The Meaning of "Conservative" (vs. Veganism: a Message without a Movement)

what is the meaning of the word
conservative this is partly a direct answer that question and it's partly a little bit more of a broad set of reflections on how this relates to the current challenges were facing in vegan politics veganism is a message without a movement in many ways it's an important message and we're trying to get organized to be a powerful movement in different countries around the world some countries obviously are ahead of others if anyone's watching this video in Tel Aviv they'd say what do you mean it's a message that's but on the other hand if you're watching this in Paris France we just talked to a French vegan we met at a restaurant here the other day he was saying yeah that's about accurate in Paris France the system is secure that a movement all right the meanings of terms like left and right are used in the English language in politics so need to be left or left wing politically right waiting politically they're used as if they have self-evident constant reliable meanings but if we just stop and kvetch about it for a minute we all know that actually the meanings these terms change from decade to decade and from place to place from one culture to another from period of time to another from one country to another and sometimes even within the same country what you mean by calling someone a liberal in Texas may not be the same as what's meant by a liberal in Los Angeles within the United States of America but I noticed that in the last couple of years because of the decaying utility of the word liberal itself the meaning of the word liberal has really become diluted and obfuscated it's become difficult to use the word liberal with a straight face anymore more and more the term that's used in English I think is progressive people talk about progressive politics now this is an incredibly biased term the meaning of the word progressive is we collectively as a culture have some kind of list of issues on which we feel the way forward is clear the direction of progress is known and not open for debate and anyone who opposes the progress of those issues is a regressive or a conservative whereas those who support progress in those areas on those issues in those directions is a progressive this is a massively massively biased term there are people on this earth who identify as conservative who describe themselves who will say they are conservative however nobody identifies as a regress as a regressive No people s to identify themselves as an enemy of progress and in the other hand we all know it's completely self-serving to define your own cause simply as one of progress it just means you're right that's all it means anyone who disagrees D was wrong now in the not-too-distant past around the Year 1989 of course the whole of the left was was shocked and challenged was the concept of progress the concept of the way ahead for socialism for communism but for the left in general massively stirred up by the collapse of the Berlin Wall the fact that everyone recognized that communism had been a disaster in Russia in China also in smaller communist states like Vietnam Laos Cuba there was this moment when the whole of the left had to stop and reconsider wait what is it were supposed to be pressing the hearts and I think the use of progressive actually did drop out of drop out of circulation for a few decades there but in those same few decades we had the rise of first neoconservatism and then the liberalism the word liberal start to become meaningless and now here we are today where it's a really legitimately contestable question what do any of these words mean especially if you're in international politics especially if like someone like me I deal with politics in Japan and China not to mention Sweden England Ireland or something know what's in a while I'm interested in politics in North Africa I'm interested in politics we've been doing a lot of reading lately and lot of worrying lately about politics in places like Yemen to just within this me and my girlfriend spend a lot of time talking about Yemen lately anyway it's pretty much world war four in the greater Saudi Arabia part of the world these days ah it is if you have an international focus then the meaning of any of these term starts to come dubious indeed textbook political science would give you the following answer about the meaning of the word conservative and it links to the origin of the terms left and right as in left-wing and right-wing within politics the unique origin story for the word conservative is linked to Edmund Burke Edmund Burke he wasn't a conservative ironically but on one specific issue he was considered conservative and that was his criticism of the French Revolution now on that issue of course he proved to be right it's difficult to put yourself back in history put yourself in the role of a normal reader someone who just read the newspapers the day they did have newspapers back now of how crazy Edmund Burke's warning about the French Revolution would have sound at the time Edmund Burke was a guy who in the early stages of the French Revolution reigned the alarm bell saying this is going to end in kind of mass murder and the collapse of society I don't think he ever used the term mass murder but still if you read it the original source you can see his point is there that sounded crazy all kinds of people is it what why will you this is fear-mongering this is demonizing the French Revolution come on the French Revolution made some obvious some obvious steps in the right direction in terms of progress the French Revolution was for example opposed to slavery these people say they're gonna abolish slavery they're gonna replace dictatorship they're gonna place aristocracy with democratic system of government sounds good right well Edmund Burke didn't just ring the alarm bells it turns out that is his alarm was right the French Revolution did indeed go on to to massacres but what's important to note here in terms the meaning of the word conservative still today is why he made that inference why he made that judgment why he made that prediction and that does link in a profound and meaningful sense to to what conservative still means now and mmin Burke's analysis was based on what we would today call folkways folkways or you could just say customs like the customs of the common people right he does not write this in a sort of schematic or analytical fashion to be honest this theory really appears like a series of emotional outbursts throughout his book his critique of the revolution of France as I recall that book was originally a letter that was the Golden Age of letter writing you know from one person other than it was a private letter that was to some extent edited and made into into book form so it's not perhaps not even as formally written as some of his other writing but in any case if you try to read that book today you might feel you're you're kind of reading the disorganized thoughts of a blogger in 21st century terms but nevertheless he very sincerely warns that the reality of how democracy works not even just democracy he was he was lukewarm with democracy his fuchal devote England so this is still debatable today was that the people of England were too stupid and too poorly educated to have democracy if therefore they needed they need an aristocratic system they did have a semi democratic system with the never star be on top to defend them from themselves to prevent the people from running amok which is indeed what happened in the French Revolution is that was that of course it's the truth the truth of course was more complicated than that but nevertheless look this idea of folk ways and customs that relationships of authority social stability most of what is good in our society doesn't rely on written law doesn't proceed from a kind of rational system created by a king or a dictator or democratic Parliament that there's this body of kind of uncounted principles and beliefs in how the butcher the baker the candlestick maker all get along the substance of social harmony itself and to a large extent also that the day-to-day reality of a I guess a trust human interactions social cohesion and indeed authority relationships Authority this comes down to folk customs folk ways we'd now say and the reason why he warned the French Revolution was so dangerous was that this was going to tear apart the basis for social harmony itself and then society would collapse into a kind of orgy of violence in turn a scene fighting and mass murder in one area now the whole history of the world would be different if he'd been wrong what if the French Revolution had settled down into a kind of stable reliable democracy what if anything other than the Great Terror had happened so the later period the french revolutions referred to as the great terror and then significantly in terms of the this theory of folkways and folk customs the french revolution did return to a customary form of monarchy and indeed monarchical despotism because what happened next was Napoleon that's a dictatorship poet right so that's a long story we're not getting into but it's interesting this concept of conservatism and and Edmund Burke is still formally named in every political science textbook as the first conservative as the man who define conservatism because he's the one guy who stood up at a time when in England almost everyone was kind of applauding at least the potential of the French Revolution to be a great and wonderful thing for the the future of the world he's the one who stood up and said no this is gonna end in massacres an attorney who was right why was he right because of this concept of social Authority concision pardon me social Authority cohesion custom etc and still to this day you can say the Conservatives are positively the people who value those folkways now here's the problem and here's why this is I think we're talking about in relation to veganism the meaning of folk custom or you could say in Republican Party sense of traditional values right what are traditional values in Texas and what are traditional values in Manhattan what are traditional values in Saudi Arabia what are traditional values in Sri Lanka okay so there have been some videos lately by tofu goddess and she kind of asked the question why is it that left wingers are associate with veganism and conservatives are not well I think what's really important to draw attention to here is that some of the countries where veganism has been most successful are precisely the countries where veganism does rate pardon me where thicken ISM rate would work where veganism does resonate with conservative values where it builds on folk customs or folk ways and more conservatives can go by nor do tend to get by right so first and foremost is Taiwan Taiwan is I think the strongest vegan culture in the world conservative Taiwanese culture values veganism and the questions it raises partly because it's a culture that's emerged of a mix of Mahayana Buddhism Taoism Confucianism various Chinese cultural values and of course also anti-communism that whole island exists only in a struggle for its own survival against communist China it's another story but in those unique circumstances when I was in Taiwan I met really conservative really macho ex-military guys who were vegan you know no no I didn't meet a hundred of them I couldn't speak Chinese back then but like I met several of these guys and it was a you know when I talk about yeah yeah that's like a known stereotype you know the guy who gets out of the army some of them some of them are vegan well they were in the army I asked them about that too you know what I mean sort of mean old mean old we would say right weighing a mean old conservative guy one of them was was Special Forces he was a real killer he talked to me about it and we learned to strangle people and all that [ __ ] he was a hands-on hands-on kind of guy in the Army the he was he was serious as hell about about veganism let me tell you anyway and he um he actually told me that he was a Buddhist but later friend he was a member of a Taoist group anyway so this is this is a culture where veganism is thriving and now and it's thriving in part because it has roots in conservatism they're not in Texas right I think not in England or Wales or you know most of Western Europe but there's something for us to learn here and it's not a broad generalization about the nature of conservatism unless we understand in this way and I think the classical Edmund Burke sense that conservatism has to do with being rooted in folk folk ways valuing those folk ways more than the potential for rational reform rational reform proceeding like lines drawn on a chalkboard or like you know lines on a blank piece of paper writing up a new constitution that was a new idea that I'm you know hey we're just gonna write a new constitution to change the whole country United States did it France did it and other countries like the Netherlands start to jump on the constitutional ban about writing a new constitution it to some extent it can change country overnight but to some extent it can't and you could say that conservatives are putting up this on the side of the equation what doesn't so Tom walls one example we're right now in Thailand we went to a meeting of vegan activists here at a local restaurant and I asked the question seriously you know does Thailand now have the potential to catch up with Taiwan this way Thailand also of a culture built in this case on Terra battle Buddhism but you know the Buddhist roots of the culture in so many ways nothing left-wing about being vegetarian here in Thailand I mean the concepts of left wing and right wing are a bit surreal in the Thai context but you know in the the near political future for Thailand I absolutely feel Thailand has the potential to catch up with Taiwan and become a really powerful you know vegan culture but not because of socialism not because of communism not even because of Bernie Sanders or that style of you know not because of free health care a free diversity education or any of the ideas that kind of Bernie Sanders moderate left I don't I don't even consider Bernie Sanders of socials I think I'm as moderate moderate left but anyway whatever it has nothing to do with that right and you know the the biggest question of all in the map is India India with its more than a billion people and you know a culture that of course I mean they they used to have the monopoly on Buddhism they don't need more Buddhism is now a small minority religion there they have Buddhism they have Hinduism they have Jainism they have all this discourse surrounding you know killing animals and eating meat and drinking milk it's a very complex you know a murky picture obviously India their tradition really that the parameters there is vegetarianism not veganism but anyone who just does Wikipedia level reading about that we'll see there's an enormous potential there and again it is fundamentally you could say a conservative tendency so I've used this example in conversation really so recent I forget where it was when we were talking the other vegans or not but I said I think it was I said look you know Taiwan is a country where women will literally reschedule their abortion after consulting a Buddhist monk to try to find the day on the calendar when the ghosts of the aborted fetus is least likely to haunt them I mean that's conservative that's folkways that is folk culture folk religion I mean this is your grand this is not a religion written down in any book this is not you know the Buddha taught blank no this is centuries of truly you know talk about traditional values [ __ ] you know I mean you know Republicans listen to Britney Spears they think Britney Spears in you know a tube top it's traditional values no it ain't Taiwan has got traditional youth let me trust you but those are the people who are you know inclined towards veganism I think more than anybody of course the truth is more complicated than that I could say a whole lot more about that but you can see this raises real interesting questions about the present and future potential veganism and its relationship to liberalism conservatives myths that are in a much more dynamic way the other big question not going to talk about here and a Scanlan used to have a video talking about it was the extent to which veganism in Israel Israel is another big success story for veganism is actually conservative in nature and it links to conservative judaism and the dietary regulations and in reaction to that you know I do think I do think vegans in Israel are gonna be more more left-wing than right wing within the Israeli political spectrum but you say I think there are actually really important questions asked there I think if you're doing serious social science research on veganism in Israel one of these to focus on is the extent to which it's not an exclusively left-wing or socialist thing and that's probably why some studies are saying there above 5% vegans maybe only get to being above 5% when you're not just a bunch of left-wing hippies you're not just a bunch of socialists but you appeal to at least people in the center moderates and maybe you'll start appealing to conservatives as well but again the meaning of conservatism is ultimately rooted in culture folk culture tradition of Ives folk ways and bizarrely Edmund Burke's critique of the French Revolution okay one end this video with a thought experiment a lot of people make videos here on YouTube with the premise with the implicit assumption that vegan outreach and public education really matters that it's maybe the most important thing what do I mean by this vei mean somebody with a pamphlet walking up to you on the street handing you a pamphlet and saying go vegan okay this is what we mean by vegan average some people think that's the core of the movement so we got to be devoting our money to and our time to that's the most effective form of of activism okay if we really believe this if we take this premise seriously if vegan outreach does matter and does work and we look at the current situation analytically we would have to conclude that vegan outreach as we're doing it only works for left-wing people totally in context like the United States of America so we're not talking about Taiwan not talking about individually we would have to come to the conclusion that we're somehow producing pamphlets that only people further to the left of Bernie Sanders responsive right if we really believe in this method of teaching and preaching veganism no I don't I'm an ultra skeptic about what's going on right now under the name of a vegan average I don't believe this I think that way madness lies we have groups like direct action everywhere who say their methods are based on social science research and all this fabulous research they've done learning the lessons of history they've learned so much from studying the history of Mohandas Gandhi in India and of the Arab Spring after 2011 they say they've learned so much and what's the best idea direct action everywhere comes up with walk into a restaurant and demand to buy dog meat and then when they don't have dog meat throw a fit and say the dog meat is the same as calcium this is the fresh the fresh new idea they can come up with and apparently this only this only appeals to left-wing extremist and then they come on the internet and show you the video on YouTube of them doing this in a restaurant I'm causing a scene in a restaurant demanding dog meat and they encourage you to you and all your friends should throw it and demand dog meat from the restaurant this is this is quote unquote disruption this is gonna change the world this is gonna save the animals gonna save the planet no it's not but if we believe that if you if this is your conviction if you're someone who really believes in in vegan outreach and these methods of activism and disruption if you do or if you want to analyze the current situation with that premise treating it as valid until it's proven invalid that's an important thing to do as the thought experiment then you must come to the inclusion in the United States of America in Canada in Western Europe we're using methods of outreach that don't work because they only work for the left-wing lunatic fringe now I think I've presented this kind of 180 degrees opposite of what the real situation is the real situation is you're using methods like this like disruption from direct action everywhere that in fact are only appealing to people who already deeply committed to not just not just then up just Bernie Sanders people but people who are communists or left-wing soldiers people are far far out and left-wing they see those methods of street protest disruption those hubs and they think oh I can really this is the same thing I used to do when I was protesting in support of the Soviet Union or whatever was it relates to them on that aesthetic and political level as part of the same tradition of of left-wing street activism there are various reasons why okay now if we flip this around and ask what if outreach doesn't matter what if this is basically something impotent and something frankly even ritualistic that we're doing as vegans then I think we start to take the steps towards the truth which is that we're not living in a society where the body of vegans is constituted by people who at random happen to be handed a pamphlet on a university campus and it changed their whole lives we have clusters of people who become vegan because veganism presents them with answers to questions that they were asking themselves anyway in Taiwan I saw people who became vegan because they were asking questions that Buddhism couldn't answer they were frustrated with Buddhism that were dissatisfied with pudding they said Buddhism is corrupt Buddhism is failing to answer these questions about ecology but doesn't failing to that question but war war in the anti-war movement people become vegan because the anti-war movement I mean it's not that paradoxical they already had these questions whether they were left-wing or right-wing and many of them as sit were conservative they already had questions and then they saw in veganism and answer and you're looking at a really peculiar and cultural subgrouping some people as you know the questions were about having a heart attack you know what have you but I mean probably I mean the big ones are of ethics ecology etc then I get to get people to really commit to this lifestyle so we're looking at a funny cross-section of people who whether or not they were ever given a pamphlet we're already asking these questions and then found in veganism the answer that's that's going to be your first 2% of the population who become vegan and now we're looking at the next 2% if we if we get there if we can reach them which is people who are not asking those questions who are not into those questions yet can we lead them to ask this question us have been through this with our own parents right so I cared about these questions so I became vegan I sit down with my own mom I'd say mom do you ever ask yourself blank defective is it possible for me to get you to question your subjective life and my implicit point in this whole video is if we even want to be as successful as Taiwan already is if we want to be a successful thing as Israel is and as places like Thailand and India have the potential to be we have to be framing those questions we have to be raising those doubts in a way that actually does resonate with conservatives that does resonate with moderate people with people at the center of the political spectrum and walking into a restaurant and throwing a fit because they don't have dog meat that ain't it okay guys there's a playlist I'll give the link to below this video which is called brass tacks and there I'm gathering my recent videos talking about practical questions of practical Ansel's about how we move forward with a vegan movement and I mean those are questions of nationís some extend this channel all along but from my perspective I'm just giving up I've been talking about this stuff YouTube for three years but I'm finally going back to Canada I'm finally going back to a country where I have the right to vote and to organize politically so maybe we can finally start to make a difference