In regards to eating meat

[Bring4th_Austin]

perhaps cognitive dissonance theory would explain it.

People feel dissonance between the belief that they like animals and would never hurt them, and the behaviour of killing billions of animals. The way to resolve the dissonance w/o changing behav is to assert how much they enjoy the horror and plan to continue. The re-commitment to the behaviour is strengthened, and so their mind is able to more quickly resolve the dissonance. It suppresses the thoughts regarding the killing of animals & alleviates the anxiety. The reduction in anxiety reinforces the behaviour and people learn to just fantasize about bacon everytime a nearby vegetarian arouses awareness of the underlying conflict. By publicly committing to their behaviour, the mind is put under extra pressure to resolve the dissonance, in accord with the commonly understood social pressure effect where making a public social commitment can motivate people to stick with that commitment and making a public choice can motivate people to stick with that choice so that others do not look down on them for being wishy-washy.

This might be the case in some situations, but it seems to me that the biggest culprits in the "mmmm bacon!" expressions seem to be people who have no problem hurting/eating animals, and not the ones who are "wishy-washy." I agree with the cognitive dissonance idea, but the dissonance probably isn't always caused by their belief that they'd never hurt animals.

This is not inline with psychodynamic theory.

Psychologists have shown that often people who appear the MOST commitment to some particular lifestyle are actually the most borderline, and their extreme commitment is an overreaction.

It just doesn't add up for me...and my life and occupation brings me into contact with people all across the spectrum. Trophy hunters, conventional farmers, people who don't really care about the conditions animals are raised in to produce meat...these are the people that tend to rub it in the faces of vegetarians. Contrarily, the people I see who do show care for animals are the least likely to confront a vegetarian in this way. Generally.

Someone who was not threatened at all by a vegetarian would not think of rubbing it in their face, their expression would be neutral, it would be like meeting someone with a different hair color.

The threat doesn't have to be from a suppressed sense of guilt. There are plenty of other reasons to feel threatened. Someone who feels an innate sense of judgement from a vegetarian isn't necessarily feeling the judgement because they themselves are guilty about eating meat (even though that is very possible). A lot of people care what anyone thinks about them in any context, and vegetarianism can easily be viewed by a non-vegetarian as a self-proclaimed superior point of view. Also, alternative lifestyles or just being different in any way can rouse emotion as well, it doesn't really matter what the context is.

The people with the emotional reactions are the ones who are going to make a strong response, and so my theory is that the people who have to engage in these defence mechanisms are actually people who hear the message of the vegetarian.

They may hear the message of the vegetarian but still disagree with it, and have emotional charge from some other distortion.

When it comes to rednecks and the like, these are generally people who really do love animals.

I'm sorry...I have to just disagree. I live in rural North Carolina, I'm assuming that the people you qualify as "redneck" are the same people I see every day...the conventional farmers, the trophy hunters...and while they may love their house dog, I simply do not sense any sort of expression of love for animals in general. It's a conscious decision to keep your dog chained up outside in the heat. It's a conscious decision to go hunting for the biggest buck (instead of for food). It's a conscious decision to raise pigs in gestation crates. It's a conscious decision to raise 10,000 chickens or turkeys in a single building, never seeing the light of day. What you are suggesting is that they exhibit/support this behavior, even though they "really do love animals?" We must have different definitions of love...

What I'm saying is that the people who say stuff like that to vegetarians are the people who feel bad about their own meat eating--these people are on the fence on some level. The people who feel no emotional reaction to the vegetarian message, on the other hand, will not engage in this childish behaviour but also have no chance of ever adopting vegetarianism.

I'm not saying it doesn't make up for some of the behavior, but I just do not see it as the main culprit for this behavior. If I view somebody who has no expression of compassion towards animals, I do not assume that they have compassion for animals. They may very easily feel threatened by the vegetarian for other reasons, which could easily play in to the other aspects you mentioned about masculinity within society...but not necessarily from guilt.