Benjamin Franklin: Vegan Hypocrite.

benjamin franklin
part-time vegetarian vegetarian hypocrite he in his autobiography mentions that at age 16 he became a vegetarian he was influenced by the writings of a man named thomas tryon who was an author in england in the 1600s i was interested in thomas trying i wanted to know what exactly he had said about vegetarianism that would have influenced a free thinker like benjamin franklin to become a vegetarian so in reading this i was saddened to find that really even though there was some pro-animal rights stuff he was a spiritual guru he had spiritual beliefs surrounding vegetarianism and in this way he discredits the movement he discredits animal rights and vegetarianism if you look online you'll find some websites that say been been franklin vegetarian since age 16. this is why he was so brilliant this is why he made so many inventions because because of this vegetarian diet but if you read a little bit further into the autobiography you'll find that he was a total vegetarian hypocrite not even a flexitarian just he he lived with the kind of hypocrisy in this moral gray area of knowing that he shouldn't eat meat that he shouldn't consume flesh but he does anyway and i find this happening all the time on vegetarian websites on vegetarian youtube channels vegan youtube channels where they try to use these fake facts this history that is not really true to support vegetarianism to support veganism number 5. benjamin franklin known as one of america's founding fathers benjamin franklin was a well-known scientist politician and inventor he is credited with discovering electricity with his invention of the lightning rod franklin also invented bifocals and the franklin stove the witty inventor also abstained from eating meat he is quoted as saying my refusing to eat meat occasioned inconveniency and i have been frequently chided for my singularity but my light repast allows for greater progress for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension for example franklin once almost killed himself trying to cook a turkey with electricity cooking with electricity was something ben had been experimenting with and he found electrified meat particularly tender in early 1749 he even threw a picnic on the banks of the schuylkill river in pennsylvania where the turkey was killed with an electrical shock and then cooked by being rotated over an electrically kindled fire in a letter from 1750 franklin describes an incident in which he was trying to kill a turkey with an electrical shock but instead wound up electrocuting himself witnesses reported him being engulfed in a flash of light and hearing a loud crack he would later tell his brother that the biggest injury he sustained was to his ego i remember the first time i went to a loving hut restaurant if you're vegetarian or vegan you probably have heard of this restaurant there are chains all around the world of the loving hut one of the notorious things about the restaurant is that they have pictures up of famous vegetarians or famous vegans with a quote from them about their veganism why they became vegan so this is something that you'll see if you first become vegan and look up information about vegetarianism or veganism on the internet you'll find that most of the propaganda in favor of veganism relies heavily on the use of celebrities or historical figures who were vegetarian or claimed to be vegetarian and as time passes if you actually look into each of these celebrities if you look into each of these historical figures you'll find that a lot of this really is just propaganda and it's not true a lot of people who in history we think of as being vegetarian weren't actually vegetarian the rewriting of history is is full of this issue that people misrepresent historical figures for having had morals and qualities about them that they didn't actually have so i've been reading thomas trying and thinking to myself you know look this could have been figured out at any period of history it doesn't take a genius anybody can learn it made me think you know i remember when i first became vegan when i first was learning about this stuff i made a big document that i shared with some of my family and i was hopeful i had some optimism that what i had sent to them would lead them to become vegetarian or vegan themselves but after being vegan for almost six years now i've really concluded that i've failed at converting any of my family members to vegetarianism or veganism none of them cared about it none of them care enough to change their diet and it's with great sadness that i reflect on how little i've done to influence other people in the world to become vegan it's really a difficult task to try to convert anybody to veganism and if you try to rely on these historical figures i really i just can't believe that being vegan what we have to rely on is fake history that we have to watch these videos and see people claiming that these historical figures were vegetarian or vegan when they weren't and if you just do a little bit of research if you read the primary sources you'll find out that they weren't thomas tryin despite his advocating for a non-meat diet and even he he couldn't convert his wife to veganism this is what what it means to be vegetarian or vegan you're living in this world where everybody is participating in a cruel system and you try and try to get people to change their mind on a subject and they just refuse to listen to you now there's a lot worth reading in the ancient texts you yourself can read these texts they aren't that long but this this week i was i was trying to look into these different uh historical figures and i just read plutarch's on the eating of flesh porphyry on abstinence from animal food this is 2 000 years ago these philosophers had figured it out some of the same exact arguments like the structure of the human body the teeth the mouth the fact that we don't actually eat flesh raw we don't bite into the hide of an animal um this same exact image that vegan activists say today can be found in plutarch sadly when i was looking into thomas tryin i think a lot of what he had to say was simply that if you want to be a pure soul and also when reading porfiri the way to purity is to eat a slender diet to eat as little as possible or to eat as light as possible and this is purifying for the soul and this brings us closer to this belief that uh we're souls living in human bodies as opposed to the idea that we are our bodies and this is the one life that we have we're not going to be reincarnated into an animal it's not that we will refuse to eat meat because we think that a soul that possibly could be reincarnated into a human being is in this animal and that's that's wrong to kill this animal because it could be reincarnated into a human being right that it's equivalent to murder for this reason it can't be for these reasons that people decide to go vegan and it can't be based on a lie i don't want a movement based on a lie i don't want an ideology based on a lie and a diet based on a lot either and i don't want to be a part of a movement that relies on pseudoscience i don't want to be a part of a movement that relies on kind of religious ideology uh i'm a nihilist i don't believe that we are souls living in these fleshy bodies and the way to purifying our souls is to not eat meat but i think for a large part of the history of vegetarianism and veganism that is what has led people to not eating meat to abstaining from eating meat if you live this way if you live this way where you're eating animals if you are eating animal products you're contributing to a thousands of years history of animal slaughter cruelty for no good reason it's really awful and it's the consequences are just terrible the impacts on the environment the impacts on human morality the impacts on our whole society it really matters and seems like the only people that care the only people who are trying to make a difference they rely on these fake facts it can't be based on fake history it can't be that people are inspired to become vegetarian or vegan based off of a lie so i i am advocating for a movement a vegan movement that is based on reality and that's based on doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do you