"Abolitionism" and its Implications (with Amy: "The Vegan Transition")

look I want to ask you this I'm you know
I'm happy to hear you talk to you but let you know I think the other thing that's different from you and other people is that you haven't fallen into the abolitionist trap but which I mean like I use the word abolitionist myself sometimes but not all the time but I think a lot of people would refuse to do the kind of research you're doing just because they say oh well the point is to abolish it like end of story so it's simple so we don't have to think about it right like you know and it's like well instead of just jumping to abolition as if that solves the problem or answers all the questions you're kind of just saying well let's ask the questions let's actually figure out things work you know I it's just it's just very different from the abolitionists own of so much of what's going on veganism I think that's another frustrating fact you is just like um a lot of I've gotten a lot of attacks lately from different youtubers and different just like different people that watch v in YouTube that are attacking me for not being I think we've talked about this before about not being aggressive enough and you know I've been called a shill a couple times this week you'll be happy to know we're both on Team chill great yeah yeah we're Team chill now because of the interviews that I've been doing apparently that means I'm I'm trying to speak favorably about animal slaughter I don't know I really don't but yeah I've been outright attacked in my comment section a lot and um mostly by other vegans of course of course because I'm not an abolitionist it's not that I don't want to do away with animal slaughter of course I do but don't think it's realistic to ask the world to change overnight I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime but you see that's right that's exactly the problem that's exactly the problem with the word abolitionist is that it becomes meaningless like I don't think it's meaningful to say that you are not an abolitionist or that I am NOT an abolitionist we would both ideally like to see things abolished we would just also like to speak in a realistic manner but what we're doing next week in the next six months in the next five years next ten years we don't see abolition as an excuse to not do research to not do political organization or do not do real activism you don't I mean and that's really what it becomes like when abolition becomes an excuse for pious ignorance for not knowing things not caring with things that's what makes it counterproductive but I don't like I don't assume someone's an idiot if they tell me they're an abolitionist they may be a real they may be a great person there may be a great vegan activist but it's just like the term has is not useful and again if people are actually attacking you by saying you're not Nepalese you're not abolitionists enough like what because you would dare to listen to somebody like you would dare to let the other person speak like is that the problem is that you should be screaming at the farm owner so that you can't hear his side of the story like if that's what evolutionism means that I'm against abolitionism but it's not it's not what the word means it's just a kind of social habit that's gotten attached to it like I would love you know with with elephants elephants were part of my life in Southeast Asia but like if you want to know anything about elephants you've got to talk to the people who are exploiting them and the exploitation is gruesome like apart from being vegan like people break down weeping and vomit when they see what people do to help it I when you describe but some of the things are really like in terms of the amount of blood and stuff are really gross but if you don't want to be an ignorant self righteous [ __ ] if you actually want to do effective advocacy or activism or fundraising run a charity or you want to run an animal of elephant rescue center those are the people you need to talk to and those are the people who've lived with elephants and normally you know if you if you talk to them in a human way maybe some of them are evil psychopaths but most of them will have a whole range of emotions because they'll have had you know positive emotional connections to some elephants and the other hand there will be some elephants they will have literally beaten to death or something you know and you can get all that all those gray areas and at the end of that process you can be an effective activist and you're not an ignorant self-righteous prick but sure but you're hanging easiest in the world do you want to do you want to abolish zoos yes do you want to Balash circuses yes do you want to abolish exploitation of elephants yes so therefore there's nothing more to talk about right come on you know come on yeah and I think of it also fits in with that that attitude to of like you know like you just like the self-righteous vegan um there's there's a lot of judgment being passed in the vegan community right so I'm not I'm just not aggressive enough or whatever so that judgment is holding a lot of people back from doing a lot of good I think vegans need to stop judging other vegans and saying you're not vegan enough because it's just not helpful that's the goal this doing real good but that's that's that to me is also very Canadian thing I mean obviously it's going to be different in different cultures you know like the British pissed me off I don't in general I have bigger even worse problems with English culture but to me like everything I saw on the left wing in Canada and of course like the Green Party was dominated by left-wing people also so much of the emphasis was on this idea of personal purity and were like almost all your energy went into trying to exclude people from sitting at the same table as you and I mean literally a table like it's not a metaphorical table it's like who actually gets to come to this luncheon or who actually gets to attend this political meeting where all of the renergie was in like are you a real socialist or what have you and me and one other guy who were in the Green Party and doing a collage activism at that time I was strictly vegetarian I really didn't even know the word vegan or if I'd maybe heard it but he liked it but anyway I was I was like ninety percent vegan back then but I was strict vegetarian I was involved with ecology and stuff and we were the only two guys who would openly say like I am NOT a socialist I'm not a communist at those fans and you know right i mean my friend the other guy i never got that extreme reaction partly just as i seem very self-confident like I seem like I have the answers to questions so people sighs don't ask me questions because they don't want to hear the answer but he he just had a little bit less of that or about I mean he was at one meeting like that where he said that I'd add the same experience but were people like really just gasped and said well what are you like what else is there it was so totally assumed to them that like either you're a socialist or you're the enemy you know they had never even thought about you know what else out there or why it matters but I don't know so yeah I just say that's I think that's especially a problem in canada with in veganism I mean look you know so many games being played you know you're you're not moral enough you're not you're not anarchist enough because there's a lot of anarchist influence and veganism but there's also you're not pretty enough you're not thin enough you're not you know it's the life stuff so we got a whole range right and you know like I don't even feel insulted when people say I'm not intellectual enough I'm like damn straight like at least you hate me for a reason if you think I'm too stupid good because that's better than saying I'm fat you know if the problem is I can't be an activist because I'm fat that's not a conversation I have it that's cuz I'm not done a video intellectual or I'm stupid that's okay now you know you're excluding me for a reason I can sympathize with you know great you know