Effective Activism: The Boycott Mentality. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

hey what's up this is a very unusual
video for me I have something quite complex to talk about and I'm going to try to state it very succinctly after recording longer monologues on the same topic I'm recording this by the way and Chiang Mai Thailand but this video is not about the fact that I'm in Chiang Mai Thailand it's not about what's going on with veganism chain mai thailand i already have some reflections like that poster to my patreon and i will talk about that a bit in future here on youtube as well this video is closer to the core issues of effective activism of how do we make a positive change how do we organize politically for ecology veganism animal rights etc a large part of what we do as vegans from the perspective of political science is a boycott bo Y C OTT if you're vegan you may have never heard the word boycott a vegans generally don't describe what they're doing as a boycott but politically that's what it is what is boycott mean boycott means that you're refusing to buy something yourself and you're encouraging others to refuse to buy it also some kind of social movement some kind of activism maybe of protests in the street telling people not to buy these things so when I was a child many people wanted political change in South Africa to simplify what they wanted was for South Africa to be less racist and they tried to pursue this political change through boycotts these boycotts were promoted with street protests interviews on the news articles in newspapers and magazines but a case was made was presented the general public look south africa is an immoral country it's a deeply racist country and we need to do our part we need to do something positive by refusing to buy certain things we can put some kind of indirect pressure on South Africa to change to be less racist to change its government now whether or not this is actually effective is really another question what the effects are for the people participating in the boycott is what I would hear draw attention to more recently and when I was an adult only a few years ago there were a lot of people who wanted to boycott Myanmar the country formerly known as Burma they felt the human rights situation in Myanmar was so terrible the Civil War situation in reality Myanmar was in a situation civil war for many years they felt this was so negative that the outside world should put pressure on Myanmar to become more democratic through a boycott now obviously this didn't work and part of the problem you know part of all these whether or not boycotts can really bring about these kinds of political changes but part of the problem that I TR emphasize is the effect on the activists as an individual if you're a vegan do you become vegan to cut yourself off from the brutal reality of animal agriculture or do you plunge yourself into it do you face up with it do you engage it are you a vegan who would never visit a zoo who feels morally pure tone oh no I boycott these things I would never set foot nezu or you a vegan whose activism involves visiting many zoos and of being really aware of and really well informed about the differences between zoos in different countries the laws that regulate zoos the questions of animal rights in practice the questions of zoos doing captive breeding programs for endangered animals the different guidelines for our zoos just preserving animals are they trying to return them to the wild are they perhaps torturing the animals or are they forcing the animals to perform like trained you know trained animals performing in a show I can very well imagine a vegan being engaged in devoted to and dedicated those those issues and for that reason very frequently paying the money to visit a zoo because that for them is is part of their activism as part of how they educate themselves now likewise if you're actually trying to change so that change South Africa going to South Africa would be part of that if you're trying to change Myanmar going there we part of it and simply boycotting it simply saying I don't buy anything maiden so that of course I don't buy anything made in Myanmar for one thing it's insufficient to cause social change but for another thing you are cutting yourself off from that reality instead of being engaged with it and obviously boycotts involve not doing business with the other side that you're boycotting but someone in a very humble line of work someone like a I remember I met a guy who worked in advertising he took he was a photographer and took photographs for advertising and he lived in Myanmar and naturally he learned a great deal about political conditions there and he goes there and sees it engaged with it and in some ways he was in a better position to advocate for social change at least a vana formed an informed opinion then someone who stays outside of Myanmar and says oh no I'm to morally pure to come down to your level I'm to morally pure to go to the slaughterhouse or to go to the farm to see for myself to get familiar get acquainted and and be engaged these things I find it problematic that the boycott leads us to think of ourselves as isolated individuals at the center of a circle an isolated individual at the center of a circle of harm trying to shrink that circle of harm trying to reduce the harm being done that is part of what we do as vegans but it can never be adequate it can never be effective a social movement it definitely I mean these other examples it can never bring about the end of a war can never cause a transition to democracy it may be meaningful for you personally to refuse to buy something for ethical reasons I totally relate to that I do it myself every day there are all kinds of things I refuse to buy for ethical reasons not just due to veganism if you think something is being manufactured in a country that has slave labor it's natural that you were going to want to avoid buying that but the real challenge is to instead think of yourself as an isolated individual in the middle of a circle of influence and of trying to expand that circle of influence to actually change the system around you not just to reduce the harm you're doing by passively contributing to that system but passively being a part of that system an economic system social system etc now i can use examples that involve war and i can use examples that are directly related to ecology right now the quality of this video is lower than usual because i'm filming in thailand and we're using these new ecological light bulbs they supposedly save electricity are better for the environment they supposedly use less mercury or put less mercury in the environment i have read that i don't know if that's true you could never bring about this social transformation you could never bring about the transition from a society that uses the old-fashioned light bulbs to the society that uses the new light bulbs just through a boycott it would never have that outcome okay and well think about practically the maximum percentage the population you could actually motivate at any one time to be boycotting the other type of light bulbs to say we refuse to buy the old level if you got five percent of the population motivated to boycott one type of light bulbs have been great accomplished if you've got thirty percent you would have one of the largest social movements in the history of the world's very unlikely and for us as vegans again the percentage of people you can get who are passively meet avoiding passively semi vegan may be high may be significant I mean you know again you can look at the caste system in India you can look at the history of Buddhism religions have proven that they could motivate a huge number of people to be vegetarian or semi vegan or even outright vegan yes okay maybe um but the type of social change we want to make especially if it's within our lifetimes is probably going to involve a very small percentage of population being motivated to actually bring about the change obviously the switch to the new light bulbs was only possible because someone made a convincing case to the government to the government's in many countries and made a convincing case to industry look this technology people are still going to be able to read books it's not going to destroy society it's safe it relies it's reliable it works and it really brings about these ecological benefits so we need you to take some kind of action to change the system and of course that could be tax incentives from the government could be guidelines and regulations it could be laws ultimately making the less efficient light bulbs illegal depends on how gradual transition you want or what have you and ultimately of course there are public education campaigns connected these things this way of thinking of being engaged with the problem engage with the industry and of putting together a convincing case that we have a substitute that works that's very different from the boycott model or the boycott mentality engagement is educational both for yourself as an activist and for the people around you people you engage with as I say for me the advantage of actually going to Myanmar instead of just boycotting it or actually going to South Africa is who you are who you become as an individual how much you know how you feel that you've seen it yourself that you really have something to offer as an activist as a leader or when you give a interview to a newspaper or something that you really know this stuff you're not just sitting at home feeling morally superior and refusing to buy something and the outcomes you can't control maybe you never achieve your outcomes but out of that engagement you changed as a person uh it's very rare to meet someone who actually visits prisons and I have met and spoken to those people at different times my life I've wanted to be involved in prison activism but you know activism to improve prison conditions and I've met and spoken with people who have experienced that kind one guy very memorably a white British guy who did that in Laos lao people's democratic public about actually going to the prison's seeing the conditions of the prisoners talking to the wardens and the jailers and finding out how the prison system works if you don't actually go there and do that and that's a subject I don't I don't think you can learn what you need to know from books I believe I'm a big fan of book learning a lot of what I know about the world I learned from books but there are some things you only really know from going there and doing it yourself and many people feel even if they have read about it that until they actually go to a slaughterhouse or until they see certain aspects of you know the ecological or ethical sides of what veganism is all about that they don't really know it so I mean part of what I think is dangerous about the boy caught mentality although boycotting and and have more active activism they're not mutually exclusive you can do both I think as vegans we all aspire to do both is that the boycott can lead you into attempts to be pure attempts to withdraw yourself and then once you've adopted that mentality is your fundamental political praxis you also get into problems of where does this end what is the objective what is the end goal and if it's ah going to James lately he struggles with this like emotionally and personally he he feels that he can't justify buying items made at a plastic I got one right here much better if we could transition a society away from using plastic of this kind but again that would that would ultimately take government regulations I couldn't couldn't possibly do it on a boycott level you know how can you justify wearing cotton cotton is massive as massive ecologic Oh impacts of course it kills insects unless you're kidding yourself as a vegan you must realize the use of pesticides and just process vehicles yourself kills animals kills insects what have you it is what it is he is thinking of himself as that isolate individual at the center of a circle of harm and of trying to shrink that circle of harm as much as possible and what I'm trying to say in this video is to instead think of yourself as the isolated individual who's working to overcome that isolation so that they can expand their circle events influence and so they can use that influence to fundamentally change the system I don't really like the fact that I rely on these bottles even if they are recycled and I know this is a superior technology a disposable plastic and disposable aluminum aluminum as massive ecological impacts high intensity the production of it is energy intensive there's a lot to say about aluminum technologically any society can make the transition to having standardized reusable glass bottles bottles that are collected washed sent back to the industry's relabeled refill set out again and that is exponentially better for the environment than having a glass bottle that is melted down and forged into glass again or having a piece of plastic that is melted down and forged into some other + object washing and reusing glass bottles is so much better the environment than using an aluminum can for the purpose of transporting coca-cola from a corner store to your apartment perhaps only a few meters there's no justification for that but how can we actually bring about that change it will never be accomplished through a boycott and if you could actually motivate just five percent of the population to be to be passionate about refusing to buy aluminum cans it still won't bring about the change if you could motivate thirty percent it still won't bring about that change right that change is only going to come when people institute a new system it's almost certainly going to involve the government or come from the government if not it could come from a donor like Bill Gates a millionaire could instead be leading this kind of systemic change but ultimately you need a social organization that's going to provide guidelines to these bottles that's going to distribute and collect every history of these bottles that's going to incentivize industry to reorganize itself because these companies the coca-cola company PepsiCo don't make money either way they're happy to compete either way but who is going to lead that process of social change away from the plastic and the aluminum into using reusable glass that is an intervention that changes the system that's not an isolated individual just trying to shrink their own circle of harm right and again everything I talked about on this channel at the humblest level of five vegans getting together and trying to have a pancake stand to promote veganism or trying to illustrate a children's book of Avia's amor engaging in public education or protest or lobbying government for change all of these things what I'm emphasizing is that process of engagement and organization leading to systemic change even though I do engage in the boycott I'm boycotting meat milk and a million other things right now you have to appreciate the powerlessness of boycotting as a method that ultimately it's a sort of pathetic method of pursuing social change and I would say also the danger of the boycott mentality is that boycotts allow people to delude themselves into thinking they're members of a mass movement when in reality totally diverse and divisive groups of people are united by the boycott without really being United so when we had the boycotts against South Africa there were extreme left-wing groups including Communists and then we'll right-wing conservative groups that were all opposed to racism in South Africa now apart from just normal conservatives you can imagine a traditional black church in Georgia you know african-americans in a conservative church in Georgia they might have been activists on this issue of opposed to racism and South Africa the apartheid governments of ever they want to change engage in this boycott and at the same time there are left-wing communists totally different political ideas but also respecting different leaders they have no common leadership no common organization no common social movement but they are united by the boycott itself without really being united right and that's a large part of what's going on right now in veganism right and my heart goes are these people I get email recently from Poland from Muslim majority countries in the Middle East I get email from all parts of Europe obviously from from America I get email from people in different countries all around the world who are trying to organize vegans into effective activists of some kind of course one of the first stumbling blocks they come on is these people have nothing in common how do you organize them how do you get them together and so on again this this struggle is at least exacerbated by the boycott mentality of course you could be in the opposite situation of having a very narrowly defined movement that has trouble reaching out to other people that's not the situation rent veganism in 2016 is internally divided divisive fragmentary there are conservatives there are liberals there are all kinds there are a lot of people who are x and r XX or people just trying to lose weight vegan for health reasons there i mean there's such a weird diversity of motives bringing people into veganism that yes it's an enormous challenge to move past the boycott mentality and yet there are no two ways about it i mean in the next 10 years that is exactly what we have to do