Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan and if you are vegan, let me remind you of
how amazing that is.
What you have done is breaking free from 16,000 years of conditioning that makes us humans
see other animals as mere objects of exploitation.
And by doing so, your world has grown livelier, more exciting and kinder.
Above all else, what I admire the most in my fellow vegans is that very independent
mindedness, that capacity to think and feel against the strong winds of normalized animal
exploitation.
And this is what today's episode is about.
Staying faithful to that independence of mind, to avoid the trappings of mob mentality and
tribalism, even when that push to conform and abandon critical thinking comes from within
the vegan community.
To discuss this topic, I have with me Andres.
Andres is a long time vegan activist and a returning guest of the show.
You might recognize him from episode 10 of the podcast titled Identifying as a Vegan
Conservative.
Link to that episode and more in the show notes.
Thanks, Andres for doing
the landing.
but I'm gonna do what makes sense to me.
And so growing up, I did hold more liberal values,
but as time goes on and I learn more about history
and culture changes and all that,
it does seem like a lot of my views
have landed with more conservative values.
And what I was gonna say is that especially growing up
in music and art and underground scenes and all that,
it's almost expected that you would be liberal
or leftist, but when I think about the values
that I cherish, it seems to line up with more conservative
and libertarian values.
And then becoming vegan,
I am now understanding that it doesn't require
a certain political belief or political background
to be vegan.
And even though there are appeals to tradition
with conservatism and approaching a vegan world
is inherently progressive, right?
We're progressing towards that vegan world.
I still think that there are many links
to the vegan principle and conservative values.
So I imagine that we'll be touching on some of those today.
Definitely, I feel the same way.
I feel like when I was a kid,
things that belonged on the left,
those things I was very much engaged with.
And then growing up, you develop critical thinking
and you start thinking,
why do I have this tribal mindset?
Why do I have to accept the entire left bundle?
Why can't I just choose ideas from the left,
from the right, use my critical thinking skills
and just look for the truth?
So there's this French writer, Albert Camus,
most people know him.
And he once, he's quoted saying,
I'm not on the left, I'm not on the right,
I'm with the truth.
And I followed the truth wherever it takes me.
And I started feeling more and more that way.
Maybe a concrete example of that would be,
that intersects with veganism too, is the environment.
There's a lot of nonsense coming from the left
about the environment.
Maybe a good example of that would be windmills.
I'm against windmills, they kill so many birds.
When you have them on the ocean floor,
they create sound barriers that kill lots of whales
and marine life.
It's just a horrible idea.
And aesthetically, it's just, it doesn't look good.
And surprisingly, the one that criticizes windmills is now,
Trump, you hear him talk about how it's bad
for the environment and you think, wait, why is this,
it's supposed to be the left talking about,
critically about such things.
Why is Trump talking about windmills?
I think on the Joe Rogan experience.
And saying what everyone knows, but doesn't say out loud.
So you find nuggets of nonsensical positions here and there,
and you start being more skeptical about your views
and where you are on the political spectrum.
And like you said, why do we have to choose a tribe?
Yep, and you start to realize that it becomes
so much more nuanced than what people believe
or what people perpetuate out there
that if you are a person who has voted
for a particular candidate,
you must have all these characteristics or traits about you
and you must have all these beliefs
as if we're not complex beings who can have nuanced takes
on down the political spectrum talking with each topic.
So yeah, conservatives can care about the environment
and conservatives can want stewardship for the earth.
And then similarly, there could be folks on the left
who are a little bit more tight on social issues
or folks on the left who might have a nuanced take
on something like abortion.
And I think we touched on this in the last podcast
where we talked a bit about this topic,
which of course is very controversial and contentious.
So we don't have to go too far down it,
but one thing that I have come to believe
through years of thinking about politics and moral issues
is that similar to how veganism,
this is the theory of mine, but a firm belief
that similar to how veganism is not tied
to a political lane,
I also believe that abortion should not be tied
to a political lane or a side of the political spectrum.
And I know that it seems kind of outlandish
for somebody who is in the United States to believe so
because especially with this last election,
it was so divided where if you're voting Democrat,
it must be that you are pro-abortion.
If you're voting Republican,
it must be that you're abortion.
But I think that that's just the way
that culturally it has come to.
Is my connection unstable?
Was I glitching out a second?
So there are a few words that were lost,
but I think we understand the overall.
The point that I was making was that through time,
the political parties, I believe,
have chosen to latch onto this issue
in order to create like a clear divide on this.
And the left has made it like a women's rights issue
and the right has made it a religious issue
when my personal belief is that it's a moral issue
and it shouldn't be tied to political parties.
So that's just one little nugget I wanted to drop in there
that this particular issue, similar to veganism,
I think is more tied to morals than it is to politics.
And just going back to what we were saying,
it's so nuanced and it can be, and it should be,
and we should be able to have these kinds of conversations
without putting each other in boxes and saying that like,
these must be all if you voted a particular way,
or if you have a certain view economically
on one side of the spectrum,
it must be that all your other views
are on that side of the spectrum.
And it's simply not the case.
Absolutely.
And let me get, because I read the book recently,
well, not recently, like a few months ago,
called Beating Hearts,
and it's about the intersection of abortion
and animal rights.
And that book really pushed me to be critical
on my views about abortion.
And I just want to read the introduction,
of the book because it,
I feel it really captures why
this debate of abortion intersecting with animal rights
is not that straightforward.
So just give me a minute.
Sure.
Guess there are lots of romance book called Beating Hearts.
I typed Beating Hearts abortion animal rights,
and it came up immediately.
Oh, okay.
So this is how,
so I guess the back of the book,
this is what you can read.
How can someone who condemns hunting,
animal farming and animal experimentation
also favor legal abortion,
which is the deliberate destruction of a human fetus?
The authors of Beating Hearts aim to reconcile
this apparent conflict and examine the surprisingly similar
strategic and tactical questions faced by activists
in the pro-life and animal rights movement.
And I do recommend this book,
like highly, highly recommend the book.
It's from a lawyer called Michael C. Dorff,
and he's his wife who
has, is now deceased.
But it really goes into the details of why this is,
you know, the default view of pro-choice versus pro-life
is not that straightforward.
And if you are a vegan, if you believe in animal rights,
you should look at this debate with more nuances.
So yeah, it did make me ask the question,
why do I support abortion when
I don't kill mosquitoes?
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know,
through thinking about this over time as well,
I have, and I guess we are going down this conversation,
I was gonna say maybe we could touch on it,
but not dive in, but if you wanna dive in,
I definitely have thought about this quite a bit.
And I see through my advocacy, you know,
having developed a firm anti-abortion stance,
I should be clear on that,
and through no affiliation to politics
and through no religious beliefs.
I have certain particular religious beliefs.
I'm not necessarily an atheist,
but my views on abortion and veganism for that matter,
are not related to politics or religion.
It's simply a moral issue.
And I, you know, through my advocacy,
my anti-abortion advocacy,
I have sensed that there are parallels
in the reasoning that people use for being pro-abortion
and that people use for being non-vegan.
And just for the sake of clarity,
I do wanna announce that I'll be using anti-abortion
and pro-abortion for clarity,
rather than pro-life and pro-choice.
I feel like those are euphemisms, truthfully,
if we're saying pro-choice,
we're saying pro the choice to abort.
So we can just kind of shorten it to pro-abort
or pro-abortion and then anti-abortion,
which is where I land.
And yeah, as I mentioned,
there are plenty of parallels that I see
between pro-abortion and non-vegan arguments.
There's a sense of devaluing each individual
where I believe that there's a life at conception
and a unique individual at conception.
And so people will justify it by saying,
well, it's just a clump of cells.
And that's similar to what we hear non-vegans say,
well, it's just an animal.
It's not a worthy being.
You know, we can assign the value to this being.
So that's like one parallel there.
The convenience argument is very popular with non-vegans
and it's very popular with pro-aborts
where they're saying it's easier for me to exploit animals
and it's easier for me to abort this pregnancy,
get on with my life and just wash my hands and move on.
Cultural conditioning is big.
Society normalizes both animal exploitation and abortion,
especially in art and underground and music scenes
that I run around in, it's like, it's expected.
I think because of the framing culturally that abortion
and being pro-abortion is a woman's rights issue.
It's a lot of like words that are used
to have people believe a certain thing
when the victim in this situation would be the individual
who has his or her life removed from them,
robbed from them.
The opportunity that they have to live
has been taken from them due to somebody else's decision.
And that's where I'm against that.
And then just a couple more here going down the list,
the power dynamic.
This one I would say is maybe the biggest overlap
is that there's a more powerful individual
who's exploiting a vulnerable individual
in the case of animal exploitation
and in the case of abortion.
And if I'm against it on one end,
I must be against it on the other end.
And I should add that I arrived at the anti-abortion position
after becoming vegan
and after understanding the vegan principle.
And yeah, this last one was euphemism,
which we touched on earlier.
Euphemisms like pro-choice, like women's rights,
and euphemisms like meat or humane slaughter
or processing, harvesting, all these things
that are sanitizing the act of exploiting others.
So yeah, I've given this some thought.
I've even thought about making content,
talking more about how similar these issues are
and how I believe that they are two
of society's biggest moral blind spots.
But again, I also similarly want to detangle
the abortion issue from politics,
even though it does align with conservatism,
I don't believe that it should be such an issue
that's tied to politics.
Then you should definitely get the book
because they even go into the details
of analyzing the activism of pro, sorry, pro-life
and animal rights activists.
For instance, by showing the tactic,
by talking about the tactic of showing footage
of a fetus getting killed or aborted,
and how animal rights activists do the same
with animal abuse footage, which is very fascinating,
the parallels of those two.
Yeah, yeah, and a lot of it is street advocacy,
sidewalk counseling outside of an abortion facility,
and street activism with veganism.
And for anybody who might be listening
who is maybe firmly pro and still,
or maybe firmly pro-abortion and still believing this
to be something that only people who want to control women
or exploit women or who dislike women,
it's a misogynist act, I just want to lay the foundation
with both activists, an animal rights activist
and an anti-abortion activist.
It's coming from a place of love and respect
and wanting what's best for everyone.
It's not that we want the woman to suffer
and the child to succeed, we want what's best for everyone.
It's similar with animal rights messaging.
We don't want people to, families to suffer
because now the farmer can't provide for his family.
And it's like, we're not here wanting worse for people,
we just want justice, we want fairness,
and we want to achieve a world
where others aren't being exploited
based on someone else's decision.
We don't have that right to impede
on someone else's wellbeing.
And that goes back to conservatism and libertarian values,
individual freedoms to exist freely,
to not be exploited, to not be enslaved.
And with the abortion issue,
I know that many people will paint the pregnant mother
as the one who's being exploited
or the one who's being forced into a decision,
but it's a situation where there's another individual
who's being affected if you go through with this operation.
And we already disagree with affecting the fetus
by drinking, smoking, or doing drugs.
So it should just extend that we also want what's best
for the individual to not unnecessarily rob his only chance
at being born or at existing.
Yes, definitely.
And that's the shift that happened to me.
I think I had the wrong perception
and I had some prejudices on what it meant to be pro-life.
And I felt like this was a misguided position
based on all patriarchal values.
And then I discovered through reading, beating hearts,
that there is actually a very convincing case
for being pro-life, which made me respect that position.
I don't think I became pro-life.
I think I'm still pro-abortion, pro-choice,
but within asterisks.
Now it's not as black and white as I used to be.
For instance, here in Quebec, where I live in Canada,
there is no, I think so, I looked it up,
and I think there is no limit for abortion.
So you can have abortion at any time.
And I find this to be just horrific morally.
I think that if your child can be brought to life
and sustain itself without the help of the mother,
why do you have to kill that child?
But it does happen.
So yeah.
Yeah, and that brings me to another parallel
that I can think of, which reflects a breakthrough
that I've had with my ideas on veganism
and understanding veganism a little bit more,
which we can go into in a bit,
but I do wanna identify this other parallel
that I thought of now, which has come to me before.
But when we're talking about abortion happening
at some point between conception and the nine months,
you do hear many people who might be a little bit
more moderate on the topic saying,
well, I think I should have a choice to abort the fetus,
but not after a certain amount of time,
because at that point it becomes cruel.
At that point, it's a little bit worse than the other case.
And it might be worse because the child might have
a more developed sense of sentience
and a more developed sense of consciousness.
It might be worse because there is actually a viable way
for this child to be delivered
and kept alive outside of the womb.
So people will categorize that in their minds as saying,
this is better welfare for the individual
than this over here.
So I'm against this kind of late-term abortion,
but I'm pro earlier term abortion.
And that brings me to like welfareism
with animal exploitation, where we're saying,
like these certain practices I'm really against.
I'm really against the factory farming and all that,
but small local farms or other forms of exploitation
are okay when my stance on both topics
are that at conception, there's a unique individual
who has his or her own DNA,
who will continue existing unless there's some interruption.
And so interrupting that after the child has been conceived
is morally wrong and similar to with exploitation.
Like the vegan objective is to rid the exploitation
of animals by humans.
So it doesn't matter the scale, the level of suffering,
the abuse versus use, it's simply that there's an individual
who's having his or her autonomy taken from them
and is being used for someone else's benefit.
That's the line that's drawn.
It's a stance against exploitation.
So that's just another thing that came to me
that I'm thinking that like, it's more of a hard cut.
If you're into philosophy, it's like a deontological decision
or deontological decision-making
rather than a utilitarian thing about maximizing pleasure
and reducing suffering.
It's more like principally this is wrong.
And so regardless of consequences,
this is where I draw the line.
Yes, on that, I think I have more of the Peter Singer
position, which is the degree of sentience
and basically the degree of suffering
that that being would experience
and having to balance that with the degree of suffering
that the mother or ex-person would have to go through.
Yes, definitely.
I mean, I do have this more Peter Singer-esque.
Where there's like a range of suffering
and you can make a calculation and balance it out.
Yeah, I understand that for some people it's more on that.
I think through my own reflection
and thinking and reading, it's become more
of like that principle-based.
But I understand your own.
Would you say that it also is reflected in that way
with veganism as far as like a reduction of suffering
as opposed to a clear stance against exploitation?
Yes, now that gets tricky.
I want an abolition.
I want, I think that there is nothing wrong
with being idealistic in your advocacy
and asking for the moon.
But do I think, does the pragmatic in me think
that we will arrive at a point where there is no suffering
in exploitation of animals?
I don't believe that.
I think we should definitely go for the moon,
but we will not reach that.
And I think that with some audiences,
you have to be a welfarist.
They are not ready to hear the abolitionist message.
They're just not there.
Maybe if we had that conversation in like 50 years,
hopefully less, but realistically in a hundred years,
my answer would have been different.
But I think for now, I see the world
and I think that the abolition of all animal exploitation
is not something that most people in the world
would be receptive of because of cultural differences,
because of religious beliefs, and the list goes on.
So have you tried, because we can talk a bit
about this breakthrough that I've had
in the last year or so,
and it's great that you had Ben Mazaya on recently,
because he is certainly an influence on me.
And there are a group of other activists online
who have helped me make a connection
to the vegan objective, the vegan principle,
and just the way that it should be represented
in ways that like completely went against
what I was doing before,
and the things that I believed before.
And so what they are talking about, of course,
is the original definition developed by Leslie Cross.
And I know that you and Ben had a conversation about that,
and how the vegan objective, as I mentioned earlier,
is to rid the exploitation of animals by humans.
And I began understanding veganism more as,
rather than like adopting a set of beliefs,
or even adopting a set of practices,
it became something where I'm believing it to be
that we're unlearning biases that society has imposed on us.
And we're recognizing the individual in other animals.
And I think that that's a message
that simplifies the whole conversation,
and makes it something that anyone can accept,
going back to anyone on the political spectrum,
religious or secular, adult or child.
I believe that if we're telling people
that animals exist for their own purposes,
rather than to serve humans,
conversations about veganism can go totally differently.
If we're talking about symptoms,
ways that animals are being exploited,
we're talking about the state of the world,
and we're just for that,
people hear that and say,
oh, okay, you're giving me something to think about.
And they might, but it doesn't inspire change
as if you ask somebody,
why do you believe that animals exist to serve humans?
Or if you ask somebody,
do you believe that animals have interests in living freely?
Like rather than talking about the suffering,
rather than talking about the ways that they are being used,
it's talking that they're being used,
that they're being exploited and viewed
as a resource by humans.
And that has kind of shaped my advocacy over the last,
I'm gonna say like six months
since I've seen these Leslie Cross promoting activists
start coming out online.
And Ryan, I'll just ask you,
have you seen these people,
that they're going after people in comment sections,
and they're going after some of the big time activists,
and it's a small network, but they're pretty loud.
Have you come across them?
Absolutely not.
People need to understand I'm not on social media.
I'm not a social media person.
I actually actively avoid them.
If it was not for this podcast,
I would not be on Instagram, I would not be on X.
I would be like off the radar.
Yeah, yeah, well, I can just give you a quick summary.
They are some activists who are promoting
the original definition of veganism,
which has been mentioned,
and I imagine has been mentioned on other times
in this podcast, veganism is the doctrine
that humans should live without exploiting animals.
Some people have tuned it up to say veganism
is the principle that humans should live
without exploiting animals.
And I think that that summarizes it very efficiently,
very easily, and you won't have conversations
about various things, about lifestyle,
about diet, about like a personal choice.
If you're framing it as a principle
that is a moral obligation,
a principle that is rooted in justice,
that will skip past, it's kind of like a fast pass
on an amusement ride or something.
It's like, it skips past all these other points
that people are going to be making about welfarism,
about reducing suffering, about crop deaths,
about diet, personal response, personal choice.
All these things kind of get flattened out
when you introduce it in that way.
And I think that that's a very simple thing
to communicate to people.
And you may have heard people say that if every vegan,
everybody who has a plant-based diet
became a vegan activist,
we would achieve a vegan world quicker.
I think if every vegan activist began reframing
their activism as focusing on exploitation
and why animals as individuals deserve respect
and deserve to live freely,
if we reframed our conversation
around the exploitation of animals
rather than the suffering of animals,
my theory is that we would have a vegan world much quicker.
It would cut through the fluff
and all the distortion that's out there.
And there are several activists that maybe I can point you to
and have on the channel
because I think that they're spreading
a lot of great information that worked on me.
As soon as I started reading what they were writing,
I said, I've been representing this all wrong
the whole way, the whole time.
You know, I've been misunderstanding this the whole time.
And I reframed my advocacy.
And now when I do cubes of truth
or I'm just talking with anyone about the vegan principle,
again, I frame it as a principle
and it can really cut through a lot of the fluff.
Interesting.
You know, my conversation with Ben
was one of my most thought provoking conversation
on this show.
And I'm still digesting everything that was said,
but something I brought up to him was
you don't have the legitimacy to make this argument
to certain crowds of people.
And maybe a good example of that would be religious people.
You know, you're not a rabbi, you're not an imam,
you're not a priest.
And you're talking about moral principles
to people who don't see you as a figure,
a leader in their community
or that is able to talk about those things.
And then we talked about how there was a lack of advocacy
directed to religious communities and religious leaders.
But the problem remained, you know,
you can't go to a Muslim majority country
and be the westerner or the guy with Western ideas
who talk about animals being individuals.
You need to be one of them to make the case for,
or talk about people like El-Mahri,
who I had an episode on,
on this Arab Syrian vegan dinker
who lived hundreds of years ago
and who wrote about animals having feelings
and sentience and all of that.
So it's touchy like that.
I think there is, which is beautiful,
there is in the West this culture of free speech
and we're much less tribal than in the rest of the world,
where tribalism is alive and well,
and you need to be part of the crowd
and you need to conform and there is no such thing
as a culture of free speech.
Yeah, yeah, I think that you're right.
If I was going into a Muslim majority country,
the customs are totally different
and the habits and traditions are different.
So it would be more challenging,
but I think anything less than rooting this conversation
as a conversation about justice
is selling the animals short,
selling the victims short here.
And I think that I've learned
that a lot of it comes from avoidance.
Vegans want to avoid,
so they think that by appealing to the customs
and the beliefs that the non-vegan has
will bring them over into the idea a little bit better.
I agree with that and I don't.
I think that the way that we communicate it can be nuanced,
but the bottom line should be the root of the issue.
And the root of the issue is that humans
have been conditioned to believe
that exploiting animals is acceptable.
And that's the genesis of all the side effects.
That's the genesis of all the symptoms
of animal exploitation is that belief
that animals exist to serve humans.
So however you wanna get that message across
is where the nuance can lie,
but the message needs to be that,
that animals are individuals
and it doesn't take any moral authority
or any science to understand that.
I think if we spend time with animals,
we can see that there are personalities in them.
And anyone with a personality is a person,
and I think that that's just a really simple message
that most people can get.
Of course, there are people who are set in their ways
and there are people who are not going to
and trenched in whatever their customs are.
But I don't think that now distorting the vegan message
is going to get them on any quicker.
I think we can refocus a target
and go to someone else who might be more willing
to hear this justice rooted message
rather than trying to distort it in a way
that will have them accept it easier.
And I think that there's just too much distortion
in vegan activism right now,
painting it as something where it's like a journey
or something that you come to
rather than something that you unlearn
and you apply a principle in your life.
Now, I will say that it wasn't that way for me.
I adopted the plant-based diet,
and then after having adopted it,
I came to the vegan principle.
So, and I think Ben touched on this as well.
It's hard to determine what's more effective
talking about diet and getting people to adopt practices
and later come to the principle.
But I think that that's, again, that's distorting the message
and that it's not practical than if we're just clear
about what the objective is, about what the definition is,
and about it being a moral obligation rooted in justice
and about unlearning bias.
But I can see how people are a little hesitant to adopt this.
You know, some vegan activists might say,
well, we need to have a variety of tactics.
I think that plant-based influencers
will exist, health and diet influencers will still exist,
and they can handle that.
Environmental people can handle those kinds of messaging,
but I don't think they should be using the word vegan,
which was developed to distinguish itself
from welfarism and from vegetarianism
as more of a principle that goes across the board
with any form of animal exploitation,
any form of animal use.
Hearing it framed that way, that it's,
oh, we're against using animals for any purpose?
Oh, okay, that's way simpler.
We're just against using animals as a means to our ends.
Okay, well, now that I understand it that way,
I can advocate easier and people can understand it easier,
even if they don't adopt the principle,
they're understanding it.
And these objections and excuses go by the wayside
if they're understanding it as a stance against exploitation.
Yes, your optimism is contagious.
Because, yes, I am thinking there are kind people everywhere.
There are empathic people everywhere,
and they deserve to hear that argument being made,
whatever the religion or culture is.
Whatever the state of freedom of speech in their country.
And they might be receptive to that.
And we should, I'm thinking about success stories
of spreading ideas and things like global religions.
I don't think they had the same hesitancy,
you know, those missionaries, those Christian missionaries
going into alien cultures and spreading the good word.
I think they were convinced by what they were preaching,
and they were driven, and that's how they obtained result.
They believed in the simplicity of the message.
Not to say that that message is simple,
but they probably had it in their heads,
that it's a very simple thing to understand,
and that it's rooted in truth for them.
And so with that conviction, they go out and they spread it.
I think that, yes, simplifying that message is really the key,
and vegan education is really a key.
I can point you to a few of these activists
who are very firm against sending a welfare message.
So what is a welfare message?
Well, a welfare message is one that says,
we are against animal abuse, because abuse and torture
and high levels of suffering are wrong.
But animal use, if there is no suffering or torture or abuse,
if we're just using them, then that's acceptable.
So using words like suffering and using words like abuse
actually sends the opposite message of what veganism
seeks to achieve.
And I think because there's all this distortion,
even some vegans will believe that it's too optimistic
to be sending such a simple message.
But I think that that paradigm shift among vegan activists
needs to happen so that we're unified against all
the opposition that we encounter,
and that we're unified against all the different avenues
that people are attacking a plant-based diet from
and all these sorts of things and calling it
some globalist agenda.
Going back to politics a little bit,
this is rooted in injustice.
And I think that that can appeal to many conservatives who
are based on principle, who do have values like personal
responsibility and ethical consistency and all that.
So just to bring it back to the conservatives there,
it's something that, regardless of your background,
if we're framing it in that way against a suffering-focused
message and more of the exploitation-focused message,
that's my optimism.
And many of the writings of these,
I call them crossians.
They're like Leslie Cross advocates.
They're crossians.
But they've gotten themselves in a lot of trouble.
I'll give you just a little summary here,
since I know you're not so much on social media.
But they are going on podcasts, a lot of infighting.
They're calling out activists.
And they're saying that you're making this seem way too much
of a diet thing.
You're making this seem way too much
as a reduction of suffering, where
you're making a calculation as opposed to a hard cut,
a line in the sand that says, we need
to unlearn what society has conditioned us to believe.
And we need to focus on the root of the issue
rather than factory farms and all these symptoms
of animal exploitation.
And a lot of that does come down to language.
Former English teacher, I'm thinking
about language a lot.
And I know Ben mentioned that on his appearance here as well.
But little differences that if everybody applied them,
I'm not saying I have all the answers.
But if we are going to be true to the objective
of the movement in the 1940s and 50s, as this definition,
as this term was even coined, all other movements
respect the foundations of their movement.
All other justice movements will read the founders
and promote the values of the founders.
And it seems like with veganism, for some reason,
I think due to the avoidance, they
want to package it in ways that will be more appealing.
Hey, let me send my mom this article
about how a plant-based diet reduces risk of heart disease.
Let me send my environmentalist cousin this thing
about a plant-based diet.
And we're getting way too distracted.
It can lead someone to a plant-based diet.
But then they're going to be one of the worst advocates
for the vegan principle, which is rooted in justice, which
is against exploitation.
They're going to be talking about it
as an environmental stance, as a diet, as a personal choice,
a lifestyle, rather than something
that needs to happen as a moral emergency.
Those are my thoughts on that.
That's impressive.
I love those kinds of conversations.
And that's what makes me so glad to have created this podcast.
And at first, I thought the goal of this podcast
would be to encourage people to do more activism
and encourage myself to also do more activism for animals.
But then I find myself having debates and conversations
about what's the best way of doing activism.
And I'm discovering how it's not that straightforward.
And those debates and conversations,
we're not having them.
And yeah, it's truly fascinating.
And I don't know how I found myself in this situation.
But yeah, especially when you have some of these crossians
coming out.
And they are a bit aggressive with the vegan activists
who they disagree with.
Because their position is that these vegan activists
are diluting the message and actively harming the message.
So if you want to encourage a plant-based diet,
you can do that.
If you want to send a different message, you can do that.
But these activists are really firm
about reclaiming this word vegan for its original definition
developed by Leslie Cross.
And they can be a bit antagonistic and aggressive
to ways where now a lot of the, it seems like infighting.
And a lot of these activists are now
digging their heels in against the Leslie Cross definition
and saying, no, no, no.
I have it right.
And then it's becoming this contentious thing.
I'm grateful that it wasn't something
where I was called out in an aggressive way.
Because if I was, it's just human psychology.
I might have rejected this message even further
and said, no, I'm good.
I got this.
I don't need to read the factors.
So I'm grateful that it came to me
in a way that was easy to understand.
And my ego didn't get in the way.
But I think that we should be having conversations
like this about how to improve the efficiency of this movement
and hold each other accountable too.
Like, hey, actually, these words and phrases that you're using
are sending the opposite message and are actively
harming the message.
This one's kind of interesting.
We can go down this a bit.
But these individuals who promote Leslie Cross's
definition also are against single issue campaigns.
And I know that that's not a super novel issue or topic
with vegans.
You either have your radical reform
or your gradual increases.
But with single issue campaigns, the message
that we might be sending out is, hey, this level of torture
is really wrong.
This level of abuse is wrong.
Other forms of animal exploitation are fine.
But this one here, I really disagree with this one.
Let's all be really loud.
And then what you find is that non-vegans will even chime in
and say, yeah, I disagree with foie gras.
That's really cruel.
That's really torturous.
I'm still going to continue exploiting animals.
I'll still continue using them and viewing them
as objects and resources.
My mindset hasn't changed, the non-vegan says.
Like my perception of animals as objects and resources for me
to use is still there.
But I feel better about having joined that anti-fouagra
protest.
And nothing changes.
And it kind of keeps perpetuating the ideas.
In a pragmatic way, does it help small little achievements?
In a pragmatic way, does it help people feel like, OK,
we're getting small wins.
We're moving towards something.
Is it a win for the ducks who are no longer having pipes
shoved down their throats?
Well, what I've heard is actually
that these industries will still continue breeding
ducks into existence, but using them for down
or using them in other ways.
Duck fat and other ways that we can exploit these animals
won't be force feeding them to make their livers
diseased as a delicacy and sell it as a delicacy.
But it will still continue.
And it's like, we feel like we're
making wins with these single issue campaigns.
But the prevailing mindset that animals are objects
and resources for humans to use, that hasn't been changed.
That hasn't been challenged.
And that hasn't moved at all.
The needle hasn't been moved.
So it has convinced me.
I'm fully Leslie Cross-pilled, as the internet says.
I've taken the pill.
I fully believe in it.
And I think that there needs to be,
in a way that doesn't cause too much infighting,
I think that there really could be a shift in the messages
that we put out and in the tactics as activists.
So I want my podcast to be the home of different voices,
even opinions that contradict themselves and people
from all walks of life.
And I try to do the same in my personal life.
I listen to podcasts from all over the political spectrum,
including right-leaning podcasts.
And recently, I was listening to a right-leaning podcast
with the host talking about how she received letters
from animal rights organizations,
criticizing her for wearing fur or for talking about foie gras
and how she loved that foie gras.
And then she said something like,
I understand how it's bad and all of that,
but I am on the top of the food pyramid.
And why is it bad to wear fur and eat foie gras,
but it's not bad to drink milk and have hamburgers?
And that really connects with what you're saying,
because no one made the case to her of animal exploitation
being bad, full stop.
We made the case that foie gras was bad
and that wearing fur was bad.
But she did not understand the whole thing, the philosophy.
And we lost her because of that.
And she's just confused now.
And the questions she's raising, that host,
are pertinent questions.
I mean, of course, what about the...
But what surprises me is why no one has made her the case,
like the entire vegan case?
Why are we just targeting those things she said or did,
the small instances of promoting animal abuse?
So yeah, definitely, I think that this example illustrates
well why we do need to follow the principles advocated
by the Leslie Cross people.
Yeah, yeah.
And that was totally eye-opening.
Another example that I heard from these actors,
because I would engage with them and sometimes even send them
direct message and say, well, help me understand
this a little bit better.
And well, OK, but I can still see how maybe a single issue
campaign is good, though, because it does represent a win
and all that.
And I was trying to understand it.
And another example that was given to me
was about bullfighting in Colombia,
where I believe that one president in the previous term
received a lot of support against bullfighting,
support to abolish the bullfighting tradition
in Colombia.
And it did go through.
It passed.
And bullfighting was outlawed completely in the country
during that president's term.
And then a new president came in who
might have some more exploitative traditions and habits.
And that rule was overturned.
And so we feel a temporary victory,
but culture will just keep a tug of war between one way
or the other rather than targeting the root.
And if everyone who was at those protests,
whether it's foie gras, fur, bullfighting,
all these single issue campaigns,
if everybody was instead targeting
the root of speciesism, targeting the mentality that
is so prevalent in society, this bias against other animals
and viewing them as objects, resources, or slaves, tools,
commodities, we're not challenging that.
It's going to keep going unchallenged.
And it's not going to significantly change.
And people will continue making arguments about crop deaths
and diet and other excuses that are all distractions rather
than that root issue.
So it has really revolutionized my thinking.
And I hope that you explore it more on your own,
on this podcast, through reading some of the writings.
I could shout out a few here.
There's one account called Humanify.
She's a psychologist.
So a lot of her writing deals with the human psychology,
the cognitive bias, the dominant bias in society,
and ways to unlearn this conditioning.
I mean, it's super interesting to me to read these posts.
David C. Arenas is another one.
He's the Colombian who was talking about the Colombian
bullfighting.
There's another one named Vicente,
who I saw on a debate with folks from the Allied Scholars
for Animal Protection, which is Dr. Faraaz
Harseini's nonprofit being lab-grown meat or cell-based
meat.
And absolutely, cell-based meat is a utilitarian solution.
But absolutely not does it align with veganism,
because it perpetuates the idea that animals are to be used,
that it's OK to exploit animals to be used by humans,
to benefit humans.
So all these little awakenings that I've
had from this very small but unified group of activists
that I think it's kind of spreading.
They're making enemies along the way.
They are burning bridges along the way.
But I think if their ideas spread, as it did for me,
a lot of things clicked into place for me
in my understanding.
And if it happened for me, it can certainly
happen for any bystander who can hear this message
and understand it if they're open and ready
to accept that message.
I mean, you don't even have to go into it
with the idea of accepting it or being attracted to it.
But just educating yourself or exposing your current views
to other views, alternative views, opposing views,
and just having a reflection, sparking
a reflection around that.
I know that I remembered something
from my conversation with Ben.
He said veganism is not the goal.
The end of animal exploitation is not the goal.
We want a utopia, a better world.
And the end of animal exploitation
is part of that, of making that better world.
So yeah, it's an ambitious worldview
that does deserve some attention from people,
and not just disregard.
And I don't care about fighting.
Fight it out with words, of course,
not with actual violence, physical violence.
And let's stay within the boundaries of civility.
But what's the harm of debating, which is the better way
to advocate for veganism?
I don't find the harm in it.
And actually, I find that it's good.
And we should not be ideologues.
So I started this conversation talking
about how I loved the idea of being an idealist
and going for the moon.
But there is a difference between idealism and ideology
and being an ideologue and being dogmatic in what you think.
So yeah, definitely.
And I think it does play well in the theme of our conversation,
which is just liberate yourself from the labels
and the tribes and just gain some independence
and critical thinking.
It's truly freeing.
OK, I want to say a few words about the left versus right
debate, and we know that Trump integration is coming up.
I really don't understand why we don't reach out
to more conservative crowds.
And we close ourselves into, no, I'm not talking about you
directly, but overall, into this left-leading space.
Why do you think it's the case?
I don't think we covered that in our last conversation.
But looking at it, it's just nonsensical.
I feel it's one of those downfalls of the current activism.
And that I'm truly convinced of.
The Leslie thing, I'm still not sure where to lean on that.
But not being partisan in our activism, I think it's key.
I think we should.
And I'm ready to die on that hill.
So do you have any idea of why?
Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with, again,
the representation of veganism as something that it's not.
So the first thing I'll say is that people
do tie it in with an emotional appeal, which maybe can
reflect more liberal values, I would say, rather than it
being an objective, moral decision that's
rooted in justice for other individuals
and that's rooted in wanting to promote freedom for others.
And animals count as others.
So just that view of veganism being something that's
rooted in something emotional, the view of veganism
being as something to do with environment.
Liberals and progressives might have
more environmental protections and might have more priority
to environment.
So it gets conflated with that.
This one is another, and this is only a modern phenomenon
of the last 10 years or so.
But I have seen a growing movement of people
who believe that by not being vegan,
by continuing to eat animals, by continuing to view animals
as objects and resources, they are actually
rejecting the mainstream narrative.
And they are anti-establishment by being non-vegan.
And again, this is more of the last 10 years or so,
but they see that plant-based solutions are being offered
as a way to combat environmental damage.
And so they say, I'm removing myself
from all this mumbo jumbo with the environment
and climate change and all that.
I am anti-establishment.
I get my meat from animals.
I use animals.
And again, I think it's all cultural.
It's all the way that it's being represented.
So if we did talk about it in ways
that were a bit more objective, that animals
exist for their own purposes, not to serve humans,
that is something that can be adopted by anyone.
So I would say that my answer to why it leans more left
has to do entirely with the way that it's represented.
This whole movement, the objective of this movement
is being misrepresented.
And if it was explained to a conservative who
does value personal freedoms, who does value a libertarian
values what's called the non-aggression principle,
which is you don't initiate harm or exploitation
against someone else.
You don't take anything from anyone without consent.
You live freely and you allow others to live freely.
That's one of the central tenets of libertarianism
called the non-aggression principle.
I mean, they align so well with the vegan principle.
Now, if we move away from the vegan principle
for just a moment and talk about plant-based diets,
I also think that there are appeals to conservatives.
When you think about the billions of dollars
that the government taxes from citizens
to allow the meat, dairy, and egg, and honey industries
to compete in the free market, if you're a conservative,
you value it.
You want there to be minimal government restrictions,
minimal regulations, and minimal artificial price
leveling.
If we paid what it actually costs for eggs, meat, dairy,
it would be way, way more expensive.
But we have these artificial calculations
that come from taxes.
And any conservative would want less taxes.
Any libertarian would want less taxes.
So that's another way to appeal to conservatives
by talking about a plant-based diet,
not about the vegan principle, but about a plant-based diet.
Things like voluntary exchange, that's
another libertarian value, consensual interactions,
free from coercion.
There are so many things that line up.
And I think that we can be promoting it more.
I gave you the names of a couple of conservative vegans
that I see online.
And they're talking about these things.
And when I see it, I give it a like.
And I keep it in the memory bank in case
I encounter another conservative.
And those are the ways, Ryan, that I
think that we can modify and adapt our messaging.
So if we understand the other person's values,
we can talk about it in ways that would appeal to them more
while still remaining true to the core of the vegan principle
without distorting it or diluting it.
Beautiful.
It's as simple as that, people.
Listen to that.
It's so clarifying.
OK, one last thing I want to have your take on.
Something else that was a mindfuck,
sorry for my language, but in the last election
was to compare how in the American election,
to see them, the Democratic Party,
pushing for a VP candidate who likes pheasant hunting.
And there are videos of him promoting himself
with videos of him feeding cows in a dairy farm.
And that whole image of I'm with the farmers,
and I'm a hunter, and this is what being a man means.
And then you had the presidential candidate
talking about how she puts almond mink in her coffee
in the morning, like if this was a great appeal to vegans.
And then on the right side of the political spectrum,
you had Vivek Ramaswamy, who is an ethical vegetarian,
describes himself as ethical vegetarian,
and talks about how animals should become
a core concern of conservatives.
You have Tulsi Gabbard, who is a vegan, again,
for ethical reasons.
And you had that whole thing with the squirrel.
And I was thinking, just like with the windmills,
this feels like a reversal of values.
The left should be the party of Pinot de Squirrel
and the ethical vegans.
And why are we complete?
Yeah, well, Tulsi is very inspiring,
because she actually started on the Democratic Party,
and then through time, through evaluating her positions,
and through seeing where the culture is shifting
politically, she's saying, well, conservative values actually
make more sense to me now, at least where they are currently.
And that is something that I think we're seeing.
We're seeing people leaving the left
and adopting more conservative values.
And I welcome it.
It happened to me.
I mean, it happened to me in the last decade or so.
A decade ago, I was firmly in the Democratic Party,
a liberal, and then just evaluating my values
and priorities.
I started learning about libertarianism
and viewing these two political parties
and what they cherish and appreciate in society.
And it just started making more sense to me to shift right.
And there are some topics that I'm not
super firm on that are core tenets of conservatism,
things like Second Amendment, things like immigration.
Personally, they don't jump out to me
as things that I am fully determined on
or have a full solution on.
And that's what it's all about, right, Ryan?
We were saying, you can have, just
because you fall on certain issues on this lane,
politically doesn't mean that all the other ones
have to be checked off in identically the same way.
So yeah, I think that people are nuanced.
And even as we age, our priorities shift
and our values shift.
And we learn more about history.
And we see more examples in history, even in real time.
Like, hey, this is happening in this country.
And that's affecting what I believe
will help society the most.
So that malleability, I think, is missing in a lot of people
in society, where they are not malleable.
And they believe that if you're on the opposite end
of the spectrum, you must be a bad person.
You embody values that are bad.
And that's like an evilness that people
believe that other people on the political spectrum have.
It's just not rooted in truth.
It's not evil to have differing political values.
And there's just too much of that going around.
Yes, and I feel dumb for saying that to vegans.
Because 10 years ago, I was eating dead corpses.
And now I'm not.
Talk about a change.
So we're not our views.
We're not our opinions.
We're not our political positions.
We're more than that.
So let's not judge people according
to their views or opinions.
Let's look at them and not their views and confirm that.
Yeah, and it also reflects in my own life.
I have these ideas, but I haven't had too much
of a platform to talk about them.
I have had one-on-one conversations with friends.
And I have surprised a few of them who just believe,
oh, you're into art, music.
You're in the underground scene.
You're vegan.
It must be.
It has to be that you believe these certain political values.
And it's not the case.
So if I can inspire anyone to break free
from whatever the political box that you're in
tells you to believe, please do.
Because we are so much more than that.
And we have the potential to really align with what
we believe to be true.
And the more we do that, the more fulfillment
there is in our own lives.
And the more we can structure society
in ways that feel right and true to ourselves.
What a wonderful way to end this conversation,
to wonderful message.
Thank you so much, Andres.
Thank you for having stopped by.
And I was really happy to catch up with you.
Cool.
Always a good time, Ryan.
And I'll hop back on any time.
Yes.
And just a quick thing.
Andres did one of the voiceovers in the Psycho.
What's the name?
The psychedelic episode I did.
So yeah, go check that episode.
And you will recognize his voice in the intro.
Awesome.
Thanks, Ryan.
Keep up the podcast, because we need more conversations
like this.
Thank you, everyone, for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast
with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring.
And I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.