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C. James Strutz
 
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Default wife swap vegan episode


"RobDar" > wrote in message
...

> First...I am not sure it is fair to generalize the vegan lifestyle and
> assume they are all like the goof pot on the show...


You're right, it's unfair to make wide generalizations about any group of
people.

> I cannot say that I have known more than a handful of vegans...but none of
> them were as...interesting...as the lady on wife swap.
> Our conversation during the show?....Where the hell do they find all these
> people? Nearly everyone on these shows has some serious quirk or
> another...I guess living my " average joe american" life in my hard
> working neighborhood on a blue collar street...I have lost touch with just
> how many off kilter folks there are around me!


You're right again. It's a reality show and producers screen people and put
them in circumstances that provide the best entertainment value. It's silly
for anyone to believe that characters on some reality show are
representitive of, well, reality....

> There is a part of me that feels sorry for people like her. There is
> something sorely lacking in their lives. Some part of themselves that is
> empty and out of balance....anyone with so strict a mind set or activist
> personality, and I mean those people who have become so engrossed that
> they have lost the ability/willingness to understand and/or associate with
> people outside their idealology, has something missing in themselves.
> People look at activists and see dedication and strength of conviction...I
> see weakness. I deal with activists and "want to be" activists everyday
> and you cannot talk to even one of them. If offered a descenting opinion
> they react with emotional outcry...why?...because they nothing else to
> offer. They are the perpetual victims. People who, if they do not have
> some cause or issue to rally around and cry about, have very little else
> about themselves to make them feel alive or valued.


Strength and weakness is a dichotomy - there cannot be one without the
other. Don't pity people like the woman in the reality show. She obviously
feels as though her ideology is a strength, not a weakness. It's not that
they're "perpetual victims", rather their focus is so narrow that there's
very little overlap with mainstream thinking. That's okay as long as it
doesn't hurt anyone or anything.