Why (Left-Wing) Feminists Hate Vegans / Veganism

I see a lot of very cynical very harsh
criticisms of the left-wing from people who seem to think that politics works like a mathematical formula from people who seem to think that political discourse and debate is a sort of competition to see who can snub who the fastest and the hardest who can throw out certain symbolic flags like accusations of having made am a logical fallacy proof of some kind of hidden ulterior motive bad intent flaw in reasoning as if we're both standing in front of a chalkboard in an academic setting in a university and we're just gonna cross out the other person's formula politics is not a mathematical equation on the contrary I'd say that you know the scope for meaningful sincere political discourse requires a certain kind of attachment very similar to self-mockery the ability to laugh at yourself the ability to take a step back and look at that chalkboard and say does this really make sense maybe I started drawing this picture in the chalkboard with the best of equate best of intentions it's [ __ ] me but what were my intentions now that I've got this all written out what were my objectives and for the two of you together in the debate to be able to examine the objectives to be able to examine the means being employed and to come to productive conclusions not just about right and wrong in such a simple sense the people I see doing this the people who are so-called anti sjw's anti social justice warriors anti-feminists these kind of people I don't know in their minds what they think they accomplish by proving that someone else has indulged in a logical fallacy it seems to me they really invoke the name of reason with a capital R but they have absolutely no interest in being reasonable and both sides I need to ask before getting into an issue like this can you laugh at yourself can you look at this with a little bit of detachment can you recognize the absurdity in something if you really care about it because it is absurd there are some people watching this video who will just be shocked even at the title why do left-wing feminists hate veganism some people coming in from the outside might assume the opposite aren't vegans just a bunch of left-wing feminists anyway we're not what we hear again and again what we as vegans hear from the far left wing from the intersectional feminists from the anti-racist left-wing well here's a line of reasoning that claims that veganism is elitist veganism is somehow ineluctably linked to white privilege it is therefore elitist therefore the left wing should just eat hamburgers like the working class can we take a step back and laugh at how absurd that is can we take a step back and say hey people who identify themselves as the representatives of the working poor the unionized factory workers the you know peasants in their uprisings and revolts traditional left wingers they are reproaching vegans for being elitist and rejecting veganism for being insufficiently working-class can we can we just stop and look not in the sense of this is a logical fallacy not in the sense of I'm trying to snub you or call you stupid can we take a step back look at the blackboard and ask what was the problem we were trying to solve in the first place what were our objectives and how we can accomplish those objectives because it can't be it can't be that telling vegans to eat hamburgers because if they don't they're members of an elitist an elitist white privilige movement this can't be the way forward for either party engaged in the debate veganism is racist they claim therefore eat a hamburger because that's somehow better for Mexican farmworkers how absurd is that can we take a step back and we have a laugh about it and can we see a way to move forward from this bizarre impasse these types of arguments only seem plausible when they're stated within a set of familiar ideological terms that people involved in intersectional ism left-wing feminism they've heard a million times and as soon as we take it out of those familiar terms put it more down-to-earth language or just rephrase rephrase the complaints as questions and this kind of thing the line of reasoning here soon starts to fall apart and it's just fall apart I'll just jump ahead Marvin here for very simple reason these are not mutually exclusive moral concepts if you are concerned about Mexican farmworkers good and again if we're gonna use the the SJW vocabulary here it would be non-white workers from the global South who are the victims of capitalist oppression in producing fruit and vegetables this kind of language ok that's your concern good start a foundation start a charity and let's say you employ triplets in that charity identical triplets you got three guys who are triplets working in your charity in Mexico we are trying to help I don't know farm laborers who help pick strawberries every year in in Mexico okay great I'm happy at that charity there are still questions of moral better and worse just simple relative pragmatic moral questions you have three triplets they're doing exactly the same job from 9:00 to 5:00 doing something I don't know what to help Mexican peasant laborers in that global south working for your charity working for your foundation but you know what one of them is a cocaine user one of them he's not an addict let's say he uses cocaine once every two weeks you got to take him aside and say you know Chuck what you're doing is good but it would be even better if you quit using cocaine what you're doing helping the farm works is good and then the other twin Dan take Dan aside sit look Dan what you're doing here every day helping these guys on the strawberry farm is good but if you quit smoking that will be even better not mutually exclusive you could be a chain smoker and do this kind of work with the downtrodden workers the world or you could quit smoking that would be even better and then maybe the third twin you gotta say look Steven I really appreciate the work you're doing on this farm if you quit eating hamburgers if you quit eating hamburgers from McDonald's that'd be even better there's no reason for there to be a conflict between these ideologies and we're not if we get past the ideologies we're really just talking about humanitarian motives we're really just talking about people who want to make the world a better place in more ways than one there's no reason why one problem-solving method or one set of moral concerns or one set of health concerns would exclude the other none but the reason why we as vegans get attacked again and again by the left wing by left-wing feminists intersectional anti-racist cetera is the misconception that veganism itself is elitist and that that elitism is a form of white America centric or euro centric elitism and that therefore these left wingers will lose their credentials they'll lose their status as I suppose the representatives of the working class and the downtrodden laborers and of the of the non-white masses who are supposedly about to rise up rebellion if they identify themselves with the image that they see on the packaging of the carton of soymilk now I want to say this is a really serious disclaimer I hope there are at least a few left-wing people who watch this video and stay with it the full ten minutes in now social justice warriors do have some legitimate concerns about racism and white privilege within veganism unfortunately their concerns tend to kind of begin and end with ignorance they're not nuanced they're not informed by what's really going on within veganism and they tend to follow this absurd leap of inference that veganism is racist and therefore worthless now I've already conceded the point racism is an issue within veganism and I can give you a really important example that is nuanced and is based on knowledge experience and research I think there's a really interesting and insidious form of racism surrounding white vegans living in Thailand white vegans who go on vacation or a long term vacation leave in Thailand for a year for several years there is a bizarre or kind of a moral sensibility there's a bizarre and I do think slightly racist utterly elitist worldview amongst white vegans who go to Thailand and who seem to have absolutely no interest in the political reality social reality economic reality of Thailand and what has been front-page news in Thailand since the year 2014 ok political condition in time in Thailand have been dicey for many many years for the purposes of this video I will say no more google it Wikipedia ok politics in Thailand have been extreme and extremely dangerous and we have these white people who are going there and basically putting on rose-colored glasses and imagine they live in paradise and they do have a to store and bias effect on veganism as a social movement that is a complex example of I think race issues and racism and white privilege and elitism within veganism being truly problematic and if you search this channel for the word racist if you search this channel for the word Thailand if you search this channel for the word Nazi you're actually gonna find many many videos in this channel where I am sharing some of the concerns of a stereotypical social justice warrior or a far left-wing intersectional list even though I don't identify with those people some of their concerns are valid and you'll hear me talking through those problems than veganism in a very critical down-to-earth pragmatic way that doesn't rely on the ideological vocabulary of the far left wing because I'm not I'm not left-wing without any of this knowledge this kind of insider in-depth knowledge of what the racial problems in veganism are what I see the social justice warriors doing is saying in effect quote I'm too left-wing to be vegan or that they feel they are too working-class to be vegan or that they are too anti racist to be vegan that somehow these other priorities simply matter so much more than veganism and veganism this is the real issue they perceive veganism as being by and for the rich by and for a wealthy white elite and therefore any connection with themselves in veganism is something to be avoided now look this is untrue in 10 and 20 different ways which maybe we don't need to talk about in this video I mean none of these left-wing people they all they all seem to start from the assumption that the world of veganism is the world they see in advertising for soy milk and in soy milk advertisements you may indeed see only white women in bikinis or something I don't know it's same with soap what do you see in soap advertising that means soap is only for rich white people what do you see in shampoo advertising I mean come on this is ridiculous the reality of veganism is that places like India or tremendously important places like China are tremendous important Taiwan and Israel are the two leading centers of veganism Taiwan and Israel both with their own involuted and complex racial and political problems but this is not a simple instance of a black versus white you know American political issue on a global scale you know what the current politics of veganism with in India are fascinating and there's their real potential in the next 20 years India is gonna become the world's leading vegan nation as it stands right now again we're really looking at Taiwan in Israel but there are I mean it should be immediately obvious to you just in terms of the history of Buddhism let's just leave it at that point alone the history of Buddhism alone in India and China sets a basis for the growth and expansion of veganism the next 20 years that has nothing to do with white privilege that has nothing to do with what you may see on your carton of soy milk if you're living in California or France or Germany for that matter all right so but again they're looking at this from the outside I do find it immoral to be blunt that so many of the left wingers work from the premise that only human needs matter the human needs must be paramount that human issues such as racism such as pardon me such as unionizing onion as workers farm conditions factory conditions that human needs must be dealt with first and this is immoral for two reasons one as I've already mentioned they're not mutually exclusive you can be working on farm conditions factory conditions etc like the triplets I described and at the same time you can be begin there's just no reason why they're mutually exclusive it's also profoundly immoral because you must understand that human needs are infinite we will never end every war we will never end all poverty we will never end all racism or all oppression we will never make every factory up to grade a conditions if what you are saying is that human needs always come first then it means that we will never address animal needs because you're putting them lower than a priority that is infinite and inexhaustible by definition what do you think after the Syrian civil war is over we're gonna deal with veganism after the after Iraq has settled down after Afghanistan is a peaceful democracy do you think look look yourself in the mirror what date on the calendar do you think Iran Afghanistan Syria will be peaceful democracies and after that you think veganism is gonna be priority animal rights ecology veganism only if that you think there won't be some other fire somewhere else in the world you won't be some other catastrophe by definition the challenge of human rights put it that way is infinite and exhaustible so if you do not prioritize animal rights to come first or to be simultaneous then animal rights will never be exhausted and the good news is about veganism veganism is a moral and political cause you can address here and now while at the same time addressing all those other problems you can be a soldier in the army fighting in that war and Eve Eagan you can be a peace protester protesting against that war and be vegan veganism is compatible with all sides of every conflict and with all aspects of every humanitarian cause it is also morally disturbing that so many of these people they don't just want to make human needs and concerns paramount they insist that it's only white part of me it must be non white working-class needs that are paramount and therefore any cause if it is associated with white privilege is discounted as invalid and I gotta tell you I don't feel that way at all I don't feel that we can define a virtue so that virtue is exclusive to the poor or that virtue is exclusive to factory workers or that virtue is exclusive to brown skinned people or black skinned people virtue is for everyone or else it is not virtue some people are born rich I don't want to discourage them from doing good of any kind whether that's handing out sacks of rice to starving people maybe in Syria maybe in Laos or Cambodia rich people can do charity work is that their privilege you're damn right it is or if that's being involved with veganism ecology or animal rights I recognise the same virtue the same moral act the same motives and the same consequences whether the person doing it is rich or poor whether the person is black or white and you should too racism is a problem within veganism it is white privilege is a distorting myopic bias within veganism it is problematic it is but at what point would you discount the concept of veganism itself simply because because veganism is so racist at what point would veganism have crossed that line where the concept becomes untenable because of these issues than veganism I don't think you would discard Catholicism this way Catholicism is an amazing history of racism and yet nobody says well the Catholic religion is invalid simply because of racism they get into other issues like whether or not praying to God is an effective way to end a flood get into all kinds of other issues I don't see anyone discounting Islam or Judaism or Buddhism this way and yes even Buddhism does have issues of race and racism within it there are much deeper it's much worse than any outsider would know okay I complete we concede the point to social justice warriors to left-wing feminists to intersectional as racism and white privilege are problems within veganism why can't you concede the point that just like smoking cigarettes is a problem just like using cocaine is a problem that eating meat is a problem within your movements and within your lives if you have any interest in being ethically accountable ecologically responsible and basically decent human beings