Socratic Method vs. Vegan Activism (at Toronto's Animal Rights March)

there's been other ones the ones that
they go into like supermarkets and doles I don't know those things I'm trying to put myself to two and a half years ago when I was in vegan if I was just buying my stuff and then people come in like you know like I think I would have made me think about it but in a way they're it's too in-your-face it's too like no it's like people saying Jesus right I feel it it's too much and that's why we were so it's also the opposite of Socratic method right Socrates didn't try to change his society by breaking down weeping on the street by having this kind of anguished and vulnerable so I'm here at the official animal rights conference in Toronto Canada that's the name official name where I met Hyrule who knows my channel Hyrule is also in the club of people names that are difficult to spell and we're conferences literally all washed out a bit of a disaster and he just proposed to me said look why don't I pull you over and talked about this they're kind of two topics you want to talk about one is Socratic method yep and solo disruptions as well right okay look but in terms of broaching this topic core everyone wouldn't you say that in a sense Socratic method and disruption are two mutually exclusive or contrasting Elmo yeah okay so I'm part of I'm a videographer and I have my own YouTube channel as well and then with one of my link in the description thank you subscribe you know like make sure you follow him too okay so with my friend Mitch he he created this organization I would call it I guess liberate and and what he wanted was to do solo disruptions he said hey we've done DXE this options and that's why I wanted to drive to you and he's like we always have to wait for them to organize this massive things and it's all whatever how about you come with me you film me doing a solo disruption I'm gonna walk into a place where they abuse animals and I'm just gonna do a five-minute speak out we film it we do a little chant on the way out that's it right so I met up with him and we did Whole Foods one do we actually disrupt it before with the EXCI so it was just him in the dairy aisle and he did a five-minute speak out those maybe three people talking it was more to just to get it on film right he did a Speak Out then finally somebody's like you guys got to leave we're like all right we did a little chant security guard just kind of walked behind us we went outside and what we wanted to do is just challenge people like go do your own solo disruption you'd have to wait for the exceed like just right like if you're if you because a lot of vegans get that anger and this could be a good way to let it out write a poem write something that you're passionate about and just talking in a park inside a McDonald's inside a Popeyes whatever wherever they explode animals and film it and then challenge somebody and that's the part of the solar disruption they were doing right second time though we stepped it up and we went into Eden Center which is the big mall in Toronto and we went into the food court a lunchtime he stood on a chair and he started talking about meat and environment magically I don't know never nobody came he was able to do five minutes of the speak up some people even clapped at the end and then we walked out usually security guards are on you that's in that case the audience appreciated okay it was weird but then after that people are like oh my god this is so cool this is inspiring like because a lot of people don't like DXE I Eve I've done the XE stuff but more like low risk and what one difference here I note is that you're not actually trying to stop them eating the meal you're kind of doing a five-minute presentation Rock team per se we really do not speaking loudly about facts of animals right and then some people are like shut up but we do our thing and we walk we're not touching anybody we're not violent and that's it and we just want people to do it as well yeah mosquitos coming in okay no mosquitoes were harmed in the creation yeah so that's the part of the solo disruption and then what happened was after the debate gwon Eden Center we're kind of like and a little high and then we're like how about we do some Street interview so we went back into the mall and interviewed I think three different people and what he did it with the way he framed it was he started talking about abuse and he started talking about abuse with kids abuse in general what's your definition of abuse then tied it in to animals and then in which this with a microphone on the camera yeah so dirty I'll put we'll put links to those videos as well yeah I mean with those kinds of one-on-one conversations I find they often happen almost because the camera is there right it's no well we well the way we approach it is like hey would you want to be in a YouTube video we're talking about abuse right we don't say we're V understand understand right and it people are coming to the conclusion on their own and most people I thought that people are gonna be like oh this is vegan stuff I'm you know how to mount right yeah they they actually stick to it and then at the end has been a very positive result that whether they go vegan or not like the seeds were definitely planted and I don't know you we come up with a lot of people that are actually really compassionate which yeah I would think that just I asked and random people are gonna be like I don't care leave me leave me alone leave me but your experience thus far has been really positive yeah well I mean the last time I did straight-up Street activism just talking to strangers on the street I was there for like four hours let's say no and I either had one meaningful conversation or two out of the out of the four hours you know and otherwise people just walk past or they don't talk to you one guy came over I don't really blame him we had one really good-looking woman with us on the he came over you know just yeah III said okay you know you want to talk with news like no no no no dude don't screw this up from huge trying to get on one of our whatever activism for this anyway yeah these you know it's it's hard to be beautiful you know I mean short term and long term and one of my questions is about you know is this an effective use of people's time it's great you had a positive experience I'm not discounting that at all I mean the other thing is to me you've already had some experience with DXE lately on my channel and with a bunch of DXE insiders that's what I'm talking about you know what one woman said to me who's a longtime DXE insider I think she's been in she's been in the central circle of the group since like 2012 or something really since the beginning she said you know for her this is our perspective I'm like I'm interested here if you disagree said you know these group protests of the disruption protests where whatever maybe it's 12 people then I'm not normally huge groups like that but whatever it has 8 12 people 12 you said the main effect the main ideological function is that it makes the protesters feel like the general public hates you this culture doesn't understand you nobody accepts you no one wants to hear message but we love you we accept you like we get direct action if we're your fellow protesters or whatever they create it deepens the in-group verses out group mentality so I mean to me I was like you know what that's a really interesting observation and what she compared it to is this she said you know there are religious groups that go out on the street to allegedly convert people their religion and whether Hinduism or Christianity and she pointed out she said you know the real function of that is not to find people who want to join this religion because if that's what you were doing you do it in a complete every way the real function of this is to confront strangers in this way then again the real effect of the real function is this kind of alienation of the protesters and the rest of the city we're making them feel more aware of it and then deepening that sense of connection you know within the group now ok so this is an interesting perspective from someone who's a disillusioned DXE inside who see and who's seen the effects on a lot of people over a long time um you know the other side of that I gotta say is I think that the main motivation what up John recording YouTube video you want to jump in this John sack arse off camera I kid you not Google we're talking about activism in bathrooms I can't help you yeah my viewers gonna think I was making that up but no oh you know I think one of the big motivations really is that people don't want to feel alone they don't want to feel powerless they don't want to feel like they can't make a difference and you know I mean it sounds to me like in a positive sense this experience is you know yeah I know I don't know I've had a little bit of both like some some disruptions I felt they were powerful like the ones that let's say after the March there's probably gonna be something and last year we did the Marcin then we walked into even Center and we just did a little kind of like song and a little speak out like a poem almost those like I can't I can get behind it's a bit it was a big group and we just spoke we didn't we weren't pointing fingers we weren't attacking anybody we just we just kind of gave our piece and then we walked out right there's been all the ones the ones that they go into like supermarkets and those I don't know those things I'm trying to pull myself to two and a half years ago when I was in vegan if I was just buying my stuff and then people come in like you know like I think I would have made me think about it but in a way they're it's too in-your-face it's jus like no it's like people saying Jesus right I feel it it's too much and that's why we were so it's also the opposite of Socratic method I'm an sinner because the the proposal this talk was was Socratic method I mean okay let me put it this way all the people I know and sermons know here means like I've had a couple Facebook messages and I mean I know them deeply personally but all the people I know who did the really anguish emotional style of activism you know DXE they still do it but in the old days especially they'd have a young woman standing there weeping and screaming at people this chicken suffered so much just all of them regret all the ones I know regret it and you know I just did some videos talking about a young activists I think she's still 15 or 16 she started age 14 when you're 24 you might look like this but this is bringing back to Socrates Socratic method this is what's interested me is this is the opposite of Socratic method right Socrates didn't try to change his society by breaking down weeping on the street by having this kind of anguished and vulnerable presentation as long as the reasons I was so interested in being part of this project because like yes we're doing kind of like kind of like DXE but like in our own terms and like I said we're not we're not we're not disrupting we're just speaking out that it's more of a speak out we call it solo disruption was more like a soul to speak out yeah and then he had the idea to do the Socratic and yeah I thought the same like that's very opposite and then people people loved it in the experience like I said it was just very positive and I think it had a big bigger impact than the big disruptions and it has a bigger impact or similar impact like cubes with cubes I had really good conversations as well I'm very positive but I find that with this Socratic method on on the interviews right before answering their own questions they're coming up they're thinking okay my values are here but I'm doing this my actions oh [ __ ] and then a lot of people don't even know the process some ladies like oh I don't think they stop pigs to to kill them like well right and by work we're like giving them information let's go let's the recording yeah we're giving them information and then at the end we're kind of using like well here's some resources now that you know some of the facts here research it on your own and then I follow up with a couple of people that I talk they still like follow me on Instagram and so they're still kind of like involved and I know some of them I've like cut down meat and stuff so I know that they're you saying yes they've been my actual right stick with the example that he did this because we're then the I take it the example of abuse is Socratic method yes well you're starting what kind of asking people like what is the meaning of abuse some of this yeah yes so yeah we started with abuse or started framing it like define it and then do you think then we try to connect it with children and then with puppies and then we put it towards pigs and then then we start talking like oh do you leave like bacon and and then we started going into like the facts of the industry and asking them do you think it's ethical how do you justify it right the second time we did it we did it talking about it was in abuse it was oh my god I think it was murder yeah it was murder so how do you define murder and then we stopped we started talking about the human and then we kind of connected it with hunting and then factory farming and we just we just some of them when like they're all like 15 minutes almost even half an hour and there are just really good conversation and I know that people were really interested in actually you may you can see that they were thinking about it and they're gonna go home and you know what I'm gonna look into it and because the way my friend Mitch is doing it he he has that very calm you can tell he's very well educated as well he's not pushy he's just very relate in like and using terms like we like we promote this kind stuff we support this kind of food not like cold you are the one supporting I like right you wanna you want to keep them you don't have the point being here we as a society consume 10 million pigs as a day or whatever the number is not to say you were the one killing 10 million pigs a day and whatever he goes last one was very into zones a guy from Mexico that was a half an hour talk and by the end he he said that he he tried going vegan at one point and know that we need meat and culture though and that he gave us all the those in one video but then at the end he's like well he I think people just should eat more plants and more and then he showed us that he had like fruits and stuff so we're a little confused by him but I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a video breaking down that because he gave us all of those and and in a way it was just a conversation when all other place I'm gonna tell you one brief funny story about converting people through this kind of conference converting people to veganism if I can use the word convert and then I'm gonna state my kind of concern about what's happening in the next five years so back when I was married I'm now divorced me and my now ex-wife we were together I was actually literally holding our baby so this is on my daughter who's now six years old was in newborn baby I was standing there and rocking the baby and this guy was asking us so many questions about veganism it was at a vegan event not a vegan probably they played a film and had a presentation and then you know there's kind of a informal Q&A we weren't in charges event but we start we're one of the two of the for vegans there we're doing Q&A on behalf of veganism so it was a welcome effort this guy is asking us like what about the Iroquois in Canada he says in France this guy is a Muslim immigrant to France North African French so what about the Iroquois and what about you know the Mohawk Indians they were so you know healthy and powerful he had all these really specific questions of this putting all this time and effort answering all these guys questions and the end of it you know we'd go home with her with her baby and it's like wow you know that was so much effort and like I said I think we should never do that again it was like whatever you put in so much time you know and it seems like you know whatever we got a newborn child to take care of there's got to be a better way to do actually whatever by complete coincidence my ex-wife bumped into him I would say six months later something like that she bumped into him and the first thing she says oh hi how you doing oh the other thing to mention this again this is a problem with attractive women I really got the vibe even though we were there with a baby and I'm her husband I really got the vibe that he was kind of like enjoying like through he was kind of flirting with her attractive / which I'm not the jealous type but it was like okay this is enormous man she bumps into him let's say six months later complete coincidence at a grocery store she says to him well you know I guess all that advice we gave you on this question answered was was for nothing he was deeply hurt and offended he was really shocked and he said no that's not true at all since the day we had that conversation I haven't eaten meat even once I've completely eliminated dairy and the conclusion he came to he wasn't satisfied with all of our answers about science he concluded that he would eat meat one day per year but that he would be vegan 364 days per year that was at that time now since then I wonder if he's given up on the one day of eating nobody did it overnight about what he was telling us right right that's right so within within days of him having that conversation with us he really committed that way so there you go so is that a happy story or sad story if we hadn't bumped into him six months later Fredman follow-up I would have assumed that was an aryan force my sense of these conversations are just a waste of time talking to some nefesh who wants to know the details of the iroquois diet in canada but but it's a Shabazz story here's here's my concern about the next five years you when you look at statistics for people quitting cigarettes my backgrounds in political science including social in states when you look at the statistics there's the illusion that over time cigarettes have become more addictive that illusion is created not because the actual ingredients of cigarettes have changed because the people who found it easy to quit smoking cigarettes have already quit so when the news first came out that cigarettes cause cancer all kinds of people quit smoking cigarettes and today the people who are still smoking are precisely the people either for psychological reasons for whatever reasons the differences between people they're the people for whom it is harder and harder to quit so the actual efficacy of like programs where people pay money to be in a have vasila you know some people do that kind of stuff the efficacy even of the drugs when you give people NicoDerm and nicker like some of these treatments of them quit the efficacy seems to be declining because the kind of people my concern is when I'm talking about the next five years I think all the people who were highly motivated to become vegan and the people who want to be vegan the people for whom it's easy to make the transition to be vegan they may already be vegan you know well you may I don't know you're vegan story I don't know for me it were easy but I'm one of these weirdos I'm one of these early adopters mine was gonna I went vegetarian first a year prior I dated my ex with she was vegetarian and I met a cow for the first time at a sanctuary in King City touched his face and I give up meat I don't know what it was like I it I'm like you know I can I'm gonna give up meat so we're a vegetarian so we didn't know anything vegan right as I was finishing school funny enough near here I was doing like running an errand in my internship and there were some protesters outside Loblaws Meat Is Murder blah blah blah and I'm like oh I give up meat I'm knowing no not knowing anything I give myself a Padma go I give up meat right stupid anyways so then on my way back they give me a flyer but I was during finals so I left it on my table my ex got a like from a vegan on an Instagram and it made her go on a rabbit hole of veganism so that wakes she's like hey babe you gotta see this and this and vegan this and am i okay let me finish my finals this weekend we'll watch some stuff finally on the weekend we watching think of how many animals he killed just because he was writing his fight think about college colleges murder now you know colleges murder so then on the weekend we watched Cal Spira see what the Health Forks Over knives James ass be some Geary video and then on a total package from 2016 back to back to back to back and we're like we looked at each other like vegan alright we still had some eggs and cheese so I went home with those and I wasn't gonna I'm like I'll eat them and then I'll go vegan the next day I opened my fridge the next day I'm like no [ __ ] way yeah give him away and I just did my haul everything vegan then I watch Earthlings three days after and that broke me it got me angry and I'm like okay we got to do some activism we went to our first chicken vigil two weeks after right and then cubes and then marches and then next thing I know here's here's my counter argument it's not that I'm saying you're wrong it's that I'm kind of making a making a warning and I know they're giving an announcement now so some other activist events we can go to so you know I had a girlfriend in Laos in Southeast Asia she the only Asian girl who never had as a matter of fact and you know I was really saying to her if that is actually what we broke up I said to her look if you want to be with me you've got to be vegetarian vegetarians that kind of minimum commitment here and I met the family cow so her family owned a cow that was just this is the best type of domesticated animal it was just kept to eat weeds it was kept like a living lawnmower you know so they didn't they didn't milk this cow that nx20 Pisco yes oh yeah yeah to clear clear out grassland weird when aesthetically removal there would be jungle if you let it grow in so they add this this count and she had some kind of emotional connection she saw this cow shedding back to her hometown and HN she hadn't seen the cow in three years or something let's say whatever was so she sees this cow and she's really moved and you kill and eat cows every day like how you know it was her answer was oh no I'd never eat this cat so the you know this guy you see one cow you have no particular emotional connect you understand you didn't grow up with this cow I'm like I've not pitted a cow but he can make the connection to all cows other cows and it inspires him to stay equals that I didn't know we're yeah or some other cow somewhere right I'd say this one but obviously the vast majority of the population including that ex-girlfriend of mine and including all the other people who were staying in the same residence at your university I mean you're surrounded by people who are seeing the same stimulus the same warning and they're not reacting the way that you are now but it's a very very approximate comparison because they look everyone got told cigarettes cause cancer cigarettes all just reduce your bill and some people hear that and get motivated and say okay starting at equator and some people don't so I mean that's my overall warning or constraint give it up because I was like that was my last ten box and I'm like food or cigarettes right so some people yeah I was disconnected I'm like I know they're bad and same thing with like the the food like now being on the other side you can see why people like just don't even want to think about it right and like they're so busy with life and stressed out like oh I gotta think now about like what am I know and a lot of people just from laziness they won't even want to look at a video or even think about like yeah that is a cow or that is someone that I meaning yep what someone yep okay so we're gonna go back and do more right we're gonna go collab with John sack arse here they have a great great talking you I assume this will be on your YouTube channel on my youtube channel we could share the resources and make it happen the future of veganism is you I mean people like to disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know