Introducing Veganism as a Political Struggle (Not a Diet, etc.)

hey guys what's up um some of my
podcasts are on the profound side some are on the shallow side somewhere on the edgy side some are a little bit fun a little bit of self-parody or self-indulgence this is addressed instead to what I think of as a pragmatic question and my pragmatic videos have been some of the most deeply appreciated but that I mean the videos where I talk through what you actually say in a certain situation how you actually handle people when you're being confronted by people who are hostile to veganism when you're confronted with certain types of questions when people demand proof that veganism can cure cancer or whatever the controversy of the moment is people may demand proof that it's possible to be healthy on a vegan diet that that is sort of the realm of pragmatic discussion of veganism and even though I mean in some ways it's a little bit shallow I know that people really appreciate it because so many of us struggle alone for years to deal with those situations and also most of us struggle without preparation most of us you know we find ourselves suddenly confronted by a boss or a co-worker and not you know obviously without having a script or or what have you I think that one of the most distorting aspects of this puzzle is that people tend to think of the world in terms of pro vegan and aunty Feakins and if you spend your time on the internet increasingly that's the way the world will seem to be around you but it's not the case the vast majority of the world's population are neither prone or aunty they've simply never thought about veganism or even if they have they certainly haven't thought about veganism in my terms now saying my terms as a big shortcut here there are a lot of different ways to present veganism and to conceptualising thing about veganism you can think about it in terms of puppies are cute pigs are cute therefore don't eat pigs because you wouldn't eat puppies many people approach it in that way I think that's a tremendously week way to present their grievances veganism is outsiders but you know you can try it there's no harm in trying you may enjoy half that discussion with people but after you've done in a few dozen times you know you may you may find some of the discussion on my own channel rewarding because it gives you other approaches you could approach veganism by discussing theory of evolution and whether or not you know the alignment of our teeth the nature of our jaw and our digestive organs is somehow you know structurally suited to veganism that were evolved to be vegan rather than omnivores are carnivores you may find that intellectually stimulating you may find that rewarding I do not think it's an effective way to approach the matter and again there's no harm you know go ahead in your conversations with your friends co-workers boss you know knock yourself out and after you've done it a few dozen times you may come to this channel and take some interest in the reflections have to offer you know if not that's cool too but as I say this whole channel is is kind of advanced veganism it's sort of for people who've already dealt with the preliminary frustrations and are really interested in questions of effective activism organization and dare I say saving the saving the world what uh what a precious phrase hey i like i like that i like the verb save much more than I like the verb abolish you know to digress for a moment here it's so easy to talk about abolishing the meat industry it's so easy I would abolition it's much more difficult to talk about what that means step by step in practice so saving the world even though it may sound a bit childish to me actually that's that's less silly than just talking about abolishing everything we disagree we had um anyway so I've mentioned the different approaches that I don't do one of the paradigms I'm famous for is the paradigm of comparing veganism to cigarette smoking now I it's somebody else must have done it before me it's so obvious but I admit I did invent that you know within my own life I nobody else ever told that to me I've never seen or read any when using that comparison but it's so obvious there must be other animal rights activists have used it at least briefly at least in passing so even if you haven't heard it before well I'm votes you tell a story of how I just met my chinese teacher the woman is my main teacher of my classes here and i explained via doesn't her using this parable of cigarette smoking so i sat down with my chinese teacher we've talked quite a lot i'm doing four hours of class per day five days per week tremendously intense language course here and i think we're gonna spend more time recording videos in the internet because he oh he burned out so I can do with my brain but I'm not in class or study Chinese characters in a case um i sat down with her and she was filling out a form about me she had to ask me series of questions and she said well what are your interests or hobbies I said well you know veganism you know it's the truth I mean what am I gonna lie I'm not going to tell you that I play volleyball you know no my main interest in hobby you know in that sense is veganism so I explained to her what veganism was she didn't know she never heard the word before and even when i use the Chinese word she was confused about it she didn't know okay but then the next thing I said to her was you know vegan is not just a type of food you know it's it's a political struggle now I use the word struggle because I'm talking to a mainland Chinese person and in Chinese they use the word struggle very very often for different political periods of time where we might use movement you know political movement they would often say political struggle and she's very surprised that I said that now here in China to a greater extent than in democratic countries many people just do not think about politics and do not think politically even though of course politics is in the newspaper constantly but many of the people around you they think about politics as little as you or I might think about plumbing as long as the plumbing works we don't think about it if somebody asks you oh gee this building has great plumbing who did the plumbing who was the plumber who was the engineer who designed the plummet you don't know you never will you never paid attention you know somebody did it some human hands set it up if there's a disaster if suddenly the pipes burst or rupture disaster with the plumbing suddenly you're interested suddenly you want to know who did it who's responsible suddenly you know with plumbing is a big deal you so in the same way when there's a disaster hear people suddenly pay attention to politics in the government but many people not all I mean I spend my time around of course the minority of people who who really enjoy thinking about politics including of course my own university professors but many people who came here just do not think politically so she had already two surprises one she'd never heard of veganism before and two she'd never thought of this as a political issue now obviously this conversation couldn't have even gotten to of this productive point if I had the attitude of either you're with us or against us have had the attitude that if you're not pro v can your auntie peak an hour or something like this I was really having a sort of gentle approach of recognizing this was this person's first introduction of the concept so she asked you know astounded in what sense could veganism be a political struggle she's just thinking thinking of it as a food preference that's you know that's what she thinks it is and what I said to her was using this parallelism that I've explained so many times in my youtube channel that really is so useful in in life such in daily life situations I said to her everyone knows that cigarettes are bad for your health 100 years in the future will people still smoke cigarettes now obviously I'm speaking to someone whose ability in English is very limited so speaking in a very simple way but that this is the way I broke it down for and she was you know she really thought about this she didn't really answer with words but you can see on the looker face that she this was also a stunning state nor said if we want to you know get rid of cigarettes in the next one you want if we want everyone to stop smoking cigarettes that is a political struggle for just one person to quit smoking cigarettes is not political but for everyone to quit smoking cigarettes is political and then I said to her I don't just want to stop eating pigs I want you to stop eating pigs I want him to stop eating pigs I want her to stop any pics I want everyone to stop eating pigs and it's for that reason that veganism is a political struggle now I know some of you I'm not talking to a child talking to an adult woman but she's someone who speaks English as a Second Language and doesn't speak English very well and this was a you know patient and sort of carrying his reduction to the basic concept of veganism and this argument again she didn't say much at this point she was surgery saying oh you know really she was just she just found it really interesting surprises a totally new paradigm for a totally new set of thoughts and the final thing I said to her then finishing the parallel with cigarette smoking was I said to her tell me 100 years from now will people still eat pigs and too many Chinese people this is a shocking idea because all their ancestors for more than 1,000 years for more than 3,000 years they've always eaten pigs here but of course now we know that pigs are bad for you the same way we know cigarettes are bad for you so this opens up a question right now obviously this didn't deal with the agony of the animals this didn't deal with the ecology this didn't deal with anything else it's possible that in the next two months I'm going to talk to this teacher more of a reason it's possible we'll never talk about it again but I mean she didn't ask for one hour lecture this is a very brief non-confrontational introduction to the long game of veganism because from my perspective that's what we're playing for if you're new to my channel if you're a new subscriber please go and see my eight-minute video called on community many of my videos are 40 minutes long or more than an hour long but that eight-minute video gives you a sense of what my aspirations are and I think those are the aspirations you need to share with people when you're first introducing them to the concept of veganism and you do not need to share with them the agony of how hard it is to be a vegan you do not need to share with them your own sense of did ness or frustration are being persecuted even though that may be a very real part of your life thank you all for listening guys hit me up sakamaki out a banana tree I'm a p.i.m.p