Lies as Activism: Wayne Hsiung from DxE

and so I was going to work almost every
day at Northwestern and going to the top floor of the garage and you know hanging my legs over the top just staring down and thinking about throwing myself off the building just killing myself cuz I thought you know I had no friends I've never even gone on a date I had no friends I'd never even gone on a date I mean I'd actually done a lot of organizing to that point I mean I'd actually done a lot of were in izing to that point I had no friends I've never even gone on a date had nothing in my life like because I you know it was just so socially awkward and stilted from you know at that point 25 years of a lot of isolation basically only interactive in the animals not having a lot of human friends I just didn't see any hope I was like if I can't be a professor what's the point um and and I really came pretty close to killing myself but the thing that prevented me was I thought well if I go I should try and do something good for the world and even at that point you know I I wasn't a full-fledged animal rights activist I I mean I'd actually done a lot of organizing to that point at organizing college in law school but I didn't see myself as an animal arts actives I just saw myself as someone he was a professor or graduate student who also did handle nights actives on the side but I did think that animal rights was the most important thing in the world and I just honestly just never thought it was my problem and I never thought or if I did think it was my problem I didn't think there's a whole lot I can do about it I thought my role in solving the problem was just writing that was what I was good I was a writer and a researcher and then when I lost that I thought well you know there's I can't do that anymore so what I do and I decided well I mean it's it's time to take direct action you know if you don't really care about your life that much are your own well-being you know why don't you just go directly into one of these slaughterhouses and try to help on the animals I think it would be a little bit intellectually lazy to end this video by just pointing the finger at Wayne and calling him a liar I think that what's going on here is a little bit more complex and it's not just the content creators who are involved in a kind of self-deception it is much more importantly members of the audience who are indulging in self-deception of the three secret origin stories that Wayne has presented for how he became a die-hard vegan activist and how he discovered the secret formula for direct action ever where's methods of activism none of them are really plausible none of them are believable and the contrast between them isn't flattering it's even more bizarre when you're aware of the extent to which major foundational principles of what DXE was supposed to be were set forward as if as if they had come to wane in a bolt of lightning as an epiphany as a great inspiration and then so easily they were abandoned one after another I mean the real definition of what this organization was its raison d'etre its defining motivations objectives methods organization organizational hierarchy shall we say or lack thereof those things changed in the wind and the emphasis on fundraising and what they were fundraising for that all crept in later so it's not even so much striking that these are lies or that the stories are inconsistent or that they can't possibly true it's very easy for me to imagine that from Wayne's perspective all three of the stories are true or that the story is telling now is true he may feel that the story is telling now is more true than the stories he told in the past this is more honest in coming forward to this evocative image of whether Wayne's young was suicidal or not in the past whether or not he had no friends and had ever been on a date when he'd already been organizing vegan activist events for several years or look how true any of this is or how consistently and accurately he's reporting the timeline or voice then he might just be being wistful rather than being dishonest you know some of us middle-aged people get wistful you know oh I think the really profound corrupting influence here is fundraising itself and ironically direct action everywhere was founded with an acute awareness of how corrupting fundraising could be that they began with bold declarations on their website I remember seeing them in text rather than in video or in audio interviews were they were declaring that unlike peda unlike these other organizations they were not going to be doing fundraising they'd accept donations for some kind of limited purpose but that really they were going to be this social network that spent their time recruiting people they wanted you and they wanted your time and they didn't want your money and they weren't gonna do fundraising and they were aware that fundraising and kind of devoured other movements and organizations and in some ways corrupted them in the big moment now I've been speaking to a lot of insiders from direct action before present insiders and past insiders who left lately and one of them gave me a kind of nothing anecdote an anecdote that to you guys the audience wouldn't seem shocking but to me it was really evocative it was really stirring because it's such a contrast in my own life and my life with with my girlfriend Melissa and the things I would never do and never think of doing in vegan activism and it was just an anecdote that described that Wayne and Priya so they're boyfriend and girlfriend Wayne and his girlfriend Priya that they'd struggled for some years or at least some months to have Priya really give kind of leading lectures for her to be kind of the main face the person in front of the podium when they did events but they struggled with the fact that when priya was the main speaker or the only speaker they'd get less than $500 in donations they'd get much owes me and when Wayne was on the microphone when Wayne was doing the main speech when he was wrapping it up with he's very passionate emotive appeals to the audience they'd be getting more than $1000 donations now I mean that's very striking and very stirring to me for many different reasons but one of them is the first thought in my mind was I have never done that I never would do that and this is this is real church basement style fundraising where they were giving this rousing speech but again Wayne was better at giving the speeches in the prayer and then literally you know passing around a hat for people to put donations they pass around a bowl or a box you know whatever it is but people would just be giving cash donations maybe they'd also accept checks I shouldn't say that but whatever they were accepting donations on the spot spontaneously given in response to this emotional peel glance I would absolutely never do that I regard that as like an aspect of 19th century politics that was barely acceptable in the twentieth century and then I'm really proud that we can leave behind in the 21st century I have done fundraising you guys know for a court case once where I needed money to be donated for legal fees for a specific project if I'm gonna illustrate a children's storybook or make a children's cartoon you know it's vegan to promote veganism through fiction I can imagine people donating money for that but then that's it for a specific project you're gonna see where the money goes you're gonna get accounting of how the money is spent and also you're gonna get something back from it you know okay you donated $100 to publish this book but you know we're gonna send you a copy of the book you know in the mail and maybe a stuffed animal or a t-shirt there's something that goes with the story book that model of crowdfunding of donations that are transparent and accountable and project specific that I'm totally at peace with but the the church basement style of fundraising I'm profoundly uncomfortable with and this issue of Wayne slipping away step by step from his own truth or maybe getting more and more comfortable with oh um broadcasting his emotional desperation which wasn't there in version one of the story and wasn't there in version two of the story right in version one of the story this was really kind of a cold rational decision well I apparently like many people I've met many many people who were extremely disappointed with law school extremely disappointed with the practice of the law whether they were in corporate law or human rights law this was an unbelievably boring bureaucratic job they didn't want to do and then one way or another we're looking for way to get out of law school or get out of legal practice and go into humanitarian work believe me some of those people go to Cambodia where I met them but even within Canada you know there are a lot of disillusioned lawyers looking for something meaningful to thrive where the original narrative was he was one of these disillusioned lawyers wanting to make the world a better place and he made a kind of rational calculated decision that the way to do it was gonna be through veganism animal rights um you know version two of this story which was tied to this message about quote-unquote social science research that's a powerful story in its own way that he was giving out pamphlets and giving up pamphlets and one day decided look the pamphlets just don't work he's got to take on a new direction that narrative the problem with it now is they've really abandoned that approach to freaking activism there is another group there's a splinter group that broke off from DXE that is called something like the sentience foundation the sentience Institute I think and that's one famous or notorious former member of the XC left DXE and if you read the definition of their doing in many ways they're like returning to those promises from direct action everywhere around the Year 2015 they're saying hey wait this was supposed to be about social science research this was supposed to be about some kind of carefully constructed mythology linked to the history of slavery history of feminism how women got the right to vote doing social science research but what's effective and what's not whether historically or presently about you know performance baptism where they really went back to that so the problem with with Wayne's second version of the founding myth of his inspiration to convene Idris and they the lightning bolt that created - right - ever is that it no longer relates to what the right action ever was all about today with direct action ever was all about are these quote-unquote animal rescue operations like cattle wrestling going in stealing animals from slaughterhouses in factory farms and creating lurid spectacles on the internet out of that and trying to get newspaper pipelines into that there and getting themselves arrested and then trying to make newspaper headlines and you know get notoriety and fame out of being arrested and going to prison or at least going to court you know that's that's the core of their current methodology not based on social science research per day and then beyond that they do a lot of stunts that were similar to what peda People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals did in the early 1990s yet all about headlines Nutter and say oh so now there's this need for a new mythology for a new story and the focus of the news story is about direct action everywhere current lion ization of self-sacrifice of going to prison of getting arrested of of self-destructive desperate forms of activism and advocacy right that's that's the emphasis now that and so we now portrays himself as someone who is suicidal but therefore willing to break the law willing to break into slaughterhouses or break into farms and steal things and go to prison he's trying to put himself on the ragged edge of hopelessness poverty suicide the narrative is shifting and he himself may not be intentionally lying he may not be aware of the inconsistencies in his story and above all else he may not be aware of the extent to which handing around the donation cup handing around the hat for people to put money in again and again and again not ten times not 20 of times hundreds of times he and his girlfriend Priya have stood in front of a crowd and tried to say something emotionally evocative and you know moving in this way to get them to put money in that hat and that will have a profoundly corrupting influence on them again and again as they try to tell a story in a way that connects to the audience as they try to say what that audience wants to hear as just like an old-fashioned Christian preacher they may start by thinking they're teaching the one true doctrine what they end up teaching is whatever the audience wants to hear because what they desperately need is that affirmation of a positive response from the audience and ultimately for the audience to open up their wallets and hand over their money with absolutely no clear expectations or promises on the other side about where that money is going to go how it's going to be spent what the outcomes being returned to that audience are supposed to be disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know