It's always unreasonable to expect excellence: Vegan Politics.
03 September 2016 [link youtube]
A question of learning from the best (and their success), not from the worst (and their failures).
vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / environmental activism
Youtube Automatic Transcription
one of the fundamental facts about
politics and human psychology is that it's very very difficult for most people to learn from the success of others I don't know why that is and I can't say that normal people find it tremendously easy by contrast you learn from the failure of others either hey maybe human beings just don't like learning period it's a bit of a bleak lesson for me to draw him it but you know I remember kick it off with a seemingly random example i remember when i was in laos many many times i was talking about politics specific political issues and political problems the people that you know the government was dealing with in laos sometimes with government officials i was just with erudite people within that struggling third world communist post-war country um and you know I noticed they would often be very comfortable and even a little bit smug when they themselves would make comparisons to the United States the United States is quite generous towards Laos because med States has a history of bombing at smithereens um but you know so many of the government officials had been on junkets unpaid trips the United States so you know for whatever reason the federal government States pays for some Lao government officials to come and attend a conference or have a tour of a university or something and they would always be shocked by the crowds of homeless people and beggars that they saw everywhere they went in the United States and they went to some weird places to they go to Minneapolis or some you know by for whatever reason I think the US federal government is a commitment to spreading out the money for their projects from the US oh you know not everything is happening in New York and Washington DC but you know they would actually come back with quite a smug sense that the United States is full of beggars despite being a wealthy country and United States is some kind of failure and they would see how dirty and grubby things were in the night say something like a bus station the United States or even the border controls and you know they would often have a lifetime of reading you know the very critical pressed minute states united states in many ways it does a great job of broadcasting at social problems it's constantly engaged in meditations on poverty violence homelessness racism I mean you know yes the United States is a country that is problems through racism but it's also a country that's become tremendously articulate in reflecting on and meditating on its history of racism and it's its current problems reason which is much more positive situation than being in a country that's sleepwalking through those kind of those problems or ignoring them have a lot of respect for American culture for those reasons really I do really I do but I noticed when talking to Lao government officials about political problems if you ever suggested a positive contrast say oh well yes but you know have you have you looked at how that works in Switzerland or Sweden but we talked about the Swiss quite often because Switzerland also is a landlocked country louses landless wits Erland is a mountainous country you know and they get very uncomfortable and quite a few of the people talk to that actually met Swiss they've met Swiss people who were there for humanitarian reasons or government projects of some kind and the Swiss themselves apparently were not humble in making such comparisons they just say straight up this is how we do it in Switzerland you guys are a mess you guys are disorganized this is pathetic you know whatever this hospital is pathetic compared to how we were in a hospital in Switzerland or the way you run elections you know talking about democracy or freedom of the press that apparently the Swiss I've never had this kind of conversation with a Swiss person myself but apparently the Swiss when they were doing humanitarian work in that third world context they would just straight-up layout that everything was better in Switzerland and I think they're right Switzerland is a lot to be proud of as you know they're kind of hated within Europe and within Western culture because of the role they played in World War two there is certainly a shadow hanging over them in that sense but in terms of local democracy in terms of how you know the mayor's office works in terms of our decisions are taken publicly in terms of things like referendums I actually do not know if i should say referenda or referendums in my university they taught me to always say referendums not referenda but could be could be one of many lies that was done university uh look now I'm sure if I had devoted years of my life to studying the politics berlin in the same way that i studied laos and cambodia that i would know about a lot of serious social problems political problems Switzerland also i am not saying switzerland is is paradise by any means but it really struck me how uncomfortable these people were with learning from another country success and that all the joy drained out of the conversation in contrast to the sort of glee they had in trying to learn from another countries failure and i see this on a human scale as well i mean there's there's been an orgy of people kind of comparing themselves to freely and comparing themselves to durianrider and supposedly you know feeling that they're they're so superior to these people but I mean you know when I've been talking about the present and future of veganism social movement I've been making comparisons to really successful social movements I'll just stick with one of this video could set again again mothers against drunk driving in a very short period of time Mothers Against Drunk Driving had this you know tremendous institutional and political success and not only do they have offices all over the United States not only do they really have influence over government but they have influence in the classroom they have education programs where they are in schools you know promoting their propaganda frankly I mean it's propaganda that's against drinking alcohol I myself during 0 alcohol so you know I sympathize must get start driving no doubt I drink a zero alkali also dr0 cars so both sports I'm inclined to sympathize but still it's propaganda within the school system within the classroom they've had this tremendous success I mean to my no I've never seen another vegan make that comparison it's my pressure cooker cooking up Iran me this is job's tears shed out to Iran me I think that's on the official list of superfoods for those of you who are keeping a list of superfoods at home um can we learn from success instead of failure okay why is it so incredibly rare I'm whether it's in veganism ecology or what have you instead of gloating over disasters instead of gloating over failures instead of pointing the finger and saying you guys are doing social activism wrong you guys are doing political lobbying wrong why do I see so little of examining who is doing it right and ask the question how can we learn from their success now I say so little aside from my own channel I don't think I ever seen a single example of that on YouTube and actually I would have to think about a long way in terms of written articles because my I used to read on paper you know publications about ecology animal rights ecological activism back then we use the word vegetarian not vegan being strictly vegetarian but same basic movement same thing other thing way back in terms of reading on on paper articles or articles now posted on the internet even an article really doing that and as you guys probably know I just had a video recently talking about the issue of slavery and the abolition of slavery I've had in the past our videos talking about Mohandas Gandhi the movements political movements for independence within the history of India when people make those comparisons I find them tremendously insincere silly tremendously ignorant and a misguided you know now someone could make a sincere video or article really examining the history of them the struggle of India to liberate itself in the British Empire I I think it'd be incredibly difficult to construe any meaningful parallel ISM to the struggle that vegans are in today I think that's why people don't do it seriously why people just doing this facile and insincere way they just want to bring up the name of Gandhi because it's a famous name and they've probably never even read one one serious article or one serious book about who Gandhi was and what is political I guess he really is just tremendously odious by the way this is not a simple you know black and white moral issue the legacy of who Gandhi was and what he did it actually meant there are many many negative aspects to it heard of the caste system the you know guitar called a about Gandhi but I've done the reading and I sit back as you guys know with some degree of horror when I see vegans trying to compare the future of this movement to the Arab Spring people stood so we see the Arab Spring I noticed you see the Arab Spring and not the Syrian civil war you don't name Syria you donate Egypt you don't name Libya you don't have any specific country as a supposed supposedly successful examples you know is this a success but then again we've joined the history of India the history of slavery what really is the comparison you're making and in a rigorous meaningful sense what are the lessons you're trying to learn how do you apply that to your vegan activism now because ultimately as as I've said recently well if you really believe that that violent abolitionist movements like the abolition of slavery if that's your model is that how you're living because it seems to me you know whether you're wearing bikinis on on Instagram or you're giving lectures and universities I actually do not see anyone attempting to lead an abolitionist vegan movement in that sense a movement that really resembles or reflects the history of how slavery was abolished in the United States I I don't see anyone calling for a vegan Civil War to do so would be madness and folly and I myself in poster because I endorse completely nonviolent completely democratic methods as you guys probably know it's difficult for people to look at examples that are more successful in themselves I suppose because of jealousy on some level there's a video I was considering putting a clip in here I think I can use the clip a guy named Lord Jamar who's a comments on hip hop rap culture etc guy named Lord Jamar had some comments about the history of the gay rights movement and you could really hear that was kind of jealousy in his voice he was really effectively jealous of the tremendous success of the gay rights movement had in a period of just 20 years or a period of just a few decades in contrast to sort of a centuries-long struggle for civil rights for black people struggle for black people the united states that he felt was much less successful over a much longer period of time now I mean you know at some level I think the vast majority people would just say Lord Jamar is homophobic he is I I would say that he is he has more like a home romania that homophobia he is politically opposed to gay people he is anti-gay that is one element of what's going on here but the elements of jealousy or refusing to learn from the success of others is really the element that interests me that sparks my interest a little bit you know well could we look at could we think about what were the advantages and disadvantages for why gay rights did have tremendous you much more rapid success than the situation of advancement of African American people's in the United States I think it's actually quite easy if you sit down and start to make a checklist there are many many differences for one thing the geographic distribution of homosexuals is pretty much random and even gay people exist everywhere in the United States they're born and raised everywhere and their socio-economic distribution is also random so some gay people are poor but some are rich their distribution in two different types of professions is almost random there are a couple of professions I think we're still today there are very very few homosexuals or none but the point is there are there have always been some gay people who were lawyers some gay people who are politicians even if they were in the closet in the past there have always been some gay people in highly skilled highly educated professions as well as throughout the basically all other forms of working and labor so a movement for civil rights or just too too politically have a voice to organize that begins with that kind it's tremendous strength that begins with having some essentials everywhere in every corner of life and again this is just cultural but I mean within the United States I think it's true that homosexuals were especially successful in the city of Los Angeles and in Hollywood and in the press you know and there were many institutions and many jobs were historically by contrast especially if you want to go back to say the 1940s that American say that african-americans that black be were totally excluded from where there were none at all and another I mean really interested in contrast just for my own grandmother's time my grandmother's now deceased by the way you know the situation for Jews in United States and Canada again just go back to the 1930s basically before World War two um even though there's this sort of myth that Jews were highly highly educated and and had all the bad you know well represented the best jobs when my grandmother went to college they still had a quota on how many Jews were allowed into the skilled professions and trades and areas of studies now i do not know to what extent that quota was really originated from the Government of Canada in Canada you know the universities themselves the institutions of they may have themselves just just had that quota a lot of that kind of quota based depression comes from a kind of local level and may not reflect any kind of grand government scheme and you know so my own grandmother when she went into a trade school basically their attitude was okay we have our two Jews for the year you know whatever the number was they admitted a certain number of Jewish people per year period and then they refused the rest that was that was their policy and on a more informal level that again didn't get handed down from the government recently I heard a sort of autobiography from a journalist and he was talking about in the old days I know exactly when this was he was saying but again this before the conclusion of World War two that the attitudes when he was applying for jobs at newspapers their attitudes were oh we already have one Jewish reporter so we don't you there's not absolute racism they did have one but their attitude it was will be called tokenism today their attitude was they had one guy already who was Jewish so therefore they're not going to hire anymore um so I mean this kind of exclusion that again visibly or invisibly in terms of the the period of time that homosexuals had their struggle you know it was a totally different situation strategically from the situation that african-americans were in let's say again after World War two when very very much intentional top-down program of what's called redlining of ghettoization of forcing african-americans to live in some neighborhoods and not others of refusing to allow african-americans to have access to loans that would allow them to build their own houses by their own houses owned their own houses to force them to be renting ghettoized apartments in neighborhoods that ultimately were defined on a map by the United States government at all levels that involved the federal government and local municipalities local local mayor's districts and so on um you know redlining and the impacts that has in the fact that african-americans were not evenly distributed geographically or ultimately where they were had to do with the history of slavery but then more recently redlining ghettoization they were not distributed in all professions it was just not the case in 1955 that you had a whole lot of African Americans who were judges and lawyers and architects there's a very real history of oppression of of why that was and simply exclusion from educational opportunities and economic oh you know paucity of opportunities what have you you know african-americans started off with one of the most extreme set of disadvantages in the world um and yes their struggle took centuries so you know saying even starting from this kind of totally negative jealous ultimately homophobic statement from Lord Jamar where he's complaining that gay rights as a movement as a social movement was so much more successful short period of time than African Americans struggle for civil rights can we move past that can we learn from the success of other social movements whether it's mothers against drunk driving or gay rights or what have you and if we can't why not for me right now in 2016 that's interesting and again I'm not really interested in keeping scorn on other youtubers who are even less successful than I am in terms of their political advocacy or lobbying or or activism or have you mean I rate my own success a one out of 10 and other people get a 0 out of 10 but so what and you know like you guys heard me talking about sourcing raava I just c0 utility in my coming on YouTube and saying so sore thumb up you're doing it wrong you look like your form of advocacy your form of activism is is even more of a failure than mine I get a 1 out of 10 but you get a zero I mean if 10 out of 10 is Mothers Against Drunk Driving I'm a little bit better than zero because at least I have the aspiration and then again people who watch this channel watched a few videos you know it mostly is about aspirations but what I want in the future it's about what I want to do the next five years in the next ten years in the next 30 years that's really what this channel is about is trying to get people excited and motivated and ultimately organized to support something real with real outcomes in that future but here and now yes I could spend hours criticizing Sorcha merova or freely or any of these other so-called activists for how lousy their activism Ed's but for me it would be much more meaningful and rewarding to do and again i have this repeatedly to point at a success story to say look gay rights was really successful why and what are we failing to do how can we learn from that how can we adapt aspects of their strategy so that we have the same advantages and you guys know if you watch this channel I've pointed out crucially the community building fundamental to their success having a visible community with restaurants and nightclubs and yes lawyers offices and foundations real political organizations that have a bricks-and-mortar reality to them I think that's absolutely crucial long-term to why gay rights was successful in the way that it was the fact that there is a gay district a gay neighborhood in San Francisco or in many many cities around the world to my I think Rome now even has a gay district I mean Rome Italy it's one of the most homophobic place in the world but I know they do have gay rights marches and what have you gay rights becoming a gay people going from being an invisible in the closet community to being highly visible highly organized highly vocal and having real neighborhoods and your community associations now again I think there are also interesting questions so I had this person writing to me from Florida um I don't know I've actually never do are there gay retirement homes I don't know but I'm guessing there are gay positive retirement homes there are retirement homes that say look we're not homophobic that whether they give the rainbow logo or what that say look we do accept elderly people who are openly gay you don't have to be in the closet here I think a lot of institutions it's not that they become gay exclusive but they find ways to communicate to their customers that they are gay positive that they are not homophobic and again I think even things like hospitals I think all kinds of services but definitely know in terms of vacations in terms of holidays gay positive Resort Hotels gay positive beach destinations they will advertise again some of them may be exclusively gay they may be entirely for gay people but more commonly again there will be a rainbow logo and there'll be something saying look we accept gays lesbians possession we're not we're not going to expect you to live in the closet if you choose to come here on vacation that can be very important thing for people to know for vegans it's something you can't even stay in the closet on for one day if you eat three meals a day right you don't really have the option if you're gay and you want a retirement home you absolutely need a vegan positive retirement home you absolutely need a vegan positive hospital it's hell if you're in a hospital dealing with hospital food like your bed ridden in a hospital or something for just two days you have to have a friend in the hospital go down the street buy you food bring it back to you and come to your bedside which by the way I did for my wife every single day she was in the hospital after my daughter was born all three meals a day I was I was bringing to my my wife's bedside she's now my ex-wife I'm divorced blah blah blah um you know that struggle and again obviously for something like a vacation if you're a single person if you're just one adult maybe you can go on vacation to a beach destination where have you that's not vegan positive uh if you're a family if you're an elderly person if you have any other problem and and also for your own convenience even if or so of course you really need these destinations to be to identify speaking positive although again maybe it's too much to ask that they actually be exclusively vegan on the other hand that's what a lot of us are really looking for isn't it aren't a lot of us looking for a vacation where the destination is if not thinking about actually exclusively vegan where the other people we meet are gonna be vegan where we know our money is not going to support you know roasting a giant pig or serving lobster because if you pay for an all-you-can-eat buffet and you know you're paying for meat and you see it displayed there that's what you're paying for that's your support it ultimately for a vegan that's really depressing and sad you know you go on vacation you pay for that buffet you personally may only choose to select the bits and pieces that are vegan but there it is sitting in front of you they kill the whole pig and roasted it they killed a bunch of lobsters and boiled them and they're being proudly displayed for the people to pay for this buffet uh it said it's just fundamentally it's it's it's not more looking for but you know so who in any of these things who has been successful can we learn from that success I really encountered in Southeast Asia members of all the humanitarian work including research into the evaluation of humanitarian work and including the actual work of helping people you know as a tremendous reluctance with any with any specific question that feel to start with the question of who's already done this who has been the most successful who sets the standard for excellence whom we can learn from so for any particular project that may deal with hiv/aids may deal with orphans me deal with still leading starvation may deal with improving agriculture is all sorts of humanitarian work me deal with homeless people or prostitution or anything else if you start to look around say okay who has been the most successful in this country or in this region or you can do globally you can look at what are the most successful projects that have been out there a may force you for example to very humbly look at the success of the Catholic Church there have been some extremely successful charity projects operated by Catholics Catholic missionaries or Catholic organizations different kinds do you have it in you because I mean I'm but I'm biased I'm an atheist I do not like the Catholic Church can I set aside that bias and learn from their success learn from what they're doing right on every level in terms of the fundraising in terms of delivering the service to the people they're helping in humanitarian work there may be political factors etc etc can I actually set that aside and learn from them if you're looking at education in any situation the best school again with in Laos or Cambodia or with in downtown Toronto Canada the best school may be a religious school it may be Catholic it may be Protestant if you're actually looking at improving an educational institution whether it's on a charity basis whatever the situation is do you have it in you to set aside your biases and say let's look at this school Catholic school Protestant school this elite school and see what they're doing right even if my objectives are to provide quality education to poverty stricken people I may be biased against that school simply because its elite I may simply have hostility against rich people because they're rich whatever it is can we set that aside and learn from the success so look in this video I've kind of alluded to a lot of the lessons I've learned from being mixed up in political science and what have you but you know one of the most fundamental lessons I learned on this topic learning from other people's success it really just came from the theater and this applies to vegans within YouTube the digital demi-monde but this also applies to real world activism really organizing political foundations or would have you for the future it's never reasonable to expect excellence so you have to be prepared to overcome or debunk or dismiss people who come at you with the excuse of well what did you expect whether that's well what did you expect me to do because what did you expect me to do I'm just one activist what did you expect me to do on my youtube channel why did you expect it to be better what do you expect from why should i why should i be better why should I look up these unreasonable expectations whether it's on that level or whether it is um you know on the level of the city or specific society you represent if you are writing theatre criticism and today I don't even know when the Sedona of live theater really exists anymore because I mean obviously YouTube in many ways has replaced life theatre people have said for decades that television and movies would replace live theater but ultimately I think it's the internet that is that is killing life theatre live theatre we finally disappear from the Western world in many ways um but you know if you're gonna write criticism of live theater in Toronto it is no excuse for the people being criticized to say well this is only Toronto what did you expect expected excellence if I'm a critic I'm looking for the best of the best I'm I'm looking for you to do the impossible sure but there is no sense in which I can say well this is only Toronto not New York City so this performance of anton chekhov's the cherry orchard what can you expect what can you expect expect excellence expect the impossible look for it doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it but what we're engaged in here you know politically or what have you there is just no sense in which is useful to start the process by lowering your expectations because you have contempt for the people involved or because you have contempt for the the location that's really what it is is that somehow in New York City culture is supposed to be more refined than it is in Toronto or Victoria or vientiane the capital city of Laos and it's just not true people are people no matter where you are the apparatus you need and let's talk about it incredibly daunting theatre production you're going to put on a theatrical adaptation of the song of ice and fire books a song and a song of ice and fire also known as Game of Thrones an incredibly daunting task you know what I think you could put that on with no set with no special effects just actors on a black stage with a couple of chairs and you could make it one of the most thrilling and you know successful theater productions of the last ten years totally possible you know what makes theatre great what makes theatre excellent is not really the budget at a minimum level you need to budget what makes something inspiring and effective and hopeful in political activism of course is not really the budget although we do need to engage in fundraising we do need to build up the credibility and Trust with their constituency so that we can raise the funds so that in a sense we have the stage to perform on so that we have the stage in the costume so that we can go to city hall or go to Parliament so that we can maintain actual political foundations actual lobbying of government etc etc but excellence whether it is excellence in education excellence in the theatre excellence in political advocacy and activism excellence in this very strange art form that we're engaged in on YouTube it's always unreasonable to expect excellence and it's always possible for people to make this excuse what did you affected me as if excellence was not an option axles was not an offer uh it's unreasonable to expect excellence but we go ahead you know be unreasonable expect the best of the best and when you don't get it as I've just been saying don't be a jerk about it you know no there's no point being a jerk about how much smarter I am than Sorcha Martha what what if I make a bunch of videos about that what how is that going to advance the movement how's the convince the vegan cuz in any way don't be a jerk about it go back to topic 1 for this video examine what's really been successful in this field of endeavor whatever the field is examine the best of the best look at key studies of extraordinary success and don't be jealous don't be dismissive really try to evaluate what are the differences what are the strategic advantages what were the decisions that brought about that success how can we learn from that and adapt that to our own cause
politics and human psychology is that it's very very difficult for most people to learn from the success of others I don't know why that is and I can't say that normal people find it tremendously easy by contrast you learn from the failure of others either hey maybe human beings just don't like learning period it's a bit of a bleak lesson for me to draw him it but you know I remember kick it off with a seemingly random example i remember when i was in laos many many times i was talking about politics specific political issues and political problems the people that you know the government was dealing with in laos sometimes with government officials i was just with erudite people within that struggling third world communist post-war country um and you know I noticed they would often be very comfortable and even a little bit smug when they themselves would make comparisons to the United States the United States is quite generous towards Laos because med States has a history of bombing at smithereens um but you know so many of the government officials had been on junkets unpaid trips the United States so you know for whatever reason the federal government States pays for some Lao government officials to come and attend a conference or have a tour of a university or something and they would always be shocked by the crowds of homeless people and beggars that they saw everywhere they went in the United States and they went to some weird places to they go to Minneapolis or some you know by for whatever reason I think the US federal government is a commitment to spreading out the money for their projects from the US oh you know not everything is happening in New York and Washington DC but you know they would actually come back with quite a smug sense that the United States is full of beggars despite being a wealthy country and United States is some kind of failure and they would see how dirty and grubby things were in the night say something like a bus station the United States or even the border controls and you know they would often have a lifetime of reading you know the very critical pressed minute states united states in many ways it does a great job of broadcasting at social problems it's constantly engaged in meditations on poverty violence homelessness racism I mean you know yes the United States is a country that is problems through racism but it's also a country that's become tremendously articulate in reflecting on and meditating on its history of racism and it's its current problems reason which is much more positive situation than being in a country that's sleepwalking through those kind of those problems or ignoring them have a lot of respect for American culture for those reasons really I do really I do but I noticed when talking to Lao government officials about political problems if you ever suggested a positive contrast say oh well yes but you know have you have you looked at how that works in Switzerland or Sweden but we talked about the Swiss quite often because Switzerland also is a landlocked country louses landless wits Erland is a mountainous country you know and they get very uncomfortable and quite a few of the people talk to that actually met Swiss they've met Swiss people who were there for humanitarian reasons or government projects of some kind and the Swiss themselves apparently were not humble in making such comparisons they just say straight up this is how we do it in Switzerland you guys are a mess you guys are disorganized this is pathetic you know whatever this hospital is pathetic compared to how we were in a hospital in Switzerland or the way you run elections you know talking about democracy or freedom of the press that apparently the Swiss I've never had this kind of conversation with a Swiss person myself but apparently the Swiss when they were doing humanitarian work in that third world context they would just straight-up layout that everything was better in Switzerland and I think they're right Switzerland is a lot to be proud of as you know they're kind of hated within Europe and within Western culture because of the role they played in World War two there is certainly a shadow hanging over them in that sense but in terms of local democracy in terms of how you know the mayor's office works in terms of our decisions are taken publicly in terms of things like referendums I actually do not know if i should say referenda or referendums in my university they taught me to always say referendums not referenda but could be could be one of many lies that was done university uh look now I'm sure if I had devoted years of my life to studying the politics berlin in the same way that i studied laos and cambodia that i would know about a lot of serious social problems political problems Switzerland also i am not saying switzerland is is paradise by any means but it really struck me how uncomfortable these people were with learning from another country success and that all the joy drained out of the conversation in contrast to the sort of glee they had in trying to learn from another countries failure and i see this on a human scale as well i mean there's there's been an orgy of people kind of comparing themselves to freely and comparing themselves to durianrider and supposedly you know feeling that they're they're so superior to these people but I mean you know when I've been talking about the present and future of veganism social movement I've been making comparisons to really successful social movements I'll just stick with one of this video could set again again mothers against drunk driving in a very short period of time Mothers Against Drunk Driving had this you know tremendous institutional and political success and not only do they have offices all over the United States not only do they really have influence over government but they have influence in the classroom they have education programs where they are in schools you know promoting their propaganda frankly I mean it's propaganda that's against drinking alcohol I myself during 0 alcohol so you know I sympathize must get start driving no doubt I drink a zero alkali also dr0 cars so both sports I'm inclined to sympathize but still it's propaganda within the school system within the classroom they've had this tremendous success I mean to my no I've never seen another vegan make that comparison it's my pressure cooker cooking up Iran me this is job's tears shed out to Iran me I think that's on the official list of superfoods for those of you who are keeping a list of superfoods at home um can we learn from success instead of failure okay why is it so incredibly rare I'm whether it's in veganism ecology or what have you instead of gloating over disasters instead of gloating over failures instead of pointing the finger and saying you guys are doing social activism wrong you guys are doing political lobbying wrong why do I see so little of examining who is doing it right and ask the question how can we learn from their success now I say so little aside from my own channel I don't think I ever seen a single example of that on YouTube and actually I would have to think about a long way in terms of written articles because my I used to read on paper you know publications about ecology animal rights ecological activism back then we use the word vegetarian not vegan being strictly vegetarian but same basic movement same thing other thing way back in terms of reading on on paper articles or articles now posted on the internet even an article really doing that and as you guys probably know I just had a video recently talking about the issue of slavery and the abolition of slavery I've had in the past our videos talking about Mohandas Gandhi the movements political movements for independence within the history of India when people make those comparisons I find them tremendously insincere silly tremendously ignorant and a misguided you know now someone could make a sincere video or article really examining the history of them the struggle of India to liberate itself in the British Empire I I think it'd be incredibly difficult to construe any meaningful parallel ISM to the struggle that vegans are in today I think that's why people don't do it seriously why people just doing this facile and insincere way they just want to bring up the name of Gandhi because it's a famous name and they've probably never even read one one serious article or one serious book about who Gandhi was and what is political I guess he really is just tremendously odious by the way this is not a simple you know black and white moral issue the legacy of who Gandhi was and what he did it actually meant there are many many negative aspects to it heard of the caste system the you know guitar called a about Gandhi but I've done the reading and I sit back as you guys know with some degree of horror when I see vegans trying to compare the future of this movement to the Arab Spring people stood so we see the Arab Spring I noticed you see the Arab Spring and not the Syrian civil war you don't name Syria you donate Egypt you don't name Libya you don't have any specific country as a supposed supposedly successful examples you know is this a success but then again we've joined the history of India the history of slavery what really is the comparison you're making and in a rigorous meaningful sense what are the lessons you're trying to learn how do you apply that to your vegan activism now because ultimately as as I've said recently well if you really believe that that violent abolitionist movements like the abolition of slavery if that's your model is that how you're living because it seems to me you know whether you're wearing bikinis on on Instagram or you're giving lectures and universities I actually do not see anyone attempting to lead an abolitionist vegan movement in that sense a movement that really resembles or reflects the history of how slavery was abolished in the United States I I don't see anyone calling for a vegan Civil War to do so would be madness and folly and I myself in poster because I endorse completely nonviolent completely democratic methods as you guys probably know it's difficult for people to look at examples that are more successful in themselves I suppose because of jealousy on some level there's a video I was considering putting a clip in here I think I can use the clip a guy named Lord Jamar who's a comments on hip hop rap culture etc guy named Lord Jamar had some comments about the history of the gay rights movement and you could really hear that was kind of jealousy in his voice he was really effectively jealous of the tremendous success of the gay rights movement had in a period of just 20 years or a period of just a few decades in contrast to sort of a centuries-long struggle for civil rights for black people struggle for black people the united states that he felt was much less successful over a much longer period of time now I mean you know at some level I think the vast majority people would just say Lord Jamar is homophobic he is I I would say that he is he has more like a home romania that homophobia he is politically opposed to gay people he is anti-gay that is one element of what's going on here but the elements of jealousy or refusing to learn from the success of others is really the element that interests me that sparks my interest a little bit you know well could we look at could we think about what were the advantages and disadvantages for why gay rights did have tremendous you much more rapid success than the situation of advancement of African American people's in the United States I think it's actually quite easy if you sit down and start to make a checklist there are many many differences for one thing the geographic distribution of homosexuals is pretty much random and even gay people exist everywhere in the United States they're born and raised everywhere and their socio-economic distribution is also random so some gay people are poor but some are rich their distribution in two different types of professions is almost random there are a couple of professions I think we're still today there are very very few homosexuals or none but the point is there are there have always been some gay people who were lawyers some gay people who are politicians even if they were in the closet in the past there have always been some gay people in highly skilled highly educated professions as well as throughout the basically all other forms of working and labor so a movement for civil rights or just too too politically have a voice to organize that begins with that kind it's tremendous strength that begins with having some essentials everywhere in every corner of life and again this is just cultural but I mean within the United States I think it's true that homosexuals were especially successful in the city of Los Angeles and in Hollywood and in the press you know and there were many institutions and many jobs were historically by contrast especially if you want to go back to say the 1940s that American say that african-americans that black be were totally excluded from where there were none at all and another I mean really interested in contrast just for my own grandmother's time my grandmother's now deceased by the way you know the situation for Jews in United States and Canada again just go back to the 1930s basically before World War two um even though there's this sort of myth that Jews were highly highly educated and and had all the bad you know well represented the best jobs when my grandmother went to college they still had a quota on how many Jews were allowed into the skilled professions and trades and areas of studies now i do not know to what extent that quota was really originated from the Government of Canada in Canada you know the universities themselves the institutions of they may have themselves just just had that quota a lot of that kind of quota based depression comes from a kind of local level and may not reflect any kind of grand government scheme and you know so my own grandmother when she went into a trade school basically their attitude was okay we have our two Jews for the year you know whatever the number was they admitted a certain number of Jewish people per year period and then they refused the rest that was that was their policy and on a more informal level that again didn't get handed down from the government recently I heard a sort of autobiography from a journalist and he was talking about in the old days I know exactly when this was he was saying but again this before the conclusion of World War two that the attitudes when he was applying for jobs at newspapers their attitudes were oh we already have one Jewish reporter so we don't you there's not absolute racism they did have one but their attitude it was will be called tokenism today their attitude was they had one guy already who was Jewish so therefore they're not going to hire anymore um so I mean this kind of exclusion that again visibly or invisibly in terms of the the period of time that homosexuals had their struggle you know it was a totally different situation strategically from the situation that african-americans were in let's say again after World War two when very very much intentional top-down program of what's called redlining of ghettoization of forcing african-americans to live in some neighborhoods and not others of refusing to allow african-americans to have access to loans that would allow them to build their own houses by their own houses owned their own houses to force them to be renting ghettoized apartments in neighborhoods that ultimately were defined on a map by the United States government at all levels that involved the federal government and local municipalities local local mayor's districts and so on um you know redlining and the impacts that has in the fact that african-americans were not evenly distributed geographically or ultimately where they were had to do with the history of slavery but then more recently redlining ghettoization they were not distributed in all professions it was just not the case in 1955 that you had a whole lot of African Americans who were judges and lawyers and architects there's a very real history of oppression of of why that was and simply exclusion from educational opportunities and economic oh you know paucity of opportunities what have you you know african-americans started off with one of the most extreme set of disadvantages in the world um and yes their struggle took centuries so you know saying even starting from this kind of totally negative jealous ultimately homophobic statement from Lord Jamar where he's complaining that gay rights as a movement as a social movement was so much more successful short period of time than African Americans struggle for civil rights can we move past that can we learn from the success of other social movements whether it's mothers against drunk driving or gay rights or what have you and if we can't why not for me right now in 2016 that's interesting and again I'm not really interested in keeping scorn on other youtubers who are even less successful than I am in terms of their political advocacy or lobbying or or activism or have you mean I rate my own success a one out of 10 and other people get a 0 out of 10 but so what and you know like you guys heard me talking about sourcing raava I just c0 utility in my coming on YouTube and saying so sore thumb up you're doing it wrong you look like your form of advocacy your form of activism is is even more of a failure than mine I get a 1 out of 10 but you get a zero I mean if 10 out of 10 is Mothers Against Drunk Driving I'm a little bit better than zero because at least I have the aspiration and then again people who watch this channel watched a few videos you know it mostly is about aspirations but what I want in the future it's about what I want to do the next five years in the next ten years in the next 30 years that's really what this channel is about is trying to get people excited and motivated and ultimately organized to support something real with real outcomes in that future but here and now yes I could spend hours criticizing Sorcha merova or freely or any of these other so-called activists for how lousy their activism Ed's but for me it would be much more meaningful and rewarding to do and again i have this repeatedly to point at a success story to say look gay rights was really successful why and what are we failing to do how can we learn from that how can we adapt aspects of their strategy so that we have the same advantages and you guys know if you watch this channel I've pointed out crucially the community building fundamental to their success having a visible community with restaurants and nightclubs and yes lawyers offices and foundations real political organizations that have a bricks-and-mortar reality to them I think that's absolutely crucial long-term to why gay rights was successful in the way that it was the fact that there is a gay district a gay neighborhood in San Francisco or in many many cities around the world to my I think Rome now even has a gay district I mean Rome Italy it's one of the most homophobic place in the world but I know they do have gay rights marches and what have you gay rights becoming a gay people going from being an invisible in the closet community to being highly visible highly organized highly vocal and having real neighborhoods and your community associations now again I think there are also interesting questions so I had this person writing to me from Florida um I don't know I've actually never do are there gay retirement homes I don't know but I'm guessing there are gay positive retirement homes there are retirement homes that say look we're not homophobic that whether they give the rainbow logo or what that say look we do accept elderly people who are openly gay you don't have to be in the closet here I think a lot of institutions it's not that they become gay exclusive but they find ways to communicate to their customers that they are gay positive that they are not homophobic and again I think even things like hospitals I think all kinds of services but definitely know in terms of vacations in terms of holidays gay positive Resort Hotels gay positive beach destinations they will advertise again some of them may be exclusively gay they may be entirely for gay people but more commonly again there will be a rainbow logo and there'll be something saying look we accept gays lesbians possession we're not we're not going to expect you to live in the closet if you choose to come here on vacation that can be very important thing for people to know for vegans it's something you can't even stay in the closet on for one day if you eat three meals a day right you don't really have the option if you're gay and you want a retirement home you absolutely need a vegan positive retirement home you absolutely need a vegan positive hospital it's hell if you're in a hospital dealing with hospital food like your bed ridden in a hospital or something for just two days you have to have a friend in the hospital go down the street buy you food bring it back to you and come to your bedside which by the way I did for my wife every single day she was in the hospital after my daughter was born all three meals a day I was I was bringing to my my wife's bedside she's now my ex-wife I'm divorced blah blah blah um you know that struggle and again obviously for something like a vacation if you're a single person if you're just one adult maybe you can go on vacation to a beach destination where have you that's not vegan positive uh if you're a family if you're an elderly person if you have any other problem and and also for your own convenience even if or so of course you really need these destinations to be to identify speaking positive although again maybe it's too much to ask that they actually be exclusively vegan on the other hand that's what a lot of us are really looking for isn't it aren't a lot of us looking for a vacation where the destination is if not thinking about actually exclusively vegan where the other people we meet are gonna be vegan where we know our money is not going to support you know roasting a giant pig or serving lobster because if you pay for an all-you-can-eat buffet and you know you're paying for meat and you see it displayed there that's what you're paying for that's your support it ultimately for a vegan that's really depressing and sad you know you go on vacation you pay for that buffet you personally may only choose to select the bits and pieces that are vegan but there it is sitting in front of you they kill the whole pig and roasted it they killed a bunch of lobsters and boiled them and they're being proudly displayed for the people to pay for this buffet uh it said it's just fundamentally it's it's it's not more looking for but you know so who in any of these things who has been successful can we learn from that success I really encountered in Southeast Asia members of all the humanitarian work including research into the evaluation of humanitarian work and including the actual work of helping people you know as a tremendous reluctance with any with any specific question that feel to start with the question of who's already done this who has been the most successful who sets the standard for excellence whom we can learn from so for any particular project that may deal with hiv/aids may deal with orphans me deal with still leading starvation may deal with improving agriculture is all sorts of humanitarian work me deal with homeless people or prostitution or anything else if you start to look around say okay who has been the most successful in this country or in this region or you can do globally you can look at what are the most successful projects that have been out there a may force you for example to very humbly look at the success of the Catholic Church there have been some extremely successful charity projects operated by Catholics Catholic missionaries or Catholic organizations different kinds do you have it in you because I mean I'm but I'm biased I'm an atheist I do not like the Catholic Church can I set aside that bias and learn from their success learn from what they're doing right on every level in terms of the fundraising in terms of delivering the service to the people they're helping in humanitarian work there may be political factors etc etc can I actually set that aside and learn from them if you're looking at education in any situation the best school again with in Laos or Cambodia or with in downtown Toronto Canada the best school may be a religious school it may be Catholic it may be Protestant if you're actually looking at improving an educational institution whether it's on a charity basis whatever the situation is do you have it in you to set aside your biases and say let's look at this school Catholic school Protestant school this elite school and see what they're doing right even if my objectives are to provide quality education to poverty stricken people I may be biased against that school simply because its elite I may simply have hostility against rich people because they're rich whatever it is can we set that aside and learn from the success so look in this video I've kind of alluded to a lot of the lessons I've learned from being mixed up in political science and what have you but you know one of the most fundamental lessons I learned on this topic learning from other people's success it really just came from the theater and this applies to vegans within YouTube the digital demi-monde but this also applies to real world activism really organizing political foundations or would have you for the future it's never reasonable to expect excellence so you have to be prepared to overcome or debunk or dismiss people who come at you with the excuse of well what did you expect whether that's well what did you expect me to do because what did you expect me to do I'm just one activist what did you expect me to do on my youtube channel why did you expect it to be better what do you expect from why should i why should i be better why should I look up these unreasonable expectations whether it's on that level or whether it is um you know on the level of the city or specific society you represent if you are writing theatre criticism and today I don't even know when the Sedona of live theater really exists anymore because I mean obviously YouTube in many ways has replaced life theatre people have said for decades that television and movies would replace live theater but ultimately I think it's the internet that is that is killing life theatre live theatre we finally disappear from the Western world in many ways um but you know if you're gonna write criticism of live theater in Toronto it is no excuse for the people being criticized to say well this is only Toronto what did you expect expected excellence if I'm a critic I'm looking for the best of the best I'm I'm looking for you to do the impossible sure but there is no sense in which I can say well this is only Toronto not New York City so this performance of anton chekhov's the cherry orchard what can you expect what can you expect expect excellence expect the impossible look for it doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it but what we're engaged in here you know politically or what have you there is just no sense in which is useful to start the process by lowering your expectations because you have contempt for the people involved or because you have contempt for the the location that's really what it is is that somehow in New York City culture is supposed to be more refined than it is in Toronto or Victoria or vientiane the capital city of Laos and it's just not true people are people no matter where you are the apparatus you need and let's talk about it incredibly daunting theatre production you're going to put on a theatrical adaptation of the song of ice and fire books a song and a song of ice and fire also known as Game of Thrones an incredibly daunting task you know what I think you could put that on with no set with no special effects just actors on a black stage with a couple of chairs and you could make it one of the most thrilling and you know successful theater productions of the last ten years totally possible you know what makes theatre great what makes theatre excellent is not really the budget at a minimum level you need to budget what makes something inspiring and effective and hopeful in political activism of course is not really the budget although we do need to engage in fundraising we do need to build up the credibility and Trust with their constituency so that we can raise the funds so that in a sense we have the stage to perform on so that we have the stage in the costume so that we can go to city hall or go to Parliament so that we can maintain actual political foundations actual lobbying of government etc etc but excellence whether it is excellence in education excellence in the theatre excellence in political advocacy and activism excellence in this very strange art form that we're engaged in on YouTube it's always unreasonable to expect excellence and it's always possible for people to make this excuse what did you affected me as if excellence was not an option axles was not an offer uh it's unreasonable to expect excellence but we go ahead you know be unreasonable expect the best of the best and when you don't get it as I've just been saying don't be a jerk about it you know no there's no point being a jerk about how much smarter I am than Sorcha Martha what what if I make a bunch of videos about that what how is that going to advance the movement how's the convince the vegan cuz in any way don't be a jerk about it go back to topic 1 for this video examine what's really been successful in this field of endeavor whatever the field is examine the best of the best look at key studies of extraordinary success and don't be jealous don't be dismissive really try to evaluate what are the differences what are the strategic advantages what were the decisions that brought about that success how can we learn from that and adapt that to our own cause