Compassion and Compromise: Vegans Buying Meat.
27 September 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
I buhdeuce yen it's not surprising at
all that some meat eaters will say to you cynically that veganism is a doctrine of compassion and that there for you as a vegan should have compassion for meters that you should set aside your differences eat at the same table with them even share your food with them by the same food and give it to them whatever that you should compromise your ethics out of compassion for people who disagree with you on this issue and that to be uncompromising or unyielding to refuse to participate in buying meat cooking meat serving meat that this is somehow wrong because it shows a lack of compassion for meat eaters but my sister had already spoiled the party to be honest with you because of her vegan ways the buffet that she laid on like she comes here she comes we have to have a little party here I lay on a buffet I put on vegetarian and vegan options you know I don't like that those are our choices but I respect them as being her choices so we do that I do that I'll go out my way and do extra shopping to do that for her her party there was not one meat item why can a vegan not have the same amount of respect for a meat-eater we're allowing your opinions we are respecting yet we're not attacking yet we are providing vegan options fear but you won't do the same in return it's somewhat more surprising that I so consistently hear this from other vegans because I do here exactly the same argument from vegans that veganism is supposed to be about compassion it's supposed to be able to us feeling great about ourselves and that we should not make meat eaters feel bad about themselves people you should have compassion for them and we should regard their views as if they were correct even though we we know that they're wrong the fundamental flaw here Idzik waiting compassion with indifference if I actually care about you if I actually have compassion for you why would I be indifferent to your the fact that you're killing animals and you're killing yourself you're damaging your own health possibly destroying your own health depends on their meat eating diet but whether you're eating milk meat eggs whatever the non-vegan foods you're eating our i can guarantee they're bad for you I can guarantee you're harming yourself and I can guarantee that you're harming animals and that you're harming the environment you're making the world a worse place for everyone for the animals but also for yourself so if I have compassion for you why would I be indifferent to the misery you're causing that just doesn't make sense you know I just thought vegan is just to blend there's too many reasons people can come on and they don't share my convictions and I'm like I don't even want to be a vegan anymore I'm an ethical vegan if I say that I'm an ethical vegan just from those two words long you know why I am a vegan you know what I genuinely care about and you know what I want to spray it if I tell you I'm an ethical vegan a lot of you claim that you are an ethical vegan claim if I as a vegan have compassion for meters I'm not going to be in different 2 meters and the truth is most of the time we don't we don't have that much compassion if I go to a shoe store to buy a pair of shoes I'm not going to testify to the guy I'm talking to because I'm just trying to find size 13 Tripoli your size 14 us sizes i got big feet i'm not going to break it down for him why i'm not willing to buy leather shoes I'm not gonna say oh hey have you heard the good word of our Lord and Savior veganism I'm not going to put that guilt trip I oh yeah and guess what thanks for helping me find this the one pair of shoes you have that size extra extra large and doesn't have 11 but by the way I think you're a piece of I think ethically you're inferior to me in every way because of what you put your mother I don't I don't but anyone in my life where I do have some level of respect some love some connection if I really care about them if I feel compassion for them at some point that's got to come up sure it's got to come up because they're doing real harm to themselves they're doing real harm to the animals they're doing real harm to the world's ecology and why would I be indifferent to that if I have compassion for meat eaters why wouldn't I express that compassion through veganism rather than through a betrayal of veganism if there were a candidate who believed that being gay was a sin it was a crime and they're all going to hell shared your politics and everything else but believe that could you vote for them so you have things that are amoral non-starter for you right just by virtue of you doing or believing a certain thing I can't vote for you there's a lot of emotional content on this channel I actually do not have a running count for how many times have broken down weeping on camera it's a number it's happened several times but I think nevertheless there's a very fundamental difference between people who see the world in terms of feelings and people who see the world in terms of outcomes and one of the nastiest divisions that exists within veganism is definitely the issue of insisting on viewing human feelings as the primary purpose of veganism now what do I mean by this if you haven't encountered this yet you will as a vegan eventually you will there are some vegans who say how dare you hurt the feelings of meat-eaters how dare you disrespect and disturb meat-eaters how dare you make them feel bad about themselves because they thanked the reason the primary purpose of veganism is feeling good that we as vegans feel good about it so we do this in order to feel good doing this makes us feel that we should show up as we should share with others how good we feel um but this does not justify making others feel bad making others feel guilty etc because feelings or what matters here now I don't see the world that way at all I can understand that perspective understand when I hear it from vegans and understand it when hear from meat eaters when you hear from meteors it makes even more sense because the meteors say that they respect vegans there for vegans ought to respect them in return mutual respect mutual compromise mutual coexistence her party there was not one meat item why can a vegan not have the same amount of respect for a meat eater and you know what she says oh I've explained to the children well they're six and therefore these two girls that she's got she's explained about being a vegan and vegetarian they support that decision well when I'd get sent to pick them up from school because she's too busy and I bad him sweeties on the way home I explained to them that her EBO are made we the horses hoops and all that kind of stuff and it's got animal products in they don't care they will stuff that Harry bow right down give him an ice cream get me an ice cream from the ice cream man on the way home on a sunny day tell them that it's made with milk and stuff they don't care so she's lying she is kidding herself getting herself but it's not about feelings at the photo comes and as soon as we shift to viewing the world in terms of outcomes it's actually unflattering to the vegan cars right if we think in terms of feelings to take one example of a feeling a feeling of the moral purity it's very easy for me to sit down at the cafeteria here in China every day and for me to feel morally pure because there's no beef on my plate there's no dead animal material on my plate on my side of the table right but the reality is sitting next to me sitting across there are other people with other plates and they're reading animals so the outcomes are the same I'm not saving the life of even one cow by refusing to eat meat in this cafeteria day after day after day I have zero impact now if one hundred percent of the students in this school refuse to eat meat then the school would stop buying meat they would stop cooking meat and that might have some impact right but as an individual I can believe in a delusion of moral purity that because the meat isn't on my plate because it isn't entering my body that I'm making the world a better place but in terms of real incomes sorry pardon me in terms of real outcomes the impact is absolutely zero because this school is going to buy the same amount of meat and cook the same mad at me day after day for the students as a collective whole when there's just one vegan in that student body I have no impact right in the other hand if we care about outcomes a meat eater who goes to a vegans house seriously says not joking says that the vegan ought to buy meat and serve meat to the meat-eating guests in the same way that this mediator claims if he were the host he would invite these vegans into his home and he would prepare vegan food for them heard of respect so this is viewing veganism as if it's just about feelings as if it's just about identity identity politics I put on vegetarian vegan options you know I don't like that those are our choices but I respect them as being her choices so we do that I do that I'll go out my way and do extra shopping to do that for her her party there was not one meat item why can a vegan not have the same amount of respect for a meat-eater if it's about outcomes how could I possibly make that comrade why would I make the compromise I think that caring about outcomes leads you to make meaningful compromises where there are real results where there are real outcomes but when there's no possible positive or there's a real harm done by buying meat I'm contributing to this you know shocking obscenity of the you know industrialized beef agriculture industry might make you feel comfortable might make you feel good about yourself but is it there's a question of cause and effect here there's a question of my doing something that's actually immoral to make you feel better you know and those outcomes even if tiny are real and your feelings are not I don't mean that you know what feelings are real feelings are real the feelings also can be wrong you can have a grandfather who's racist and it'll make him feel better if you agree with him but his feelings are wrong so you don't want to do that you can flatter him or you can avoid the subject or you can deal with it head-on but he's got his feelings his feelings are real and they may reflect a century of experience he may have all kinds of reasons for why he feels Louie does but it's still wrong and meat eaters they don't just have once they have a millennium of reasons to feel the way they do to value meat including especially you know religious rituals involving meat-eating and sharing meet the symbolic value and even dietary value what have you of meat in there of their life their culture they may have all kinds of very strong deeply-held reasons for why they eat meat why they think it's necessary and natural and normal and even more really positive and good I've seen so many charities were their main way of helping poor people is giving them meat we're sharing meet with the poor is of such religious and symbolism but it's still wrong you know your charity may go out and give turkeys to homeless people in the united states that since it at a very powerful form of sherry it's giving turkey meat to homeless people in the Muslim world it's normally goat meat or lamb meat you know dead sheep and I've seen that I've seen that in Southeast Asia you know they think that's a tremendous ability to go out in and find the poorest of the poor and share or meet with them but it's still wrong it's bad for the animal it's bad for the environment it's bad for you it's bad for your health you're actually slightly poisoning all the people who should have food with so I retract what I said earlier it's not that the feelings are unreal and that the outcomes are real it's not that simple they're both real in their sense but the outcomes are real and your feelings can't be wrong I think that caring about outcomes doesn't result in us becoming harsh and unyielding and uncompromising I think it leads us to seek out the compromises that are really worth making if you want to set up a charity in Southeast Asia in Cambodia in Laos in Indonesia you name it you may have serious problems with the government that you have to compromise it there and then you have to ask yourself okay if I'm going to run this charity maybe it's a charity to promote veganism or animal rights or ecology maybe it's just a charity to give food to starving people and maybe you've reached a level of sophistication where you realize that it's a lot more meaningful to give vegan food to starving people than to kill an animal to have an animal lipids whole life in misery have its throat slit suffer and die to feed those same people but whatever your charity is if you're pursuing those charitable goals and you've got to sign a contract with the government of that country going to sign a memorandum of understanding you got to set up the foundation you got to make those commitments legal and otherwise you have to compromise if if those goals are worth it you're going to make that compromise and you have to decide it keeps me I've given advice to charities that I remember one charity I advise them not to my final advice them was don't do it don't time the agreement don't sit up here and they took my faith so I ended up making the executive decision I guess when that particular charity they canceled their project in Laos because of the advice that gave them actually which is interesting all time I give people advice they disregard it which is also interesting in a different way why would I make the compromise of paying someone to kill an animal just to make a meat eater feel more comfortable when he comes to my house that's meaningless compromise it's a wrong compromise it's the wrong thing to do and it's just not the case that we have to choose between being uncompromising and compromising our ethical values the point is we can make meaningful compromises in pursuit of meaningful goals and we can also recognize that living by our own moral principles will inevitably hurt the feelings of others whose moral principles are so fundamentally different from our own ah the new CN if we start dropping all then the only thing left are those who publicly tell you to your face that I don't give a about veganism I'm only here to exploit dramatize different stories so I can make and earn a living because this is the only way I know how to
all that some meat eaters will say to you cynically that veganism is a doctrine of compassion and that there for you as a vegan should have compassion for meters that you should set aside your differences eat at the same table with them even share your food with them by the same food and give it to them whatever that you should compromise your ethics out of compassion for people who disagree with you on this issue and that to be uncompromising or unyielding to refuse to participate in buying meat cooking meat serving meat that this is somehow wrong because it shows a lack of compassion for meat eaters but my sister had already spoiled the party to be honest with you because of her vegan ways the buffet that she laid on like she comes here she comes we have to have a little party here I lay on a buffet I put on vegetarian and vegan options you know I don't like that those are our choices but I respect them as being her choices so we do that I do that I'll go out my way and do extra shopping to do that for her her party there was not one meat item why can a vegan not have the same amount of respect for a meat-eater we're allowing your opinions we are respecting yet we're not attacking yet we are providing vegan options fear but you won't do the same in return it's somewhat more surprising that I so consistently hear this from other vegans because I do here exactly the same argument from vegans that veganism is supposed to be about compassion it's supposed to be able to us feeling great about ourselves and that we should not make meat eaters feel bad about themselves people you should have compassion for them and we should regard their views as if they were correct even though we we know that they're wrong the fundamental flaw here Idzik waiting compassion with indifference if I actually care about you if I actually have compassion for you why would I be indifferent to your the fact that you're killing animals and you're killing yourself you're damaging your own health possibly destroying your own health depends on their meat eating diet but whether you're eating milk meat eggs whatever the non-vegan foods you're eating our i can guarantee they're bad for you I can guarantee you're harming yourself and I can guarantee that you're harming animals and that you're harming the environment you're making the world a worse place for everyone for the animals but also for yourself so if I have compassion for you why would I be indifferent to the misery you're causing that just doesn't make sense you know I just thought vegan is just to blend there's too many reasons people can come on and they don't share my convictions and I'm like I don't even want to be a vegan anymore I'm an ethical vegan if I say that I'm an ethical vegan just from those two words long you know why I am a vegan you know what I genuinely care about and you know what I want to spray it if I tell you I'm an ethical vegan a lot of you claim that you are an ethical vegan claim if I as a vegan have compassion for meters I'm not going to be in different 2 meters and the truth is most of the time we don't we don't have that much compassion if I go to a shoe store to buy a pair of shoes I'm not going to testify to the guy I'm talking to because I'm just trying to find size 13 Tripoli your size 14 us sizes i got big feet i'm not going to break it down for him why i'm not willing to buy leather shoes I'm not gonna say oh hey have you heard the good word of our Lord and Savior veganism I'm not going to put that guilt trip I oh yeah and guess what thanks for helping me find this the one pair of shoes you have that size extra extra large and doesn't have 11 but by the way I think you're a piece of I think ethically you're inferior to me in every way because of what you put your mother I don't I don't but anyone in my life where I do have some level of respect some love some connection if I really care about them if I feel compassion for them at some point that's got to come up sure it's got to come up because they're doing real harm to themselves they're doing real harm to the animals they're doing real harm to the world's ecology and why would I be indifferent to that if I have compassion for meat eaters why wouldn't I express that compassion through veganism rather than through a betrayal of veganism if there were a candidate who believed that being gay was a sin it was a crime and they're all going to hell shared your politics and everything else but believe that could you vote for them so you have things that are amoral non-starter for you right just by virtue of you doing or believing a certain thing I can't vote for you there's a lot of emotional content on this channel I actually do not have a running count for how many times have broken down weeping on camera it's a number it's happened several times but I think nevertheless there's a very fundamental difference between people who see the world in terms of feelings and people who see the world in terms of outcomes and one of the nastiest divisions that exists within veganism is definitely the issue of insisting on viewing human feelings as the primary purpose of veganism now what do I mean by this if you haven't encountered this yet you will as a vegan eventually you will there are some vegans who say how dare you hurt the feelings of meat-eaters how dare you disrespect and disturb meat-eaters how dare you make them feel bad about themselves because they thanked the reason the primary purpose of veganism is feeling good that we as vegans feel good about it so we do this in order to feel good doing this makes us feel that we should show up as we should share with others how good we feel um but this does not justify making others feel bad making others feel guilty etc because feelings or what matters here now I don't see the world that way at all I can understand that perspective understand when I hear it from vegans and understand it when hear from meat eaters when you hear from meteors it makes even more sense because the meteors say that they respect vegans there for vegans ought to respect them in return mutual respect mutual compromise mutual coexistence her party there was not one meat item why can a vegan not have the same amount of respect for a meat eater and you know what she says oh I've explained to the children well they're six and therefore these two girls that she's got she's explained about being a vegan and vegetarian they support that decision well when I'd get sent to pick them up from school because she's too busy and I bad him sweeties on the way home I explained to them that her EBO are made we the horses hoops and all that kind of stuff and it's got animal products in they don't care they will stuff that Harry bow right down give him an ice cream get me an ice cream from the ice cream man on the way home on a sunny day tell them that it's made with milk and stuff they don't care so she's lying she is kidding herself getting herself but it's not about feelings at the photo comes and as soon as we shift to viewing the world in terms of outcomes it's actually unflattering to the vegan cars right if we think in terms of feelings to take one example of a feeling a feeling of the moral purity it's very easy for me to sit down at the cafeteria here in China every day and for me to feel morally pure because there's no beef on my plate there's no dead animal material on my plate on my side of the table right but the reality is sitting next to me sitting across there are other people with other plates and they're reading animals so the outcomes are the same I'm not saving the life of even one cow by refusing to eat meat in this cafeteria day after day after day I have zero impact now if one hundred percent of the students in this school refuse to eat meat then the school would stop buying meat they would stop cooking meat and that might have some impact right but as an individual I can believe in a delusion of moral purity that because the meat isn't on my plate because it isn't entering my body that I'm making the world a better place but in terms of real incomes sorry pardon me in terms of real outcomes the impact is absolutely zero because this school is going to buy the same amount of meat and cook the same mad at me day after day for the students as a collective whole when there's just one vegan in that student body I have no impact right in the other hand if we care about outcomes a meat eater who goes to a vegans house seriously says not joking says that the vegan ought to buy meat and serve meat to the meat-eating guests in the same way that this mediator claims if he were the host he would invite these vegans into his home and he would prepare vegan food for them heard of respect so this is viewing veganism as if it's just about feelings as if it's just about identity identity politics I put on vegetarian vegan options you know I don't like that those are our choices but I respect them as being her choices so we do that I do that I'll go out my way and do extra shopping to do that for her her party there was not one meat item why can a vegan not have the same amount of respect for a meat-eater if it's about outcomes how could I possibly make that comrade why would I make the compromise I think that caring about outcomes leads you to make meaningful compromises where there are real results where there are real outcomes but when there's no possible positive or there's a real harm done by buying meat I'm contributing to this you know shocking obscenity of the you know industrialized beef agriculture industry might make you feel comfortable might make you feel good about yourself but is it there's a question of cause and effect here there's a question of my doing something that's actually immoral to make you feel better you know and those outcomes even if tiny are real and your feelings are not I don't mean that you know what feelings are real feelings are real the feelings also can be wrong you can have a grandfather who's racist and it'll make him feel better if you agree with him but his feelings are wrong so you don't want to do that you can flatter him or you can avoid the subject or you can deal with it head-on but he's got his feelings his feelings are real and they may reflect a century of experience he may have all kinds of reasons for why he feels Louie does but it's still wrong and meat eaters they don't just have once they have a millennium of reasons to feel the way they do to value meat including especially you know religious rituals involving meat-eating and sharing meet the symbolic value and even dietary value what have you of meat in there of their life their culture they may have all kinds of very strong deeply-held reasons for why they eat meat why they think it's necessary and natural and normal and even more really positive and good I've seen so many charities were their main way of helping poor people is giving them meat we're sharing meet with the poor is of such religious and symbolism but it's still wrong you know your charity may go out and give turkeys to homeless people in the united states that since it at a very powerful form of sherry it's giving turkey meat to homeless people in the Muslim world it's normally goat meat or lamb meat you know dead sheep and I've seen that I've seen that in Southeast Asia you know they think that's a tremendous ability to go out in and find the poorest of the poor and share or meet with them but it's still wrong it's bad for the animal it's bad for the environment it's bad for you it's bad for your health you're actually slightly poisoning all the people who should have food with so I retract what I said earlier it's not that the feelings are unreal and that the outcomes are real it's not that simple they're both real in their sense but the outcomes are real and your feelings can't be wrong I think that caring about outcomes doesn't result in us becoming harsh and unyielding and uncompromising I think it leads us to seek out the compromises that are really worth making if you want to set up a charity in Southeast Asia in Cambodia in Laos in Indonesia you name it you may have serious problems with the government that you have to compromise it there and then you have to ask yourself okay if I'm going to run this charity maybe it's a charity to promote veganism or animal rights or ecology maybe it's just a charity to give food to starving people and maybe you've reached a level of sophistication where you realize that it's a lot more meaningful to give vegan food to starving people than to kill an animal to have an animal lipids whole life in misery have its throat slit suffer and die to feed those same people but whatever your charity is if you're pursuing those charitable goals and you've got to sign a contract with the government of that country going to sign a memorandum of understanding you got to set up the foundation you got to make those commitments legal and otherwise you have to compromise if if those goals are worth it you're going to make that compromise and you have to decide it keeps me I've given advice to charities that I remember one charity I advise them not to my final advice them was don't do it don't time the agreement don't sit up here and they took my faith so I ended up making the executive decision I guess when that particular charity they canceled their project in Laos because of the advice that gave them actually which is interesting all time I give people advice they disregard it which is also interesting in a different way why would I make the compromise of paying someone to kill an animal just to make a meat eater feel more comfortable when he comes to my house that's meaningless compromise it's a wrong compromise it's the wrong thing to do and it's just not the case that we have to choose between being uncompromising and compromising our ethical values the point is we can make meaningful compromises in pursuit of meaningful goals and we can also recognize that living by our own moral principles will inevitably hurt the feelings of others whose moral principles are so fundamentally different from our own ah the new CN if we start dropping all then the only thing left are those who publicly tell you to your face that I don't give a about veganism I'm only here to exploit dramatize different stories so I can make and earn a living because this is the only way I know how to