Is Veganism a Cult? Not Yet.
10 January 2016 [link youtube]
Veganism is not a cult, but, TBH, it is inevitable that we're going to see cults come and go within Veganism. If we're really being honest about it, most of the fundamental requirements are already there (ready to spin out of control, one way or another, sooner or later).
If you'd like to see an example of my writing about cult-theory (e.g., how do we define the concept of "cult" and apply it to diverse political and religious situations… Buddhism, Communism, etc.) you can click through to my blog, here:
http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/07/Robert-Jay-Lifton-and-the-self-directed-cult.html
Youtube Automatic Transcription
hey just spending some more quality time
with mao zedong a lot of my life still involves legacy of communism and I have written in the past about cult phenomena within political organizations such as communism and within Buddhism religious cult phenomena I've done a lot of reading about cults into various headings and sometimes I see Google search results for my name that actually reflect that where like I'm googling my own name to try to find an article I published in the past and getting results for robert jay lifton you know his analysis of the cult definition of what a cult is and so on suddenly I've been interested in for a long time just lately there have been controversies leading vegans to ask questions about cult phenomena and veganism to what extent veganism is a cult or might become a cult etc most of those questions are not of course being a sincerely but you can do the following thought experiment to very rapidly ascertain just how much potential there is Indy how inevitable it is that we're gonna get cult phenomena within veganism and not just because I mean it as much as vegans or regular people it's inevitable that someone in the NFL is vegan so many plays football is vegan someone famous and the military is vegan any lifestyle choice of this kind will inevitably have luminaries and inevitably also there will be some famous criminal who turns out to be vegan just in as much as the vegan diet becomes part of the mainstream if not any particular shade of the vegan ideology we've already seen that so in that sense you might say cults are inevitable but ask yourself this question if I offered you an apartment for rent which is identical to the apartment you're currently living in in every way except everyone in the apartment building is vegan and the closest corner store closes little grocery store because of this is also 100% vegan would you pay $100 more in rent per month to live in that apartment building instead of the apartment building you've already got now if you're watching this and you're not vegan it's still a pretty easy thought experiment to do right it's still pretty easy to think through how that decision would affect you or what would appeal to you above it if you would would you do it for $200 would you do it for $300 how much more rent would you pay to live in exactly the same circumstances except that you're in an exclusively vegan community once you've got that impulse in place you've actually already got all the ingredients you need for cult phenomena to erupt don't believe me here's the same problem stated in different terms if I would offer you a job it's the exact same job that you already have in every way whatever your job is I'm offering you a different employer that's completely identical except everyone you work with is vegan and the nearest lunchtime cafeteria at lunchtime restaurant that sort of thing for the same reason is also all be would you switch jobs if it lowered your salary by a hundred dollars a month would you do it for two hundred dollars a month three hundred how much lower an income would you accept to be in the same job but surrounded by their vegans completely human impulse completely natural tendency involved here and you see it play out even with very moderate religious groups the type of Judaism we have within Canada is on the whole pretty moderate indeed pretty boring it's not the stuff that you would expect cults to be made of and get in practice it is and I remember we had a controversy in Toronto because local organized Jewish groups had set up their own bus company a a Jewish only bus company so that people taking the bus between Toronto and New York would be able to ride on a bus that was exclusively Jewish people on the bus Jewish passengers now this gets into questions of racism and segregation and what-have-you I think there are a lot of questions raised there but that bus company actually it did not become controversial because the government the Government of Canada didn't express an interest in it other bus companies raised a legal complaint about unfair competition and that in effects all bus companies ought to be able to compete for the Jewish market freely and openly and fairly and instead this was closing off part of the market to competition obviously you get into really difficult questions I grew up in Toronto Jewish people consider me Jewish I consider myself an atheist but obviously in terms of ethnicity and other criteria there still is a sense in which I'm Jewish going to an only Jewish retirement home problematic just these questions of racism and segregation Jewish only schools is that really what's good for people and so on as soon as you have people willing to make those sacrifices separate themselves you have all the ingredients you need for cult phenomena I've read about and studied many many different cults one I remember recently I saw some here on YouTube I saw some video interviews of the people after the cult had fallen apart and they said very sympathetically look we made all these sacrifices just to live in this community a plan the community with like-minded people that's something so precious to us that was the only reward you know they obviously they paid a lot of money but also they had to kind of wear strange clothes and obey all these strange rules but the one reward what they got out of it was living surrounded by like-minded people and whoever you are watching this video you may not have ever experienced that in your life depending on what country and what culture you come from you may not know the deep instincts so called tribal instincts whatever you want to say you may not know the type of gratification in the human ego and the human heart that this appeals to but it is so deeply rooted that as soon as you reach out to people and start manipulating them in this way not only are they willing to make financial sacrifices but that that communitarian mentality can pretty quickly take over so uh yeah it's coming I mean as I said before yes it's inevitable that we have sports heroes who are vegan and I know singers and musicians and actors and actresses it's maybe also inevitable we're gonna have a mass murderer who's vegan we're gonna have some kind of infamous hated public figures vegan if it hasn't happened already it's coming and for all to human reasons I can completely sympathize the reasons it's inevitable that vegans are going to form into a diversity of communes shall we say and some of them are going to go into that pattern that we've seen play out again and again with cults
with mao zedong a lot of my life still involves legacy of communism and I have written in the past about cult phenomena within political organizations such as communism and within Buddhism religious cult phenomena I've done a lot of reading about cults into various headings and sometimes I see Google search results for my name that actually reflect that where like I'm googling my own name to try to find an article I published in the past and getting results for robert jay lifton you know his analysis of the cult definition of what a cult is and so on suddenly I've been interested in for a long time just lately there have been controversies leading vegans to ask questions about cult phenomena and veganism to what extent veganism is a cult or might become a cult etc most of those questions are not of course being a sincerely but you can do the following thought experiment to very rapidly ascertain just how much potential there is Indy how inevitable it is that we're gonna get cult phenomena within veganism and not just because I mean it as much as vegans or regular people it's inevitable that someone in the NFL is vegan so many plays football is vegan someone famous and the military is vegan any lifestyle choice of this kind will inevitably have luminaries and inevitably also there will be some famous criminal who turns out to be vegan just in as much as the vegan diet becomes part of the mainstream if not any particular shade of the vegan ideology we've already seen that so in that sense you might say cults are inevitable but ask yourself this question if I offered you an apartment for rent which is identical to the apartment you're currently living in in every way except everyone in the apartment building is vegan and the closest corner store closes little grocery store because of this is also 100% vegan would you pay $100 more in rent per month to live in that apartment building instead of the apartment building you've already got now if you're watching this and you're not vegan it's still a pretty easy thought experiment to do right it's still pretty easy to think through how that decision would affect you or what would appeal to you above it if you would would you do it for $200 would you do it for $300 how much more rent would you pay to live in exactly the same circumstances except that you're in an exclusively vegan community once you've got that impulse in place you've actually already got all the ingredients you need for cult phenomena to erupt don't believe me here's the same problem stated in different terms if I would offer you a job it's the exact same job that you already have in every way whatever your job is I'm offering you a different employer that's completely identical except everyone you work with is vegan and the nearest lunchtime cafeteria at lunchtime restaurant that sort of thing for the same reason is also all be would you switch jobs if it lowered your salary by a hundred dollars a month would you do it for two hundred dollars a month three hundred how much lower an income would you accept to be in the same job but surrounded by their vegans completely human impulse completely natural tendency involved here and you see it play out even with very moderate religious groups the type of Judaism we have within Canada is on the whole pretty moderate indeed pretty boring it's not the stuff that you would expect cults to be made of and get in practice it is and I remember we had a controversy in Toronto because local organized Jewish groups had set up their own bus company a a Jewish only bus company so that people taking the bus between Toronto and New York would be able to ride on a bus that was exclusively Jewish people on the bus Jewish passengers now this gets into questions of racism and segregation and what-have-you I think there are a lot of questions raised there but that bus company actually it did not become controversial because the government the Government of Canada didn't express an interest in it other bus companies raised a legal complaint about unfair competition and that in effects all bus companies ought to be able to compete for the Jewish market freely and openly and fairly and instead this was closing off part of the market to competition obviously you get into really difficult questions I grew up in Toronto Jewish people consider me Jewish I consider myself an atheist but obviously in terms of ethnicity and other criteria there still is a sense in which I'm Jewish going to an only Jewish retirement home problematic just these questions of racism and segregation Jewish only schools is that really what's good for people and so on as soon as you have people willing to make those sacrifices separate themselves you have all the ingredients you need for cult phenomena I've read about and studied many many different cults one I remember recently I saw some here on YouTube I saw some video interviews of the people after the cult had fallen apart and they said very sympathetically look we made all these sacrifices just to live in this community a plan the community with like-minded people that's something so precious to us that was the only reward you know they obviously they paid a lot of money but also they had to kind of wear strange clothes and obey all these strange rules but the one reward what they got out of it was living surrounded by like-minded people and whoever you are watching this video you may not have ever experienced that in your life depending on what country and what culture you come from you may not know the deep instincts so called tribal instincts whatever you want to say you may not know the type of gratification in the human ego and the human heart that this appeals to but it is so deeply rooted that as soon as you reach out to people and start manipulating them in this way not only are they willing to make financial sacrifices but that that communitarian mentality can pretty quickly take over so uh yeah it's coming I mean as I said before yes it's inevitable that we have sports heroes who are vegan and I know singers and musicians and actors and actresses it's maybe also inevitable we're gonna have a mass murderer who's vegan we're gonna have some kind of infamous hated public figures vegan if it hasn't happened already it's coming and for all to human reasons I can completely sympathize the reasons it's inevitable that vegans are going to form into a diversity of communes shall we say and some of them are going to go into that pattern that we've seen play out again and again with cults