Nihilism "vs." Veganism (Is Veganism "Just Another Religion"?)

look I'm involved with politics because
I want to deal with real things I'm involved with philosophy because I want to deal with real things in the English language the word semantics has taken on a negative dismissive contemptuous quality you know feels oh this is just about semantics look I don't want to argue about semantics and in a sense we all know what they mean I don't want to just quit above the meaning of a word I don't want to get stuck on this even though for many of the political and philosophical problems we may want to engage with there may be a necessary preliminary stage of the discussion where we have to agree on the meanings of terms do you support intervention in Cambodia in order to establish a working democracy hmm how do you define intervention how do you define democracy especially in terms of their border with Vietnam how do you define Cambodia well there may be some the devil may be in the details in terms of the the definitions of words when we we first sit down to to discuss these things on a deeper level in ways seen and unseen the definitions of words inform the ethical decisions we make how we perceive a moral problem or whether we fail to perceive a moral problem as existing at all most people watching this video grew up buying cow milk in a glass jar and you probably grew up being taught that it was really morally significant to take the time to wash the glass container and place it in a recycling bin that this was morally significant this was good and of course it's ecologically significant and you were not taught to question at all what the white substance was inside the glass jar whether it was milk or yogurt you weren't taught to question ethically the meat and dairy industry and at some point your life you stick those questions when you challenge the status quo on a deep level linguistically and culturally people assume you're challenging it on the basis of a belief it's very easy it's very easy to say it's very easy to slip into the addition of saying I believe in veganism but there's also a sense in which without dwelling on semantics we have to clarify it we have to point out veganism is not a belief veganism is not something I can lose my faith in because it isn't a faith to begin with unencumbered by faith unencumbered by belief unencumbered by any kind of cultural tradition or set of assumptions I can stand in a grassy field and look at a cow grazing in the grass and I can recognize the absurdity the absolute absurdity of a human being getting down on their hands and knees shimmying across the grass wiggling through a mud puddle and then trying to suck the milk out of that cow's udder what what could be more observed and yet it's precisely through cultural accretion it's precisely through layers on layers of belief of faith that we come to regard the milk in a glass bottle as something necessary normal and natural even as a positive part of our our civilization and our cultural identity certainly still today people in New Zealand I think the Dutch and the French but maybe especially the people in New Zealand they're proud of their local dairy products proud to export their butter are proud of their local cheese so on and so forth right and yet if you just place it in this context this microcosm this really small scale example of saying would you yourself get down on your hands and knees go across the grass and suck the milk out of that cow's udder its they'd say no that's ridiculous if someone else did it you watch them do it what would you think you'd say that that's absurd that's ridiculous if someone else did it and then they put the milk in a glass bottle and they hand it to you would you drink it they do that every day so how can this make sense if you're just removed from this same moral decision the same the same ethical absurdity by a few steps by a few steps of estrangement right as the microcosm you scale it up I just heard a new report I can give a link below this video again I gave the link on patreon already a guy went through and did the math and looked more carefully than ever before at the ecological damage done by the meat and dairy industries and compared it to the damage done by soy milk production of equivalent vegan foods like taking soy beans turn them into soy mo because that also does some ecological harm but it does dramatically less and among the fact that he puts out he came he came to the number 73 percent what what does the 73 percent mean the amount of land that we need to support and sustain human civilization the land use we require could be reduced by 73% if the whole human species were to start being vegan well the point here is not that it's unlikely or improbable for the whole world to become vegan the point is again you scale that up you look at the irrationality of it the irrationality of the one person on the grass drinking out of the cow's udder the irrationality of a million people of a billion people drinking cow milk out of a glass bottle and so on and so forth the ecological devastation the cost of s what do I have to believe in what faith do I have to have to come to the subjective judgment that there must be a better way right questions of of better and worse or don't require you to have faith in anything I can stand in front of a painting and say this painting is better than that painting over there right it does mean I believe in a heaven that the paintings go to after they die where there's a divine judge who decides which painting is really good and which one it's just kind of mediocre it doesn't mean that I believe there's any objective standard existing anywhere that there's a transcendent morality that there's a fixed objective reality to good and evil on this earth under the earth floating in the sky created by a god or what have you all right we can be aware that our subjective judgments of this painting are merely that they're our own subjective values we can be aware that the value of the painting if it's worth a million dollars is the product of a thousand different people each having their own subjective judgment or coming together a cultural convention think about the meaning that we're convention a convention is people coming together still you can have a cultural convention where we decide directly and indirectly this painting is something that has tremendous value and all these things are subjective there is no objective measure for what's a good or a bad painting but I'm not gonna stand back and say Oh Who am I to judge if I'm a nihilist if I don't believe these things I don't have faith Who am I to dare to have opinion about what is a good or a bad painting okay what do I have to believe in to be vegan the answer is absolutely nothing and I'm going to take a next step here and tell you sincerely it's better for you it's better for us it's better for the movement it's better for everyone if you can be vegan believing absolutely nothing if you can take up this cause with no basis in faith or belief and I know that you may have grown up thinking that all good things begin with belief and that belief is necessary for every great in moral undertaking but it's not I'm making this video because an old colleague in the vegan movement has gone back to eating meat and she went back to eating meat after losing her faith in a particular religion a mainstream religion not so different from Catholicism or Judaism that religion does have some cult-like aspects most of them do actually if you're an atheist or a nihilist looking it from the outside it's easy for an outsider to see what's what's cult-like about it and I understand her reason for giving up veganism is not that the veganism was a side effect of her faith which it might be for a Buddhist for a Buddhist for example they might believe in reincarnation and then they become vegan because they see in the cows and the sheep and the pigs reincarnated people and vice-versa that people have been reincarnated from cows and sheep and pigs this idea existed in ancient Greece and ancient Rome with no connection to Buddhism obviously in the world today Buddhism is probably the major voice for this this belief some Hindus also have this kind of belief in in reincarnation and they may become vegetarian or vegan for that reason and then but then if they lose faith in that they'll go back to eating meats because their engagement with veganism is based on belief and mine is not so for this particular this particular woman she lost her faith in religion and what she saw in veganism were the same problems the same flaws the same shortcomings that she had just recently started to criticize him religion itself she saw veganism as a faith-based movement proselytizing trying to convince others to share in its own moral standards I can sympathize she has a point but I think she's dead wrong the problem of veganism is ultimately that it isn't just a lifestyle choice it isn't just an ethic I can engage in for my own health for my own ethics for my own ecology the concept of my own ecology is already surreal right um and in this one sense I'd like to answer you know this problem by pointing to a comparison with with speed limits it can't possibly be sufficient for me to decide to just drive my own car more slowly and conversely if I have this belief if I have this idea that I want everyone to drive their car more slowly maybe for public safety maybe for Recology maybe for other reasons I look around and I think you know what I really want is to have a little metal side by the little metal sign by the side of the road with a two-digit number painted on it and that everyone do what I'm doing I don't just want to drive more slowly myself I want all of society to to recognize this value is that going to be based on the belief that speed limits are objectively real no it's not that there is an angel in heaven that came up with the number 65 and said 65 miles per hour has to be the limit it's not that there's any objective scientific fact I can reach for it's not that there's an objectively real value under the earth or in the sky created outside of human perception just as subjectively as I can look at a painting on the wall and give it a rating between one and 100 I can look at a stretch of highway and try to assign it a speed limit from 0 to 100 mm to some extent I can be completely aware that this is subjective I can be aware that it's inter subjective that other people are gonna have their own subjective opinions and that can be aware that it's a convention again a cultural convention or a convention in the more literal sense that we're gonna have a conference we're gonna invite a hundred different experts to come and talk about what this speed limit should be on different roads and then we're gonna fix them for everyone to to obey okay I understand the way in which this particular person looks at veganism and sees it as a religious mission trying to convert others to its faith right but veganism does not rest on does not rely on faith and again it should not and ought not rely on faith because if your veganism is based on faith in these things then your veganism will collapse along with your faith in those other things veganism can proceed just as rationally and openly and with as much critical thinking and dissent and and what have you it can proceed just as nihilistic aliy as the man standing in that field who sees the cow and thinks how can we justify getting down on our hands and needs it can proceed just as openly and rationally and sigh nihilistic aliy as looking at the knock-on consequences for how much land we're using how much water we're using those ecological impacts and say there's got to be a better way and we can proceed in the same way in the pursuit of social change than the pursuit of bringing over others to our side as someone who says look you know for all these reasons ethics ecology human health and safety there's got to be a better way to organize their society and guys you know it's not enough for me personally to live in this ethically spear where it's not enough for me to just drive below the speed limits we've got us come together agree to a standard instead of a system so that all of us can obey these feelings the same way that we've come together in society and decided hey you know what it's not enough for me to quit smoking we want everyone to quit smoking we want the next generation for fewer people or possibly nobody to starts moving in this way there's an ongoing pursuit of cultural change that we can all be engaged in but is veganism a religion is veganism just another faith that should be criticized and rejected because it rests on belief my answer to that is no and moreover if you have become vegan because of a belief in something supernatural like reincarnation or something your yoga teacher taught you or or what have you I think it's fair to say that you're now in the difficult position of having to come having come to the correct conclusion from a false premise and you're gonna face a real challenge I guess it's easier to go from doing the right thing for the wrong reasons to doing the right thing for the right reasons that's probably an easier transition to make but the role of faith in human psychology is so powerful that it seems to me when people are doing the right things for the wrong reasons as soon as they stop believing in heaven in life after death in reincarnation they go from a state of doing the right things for the wrong reasons to having no interest in doing the right thing at all that's not what nihilism is that's not what nihilism means what nihilism means is that we're aware that concepts of good and evil and better and worse are subjective that they begin with me in the same way that a painter sits down and makes a painting starting with a blank canvas those values aren't something that exists in a real objective fixed form in the outside world for me to discover there's something for me to create they're a form of self-expression and maybe I can find other people who share my values or think I have a good idea if you can find other people who think having a 65 mile per hour speed limit having a speed limit on the side of the road is gonna save lives is going to be a great idea even though we've inherited this language we've inherited these cultural traditions such that you know we speak in terms of do you believe in speed limits I understand that's our normal way of expressing ourselves but there's a very meaningful very important sense in which speed limits have nothing whatsoever to do with faith or belief and there's no reason why a nihilist project speed limits there's no conflict between the two there's a very real sense in which faith in veganism or belief in veganism is a very misleading construction of the problem the point is we're people who for whatever reason can't believe in the excuses made for carnism any longer we can't believe in the cultural traditions values or beliefs that taught us that drinking the milk out of that bottle is something natural necessary and normal and as soon as you start questioning that you know this great horizon opens us to ups to us where you're looking ahead to the next 300 years and saying what is the potential for human cultural change as soon as we shrug off our attachment to these traditions