Non Veganism and the Dark Tetrad: Narcissism

Previously in this series on The Dark Tetrad of Non Veganism we featured Sadism and Sociopathy and the Dark Triad including Villanous Psychopathy. We have heard of Narcissus (a Greek mythological figure who fell in love with own reflection). Narcissism is a relatively common condition with many people spending hours grooming themselves in front of mirror or on social media and talking soleley about themselves, following narcissistic celebrities or wanting to be one like them. Religions are also a big source of Narcissism with humanlike imaginings of God or Goddess figurines based on human pride and vanity. What we do not connect is the link to Non-Veganism which is most popular form of Narcissism and most of us were or still are guilty of the same. The following are some obvious connections this time to Narcissism.

• Grandiosity of ego and a belief that they are special, is the most typical narcissistic trait. Non vegans truly believe that humans are next to God in status, and all other species are somewhere below par to us while we go to God in heaven.
• Megalomania may be part of a narcissism where a Narcissist feels invincible and tyrannical. Non vegans find their kinds alone at top of food chain. They may have a fantasy of being very powerful like lions and tigers or even more than them so their fear and dread is upon all ‘lesser beings’…just like terrorists. They believe they are God’s special child who named all animals and things, and whom all angels serve and obey except fallen ones.
• Narcissistic have highly convoluted or unnatural fantasy of success and power so that everyone loves them and respects them eventually for example being a heavy metal rockstar, or being an actor or multimillionaire. Why would they care about being vegan when most celebs or businessmen do not have to be?
• Superiority and snobbishness are Narcissist’s main attributes. ‘I am human, they are just dumb animals’, they maintain. Speaking diparagingly against their victims and ridiculing them is easy for Narcissts.
• Narcissists may also display an inflated self esteem or a kind of ego centricity with a lot of ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘myself’ talks. For example, ‘I like my meat’, ‘It is my personal choice to kill or hurt or abuse others’, ‘It is me who decides for myself. You do not change me’, ‘Everyone in the world is like me and accepts me, so why should I change?’
• Narcissists seek total admiration of self and want others to love and like them and non vegans are a large group as compared to vegans. Humans are their only source of comfort and as majority of humans are non vegan they seek their sympathy and appreciation. To them animals mean nothing although animals are the real victims. Their focus is entirely on humans because humans supply them their support system.
• Narcissists may be arrogant and boastful, for e.g. ‘I kill my own meat’ is a common statement of hunters and trophy killers. Others say proudly, ‘it is high welfare and humane’ when the endorse local farms or butcher shops. Other non vegans boast that they help animals in other ways by taking care of horses in stables as they usually like narcissistic preoccupation such as horse riding, horse racing or collecting rare breed of animals as pets or endorsing zoos as conservation efforts.
• Non vegans will enjoy vanity even at the expense of other people’s lives, for example they maintain that ‘real fur looks good’ or ‘leather jackets are cool’ and ‘high heel boots are smart’ or they wear mink eyelashes and flutter them a lot. They may pump up their muscles and show off too instead of being a normal person who eats and lives a healthy life for themselves. They consume far too much protein than a normal body needs for human survival although it is not environment friendly or compassionate to eat more and this usually included dairy, meat and eggs for severe narcissists.
• They go on various trends or fad diets such as paleo, pescatarian, keto, even use the term vegan falsely when going plant based temporarily to show off or for sexual appeal. They pout and behave like celebrities, models or actors at times copying specific screen idols or corporate czars who are glamourous, sexually attractive and popular. They might also sniff drugs to get a high.
• Some narcissists may be unable to reflect upon and stop their behaviour as they feel it is their choice and identify with it egoically even if it harms or hurts others. This egosyntonic tendency is all about following up only with that behavior that confirms or aligns with their ego. According to them they are ‘non vegan’ so why should they go vegan or step out of comfort zone. They want to keep being what their ego identifies with although vegan and non vegan is not a genetic thing or race that you cannot change and it is super easy to go vegan.
• Taking credit without adequate reason is Narcissism, for instance stating that ‘I am saving planet by being more eco friendly by wearing wool’, saying they are ‘buying local meat instead of imported fruit and veg’ to reduce carbon, although it is killing someone and a harmful act of immorality but they make it sound highly pompous. They may especially do that in front of camera for example or in public spaces in outreach conversations or in press articles.
• They prefer to wear a mask of politeness or at times a superficial show of being interested in others that is totally unauthentic and line based on attracting attention, love or likes from others on social media and in daily routine life and with peers. Being authentic and genuinely admitting hurting animals is wrong is not in their nature.
• Narcissists may be jealous of others if they do good work, and want that everyone listens and likes only them and feel envious of success of others. When they see a vegan doing well or promoting vegan moral values in society they want to attack him or pull him or her down and leave nasty messages in their comments on youtube channels or social media of popular media figures. They also create in-fighting within vegan movement by disparaging good vegans for example, if someone uses the term holocaust or Animal Lives Matter, they label him anti-semitic or racist although they said nothing of that sort and although Vegans do support Black Lives Matter and are against Nazi holocaust too as they detest all violence towards all animals.
• Narcissists like talking animatedly about themselves and
• their beliefs. ‘Look at me while I am talking to you’ they would say and go on talking even if they drain your out arguing incessantly over time even if their arguments are bogus which non vegan arguments always are without exception but they just cannot accept that as they lack the humility to listen or learn.
• ‘Why should I improve myself?’ is their internal motto. Narcissistics hate being criticized or reflecting on their behaviour. They would react because they feel you are showing them down or indicating they are not smart or sensible or as good as you. They are worried of looking stupid or feeling outsmarted in conversations or in their ego being hurt, instead of focusing on the main issue that of horrific and graphic murder of victims. They would react with ‘You are telling me I am a bad person, keep your opinions to yourself.’ Or if they are plant based but against vegan moralisation they ask you to, ‘Stop shaming and blaming people!’
• Narcissists suck energy totally to themselves as vampires and feed off your attention. They make everything about them. Similarly they feed off their victims dead bodies too as it satisfied them and their ego or sense of vanity.
• In conversations narcissists are usually disagreeable with others but demand others bend down to them totally. They will prefer to have the last word on their ego trip and unhappy to lose the battle when justifying their egoic need to be right even when entirely in the wrong. We all know that deliberately killing, abusing or hurting someone is wrong and there should be no disagreement on this.
• You must have heard people claim, ‘Let others eat whatever they want’ as if other animals are commodity or a thing to eat (food) not people. Objectification of others whom they consider unworthy or menial is a narcissist trait. They even claim animals are ‘made for them to eat’ because they are ‘made of meat’. They know that humans and other animals are alike or similar in our protein content and everyday nutritional density but refuse to understand in terms of sensitivity to pain or emotional abuse. They do not see spirits of animals they eat, but only perceive human spirits and their chosen beloved pets.
• Narcissists have a huge sense of entitlement and state things like ‘animals were given to us’. They are proud to be human as it is about ‘survival of fittest’. No laws or moral values should apply to them in their opinion but vegans should mind ‘their own business’ or ‘get a real job’ because they think abusing others is their entitlement, but noone is entitled to be a vegan activist to support animal victims.
• Narcissist partners and parents constantly demand respect and making children turn non vegan as soon as they start learning truth from another parent or vegan media. They commonly say, “I am your parent so eat your meat and dairy and eggs etc because I said so.” Although a child is vegan and compassionate they will ruin his kindred soul and spirit which is a tremendous form of abuse of a child. It also ruins their health but matter how much a child pleads that non vegan food is repulsive or disturbing and causes cancer, they ignore child’s voice and control them as they cannot prioritise child’s needs of physical and moral health and self development above their own.
• Moral disenggagement is a common Narcissism trait. They detach themselves from their actions and say that its only the way you speak, politeness or mental calmness and mental blessing or affirmations that matters even if you cause violence towards animals. They think moral values of ‘non harming’ applies only with regard to humans killing other humans and that ‘love thy neighbour’ is only applicable to human neighbours. Farm animals are in a different box in their mind and they don’t worry about them although they will brake for a cat or dog just to show to others they care about animals.
• They lie, manipulate and deceive to appear smarter, for example claiming they can feel or sense pain of plants is unrealistic and clearly a narcissistic attitude intended to make vegans admire their ‘false superpowers’.
• Lack of empathy and failiure to align with moral values is common to all dark tetrad personality types. Narcissists believe, ‘Why should I care if God gives a damn.’
• Vulnerable Narcissism is a hard-core dangerous attempt at making others feel bad for them as if they are suffering. Suddenly the real victim is not the victim but they are. ‘We are being denied of our rights to eat what we want’. ‘Let us earn an honest living in our animal farming business,’ they claim as if the animals are not the victims of non veganism but non vegans are victims of veganism. According to them everyone should only sympathise with them.
• Narcissists crave for sympathy at times. Should we focus on the victims being actually killed and raped, or hurting the feelings of non vegans by talking about the crime? Well, according to narcissists feelings of non vegans are most important even more than the real murder, graphic rape and horrible mutilation of dairy cows and pig sows or chicken. For example they might make you feel terrified of even talking about graphic animal abuse for fear of appearing ‘rude’ or too ‘bold’.
• The Narcissist abuser shames the victim from speaking out loud so as to hide truth and protect their image. The actual victim is made to feel like a bad person who has harmed the narcissist and damaged his frail ego by even saying the truth. They pretend to be really in pain or hurt if you merely say facts of how animals are abused as if children are mentally harmed in broad daylight to see the footage or hear about their crimes, yet they want children to eat animal products.
• Diverting attention is a common Narcissism tactic. ‘There are a lot of other issues, why animals only? Talk about war or capitalism…’ or ‘Is it environment friendly in perfect sense?’ they enquire. ‘It is protein and B12, poor people cannot afford supplements’ is the Narcissist’s cheap argument.
• Narcissists point fingers at you. ‘What about your cellphone’, ‘You have brain damage due to B12 deficiency.’ They suddenly become medical experts diagnosing you as mentally damaged and analying your diet if you believe in veganism.
• They always look for what is in it for their Ego and what is the price. ‘Is it healthier? Convenient? Adds to sexual performance? Makes me look good? Reverses ageing? Reverses climate change?’ Yes! ‘But, will it mean stepping down my ego?’ Yes! That’s why Veganism remains a taboo from a Narcissist’s point of view.
• Narcissists do not value ethics but only their own ‘quid pro quo’. Sometimes they buy cheaper items of cruelty also as they lack morals.
• Manipulative behavior and Gaslighting to make you feel something is wrong with you quite condescendingly. For e.g. ‘Jesus will judge you if you are Vegan as you did not follow God who gave you animals as food.’ Or, ‘Your almond and soya cause climate change,’ although its impact is not extensive and also not solely due to Vegans.
• Shifting blame and calling you narcissistic is also observed, e.g. blaming ‘narcissistic vegans’ who keep ‘raving and rantings about animals are ‘too proud’, ‘believe they are always right’, are rude or condascending, and not compassionate to humans.. and so on. Saying that, ‘You are not being kind to me, therefore it is your fault I am not vegan.’ And, I’m tired of explaining, you are shoving opinions down on me when vegans should not even have to explain that it is wrong to shove anal electrocutor down baby pigs or a knife down the little lamb’s throat.

Overall a feeling of superiority and arrogance over other animals is a common human social problem and requires us all to self reflect and treat our human focused severely narcissistic and tyrannical disorder. This can be achievable by making our focus the plight of the real victims who are actually hurt and abused severely for no reason instead of inflating and serving the human ego and its intricacies or failings delightfully like Dr. Hannibal Lectern in the movies. Hannibal who eats meat proudly and remains vain and selfish is intent on showing off his intellectual prowess, charisma, clothing styles and verbal eloquence and while he slithers away from being caught, he punishes and judges others instead although he is guilty of eating his victims. After all what is the difference between eating a human and another species of animals? Only your artificial human superiority complex.