Intersectional veganism (Unnatural vegan video)
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:20 am
As someone who subscribed to UV to watch her take down lifestylists living in an irrational utopian bubble, I see most of the comments on her video and facebook as people being genuinely perplexed that this one was so muddled and fallacious. A privileged vegan gave the most articulate critique of these mistakes so will leave to her since that video form is the most likely thing to get UV to respond to. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0gS2kMAbLI)
From a viewer’s perspective, I just wish it could have been so much better, to my mind the video should have been split into three parts; part 1 - why I'm a single issue advocate, part 2 - why I'm an independent and part 3 – why I’m not an socialist.
Her argument as it appears to me is that her job is public speaking which is changing people's beliefs and engaging in a war of ideas, she can better do that leaving all political organization theory behind and engaging people with the evidence and how compassion is useful in 'the moral landscape'. So saying that not all people have access to a vegan diet because of food deserts and finance is good activism, but stopping short of expressing an opinion on why there are food deserts and wage disparity in the country is about not margilizing people with other politcs and about good logical clarity, makes perfect sense, doesn’t negate how some people feel about new social movements increasing civil engagement and being a benefit to each other and democracy.
The second part is I think she confuses independent free thinker for centrist. It is clear she believes in a revolution of scientific rationality changing the shape of our world and that is where her focus is, most people just subscribe to a political theory that they think will get us there faster.
The third part is the most interesting and yet so muddled in this video, what she set out to do was critique those social justice vegans who don’t reward incremental steps towards veganism because their head is in so many political struggles that they can’t help reminding you every time you say something politically incorrect which make you feel like shit and not want to bother.
There are so many interesting things to be said here, essays to quote about giving up these purist activists subcultural expressions, identity policing, seed of resentment politics and slave morality among the underclass of society. All things the left have written about extensively, in an effort to create more critical movements, but instead UV chose to make absurd reductions out of intersectional political theory in general, which just turned off everyone who subscribes to the sociology of institutional oppression.
Saying all that it would be funny to rip UV’s script from ‘why are vegetarians annoying’ video response to hank green; and change it to convince UV that 'even though only believing in single issue advocacy is comfortable, you’ll find more rational friends who are upfront about their left libertarian leanings, and though you may suffer a bit more social alienation at first, you will ultimately be on a stronger debating platform because having concrete ideas about how to organize a future society that doesn’t breed animals for slaughter looks like is appealing in many a myriad of ways.
“serve justice so as not to add to the injustice of the human condition, to insist on plain language so as not to increase the universal falsehood, and to wager, in spite of human misery, for happiness.” - Camus
". . . The essential element of historical materialism as applied to ethical and social matters was (and actually still is) this: it demonstrated how much unhappiness and injustice and irrationality was man-made. Once the fog of supposedly god-given conditions had been dispelled, the decision to tolerate such conditions was exactly that—a decision. “The West,” at least, has happily never recovered from this discovery; you would be astounded if you looked up the books and commentaries of only a century ago and saw what was taken for granted before the Marxist irruption. Fatalism and piety were the least of it; this was cynicism allied to utilitarianism. Don’t let yourself forget it, but try and profit also from the hard experience of those who contested the old conditions and, in a word or phrase, don’t allow your thinking to be done for you by any party or faction, however high-minded.
. . . The life of a radical is not dissimilar; barricades and Bastilles are not everyday occurrences. It’s important to be able to recognise and seize crux moments when they do appear, but much of the time one is faced with quotidien tasks and routines. There’s an art and a science to these things; the art consists in trying to improvise more inventive means of breaking a silence, and the science consists in trying to make the periods of silence bearable.
. . .Do not worry too much about who your friends are, or what company you may be keeping. Any cause worth fighting for will attract a plethora of people: I have spoken on platforms with Communists about South Africa and with “Cold Warriors” about Czechoslovakia; in the case of Bosnia I spoke with Muslims who disagreed with me about Salman Rushdie and Jews who suspected me because I have always supported statehood for the Palestinians. Nor did we agree to bury these disagreements, though we sometimes moved them to a higher plane. (I remember Susan Sontag very bravely, in front of a pro-Bosnian audience that was heavily Turkish, insisting on the parallel with Armenia.)" – Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
From a viewer’s perspective, I just wish it could have been so much better, to my mind the video should have been split into three parts; part 1 - why I'm a single issue advocate, part 2 - why I'm an independent and part 3 – why I’m not an socialist.
Her argument as it appears to me is that her job is public speaking which is changing people's beliefs and engaging in a war of ideas, she can better do that leaving all political organization theory behind and engaging people with the evidence and how compassion is useful in 'the moral landscape'. So saying that not all people have access to a vegan diet because of food deserts and finance is good activism, but stopping short of expressing an opinion on why there are food deserts and wage disparity in the country is about not margilizing people with other politcs and about good logical clarity, makes perfect sense, doesn’t negate how some people feel about new social movements increasing civil engagement and being a benefit to each other and democracy.
The second part is I think she confuses independent free thinker for centrist. It is clear she believes in a revolution of scientific rationality changing the shape of our world and that is where her focus is, most people just subscribe to a political theory that they think will get us there faster.
The third part is the most interesting and yet so muddled in this video, what she set out to do was critique those social justice vegans who don’t reward incremental steps towards veganism because their head is in so many political struggles that they can’t help reminding you every time you say something politically incorrect which make you feel like shit and not want to bother.
There are so many interesting things to be said here, essays to quote about giving up these purist activists subcultural expressions, identity policing, seed of resentment politics and slave morality among the underclass of society. All things the left have written about extensively, in an effort to create more critical movements, but instead UV chose to make absurd reductions out of intersectional political theory in general, which just turned off everyone who subscribes to the sociology of institutional oppression.
Saying all that it would be funny to rip UV’s script from ‘why are vegetarians annoying’ video response to hank green; and change it to convince UV that 'even though only believing in single issue advocacy is comfortable, you’ll find more rational friends who are upfront about their left libertarian leanings, and though you may suffer a bit more social alienation at first, you will ultimately be on a stronger debating platform because having concrete ideas about how to organize a future society that doesn’t breed animals for slaughter looks like is appealing in many a myriad of ways.
“serve justice so as not to add to the injustice of the human condition, to insist on plain language so as not to increase the universal falsehood, and to wager, in spite of human misery, for happiness.” - Camus
". . . The essential element of historical materialism as applied to ethical and social matters was (and actually still is) this: it demonstrated how much unhappiness and injustice and irrationality was man-made. Once the fog of supposedly god-given conditions had been dispelled, the decision to tolerate such conditions was exactly that—a decision. “The West,” at least, has happily never recovered from this discovery; you would be astounded if you looked up the books and commentaries of only a century ago and saw what was taken for granted before the Marxist irruption. Fatalism and piety were the least of it; this was cynicism allied to utilitarianism. Don’t let yourself forget it, but try and profit also from the hard experience of those who contested the old conditions and, in a word or phrase, don’t allow your thinking to be done for you by any party or faction, however high-minded.
. . . The life of a radical is not dissimilar; barricades and Bastilles are not everyday occurrences. It’s important to be able to recognise and seize crux moments when they do appear, but much of the time one is faced with quotidien tasks and routines. There’s an art and a science to these things; the art consists in trying to improvise more inventive means of breaking a silence, and the science consists in trying to make the periods of silence bearable.
. . .Do not worry too much about who your friends are, or what company you may be keeping. Any cause worth fighting for will attract a plethora of people: I have spoken on platforms with Communists about South Africa and with “Cold Warriors” about Czechoslovakia; in the case of Bosnia I spoke with Muslims who disagreed with me about Salman Rushdie and Jews who suspected me because I have always supported statehood for the Palestinians. Nor did we agree to bury these disagreements, though we sometimes moved them to a higher plane. (I remember Susan Sontag very bravely, in front of a pro-Bosnian audience that was heavily Turkish, insisting on the parallel with Armenia.)" – Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
She promoted the forum before and there weren't that many new members. It's a substantial barrier to a lot of people to enter a URL and register, which is what makes the quality of discussion here higher too (so, it's good and bad).