WEBVTT

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Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan

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and today I am happy to talk with John Sanbonmatsu,

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the author of the new book, The Omnivore's Deception,

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which is a fascinating guide into who are the

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intellectual handmaiden of the animal exploitation

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world. To put it simply, think the carnest version

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of Peter Singer or Gary Francione. People like

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Michael Pollan, and if you don't know who Michael

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Pollan is, you're in for a surprise. The Omniform

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Deception is available for order. I highly, highly

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recommend it. Link in the episode notes. We had

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the chance to discuss some really interesting

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passages of the book, like the myth of humane

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meat, or how farming animals is empowering to

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women. But first we talked about John's position

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against cultivated meat. He thinks that cultivated

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meat is a profound strategic miscalculation for

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our movement. I had the chance to hear him make

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the case against cultivated meat in a debate

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against none other than Léa Garcès, president

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of Mercy for Animals, and Bruce Friedrich, CEO

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of the Good Food Institute. And he did that dressed

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as a pirate. It is an epic debate that deserves

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a listen, and you are in luck because it is available

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as a bonus episode of the podcast. You are welcome.

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And as always, if you want to support a podcast

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that does not shy away from questioning the status

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quo and covering the under -reported struggles

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of this movement, then please share this episode

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with your fellow vegan. Also, I love to read

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your good reviews. It is always so encouraging.

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So feel free to leave a good review. Thank you.

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So John, welcome to the show. Thank you so much

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for being here. I'm delighted to be here. You

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have a great show. Thanks for having me. So I

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discovered you through the debate you've done

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about the cultivated meat thing. And I have to

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say Before hearing you speak, and before talking

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to Miyoko Shiner a few episodes ago, I thought

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that cultivated meat was the messiah. I thought

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that this was the end of the animal rights movement,

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that it is the solution to every one of our problems

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and the end of factory farming of slaughterhouses

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of the whole deal. And you just opened my eyes

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to the hidden, you know, face of that whole world

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and the whole push to make it legitimate and

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make it front and center of the movement. Why

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have I not ever questioned the narrative that

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cultivated meat is the answer to all of our questions.

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It's a really good question. I mean, I think

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there are a few dimensions to this. One is it's

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sort of like, why is everybody talking about

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AI all of a sudden? Why is this technology being

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shoved down our throats in academia, in industry,

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in daily life? And it's not because AI is good

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for us. It's because you have these extremely

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wealthy, powerful, unscrupulous people, mostly

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men, billionaires who have decided that they

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want this because it will make them richer and

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give them more control. And so it is taking over

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society. Well, the cellular me technology is

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not as powerful or hegemonic, but it's coming

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from the same place of people with a lot of resources

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and not necessarily the best of intentions who

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want to make this happen. So that's number one.

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Number two, though, for those of us in the movement

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who felt who feel demoralized by the fact that

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no matter what we do or say, after centuries

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and even millennia of descent to the animal system,

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to our violence against animals, after centuries

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of this resistance, things are worse for animals

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than ever before. The animals of the earth are

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being wiped off the face of the earth in the

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mass extinction crisis. the number of animals

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being killed every year is increasing. Even the

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number of animals being consumed or the amount

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of meat being consumed is growing per capita

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in the United States and elsewhere. I don't know

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if you know the expression, a Hail Mary Pass,

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but it's the idea that, okay, nothing else is

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going to work, so we're just going to try something

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completely different. So you have these guys

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who were part of the animal welfare wing of the

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movement, particularly Bruce Friedrich, who used

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to work with PETA, people like Paul Shapiro.

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So kind of cast -offs of the mainstream animal

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welfare organizations, the lobbying organizations

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who've just glommed onto this idea, and they

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have sold the movement a bill of goods, telling

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them that, oh, well, this is going to solve the

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problem. But it isn't going to solve the problem.

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And it isn't even meant to solve the problem,

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actually, because the same people who try to

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tell the animal advocates, oh, well, this is

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how we're going to get rid of animal agriculture,

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out of the other side of their mouth, they're

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telling the animal industry people, the factory

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farming people, don't you worry. This is only

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a supplement. to what you already do. We think

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about the future, we're going to have a diverse

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protein portfolio that's going to include insects,

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cellular meat, regenerative animal agriculture,

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smaller farms, and conventional agriculture,

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meaning factory farming. So there's just so many

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problems with this technology and anyone who's

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interested, I would urge them to go to a website

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that I curate called cleanmeathoax .com. And

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I wanna note, just to start to go on this one

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last thing. Bruce Friedrich, of course, runs

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the Good Food Institute, which promotes both

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vegan, plant -based foods, as well as cellular

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agriculture. And they're bringing in millions

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of dollars to lobby for this stuff. the cellular

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meat stuff in particular. And when I and a group

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of animal rights scholars created this website,

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cleanmeathoax .com, the Good Food Institute created

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a fake shadow site called cleanmeathoax .com,

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but with a slightly different URL to steal traffic

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from our website and to send it to the Good Food

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Institute. And what was so striking to me about

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that is that we were paying like $20 a year for

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this website or something. And the GFI has millions,

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tens of millions of dollars. And yet that was

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such a threat that they did that. And it was

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only when I threatened to expose this publicly

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and take the possible legal action that they

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took that down. But it just goes to show, I mean,

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this is not... This is a complex thing and an

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untested technology that many people don't think

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is even feasible. So there's a lot to be said

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about it, but it's not good. I mean, how did

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United Poultry concerns even got Bruce to debate

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you? That's what I want to know. You know, what

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was it like? Because that debate was epic. I

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actually contacted United Poultry concerns and

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asked them if I could release that. debate as

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an episode of the of the show. And I think I'll

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release it at the same time as our episode. But

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I want to know, you know, what it felt like,

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what was the tension like in the room? And, you

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know, do you have any insight on how they were

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able to bring Bruce, you know, to debate you?

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You know, to be honest, I was looking at that,

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I hadn't looked at that debate a long time. And

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I looked at it again, recently, and I'm a bit,

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I just, you know, I'm a bit embarrassed because

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I was so upset. It's interesting. Karen Davis,

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who of course founded and until tragically she

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died a couple of years ago, was the director

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of United Poultry Concerns. She had reached out

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to me a few years back and said, John, what do

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you think of this? just in the cellular meat

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stuff and I didn't know anything about it. So

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I looked into it briefly and I was so upset by

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it I wrote her a note and then she published

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my letter and being Karen she didn't even bother

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to ask and she just put it in you know the newsletter.

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And so Karen and Hopa Hanek I think was involved

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too organized this debate and with Leah Garces

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from Mercy for Animals, and my friend Vasili

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Stanescu, who's a wonderful scholar in animal

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ethics and an expert on animal agriculture. And

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to answer your question, I don't think Leo or

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Bruce had ever heard of me. And honestly, they'd

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never had pushback that I can tell from within

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the movement. So they weren't expecting anyone

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to like I don't think they were expecting anyone

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to really challenge the fundamental premises

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of what they were doing. That's how I think how

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that happened. But it makes me so upset even

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now because, I mean, my God, the violence that

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we're committing to other animals is so vast.

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It's really important that we not throw them

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under the bus. And that's what the GFI, Good

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Food Institute, has done. Bruce Friedrich has

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given interviews, like with the New York Times,

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where he says, we're taking ethics off of the

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table, quote unquote, when we're going to talk

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about how delicious meat is and how everybody

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needs meat, but it just should come from the

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technology and not from the animals. Well, if

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you're going to reinforce the dominant narrative

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that eating flesh, whether it's grown in a laboratory

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setting, or it's from an animal that's slaughtered,

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if you're going to reinforce that narrative that

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it's an eternal, benign commodity, you've given

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the game away. And also, if you're going to say

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in the same breath, oh, we're not going to talk

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about animal ethics anymore. And then if you

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can even go further and make fun of vegetarians,

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which is what these people also do, because they're

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trying to appeal to the mob, which is the same,

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to meat eaters. So we can all poke fun at those

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pesky vegans by telling you, here's clean meat.

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Here's meat that's sustainable. Here's meat that's

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healthier for you, meaning, you know, cellular

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meat. And you don't have to change your behavior.

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You don't have to question human domination over

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nature and animals. You can just keep doing what

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you're doing and just have another delicious

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commodity. And we just know that that's just

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not going to work. In my view, anyway. Yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, the more I learn about this movement,

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the more I meet people and see how many initiatives

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exist out there that are dying to get resources

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and funding that could do so much good. And to

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see that all of those resources and funding are

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going to this you know, Frankenstein situation.

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It also makes me a bit mad, I have to say. How

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do you explain that there is a lack of debate

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in the animal rights movement? Because I think

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that I've come across just this once debate,

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you know, on the appropriate strategy going forward.

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I've organized a debate myself. uh called you

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know i think can we do better or something like

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that but i don't know of any other you know debate

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that gathers different activists and we're just

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there talking about what is the the right way

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forward wow so yeah you're asking such important

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questions i mean my first book uh which was called

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the postmodern prince really looked at the crisis

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of left intellectual thought and you know i went

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to grad school in the 90s, because I just didn't

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understand why things always seem to get worse

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all the time. And that the left is just completely

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disorganized and marching in circles and preaching

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to the choir and all of that. So in my first

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book, I was trying to understand that. So there's,

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first of all, that context, which is social movements

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and the question of praxis or theoretically informed

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collective action, how we go about changing the

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world? It's as simple as that. And what are the

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cultural forces and economic forces that get

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in the way of our having an effective activism?

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Because we're really trying to change the whole

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civilization. We're trying to change the norms

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and values and social practices and institutions

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that give rise to these problems of domination

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and violence. But there's another part, and it's

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related, but there's a part of this which has

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to do with capitalism and money. I mean, the

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reason that so many grassroots movements or organizations

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are struggling is they're being starved of funds

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by effective altruists. So effective altruism

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is this philanthropic movement that's been inspired

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by Peter Singer's brand of utilitarianism. And

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the effective altruists, well, who are they?

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Well, they're Tony professors at elite institutions

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and backed by billionaires. So the billionaires

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are on board with this. Sam Bankman Fried, of

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course, is now in federal prison for... his role

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in the effective altruism movement. These people

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are dangerous and they're not just dangerous,

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they're destroying the animal justice movement.

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I've spoken to several people in the movement,

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activists who run nonprofits, and they say the

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same thing, which there's this kind of McCarthyist

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chilling atmosphere in animal advocacy. because

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people at the grassroots understand that the

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effective altruists have all the money, and they

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have the power, and they can and do act as kingmakers

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to decide who gets to live and who gets to not

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live in the movement, I mean, in terms of resource

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allocation. So this is a serious problem, and

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it's just not spoken about. I haven't seen any

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press coverage about it. Why? Because the nonprofit

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leaders I've spoken to are afraid. that what

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little money that they can scrounge will be taken

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away from them. There are a whole lot of strings

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that get attached to the effect of altruism money.

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They're basically not abolitionists. They're

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welfareists. They're pro -capitalism, explicitly

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pro -capitalism. You've got to understand open

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philanthropy, which gives a lot of money to critique

00:15:48.700 --> 00:15:54.039
of animal agriculture and so forth. they are

00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:57.919
very clear they're pro -growth, pro -neoliberalism

00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:00.360
really is the only word for it. So there's a

00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:05.440
disconnect between the message of open philanthropy

00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:09.100
and effective altruism, of the joys of the free

00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:11.360
market and blah, blah, blah. And then the fact

00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:14.700
that the entire terrestrial food web is shutting

00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:16.600
down and we're in the middle of an ecological

00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:19.720
collapse deepening every day because of the free

00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:26.029
market, complete disjuncture. So again, it isn't.

00:16:26.129 --> 00:16:29.389
And I think for hardworking people who volunteer

00:16:29.389 --> 00:16:32.090
with animal groups and struggling nonprofits,

00:16:32.470 --> 00:16:36.990
what can they do to resist this? And I think

00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:39.529
ultimately it's that we need to call this stuff

00:16:39.529 --> 00:16:43.110
out and form alliances with other movements and

00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:46.570
outside the animal movement too to chip away

00:16:46.570 --> 00:16:51.580
at capitalism because this system is anathema,

00:16:51.779 --> 00:16:55.039
it's inimical to animal interests, the capitalist

00:16:55.039 --> 00:16:57.539
system. And that's just one example. Well, let

00:16:57.539 --> 00:17:00.820
me push back a little on the capitalism thing.

00:17:01.700 --> 00:17:07.180
Don't you think that the problem really here

00:17:07.180 --> 00:17:12.240
is not free markets, but the opposite the monopolies,

00:17:13.160 --> 00:17:15.700
the, you know, you talked about neoliberalism,

00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:19.640
but the governments, you know, being weaponized

00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:23.740
by corporations. You know, if I talk to someone

00:17:23.740 --> 00:17:27.140
who believes in free market, like a libertarian,

00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:30.960
this is not the different the definition of capitalism.

00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:35.259
Well, I mean, you know, I think that Marx Karl

00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:38.900
Marx laid this to rest 150 years ago. Because,

00:17:39.059 --> 00:17:42.319
you know, Marx pointed out that so called free

00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:44.339
markets, that's what people call them then to

00:17:44.339 --> 00:17:46.890
laissez faire economics and so forth. he pointed

00:17:46.890 --> 00:17:49.809
out that it's simply part of the DNA of capitalism

00:17:49.809 --> 00:17:54.250
to create larger and larger monopolies. So the

00:17:54.250 --> 00:17:56.529
idea is you start with free competition, right?

00:17:56.910 --> 00:17:59.089
You know, this group, this company competes with

00:17:59.089 --> 00:18:01.710
this one, and somehow everybody, you just have

00:18:01.710 --> 00:18:04.569
multiple small companies all giving the consumer

00:18:04.569 --> 00:18:07.009
better choices and blah, blah, blah. That isn't,

00:18:07.009 --> 00:18:09.309
we know just empirically that's false, okay?

00:18:09.650 --> 00:18:12.809
That what happens is the bigger a company gets

00:18:12.809 --> 00:18:15.640
because of competition, The more powerful it

00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:18.359
gets, and it gobbles up another company and another

00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:21.500
company. And so, in my classes, I show a chart

00:18:21.500 --> 00:18:25.420
of this process of mergers and acquisitions and

00:18:25.420 --> 00:18:28.200
monopolization. And you see this in every industry.

00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:30.380
You see this in the media industry, entertainment.

00:18:30.539 --> 00:18:33.700
You see this in the defense or military industry.

00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:36.000
You see this certainly in the animal industry.

00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:38.480
You see this in the newspaper industry, et cetera,

00:18:38.579 --> 00:18:42.289
et cetera. People chart this out, economists,

00:18:42.470 --> 00:18:44.910
right? You start with 100 different competing

00:18:44.910 --> 00:18:47.490
companies in the 1980s, and then by the 90s,

00:18:47.630 --> 00:18:50.390
there are like 50, and then by the 2000s, there

00:18:50.390 --> 00:18:53.210
are 12, and now, right? So that they're just

00:18:53.210 --> 00:18:56.450
a hand, it's like publishing, right? I mean,

00:18:56.470 --> 00:18:59.049
Penguin Books is now owned by, I don't even know,

00:18:59.190 --> 00:19:02.369
if you look, it's like Penguin Random House Knopf,

00:19:02.410 --> 00:19:04.910
it's like one gigantic company. And so what does

00:19:04.910 --> 00:19:07.269
that mean? It means that you're seeing a homogenization

00:19:07.269 --> 00:19:10.160
of information and literature, just in publishing,

00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:12.759
where the people who get published are celebrities,

00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:16.920
you know, YouTube influencers, books are becoming

00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:20.640
shorter and shorter, as the attention span of

00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.859
the public gets attenuated through digital capitalism

00:19:23.859 --> 00:19:28.359
and da da da da da. So the idea that capitalism

00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:31.279
can be regulated and controlled and made into

00:19:31.279 --> 00:19:34.200
a benign thing, I mean, you know, after five

00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:38.279
centuries of the system, it's not like we don't

00:19:38.279 --> 00:19:40.400
have something to look at. And what we can look

00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:42.819
at is the way it actually functions, not the

00:19:42.819 --> 00:19:45.660
idealized version. Of course, I mean, this is

00:19:45.660 --> 00:19:48.079
the standard thing, going back to the founding

00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:50.279
of what we call political economy, which is the

00:19:50.279 --> 00:19:55.220
way that pro -capitalist economists depict how

00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:57.359
capitalism works. There's always an idealized

00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.700
the chemist and the economist in the lifeboat.

00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:06.079
You ever heard that story? No, never. Well, it's

00:20:06.079 --> 00:20:08.819
worth listening to very briefly. So there's an

00:20:08.819 --> 00:20:12.599
economist, a chemist, and a physicist in a lifeboat.

00:20:13.059 --> 00:20:15.299
And it's been shipwrecked, but they're just in

00:20:15.299 --> 00:20:18.339
the ocean. And they have all these cans of food,

00:20:18.759 --> 00:20:21.779
but they have no way to open them, open the cans.

00:20:21.940 --> 00:20:25.460
So the physicist says, OK, well, she takes off

00:20:25.460 --> 00:20:28.339
her glasses and focuses the sun's rays and when

00:20:28.339 --> 00:20:31.599
the can explains it by focusing the energy on

00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:34.079
the can, it'll build up and then the can will

00:20:34.079 --> 00:20:35.680
explode and they'll be able to eat the food.

00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:38.099
So they try that for a while, it's clear that's

00:20:38.099 --> 00:20:40.640
never gonna work. So the chemist says, okay,

00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:43.680
I'm gonna, we take the can and we'll put it outside

00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:47.299
the boat in the water and the salt will lead

00:20:47.299 --> 00:20:50.559
to rust and then it'll weaken the metal and we'll

00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:53.099
get the food. So they try that, clearly it would

00:20:53.099 --> 00:20:56.490
take like 50 years. So then they turn to the

00:20:56.490 --> 00:21:00.630
economist, and the economist says, first, assume

00:21:00.630 --> 00:21:06.089
a can opener. Yeah, sure. If you had a can opener,

00:21:06.250 --> 00:21:08.650
then you could open up the cans, but you don't

00:21:08.650 --> 00:21:11.470
have a can opener. So, you know, bourgeois political

00:21:11.470 --> 00:21:14.150
economists always assume that there's a can opener.

00:21:14.289 --> 00:21:16.849
In other words, if you make certain assumptions,

00:21:17.369 --> 00:21:19.410
yeah, capitalism and the free market all works

00:21:19.410 --> 00:21:22.599
out well. But no, and actually, because the whole

00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:25.759
system depends on a division of labor where one

00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:29.019
group of people is able to control the labor

00:21:29.019 --> 00:21:33.119
and the means of life of 90 % of the other people

00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:37.180
who don't have property. So that is just the

00:21:37.180 --> 00:21:39.400
nature of the system. And I understand people

00:21:39.400 --> 00:21:41.799
who might be listening to us who think, oh, this

00:21:41.799 --> 00:21:44.559
guy is just some radical nutcase. I just want

00:21:44.559 --> 00:21:46.200
to be clear. I'm not saying I'm not a radical

00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:50.089
nutcase. But I've come to these ideas, honestly

00:21:50.089 --> 00:21:53.029
enough, from someone who, of course, like everybody,

00:21:53.230 --> 00:21:55.210
was pro -capitalist and believed all these myths

00:21:55.210 --> 00:21:59.849
about the market. But honestly, if you look into

00:21:59.849 --> 00:22:02.490
it and you study it, it's just a lot of hooey.

00:22:02.789 --> 00:22:05.690
Let me give you one example, which is vegan food

00:22:05.690 --> 00:22:08.869
products. You think, well, the free market is

00:22:08.869 --> 00:22:12.470
creating impossible burgers and beyond meat.

00:22:13.369 --> 00:22:15.529
And that's true. But for every vegan product

00:22:15.529 --> 00:22:18.329
that it produces, it produces 100 new animal

00:22:18.329 --> 00:22:21.049
products. So now you can get bacon flavored potato

00:22:21.049 --> 00:22:23.049
chips, and you can get this and you can get that.

00:22:23.509 --> 00:22:25.329
And there's something even worse, which is what

00:22:25.329 --> 00:22:27.730
the capitalist system says, is that all of these

00:22:27.730 --> 00:22:31.569
commodities are equal in status. Everybody has

00:22:31.569 --> 00:22:34.309
a right to their bacon and to their vegan burger.

00:22:35.269 --> 00:22:38.190
You know, the market doesn't care. And so the

00:22:38.190 --> 00:22:41.529
message that the consumer gets is, you know,

00:22:41.589 --> 00:22:46.029
who cares? Do what you want to do. Fulfill your

00:22:46.029 --> 00:22:48.509
heart's desire. And that's why cellular meat

00:22:48.509 --> 00:22:51.710
will never outcompete meat from living animals,

00:22:51.750 --> 00:22:54.589
because the meat from the living animal is perceived

00:22:54.589 --> 00:22:57.809
and marketed as authentic, as real. And people,

00:22:57.890 --> 00:22:59.390
if they have the choice between something that's

00:22:59.390 --> 00:23:01.150
real and something that they perceive as fake,

00:23:01.529 --> 00:23:03.549
guess what? They'll even pay a little more for

00:23:03.549 --> 00:23:05.250
it, if necessary, to get the authentic thing.

00:23:05.890 --> 00:23:07.789
So again, I mean, I go on and on about this,

00:23:08.029 --> 00:23:12.339
but capitalism is absolutely, in my view, it's

00:23:12.339 --> 00:23:15.359
contrary to animal interests, like it in every

00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:19.759
possible way. You reminded me of my economy classes

00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:22.420
in college, they would always say that Latin

00:23:22.420 --> 00:23:29.319
phrase, citrus paribus, you know, so in this

00:23:29.319 --> 00:23:32.519
imaginary ideal world, this is how things would

00:23:32.519 --> 00:23:37.920
work. So yes, you're right about that. Let me

00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:41.440
mention something that is very much covered in

00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:45.440
the vegan community, which is how conservative

00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:48.819
states in the US respond to cultivated meat.

00:23:49.660 --> 00:23:54.339
And they often will ban, you know, cultivated

00:23:54.339 --> 00:23:57.299
meat from being available in their state. And

00:23:57.299 --> 00:24:01.970
this is often presented as You see, if this was

00:24:01.970 --> 00:24:05.150
not threatening animal agriculture, as we know

00:24:05.150 --> 00:24:08.789
it animal exploitation, then they would not try

00:24:08.789 --> 00:24:12.349
to ban our products from their state. What do

00:24:12.349 --> 00:24:15.190
you make of that claim? I don't think Yeah, it's

00:24:15.190 --> 00:24:18.210
a really interesting question. I don't like when

00:24:18.210 --> 00:24:22.589
Ron DeSantis issued an actual government an order

00:24:22.589 --> 00:24:26.529
from the government's office, accusing a the

00:24:26.529 --> 00:24:30.910
global elite of trying to force people in Florida

00:24:30.910 --> 00:24:35.569
to eat insects and cellular meat. He has this

00:24:35.569 --> 00:24:40.150
conspiracy theory about a liberal elite trying

00:24:40.150 --> 00:24:44.529
to do away with animal agriculture, which is

00:24:44.529 --> 00:24:49.890
of course funny, but also ridiculous. This is

00:24:49.890 --> 00:24:52.289
my reading of it. My reading of it is not that

00:24:52.289 --> 00:24:54.529
they're taking this stance. It's true that maybe

00:24:54.529 --> 00:24:56.990
some of them do think this is potentially a threat

00:24:56.990 --> 00:25:01.980
to live animal farming. I grant that point. But

00:25:01.980 --> 00:25:06.099
honestly, what I really think it is, is that

00:25:06.099 --> 00:25:11.859
any technology or any sensibility that rakes

00:25:11.859 --> 00:25:15.799
with the dominant narrative about animals and

00:25:15.799 --> 00:25:20.460
meat and our natural right to exploit them is

00:25:20.460 --> 00:25:23.099
seen as a threat. In other words, it's not that

00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:27.049
cellular meat technology is showing so much promise

00:25:27.049 --> 00:25:30.690
that literally it's going to put animal farmers

00:25:30.690 --> 00:25:33.869
out of business because that's not true. It's

00:25:33.869 --> 00:25:41.509
that even to question the self -evident status

00:25:41.509 --> 00:25:45.650
of meat as a commodity from a living being is

00:25:45.650 --> 00:25:51.099
a threat. That is true. As I said, in my view,

00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:54.859
the cellular meat lobby is robbing Peter to pay

00:25:54.859 --> 00:25:57.740
Paul in the sense that it's often enough throwing

00:25:57.740 --> 00:25:59.980
ethics out the window and saying, oh, don't worry

00:25:59.980 --> 00:26:01.779
about the animals. Think about how much healthier

00:26:01.779 --> 00:26:06.599
this is for you, consumer. But I do grant the

00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:10.900
point that from the paranoid location of the

00:26:10.900 --> 00:26:16.279
far right, anything that challenges the standard

00:26:16.279 --> 00:26:18.940
conventional way we have of thinking about animals

00:26:18.940 --> 00:26:21.779
in the food economy is perceived as as a threat

00:26:21.779 --> 00:26:27.000
to be attacked. Well, to be fair, it is not very

00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:30.420
appetizing, you know, the idea of eating that

00:26:30.420 --> 00:26:34.339
lab grown meat. I also believe that, you know,

00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:40.059
normal animal muscles and flesh is not appetizing.

00:26:40.420 --> 00:26:44.500
But you know, the idea of having something grown

00:26:44.500 --> 00:26:49.380
in a lab and eating that is just So far away

00:26:49.380 --> 00:26:53.799
from gastronomy and food culture and all of that

00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:57.019
Not something I was, you know raised with and

00:26:57.019 --> 00:27:01.619
that is culturally And you know, we before this

00:27:01.619 --> 00:27:03.940
conversation we were talking about conservative

00:27:03.940 --> 00:27:08.400
podcasts Aren't you know those cultivated meat

00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:13.000
people? Aware that as soon as the their product

00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.440
is available commercially every one of those

00:27:16.440 --> 00:27:20.190
big platforms and podcasts will take position

00:27:20.190 --> 00:27:24.410
against them and will do bad PR against them.

00:27:24.849 --> 00:27:28.710
I don't see Joe Rogan going on on his podcast

00:27:28.710 --> 00:27:32.869
about how delicious live -grown meat is. I mean,

00:27:32.869 --> 00:27:36.069
how are they going to win the public with this

00:27:36.069 --> 00:27:39.329
obstacle in the way? Have they not thought about

00:27:39.329 --> 00:27:44.769
that? Well, on the one hand, it's amazing what

00:27:44.769 --> 00:27:47.130
a powerful corporation and powerful economic

00:27:47.130 --> 00:27:51.230
interests can do to manipulate human mass psychology,

00:27:51.690 --> 00:27:56.210
and desire, and so forth. So, in theory, you

00:27:56.210 --> 00:27:58.849
know, if there were major capitalist interests,

00:27:59.630 --> 00:28:04.869
wanted to convince the public to switch to synthetic

00:28:04.869 --> 00:28:07.650
meat, you know, they have powerful weapons at

00:28:07.650 --> 00:28:09.529
their disposal to do that. But the problem is

00:28:09.529 --> 00:28:11.930
they'd be they'd be on the other hand, they'd

00:28:11.930 --> 00:28:16.819
be up against centuries and millennia of tradition

00:28:16.819 --> 00:28:19.279
around meat. And as I say, in my book, meat is

00:28:19.279 --> 00:28:21.539
not just another commodity, it's very closely

00:28:21.539 --> 00:28:24.759
tied into all sorts of cultural ideas, including

00:28:24.759 --> 00:28:28.200
and especially masculinity. You know, eco feminist

00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:31.140
theorists like Carol Adams, Josephine Donovan,

00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:33.680
Marty Keele, and others have pointed this out

00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:38.059
for decades that meat has a gender. strangely,

00:28:38.579 --> 00:28:41.279
at least meat eating does and it's been seen

00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:44.460
for centuries that men need to eat more and dead

00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:47.339
animals than women so they can be strong and

00:28:47.339 --> 00:28:49.680
still to this day like 80 percent of hunters

00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:52.440
and fishers are men and men are the guys who

00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:55.420
fire up the barbecue in the summer and they're

00:28:55.420 --> 00:28:58.319
not going to be making a tofu quiche in the kitchen

00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:00.900
because that would be a sign of their femininity

00:29:00.900 --> 00:29:04.940
and the right wing calls liberals soy boys so

00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:10.029
they associate veganism with effeminacy. PETA

00:29:10.029 --> 00:29:13.769
charged back with an advertisement of a woman

00:29:13.769 --> 00:29:17.890
who was so battered by the sexual pleasure she

00:29:17.890 --> 00:29:20.069
got from her vegan boyfriend that she was wearing

00:29:20.069 --> 00:29:23.430
a neck brace and was bruised. Really disgusting

00:29:23.430 --> 00:29:27.430
misogynistic ad by PETA, by the way. But they

00:29:27.430 --> 00:29:30.630
were doing that because there's the currency.

00:29:31.150 --> 00:29:33.910
Women are the common degradation of women is

00:29:33.910 --> 00:29:38.130
a common currency in our culture. And as people

00:29:38.130 --> 00:29:40.910
like Carol Adams pointed out for years, that

00:29:40.910 --> 00:29:43.190
intersects with our degradation of non -human

00:29:43.190 --> 00:29:45.309
animals. You know, they often overlap, right?

00:29:45.369 --> 00:29:47.750
So women are degraded by being called bitches

00:29:47.750 --> 00:29:51.950
and cows and etc. pigs and so forth. And then

00:29:51.950 --> 00:29:56.130
farmed animals are often feminized. So it's not

00:29:56.130 --> 00:29:58.769
an accident that the very same moment that right

00:29:58.769 --> 00:30:01.859
historically that we're seeing the rollback of

00:30:01.859 --> 00:30:07.440
civil rights, the rollback of rights for gay

00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:12.559
and non -cisgender people, and this incredible

00:30:12.559 --> 00:30:16.599
misogyny, that that is all happening during a

00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:21.920
period of resurgence of meat culture with per

00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:24.900
capita meat consumption going up. There was just

00:30:24.900 --> 00:30:27.559
an article in the Atlantic Monthly, I don't know,

00:30:27.559 --> 00:30:31.579
five weeks ago, called America has stopped, Americans

00:30:31.579 --> 00:30:34.319
have stopped pretending about meat. And the journalist

00:30:34.319 --> 00:30:38.319
argued that, you know, there was this moment

00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:40.920
during COVID when people were eating beyond meat

00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:44.039
and impossible burgers and stuff. And then that

00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:47.119
moment kind of went and now meat consumption

00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:50.079
is the highest it's ever been. It's going up

00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:53.299
and people just don't give a shit about animals.

00:30:53.519 --> 00:30:56.890
That's kind of what the, person, the journalist

00:30:56.890 --> 00:30:59.309
was saying, yeah, people know somehow it's not

00:30:59.309 --> 00:31:04.289
right, but they sure taste good. So that is that

00:31:04.289 --> 00:31:06.829
is the cultural moment. But it's again, it's

00:31:06.829 --> 00:31:10.990
part of a larger shift towards fascism and the

00:31:10.990 --> 00:31:13.650
decline of liberal democratic institutions in

00:31:13.650 --> 00:31:16.230
our society, the attack on a free society is

00:31:16.230 --> 00:31:19.190
bound up with a defense of the animal economy.

00:31:19.609 --> 00:31:25.170
I've been thinking a lot. um, lately these past

00:31:25.170 --> 00:31:31.609
few months that, um, the problem here with, um,

00:31:31.609 --> 00:31:35.309
the problem of animal exploitation comes back

00:31:35.309 --> 00:31:38.869
to religion. I feel like, and it is weird coming

00:31:38.869 --> 00:31:42.710
from me since, you know, I platform lots of religious

00:31:42.710 --> 00:31:45.490
leaders who make the religious argument for going

00:31:45.490 --> 00:31:49.490
vegan. And I do approve of that and encourage

00:31:49.490 --> 00:31:53.480
that and supports that effort. But I feel like,

00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:57.259
you know, historically and philosophically, it

00:31:57.259 --> 00:32:02.420
all started with religion in a way. And that

00:32:02.420 --> 00:32:09.259
having made that part of our culture, so humans

00:32:09.259 --> 00:32:13.700
become have dominion and animals are less than

00:32:13.700 --> 00:32:18.259
and all of that. Well, you had business interests

00:32:18.259 --> 00:32:23.109
appearing so merchants or businessmen looking

00:32:23.109 --> 00:32:25.549
at that and thinking, oh, this is my way in.

00:32:26.089 --> 00:32:29.430
This is how I can I can exploit that concept.

00:32:29.450 --> 00:32:33.690
I can exploit those ideas and beliefs then religion

00:32:33.690 --> 00:32:38.269
has imposed on animals to create factory farms

00:32:38.269 --> 00:32:42.109
and slaughterhouses and so on. So I feel like

00:32:42.109 --> 00:32:45.750
this is where the responsibility lies. Not so

00:32:45.750 --> 00:32:48.869
much on the merchants themselves on you know,

00:32:49.009 --> 00:32:52.849
their economic system. What do you make of that?

00:32:53.509 --> 00:32:55.630
Well, you know, there's so many different religions,

00:32:55.849 --> 00:32:59.170
but certainly, especially monotheistic religion,

00:32:59.509 --> 00:33:01.390
but not just monotheistic religion. I mean, you

00:33:01.390 --> 00:33:04.069
know, in Buddhism and Hinduism too, even though

00:33:04.069 --> 00:33:06.509
vegetarianism is a big deal in both of those

00:33:06.509 --> 00:33:09.990
traditions, you also find certain ideological

00:33:09.990 --> 00:33:12.549
conception of animals as degraded and inferior,

00:33:12.690 --> 00:33:15.109
right, so that you get reincarnated as if you're

00:33:15.109 --> 00:33:18.920
a bad person, your bad karma. uh as part of the

00:33:18.920 --> 00:33:21.079
larger cycle you end up being reincarnated as

00:33:21.079 --> 00:33:23.380
a quote lower animal so those religions also

00:33:23.380 --> 00:33:26.980
have a problem i grant all of that so uh and

00:33:26.980 --> 00:33:28.599
but as you said you know there are certainly

00:33:28.599 --> 00:33:32.460
resources within pretty much every religious

00:33:32.460 --> 00:33:35.140
tradition that can be used and have been used

00:33:35.140 --> 00:33:38.220
by some religionists in favor of animal justice

00:33:38.220 --> 00:33:41.259
and animal rights although the preponderance

00:33:41.259 --> 00:33:44.079
of the scripture is very much against animal

00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:50.069
interests but um So that's absolutely right.

00:33:50.309 --> 00:33:56.150
But I think that what happens when you move to

00:33:56.150 --> 00:33:58.410
a commodity system, which is what capitalism

00:33:58.410 --> 00:34:02.549
is, is before, for thousands of years, humans

00:34:02.549 --> 00:34:05.710
more or less produced what they needed. And by

00:34:05.710 --> 00:34:08.670
that, I mean to say even, I don't mean that they

00:34:08.670 --> 00:34:12.889
lived necessarily simply. I don't mean that there

00:34:12.889 --> 00:34:16.079
weren't differences of wealth. different classes

00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:19.800
of people, but basically the point of production

00:34:19.800 --> 00:34:22.719
of animals and other goods was to maintain a

00:34:22.719 --> 00:34:26.059
certain homeostatic state of a culture, of a

00:34:26.059 --> 00:34:29.380
civilization, you know, so that you would continue

00:34:29.380 --> 00:34:32.219
to worship your gods and you would continue to

00:34:32.219 --> 00:34:34.039
celebrate the harvest. And so it was cyclical,

00:34:34.179 --> 00:34:37.139
right, cyclical time. You've returned to where

00:34:37.139 --> 00:34:39.960
you started. That was human culture for thousands

00:34:39.960 --> 00:34:44.280
of years, right? commodity production does is

00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:47.719
it basically with capitalism it basically says

00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:52.280
the the only reason to produce anything is to

00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:57.239
create value in the form of profit so people

00:34:57.239 --> 00:35:00.019
have this idea that well the reason that we are

00:35:00.019 --> 00:35:02.920
raising animals is to feed people nothing could

00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:04.900
be further from the truth that has nothing to

00:35:04.900 --> 00:35:08.280
do with it at all i mean except that you for

00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:11.699
any commodity there has to be a market for it

00:35:11.690 --> 00:35:13.989
But it doesn't mean that that commodity is even

00:35:13.989 --> 00:35:17.610
healthy for you, as we know. You can buy tobacco

00:35:17.610 --> 00:35:23.110
or whatever. So animals are being produced today

00:35:23.110 --> 00:35:27.230
not to feed people, but in order to create profit.

00:35:27.329 --> 00:35:31.309
So as long as that is a structural imperative

00:35:31.309 --> 00:35:34.170
of the system, you're going to continually have

00:35:34.170 --> 00:35:38.369
the overproduction of animals to achieve that

00:35:38.369 --> 00:35:40.869
ends. So I totally agree with you that, you know,

00:35:40.869 --> 00:35:46.150
if we look at the idea of domination, which isn't

00:35:46.150 --> 00:35:48.590
in every religious tradition, I mean, if you

00:35:48.590 --> 00:35:50.630
look at indigenous cultures, they didn't have

00:35:50.630 --> 00:35:53.070
an idea of domination per se, that really is

00:35:53.070 --> 00:35:55.349
a monotheistic thing that you can trace back

00:35:55.349 --> 00:35:58.769
to the Old Testament, right? When God gives Moses

00:35:58.769 --> 00:36:01.150
dominion over everything that crawls and everything

00:36:01.150 --> 00:36:05.000
that swims and Peter Singer, by the way, in animal

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:07.420
liberation, although I'm a critic of Singer's

00:36:07.420 --> 00:36:09.519
philosophy in a variety of ways, he has a very

00:36:09.519 --> 00:36:11.900
good chapter in animal liberation called Man's

00:36:11.900 --> 00:36:14.159
Dominion, where he traces back some of this idea

00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:16.420
of domination. So I totally agree with you that

00:36:16.420 --> 00:36:21.920
that's part of it. But today, if you ask a scientist

00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:25.440
how he or she justifies tormenting some animal

00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:27.420
in the laboratory, they're not going to say,

00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:30.179
well, God said I can do it. Instead, they're

00:36:30.179 --> 00:36:35.449
going to revert to some crude conception of natural

00:36:35.449 --> 00:36:39.170
supremacy like, well, you know, either that well,

00:36:39.250 --> 00:36:44.389
it's just, it's other animals eat other animals,

00:36:44.389 --> 00:36:47.769
and we're just kind of using other animals to

00:36:47.769 --> 00:36:52.170
and, and other animals are machines, right, which

00:36:52.170 --> 00:36:55.610
is, which we get that idea of animals as machinic

00:36:55.610 --> 00:36:58.829
comes from Rene Descartes, chiefly, Francis Bacon

00:36:58.829 --> 00:37:02.159
in the 17th century. Well, that idea of animals

00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:04.880
as machines is itself an artifact of capitalist

00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:08.480
development. No one for thousands of years, even

00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:10.679
the religionists, they never thought that animals

00:37:10.679 --> 00:37:14.639
were just stuff, machines. They thought that

00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:18.420
God had created man, quote unquote, in his image,

00:37:18.460 --> 00:37:21.900
right? But they also thought that God created

00:37:21.900 --> 00:37:25.500
in his wisdom all these living beings. And ancient

00:37:25.500 --> 00:37:27.860
peoples understood that these were beings with

00:37:27.929 --> 00:37:30.369
consciousness and feelings. They weren't stupid.

00:37:31.530 --> 00:37:34.530
But by the time we get to early mechanization

00:37:34.530 --> 00:37:37.349
and then finally industrialization, animals lose

00:37:37.349 --> 00:37:39.889
a kind of status in capitalist culture where

00:37:39.889 --> 00:37:43.679
they just become things, commodities. Which isn't

00:37:43.679 --> 00:37:45.360
to say that they were ever treated well before

00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:47.260
but now it's worse because if you look at the

00:37:47.260 --> 00:37:50.019
sheer numbers of animals being exploited It's

00:37:50.019 --> 00:37:51.960
just you can't we can't even get wrap our minds

00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:54.840
around it 80 billion Land animals every year

00:37:54.840 --> 00:37:57.340
and up to almost three trillion marine animals

00:37:57.340 --> 00:38:00.119
being killed every single year and that's growing

00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:03.420
Well, why is that that isn't because of Christianity

00:38:03.420 --> 00:38:06.500
or Buddhism or Islam? That's because of capitalism

00:38:06.500 --> 00:38:14.019
Yes, I would admit that if you showed Christians

00:38:14.019 --> 00:38:18.019
from even a hundred years ago, what is what we're

00:38:18.019 --> 00:38:21.440
doing, what we're up to in terms of animal exploitation,

00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:26.380
they would be really shocked. I do believe that

00:38:26.380 --> 00:38:30.000
they would not be, they would not be agreeable

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:33.119
with, you know, the ways we, we have brought

00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:36.139
things, you know, in terms of scale. Yeah. So

00:38:36.139 --> 00:38:41.099
I do admit that that's true. You mentioned quickly,

00:38:42.230 --> 00:38:44.489
disbelief that there is a natural hierarchy.

00:38:44.929 --> 00:38:47.750
And that is something I want to get to get back

00:38:47.750 --> 00:38:51.889
to because you bring up so many myths that have

00:38:51.889 --> 00:38:57.010
been built by carnists. But first, you know,

00:38:57.130 --> 00:39:01.929
let me ask this. What you're saying, you know,

00:39:01.949 --> 00:39:09.650
about capitalism, about hierarchies and liberal

00:39:09.650 --> 00:39:13.429
democracies, That should be very appealing to

00:39:13.429 --> 00:39:18.409
a progressive audience. So why do we have so

00:39:18.409 --> 00:39:22.929
many progressives right now who are not only,

00:39:22.929 --> 00:39:27.389
you know, in majority not vegans, but many of

00:39:27.389 --> 00:39:32.289
them are against veganism and oppose this movement?

00:39:33.429 --> 00:39:38.429
How do you explain that? Back in 1989, I wrote

00:39:38.429 --> 00:39:42.789
an article for Z Magazine, a leftist magazine

00:39:42.789 --> 00:39:45.670
here in the US on animals in the left and why

00:39:45.670 --> 00:39:48.289
the left ought to care. I'll tell you, when I

00:39:48.289 --> 00:39:50.949
wrote that, I braced myself for what I thought

00:39:50.949 --> 00:39:53.449
would be an explosion of outrage by the left.

00:39:54.309 --> 00:39:57.289
Nothing, because the people on the left care

00:39:57.289 --> 00:40:00.949
so little about animals. They were like, they

00:40:00.949 --> 00:40:03.230
shouldn't even read it, let alone care about

00:40:03.230 --> 00:40:07.190
what I had to say, you know. So, you know, I'm

00:40:07.190 --> 00:40:11.369
not alone anymore. There are some excellent thinkers

00:40:11.369 --> 00:40:14.510
in critical animal studies who are Marxists,

00:40:14.510 --> 00:40:17.969
who are writing on animal issues. My friend Dinesh

00:40:17.969 --> 00:40:22.730
Wadiwell, Marco Morizzi, an Italian theorist,

00:40:22.730 --> 00:40:27.550
and so forth. So, there's a lot of work that's

00:40:27.550 --> 00:40:31.210
being done by leftists on the animal issue, but

00:40:31.210 --> 00:40:35.230
you're absolutely right that not only are most

00:40:35.230 --> 00:40:39.809
leftists not vegans, they're actually hostile

00:40:39.809 --> 00:40:42.750
to anyone who brings it up. Now, okay, so why

00:40:42.750 --> 00:40:46.829
is that? Well, in the first instance, it's because

00:40:46.829 --> 00:40:48.809
they're like every other human on the earth,

00:40:48.909 --> 00:40:52.989
which is that they defend themselves psychologically

00:40:52.989 --> 00:40:55.840
and existentially against the knowledge of their

00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:57.920
own complicity and an injustice, and they don't

00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:00.179
want to confront that. It's cognitive dissonance,

00:41:00.219 --> 00:41:01.880
because I know these leftists, and they have

00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:04.320
cats and dogs who they would sacrifice their

00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:08.239
lives for, some of them. So it's total hypocrisy.

00:41:08.500 --> 00:41:12.420
But worse than that, it's an ideological bind

00:41:12.420 --> 00:41:15.400
that they're in. They're not able to see past

00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:18.679
their own egoistic interests, and they're not

00:41:18.679 --> 00:41:22.179
able to see that they're behaving in ways that

00:41:22.179 --> 00:41:26.690
are Surely at odds with the Emancipatory Project,

00:41:26.849 --> 00:41:30.110
like how can you support enslavement of other

00:41:30.110 --> 00:41:34.769
beings, torture, killing, violence, degradation?

00:41:35.030 --> 00:41:37.670
Is that what you mean by socialism? Is that what

00:41:37.670 --> 00:41:39.929
you mean by feminism? What are you talking about?

00:41:41.010 --> 00:41:43.690
So on the one hand, leftists are like anyone

00:41:43.690 --> 00:41:47.570
else. Stupid, I'm sorry if I can say, can I say

00:41:47.570 --> 00:41:51.289
that on the air? They're ignorant, they deceive

00:41:51.289 --> 00:41:54.679
themselves, they're in bad faith. Now, I think

00:41:54.679 --> 00:41:56.599
there is this other dimension to the problem,

00:41:56.699 --> 00:41:59.320
which is that the left tradition is staunchly

00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:05.300
humanist. And there's a way in which there's

00:42:05.300 --> 00:42:07.880
what I would call when others have called Promethean

00:42:07.880 --> 00:42:11.519
Marxism, which is the idea that nature should

00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:15.320
be democratized. And so Marx's view of nature

00:42:15.320 --> 00:42:18.460
really is that it's privatized and that its goods

00:42:18.460 --> 00:42:24.320
are not being not available to everybody. And

00:42:24.320 --> 00:42:27.679
Marx actually calls nature, quote, man's inorganic

00:42:27.679 --> 00:42:31.280
body, unquote, man's inorganic body. In other

00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:34.380
words, rather than a separation between me and

00:42:34.380 --> 00:42:37.840
the trees, like that's my body. Well, I mean,

00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:42.679
that's kind of imperialist, isn't it? And anthropocentric.

00:42:42.860 --> 00:42:45.440
So you can't get around the anthropocentrism

00:42:45.440 --> 00:42:48.159
of the left tradition. It's always been there.

00:42:48.559 --> 00:42:51.000
write the idea that only humans have history,

00:42:51.059 --> 00:42:53.019
the only only humans have self consciousness,

00:42:53.119 --> 00:42:57.480
only humans struggle against power and blah,

00:42:57.579 --> 00:43:02.119
blah, blah. But it's if you examine it, it's

00:43:02.119 --> 00:43:04.260
a silly position. And again, I do think it, you

00:43:04.260 --> 00:43:05.920
know, you get the right down to it. And it's

00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:09.039
simply about privilege and not wanting to confront

00:43:09.039 --> 00:43:12.280
the facts out of defensiveness. That's what I

00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:14.960
think. By the way, having those conversations

00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:19.239
about how You know the world is completely against

00:43:19.239 --> 00:43:22.719
us makes me feel optimistic weirdly enough not

00:43:22.719 --> 00:43:27.480
you know glue me because it just I'm in all wonders

00:43:27.480 --> 00:43:32.039
of the miracle of us being vegan and having Kind

00:43:32.039 --> 00:43:36.500
of waken up to this reality despite this world

00:43:36.500 --> 00:43:42.699
being against us okay, a bit of Difficult question

00:43:42.699 --> 00:43:47.619
I was really curious about your opinion on John

00:43:47.619 --> 00:43:51.699
Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods. What do you

00:43:51.699 --> 00:43:53.920
think of him? He's one of the most prominent

00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:59.039
vegans out there. And he at least labels himself

00:43:59.039 --> 00:44:02.860
and is perceived, I think, as very much on the

00:44:02.860 --> 00:44:06.219
progressive left. At the same time, he's at the

00:44:06.219 --> 00:44:08.800
head of Whole Foods, and he's a billionaire.

00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:13.840
And, you know, so his, his character intrigues

00:44:13.840 --> 00:44:16.260
me. What do you make of him? I think he's a,

00:44:16.260 --> 00:44:18.599
I think he's a person without any moral scruples

00:44:18.599 --> 00:44:23.179
whatsoever. I'm a very bad person. That's judgmental.

00:44:23.199 --> 00:44:25.500
I shouldn't say that. Let me just say that he's

00:44:25.500 --> 00:44:27.679
played a very destructive role in a variety of

00:44:27.679 --> 00:44:30.320
ways. First of all, he no longer owns, I believe,

00:44:30.380 --> 00:44:32.199
I don't think he owns Whole Foods. He sold that

00:44:32.199 --> 00:44:35.099
to Amazon. So Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos,

00:44:35.219 --> 00:44:38.500
another billionaire. Mackey, of course, is a

00:44:38.500 --> 00:44:43.320
union busting pro -capitalist kind of fanatic

00:44:43.320 --> 00:44:45.400
who wrote a book called Conscious Capitalism,

00:44:45.460 --> 00:44:47.159
which he had, I remember going into Whole Foods

00:44:47.159 --> 00:44:49.260
and they were all the Conscious Capitalism books.

00:44:49.710 --> 00:44:56.760
And so he has this I want to say naive faith

00:44:56.760 --> 00:44:59.980
in the free market, but it's not so naive, really,

00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:03.119
because he's a ruthless businessman who is actually

00:45:03.119 --> 00:45:05.519
one of the largest traffickers in the bodies

00:45:05.519 --> 00:45:10.300
of animals. I mean, he is part of this myth of

00:45:10.300 --> 00:45:13.079
the enlightened omnivore. He promoted that. You

00:45:13.079 --> 00:45:15.780
go to Whole Foods and you see animal compassion,

00:45:16.440 --> 00:45:20.280
this big sign and the global animal partnership

00:45:20.280 --> 00:45:24.570
program, which he helped create, which papers

00:45:24.570 --> 00:45:28.610
over and legitimizes mass violence against animals.

00:45:30.670 --> 00:45:33.170
I think it's really good that you raised it because

00:45:33.170 --> 00:45:36.050
there's a certain sense in which we think of

00:45:36.050 --> 00:45:39.190
politics in identity politics terms. Well, like

00:45:39.190 --> 00:45:41.269
I'm holier than some of my neighbor because I'm

00:45:41.269 --> 00:45:43.769
a vegan, and that now I've done my job because

00:45:43.769 --> 00:45:46.710
I don't eat animals, so I'm a good person. That's

00:45:46.710 --> 00:45:48.530
just the wrong way I think of it. of looking

00:45:48.530 --> 00:45:51.269
at the system and how we're going to change it.

00:45:51.769 --> 00:45:54.550
I don't care if John Mack is a vegan. Why on

00:45:54.550 --> 00:45:56.630
earth would that matter to me? It doesn't matter

00:45:56.630 --> 00:46:01.690
to me at all. It matters to me that he's engaging

00:46:01.690 --> 00:46:03.809
in violence against animals and legitimating

00:46:03.809 --> 00:46:08.429
that. It matters to me that he's exploiting workers

00:46:08.429 --> 00:46:13.110
and ruining the environment. That stuff matters

00:46:13.110 --> 00:46:15.809
to me a great deal. And I think that confusion

00:46:15.809 --> 00:46:20.170
that people have within the vegan movement, I

00:46:20.170 --> 00:46:22.329
think the problem with even just talking about

00:46:22.329 --> 00:46:26.789
veganism in isolation is that it ends up mystifying

00:46:26.789 --> 00:46:29.250
the social relations that give rise to these

00:46:29.250 --> 00:46:31.269
institutions. What do I mean by that? I mean

00:46:31.269 --> 00:46:34.329
that I don't even like to think of myself as

00:46:34.329 --> 00:46:36.889
a vegan. Now I have been a vegan for over 30

00:46:36.889 --> 00:46:38.989
years. Is it almost 40 years? I don't know, a

00:46:38.989 --> 00:46:43.840
long, long time. But really, I'm an animal justice

00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:49.780
advocate. I'm for animal liberation. When people

00:46:49.780 --> 00:46:53.280
hear the word vegan, they just think it's another

00:46:53.280 --> 00:46:56.760
food choice, like being gluten free. They don't

00:46:56.760 --> 00:46:59.320
think that to be a vegan means to be opposed

00:46:59.320 --> 00:47:03.500
to animal experimentation, for example. They

00:47:03.500 --> 00:47:05.920
wouldn't think that, well, since I'm a vegan,

00:47:06.079 --> 00:47:09.179
I'm against cargill. for destroying the rainforests

00:47:09.179 --> 00:47:12.840
of Borneo and the habitat of the orangutans.

00:47:13.239 --> 00:47:18.039
So there's a delinking, right, between the vegan

00:47:18.039 --> 00:47:23.420
kind of lifestyle movement and ecological politics

00:47:23.420 --> 00:47:27.860
that would name the destruction of all life on

00:47:27.860 --> 00:47:31.300
earth by these systems. And it's just so peculiar

00:47:31.300 --> 00:47:34.420
to me. Like, how can I, why should I care about

00:47:34.420 --> 00:47:37.659
a pig or a chicken, which I do obviously? and

00:47:37.659 --> 00:47:44.280
not about the lemurs and the avians who are on

00:47:44.280 --> 00:47:46.960
the brink of starvation because of global warming,

00:47:47.099 --> 00:47:49.860
which is a function of the market economy. It's

00:47:49.860 --> 00:47:55.599
all one totality. I think of our job as really

00:47:55.599 --> 00:48:00.019
showing that totality to the public, really explaining

00:48:00.019 --> 00:48:03.400
how it works. Because in my experience, no one

00:48:03.400 --> 00:48:08.159
in the public realm knows anything about the

00:48:08.159 --> 00:48:11.539
animal system. I'll tell you, when I was researching

00:48:11.539 --> 00:48:13.599
and writing this book, which took me a very long

00:48:13.599 --> 00:48:18.679
time, people would ask me, what's your book about?

00:48:18.920 --> 00:48:20.719
And I would say, well, it's about our violence

00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:24.360
against animals. And the look of confusion on

00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:28.380
their faces, they really, they nodded like, you

00:48:28.380 --> 00:48:34.539
mean dog abuse? You mean like when people are

00:48:34.539 --> 00:48:37.980
hoarding animals and they do these undercover

00:48:37.980 --> 00:48:44.320
rescue? They have no idea that we've organized

00:48:44.320 --> 00:48:48.460
our entire economy, society, and existential

00:48:48.460 --> 00:48:52.119
identity around dominating, exploiting, and killing

00:48:52.119 --> 00:48:56.239
billions, trillions of animals with such insistence

00:48:56.239 --> 00:48:59.730
that it's destroying the means of life. No idea.

00:49:00.610 --> 00:49:03.489
So surely that is our job is to say, oh, by the

00:49:03.489 --> 00:49:07.610
way, take their head and turn and say, hey, look

00:49:07.610 --> 00:49:10.449
at that. I mean, that's why right? Vegans have

00:49:10.449 --> 00:49:12.809
a reputation as being proselytizers. You know,

00:49:12.829 --> 00:49:14.469
how do you know when there's a vegan in the room?

00:49:14.690 --> 00:49:17.989
Because they'll tell you. But that is our job.

00:49:18.070 --> 00:49:20.809
It is to try to explain to people what's happening

00:49:20.809 --> 00:49:23.750
and they don't want to know. Let me get to another

00:49:23.750 --> 00:49:26.650
sensitive point that you touch on in the book

00:49:26.650 --> 00:49:33.960
and that truly triggered me, which is the plan

00:49:33.960 --> 00:49:37.320
to infiltrate the animal rights movement by Big

00:49:37.320 --> 00:49:43.099
Ag. Can you talk more about that? And also, if

00:49:43.099 --> 00:49:49.159
Big Ag right now is maybe in this infiltration

00:49:49.159 --> 00:49:52.099
point, because I do believe, if you're smart,

00:49:52.219 --> 00:49:57.630
if you're rational, of course, this gigantic,

00:49:57.630 --> 00:50:03.050
this Titan of wealth will think about ways to

00:50:03.050 --> 00:50:05.329
destroy your movement because you're a threat.

00:50:05.369 --> 00:50:08.170
So why wouldn't they not, you know, think about

00:50:08.170 --> 00:50:12.730
ways to infiltrate your movement? And are they

00:50:12.730 --> 00:50:16.150
also taking into the equation, this cultivated

00:50:16.150 --> 00:50:19.510
meat thing, you know, tying, tying it back to

00:50:19.510 --> 00:50:25.500
the first topic we, we discussed? Well, I don't

00:50:25.500 --> 00:50:27.719
know about infiltration per se, but there's been

00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:30.539
a concerted effort for decades within the animal

00:50:30.539 --> 00:50:34.820
agriculture industry to deflect criticism by

00:50:34.820 --> 00:50:37.820
environmentalists and by animal rights people.

00:50:38.099 --> 00:50:42.460
No question about it. It's really worried, right,

00:50:42.500 --> 00:50:44.139
the animal industry. And this is true of the

00:50:44.139 --> 00:50:47.000
biotech and animal research industry as well.

00:50:47.079 --> 00:50:49.579
I mean, they've created what are called astroturf.

00:50:50.340 --> 00:50:54.159
campaigns, as I say, seemingly grassroots movements

00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:57.860
to defend consumer rights, but actually their

00:50:57.860 --> 00:51:02.360
corporate driven efforts to defeat animal rights

00:51:02.360 --> 00:51:04.739
people who are questioning our torture of animals

00:51:04.739 --> 00:51:07.280
and laboratories. And so we see the same thing

00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:10.400
in Big Ag. And one of the strategies I mentioned

00:51:10.400 --> 00:51:18.559
in the book is the hiring of consultants to create

00:51:18.559 --> 00:51:23.199
a public perception around animal advocacy in

00:51:23.199 --> 00:51:27.239
which abolitionists, people who want to shut

00:51:27.239 --> 00:51:30.219
down the animal system, are positioned in the

00:51:30.219 --> 00:51:36.380
discourse as crazy radical extremists. And then

00:51:36.380 --> 00:51:40.139
the industry appeals to the moderate, practical,

00:51:41.579 --> 00:51:44.780
welfare -oriented people who are given incentives

00:51:44.780 --> 00:51:47.840
to play along. And we do see this with leading

00:51:47.960 --> 00:51:55.519
men in the movement who have become openly allied

00:51:55.519 --> 00:51:57.820
with capitalist industry. For example, Wayne

00:51:57.820 --> 00:52:01.139
Paselli in his book, The Humane Economy, which

00:52:01.139 --> 00:52:03.340
argues that capitalism is a wonderful thing for

00:52:03.340 --> 00:52:05.599
animals and it's going to lead to their liberation.

00:52:08.980 --> 00:52:11.099
Paul Shapiro, I'd have to look at my book, but

00:52:11.099 --> 00:52:13.780
there are others who are working with Purdue

00:52:13.780 --> 00:52:17.929
to create hybrid products that have both animal

00:52:17.929 --> 00:52:24.510
and vegetable materials in them to blur the distinction

00:52:24.510 --> 00:52:28.530
between animals and plants and so forth. So James

00:52:28.530 --> 00:52:33.130
Levesque from Tribe of Heart, the filmmaker,

00:52:33.610 --> 00:52:37.369
had an article many years ago about invasion

00:52:37.369 --> 00:52:39.829
of the body snatchers. You can Google that and

00:52:39.829 --> 00:52:44.710
you can see how the industry maneuvered to isolate

00:52:47.520 --> 00:52:51.599
ethically oriented vegans and justice people

00:52:51.599 --> 00:52:55.179
by presenting them as fanatics. And now that

00:52:55.179 --> 00:52:58.179
has become taken up by the capitalist state,

00:52:58.539 --> 00:53:01.000
so that the United States has all of these laws.

00:53:02.539 --> 00:53:06.159
After the 9 -11 attacks, Congress passed the

00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:09.860
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which in its

00:53:09.860 --> 00:53:13.849
first iteration basically said that if you even

00:53:13.849 --> 00:53:17.150
did nonviolent civil disobedience to stop pigs,

00:53:17.150 --> 00:53:19.829
say, from being taken out of a facility. You

00:53:19.829 --> 00:53:23.130
could be charged as a terrorist under US federal

00:53:23.130 --> 00:53:26.769
law and sentenced to prison for 20 years. So

00:53:26.769 --> 00:53:29.869
the state, we think of the state, the government

00:53:29.869 --> 00:53:33.789
as neutral. It isn't a neutral thing. It's very

00:53:33.789 --> 00:53:36.989
much influenced by business, by big corporations,

00:53:37.090 --> 00:53:43.980
right? So the FBI certainly has persecuted and

00:53:43.980 --> 00:53:47.679
indeed, no doubt infiltrated, I'll say that,

00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:53.760
infiltrated animal movements to try to survey

00:53:53.760 --> 00:53:58.800
them and disrupt them. My friend Laura Donna

00:53:58.800 --> 00:54:02.380
Loy, who is a sociologist, is doing some kind

00:54:02.380 --> 00:54:06.019
of cutting edge research on how the cattle industry

00:54:06.019 --> 00:54:13.559
manipulated the public and hid the facts that

00:54:13.559 --> 00:54:15.940
they were themselves discovering about climate

00:54:15.940 --> 00:54:20.480
change and animal agriculture. That link, Jeremy

00:54:20.480 --> 00:54:22.980
Rifkin has done work on this too. So there's

00:54:22.980 --> 00:54:25.780
a lot on this. So there's no question that when

00:54:25.780 --> 00:54:28.159
you're talking about a billion dollar, multi

00:54:28.159 --> 00:54:31.719
-billion dollar industry and the government in

00:54:31.719 --> 00:54:34.440
cahoots with it, passing ag -gag laws, in other

00:54:34.440 --> 00:54:36.739
words, criminalizing undercover investigations

00:54:36.739 --> 00:54:39.119
of animal agriculture, that's not an accident

00:54:39.119 --> 00:54:43.860
that people in that are being demonized in the

00:54:43.860 --> 00:54:48.920
movement as a threat to society. Yeah, why is

00:54:48.920 --> 00:54:53.960
the FBI attending big ag conferences? Why, you

00:54:53.960 --> 00:54:56.320
know, and we can't, we can see footage of that

00:54:56.320 --> 00:55:00.940
of those conferences, transcripts of what was

00:55:00.940 --> 00:55:06.320
said in those rooms. It's all kept hidden. Weird.

00:55:07.630 --> 00:55:10.489
I do want to say that, yeah, and it isn't even

00:55:10.489 --> 00:55:13.210
just economic interests. It's tied in with a

00:55:13.210 --> 00:55:15.250
certain conception of masculinity, right? So

00:55:15.250 --> 00:55:17.789
a lot of people in law enforcement, particularly

00:55:17.789 --> 00:55:21.190
men, are hunters and fishers. And they identify

00:55:21.190 --> 00:55:24.650
with a kind of a grieved white rural masculine

00:55:24.650 --> 00:55:29.570
project. So again, they're not ideologically

00:55:29.570 --> 00:55:32.880
neutral. They're not just police officers or

00:55:32.880 --> 00:55:35.780
part of law enforcement, they have their own

00:55:35.780 --> 00:55:39.219
identities as human beings. And that identity

00:55:39.219 --> 00:55:42.519
is more and more tied to masculine aggression

00:55:42.519 --> 00:55:48.360
against immigrants, against women, against animals

00:55:48.360 --> 00:55:51.219
and against those who sympathize with those groups.

00:55:52.900 --> 00:55:57.719
Yeah, since, you know, reading about that, you

00:55:57.719 --> 00:56:03.920
know, the the article and also that passage in

00:56:03.920 --> 00:56:07.519
your book, I can't help being a bit paranoid

00:56:07.519 --> 00:56:10.360
in thinking, you know, if I was big ag and if

00:56:10.360 --> 00:56:13.800
I wanted to infiltrate this movement or derail

00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:18.099
this movement, how would I go about it? That's

00:56:18.099 --> 00:56:21.380
a weird reflection to have, but yeah, I can't

00:56:21.380 --> 00:56:24.960
help it. It's in a way very interesting intellectually

00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:30.559
to think about it. Okay, I want to get to the

00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:35.320
different myths that your book addresses, and

00:56:35.320 --> 00:56:39.500
I just love it so much. I think it's my favorite

00:56:39.500 --> 00:56:44.500
parts of your book. You talking about those myths

00:56:44.500 --> 00:56:48.199
and then dismantling them. I just absolutely

00:56:48.199 --> 00:56:52.000
love that. And let's start with one that just

00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:55.699
gets under my skin every time, which is look

00:56:55.699 --> 00:56:58.929
-a -verism. I think I'm pronouncing it. right?

00:56:59.789 --> 00:57:04.969
Um, what is that about? And why is it wrong?

00:57:07.090 --> 00:57:10.110
So local vorvism is a is a movement that began

00:57:10.110 --> 00:57:14.710
2005, there were four young women in the San

00:57:14.710 --> 00:57:17.829
Francisco Bay Area who coined that term. And

00:57:17.829 --> 00:57:20.329
on the face of it, it's it's harmless and even

00:57:20.329 --> 00:57:23.869
admirable. It's the idea that by eating locally

00:57:23.869 --> 00:57:28.400
grown foods, We keep resources in our community.

00:57:28.719 --> 00:57:32.980
We encourage maybe organic or less ecologically

00:57:32.980 --> 00:57:37.219
damaging modes of food production. We eliminate,

00:57:37.219 --> 00:57:40.239
quote, food miles. So if I eat a tomato, I'm

00:57:40.239 --> 00:57:43.559
getting it from my local neighbor. I'm not getting

00:57:43.559 --> 00:57:47.059
it from Nebraska shipped in a refrigerated truck

00:57:47.059 --> 00:57:51.440
1 ,000 miles and so forth. And that movement,

00:57:51.599 --> 00:57:54.969
the local vorism. kind of dovetailed with a resurgence

00:57:54.969 --> 00:57:58.349
of agrarianism and the idealization of farmers

00:57:58.349 --> 00:58:01.050
as being, you know, virtuous and close to the

00:58:01.050 --> 00:58:05.250
earth and that, you know, farms and consumers,

00:58:06.369 --> 00:58:09.309
farmers need to be in closer contact with consumers

00:58:09.309 --> 00:58:13.449
and so on. And so it was in 2006 that Michael

00:58:13.449 --> 00:58:16.630
Pollan wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma, published

00:58:16.630 --> 00:58:18.809
that huge bestseller, one of the most influential

00:58:18.809 --> 00:58:21.570
books really of the late 20th century in America.

00:58:23.230 --> 00:58:25.550
and consolidating this. Now, he didn't use the

00:58:25.550 --> 00:58:28.170
word local war in his book, but it was kind of

00:58:28.170 --> 00:58:34.269
implicit that it's better to have local stuff

00:58:34.269 --> 00:58:38.989
and to not rely on big agribusiness. Now, I go

00:58:38.989 --> 00:58:40.869
into great length in this book about why this

00:58:40.869 --> 00:58:45.750
whole thing is ridiculous. It's the Latin that

00:58:45.750 --> 00:58:48.550
you quoted from your economics class earlier.

00:58:48.650 --> 00:58:52.650
Yeah, if all things were equal, then sure, you

00:58:52.650 --> 00:58:54.869
know, it's better for me to eat a tomato that

00:58:54.869 --> 00:58:58.090
I just grew than to get one from Florida. Yeah,

00:58:58.309 --> 00:59:03.349
yeah, that's true. But I can't grow oranges in

00:59:03.349 --> 00:59:06.449
my backyard. So I'm going to have to get some

00:59:06.449 --> 00:59:10.260
things from outside my area and that's actually

00:59:10.260 --> 00:59:12.539
just called trade right and humans have been

00:59:12.539 --> 00:59:15.079
trading across continents for thousands of years

00:59:15.079 --> 00:59:18.099
that's simply the way the economy works and now

00:59:18.099 --> 00:59:20.599
never more so than under capitalist relations

00:59:20.599 --> 00:59:24.940
when we live in a global economy where production

00:59:24.940 --> 00:59:30.380
is by nature distributed geographically and the

00:59:30.380 --> 00:59:33.659
thing is it's like The myth of food miles, for

00:59:33.659 --> 00:59:37.719
example. Yeah, if all things are equal, then

00:59:37.719 --> 00:59:40.719
I should get the tomato from my farmer's market.

00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:43.739
But in fact, we know that most of the resources

00:59:43.739 --> 00:59:47.059
that are consumed, that are applied in food production,

00:59:48.380 --> 00:59:51.639
or that are related to food, are at the point

00:59:51.639 --> 00:59:55.260
of production, not transportation. So first of

00:59:55.260 --> 00:59:57.659
all, that idea of food miles has been more or

00:59:57.659 --> 01:00:00.840
less debunked. Second of all, the locavore movement

01:00:00.840 --> 01:00:04.300
from the beginning was very animal -centric.

01:00:04.400 --> 01:00:08.360
It was very much about rebranding animal products

01:00:08.360 --> 01:00:11.539
as benign commodities, as nice to the animals,

01:00:11.900 --> 01:00:15.900
as a way to achieve a form of authenticity so

01:00:15.900 --> 01:00:19.599
you could kill the animal yourself and feel like

01:00:19.599 --> 01:00:22.639
you were not being hypocritical and you were

01:00:22.639 --> 01:00:27.579
participating in the great cycle of life. Namaste

01:00:27.579 --> 01:00:30.579
to the animal. I've actually sat down with people

01:00:30.579 --> 01:00:33.420
who've said a prayer to the chicken at the steakhouse

01:00:33.420 --> 01:00:35.679
before they eat the chicken, thanking the chicken

01:00:35.679 --> 01:00:39.179
for its sacrifice. Well, all of that comes out

01:00:39.179 --> 01:00:44.420
of this moment. of, quote, locovorism and omnivorism.

01:00:45.119 --> 01:00:48.360
So there's this huge cultural production. And

01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:50.119
it's really important to understand that systems

01:00:50.119 --> 01:00:53.739
of power don't get established once and done.

01:00:53.980 --> 01:00:56.440
It's not once and for all. You set up slavery.

01:00:56.559 --> 01:00:58.739
You set up patriarchy. And then that The thing

01:00:58.739 --> 01:01:01.239
just runs on its own. That is never the case.

01:01:01.380 --> 01:01:03.840
And same with the animal system. At every moment,

01:01:03.840 --> 01:01:06.940
it must be continually reinforced and reinforced

01:01:06.940 --> 01:01:08.940
and reinforced. All of the lies, all the myths,

01:01:09.539 --> 01:01:12.900
all the self -deception, all of that has to be

01:01:12.900 --> 01:01:15.960
reiterated again and again. And then as people

01:01:15.960 --> 01:01:18.199
say in the animal movement, the environmental

01:01:18.199 --> 01:01:22.480
movement, begin to criticize aspects of that,

01:01:22.840 --> 01:01:25.280
it has to be adjusted. All the little messaging

01:01:25.280 --> 01:01:27.260
has to be adjusted. It has to be, you have to

01:01:27.260 --> 01:01:29.940
have new narratives, new stories, new tropes

01:01:29.940 --> 01:01:37.300
to justify the unjustifiable. So the one -two

01:01:37.300 --> 01:01:39.739
punch, the one -two punch as it were of Michael

01:01:39.739 --> 01:01:42.300
Pollan's omnivores dilemma followed the following,

01:01:42.340 --> 01:01:45.380
the next year by Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal

01:01:45.380 --> 01:01:48.400
Vegetable Miracle. which is an account of her

01:01:48.400 --> 01:01:51.639
family raising animals on an organic farm. Those

01:01:51.639 --> 01:01:55.880
two national bestsellers have been, really I

01:01:55.880 --> 01:01:59.119
can't exaggerate, their cultural influence. I

01:01:59.119 --> 01:02:02.059
mean, Michael Pollan, it's funny. I just got

01:02:02.059 --> 01:02:05.179
a note from a friend of mine who is an animal

01:02:05.179 --> 01:02:10.659
advocate in the United Kingdom. And he was at

01:02:10.659 --> 01:02:14.179
a nature preserve. in England the other day and

01:02:14.179 --> 01:02:16.360
he came across this sign. He took a picture of

01:02:16.360 --> 01:02:19.559
it and it was something about getting along with

01:02:19.559 --> 01:02:23.139
animals and nature and then there was a long

01:02:23.139 --> 01:02:26.440
quote from Michael Pollan. Michael Pollan is

01:02:26.440 --> 01:02:30.960
the patron saint of animal agriculture and he's

01:02:30.960 --> 01:02:33.119
done enormous damage. I mean his book is even

01:02:33.119 --> 01:02:35.760
part of the state mandated curriculum in middle

01:02:35.760 --> 01:02:38.440
schools and high schools in different states

01:02:38.440 --> 01:02:42.429
around the United States. And his book is taught

01:02:42.429 --> 01:02:45.909
at every educational level. Little kids are reading

01:02:45.909 --> 01:02:51.010
it, graduate students, PhD researchers, because

01:02:51.010 --> 01:02:53.250
he's telling the public what they want to hear,

01:02:53.409 --> 01:02:55.429
which is that we can have our meat and our conscience

01:02:55.429 --> 01:03:00.190
too. So my book is an attempt to take all that

01:03:00.190 --> 01:03:04.329
down piece by piece. Yeah, your book is this

01:03:04.329 --> 01:03:11.539
counter book to all of that. I'm sorry for my

01:03:11.539 --> 01:03:19.719
language, but bullshit. I ask people to support

01:03:19.719 --> 01:03:23.579
your book just for that reason and to also make

01:03:23.579 --> 01:03:27.340
this book available in public library. This is

01:03:27.340 --> 01:03:32.650
something I try to emphasize. You can purchase

01:03:32.650 --> 01:03:36.809
more than one copy and then give it as a donation

01:03:36.809 --> 01:03:40.070
to public libraries. Make it available to everyone,

01:03:40.090 --> 01:03:44.929
not just yourself. There are also those boxes

01:03:44.929 --> 01:03:51.690
that you find outside with book donations and

01:03:51.690 --> 01:03:55.250
stuff. You can add them there. So yeah, it is

01:03:55.250 --> 01:04:00.349
important to do our share of counteracting this.

01:04:01.700 --> 01:04:05.900
culture of exploiting animals. Do you want to

01:04:05.900 --> 01:04:11.980
maybe discuss humane meat because it's the center

01:04:11.980 --> 01:04:21.260
of Poland's book and contribution to this industry.

01:04:23.159 --> 01:04:29.429
So there is this anime where there are those

01:04:29.429 --> 01:04:34.670
demons who feed on the brains of humans. And

01:04:34.670 --> 01:04:40.130
because they want smart, happy humans, they need

01:04:40.130 --> 01:04:44.199
to create the best conditions to harvest those

01:04:44.199 --> 01:04:48.019
brains. And so there's a system of farms and

01:04:48.019 --> 01:04:51.340
in those farms, those children are stimulated,

01:04:51.500 --> 01:04:55.179
you know, they are given so much, you know, woods

01:04:55.179 --> 01:04:58.539
to play and all of that. And that's what I think

01:04:58.539 --> 01:05:02.760
about when I think about humane meat. And I don't

01:05:02.760 --> 01:05:07.579
understand how carnists cannot just feel like

01:05:07.579 --> 01:05:12.989
this is weird and spooky. This this whole concept

01:05:12.989 --> 01:05:18.150
of humane meat. I personally feel more freaked

01:05:18.150 --> 01:05:22.469
out by this label than you know, the usual meat.

01:05:23.190 --> 01:05:27.869
It's it's it's this idea of humane meat is pivotal.

01:05:28.210 --> 01:05:31.690
I really think it's pivotal to the whole legitimation

01:05:31.690 --> 01:05:34.690
of the larger system, right? I mean, so that

01:05:34.690 --> 01:05:38.139
so what happens is if you know, people who think

01:05:38.139 --> 01:05:41.559
that there's such a thing as humane animal agriculture

01:05:41.559 --> 01:05:45.519
or fishing, it gives them an opportunity to distance

01:05:45.519 --> 01:05:49.960
themselves psychically from so -called bad meat

01:05:49.960 --> 01:05:53.480
and bad fishing. And so that in their heart of

01:05:53.480 --> 01:05:56.760
hearts, if they could do it, they would always

01:05:56.760 --> 01:06:01.329
get their meat humanely killed, et cetera. uh

01:06:01.329 --> 01:06:03.869
so it gives them gives the consumer kind of out

01:06:03.869 --> 01:06:06.889
gives them a loophole to continue to participate

01:06:06.889 --> 01:06:11.269
in behaviors that are supporting uh factory farms

01:06:11.269 --> 01:06:14.130
too so it plays this very important psychological

01:06:14.130 --> 01:06:17.690
role the very notion of humane meat right it

01:06:17.690 --> 01:06:20.869
it it hides the animal or what carol adams calls

01:06:20.869 --> 01:06:23.769
the absent reference in other words we we would

01:06:23.769 --> 01:06:29.639
never say happy violence Yes, I'm in favor of

01:06:29.639 --> 01:06:33.519
humane violence. I'm in favor of humane exploitation.

01:06:34.039 --> 01:06:37.440
I'm in favor of humane destruction of animals.

01:06:38.360 --> 01:06:40.119
People would look at you like you were like a

01:06:40.119 --> 01:06:42.579
psychopath, which is really what is at stake.

01:06:42.619 --> 01:06:45.380
And I argue in my book that the way we treat

01:06:45.380 --> 01:06:50.139
other animals as a society is psychopathic. Because

01:06:50.139 --> 01:06:53.659
clinically, Clinical psychopaths lack empathy.

01:06:53.840 --> 01:06:57.940
They lack sympathy. They lack remorse. They believe

01:06:57.940 --> 01:07:00.659
that they have a right to their own aggression

01:07:00.659 --> 01:07:03.880
towards others. And that just check through the

01:07:03.880 --> 01:07:10.599
boxes, the test for antisocial personality disorder.

01:07:10.639 --> 01:07:15.699
And that fits us to a T. So this discourse of

01:07:15.699 --> 01:07:18.900
humane meat is doing enormous damage. And the

01:07:18.900 --> 01:07:20.860
reason it's doing damage is not only because

01:07:20.860 --> 01:07:22.920
it's a lie, because actually there have been

01:07:22.920 --> 01:07:25.940
exposés of what happens on these so -called humane

01:07:25.940 --> 01:07:30.059
farms, animals being gassed to death and suffering

01:07:30.059 --> 01:07:34.840
horribly on organic farms and gas chambers, animals

01:07:34.840 --> 01:07:39.500
being brutalized on these farms. But more importantly,

01:07:39.659 --> 01:07:44.960
I think it provides a smokescreen. Because as

01:07:44.960 --> 01:07:47.280
long as the public thinks, well, there's bad

01:07:47.280 --> 01:07:51.929
meat. But there's also good meat Then they can

01:07:51.929 --> 01:07:55.610
maintain the illusion That the animal economy

01:07:55.610 --> 01:07:57.909
as a whole is getting better and better or every

01:07:57.909 --> 01:08:01.329
time all the time. We're making progress And

01:08:01.329 --> 01:08:02.969
that in their heart of hearts, they're really

01:08:02.969 --> 01:08:05.909
good people because they would prefer the humane

01:08:05.909 --> 01:08:07.929
stuff when they could get it But of course, it's

01:08:07.929 --> 01:08:10.050
too expensive and plus my kids are hungry. So

01:08:10.050 --> 01:08:12.889
we're gonna stop at McDonald's So there's no

01:08:12.889 --> 01:08:14.889
work being done. There's no and this is why I'm

01:08:14.889 --> 01:08:17.170
against animal welfare ism which is the idea

01:08:17.170 --> 01:08:21.090
that, well, we just need to improve the conditions

01:08:21.090 --> 01:08:24.149
in which animals are raised. The public has yet

01:08:24.149 --> 01:08:27.130
to hear a compelling case for abolition. And

01:08:27.130 --> 01:08:29.149
that's one reason I wrote this book, because

01:08:29.149 --> 01:08:34.090
in my experience, people, first of all, people

01:08:34.090 --> 01:08:38.170
identify animal rights exclusively with one organization,

01:08:38.369 --> 01:08:42.510
which is PETA. Well, animal advocacy precedes

01:08:42.510 --> 01:08:47.529
PETA. by centuries. They were vegans, Buddhist

01:08:47.529 --> 01:08:52.189
vegans, a thousand years ago. So that's number

01:08:52.189 --> 01:08:58.869
one. And number two, the way that the cultural

01:08:58.869 --> 01:09:02.090
forces are rallying the wagons, circling the

01:09:02.090 --> 01:09:06.710
wagons to defend against the knowledge of what

01:09:06.710 --> 01:09:12.909
we do is It's not something that people are even

01:09:12.909 --> 01:09:15.029
aware of. And so I wrote this book to try to

01:09:15.029 --> 01:09:19.270
say, hey, you're enmeshed in a system of deception

01:09:19.270 --> 01:09:22.609
without even knowing it. So the title of my book,

01:09:22.710 --> 01:09:25.130
The Omniverse Deception, is actually about three

01:09:25.130 --> 01:09:28.189
modes of deception when I think about it. One

01:09:28.189 --> 01:09:31.310
is just the way the animal industry, restaurants,

01:09:31.829 --> 01:09:34.270
and farmers, and cattle ranchers, they all are

01:09:34.270 --> 01:09:36.520
deceiving the public about what they do. and

01:09:36.520 --> 01:09:39.479
what they are actually doing is engaged in enslavement,

01:09:39.640 --> 01:09:42.560
exploitation, and mass violence. The second mode

01:09:42.560 --> 01:09:44.579
of deception, which is the newer one that we're

01:09:44.579 --> 01:09:48.060
just talking about, is the local vorism enlightened

01:09:48.060 --> 01:09:51.340
omnibor discourse, which tells us that there

01:09:51.340 --> 01:09:57.260
are two kinds of agriculture, good, mean, unsustainable,

01:09:57.479 --> 01:10:01.300
and then, I'm sorry, bad, unsustainable, and

01:10:01.300 --> 01:10:05.239
so forth. And then there's the good form of agriculture,

01:10:05.579 --> 01:10:09.380
happy meat, compassionate killing. Not true.

01:10:09.659 --> 01:10:13.479
And then finally, there's self -deception. I

01:10:13.479 --> 01:10:17.100
begin the book with a quote from Herman Melville's

01:10:17.100 --> 01:10:22.039
novel, Moby Dick, because it's this wonderful

01:10:22.039 --> 01:10:25.199
quote where the narrator Ishmael is talking about

01:10:25.199 --> 01:10:32.069
how if I'm involved in some matter, and I know

01:10:32.069 --> 01:10:34.670
deep down it's not right, I hide that truth from

01:10:34.670 --> 01:10:37.630
myself. And that's what the philosopher Jean

01:10:37.630 --> 01:10:42.430
-Paul Sartre called bad faith. It's like, because

01:10:42.430 --> 01:10:45.550
if I confronted something that I know is bad,

01:10:45.550 --> 01:10:48.590
that I'm doing, then I would have to take responsibility

01:10:48.590 --> 01:10:52.569
for my freedom, for who I am, for the choices

01:10:52.569 --> 01:10:55.050
I make. So instead I pretend I'm not doing what

01:10:55.050 --> 01:11:00.050
I'm doing. And so the consumer can think, Oh,

01:11:00.050 --> 01:11:02.689
well, I, again, I'm a guy can pat myself on the

01:11:02.689 --> 01:11:04.750
back. I'm a good person. I don't I don't hate

01:11:04.750 --> 01:11:08.090
animals. I don't want to hurt animals. Well,

01:11:08.189 --> 01:11:11.770
while continuing to harm animals, and in fact,

01:11:11.970 --> 01:11:14.170
treat them with a kind of contempt for their

01:11:14.170 --> 01:11:17.930
very lives. Yeah, freaky. It is freaky. It's

01:11:17.930 --> 01:11:22.289
like a like they're playing a magic trick on

01:11:22.289 --> 01:11:28.350
you on on society as a whole. Okay, quickly.

01:11:28.969 --> 01:11:32.189
Um, and this is maybe one of the most shocking,

01:11:32.189 --> 01:11:36.569
um, myth you, um, uncovered this belief that

01:11:36.569 --> 01:11:40.329
they have, uh, which is that animal exploitation

01:11:40.329 --> 01:11:45.250
is female female empowerment. Now this, you know,

01:11:45.409 --> 01:11:48.170
this took me a while to wrap my mind around this,

01:11:48.170 --> 01:11:52.029
you know, how did they come up with that? Um,

01:11:52.489 --> 01:11:57.619
can you say a few words about that? So for about

01:11:57.619 --> 01:11:59.800
20 years, I've been tracking this in the media,

01:12:00.380 --> 01:12:03.880
maybe 15 years. And it's quite striking. I mean,

01:12:03.880 --> 01:12:07.460
on the one hand, the animal industry is patriarchal

01:12:07.460 --> 01:12:11.399
in structure, in origin. It's men who control

01:12:11.399 --> 01:12:14.340
these industries. It's men primarily who hunt

01:12:14.340 --> 01:12:18.039
and fish. Masculinity is really tied in closely

01:12:18.039 --> 01:12:20.420
with domination of animals. So it was very odd

01:12:20.420 --> 01:12:23.680
to see that there are dozens and dozens of women

01:12:23.680 --> 01:12:27.350
who maybe hundreds, who have been giving up well

01:12:27.350 --> 01:12:31.149
-paying jobs in the city to buy animal farms

01:12:31.149 --> 01:12:35.710
or to take up hunting. And then in dozens of

01:12:35.710 --> 01:12:38.770
cases, writing memoirs about their experiences

01:12:38.770 --> 01:12:42.289
hurting animals, dominating, controlling, hurting,

01:12:42.569 --> 01:12:45.409
killing animals as a form of empowerment, self

01:12:45.409 --> 01:12:50.279
-empowerment. In, I think it was 2010, the New

01:12:50.279 --> 01:12:53.720
York Times journalist Peggy Orenstein wrote an

01:12:53.720 --> 01:12:57.000
article in the magazine section referring to

01:12:57.000 --> 01:13:00.800
these women as, quote, Femivores. And the title

01:13:00.800 --> 01:13:04.399
of the article was the Femivores Dilemma. It's

01:13:04.399 --> 01:13:08.159
like, well, why are women taking up the gun and

01:13:08.159 --> 01:13:11.020
the knife against animals and justifying that

01:13:11.020 --> 01:13:13.720
as a form of empowerment, and even in some cases

01:13:13.720 --> 01:13:18.520
as, quote, feminist empowerment. So I read, unfortunately,

01:13:19.340 --> 01:13:22.180
I forced myself to read dozens of these books.

01:13:22.340 --> 01:13:24.359
And by the way, these are not marginal books.

01:13:25.380 --> 01:13:28.979
If my book has half the success of any one of

01:13:28.979 --> 01:13:31.220
these books, I will consider myself fortunate.

01:13:31.960 --> 01:13:34.319
These books are published by the top presses

01:13:34.319 --> 01:13:36.520
in the United States, the biggest publishing

01:13:36.520 --> 01:13:38.840
houses out of New York. They're read by millions

01:13:38.840 --> 01:13:41.079
of people, mostly women. around the country.

01:13:41.260 --> 01:13:43.779
So what is this about? And I come, you know,

01:13:43.859 --> 01:13:45.680
having thought about this, I go into this in

01:13:45.680 --> 01:13:48.199
great depth, as you know, I, you know, I have

01:13:48.199 --> 01:13:50.399
two kind of theories. And one of them has to

01:13:50.399 --> 01:13:53.159
do with what happened to the women's movement

01:13:53.159 --> 01:13:56.239
and the fact that, you know, the early promises

01:13:56.239 --> 01:13:58.300
of the second wave feminist movement, particularly

01:13:58.300 --> 01:14:01.000
for white women, were frustrated, have been frustrated.

01:14:01.180 --> 01:14:03.439
I mean, right, so you're seeing a rollback of

01:14:03.439 --> 01:14:06.399
women's equality. And so this is a way for some

01:14:06.399 --> 01:14:10.390
women to feel like of feeling a sense of power,

01:14:10.930 --> 01:14:14.149
but power over others, power over the animals

01:14:14.149 --> 01:14:17.229
themselves, right? So there's that dynamic culturally.

01:14:17.890 --> 01:14:20.029
But at the same time, you know, we've been talking,

01:14:20.390 --> 01:14:22.630
speaking in this conversation about humane meat.

01:14:23.090 --> 01:14:26.149
It's really important that the animal, for the

01:14:26.149 --> 01:14:28.350
people in the animal economy to present this

01:14:28.350 --> 01:14:33.020
image of animal agriculture as benign and compassionate,

01:14:33.260 --> 01:14:35.039
and that we can nurture the animals and then

01:14:35.039 --> 01:14:37.960
kill them. And so women are playing this really

01:14:37.960 --> 01:14:43.119
interesting and disturbing role culturally in

01:14:43.239 --> 01:14:46.399
giving justification to this violence. Temple

01:14:46.399 --> 01:14:49.199
Grandin, who I talk about, is the perfect, she's

01:14:49.199 --> 01:14:52.119
the poster child for this, right? I mean, I mean,

01:14:52.220 --> 01:14:54.140
there's been these Hollywood pictures, a Hollywood

01:14:54.140 --> 01:14:57.600
picture biopic about her. She was called praised

01:14:57.600 --> 01:15:00.680
as a quote, animal rights activist by the Museum

01:15:00.680 --> 01:15:03.880
of Modern Art in New York. She was like time

01:15:03.880 --> 01:15:06.539
as she was, I mean, whatever she's like a celebrity.

01:15:06.819 --> 01:15:10.159
And what has she done? She spends her whole life

01:15:10.319 --> 01:15:12.600
trying to find more efficient ways of animals

01:15:12.600 --> 01:15:15.880
to be killed in the millions and billions, and

01:15:15.880 --> 01:15:19.000
to go to their deaths uncomplainingly. And she's

01:15:19.000 --> 01:15:24.479
called an animal rights activist. Well, Grandin

01:15:24.479 --> 01:15:27.819
is simply one of many, you know, she's the leading

01:15:27.819 --> 01:15:30.180
figure, but it's the same idea that if you can

01:15:30.180 --> 01:15:33.680
feminize this violence, then that, again, it

01:15:33.680 --> 01:15:35.659
gives the public an out. They can think, oh,

01:15:35.720 --> 01:15:38.239
well, you know, well, Temple Grandin respects

01:15:38.239 --> 01:15:41.869
animals. and I like Temple Grandin, therefore

01:15:41.869 --> 01:15:45.170
I respect animals, so I'm going to keep eating

01:15:45.170 --> 01:15:49.750
them. It was hard to write that chapter and it's

01:15:49.750 --> 01:15:52.010
hard for readers to read because there's such

01:15:52.010 --> 01:15:55.289
sadism in these accounts. On the one hand, the

01:15:55.289 --> 01:16:00.109
women describe the animals on their farms in

01:16:00.109 --> 01:16:04.010
loving terms as infants and children and they

01:16:04.010 --> 01:16:06.210
help them in the middle of the night and then

01:16:06.210 --> 01:16:09.260
they just slit their throats and they practice

01:16:09.260 --> 01:16:12.300
violence against other animals who wander onto

01:16:12.300 --> 01:16:15.220
their farms, and they do so in this kind of bloodthirsty

01:16:15.220 --> 01:16:18.359
way. But the point is not to vilify these particular

01:16:18.359 --> 01:16:20.600
individuals who wrote these books, it's to open

01:16:20.600 --> 01:16:24.140
a window onto the entire culture and the way

01:16:24.140 --> 01:16:26.199
that we live with this contradiction where we

01:16:26.199 --> 01:16:29.520
think we love animals, you know, and then at

01:16:29.520 --> 01:16:32.539
the same time, we treat them with utter contempt

01:16:32.539 --> 01:16:37.300
as worthless beings whom we can kill in the billions

01:16:37.300 --> 01:16:41.000
and trillions. forever without harming their

01:16:41.000 --> 01:16:43.439
interests and without doing violence to our own

01:16:43.439 --> 01:16:46.420
moral souls. And so the book is about the myth

01:16:46.420 --> 01:16:49.260
of that. I think it's really helpful to know

01:16:49.260 --> 01:16:53.680
who are the people behind this animal expedition

01:16:53.680 --> 01:16:58.960
business, who are the enablers, who are the intellectuals

01:16:58.960 --> 01:17:03.460
who support this activity. um and and the culture

01:17:03.460 --> 01:17:08.039
makers um i think it's it's truly revealing to

01:17:08.039 --> 01:17:11.060
know who are those people and what are they thinking

01:17:11.060 --> 01:17:15.159
and luckily enough they do write about it they

01:17:15.159 --> 01:17:18.399
are vocal about it we just have to read what

01:17:18.399 --> 01:17:22.359
they're um talking about and you did that you

01:17:22.359 --> 01:17:25.920
did that and you created this book which is a

01:17:25.920 --> 01:17:28.640
wonderful book again the omnivore's deception

01:17:29.279 --> 01:17:34.359
um the counter book to the evil book the omnivores

01:17:34.359 --> 01:17:40.439
uh dilemma um i do i i am so happy to participate

01:17:40.439 --> 01:17:46.520
in promoting it and i'm uh really um happy to

01:17:46.520 --> 01:17:50.840
have you on and as a as an intellectual of this

01:17:50.840 --> 01:17:56.840
movement um it is you know we are lucky um to

01:17:56.840 --> 01:18:00.899
have so many great bright minds in this movement,

01:18:01.359 --> 01:18:04.520
and you are one of them. Did you want to add

01:18:04.520 --> 01:18:08.979
something before we stop the recording? Oh, first

01:18:08.979 --> 01:18:10.779
of all, thank you. That's very, very flattering.

01:18:11.220 --> 01:18:15.180
Indeed. I just appreciate the work that you are

01:18:15.180 --> 01:18:17.439
doing. And I just want to say that for those

01:18:17.439 --> 01:18:21.960
of us who care about animals, it's a very difficult

01:18:21.960 --> 01:18:26.510
time. It's a difficult time for others who are

01:18:26.510 --> 01:18:30.229
concerned with elemental claims of justice and

01:18:30.229 --> 01:18:33.670
we just, you know, I am not an optimist by nature.

01:18:33.750 --> 01:18:37.029
It's just not me, not my temperament, but I'm

01:18:37.029 --> 01:18:38.770
sorry to say something as banal as this, but

01:18:38.770 --> 01:18:41.569
we really have to continue the struggle and we

01:18:41.569 --> 01:18:45.210
have to, I learned this from Karen Davis of United

01:18:45.210 --> 01:18:48.390
Poultry Concerns, never to apologize in defense

01:18:48.390 --> 01:18:50.529
of animals. You know, you can do that without

01:18:50.529 --> 01:18:52.939
necessarily being self -righteous and getting

01:18:52.939 --> 01:18:58.340
up in people's faces, but never apologize for

01:18:58.340 --> 01:19:02.039
standing up for them. You know, it's so vital

01:19:02.039 --> 01:19:08.300
that we do it. And yeah, so I do hope that people

01:19:08.300 --> 01:19:11.479
begin to challenge more forthrightly this humane

01:19:11.479 --> 01:19:14.840
narrative. And as you say, look at the intellectuals

01:19:14.840 --> 01:19:27.329
who are promulgating it. Thank you everyone for

01:19:27.329 --> 01:19:51.010
listening. I kindly invite you to share this

01:19:51.010 --> 01:19:53.909
podcast with the vegans you know. Let's encourage

01:19:53.909 --> 01:19:57.850
more people to take action. Again, thank you

01:19:57.850 --> 01:20:00.850
so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday

01:20:00.850 --> 01:20:02.329
for a new episode.