The clear purpose, if not the actual outcome, was to discourage people from reading a book with a strong potential for advancing vegan thought and practice. This condition introduces a highly divisive, toxic and destructive element into the community of vegans and vegetarians. In addition to tarnishing the award, the behavior sets off destructive resonances in both the Animal Rights movement and the Vegetarian community. If there is strength in unity, it follows that there is weakness in contentious dissonance. Constructive discussion can stimulate people to clarify their own perspectives and seek to understand another's.
Destructive disputes leave nothing but ashes.
Passionate, ardent and strident insistence on what distinguishes one set of values from another's serves only to focus attention on what divides groups within the whole community, and to mask or distract from what unites them. Defense is what is inevitably called forth when one is libelously attacked and one's reputation is smeared. The role of Peacemaker is most effectively filled by a timely and strong response to the provocations of offensive behavior by parties other than the person or group that has been disparaged. If the victims of attack are left to defend themselves, the community has failed to meet its responsibility . To rebuke the defenders for the vigor of their defense adds insult to injury, and to chide them for failing to instantly forgive their assailants is simply to encourage rampant aggression with impunity.