Veganism is NOT a Social Justice Movement.
19 January 2017 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
why do we have political theory in
veganism at all isn't veganism such a simple idea that any child can understand it isn't veganism such a simple idea that it doesn't need volumes and volumes of academic discourse on the political philosophy of how to implement you know political theory can get you into trouble but it also helps get you out of trouble it helps avoid problems before they even start I might take a very simple very humble very consumer centered definition of veganism as the most practical way to talk about veganism especially to outsiders in most circumstances something like this the central idea of veganism is if you refuse to buy animal products you're making the world a better place if we can convince more and more people to refuse to buy animal products then collectively in Mass we are making the world a better place of course you can get into details about in what way we're making the world a better place in terms of ecology or use of resources like water in terms of reducing animal suffering etc etc we can expand on this almost infinitely but that's a very simple and very limited idea it's very easy for people to understand and it is implementable it's very clear how you have put this into practice in your own life now by contrast right now right now 2017 I would say the dominant idea of the ISM in the academic discourse in terms of the political theory of veganism is to approach it from a wildly different perspective is to approach veganism as follows there are people who say the fundamental problem with modern Western civilization is speciesism you must understand speciesism as a form of oppression therefore veganism is a social justice issue and speciesism as they use the concept entails that to treat an animal as less than a person to treat an animal something other than a nonhuman person is discrimination parallel to treating black people as inferior to white people or Mongolian people as inferior to Chinese people this is an argument that relies on the inherent equality in some sense of animals and people and that is claiming that anyone who fails to recognize and respect that equality is a is a bigot is is equivalent to a racist they are a species issed now I do not think the concept of speciesism is completely worthless I actually think in some contacts in some conversations it's meaningful and useful one that's come up on this channel is when you're challenging people why do you think that a pig should be treated so differently from a dog why do you think that a bear should be treated so differently from a dog when we're challenging I think divisions we have cultural distinctions we have between different classes of animals I think it can be useful to talk about speciesism and really to talk about the kind of cultural ideology that we attach to humanity to the status of particular species why is it that people assume you know fish don't matter and cats do in some contexts that can be meaningful but approaching veganism in this way as a matter of fact we're creating many insoluble problems for ourselves gary franciotti likewise he starts in the species perspective and then he tries to push very hard on a false dichotomy that the whole world is only separated into persons and inanimate things objects persons and are therefore we must recognize that animals are non-human persons and therefore we must give animals a set of Rights not quite equal to human rights but and all kinds of absurdities ensue from this including really a very thin snake skinned and hysterical attitude towards anyone who doesn't agree with you and if you've been in veganism for a long time you may have gotten out of touch with the fact that the 99% of humanity the very concept of speciesism is laughable it's ridiculous it's hilarious it's insane it's actually laugh-out-loud funny for a meat-eater if someone is not familiar this is course to hear a vegan claiming that because they regard a rat or a cockroach or a pigeon as inferior to a human being they are in effect racist they are species issed against those animals okay and the reality is vegans can preach this they can make this the center of their or ethical and political practice but vegans do not actually practice it we do not actually believe in it the vast majority people living watching this video right now the vast majority people watching are living in a major city even if you are vegan I challenge you to take the time to talk to your apartment building manager about the reality of pest control where you live when I was living in Victoria BC Canada I was living in an apartment that had hollow walls you know so the walls very common Ken it's an apartment building but the walls are hollow there's a little layer of wood and this artificial facing material it's a perfect home for rats and cockroaches to live in the walls when you have hollow walls like that in Canada any animals that can move into you the building will move in rats cockroaches bedbugs currently I'm living in a solid to concrete building very different situation I remember thinking I was just lucky and that it was just a matter of time before that building had rats cockroaches and bedbugs infesting it and actually when I moved out my last couple of days there you know when you move out of an apartment you have to meet up with the building manager a few times he we were discussing these things and he mentioned to me they had a pest control expert coming in every week they had someone setting traps for mice and rats spraying chemicals not just chemicals to kill insects but to detect if you've got an infection sorry if you've got an infestation you know to detect the presence of cockroaches and bedbugs in that kind of thing they were paying a regular fee to have a professional company of exterminators come in like clockwork on a regular basis and that's why I never saw any of those animals the reality is my rent money is going to kill animals like rats the reality is every time you buy bread you are paying money for that wheat farmer to kill rats in Canada rats and groundhogs many many other animals okay in practice we do not believe in equal rights for all animals we do not believe in this particular paradigm of speciesism and none of us could live by this definition by this political theory if we wanted to when I lived in Taiwan yes pious vegan that I am I personally can try to avoid killing cockroaches Taiwan I have been told has the world's greatest climate for cockroaches cockroaches really flourished there okay when a particular cockroach comes into my house I can take the time to take a porcelain cup and trap the cockroach and put it outside with the can do that yes and I can pat myself on the back and say that I'm morally superior to someone else who doesn't think that time guess what when I was in Taiwan every single day I benefited from the fact that the city government the local government was going out and putting poison in the storm drains a very to see this poison was remarkable I think it had dry ice as part of it it was crackling and emitting fumes they would put really really serious pesticides in the storm rooms all over the city you know the government is actively spraying and killing cockroaches all the time so that my house is not overrun with cockroaches so the whole neighborhood is not overall cover and as a vegan I'm benefiting from that okay bedbugs are the ultimate example there's no way to negotiate if you are a vegan and you have lived in an apartment building with a bedbug infestation I'd love to see you live up to this principle okay it matters why would you embrace a political theory a political philosophy that first of all makes vegans sound ridiculous to outsiders there's no advantage in that second of all makes vegans appear to be hypocrites to their filth Feakins gives us a set of principles we can't live by and thirdly creates more problems than it solves ultimately what is philosophy to me philosophy is a problem-solving method and then over time with the discipline of philosophy of collecting together and studying and examining those problem-solving ethic methods learning from the contrast and comparison between problem-solving methods ultimately there's no point having political philosophy at all if it's not going to solve some problem okay and I do see tremendous unbelievable blind spots in this approach this speciesism first approach where the first principle is anti speciesism and then we approach veganism okay wild bears in the forest are not property wild bears are not going to be liberated by this switch in focus from regarding animals as property to regarding animals as in some sense equal it's irrelevant in this approach really you can see it's based on the status of domesticated house pets like dogs and cats saying dogs and cats should be elevated to have these other rights and it neither applies in a coherent way to the status of animals in the wild nor to animals that we regard as vermin like rats okay so on the level of rhetoric it seems to me you're making tremendous sacrifices of vegan by embracing this model and what do you get what is the benefit of this model the benefit clearly is the use of this term social justice I've heard Francey own a say this I've seen other books other author playing this game lately for some reason some vegans including France and are very much afraid anyone who does not regard veganism as a social justice movement whatever that means it's a painfully vague phrase if you don't regard it as a matter of social justice then you'll merely be a reducer terian you'll merely try to reduce meliorate the situation with the the slaughterhouse industry you won't try to abolish it absolutely now I really don't know to me that's an illogical and incoherent leap of inference I also think I mean I've been recently reading this book probably the future I'll have more discussion of this book and I'll invite other youtubers to come on and maybe discuss it with me the same way with Maude vegan before we had a great discussion of Garry Fran Sione's lettuce book there's a new book 2016 motivational methods for vegan active bag sorry pardon me motivational methods for vegan advocacy by casey taft PhD so interesting book like most of the stuff some of law 2016 book you know contribution to the literature on veganism in theory and in practice as a social movement how to convert new people to veganism when I look at passage of this book that lean so heavily on this word social justice I often question a question myself and I sort of question the author why not write what you really mean why not write look at a sentence that just throws in this term social justice as an adjective you know what what do you gain by saying animal agriculture is a social justice issue I think what you really mean is animal agriculture is an injustice that our whole society ought to care about that that's really the meaning of this sentence but social justice itself has become a very strange abstract catchphrase and it's it's very strange for me to see people on the one hand saying really argument lengths that veganism must be a social justice movement again Francie only does that Casey Taff does that etc etc if it's not a social justice movement then we're gonna disintegrate into merely being vegetarians or reduce it Aryans to me that's completely illogical and then also the idea that we must form veganism in the image of a social justice movement beasts have to imitate a preconceived ideal a preconceived bunch of assumptions about how social justice movements work because veganism supposed to be a social justice movement this is the ultimate self defeating political philosophy right why I mean you look comparisons are odious okay an allegory can easily become a trap yes we can speak allegorically about the ways in which veganism may resemble struggles for civil rights for african-americans and his Jenna states we could talk about that it's an allegory okay but we can also talk about the ways in which veganism is similar to efforts to get labeling on cigarette packages health reforms legal reforms related to trying to abolish cigarettes we can talk about I love this example how well-organized and successful mothers against drunk driving was you know movements whether we can talk about the seat belt reforms we can look at all kinds of examples of well-organized highly successful social movements that were not necessarily social justice movements and we can learn from all of those comparisons and none of the comparisons is going to be perfect okay there's no point don't send me hate mail giving me a list of all the reasons why organizing vegans to advocate for veganism is fundamentally different from organizing people to try to prevent drunk driving try to change your culture of alcohol consumption it is different in some ways but do you want to make a list of how different veganism is from the abolition of slavery in the American Civil War do you do you think there's going to be a vegan civil or alright my main criteria here I mentioned earlier how absurd and ridiculous the species is first approach is where speciesism is the main item in your logical theoretical approach I have mentioned at the beginning that Outsiders regard that as ridiculous but I do not think that's the most important criterion I think if you have a really well working philosophy if you've got a political theory that really works and you can put into practice that really solves problems for you then maybe it's okay if Outsiders think it's ridiculous because over time Outsiders are gonna see how it works in practice you're gonna prove the viability of that political theory for me fundamentally the problem with this kind of approach is that it is incoherent even within veganism it's actually counterproductive and self-defeating I mean that very sincerely okay so I'm gonna read a couple of passages here from Casey Taft PhD motivational methods for vegan advocacy I guess they can give a link below this video if anyone else wants to read that book again I think in the next few weeks there's gonna be more discussion that of that book on my channel maybe I'll invite some other youtubers onto to talk about it okay for quote page 19 quote for every social justice movement that has led to great change those at the forefront were able to change the way that we see certain oppressed groups such as women people of color non straight people trans people and so on the same is needed for animal advocacy and a shift towards veganism hit pause really so logically here on the level of political philosophy what is he doing he's saying we must must treats social justice movements already a painfully vague you know category really primarily talking with civil rights are african-americans we must treat that as the template we must treat that as the pattern for veganism to imitate or to aspire to okay why it's an incredibly weak argument there is an allegory there is a comparison we can make between animal rights and the abolition slave yes but it's only one comparison other people make the comparison to the extermination of Jews by the Nazis in the Holocaust it's a comparison I understand why people make that comparison often they're interested in even the aesthetics of the gas chamber because gas chambers are now being used to kill chickens the aesthetics of the actual you know equipment used for this kind of mass slaughter it's a comparison it's evocative do you think really there are lessons we can learn from World War two and how the Nazis were defeated that we're gonna apply to the slaughterhouse industry that we're gonna apply to McDonald's no do you think do you actually think we're gonna fight a civil war to abolish speciesism in the same way that I mean do you think there's gonna be a civil war against McDonald's there are so many obvious ways in which we should have the maturity just say yeah you know what this is one comparison this is one interesting question to ask but it's only one comparison of the money there's no way that this should be a mold for veganism to pour itself into okay and again on a psychological level you can say to somebody you can say to somebody look humanity had to learn that when you regard a black person you should basically regard them in the same way you regard a white person there were there are differences between black people and white people but you know what they're kind of trivial you have to set them aside and relate to this black person as your equal or the you have to relate them in that same way you would relate to a white person basically that's that's that's a psychological aspect of racial equality right okay so we all understand the discourse how are you gonna apply that to a rat how are you gonna apply it to a cockroach how are you gonna apply that to a bear in a forest and why are we even [ __ ] asking the question in that way I I realized there are people who have been inside the movements and inside the academic discourse for so long that they don't see why that's problematic or counterproductive okay but but taking the art starting from the position you have to look into the eyes of a bear in the forest and see him as your equal you know but you have to overcome your species is aversion to this bear or this rat or this these bedbugs that are in fest in your house really you really think that's the most effective way to approach even within to begin really um the same is needed for animal advocacy says and a shift toward veganism we will never be able to shift the paradigm for animals if we continue to go along with the oppressive notion that we can epically do harm to animals in moderation okay well my approach is completely different Casey okay Casey to have to the author um I think that just like war and peace ultimately the way humans relate to animals relies on lines being drawn on a map I think that ultimately human beings draw lines in a map and they say inside this area inside this zone we are going to preserve the forest and we are going to preserve bears living in the wild in their natural habitat and humans are not even allowed to feed the Bears if we are not allowed to domesticate the Bears we're not allowed to have them in a circus performing for us we're not allowed to even give them food because that leads to dependency etc okay but you know what if the bear has crossed the line and that happens it's completely inevitable that some of the bears are gonna smell human garbage or just out of curiosity we're not going to have perfect barriers once in a while bears leave the forest and break into somebody's basement happens all the time in Canada they forced their way through the windows and end up in somebody's basement okay and you know what human being is gonna shoot the Bears dead it would be better if they can use a tranquilizer gun be better if you can just tranquilize the bear and return it to the force that would be better okay but Casey I actually do not believe that bears have equal rights to human beings I have sympathy for everyone involved if I had to shoot a bear in my own basement in Canada I'm sure I'd be traumatized and horrified or if I call the cops and the cops show up and shoot the bear it's awful I'm not celebrating it okay I'm not celebrating it as a sport but if you start from this perspective that all animals should be treated as non-human persons with the same rights as people because you're hung up on this [ __ ] social justice paradigm because you're hung up on this species despaired on because you approach this as if the problem with Western civilization is the riddle of the difference between objects and persons that only persons have rights you've created a political theory that is worse than having no political theory at all okay you're not solving problems with this theory you're only creating problems this is really self-defeating and destructive for the movement and I know you can't see it that way that's why I'm making this video I know I know you're only trying to help I know you're only trying to make the world a better place these are fundamental assumptions built into your book and built into many many people right now in the abolitionist side of veganism even this is built into the the so called citizenship side abolitionists and citizenship approach we need to think about this from a different angle okay um to examine whether we are treating animal use as a social justice issue all we need to do is to hypothetically place an oppressed human group in the place of non-human animals okay pause really I come I understand where he's going this most of you already know where this really can we really ask ourselves this bear do we treat this bear the same way we would treat an oppressed human being whether the bear is in the forest or the bear has come into the city and is starting to cause trouble for people do we treat rats the same way as an oppressively do we treat bedbugs and cockroaches no we don't we're never going to okay not in the city not in our homes not on the farms where we raise fruit and vegetables and wheat all of those forms of farming kill animals and not just insects I remember a video maybe two years ago where durianrider more than one year ago during Ryder was just reflecting on how much he would love to own and operate his own farm but we always used the term immature fruit farm I remember him using with us this is back when during Ryder felt he had a lot of money to burn I don't know if he still feels that way and I remember watch the video thinking during Ryder do you have any idea what kind of work is involved in running a farm and this is specifically his fantasy was a fruit farm in Thailand okay in Thailand on a fruit farm you don't just kill rats you don't just kill Gophers I don't think I have Gophers you kill pigs you kill monkeys okay you take a [ __ ] rifle and you shoot monkeys that come onto the farm to take the fruit I live in the real world I do not live in an imaginary playpen where we can pretend that in any of these interactions we treat animals equal to human beings we don't and we're never going to my approach is the wildlife management approach I want to draw lines in a map and say over there bears live and die on their own terms yes with some intervention from humans you know if a plague breaks out if the Bears are all going extinct for sure there's some level park park wardens are like this for a national park if there's some disease that breaks out some level of veterinary care there are some kinds of intervention to prevent overpopulation or you know species extinction within Park sure there are some role for humans overseeing wildlife in a national park you know in a zone fenced off too before the wilderness but that's about it folks I neither see animals as our equals and our partners within this society NORs are equals in in any of these in these contexts and I'll tell you something my model works because my model solves more problems than it causes I got an email a few days ago asking me about yeah it's a live stream we all do this I've got questions now coming in about managing deer population and so on great questions I got a question a few days ago asking me about backyard chickens and this was somebody who approached veganism from instead this not not my perspective I guess from the common perspective and this person really sincerely felt that my approach the wildlife management approach fails to address whether or not it's okay to eat eggs from chickens raised in your backyard in a coop but it's the world's most comfortable chicken coop all this this [ __ ] this animal welfare is approach [ __ ] right and I was able to write back and say look you obviously haven't watched even one of my videos on what the wildlife management approach to veganism is and why I argue it okay not only do I think it's immoral for you to eat the chickens eggs that are raised in your backyard I not only don't think it's immoral for you to raise them in captivity of any kind I think it's immoral for you to feed the chickens my philosophy can be summed up with a sign we've all seen please do not feed the Bears I do not want animals to have a relationship of dependency on human beings at all I reject the mess dication of animals entirely okay the Bears in the forest should try to feed themselves and when they can't feed themselves they should starve that's the life of a bear in the wild period dogs should not be our pets we should not pretend that dogs are our friends dogs should exist only in the wild where they can feed themselves or starve and guess what folks it's literally a dog-eat-dog world if you know anything about how dogs exist in the wild dogs do kill and eat other dogs right and there's a line of the map and I don't think the Bears have the right to and live in the city I don't think the Bears have the right to come in and eat the garbage out of your garbage can obviously it's dangerous and the practical reality is do you know any philosophy of veganism that even addresses the question of how do we raise fruit or how do we farm wheat if we actually believe in this [ __ ] that we should treat the rats and the Gophers as having rights equal to human rights it's it's a pretty obvious flaw okay people on the level of political theory this is not a tiny or subtle problem in this approach okay my approach again is simple and obvious you draw lines in a map in one area animals have all the rights in the world the forest the National Park whatever you say and in another area whether it's the city or a farm basically we have a different set of Rights a different set of principles and we would never treat human beings that way we would never draw lines in a map and say okay over there is the First Nations reserve where native Canadians or Native Americans live and as long as they stay on that reserve they have human rights but if they cross the line and come into white society then all of a sudden it's different we would never do that to human beings in Canada we have a terrible history of doing exactly that human beings right so there are some comparisons so but I don't think we can think our way out of this problem via speciesism or via this idea that we have to declare animals to be so-called non-human persons it's ridiculous and counterproductive okay I continue Casey Taft quote and Casey Taft here right so I've already questioned this why is he framing this in terms of a social justice issue what does that phrasing win us why aren't we instead making comparisons to the abolition of cigarettes step-by-step including new laws new laws but where you can smoke where you can't new law pardon me new laws about how the cigarettes are packaged the labels limits on advertising cigarettes can you imagine so this is all [ __ ] this species of [ __ ] look what a breakthrough would if we had a law making it illegal to pay money to advertise meat and dairy products there would be an epoch-making law many many Western countries have those laws against advertising cigarettes they restrict the right of companies to advertise tobacco or completely eliminate it right where you can't have billboards up advertising zeros because we know cigarettes are bad there'll be huge huge advance if we said look eggs and bacon are scientifically proven to Terrill for health so no more advertising with them make that illegal a huge huge advance huge huge win for veganism but has nothing to do with this boy wouldn't have anything to do with claiming pigs are non-human persons or that kind of legal reform right so there are comparisons to the cigarette smoking struggle which is a long term struggle the next 100 years we're not going to see tobacco disappear but you know it's a real it's a real political struggle regulating cigarettes out of existence step-by-step over the next 200 years it's a struggle that has meaningful comparisons to veganism Mothers Against Drunk Driving I mentioned a million times may be the most successful civil society organization in the history United States of America tremendous political influence and again Mothers Against Drunk Driving you think they're a joke they're doing classroom instruction sessions in high schools across America thousands and thousands of thousands of high schools have a representative for Mothers Against Drunk Driving coming in and giving them a lecture do vegans have anything like that you think it's a [ __ ] comparison it's not the Civil War the American Civil War is not the only meaningful comparison here guys and those are not social justice issues cigarette-smoking not a social justice issue not a human rights issue drunk driving alcohol change the culture of alcohol drinking not a social justice issue not a human rights issue and guys the biggest blind spot of all here is just ecology itself ok ecology is not a social justice issue and on some level all of us know we wouldn't even dispute veganism is an ecological issue and vice-versa right ecology defined in terms of the water in terms of the air in terms of the forest in terms of habitat conservation in terms of the melting of the polar ice caps none of those none of them are social justice issues so why take social justice as a straightjacket that veganism has to fit into doesn't make sense okay um so you continue it's not gonna be too much more of this for example quote for example would we ever promote only a reduction in racism or a baby steps approach towards ending racism rather than demanding a complete end to racial - racist practices would we encourage those who engage in domestic violence to merely reduce their physical violence towards their partners or will be demand that society refuses to not condone any intimate partner violence look guys to me this is complete [ __ ] written by someone who has no experience in the real world of political science or politics . . guess what tolerance does matter guess what most countries have made a transition lasting 500 years about racism and if you want to have a society that right in 1955 locked up every white american who made a racist statement and put them in jail than american society would have disintegrated right in reality america did go through babies deaths i'm not i'm not lying i'm not glorifying it but you know the american transition from slavery to racial equality even in the 20th century it was it was a long series of baby steps and there had to be tolerance on both sides there had to be tolerance for maybe extreme you know black liberation groups and there had to be tolerance to the fact that there were a lot of people's mean old white grandparents making racist statements and we all had to live in a society together without having another civil war without being in a constant state of civil war cuz guess which side guess which side ultimately would have won if you talking about the you know the uplifting of the oppressed and the weak tolerance does matter even with an example like you know domestic partner violence as he says okay we have huge problems in canada I'm sure this exists in the US or some states in the US where the police on paper of a zero-tolerance policy towards wife beating or husband beating domestic partner violence you know we had this situation all the time a couple comes home from the bar they're in their apartment they're drunk and they're yelling at each other and one of their neighbors calls the cops when the cops show up they beat the crap out of both people they beat up the husband the wife they put the husband in in handcuffs and take him off to jail and it has huge negative impacts on the couple's lives and some of the wife is saying he never even beat me this is ridiculous they were just yelling at each other and the neighbors didn't want to hear it I've heard lots of stories of that in the States actually hate to tell you in practice in terms of actually policing and legislating how you handle something like domestic partner boss real life is not about making demands real life is not just about demanding equality and then assuming that demand will solve the problem real life is full of these terrible gray areas how do you actually manage the transition from an intensely racist society to a broadly speaking a Galit aryan society how do you actually manage on a human level and in terms of legislation the protocol for what police should do when someone phones them because they can hear screaming - people screaming at each other in the next Department okay this is actually laughable and I know people inside the movement don't realize how laughable and ignorant this is okay um with racism give you an example it was crucially important absolutely crucial word and basically every Western country in the world to have racial equality laws when a bank considers an application for a loan it was in the Rue nots every distant past mid-1950s a black person could not buy a house or could not get money alone to them to build their own house in the same way a white person could crucial crucial institutional change to try to bring them but on the other hand the United States of America they never had laws that forced a Christian preacher in a white only church to stop saying racist things against black people they never deprive that person of their freedom of speech okay so it is complicated and he says you cannot possibly solve these problems through baby steps on the contrary he's choose examples of problems that are only solved through baby steps ultimate self defeating approach to veganism okay [Music] while individual advocates may not think of themselves as speciesist he continues Casey Taft they promote a species as paradigm when they convey acceptance of any non-human animal abuse that would never under any circumstances be considered acceptable if human animals were those experiencing the injustice okay so to me I guess that's a good point to wrap up on it's just observed it's just absurd sometimes we shoot bears I mean sometimes we shoot people - if you really try to sit down and legislate what rights do bears have when they're in the forest what rights do bears have when they cross the barrier and come into the city what rights do bears have when they come into a human home and in the basement there is no way you could start from or end with this standard that we can never treat bears we can never treat bears in a way we wouldn't treat a person if it would be an injustice to treat a person this way therefore you can't treat a bear this way and bears are pretty easy folks what are you gonna do with the rats what do you can do with the cockroaches what are you gonna do with millions of cows if just one factory farms shut down and decided to liberate all its cows what are you gonna do with those cows domesticated cows as they exist on a farm but they can't survive in the wild what are you gonna do with those cows if just one farm owner turns vegan and liberates his cows and donates them donates thousands of cows to an animal shelter okay there are all kinds of impossible to solve problems here and meanwhile in the midst of all this I think the majority of you vegans watching this video you have pet cats every day you're paying money to kill a cow to put the cow's flesh in a [ __ ] metal can so you can feed it to your cat so would you do that with a human being would you buy human meat to feed your cat it's it's not a workable or useful political theory it's just not so I come back to this look fundamentally veganism is a practice in search of a political theory veganism is a working method that lacks a political philosophy and that is much much better than being in the situation of having a political philosophy that lacks any method we all know what to do with veganism we know how to take this method and put it into practice and I think that's because my first definition what I said the start of this video is really the true and more useful definition at core at bottom the method or the the conceit of veganism is if everyone stopped paying for animal products the world would be a better place would that solve all of our problems no but if everyone did what I do everyday and just refuse to buy animal products the world would be a better place okay simple does that mean that rats will have equal rights to human beings no does that mean that we're gonna abolish wheat farming because wheat farming involves killing Gophers and rats and mice no does it mean that if a bear breaks into your house you have to treat it the same way you would a human know it doesn't have any of those implications all right that's just the core consumerist practice the method we all agree to as vegans and we could leave it at that
veganism at all isn't veganism such a simple idea that any child can understand it isn't veganism such a simple idea that it doesn't need volumes and volumes of academic discourse on the political philosophy of how to implement you know political theory can get you into trouble but it also helps get you out of trouble it helps avoid problems before they even start I might take a very simple very humble very consumer centered definition of veganism as the most practical way to talk about veganism especially to outsiders in most circumstances something like this the central idea of veganism is if you refuse to buy animal products you're making the world a better place if we can convince more and more people to refuse to buy animal products then collectively in Mass we are making the world a better place of course you can get into details about in what way we're making the world a better place in terms of ecology or use of resources like water in terms of reducing animal suffering etc etc we can expand on this almost infinitely but that's a very simple and very limited idea it's very easy for people to understand and it is implementable it's very clear how you have put this into practice in your own life now by contrast right now right now 2017 I would say the dominant idea of the ISM in the academic discourse in terms of the political theory of veganism is to approach it from a wildly different perspective is to approach veganism as follows there are people who say the fundamental problem with modern Western civilization is speciesism you must understand speciesism as a form of oppression therefore veganism is a social justice issue and speciesism as they use the concept entails that to treat an animal as less than a person to treat an animal something other than a nonhuman person is discrimination parallel to treating black people as inferior to white people or Mongolian people as inferior to Chinese people this is an argument that relies on the inherent equality in some sense of animals and people and that is claiming that anyone who fails to recognize and respect that equality is a is a bigot is is equivalent to a racist they are a species issed now I do not think the concept of speciesism is completely worthless I actually think in some contacts in some conversations it's meaningful and useful one that's come up on this channel is when you're challenging people why do you think that a pig should be treated so differently from a dog why do you think that a bear should be treated so differently from a dog when we're challenging I think divisions we have cultural distinctions we have between different classes of animals I think it can be useful to talk about speciesism and really to talk about the kind of cultural ideology that we attach to humanity to the status of particular species why is it that people assume you know fish don't matter and cats do in some contexts that can be meaningful but approaching veganism in this way as a matter of fact we're creating many insoluble problems for ourselves gary franciotti likewise he starts in the species perspective and then he tries to push very hard on a false dichotomy that the whole world is only separated into persons and inanimate things objects persons and are therefore we must recognize that animals are non-human persons and therefore we must give animals a set of Rights not quite equal to human rights but and all kinds of absurdities ensue from this including really a very thin snake skinned and hysterical attitude towards anyone who doesn't agree with you and if you've been in veganism for a long time you may have gotten out of touch with the fact that the 99% of humanity the very concept of speciesism is laughable it's ridiculous it's hilarious it's insane it's actually laugh-out-loud funny for a meat-eater if someone is not familiar this is course to hear a vegan claiming that because they regard a rat or a cockroach or a pigeon as inferior to a human being they are in effect racist they are species issed against those animals okay and the reality is vegans can preach this they can make this the center of their or ethical and political practice but vegans do not actually practice it we do not actually believe in it the vast majority people living watching this video right now the vast majority people watching are living in a major city even if you are vegan I challenge you to take the time to talk to your apartment building manager about the reality of pest control where you live when I was living in Victoria BC Canada I was living in an apartment that had hollow walls you know so the walls very common Ken it's an apartment building but the walls are hollow there's a little layer of wood and this artificial facing material it's a perfect home for rats and cockroaches to live in the walls when you have hollow walls like that in Canada any animals that can move into you the building will move in rats cockroaches bedbugs currently I'm living in a solid to concrete building very different situation I remember thinking I was just lucky and that it was just a matter of time before that building had rats cockroaches and bedbugs infesting it and actually when I moved out my last couple of days there you know when you move out of an apartment you have to meet up with the building manager a few times he we were discussing these things and he mentioned to me they had a pest control expert coming in every week they had someone setting traps for mice and rats spraying chemicals not just chemicals to kill insects but to detect if you've got an infection sorry if you've got an infestation you know to detect the presence of cockroaches and bedbugs in that kind of thing they were paying a regular fee to have a professional company of exterminators come in like clockwork on a regular basis and that's why I never saw any of those animals the reality is my rent money is going to kill animals like rats the reality is every time you buy bread you are paying money for that wheat farmer to kill rats in Canada rats and groundhogs many many other animals okay in practice we do not believe in equal rights for all animals we do not believe in this particular paradigm of speciesism and none of us could live by this definition by this political theory if we wanted to when I lived in Taiwan yes pious vegan that I am I personally can try to avoid killing cockroaches Taiwan I have been told has the world's greatest climate for cockroaches cockroaches really flourished there okay when a particular cockroach comes into my house I can take the time to take a porcelain cup and trap the cockroach and put it outside with the can do that yes and I can pat myself on the back and say that I'm morally superior to someone else who doesn't think that time guess what when I was in Taiwan every single day I benefited from the fact that the city government the local government was going out and putting poison in the storm drains a very to see this poison was remarkable I think it had dry ice as part of it it was crackling and emitting fumes they would put really really serious pesticides in the storm rooms all over the city you know the government is actively spraying and killing cockroaches all the time so that my house is not overrun with cockroaches so the whole neighborhood is not overall cover and as a vegan I'm benefiting from that okay bedbugs are the ultimate example there's no way to negotiate if you are a vegan and you have lived in an apartment building with a bedbug infestation I'd love to see you live up to this principle okay it matters why would you embrace a political theory a political philosophy that first of all makes vegans sound ridiculous to outsiders there's no advantage in that second of all makes vegans appear to be hypocrites to their filth Feakins gives us a set of principles we can't live by and thirdly creates more problems than it solves ultimately what is philosophy to me philosophy is a problem-solving method and then over time with the discipline of philosophy of collecting together and studying and examining those problem-solving ethic methods learning from the contrast and comparison between problem-solving methods ultimately there's no point having political philosophy at all if it's not going to solve some problem okay and I do see tremendous unbelievable blind spots in this approach this speciesism first approach where the first principle is anti speciesism and then we approach veganism okay wild bears in the forest are not property wild bears are not going to be liberated by this switch in focus from regarding animals as property to regarding animals as in some sense equal it's irrelevant in this approach really you can see it's based on the status of domesticated house pets like dogs and cats saying dogs and cats should be elevated to have these other rights and it neither applies in a coherent way to the status of animals in the wild nor to animals that we regard as vermin like rats okay so on the level of rhetoric it seems to me you're making tremendous sacrifices of vegan by embracing this model and what do you get what is the benefit of this model the benefit clearly is the use of this term social justice I've heard Francey own a say this I've seen other books other author playing this game lately for some reason some vegans including France and are very much afraid anyone who does not regard veganism as a social justice movement whatever that means it's a painfully vague phrase if you don't regard it as a matter of social justice then you'll merely be a reducer terian you'll merely try to reduce meliorate the situation with the the slaughterhouse industry you won't try to abolish it absolutely now I really don't know to me that's an illogical and incoherent leap of inference I also think I mean I've been recently reading this book probably the future I'll have more discussion of this book and I'll invite other youtubers to come on and maybe discuss it with me the same way with Maude vegan before we had a great discussion of Garry Fran Sione's lettuce book there's a new book 2016 motivational methods for vegan active bag sorry pardon me motivational methods for vegan advocacy by casey taft PhD so interesting book like most of the stuff some of law 2016 book you know contribution to the literature on veganism in theory and in practice as a social movement how to convert new people to veganism when I look at passage of this book that lean so heavily on this word social justice I often question a question myself and I sort of question the author why not write what you really mean why not write look at a sentence that just throws in this term social justice as an adjective you know what what do you gain by saying animal agriculture is a social justice issue I think what you really mean is animal agriculture is an injustice that our whole society ought to care about that that's really the meaning of this sentence but social justice itself has become a very strange abstract catchphrase and it's it's very strange for me to see people on the one hand saying really argument lengths that veganism must be a social justice movement again Francie only does that Casey Taff does that etc etc if it's not a social justice movement then we're gonna disintegrate into merely being vegetarians or reduce it Aryans to me that's completely illogical and then also the idea that we must form veganism in the image of a social justice movement beasts have to imitate a preconceived ideal a preconceived bunch of assumptions about how social justice movements work because veganism supposed to be a social justice movement this is the ultimate self defeating political philosophy right why I mean you look comparisons are odious okay an allegory can easily become a trap yes we can speak allegorically about the ways in which veganism may resemble struggles for civil rights for african-americans and his Jenna states we could talk about that it's an allegory okay but we can also talk about the ways in which veganism is similar to efforts to get labeling on cigarette packages health reforms legal reforms related to trying to abolish cigarettes we can talk about I love this example how well-organized and successful mothers against drunk driving was you know movements whether we can talk about the seat belt reforms we can look at all kinds of examples of well-organized highly successful social movements that were not necessarily social justice movements and we can learn from all of those comparisons and none of the comparisons is going to be perfect okay there's no point don't send me hate mail giving me a list of all the reasons why organizing vegans to advocate for veganism is fundamentally different from organizing people to try to prevent drunk driving try to change your culture of alcohol consumption it is different in some ways but do you want to make a list of how different veganism is from the abolition of slavery in the American Civil War do you do you think there's going to be a vegan civil or alright my main criteria here I mentioned earlier how absurd and ridiculous the species is first approach is where speciesism is the main item in your logical theoretical approach I have mentioned at the beginning that Outsiders regard that as ridiculous but I do not think that's the most important criterion I think if you have a really well working philosophy if you've got a political theory that really works and you can put into practice that really solves problems for you then maybe it's okay if Outsiders think it's ridiculous because over time Outsiders are gonna see how it works in practice you're gonna prove the viability of that political theory for me fundamentally the problem with this kind of approach is that it is incoherent even within veganism it's actually counterproductive and self-defeating I mean that very sincerely okay so I'm gonna read a couple of passages here from Casey Taft PhD motivational methods for vegan advocacy I guess they can give a link below this video if anyone else wants to read that book again I think in the next few weeks there's gonna be more discussion that of that book on my channel maybe I'll invite some other youtubers onto to talk about it okay for quote page 19 quote for every social justice movement that has led to great change those at the forefront were able to change the way that we see certain oppressed groups such as women people of color non straight people trans people and so on the same is needed for animal advocacy and a shift towards veganism hit pause really so logically here on the level of political philosophy what is he doing he's saying we must must treats social justice movements already a painfully vague you know category really primarily talking with civil rights are african-americans we must treat that as the template we must treat that as the pattern for veganism to imitate or to aspire to okay why it's an incredibly weak argument there is an allegory there is a comparison we can make between animal rights and the abolition slave yes but it's only one comparison other people make the comparison to the extermination of Jews by the Nazis in the Holocaust it's a comparison I understand why people make that comparison often they're interested in even the aesthetics of the gas chamber because gas chambers are now being used to kill chickens the aesthetics of the actual you know equipment used for this kind of mass slaughter it's a comparison it's evocative do you think really there are lessons we can learn from World War two and how the Nazis were defeated that we're gonna apply to the slaughterhouse industry that we're gonna apply to McDonald's no do you think do you actually think we're gonna fight a civil war to abolish speciesism in the same way that I mean do you think there's gonna be a civil war against McDonald's there are so many obvious ways in which we should have the maturity just say yeah you know what this is one comparison this is one interesting question to ask but it's only one comparison of the money there's no way that this should be a mold for veganism to pour itself into okay and again on a psychological level you can say to somebody you can say to somebody look humanity had to learn that when you regard a black person you should basically regard them in the same way you regard a white person there were there are differences between black people and white people but you know what they're kind of trivial you have to set them aside and relate to this black person as your equal or the you have to relate them in that same way you would relate to a white person basically that's that's that's a psychological aspect of racial equality right okay so we all understand the discourse how are you gonna apply that to a rat how are you gonna apply it to a cockroach how are you gonna apply that to a bear in a forest and why are we even [ __ ] asking the question in that way I I realized there are people who have been inside the movements and inside the academic discourse for so long that they don't see why that's problematic or counterproductive okay but but taking the art starting from the position you have to look into the eyes of a bear in the forest and see him as your equal you know but you have to overcome your species is aversion to this bear or this rat or this these bedbugs that are in fest in your house really you really think that's the most effective way to approach even within to begin really um the same is needed for animal advocacy says and a shift toward veganism we will never be able to shift the paradigm for animals if we continue to go along with the oppressive notion that we can epically do harm to animals in moderation okay well my approach is completely different Casey okay Casey to have to the author um I think that just like war and peace ultimately the way humans relate to animals relies on lines being drawn on a map I think that ultimately human beings draw lines in a map and they say inside this area inside this zone we are going to preserve the forest and we are going to preserve bears living in the wild in their natural habitat and humans are not even allowed to feed the Bears if we are not allowed to domesticate the Bears we're not allowed to have them in a circus performing for us we're not allowed to even give them food because that leads to dependency etc okay but you know what if the bear has crossed the line and that happens it's completely inevitable that some of the bears are gonna smell human garbage or just out of curiosity we're not going to have perfect barriers once in a while bears leave the forest and break into somebody's basement happens all the time in Canada they forced their way through the windows and end up in somebody's basement okay and you know what human being is gonna shoot the Bears dead it would be better if they can use a tranquilizer gun be better if you can just tranquilize the bear and return it to the force that would be better okay but Casey I actually do not believe that bears have equal rights to human beings I have sympathy for everyone involved if I had to shoot a bear in my own basement in Canada I'm sure I'd be traumatized and horrified or if I call the cops and the cops show up and shoot the bear it's awful I'm not celebrating it okay I'm not celebrating it as a sport but if you start from this perspective that all animals should be treated as non-human persons with the same rights as people because you're hung up on this [ __ ] social justice paradigm because you're hung up on this species despaired on because you approach this as if the problem with Western civilization is the riddle of the difference between objects and persons that only persons have rights you've created a political theory that is worse than having no political theory at all okay you're not solving problems with this theory you're only creating problems this is really self-defeating and destructive for the movement and I know you can't see it that way that's why I'm making this video I know I know you're only trying to help I know you're only trying to make the world a better place these are fundamental assumptions built into your book and built into many many people right now in the abolitionist side of veganism even this is built into the the so called citizenship side abolitionists and citizenship approach we need to think about this from a different angle okay um to examine whether we are treating animal use as a social justice issue all we need to do is to hypothetically place an oppressed human group in the place of non-human animals okay pause really I come I understand where he's going this most of you already know where this really can we really ask ourselves this bear do we treat this bear the same way we would treat an oppressed human being whether the bear is in the forest or the bear has come into the city and is starting to cause trouble for people do we treat rats the same way as an oppressively do we treat bedbugs and cockroaches no we don't we're never going to okay not in the city not in our homes not on the farms where we raise fruit and vegetables and wheat all of those forms of farming kill animals and not just insects I remember a video maybe two years ago where durianrider more than one year ago during Ryder was just reflecting on how much he would love to own and operate his own farm but we always used the term immature fruit farm I remember him using with us this is back when during Ryder felt he had a lot of money to burn I don't know if he still feels that way and I remember watch the video thinking during Ryder do you have any idea what kind of work is involved in running a farm and this is specifically his fantasy was a fruit farm in Thailand okay in Thailand on a fruit farm you don't just kill rats you don't just kill Gophers I don't think I have Gophers you kill pigs you kill monkeys okay you take a [ __ ] rifle and you shoot monkeys that come onto the farm to take the fruit I live in the real world I do not live in an imaginary playpen where we can pretend that in any of these interactions we treat animals equal to human beings we don't and we're never going to my approach is the wildlife management approach I want to draw lines in a map and say over there bears live and die on their own terms yes with some intervention from humans you know if a plague breaks out if the Bears are all going extinct for sure there's some level park park wardens are like this for a national park if there's some disease that breaks out some level of veterinary care there are some kinds of intervention to prevent overpopulation or you know species extinction within Park sure there are some role for humans overseeing wildlife in a national park you know in a zone fenced off too before the wilderness but that's about it folks I neither see animals as our equals and our partners within this society NORs are equals in in any of these in these contexts and I'll tell you something my model works because my model solves more problems than it causes I got an email a few days ago asking me about yeah it's a live stream we all do this I've got questions now coming in about managing deer population and so on great questions I got a question a few days ago asking me about backyard chickens and this was somebody who approached veganism from instead this not not my perspective I guess from the common perspective and this person really sincerely felt that my approach the wildlife management approach fails to address whether or not it's okay to eat eggs from chickens raised in your backyard in a coop but it's the world's most comfortable chicken coop all this this [ __ ] this animal welfare is approach [ __ ] right and I was able to write back and say look you obviously haven't watched even one of my videos on what the wildlife management approach to veganism is and why I argue it okay not only do I think it's immoral for you to eat the chickens eggs that are raised in your backyard I not only don't think it's immoral for you to raise them in captivity of any kind I think it's immoral for you to feed the chickens my philosophy can be summed up with a sign we've all seen please do not feed the Bears I do not want animals to have a relationship of dependency on human beings at all I reject the mess dication of animals entirely okay the Bears in the forest should try to feed themselves and when they can't feed themselves they should starve that's the life of a bear in the wild period dogs should not be our pets we should not pretend that dogs are our friends dogs should exist only in the wild where they can feed themselves or starve and guess what folks it's literally a dog-eat-dog world if you know anything about how dogs exist in the wild dogs do kill and eat other dogs right and there's a line of the map and I don't think the Bears have the right to and live in the city I don't think the Bears have the right to come in and eat the garbage out of your garbage can obviously it's dangerous and the practical reality is do you know any philosophy of veganism that even addresses the question of how do we raise fruit or how do we farm wheat if we actually believe in this [ __ ] that we should treat the rats and the Gophers as having rights equal to human rights it's it's a pretty obvious flaw okay people on the level of political theory this is not a tiny or subtle problem in this approach okay my approach again is simple and obvious you draw lines in a map in one area animals have all the rights in the world the forest the National Park whatever you say and in another area whether it's the city or a farm basically we have a different set of Rights a different set of principles and we would never treat human beings that way we would never draw lines in a map and say okay over there is the First Nations reserve where native Canadians or Native Americans live and as long as they stay on that reserve they have human rights but if they cross the line and come into white society then all of a sudden it's different we would never do that to human beings in Canada we have a terrible history of doing exactly that human beings right so there are some comparisons so but I don't think we can think our way out of this problem via speciesism or via this idea that we have to declare animals to be so-called non-human persons it's ridiculous and counterproductive okay I continue Casey Taft quote and Casey Taft here right so I've already questioned this why is he framing this in terms of a social justice issue what does that phrasing win us why aren't we instead making comparisons to the abolition of cigarettes step-by-step including new laws new laws but where you can smoke where you can't new law pardon me new laws about how the cigarettes are packaged the labels limits on advertising cigarettes can you imagine so this is all [ __ ] this species of [ __ ] look what a breakthrough would if we had a law making it illegal to pay money to advertise meat and dairy products there would be an epoch-making law many many Western countries have those laws against advertising cigarettes they restrict the right of companies to advertise tobacco or completely eliminate it right where you can't have billboards up advertising zeros because we know cigarettes are bad there'll be huge huge advance if we said look eggs and bacon are scientifically proven to Terrill for health so no more advertising with them make that illegal a huge huge advance huge huge win for veganism but has nothing to do with this boy wouldn't have anything to do with claiming pigs are non-human persons or that kind of legal reform right so there are comparisons to the cigarette smoking struggle which is a long term struggle the next 100 years we're not going to see tobacco disappear but you know it's a real it's a real political struggle regulating cigarettes out of existence step-by-step over the next 200 years it's a struggle that has meaningful comparisons to veganism Mothers Against Drunk Driving I mentioned a million times may be the most successful civil society organization in the history United States of America tremendous political influence and again Mothers Against Drunk Driving you think they're a joke they're doing classroom instruction sessions in high schools across America thousands and thousands of thousands of high schools have a representative for Mothers Against Drunk Driving coming in and giving them a lecture do vegans have anything like that you think it's a [ __ ] comparison it's not the Civil War the American Civil War is not the only meaningful comparison here guys and those are not social justice issues cigarette-smoking not a social justice issue not a human rights issue drunk driving alcohol change the culture of alcohol drinking not a social justice issue not a human rights issue and guys the biggest blind spot of all here is just ecology itself ok ecology is not a social justice issue and on some level all of us know we wouldn't even dispute veganism is an ecological issue and vice-versa right ecology defined in terms of the water in terms of the air in terms of the forest in terms of habitat conservation in terms of the melting of the polar ice caps none of those none of them are social justice issues so why take social justice as a straightjacket that veganism has to fit into doesn't make sense okay um so you continue it's not gonna be too much more of this for example quote for example would we ever promote only a reduction in racism or a baby steps approach towards ending racism rather than demanding a complete end to racial - racist practices would we encourage those who engage in domestic violence to merely reduce their physical violence towards their partners or will be demand that society refuses to not condone any intimate partner violence look guys to me this is complete [ __ ] written by someone who has no experience in the real world of political science or politics . . guess what tolerance does matter guess what most countries have made a transition lasting 500 years about racism and if you want to have a society that right in 1955 locked up every white american who made a racist statement and put them in jail than american society would have disintegrated right in reality america did go through babies deaths i'm not i'm not lying i'm not glorifying it but you know the american transition from slavery to racial equality even in the 20th century it was it was a long series of baby steps and there had to be tolerance on both sides there had to be tolerance for maybe extreme you know black liberation groups and there had to be tolerance to the fact that there were a lot of people's mean old white grandparents making racist statements and we all had to live in a society together without having another civil war without being in a constant state of civil war cuz guess which side guess which side ultimately would have won if you talking about the you know the uplifting of the oppressed and the weak tolerance does matter even with an example like you know domestic partner violence as he says okay we have huge problems in canada I'm sure this exists in the US or some states in the US where the police on paper of a zero-tolerance policy towards wife beating or husband beating domestic partner violence you know we had this situation all the time a couple comes home from the bar they're in their apartment they're drunk and they're yelling at each other and one of their neighbors calls the cops when the cops show up they beat the crap out of both people they beat up the husband the wife they put the husband in in handcuffs and take him off to jail and it has huge negative impacts on the couple's lives and some of the wife is saying he never even beat me this is ridiculous they were just yelling at each other and the neighbors didn't want to hear it I've heard lots of stories of that in the States actually hate to tell you in practice in terms of actually policing and legislating how you handle something like domestic partner boss real life is not about making demands real life is not just about demanding equality and then assuming that demand will solve the problem real life is full of these terrible gray areas how do you actually manage the transition from an intensely racist society to a broadly speaking a Galit aryan society how do you actually manage on a human level and in terms of legislation the protocol for what police should do when someone phones them because they can hear screaming - people screaming at each other in the next Department okay this is actually laughable and I know people inside the movement don't realize how laughable and ignorant this is okay um with racism give you an example it was crucially important absolutely crucial word and basically every Western country in the world to have racial equality laws when a bank considers an application for a loan it was in the Rue nots every distant past mid-1950s a black person could not buy a house or could not get money alone to them to build their own house in the same way a white person could crucial crucial institutional change to try to bring them but on the other hand the United States of America they never had laws that forced a Christian preacher in a white only church to stop saying racist things against black people they never deprive that person of their freedom of speech okay so it is complicated and he says you cannot possibly solve these problems through baby steps on the contrary he's choose examples of problems that are only solved through baby steps ultimate self defeating approach to veganism okay [Music] while individual advocates may not think of themselves as speciesist he continues Casey Taft they promote a species as paradigm when they convey acceptance of any non-human animal abuse that would never under any circumstances be considered acceptable if human animals were those experiencing the injustice okay so to me I guess that's a good point to wrap up on it's just observed it's just absurd sometimes we shoot bears I mean sometimes we shoot people - if you really try to sit down and legislate what rights do bears have when they're in the forest what rights do bears have when they cross the barrier and come into the city what rights do bears have when they come into a human home and in the basement there is no way you could start from or end with this standard that we can never treat bears we can never treat bears in a way we wouldn't treat a person if it would be an injustice to treat a person this way therefore you can't treat a bear this way and bears are pretty easy folks what are you gonna do with the rats what do you can do with the cockroaches what are you gonna do with millions of cows if just one factory farms shut down and decided to liberate all its cows what are you gonna do with those cows domesticated cows as they exist on a farm but they can't survive in the wild what are you gonna do with those cows if just one farm owner turns vegan and liberates his cows and donates them donates thousands of cows to an animal shelter okay there are all kinds of impossible to solve problems here and meanwhile in the midst of all this I think the majority of you vegans watching this video you have pet cats every day you're paying money to kill a cow to put the cow's flesh in a [ __ ] metal can so you can feed it to your cat so would you do that with a human being would you buy human meat to feed your cat it's it's not a workable or useful political theory it's just not so I come back to this look fundamentally veganism is a practice in search of a political theory veganism is a working method that lacks a political philosophy and that is much much better than being in the situation of having a political philosophy that lacks any method we all know what to do with veganism we know how to take this method and put it into practice and I think that's because my first definition what I said the start of this video is really the true and more useful definition at core at bottom the method or the the conceit of veganism is if everyone stopped paying for animal products the world would be a better place would that solve all of our problems no but if everyone did what I do everyday and just refuse to buy animal products the world would be a better place okay simple does that mean that rats will have equal rights to human beings no does that mean that we're gonna abolish wheat farming because wheat farming involves killing Gophers and rats and mice no does it mean that if a bear breaks into your house you have to treat it the same way you would a human know it doesn't have any of those implications all right that's just the core consumerist practice the method we all agree to as vegans and we could leave it at that