Defining Vegan: Negative, Positive, Passive & Active.

what of my people - very simple but very
fundamental points that come up in vegan activism again and again covent discussions of who is vegan and who is not who is vegan and who was merely plant-based what does it mean to be vegan and what does it mean to be an activist I had a conversation spontaneous conversation day with some older more experienced vegans people who were 30 40 50 years old and basically everything in this video I said spontaneously in that form or that debate earlier today obviously in a different format that was a dialogue rather than a fog um I have also seen YouTube videos from time to time just a few times over the last five years I have seen YouTube videos making the case that veganism is negative or is a negative virtue or is defined negatively so their point being that from their perspective veganism is only the absence of doing harm veganism is only the refusal to buy meat to buy leather to buy dairy etc that it's only abstaining from doing something bad that isn't do it it isn't a positive good act it isn't a positive movement now I actually disagree with that view thus I'm making this video share perspective with you now as you're gonna see and I think also in this video see why that is not a merely academic philosophical or theoretical point but really is worth being clear about a little bit of bureaucracy before I proceed I'm recording this on October 28th 2018 and I'm sharing it as a patreon exclusive video that means I am only gonna share the link with people who donate one dollar a month to support this channel on patreon but if you see this video you can share the link with other people if this is something you want to discuss with your boyfriend your girlfriend your worst enemy on earth your boss at work you can share this link and you can have that conversation because I think that's part of the reason people watch YouTube videos people do not watch YouTube videos to make themselves feel more isolated they watch youtube videos to bring themselves bring bring themselves together and debate with with other people so feel free to share the link I will probably make this link public approximately one year after it was recorded so it'll be exclusive for about a year to thank the supporters I have a patreon and of course did not even answer question you guys are interacting this way okay so with all that having been said fundamentally I reject this idea that veganism is fully is entirely negative in the sense is merely abstaining from something evil it is also not negative in the sense that non-smokers as a category would only be defined by abstaining from smoking or just the happenstance that they don't smoke because remember the category of non-smokers includes people who used to smoke cigarettes and you quit smoking it includes people who took some kind of ethical position they may be they may be really opposed to smoking they may be adamantly opposed as mowing and it will include people who just buy haven't they never even thought about it they never made any decision they just they never tried it they were never interested they smelled it and didn't like the smell it didn't like taste it just never killed them there are you know so you can talk about non-smokers as a category and then you talk about the non-smoking movement or anti-smoking movement or organizations that are really trying to marginalize and eliminate smoking step by step make the percentage of people who smoke cigarettes in our society fewer and fewer until eventually this this disappears entirely that's a real-world scenario that has the type of problems vegans are complaining about when they complain that veganism is entirely negative in its definition or negative in its nature now I say this first because I think it illustrates in a more profound way the difference between people who are vegan and people who are plant-based and I've never heard anyone else said this before for me the difference between vegan and plant-based is not the difference between ethical veganism and health based veganism veganism proper it's never going to be satisfied with merely a personal decision to be vegan I would point out that there was something Blissett not stated in the vegan society's definition of veganism that makes the decision to be vegan very different from the decision to wear a yellow shirt or a purple shirt you may have a personal preference that you only want to wear the color pink you want to wear pink shirts for the rest of your life that's the fashion choices it's a decision you made if you made that decision if that's your preference are you now gonna try to convince your brother your sister and your dad to wear pink shirts all the time why would you if anything and maybe dis haven't ate used to you it may be that for you your distinctive fashion choice is wearing pink and you don't want to go to the office and have everyone else wearing a pink business shirt also only you want to picture it this way um implicit but important within veganism is the fact that you will not be satisfied with just your own personal virtue your own personal choice to live a vegan lifestyle that you will inevitably in inexorably want your own sister want your own father want your own husband or wife to eat a vegan diet also to abstain from buying leather so on and so forth this is often unstated but in the conversation I had the day with these older vegan activist I think it's interesting that all of them immediately realize the truth of what I was saying and several people were marked oh they had never thought of that before but yeah that is actually unstated and implicit part of of what veganism really is now by contrast I think it is entirely possible for someone to be plant-based and you genuinely not care if 99% of humanity continues to kill cows and pigs on a daily basis continues to despoil the world's climate destroy our water resources have these terrible ecological impacts destroy their own health have higher rates of heart attack and diabetes etc obesity all these disadvantages it is possible to be plant-based and be indifferent to the fact that your own brother and your own sister are eating steak tartare for dinner our reading hamburgers and french fries and these these other things that's possible but I think we have to admit to ourselves that it's actually impossible if you're vegan that there's a profound incompatibility of veganism with accepting that you know quite likely 99% of the people around you are eating meat and drinking dairy milk so the nature of the rejection here is not the same as the rejection of smoking cigarettes and the nature of the selection is not the same as selecting to wear a pink shirt selecting to wear a yellow shirt so on and so forth I think it's useful to say just a few more words about why this question arose in the conversation at all I think you will soon see why it has broader implications conversation began with a complaint about the vegan society's definition leaving too many gray areas and these gray areas were largely thought of in terms of diet and practice so using the official standard definition of veganism it allows some wiggle room for interpretation and they weren't happy with this my counter-argument was as follows here in Canada our most successful political party is called the Liberal Party do they proceed with a very refined very exclusive definition of what liberalism is of what it is to be a liberal no it's a fascinating and bizarre fact that the Liberal Party of Canada they do not in their constitution ever define liberalism who is a liberal and who is not it's up to you what does the word liberal mean up to you if you go to a Liberal Party conference or picnic or event you're gonna meet different people who maybe have profoundly different understandings of what liberalism is supposed to be what they aspire to is that a strength or a weakness in politics that kind of definition is a strength further it's interesting to note that political parties when they find themselves they tend to rely on a few negative definitions just a few points a few hard limits so for example the Liberal Party of Canada has a declaration that they're opposed to homophobia they have a definition of the the limits of religion church and state within the party has ever called they have a think a broad anti-racist position and I forget if if they ever did formally codify their position on abortion so that the abortion debate wasn't being dealt with him soon within the party a few few things like that at any given time in the United States of America I think there may be formally or informally a few points like this that's set down what it means to be a Republican in contrast to what it means to be a Democrat negatively what ultimately is excluded what is there not and again in politics this is an advantage this is a strength not a weakness and I think there are different people for whom what does republicanism mean what does democracy mean what does it mean to be a liberal what does it mean to be a conservative it's different from person to person I think different people are making different compromises in order to support that party at different times and historically it can change dramatically from one decade to the next sometimes it changes dramatically from one election to the next I think if you live in a Western democracy you are familiar with this aspect of politics so a negative definition that leaves a lot of gray areas can be an advantage in politics whereas I think we all know it would be a disadvantage if we were defining a diet when we talk about a diet we have to be very clear can you eat chocolate or no if you can't eat chocolate can you eat something that is artificial chocolate flavoring or no you're gonna get down to real specifics how many grams of carbohydrates and how many grams of fat and how many hours between meals it's true the definition of a diet is going to be precise but it's interesting to know that the definition of political movements they generally avoid ideology they avoid actually even drawing a party line for people to tow they try to create an inclusive rallying point across roads that people can gather at with very different assumptions now are there disadvantages to this yes there are disadvantages I think a lot of people probably feel demoralized showing up at a Liberal Party event and feeling they have nothing in common with other people there I think that probably in many ways it removes the dynamism and passion that you see in small nonprofit charities and organizations it removes that from large what are called big tent political organizations that people feel that this is a meaningless and Hollow movement if they do something like like join the Liberal Party there there are disadvantages and there are you know degrees of alienation from vegan to vegan that are important to reflect on for me even though it was silent and implicit when I was with my girlfriend in in Los Angeles there was there was such a sense of alienation from between us and one of the restaurants who went to the restaurant managers and the restaurant employees there's a restaurant there in Los Angeles that's infamously linked to a New Age religious group a spiritual group what if you want to say and their reasons for being a vegan and their idea of veganism and what it's all about which are even obvious on the menu you know you even see it in reading the menu that's it's really profoundly alienating from us and I've of course now had hundreds of interactions with other vegans where I find out you know how little we have in common how little common ground we have and yet we share this definition with all of its gray areas we share some common aspiration to make the world a better place how we do that how we move forward it's genuinely contestable but I don't think the next step forward is to have a stricter definition that is going to exclude other people from participating for the last five years I've been trying to recruit talent and I've got to tell you even with this incredibly broad incredibly vague definition with all of its gray areas and its look but the predominant concept of veganism being merely negative and so easy to practice let me tell you folks talent is scarce getting five people together who can lobby city hall or five people who can sit around a round table and record a YouTube video it's amazing to me how difficult that's been to organize whereas I see comic book enthusiasts Star Wars enthusiasts video game enthusiasts with ease organizing huge events roundtable discussions and sometimes even protests even you know kind of mock political events you know they protest that against the company making the Star Wars movies because they thought the last Star Wars movie was so bad and even if they're doing tends to choke or with a sense of fun and a sense of detachment even have a look at the conferences and events that are organized by fans of Game of Thrones the Song of Ice and Fire it's humbling if we weren't humble enough as a movement take a good look and get humbled because there are a lot of people out there who are getting much better results starting from a much weaker premise and the lack of motivation the lack of good faith public spirited effort to make the world a better place within veganism I don't know man what are you gonna tell your grandkids what are you gonna tell your grandkids that you did back in the year 2018 when the polar icecaps hadn't melted yet