Vegan Politics: when science doesn't tell you what you want to hear…

I remember reading a textbook for
photography the fine art of photography it was a fine arts textbook talking about methods and approaches to artistic photography and had a fascinating chapter where the author said look we researched the hell out of this concept of composition we went through all of the scientific literature and it turns out that composition is just a cultural concept there is no scientific basis through it whatsoever and they went through all these different studies people are done of sitting people down and measuring where their eyes looked of testing the hypothesis presented by different theorists different theorists you know really this is getting into art history and theory of modern art what have you different ideas people had that the idea of good composition could be broken down to a specific scientific formula of what makes up the parts of a photograph or painting and they concluded look we did the research and you can't the sciences just don't tell us what we want to know about this topic and yesterday I was looking at we both read together actually this article give a link below the video which is direct action everywhere is 100 attempts to muse on philosophize about and reflect on social science research and its role in the future of vegan activism now you know this is a good article by direct action everywhere standards a lot of DXE stuff I think is really garbage and I give it credit above all else for keeping it real it's not lying to you it's not exaggerating their position and a lot of their material I do find dishonest first and foremost it opens up by being honest about the fact that these scientific studies do not tell them what they want to know do not give them the kind of conclusions they're looking for do you not give them the kind of evidence they're looking for and even when they do provide some evidence it's really questionable how applicable that evidence is to veganism so if you've got evidence about a significantly different a political movement a movement that's advocating for an oppressed and downtrodden ethnic minority can you really take those conclusions and apply the veganism how applicable how comparable are these examples but throughout you know the number of studies they can appeal to are very very limited and as this article admits many other articles do know the conclusions of these scientific studies are themselves astoundingly vague and open more than one interpretation you can take it in more than one direction they seem to be telling you very often that their own conclusions can hardly be used as recommendations we're planning further option beyond very very broad heuristic guidelines as to how to approach me what have you toward the end of the article there's a really interesting admission to because this is coming from someone who still is a direct action everywhere supporter where this person says that they think they were too dismissive in the past of what they call a humanistic approach to activism and use this humanistic activism I think was that we thank you thank you that's what she's here for humane education I forgot and what they mean by humane education interestingly is having relaxed conversation with people face-to-face in the doorstep so not doing organized protests not aggressive disruptions not angry emotionally overwrought forms of street theatre but of just talking to people in open-minded way so the interesting thing is if you don't know the backstory direct action everywhere was really founded by Wayne Siong because of his frustration with exactly those methods he felt that after years of handing out cookies and pamphlets and inviting people to attend doctor documentary film nights that that was ineffective he rejected what's here termed humane education and he adopted instead this slightly radical method of disruption etc but disruption is their preferred term so here instead at the end of this article after doing this survey of all of the scientific literature and basically telling us that science doesn't measure what we want to measure here as with this question of the arts what is good composition in a painting or a photograph maybe that's not a question the scientist can answer right what is effective activism maybe it's actually an inherently unscientific question and therefore not going to find Santa Fe answers and will we come back to or actually exactly the sort of methods the direct action evil rejects and that they were were very much founded with a with a mission to reject finally here you know I want to mention have had some email correspondence with an ex-member of DXE a former supportive directorship where we stopped participating with them in about 2013 and I think the single most important reason she gave for why she stopped was simply the toll it was taking on her what effect it was having on her emotionally as the protester right these emotionally overwrought screaming outbursts statements of rage and outrage and what have you some people feel awkward and feel they're ridiculous and some people feel exhausted and once you've done them ten times how's it going to feel the 11th time I was gonna feel the 100th time or what have you I remember talking years ago with Hania about that Hannya mania well-known vegan youtuber here and you know I just have to say those are questions that are really worth asking you shouldn't feel ashamed of that you shouldn't feel self-indulgent you shouldn't feel lazy and there are a lot of videos out there trying to shame you and try to make you feel lazy because you're not going to a protest every Sunday there's a hilarious one just put up by John sack arse the legend John sackers John sack arse can make anything creepy and disturbing you never do any activism I'm doing my part just by being vegan being vegan isn't enough we need to speak up for the animals too so it's going to happen at this protest on Sunday are you going to yell at people and get arrested well sometimes I need to raise my voice to be heard but if you're not comfortable doing that you can just pass out leaflets and talk to people okay I'll hand out a few leaflets we'll see how it goes I know she hadn't been wearing that vegan t-shirt I bought you it was nice of you to buy that for me but I don't think I'll wear it if people find out I'm a vegan they'll think I'm a weirdo john sack cars can make anything creepy and disturbing he makes he makes videos about vegan romance with vegan date and creepy and disturbing and he kicks up you makes discussions about effective activism creepy and disturbing to play checkers another you can hear my girlfriend laughing in the background butyou're decker said this video and you know he's saying oh it's not enough to just be a dietary vegan if you don't get out and protest every Sunday who is going to speak for the animals well who indeed um different people have different opportunities in life I'm doing what I can from the circumstances I'm living in I'm so critical about that but I'm currently teaching University students and living in China and one of the things I could do was writing a story book and trying to get that Illustrated and published a story book that directly addresses and propounds veganism um somebody else is going to be an architect someone who's made a lot of money in the tech sector someone who profession in terms of their professions worth of Education has different options and somebody else is going to be working a full-time job in a factory and so on and so forth but if I'm being all the way real with you for me all the way honest with you when I look at the right to action everywhere I see this as a quest that tried to cynically employ social science research to justify a preconceived notion they already have of what effective activism is supposed to be of what a street protest is supposed to be of what progress in any in any in any social justice movement is supposed to be and they think of veganism as a social justice movement whereas I do not and I think in the end we have this kind of bitter irony that social science research does not support and never did support the strategic and tactical decisions that they made and conversely the toll that their approach has on the members themselves would tend to invalidate it if this is just something emotionally exhausting for the protesters themselves you keeping it all the way real whether you're a factory worker or an architect or you manage to make some money out of trading you know internet-based stocks on the stock market no matter what position you're in in life age 14 to 64 I actually cannot imagine that you don't have a better option then employing the tactics that direct action everywhere employees it's not food it's violence [Applause] individuals that they are I can't imagine you don't have a better option than running onto a baseball field at a stadium being arrested thrown in the back of a police van you know running on the face with it with a with a poster saying go V which is it's real TAC they've done I can't imagine one of the better option than flying to China stealing a dog from a dog meat festival and then going to prison at least briefly I know if they just spent the night in prison getting arrested I can't imagine that you don't have a better option then the option they're presenting you with no matter who you are food it's violence you can't touch her that's harassment I'm not talking from I think you really want to go places right now [Music] and if you take a look at the link below this article you'll see I mean this this article gives you an honest set of reflections but the bottom line is the social sciences never supported the decisions they're making they never could they never will support them and when you're looking around in these murky and indecisive conclusions that social science research presents in many cases not even applicable to veganism it really just seems that were we're looking in the wrong place for these answers we're asking questions that are fundamentally unscientific in the same way that the fine arts may be looking for something that the socials that the hard sciences or geometry or what have you or even psychology can't tell them when they're trying to pin down what is the difference between good and bad composition ah ba Liu Yin