Vegans "Being Taken Seriously"?
15 April 2016 [link youtube]
A lot of vegans complain about "never being taken seriously", but what level of respect (or "seriousness") can we really expect in these interactions? Although I really do relate to vegans feeling that they're constantly insulted and challenged by meat-eaters… but the reality is, often enough, we're also the ones doing the challenging… and the people we're talking to didn't sign up to attend an animal rights conference. Discuss.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
Guil hey what's up the books in the
background are finally gonna change now I've got some of my Chinese handwriting on the table for the first time in I don't know year-and-a-half I wrote that out in my first week of classes here I remember sitting down in a vegan restaurant and writing that out as rapidly as I could that's just like hi my name is I think it says I want to go back and study in Taiwan which was not true at the time and is still not true down I never wake up in the morning and wish I was back in Taiwan mmm but that would be the topic for another video umm I got an email from another youtuber called the white pariah great name for a channel she is open about the fact that she's diagnosed with serious mental disorders serious mental health problems that's a large part of what she talks but on her channel she is also vegan and she says to me that she has a lot of problems with people not taking her veganism seriously with not taking her reasons for being vegan seriously etc because she's diagnosed with serious mental health problems for me this brings up a couple of different things I think are worth chatting about worth sharing with my YouTube audience worth talking about whatever um one is that we have to be really honest with ourselves about what we mean by being taken seriously in your own cultural context and taking into account who you are where you are and who you're talking to what do you really mean by being taken seriously if veganism just comes up in passing at the workplace at a pub at a nightclub at the library like if I'm on university campus at a museum wherever it is what really do you mean by being taken seriously what do you actually expect from people in your culture and you've got to be really honest with yourself and really self-critical about those expectations if I meet a guy this happened to me once I met a guy who was spending a lot of his time and money on these um these extreme sports that are similar to parachuting but it's not parachuting you jump off a cliff and stuff like that and you know like I'm looking at him and I'm thinking what the hell is wrong with you what kind of a would spend his time and money on that as opposed to whatever going and helping poor people dying of AIDS and Cambodia and all the ridiculous things I would do with my time and money if I had time or money oh that's got a guy am uh now if I'd said that diem if I'd said you know I think you're a piece of garbage because this is what you do with your time and money given what what's going on planet Earth that guy also ate meat and smoke cigarettes and whatever I mean you know a lot of things he could change in his life he would be in a position to be very offended and you know here's this question again what does it mean to be taken seriously if someone tells me they're into these extreme sports similar to parachuting should I take them seriously why would I you know in that context where it's I didn't I didn't choose to go to a lecture about parachuting it's just a surprise just come up the people you're talking to in your daily life they did not buy tickets to go to an animal rights conference they didn't decide in advance this is something I'm interested in learning more about I'm gonna go hear a lecture about veganism yes so again this is another difference between YouTube versus real life so it is really important to be honest there self self-critical about what level of respect are you looking for what does being taken seriously mean to you and I mean for that guy I didn't you know I didn't take it up with him in some sense I think he does have the right to be taken seriously like as an athlete in terms of this sport or this hobby whatever you want to call it I think he has the right to be respected have them say oh oh that's interesting or whatever other polite nonsense people say in these situations oh good for you I'm glad to hear someone is you know pushing the limits of how to jump off a cliff with a folded up plastic parachute whatever it is you people are you you know he didn't sign up to be disrespected by me or cross-examined by me and obviously if you're watching this you're vegan you you've had it both ways you've had people cross examine you and disrespect you et cetera and vice versa you've probably once in a while lost your temper temper and cross examine people or disrespected them I don't know you meet a friend for lunch and they're eating veal in front of you or whatever it is you know or someone you know who says there's vegan they're vegan just bought a leather couch you say what the hell you're supposed to be doing for whatever reason in whatever circumstance you probably both have had the experience of people disrespecting you and of you being the one disrespecting others it happens it's part of life on earth don't beat yourself up too much from it but I mean we all got to try to learn from these experiences but the other big issue for me this this question of this letter from from my prior brings up is um look if people disrespect you and if people don't take you seriously for one obvious issue in your life and you know very understandably some women like if you're a small cute woman a lot of people will not take you seriously just for that reason not that it's a bad thing I had a small cute girlfriend and in some ways her views of the world were really warped by that she was really used to I mean growing up just being kind of small and cute she was really used to people making excuses for her both not taking her seriously when she wanted to be can seriously but also she was not being taken seriously when she did or said something wrong you know she wasn't being held accountable for anything she did as if she's still a child you know she's a fully grown adult whatever she's over 25 she's just small and cute and people keep making shoes for so there are all kinds of things that can shape and it's gonna be very different in one culture versus another it's gonna be different in Japan versus China versus Germany versus France versus Canada the but if it's not one thing it's another in many cases what really frames the conversations you're having is that you're talking to people who almost instinctually want to confront you want to challenge you want to see what you're made of want to see if you have rational reasons behind the things you believe or not and if it wasn't veganism they test you on something else and the other hand if it's the same topic if it is veganism and they're not they're not taking you seriously because you're a female well if you were male maybe it would be because you have long hair and if it wasn't cuz you have long hair it's because you're bald and if it was because your balls because you're fat and if it's not because you're fat it's because you're too pale you know I mean there are so many reasons why these people can challenge you but I think what you have to recognize is they are looking for any reason to challenge you and you've got to be able to detach those things and respond to the substance and the motivation and not be hung up on the fact that they happen to be dismissing you or not taking you seriously for whatever the particular reason is I've managed to get seven minutes into this video without mentioning Cambodia but here it comes um you'd think I missed Cambodia and I don't when I was in Yunnan China I ran into a guy who was actually a reasonably famous author he was famous for people interested in that kind of history culture what-have-you he'd written numerous books on the region and I was mentioning to him that my future interest at that time I was planning to move to Cambodia and I'd visited there before and he said to me with great exasperation that he never wanted to go back to Cambodia even though he was very much involved in UN and laws Thailand etc right next door and I was interested to hear his reasons why so I was Jeevan bald as I as I still AM I've been shaved my head since I was a teenager it's been a regular part of my life for a long long time and he complained to me about the way people would mistreat him challenged him disrespect him and sold him because he had long hair when he was in Cambodia this is an aspect of Cambodian culture he's not wrong I know what he's talking about and I know some of the reasons behind it Cambodia is pretty accepting of transgender people it's not as accepting of transgender people as Thailand Laos but compared to Indonesia or Malaysia Cambodia is still on the list of the most accepting places in the world for transgendered people although not to the same extent as Thailand but if you're a heterosexual man with long hair that's what they can't really accept because from their perspective if you're a man with long hair it's because sometimes you dress up on weekends you you like to be a cross-gender Jed either a transgender person or a cross gendered person of some kind but I said to him in all honesty and this is Socratic method but it's weird to me I mean this guy I guess I guess he's fundamentally just not that bright because it's the most obvious thing but I asked him do you really think those same people wouldn't be challenging you wouldn't be insulting you wouldn't be testing you if instead you shaved your head and you went back to Cambodia tomorrow now he was stunned he had just never thought about it but I said to a novice I could speak from experience you know if you take away the excuse the pretext these people have for challenging you for disrespecting you for not taking you seriously for asking you to prove yourself before you're taken seriously then they will find something else this is what frames the situation the fundamental thing is they're testing you they're wanting you to prove that you should be taken seriously and if it's not your hair and it's not your gender and it's not your job it's not your poverty you know people disrespect me because I'm poor I've been poor all my adult life you know people will find some reason to challenge you or people wonder if you're a phony or if you really know your stuff etc if he went back shaven bold these people would still be testing him it just wouldn't be the hair anymore it would be something else
background are finally gonna change now I've got some of my Chinese handwriting on the table for the first time in I don't know year-and-a-half I wrote that out in my first week of classes here I remember sitting down in a vegan restaurant and writing that out as rapidly as I could that's just like hi my name is I think it says I want to go back and study in Taiwan which was not true at the time and is still not true down I never wake up in the morning and wish I was back in Taiwan mmm but that would be the topic for another video umm I got an email from another youtuber called the white pariah great name for a channel she is open about the fact that she's diagnosed with serious mental disorders serious mental health problems that's a large part of what she talks but on her channel she is also vegan and she says to me that she has a lot of problems with people not taking her veganism seriously with not taking her reasons for being vegan seriously etc because she's diagnosed with serious mental health problems for me this brings up a couple of different things I think are worth chatting about worth sharing with my YouTube audience worth talking about whatever um one is that we have to be really honest with ourselves about what we mean by being taken seriously in your own cultural context and taking into account who you are where you are and who you're talking to what do you really mean by being taken seriously if veganism just comes up in passing at the workplace at a pub at a nightclub at the library like if I'm on university campus at a museum wherever it is what really do you mean by being taken seriously what do you actually expect from people in your culture and you've got to be really honest with yourself and really self-critical about those expectations if I meet a guy this happened to me once I met a guy who was spending a lot of his time and money on these um these extreme sports that are similar to parachuting but it's not parachuting you jump off a cliff and stuff like that and you know like I'm looking at him and I'm thinking what the hell is wrong with you what kind of a would spend his time and money on that as opposed to whatever going and helping poor people dying of AIDS and Cambodia and all the ridiculous things I would do with my time and money if I had time or money oh that's got a guy am uh now if I'd said that diem if I'd said you know I think you're a piece of garbage because this is what you do with your time and money given what what's going on planet Earth that guy also ate meat and smoke cigarettes and whatever I mean you know a lot of things he could change in his life he would be in a position to be very offended and you know here's this question again what does it mean to be taken seriously if someone tells me they're into these extreme sports similar to parachuting should I take them seriously why would I you know in that context where it's I didn't I didn't choose to go to a lecture about parachuting it's just a surprise just come up the people you're talking to in your daily life they did not buy tickets to go to an animal rights conference they didn't decide in advance this is something I'm interested in learning more about I'm gonna go hear a lecture about veganism yes so again this is another difference between YouTube versus real life so it is really important to be honest there self self-critical about what level of respect are you looking for what does being taken seriously mean to you and I mean for that guy I didn't you know I didn't take it up with him in some sense I think he does have the right to be taken seriously like as an athlete in terms of this sport or this hobby whatever you want to call it I think he has the right to be respected have them say oh oh that's interesting or whatever other polite nonsense people say in these situations oh good for you I'm glad to hear someone is you know pushing the limits of how to jump off a cliff with a folded up plastic parachute whatever it is you people are you you know he didn't sign up to be disrespected by me or cross-examined by me and obviously if you're watching this you're vegan you you've had it both ways you've had people cross examine you and disrespect you et cetera and vice versa you've probably once in a while lost your temper temper and cross examine people or disrespected them I don't know you meet a friend for lunch and they're eating veal in front of you or whatever it is you know or someone you know who says there's vegan they're vegan just bought a leather couch you say what the hell you're supposed to be doing for whatever reason in whatever circumstance you probably both have had the experience of people disrespecting you and of you being the one disrespecting others it happens it's part of life on earth don't beat yourself up too much from it but I mean we all got to try to learn from these experiences but the other big issue for me this this question of this letter from from my prior brings up is um look if people disrespect you and if people don't take you seriously for one obvious issue in your life and you know very understandably some women like if you're a small cute woman a lot of people will not take you seriously just for that reason not that it's a bad thing I had a small cute girlfriend and in some ways her views of the world were really warped by that she was really used to I mean growing up just being kind of small and cute she was really used to people making excuses for her both not taking her seriously when she wanted to be can seriously but also she was not being taken seriously when she did or said something wrong you know she wasn't being held accountable for anything she did as if she's still a child you know she's a fully grown adult whatever she's over 25 she's just small and cute and people keep making shoes for so there are all kinds of things that can shape and it's gonna be very different in one culture versus another it's gonna be different in Japan versus China versus Germany versus France versus Canada the but if it's not one thing it's another in many cases what really frames the conversations you're having is that you're talking to people who almost instinctually want to confront you want to challenge you want to see what you're made of want to see if you have rational reasons behind the things you believe or not and if it wasn't veganism they test you on something else and the other hand if it's the same topic if it is veganism and they're not they're not taking you seriously because you're a female well if you were male maybe it would be because you have long hair and if it wasn't cuz you have long hair it's because you're bald and if it was because your balls because you're fat and if it's not because you're fat it's because you're too pale you know I mean there are so many reasons why these people can challenge you but I think what you have to recognize is they are looking for any reason to challenge you and you've got to be able to detach those things and respond to the substance and the motivation and not be hung up on the fact that they happen to be dismissing you or not taking you seriously for whatever the particular reason is I've managed to get seven minutes into this video without mentioning Cambodia but here it comes um you'd think I missed Cambodia and I don't when I was in Yunnan China I ran into a guy who was actually a reasonably famous author he was famous for people interested in that kind of history culture what-have-you he'd written numerous books on the region and I was mentioning to him that my future interest at that time I was planning to move to Cambodia and I'd visited there before and he said to me with great exasperation that he never wanted to go back to Cambodia even though he was very much involved in UN and laws Thailand etc right next door and I was interested to hear his reasons why so I was Jeevan bald as I as I still AM I've been shaved my head since I was a teenager it's been a regular part of my life for a long long time and he complained to me about the way people would mistreat him challenged him disrespect him and sold him because he had long hair when he was in Cambodia this is an aspect of Cambodian culture he's not wrong I know what he's talking about and I know some of the reasons behind it Cambodia is pretty accepting of transgender people it's not as accepting of transgender people as Thailand Laos but compared to Indonesia or Malaysia Cambodia is still on the list of the most accepting places in the world for transgendered people although not to the same extent as Thailand but if you're a heterosexual man with long hair that's what they can't really accept because from their perspective if you're a man with long hair it's because sometimes you dress up on weekends you you like to be a cross-gender Jed either a transgender person or a cross gendered person of some kind but I said to him in all honesty and this is Socratic method but it's weird to me I mean this guy I guess I guess he's fundamentally just not that bright because it's the most obvious thing but I asked him do you really think those same people wouldn't be challenging you wouldn't be insulting you wouldn't be testing you if instead you shaved your head and you went back to Cambodia tomorrow now he was stunned he had just never thought about it but I said to a novice I could speak from experience you know if you take away the excuse the pretext these people have for challenging you for disrespecting you for not taking you seriously for asking you to prove yourself before you're taken seriously then they will find something else this is what frames the situation the fundamental thing is they're testing you they're wanting you to prove that you should be taken seriously and if it's not your hair and it's not your gender and it's not your job it's not your poverty you know people disrespect me because I'm poor I've been poor all my adult life you know people will find some reason to challenge you or people wonder if you're a phony or if you really know your stuff etc if he went back shaven bold these people would still be testing him it just wouldn't be the hair anymore it would be something else