a stand-alone article with a significant discussion on vegan discourse and activism, all the experimental psych which directly discusses Joy's ideas, the sociology/philosophy about the culture of meat-eating even without the word "carnism", and a link to the Psychology of eating meat page (for Loughnan, Ruby, Bilewicz, and so on). Some research related to the meat paradox (most commonly formulated as "people love animals and love eating meat") would belong to each article. FourViolas (talk) 01:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sammy. I believe we're largely on the same page here. That is, I think we probably have a similar outlook on the topic itself, and differ mostly in regards to what is the best way to organize this content under policy. You've made a number of salient points, and I'll do my best to address each here in the brief time I have available.

• I just don't see the argument that carnism is a distinct topic from the topic of human choices in meat consumption. The small handful of sources which directly use the term carnism (a fraction of the total sources employed in article, which is always a red flag for notability/pov issues) are, with one exception, all primary. This issue is tied in with the notion that carnism is a belief system, and you're defending that stance on the basis that we don't have sources saying otherwise. But that's not exactly accurate. We do in fact have access to mountains of sources which say that our motivations in our behaviours with regard to meat consumption are generated by mental modules which we are not consciously aware of (the exact opposite of a belief system, which is a set of concepts which we overly recognize and actively embrace). The only difference is that these (vastly more numerous sources) which discuss our species' propensity for meat consumption in these terms, do not use the term carnism, which is a neologism that exists specifically to reframe the debate on this topic in a specific way, by making a first-order assertion. But that's exactly why we have a WP:NEOLOGISM policy in the first place - to avoid WP:POVFORKS of this nature. So what we have here is a circular argument using an improper approach to first principles. The core topic is actually why most human beings eat meat and why they make the selections of meat that they do. Carnism is simply an ideological bent on that topic, but you can't assert against WP:WEIGHT that these choices are a notable belief system and then say that because they are belief system because they are a notable topic. That approach just doesn't hold water for me, logically or policy-wise.

• All of that being said, you are quite correct in the nuance that you point out, that, even if we don't accept the premise that there is a separate topic here in terms of concepts, that there are cases where we allow independent articles where the terminology itself becomes notable. There's a few problems with that in this case though. First, the sourcing just isn't there to support such an exception. Strip away all of the sources which are really about meat consumption in general and do not mentioned carnism or its proponents at all (that is, the vast majority of references currently used in this article in a borderline or overtly WP:OR fashion), and you have only a handful of mostly primary sources, which would not stand-up to the POVFORK test if we already had our article on psychology of eating meat, which we could source with literally thousands of references. Second, if this article were to be about carnism as a operative term, irrespective of whether it represented an actual belief system, it would need entirely different language from that employed within it now. Indeed, the biggest problem with the article at present is that it seriously conflates the concept of carnist thinking and terminology with the actual principles that govern human meat consumption. Lastly, just because we technically could have an independent article on carnism even if we had a fuller article on "psychology of eating meat" doesn't mean that we should; all across Wikipedia on a daily basis we have instances where a topic conceivably could pass the minimal standards of WP:GNG but consensus finds that the topic would represent forking or otherwise is just better understood within an article on it's broader context, and/or would be misleading outside that context. In my opinion, this unambiguously one of those cases. I absolutely support some discussion of carnism here on the project, and of Joy's notions. I just don't think it makes any kind of sense to do that indepedently of discussing the other (and much more abundantly sourced) frameworks for the mental processes that govern behaviour in this regard. And the non-neutral mess that currently constitutes this article is the best argument for why that approach is problematic. You're wholly correct that this is a broader topic of social psychology that involves multiple competing modules, but that's all the more reason to handle discussion of the differeing viewpoints in an explicit and contextualized manner.

• "I think you misunderstand what the "meat paradox" means. It is the cognitive dissonance entailed in the apparent contradiction between typical views about animal welfare and typical views about the appropriateness of eating meat." Meaning no offense or attempt to discredit your entire views based on this one point, but I think you're the one who has significantly misunderstood what the term "meat paradox" refers to. The term was coined to very specifically reference the inconsistency with which some species are treated as livestock and others precluded from being food sources despite a lack of a fundamental trait distinguishing why each is relegated to its relative category. It is not a type of cognitive dissonance itself; rather the argument is that people employ various conceptual strategies to get around the fact that they make the choices they do with regard to meat (based on subconscious mental processes described above, of which they are generally unaware, as most people have little to no knowledge of cognitive science and why they crave what they crave) and to thus reduce the cognitive dissonance involved. But the term "meat paradox" refers to the inconsistency itself (hence the use of the word "paradox"), not the dissonance involved or the coping mechanism. And it absolutely can apply to those who do not extend animals moral rights and those who have no qualms about the manner in which meat animals are treated. Indeed, these are prototypical examples of the kinds of behaviours necessitated for coping with dissonance; it is the other class of person -- the type who simply never thinks about the issue because food production is so greatly divorced from food consumption in certain advanced nations -- who might be said, for periods of time anyway, to be the only ones not subject to the psychological paradox. Again, meaning no offense, but you seem to have the meaning of the term very much reversed in your presentation there.

Anyway, I know I've gone on at some length here presenting counter-arguments to some of your points, but I want to reiterate what I said at the outset; we seem to agree on much more than we agree on; it's just that the complexity of the topic and how policy applies to it here is very complex and necessitating that we go on at some length. I very much want a discussion of carnism, but I want it to take place in a manner in which we can better explain what it refers to, and I just can't see that happening if we leave the discussion of the topic at this namespace. It's one particular conceptual approach to a given human propensity, but the approach it represents (conceptualizing the choices of meat-eaters as a belief system) is just not the way in which most researchers and other sources on the topic of that propensity and the associated behaviours view the situation. So ideally it should be treated as a subsection of a discussion of the larger topic. There needs to be better attribution and contextualization of this niche view, not tacit and non-neutral augmentation of a fringe outlook that does not conform to the broader treatment of this topic that will come from giving the notion its own namespace and then failing to distinguish what the theory's proponents say from what is consensus view of research on the topic. Snow ^{let's rap} 08:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I support the idea of moving the article to a more suitable title but we need to move it to a title that accepts the mainstream position as the norm. A better title would be, 'The psychology of vegetarianism', or maybe this article would be better as a section of the vegetarianism article.

The undisputed facts are that today, and throughout the whole of human history, most humans have, to a greater or lesser degree, eaten meat. The reasons for this are obvious; it is a food that easily supplies nutrients that are hard to get from other sources and humans have therefore evolved to like eating it. The mainstream science position is that humans evolved as omnivorous hunter-gatherers, adapting their diet to suit their environment but nearly always including some meat. It is therefore not eating meat that needs the explanation but vegetarianism. Meat eating is our natural state ('natural' meaning only that it is, and has always been, the most common state).

A similar concept is Celibacy. Today and throughout all of human history most humans have engaged in some form of sexual activity but there are those who, for various diverse reasons, choose to abstain from it. That is a similar situation to meat eating; most people do it, some choose not to. Rather like the celibacy article we should explain clearly and neutrally the reasons that people have for not eating meat. It is not our job to support or deprecate vegetarianism. Whenever we give a view that is not part of mainstream science or generally accepted opinion we should properly attribute it to the appropriate specialist school of thought. Celibacy#Augustinian_view is a good example of the way that we should present points of view. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Just as a matter of clarifying research on these matters, while you are correct that scientific consensus views human beings as generally omnivorous species, in the case of hunter-gatherers there was a great degree of variability on meat consumption from region to region and there is abundant paleontological and anthropological evidence to support the notion that for many stone-age peoples, there was very little meat in their diet and some cases of virtually none, aside from invertebrates. Of course, it's also worth noting that these people were much more likely to suffer from certain forms of nutritional deficiencies. This continued to be an issue found amongst certain of the most recently "discovered" hunter-gatherer peoples of Indonesia right up until contemporary times. The best that can be said for the universality of meat in human diets is that when it was around a given people, they tended to exploit it as much as they could, for the dietary reason you mention.

In any event, that caveat done, I have to disagree that the appropriate place for this discussion is psychology of vegetarianism. While I strongly agree that this namespace is an inappropriate place to discuss the root concepts that the theory of carnism is meant to address, and that this attempt to validate the neologism and its attached thinking has lead to deep confusion as to what the article is actually about, the namespace you propose would not be the right place to discuss the meat paradox and the other related concepts and research which absolutely are sourced and absolutely do warrant discussion here. The topic is not just one of when people choose to eat meat generally, but also of how they select a very limited variety from amongst a great number of potential sources. That really has nothing to do with vegetarianism and you can find numerous seminal works on the topic which never even raise the question of diets which exclude meat altogether. There are hundreds of hi-quality reliable sources which discuss meat consumption as an independent topic--indeed, the number of sources that do so outweigh those which discuss meat consumption as a counterpoint to vegetarianism. While I think it is clear we need a more neutral title here, I believe your suggestion overcorrects for the current problem a little too far in the other direction. Psychology of meat consumption or, better yet, simply Meat paradox strikes me not just as the appropriate middle-ground solution between the two extremes, but the one which best represents our sources on what the core concept is here. Snow ^{let's rap} 10:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I have to reiterate: it's not just a matter of choosing a more "neutral" title. You are talking about writing articles on separate topics. --Sammy1339 (talk) 11:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the confusion comes primarily from the fact that the word "carnism" comes up when pro-veganists are discussing a topic—the psychology and cultural traditions of meat consumption—which is also the subject of very extensive research unrelated to vegan activism (and this unrelated-to-veganism research almost never calls its subject "carnism"). So although the vegan position is that "Carnism" is an appropriate title for discussion of meat psych, if we objectively look at the sources which actually use the word, almost everything we would be directly justified in placing here actually falls under "animal-rights perspectives on meat psychology and cultural traditions". I think Snow is right that we (including me) have been making an important SYNTH oversight in saying, "many sources ABC [all pro-vegan] say 'meat psych=carnism', so it's okay to put research on meat psych which doesn't use the word "carnism" into this article." Some sources do use "carnism" or "carnist", such as Rothgerber, but most don't, including many we have yet to add [22] [23] [24] [25]. FourViolas (talk) 12:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I have always opposed including too many such sources, for exactly this reason. The psychology articles I included are those which directly build on "carnism", not meat-related psychology in general. --Sammy1339 (talk) 12:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

However, I also have to point out that it isn't as though there's other "non-carnism" research that contradicts the results here. I'm not a meat-psychologist, but I've been collecting a lot of sources on the topic, and I have yet to encounter any which offer a fundamentally different perspective on this issue. The sources that build on Joy's work are not dissimilar to earlier research on the psychology of meat. --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The reason you are not seeing the sourcing which explicitly contradicts Joy is because most researchers in this field do not have an interest her WP:FRINGE definition of human behaviour with regard to meat consumption. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; that is to say, Joy's notions very much run against the grain of what collective research says about how people conceptualize their meat-eating behaviour, but the fact that the vast majority of that research does not directly respond to her niche interpretation doesn't mean that her perspective represents consensus thinking on the root topic. That underlying topic is what we really need an article on--and in the absence of that article, her paradigm is being presented as a dominant model for how experts view meat-consumption habits, which it most assuredly is not. It's a neologism and a POVFORK, albeit it a fork for a topic that we don't presently cover in its own right. And we should correct said hole in our coverage, which will then give us more than ample opportunity to discuss the carnist interpretation, and our coverage of it will be much better for the increased framing context and attribution, as opposed to the confused mix of inter-conflictory and poorly weighted and presented definitions we have in this article at present.

And this is really the ideal solution for those who want to see some coverage of carnism somewhere on the project; there is a reason why this article was deleted twice before and why it only skirted deletion via a "no consensus" in the last AfD; if this topic comes up for review under its current namespace, I can virtually guarantee that it won't survive that AfD either. Rolling it into an article on the larger discussion of the psychological basis of meat consumption (a topic that has more than enough sourcing to survive scrutiny) will preserve the term's inclusion on the project, while also avoiding the current confusion as to just what exactly it means. Snow ^{let's rap} 13:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: It's really lame (and wrong) to claim that a subject covered by numerous academic sources, and supported by widely-cited research, is WP:FRINGE. If you want to argue that the views represented in these sources are not mainstream, you need to provide sources backing up your argument. Then we can have our epic rap battle. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately, its rare that a discussion on fringe concerns proceeds in that way. The very nature of fringe arguments is such that they are usually not addressed by mainstream authors on a given topic. Sometimes they are directly discredited by an authority on the over-arching subject, but much more frequently editors simply have to come to a consensus about whether the claims of the source are consistent with the views of the majority of sources on the topic or whether they represent an outlier view of dubious consistency with the perspectives of other researchers. I know you feel you've familiarized yourself well with the sources on this topic, but I've been dealing with the relevant social, cognitive, evolutionary and developmental psychology going back a long time. That is to say, this is firmly within my expertise/wheelhouse, and I strongly believe that the notion that this is a human behaviour governed first and foremost by an explicit belief system is in fact a fringe view when compared against the bulk of research on the topic. In terms of our policy decisions here, I can't expect you to accept that just on the basis of an argument from authority, but I can suggest you take my assessment as an honest one from someone with a formal background in the relevant fields--or, at the very least, that you suspend your ultimate assessment until I provide additional sourcing as to the consensus views on this matter. Snow ^{let's rap} 14:41, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: On the contrary, reliably-published and widely-cited "fringe theories" invariably have respectable sources directly refuting them. I accept that you know a lot about this topic (my comment to that effect was not meant sarcastically) and especially for that reason I would like you to point me to sources which support your view. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Break 2

Yes, this is my interpretation of the sourcing (and the course of action which I feel WP:WEIGHT requires of us as a result of the nature of that sourcing) in a nutshell. The collective propensities of human beings with regard to meat consumption is an old topic with abundant discussion within psychological research, and a great deal of sourcing, primary and secondary. Carnism is a neologism representing a very specific take on those behaviours, one which has been proposed by a single academic (Joy) and which classifies these behaviours as a belief system. However, the vast majority of scholarship on the topic does not employ this interpretation, making this a POVFORK which takes us a away from a neutral encyclopedic representation of what sources collectively say on the topic of how people conceptualize their behaviours with regard to meat (and a rough summary of those perspectives, as regards the bulk of research into the topic, is that some people do sometimes make their choices on the basis of a belief system, but those people tend to be those who avoid meat, due to animal rights motivations and/or environmental concerns, while people who do eat meat do not typically conceptualize their decision to eat meat as a "belief system"; many don't think about it at all, if they are not made to face the reality of how that meat gets to their plate, as most people in advanced western nations do not).

The biggest of numerous problems with the current article and its namespace is that it implies that this concept of a belief system is a fact, and mainstream consensus on how people formulate these choices, and that's just not correct. It's a sociological paradigm, but it doesn't jive with our much more abundant sourcing on the social psychology of meat consumption, nor our sources which treat more intuitive mainstream perceptions of the topic. Complicating matters even further, and causing needless confusion for our readers, is the manner in which the article is written, especially the lead, which conflates the concept of Joy's theory with an empirical fact, treating it as an established belief system, rather than a paradigm. If it were a belief system, you'd find people who self-identify as "carnists" much as people self-identify as vegetarians or vegans. But when you find "proponents of carnism" the term is actually referring to that small number of proponents for Joy's notions. That disconnect is illustrative of how the nomenclature has been flubbed here (and I think more so by our application than by Joy's theories themselves; I don't think she meant for the term carnism to be applied in the fashion we have here). Either a person is a carnist is a person who specifically embraces an explicit, unambigous, and avowed philosophy of dedicated meat eating (in which case it applies to almost no one) or carnism is the habit of eating meat under any circumstances, in which case it is not a belief system, but just the activity itself. But what we currently have in this article a confused combination of those two non-contiguous semantic interpretations. That's why I think the clear solution here is to construct an article which utilizes the collective sourcing for the study of the psychological and social factors that govern consumption of meat amongst human beings, and then merge the content here into it, including a section on Joy's notions, which we can then contextualize and attribute properly, without the worry that we are pushing that narrative beyond its weight.

By the way, not that it should matter to our encyclopedic purposes here, but none of the above sections suggest a significant break from presenting the kind of information that anti-meat activists might appreciate. Myself, I do eat some meat, but I also recognize that it is somewhat of a selfish impulse -- putting aside the ethics with regard to how food stock animals are treated (which is generally pretty abysmal), there's also the fact that planet cannot ecologically withstand the toll that meat production puts on it as our population increases; it's an untenable system, at percentage of meat we currently indulge in collectively. I'm happy to work passing reference to those facts into the "meat psychology" article (though mostly for that topic we should link to the articles that already discuss the animal rights and food production issues). But none of this stops me from being able to understand (and encyclopdically represent) the actual science and facts that govern human behaviour in this arena, as they are presented in the balance of our sources. The carnist paradigm is just one take on those behaviours, and not one which has been adopted beyond a niche following. It should be discussed in that context, not presented as established fact and scholarly consensus. Snow ^{let's rap} 13:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

YES. This is what I have been inelegantly trying to say for weeks. The number and weight of sources which discuss carnism, formulated the "belief system" or "ideology" of human meat consumption, is greatly inferior to the number and weight of those who simply study the activity and the associated psychology. Therefore, gathering information on the topic in general under the title "carnism" is not only OR, but more importantly gives undue weight to Joy and those who agree with her position (that meat eating is best understood as the focus of an ideology). FourViolas (talk) 23:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I may try to write a more comprehensive response to all the things you've written, but I don't have a whole lot of time. I'll just address what you've identified as the main point, which is that, you claim, "... it doesn't jive with our much more abundant sourcing on the social psychology of meat consumption, nor our sources which treat more intuitive mainstream perceptions of the topic." This is just not true. We have numerous sources on the topic which do treat it as fact; I also have a lot of sources on the psychology of meat eating more broadly construed, but they do not take a fundamentally different approach, and do not disagree with what's in this article. I have to ask you to provide sources supporting your view. Because you appeared to be an expert, I have accepted your assertion that there is a large body of literature written from a contradictory perspective, but after a lot of searching I don't actually have any such sources, and I would appreciate if you could point them out.

Currently, you are proposing merging this article into a hypothetical article as a back-door to deleting it. It would make sense for you to write the target article first, which I encourage you to do. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

See my comments above. Rolling coverage of this term into the parent topic is not only not an attempt to delete this article indirectly, it is probably the only chance of retaining some mention of the concept on Wikipedia. This article has already been deleted twice, basically on the same arguments I have presented above. And it only narrowly avoided deletion in the last AfD as a result of a "no consensus" result, not a "keep". I can almost guarantee you that another AfD will see it gone, and this time, I'm betting it goes away with a WP:SALT recommendation. Placing it inside the broader article not only better contextualizes what is currently an abysmally-represented concept, it will also shield discussion of canrnism from outright removal, since the over-arching topic of the psychology of meat consumption has much more robust sourcing. If you're really married to the inclusion of the topic somewhere on the project, this is your best bet. That said, whether the process should proceed from moving this article to a new namespace and then adjusting the content, or rather by creating a new article altogether and merging the content here later, I'm not really sure, but I don't have particularly strong feelings on one approach over the other. Snow ^{let's rap} 14:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Consensus is against this move. If you want to merge this into a new article, which I would oppose for reasons explained above, repeatedly - mainly that this topic is not just "broader", but lacks the social theory aspect of "carnism", then please write the target article so that we can all see this broader context wherein carnism is a fringe theory.

I'll also note that in that AfD discussion, even the nominator changed his vote to keep, and the closer noted that the debate was strongly tending towards keep. The debate was closed as "no consensus" mainly, it seems, because editors who voted before the rewrite, back when this was a polemical screed, did not return to change their votes. The other two AfD discussions are years older and pre-date the best sources on the topic. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:40, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think consensus presently is against this move, but I'm certainly not suggesting that we need to decide this definitively right now. Being as I haven't the time to write such an involved article on my own, it would be improper for me to push strongly to move the article immediately, though I would endorse such an action. But the problem I have with the article is that, while improvements have been made, it remains heavily influenced by its origin as polemic screed, with continuing issues with regard to weight and neutrality. You seem to be unsure of my motivations here (I've become involved because the policy arguments interest me some and because I happen to be decently familiar with the sourcing for the broader topic, but I didn't come looking for this topic, I came across this discussion incidentally) but I've been party to a lot of AfDs and merger proposals over the years, and my honest assessment is that this article would not survive another AfD, especially if the POVFORK arguments were added to the concerns found in the earlier AFDs. I honestly have little investment here; I just love sharing what I know about social psychology by way of the evolutionary framework. If I can parlay that into a policy discussion and improving an article, all the better. But frankly, lately I have had a hard time finding time to edit even the articles I really, really intended to edit, so its questionable how long I will be engaged here. Snow ^{let's rap} 14:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I am firmly in favour of a move or deletion. I would have supported keeping it if it had been written in a neutral manner but as as it is now it is a promotional article for a minority view. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Snow Rise, the problem is that we're not being given time to write the article, as you can see from the talk page. I've started doing the reading, and I'm finding what Sammy has found, namely that most scholarly treatments are in accordance with Joy, whether the authors use the term carnism or not, whether they're meat-eaters themselves or not. I'd appreciate it if you could list some of your sources so that we can see what you base your views on. Sarah ^(talk) 15:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Certainly SV. I've exhausted the amount of time I have for editing today on the abstract discussion here (which is rather the type of complication I think you are referencing here), but I'll put together some sources to explain the consensus view as I know it, hopefully by tomorrow. I remain dubious that this topic can ever be anything but a POVFORK, but I for one reserve judgement until due time has been afforded to the effort (and with my free time for editing, my assessment of a "due amount of time" is pretty liberal!). Anyway, providing you a preview of where I feel Joy's sociological paradigm conflicts with broader scholarship on the matter, the crux of the matter lays in the fact that most researchers will tell you that meat-consumption does not necesitate (nor is it usually best described in terms of) a "belief system". Indeed, the "critical period" in which children form most of the preferences with regard to food choices occurs well before their brains are developed enough to conceptualize anything remotely resembling a belief system.

The problem is that joy is not really an experimental or cognitive psychologist, that I can tell from her writing. Rather she seems very rooted in the approach of a sociologist, whereas most researchers who have done empirical/scientific research on this matter are cognitive scientists of one variety or another, who value data over broad strokes. Sociologists do not do first-order empirical research as a general rule, though they often employ a kind of empirical methodology. Their work often constitutes a kind of meta-analysis of the findings of other researchers. That's why said work is often presented in the format of paradigms and general (and sometimes nebulous) models. It's a way of translating detailed work into a language meant to represent broader trends. The problem is that this sometimes leads to serious disconnects with the primary research and leaps in meaning that the original researchers might not have intended. That certainly seems to be the case here, and the translation is exacerbated by the fact that her works in question here aren't written for an academic sociological context, but are even further abstracted and simplified for a general audience. Complicating things even further is the fact that I don't think her claims are being faithfully translated here either. It's basically become a long process of telephone, with the original meaning becoming more confused with each translational step. Anyway, those are my general observations; more precise sourcing to come. Snow ^{let's rap} 15:43, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Snow Rise, I agree with much of what you say about the belief-system issue and lack of clarity (in the sources and the article). The major issue is that we're not being allowed to write the article so that we can resolve the issues, or determine that they can't be resolved. Ideally those who want to write it would be given a few months to get on with it, then those wishing to critique it could do so (I would hope after having read some of the sources). Instead we have a situation where we're having to stop our reading and writing to reply to repetitive, and often minor, objections from people who haven't done the reading and probably never will. (This criticism is not directed at you.) Some space would be much appreciated.

Re: sources, thank you, that would be very helpful. Sarah ^(talk) 17:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

 ===Moving the article=== Snow, I know that diets that include meat are not universal (invertebrates are meat by the way) but they are dominant human diet, historically and in the present day. I think that psychology of vegetarianism therefore is the correct place for this article rather than meat paradox for example. Having 'meat paradox' would be the equivalent of having an article called Sex paradox instead of celibacy. It gives too much weight and prominence to the minority view that we should abstain from sex/meat-eating. It is fine to have minority opinions in WP but they must be presented as such. 'Meat paradox' suggests that there is widespread debate about whether we should eat meat or not; that is not the case. There are communities and groups who do not eat meat but the dominant philosophy is that meat eating is fine, therefore this is not an opinion that we need to defend. Of course veg(itari)ans claim that the majority of the population are deluding-themselves or suffering from some kind of mental confusion when they eat meat but that is a minority opinion. Articles on minority views, no matter how sincerely held, must named after the minority view not the opposite majority philosophy. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, and as always, we need to base this on sources, and not on your views, and your views of the public's views. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Martin, but that's a bit of a non-sequitur argument for me; there is no topic known by "sex paradox" that I know of, whereas "meat paradox" is an established term within the sourcing on this topic. Furthermore, the observation that humans vary in which animals they view as viable food choices has nothing to do with the weight ascribed to abstinence or indulgence in eating meat. Those are two completely different subjects. Psychological research on the meat paradox neither endorses nor argues against the advisability or acceptability of eating meat generally (or of any other dietary recommendation for that matter). The arguments put forward above for moving the article to "meat paradox" or "psychology of meat consumption" have nothing to do with "defending" the practice of eating meat. It's simply a reflection of what the actual topic of discussion is here, which is definitively not vegetarianism. And yes, I am aware insects constitute meat; that was the entire crux of my reference to them. Sorry, but I can't put this any more plainly really than I did above. This topic is not about vegetable consumption. The rest of us here vary wildly in how we perceive this topic, but I think we all share a consensus that vegetarianism is a related, but tangential topic here, not one which can be defined as an "opposite" in the way you are using the term. Snow ^{let's rap} 15:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I have not read Joy's book but as I understand it 'carnism' refers to meat eating and not to the fact that most societies eat some animals and not others. This is what the introduction on the carnism.org page says [my bold]:

Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. Carnism is essentially the opposite of veganism; “carn” means “flesh” or “of the flesh” and “ism” denotes a belief system. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It's difficult to hold a discussion when people haven't done the reading, so Martin I'd appreciate it if you would at least read Joy. Otherwise the discussion deteriorates into people swapping prejudices, when it's meant to be about which sources to use and how to interpret them. Sarah ^(talk) 15:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It is harder to hold a discussion when people cannot even be bothered to follow a link put in front of them. The link above ( carnism.org) is to a page that starts with a video of Joy and clearly states her views underneath. The above quote is from that page. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, the lead is very confused as to what carnism means; that has been a major driving factor in why I've commented here at length. But "meat paradox" is a well-defined psychological term. It refers to how one animal can be conceptualized as acceptable foodstock and another rejected for that purpose without any fundamental physical quality to explain the difference. So it really has no relation to vegetarianism. Likewise, most topics in the discussion of the psychology which governs meat consumption have little to nothing to do with the alternative diets of vegetarianism. It's worth noting that carnism.org is not a WP:reliable source and shouldn't be used here to support content or policy arguments. I agree that carnism is not the root topic here, but neither is vegetarianism. Snow ^{let's rap} 15:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Snow Rise, the meat paradox is that most people do not want to harm animals but have adopted a diet that does harm them. See this footnote for some quotes from academics. Sarah ^(talk) 16:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It seems clear now that this article should be deleted. No one is even sure what the neologism means. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It looks like 'meat paradox' is not a good name for an article either since there is no agreement on what that means. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

There is no baby, we have just a bath full of dirty water. What exactly are we writing an article about? It seems to me that some editors here want to write an article promoting Joy's opinions, whatever they may be. Is there really an encyclopedic article to be written, and if so what exactly will it be about. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The article is about a word and what that word means. It is not (immediately) about the politics of the person that coined the word or the people that subsequently used the word. I am with SV on this one - an AfD did not close with a deletion, so let the people who want to work on it do just that, rather than all these extremely time-consuming and distracting complaints.DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

We do not have articles about words and what they mean on WP. If that is all the article is about there is no justification at all for keeping it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Ideas summary of the Talk-page

Something that is bothering me about this article and its talk page is that there seem to be several over-arching problems that need to have explicit reasoning explained by their supporters from either side of the problem. What I am suggesting is that these specific problems be moved into possible sub-pages with links on this talk page, so that the one specific problem is discussed on the sub-page and allows the talk-page to be used for potential changes, while the problems are being discussed to reach consensus. Otherwise I would suggest WP:JUNK under #Why_starting_from_scratch_can_be_an_advantage and allow for a new response and write-up. Some, if not most, of the information is relevant AND good but it seems highly biased due to the POVs of the authors referenced, which I believe includes Ms. Joy who seems to have created the word to discuss the opposing 'extreme' of dieting to Veganism, but that is my opinion and I am not much of an expert on the topic. However, as I mentioned, there is content that shouldn't be thrown out with the "WP:BATHWATER" and I do not wish to unduly WP:RUSH the deletion process, if it should even be started, but I thought that it should be mentioned.

My one request to those that comment on this section: Keep your response short, sharp, to the point, and KISS (, and maybe make up, hehe). Please read through what I have said, and succinctly address your concern/s or ideas.

I do not claim to have covered all of the problems (and I would welcome the addition of problems I have missed as other subheadings), but this is an area where I would like to see some constructive comments that I know are somewhere in this article, kept succinct and not requiring someone to have to scroll through a large amount of text and argument, a summary if you will. I hope that these problems may eventually be kept on sub-pages while the talk-page is dedicated to changes to article text instead of article ideas, but I do not know if that is plausible or the "done" thing, but opinions are welcome. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Should we create sub-pages to link to specific and on-going debates?

I ask this mainly due to the mountains of textual information that I have tried to wade through over the last 3 or 4 days. We would certainly link the talk-page to these discussion sub-pages, but it would clear room on the talk page. Ideas are gladly welcomed here. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Should we do a WP:JUNK but use some of the existing information?

I simply raise this as a possible means of re-writing the article from a more neutral POV, but I have doubts that this would work and I kind of hate to erase work done by users who have put in a lot of effort from the look of things. Ideals are gladly welcomed. (I'm also not sure if there should be a template for this or if this is a more informal discussion to raise the issue formally later, so let me know, thanks) Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Take a look at the original revision of this article. That is a genuine example of what WP:JUNK applies to. Objectively, JUNK doesn't apply in this situation given that there was an AfD and substantial support for a keep emerged. At this point, we have an article that could be more neutral, but does report the idea of "carnism" as supported by reliable sources. Our issue here is not POV pushing, but rather a systemic bias in the pool of sources available on this topic. Erasing all the work already done to make the language as neutral as possible while still supported by sources solves nothing. Hitting the reset button won't solve any of the issues of contention. ~ Rob^Talk 01:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement of Explicit Problems

NPOV or POV-bias

Is the tone and style of this article really NPOV? Does the article actually present a completely balanced and impartial viewpoint? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Source bias: should authors that have sourced material in-article have a notation or statement of "animal-rights advocate" (or similar) and vice-versa, if they have a vested interest and partisan bias?

This is mainly concerned with Melanie Joy and various quotes associated with her, but this can still have an impact on how the article is read, both for pro and anti views. Does adding the notation/statement allow for more article NPOV? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Article Structure

What structure do people suggest be used, as I notice that this has become a point of contention, though I think there is some consensus. I would suggest that if you have a particular suggestion about an area that you create a Level 4 heading and label as your suggestion, to avoid ideas being suggested mid-discussion of an earlier suggestion (having two ideas discussed under one title). Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC) For example:

User:FourViolas's Example Structure (I think it was discussing the Meat Paradox, but I'm not 100% sure)

Please note that I am using this as an example, and that this is not endorsed by User:FourViolas, this is purely an example.

[26] It is right at the bottom (it's a fair few scrolls), and I can't seem to find the actual edit for the one comment, so my apologies for the finger work-out. The possible structure was "split the article into Psychology of eating meat (the middle sections) and Carnism (the "Background" and "Vegan discourse", latter fleshed out and properly attributed from [27]" quoted from the comment under section "You really do need to listen to what other independent editors say".

Please note that I am using this as an example, and that this is not endorsed by User:FourViolas, again, it is an example.

I would have used other examples from different user's as well, but I simply ran across this and decided to use it. Please don't hate on me. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Only "carnism"-containing sources on the Carnism article

Since, per RS, the concept has a political agenda, it is improper to group sources under the term unless they do so themselves. See below. FourViolas (talk) 00:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

What have I missed?

Feel free to add a sub-heading, with posing a question and clarification of the question. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you've got a great idea of the situation. Thank you so much for making the effort to catch up on, and distill, this enormous discussion.

However, SlimVirgin, a very experienced editor, thinks it is not productive to be discussing all of these right now. If my proposal below is accepted, I think your discussion-organizing scheme would be a great template to start from when we do discuss NPOV (if we even need to after the development period). I accidentally proposed a slightly different, NOR- and V- plus NPOV-based division line within my proposal. FourViolas (talk) 00:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to table discussion

I respect the expressed desire for space and peace to develop the article in. Here is a proposal that would allow that space to be opened, while addressing the important WP:POVFORK concern.

Proposed findings of fact

• The concept of describing the psychology and cultural traditions of meat consumption as "carnism" was created as, and remains, a strategy intended to call that practice into question.
• "Carnism" and "Psychology of meat eating" both pass the general notability guideline.

Proposed temporary resolution

For two months or until the major contributors to this page agree they're ready to discuss NPOV, (whichever comes first), NPOV disputes will be resolved by the process of BOLD, DISCUSS ONLY AFTER THE WAITING PERIOD IS OVER (if still relevant).

In the meantime, this page will only cite sources which explicitly: a)use the words "carnism" or "carnist"; or b)formulate the culture/psychology of meat eating as an "ideology" or "belief system". Material from other sources will move to Psychology of meat eating, which will be developed independently.

FourViolas (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: A "bold, revert, wait multiple months until everyone has forgotten about it to discuss" cycle doesn't seem like it would work well in any circumstances. I'm leaning oppose on this unless significant arguments are made for why WP:NPOV concerns should be ignored for two months. All editors here have worked productively this far to make the best article possible; why stop working? ~ Rob^Talk 00:55, 30 July 2015 (UTC)