> Some people see it as an attack on their identity when you reject choices made by their society.
Spot on. When I was a freshman in college, my then-girlfriend and I decided to become vegetarian. My parents responded with some puzzlement but were ultimately supportive. She, on the other hand, spent the evening crying with her parents, who saw it as a rejection of their lifestyle. I remember her father asking me with a mix of anger and frustration “but what do you EAT?!” and I pointed out that all the things on the plate that were not meat were, in fact, edible. In retrospect, this was the wrong approach (I was reflexively sarcastic in my youth), and I would now approach the question with a bit more compassion. But the experience helped me see why small things (eg, do you drink or not, do you own a gun or not, do you exercise or not, etc) can foment deep divisions among people.
Spot on. When I was a freshman in college, my then-girlfriend and I decided to become vegetarian. My parents responded with some puzzlement but were ultimately supportive. She, on the other hand, spent the evening crying with her parents, who saw it as a rejection of their lifestyle. I remember her father asking me with a mix of anger and frustration “but what do you EAT?!” and I pointed out that all the things on the plate that were not meat were, in fact, edible. In retrospect, this was the wrong approach (I was reflexively sarcastic in my youth), and I would now approach the question with a bit more compassion. But the experience helped me see why small things (eg, do you drink or not, do you own a gun or not, do you exercise or not, etc) can foment deep divisions among people.