I was thinking about this; I know it’s hard to change from what you always have known and experienced as normal, so it’s not easy to transition out of animal products, but the carnists who show up here to argue with us literally seem crazy to me; their one constant answer is always it’s ok to murder and torture animals, and they can never give a good reason why.
It was a huge change for me. But now that I’ve made it, I cannot believe their endless faulty logic they cling so desperately to for NO reason.
Eh, shame (or rather, guilt) is a healthy emotion when you do something harmful and don’t make amends for it. It’s an emotion that’s meant to motivate the person feeling it to do better, athough it can be hijacked by social pressure to make people feel shame when they’ve done nothing wrong, which is worth watching out for (especially common around sex).
If I steal from a friend, I should feel guilt/shame because I did something hurtful to my friend. Someone running a dog fighting ring should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating and profitting off violence. Someone contributing to animal agriculture should be ashamed of themselves for supporting violence and exploitation and abuse because it’s convenient and gives them pleasure. I feel ashamed of using fossil fuels and water inefficiently, among other things, but that helps motivate me to try to change.