Veganism: Neither Anti-Capitalist Nor "A Privilege"

hi I myself am vegan and in this video
I'm gonna talk about a set of critiques directed toward veganism sometimes from the inside and sometimes from the outside so these are issues that are sometimes confronting vegans from non vegans sometimes they're presented as excuses for why people aren't vegan or they're given as a political rationale for why veganism is inadequate or immoral or bad and sometimes they're engaged with those issues inside veganism for people who I would say generally are trying to transform veganism into more of a politically engaged movement or people who want to impose a certain framework of social issues on to veganism in directing the movement forward with different motives as always vegans are at averse Bunch it's really misleading to characterize any one set of political motives we're talking about veganism um one format that you encounter this in is in terms of capitalism and anti capitalism or consumerism and anti-consumerism so under this heading vegans are reproached as merely presenting a set of lifestyle choices a set of consumerist options within a consumerist system and failing to challenge that system so under this heading veganism is then replies reviled for not being anti-capitalist or not being anti-capitalist enough that veganism is not revolutionary or not revolutionary enough and that veganism does not challenge all oppression doesn't challenge all forms of human oppression such as racism exploitation of the poor etc now one reason why this critique is not going to go away I think it's still going to be talked about ten years from now is that it's right on a simple factual level yeah veganism is not a revolutionary movement I also think that quitting smoking is not a revolutionary movement even the abolition of slavery is historically and you can look around the world in many social contexts even though it transformed society in a fundamental way was not a revolutionary movement the abolition of slavery in Thailand took place under royal patronage from the top down not from the bottom up that wasn't a grassroots movement it wasn't a slave rebellion etc the abolition of slavery in Sri Lanka took place under the British Empire from the top down it was imposed on the society not as a grassroots movement not as a rebellion etc so history is full of these funny things but you know people don't quit smoking as a method of radicalization or revolution they quit smoking with whatever mix of motives health concerns and trying to live a meaningful life and so on and a lot of people both today and in the future are going to engage with veganism in that same way whether you like it or not I've heard many people complain that they feel insulted when veganism is referred to as a diet well most people eat three meals a day they may go to one political protest a month they may go to one political protest a week but political activism is gonna be a smaller part of their daily life than their diet they are gonna buy things they are going to continue to be consumers and consumerism is going to be part of their daily life even if they define themselves as being anti-consumerist anti-capitalist minimalist revolutionary you name it and the other broad concern I have as I've already stated in previous videos is that if you believe in veganism then you believe that veganism is for everybody and in that sense it really is like quitting smoking if you think that cigarettes are unhealthy cigarettes are bad for you then you believe that quitting smoking is for everybody not just left-wing people not just right-wing people not just people who agree with your particular set of priorities and concerns and within veganism I say this with all due humility all of us individually it's hard to find it in your heart to get along with other people who are vegan who fundamentally disagree with you who fundamentally don't get along with you politically religiously or otherwise I already mentioned you know it's hard if you find out Bill Clinton is vegan if you find out George Bush is vegan if you find out that somebody you knew in high school whom you hate it just on a personal level you hated them in high school and now today you happen to see their face on the internet and you find out they've gone vegan do you have it in your heart to send them a message and say hey I'm so happy for you I'm so glad you became vegan do you have it in your heart to work with them in a political movement to bridge those differences it's tough it's tough for everyone it's tough for me I personally I have a really robust background related to Buddhism like you know the real history of Buddhism the real textual basis for Buddhist philosophy a sort of horror social science approach to the reality of life in Buddhist cultures not a rose-colored glasses approach of glorifying Buddhism well when I meet other vegans who believe in a kind of mishmash of Eastern religions kind of picking and choosing here and there from really bad translations into English of Buddhist ideas taken out of context and horribly misrepresented and misinterpreted for me personally it's really hard to sit at the same table with someone like that I it's really hard for me to get along with somebody who believes in a sort of air SATs pick and choose combination of elements of what they learned from their yoga classes and some book they bought at an airport about Buddhism that's hard for me personally okay for someone else who's on the far left it's gonna be hard dealing with someone who politically is even a centrist someone who's like a mainstream member of the Democrat Party the Republican Party these clashes are gonna exist within Buddhism and in that sense sorry I said Buddhism I met veganism both are true these clashes can exist that veganism and in that sense you can compare veganism to the struggle to try to make a coherent social movement out of protests against nuclear power protests against particular ecological disasters you know when there's a toxic waste site well it's not just left-wing people who are upset about it you might have right-wing people you might have people who are traditional hunters and then trying to work together but I mean the strength in any political movement comes from that ability to work together not the ability to isolate yourself into a smaller and smaller group of people who agree with you ideologically and who don't challenge your preconceptions to give one one example that again it's visceral it's hard to cope with anyone's reaction maybe extreme vegans by and large support the complete abolition of vivisection of testing on animals if you want to know anything about what's really going on in vivisection for your source information you tend to rely on moderate scientists scientists who want to see vivisection used sparingly and occasionally but scientists who are critical of the waste of money waste of resources and needless animal suffering under the current regime of how scientific research is funded so I mean I have read some articles that were really illuminating from this type of moderate scientist who doesn't want to end vivisection totally but he was skeptical of and critical of what's going on in to the section where they get into the details of some horrendous projects where you know sheep were tortured to death for no reason and the way the study was designed it couldn't have possibly learned anything it just tortured these sheep to death and those scientists are asked the question look we supposedly have a government process in place that evaluates these proposals in terms of their possible positive outcomes the animal suffering and the use of resources and obviously that system doesn't work if projects like this are going ahead I've also read some you know terrible descriptions of experiments where monkeys were being tortured to death and the project could not have possibly discovered anything these monkeys were really being tortured to death for no reason and the scientists involved even quoted from the solution written by the researchers themselves people who supported this vivisection and you know they were saying they were admitting in their conclusions that what they found by torturing these monkeys had absolutely no salience to human health or human psychology or anything else okay if you want to make progress in that area you may think that strength comes from radicalism or extremism or trying to isolate yourself in a small group of hardcore activists who agree with your narrowly defined abolitionist approach but it doesn't strength will necessarily come from working across that bridge with in this case moderate scientists who disagree with you to some extent but who sympathize with and support the critique you're engaged in for their own reasons they're probably people who want to see a much smaller number of animals being vivisected but they are aware from the inside of how the grant application process works of how the scientific establishment the university establishment academics out how that operates and those are the people who will tell you the details of how you know monkeys are abducted from the jungle in Cambodia the last inch of jungle being cut down are put on airplanes and are sent to England and how the commercial airline companies are protesting against that because they don't want to be involved in tor in transporting these monkeys to be tortured to death in labs you know those technical details will really inform your activism it will inform your engagement issue may transform your life philosophically to but if you want to make an effective difference those are exactly the details you need to know those are the people you need to work with even if they disagree with you okay so strength is not gonna come from isolating yourself in a narrow but deep group of people who don't challenge your own assumptions your own ideology okay I've told you what I'm talking about and I've told you why I'm talking about it now I'm going to respond to a particular voice here on YouTube who is a vegan criticizing veganism from the inside she uses the online name a privileged vegan and as that name suggests she is framing her age with these issues in terms of privilege and veganism she gets a lot of negative reactions um and you know she has her own critiques of other vegans online because that issue of privileged vegans are primarily used to hearing it in terms of a set of excuses for why people don't go vegan why people refuse to become vegan why they would prefer to maintain their own cultural heritage their own traditions or what have you now she is not using it as such an excuse she's engaging in a very different kind of social critique but nevertheless that explains the sort of hostility and reluctance of other vegans to hear what she has to say I'm gonna provide a link below this video to the particular video she posted the particular video at a privileged vegan and I'm responding to here however what I have to say you'll be able to understand fine if you've never seen that video or if that video is deleted in the future it doesn't exist or what have you um now again the particular video I'm choosing to respond to here I chose it because I think it's worth talking about I didn't choose the worst video or a video that I thought was stupid or pointless I think these are important issues to talk about and I can sympathize where she's with where this person is coming from in launching these critiques of veganism um and I think this raises a bunch of problems that are not going to disappear however I've already stated my own bias and my bias is that we have to learn to work together we have to learn to bridge the types of terrible differences that separate us and isolate us as vegans and that there is no utility in trying to instead deepen and retrench those differences to create mutually hateful invidious cliques within veganism and one of the reasons that goes on is that it's human nature left to their own devices you we'll just organize themselves that way especially in contacts where they're not making any money that's kind of a whole nother digression why why does veganism look the way it does in the internet for 90% of the stuff it's the profit motive there's such a difference if you compare the web presence the YouTube channels the statements the written text of groups that are making money versus groups that are not making money the groups that are making money of course we get all of this shallow stuff how to lose weight how to have a great looking ass how to clear up your acne how to live a life of plenty and abundance and the power of positive thinking all kinds of nonsense all right that's one side but amongst those who are definitely not making any money you know there's a small activist group called London vegan actions they look like a pretty coherent group of friends they were founded by two sisters who've been interviewed on the news and who have been written about multiple times and you know for them I'd assume like any small group like that they're not looking to recruit hundreds of people or thousands of people they want to work with and spend time with like-minded people and that's not a criticism that's human nature like when I was doing activism at City Hall if I'm getting involved in long term activism of any kind on an issue if you're gonna work for years on a small scale with a group of friends in a political issue where you're never gonna make any money there's no fame there's no other reward for most people the reward they want is exactly to work with like-minded people so doesn't always come from a bad place in their hearts but yeah I mean this is the kind of fundamental problem that can lead to veganism discrediting itself and veganism tearing itself apart and it's also underlying what we see here are now in terms of the status quo so within the first minute of this video I'm responding to the author sets out the view that there is a problem with digital vegans with vegans online stating or believing that veganism is an objective that justifies the means any means used to get to it now that is an interesting point it's an interesting point to open her video on but I'm disappointed that she raises this point only in relation to what she feels are offensive objectification of women's bodies offensive use of language basically shallow and dasu P material within veganism online you know posting up stuff about who's fat and who's thin Oh to the local tabloids all of that deserves to be critiqued sure engage in a critique of it let's try to make veganism more meaningful fine completely agree however when I heard our opening the video that way she's talking about the ends justifying the means I'm worried about eco-terrorism I'm worried about vegans who actively glorify violence illegal sabotage illegal action burning things down smashing cages etc as their primary mode of activism so the problem of the ends justifying the means is very real and veganism but let's get real the problem is not somebody making a comment on Twitter that offends you slope the problem is the primacy of anarchists and communists and you know balaclava wearing sudo radicals really glorifying violence and the number of people actually engage in that kind of violence is a very very small percentage of the people who come on the internet and try to glorify it try to applaud it okay that does discredit veganism and it's a short-term and long-term problem an issue we're all gonna be stuck with and if you go to City Hall or you go to Parliament wherever you live yes you know the shadow of violence anarchist activism can discredit and hangover whatever positive changes you're trying to make the other stuff you know the photographs of women in bikinis all the kind of shallow and catty remarks yeah it's also an issue they can also discredit veganism to sort of then the critique of that and complaints against that is also legit but yeah in terms of gravity and seriousness of the particular issue raised here of the ants justifying the means that's not my primary concern that's not the first thing that pops into my head so she goes on in her second minute to raise the question of making the world vegan can this happen on its own is this viable as a single issue cause or is veganism ineluctably bound to other social issues challenges raised against other forms of structural oppression etc etc well like it or not yes veganism can and will be pursued as a single issue cause yes you know everyone in the world can quit smoking theoretically without any other social problems being solved I may not like it I may prefer to imagine that veganism is linked to a long list of social issues I personally happen to care about but know as a praxis it isn't and inevitably it's going to continue to be pursued as an isolated single issue caused by a great diversity of people with a great diversity of political and religious beliefs and so on so in terms of working pragmatically with the world as it really exists that's something we all have to face up to if there were a neo-nazi group on the internet who were promoting veganism that would be a problem but they were probably already are I just don't know about them probably that already exists you know there are cult groups with you know ridiculous supernatural beliefs who are promoting veganism and divine them define themselves in terms of veganism the association of veganism with breatharianism other supernatural diets diet beliefs and ideas of spiritual purity and so on yeah it's a problem that we all have to deal with but for that reason it's really a good thing that veganism is separable as a single issue it's really a political advantage for us that we can abstract or extract veganism from that context and say look I understand you or this group of people you're vegan because of a religious or cultural background I understand you're vegan and you associated with these beliefs and another group of people associate veganism with a set of political beliefs but guess what we can deal with this as a single issue not to further divide us but to give us some common ground to to work on she raises the question then she's challenging vegans in her second minute of her video do we expect veganism to magically rebalance the damaging attitudes that we profited from along the way so that quotation and that paraphrase it doesn't make it clear what she's saying but she's raising here a meaningful question of if we have vegans believing that the ends justify the means if we have vegans who are engaging in crass consumerism and capitalism who are engaging in possibly racism sexism the objectification of women a long list of things she thinks are politically offensive if we are looking at a form of veganism that profits that actually gets attention and sells diet books or you know it makes its money from these from these things do we think that veganism will rebalance itself at the end of that process from what came along the way I do think that is really an interesting question and it applies to some aspects of veganism more than others those two sisters in England who started London vegan actions I don't think that critique applies to them they're going out in the streets and protesting in front of restaurants try to get them to stop serving foie gras very simple down-to-earth activism they have different ways of kind of showing the vegan documentaries Earthlings and getting people aware of the issues very simple awareness week raising street protests and and that sort of thing I don't think and you know and I don't think they're making any money I don't think they're commercializing anything so no in that case you know that critique doesn't apply to them and I think it's important to recognize there's a spectrum of things out there that are that are there to be criticized however yeah when we talk about commercialized veganism this reminds me a lot of debates from a few years ago about commercialized rap commercialized hip-hop where many people felt that rap music was supposed to have a sort of socially conscious core to it that it was supposed to relate to and connect to activism and anti-establishment sentiments in a deep and fundamental way and then as hip-hop both became more commercialized and more gangster in its content and as it came to really exploit not just images of violence but images of sexuality even rape and what-have-you in lyrics many people raised the question look isn't rap going to discredit itself as a genre or as an art form and to use the same language this video is it going to be able to recover its image or rebalance at the end of that process so rap music in the last few decades a lot of people made money out of it some people made thousands of dollars some people made millions of dollars and the commercialization of the music went the way it did for that reason but yeah there is a long term impact there are long-term repercussions and effects I don't think rap music will ever be respected in the way jazz music is or in the way blues music is even though the majority if you look at the lyrical content I mean there are blues songs about cocaine there are blues songs about getting drunk there are blues songs about husbands beating up their wives or wife speeding up their husbands like you know a whole the whole range of human misery is in blues music and jazz music also however I think anyone who followed what happened with rap music within my lifetime would say honestly yeah you know what the commercial is nation of rap and the prevalence of certain kinds of violence themes in rap yeah that does mean that it's not gonna be respected in the way jazz music is so okay the thematic content of veganism today whether it's the one extreme of have a beachbody go on vacation in Thailand live a life of indulgence and you know athleticism yeah that's gonna have repercussions for how veganism is perceived on the other end you know violent movements it's gonna have repercussions and I remain really concerned some of the most popular and influential forms of vegan organizations you can are not dealt with by this particular person responded not dealt with by a privileged vegan worldwide probably the most vocal most successful vegan organization is run by supreme master Ching hai who has a TV network called supreme master TV they promote veganism they owned the largest chain of vegan restaurants in the world they have this TV station that promotes veganism directly in connection with ecological issues with anti-war and anti-violence issues a lot of that may tug your heartstrings in many ways but they are also a you know a fringe religious group a new religious movement with supernatural and cultic beliefs that are to me shameful that discredit them as a movement and I'm worried about their success discrediting veganism as a movement I'm worried that when I meet people in real life and I say I'm vegan they look at me and think this guy is a member of some kind of funny cult that believes in all kinds of crazy supernatural stuff so yes you know that is a problem veganism will be damaged by the attitudes that it has profited from exploiting along the way commercially politically and otherwise so far pretty much everything I've said would seem to be in agreement with the person whose work I'm criticizing the other video that I'm linking to below however I think that the person who made that video would not feel that I'm agreeing with her because the examples I'm offering the questions I'm raising and my political concerns are so different from hers so she's very concerned about for example a certain YouTube personality who is a former bodybuilder whose videos she finds very offensive he's actually here in Canada his name is vegan gains okay so that's very different from the concerns I've been raising and in the third minute of her video she makes the claim that how we shape the vegan message will both impact who the message reaches and which inequalities it reproduces so slipped in here in passing is the idea that simply by addressing the issues in what she considers a politically incorrect way we are reproducing social inequality so that's a hell of a claim to make in passing if you believe veganism is for everybody then you believe it's all kinds of different people you believe it's for athletes you believe it's there people who watch football on the weekends it's not me I've never watched kicking football of my life I've never watched a game of ice hockey in my life okay um I'm a bookish intellectual you know I represent a very tiny minority of the population in Canada I don't fit into my own culture very well at all and there's no false humility about that it's the way it is shaping the vegan message in different ways will reach different audiences but I regard that as a fundamentally positive thing the fact that I may recoil in horror at what vegan athletes have to say is one thing but I'm not the audience for that so I've got to have some degree of humility in engaging with people who come from those other backgrounds again hey we can all benefit from critique there's nothing wrong with that but boy to leap from that claim to the idea that someone is guilty of reproducing social inequality because their approach to veganism is not the same of mind that's a huge leap of inference that would need more explaining and more evidence and you know I don't buy it I don't think that vegan gains is reproducing social inequality in trying to make money out of putting offensive videos on the internet he's not the first to do it and he's not the last to do it a lot of people want to be an all voluntary to draw attention to themselves and there may not be a lot more to it than that if you want to critique him for being shallow or offensive fine if you want to critique him for reproducing social inequality good luck at the three minute mark still she suggests in her video quote shouldn't the learning process to become vegan also teach people to think critically about other forms of oppression that affect humans close quote ok well that's a question the real world answer like it or not is no the most successful forms of veganism right now or either completely motivated by superstition various religious movements in Asia and attempts to imitate them in the Western world and on the other hand we have this phenomenon of veganism being motivated by vanity that both of us are offering some kind of constructive criticism of veganism in order to make you more beautiful fit into a bikini ride a bicycle up and down a mountain in Thailand all the rest of it so for the majority of people who actually are vegan in the world the learning process to become vegan probably is related to a magical idea of karma in both Chinese culture and Indian culture sometimes catalyzed by a modern awareness that milk products really do entail bad karma whereas traditionally they were believed not to and this is sometimes linked you oppressive ideas of caste purity that your social superiority is linked to your diet sometimes very directly linked to beliefs about an afterlife or reincarnation that you're gonna go to the seventh heaven after you die instead of the fifth heaven etc if you adopt certain dietary practices purity rituals and so on okay so no people are becoming vegan without any connection to the issues of oppression that you personally may really care about that may be sad you may not like it but that is the reality we have to work with pragmatically in the year 2015 you may want to believe that veganism is inherently about compassion as you define it you may want to believe that veganism is inherently about anti-capitalism anti-consumerism or some revolutionary cause as you define it it's not and also you don't get to define it and neither do i and strength in any political movement especially a political movement as tiny as what veganism is in the year 2015 it's never going to come from building up those invidious walls of division between you and the only other people who could possibly have a common cause with you who could possibly support you and appreciate your work on YouTube work with you in real life start a foundation start an NGO start writing letters to Parliament start taking a case to City Hall whatever the cause is man the only strength and the only momentum you're going to get is going to be from learning to work with people across those divides