Losing Faith in Veganism: the Failed (But Necessary) Revolution.

veganism is not just a diet it's a revolutionary way of living it is completely antithetical to [Music] recorded history you know it's it is something very radical and i had to be honest with myself in deciding that i'm not going to live as a radical i'm not going to live as a revolutionary i want to say that i completely agree with the vegan message [Music] i have no issues with the diet nutritionally or practically it's a perfectly fine way to live i was a vegan for almost four years and it's not hard it's not difficult [Music] but [Music] you know i got into veganism because i thought it was the thing to do if you want to change the world the better environment and the reason i stopped is because it wasn't the diet itself nutritionally but the diet socially the future challenges i would face in finding a wife who was vegan in raising children as vegans all the conflict that would occur because of that that i would have to make because of my commitment to veganism it became very unappealing and then when i thought about that you know the prospect of living as an activist for this cause i realized i didn't i didn't want to spend my life that way i don't think people in general are evil i think people just follow [Music] follow [Music] the trends follow the traditions of their culture of their society and i include myself obviously in that category over time as you go on being a vegan in your life over time it will socially make you [Music] crazy it'll make you hate everyone around you it'll make you hate your country and the way people just don't care about anything that you care about everywhere you go every restaurant you go to [Music] every friend's house you go to unless they happen to be vegan it will and you will think terrible things about the people that you come into contact with you'll think tell the things about your siblings and your parents and your grandparents everything you know i am choosing to live i'm choosing to do as romans do do as americans as westerners as really every population does for maybe a few minority populations in india who live strictly vegetarian living as a vegan is a sign of advanced morality of incredible attention to detail and incredible attention to [Music] you know lives that people really don't consider to be worth anything with the lives of cows chickens and perries or whatever but i do view veganism as basically doomed so yeah i didn't want to live for a lifestyle or a movement that i thought was due and so i stopped i am consciously rejecting veganism and its ideas because i think it is due [Music] because i don't care much for [Music] symbolic moral victories and it's like something you do when you're enthusiastic about the prospect for change in that respect you know when it comes to the environment animal welfare stuff like that but as the years went on it just became clear that this was not anything more than a symbolic gesture and i'm not one for symbolic gestures i want um change in the world not just one one guy you know living in his own eccentric way by refusing to eat meat dairy eggs etc [Music] we talk about suffering in a very strange way in our culture in this area when you say suffering the first image that comes to mind is probably torture interrogation and then maybe the secondary meaning of the word is as somewhat snide and insincere use in a certain kind of turn of phrase like suffering for his art you know the pursuit of political change involves suffering and not just a little bit of suffering and guys i rarely talk about the history of science or the philosophy of science on this channel but in its way scientific progress technological progress if you read the biographies and autobiographies of the men and women who made it happen you'll start to appreciate that it involves suffering as well in a very sincere sense scientists and researchers they also are people who have to suffer for their art when you look at the vegan movement as it is today and then you look at the history of different movements that have sought each in their own way to fundamentally and profoundly change the world to ethically and politically transform the daily norm for the human race what i have to ask you is who has suffered less and yet when you think of suffering you may immediately think of war explosions torture physically real suffering and obvious ways but you know what when you think about the abolition of slavery yes some people were members of a movement some people were members of a salon some people were members of a lobbying committee you know they worked with lawyers and lobbyists in our terms you know and some people were all alone there's a different kind of suffering in that isolation some people grew up completely surrounded by slavery and the excuses made for slavery they were never part of any movement and they had to make the decision as isolated individuals that they were not going to support that institution they were going to do something to oppose it to overturn it to open up the road to a better future to a better tomorrow for us all i read a few pages of an autobiography i i didn't read that much because it was quite boring autobiography of a black woman who in the days of slavery was raised as a sort of experiment by white people who felt powerless in opposing slavery and decided that they would raise some black children as if they were white with all the benefits of education and just kind of food shelter and clothing and they would see if it were possible in fact for black people to be intellectually equal to white people hashtag spoilers this woman in her autobiography was describing that when she first started publishing articles you know later she moved on to writing and publishing books the most common response was of denial was of white people claiming that this was impossible white people insisted because they needed it for their own uh sense of moral certainty they needed to believe that black people were incapable of this kind of intellectual development area edition and capable of responding to education that black people were by their biological nature doomed to be nothing more than beasts of burden exploited by the slave system the most common response was of white people insisting no that's impossible it must be that one of these pious white christians some preacher is you know ghost writing her material and then she's pretending it's hers and as i recall some kind of visit from a journalist was arranged like somebody came to independently verify that yes she could read and she could write that she was the person producing these these articles okay you might think it's symbolic you might think it doesn't matter at all for one family of white people to adopt and raise you know one or two black children as their own and to treat them as equal and say hey within our tiny little society within the society of this household this family we're going to treat black people as equal to whites and we're going to prove that it can be done on that smallest scale one man one woman one child and you know what i have to say to you i think that was one of the most powerful political gestures anyone ever could have accomplished in the struggle against slavery this guy while he was a vegan he may have been one of the most brilliant and insightful people in the movement i've spent so many years talking to [ __ ] idiots who are leaders in this movement people people who have had money and fame and privilege handed to them by the vegan movement people who never thought it through as much as this guy took her dead so it took her i don't flatter anyone and i don't set up my criticism of other people by saying you know five or six complementary things to give sort of flattering context to it when i stick the knife in and tell them what a [ __ ] idiot they are i don't play that way all right i can say sincerely took her you were involved in the vegan movement for four years well guess what you had more insight into the movement more understanding you seem to really be much more brilliant than people who are in the movement for 20 years 40 years and who are still [ __ ] sleepwalking all right you obviously understood the strengths and weaknesses of veganism far better than some of the most influential players in the game ever have or ever will so i'm i'm sorry to see you go and your cynicism the movement needs it the movement doesn't need more bikini models movement doesn't need more bodybuilders you know it needs more people like you it needs more people who can point out what's wrong and what's hopeless about the vegan movement but your problem is tucker you appear to be a computer programmer and you seem to be a victim of a problem many computer programmers have which is that you think that by understanding a problem in principle you understand it absolutely and with social and political problems it's not enough to understand rules it's not enough to understand generalizations principles you have to understand a whole constellation of mutually contradictory and contrasting examples all right you say that one man alone can't change the world that just one person being vegan is merely symbolic okay one person can make a difference in opposing slavery all right one person did [Music] with nothing but a pen with nothing but a pen and a piece of paper frankly no particular literary talent the quality of his writing is abysmal right voltaire changed the world and he challenged one of the most cruel one of the most barbaric but also one of the most profitable industries in the world when he took on slavery with nothing but satire here's what i want to ask you if you had never met anyone who was vegan before in your [ __ ] life if you were completely alone if you didn't even really have the concept of veganism or the word do you think you could be brilliant enough to figure it out do you think you could take a look at how the slaughterhouses operate the ecological consequences the evidence whatever you want to say do you think you could put the pieces together without ever having met a vegan without ever having heard the word without knowing any of the propaganda do you think that you could come to the conclusion that you alone should do what those people did in their isolated desperate stand taking a stand against slavery not being part of an abolitionist movement not having an organization or money behind you and not even having a social circle of 10 to 20 cheerleaders to pat you on the back or make you feel good about yourself do you think you could be a vegan if veganism didn't exist if it never had existed and you were starting from a blank sheet of paper well my answer to you is yes you can and a guy like you you can do better than gary yourofsky ever did you can do better than gary francione ever did you can do better than all the [ __ ] artists who have milked this movement for money and fame and in 2022 the game ain't over yet you still can you