Difference between revisions of "Breakdown of Yourofsky's Georgia Tech Speech"

Revision as of 18:14, 15 June 2021

In this article, we will be analyzing Gary Yourofsky's famous Georgia Tech speech. It is regarded as one of the most important speeches in modern Veganism, reaching and converting millions of people.

We'll be looking at the good and the bad in Yourofsky's speech. If you're looking to get into vegan lectures, let this serve as a handy guide of dos and don'ts for when you're writing and rehearsing your speech. We'll be going section by section, and discuss what Gary does right, and what Gary does wrong. Just a note, the sections as presented here may not be how Gary intended to divide up the speech.

Gary's speech is primarily ethics-focused, with also a strong emphasis on health. While there are many problems present in the speech, it's overall a very compelling speech, a groundbreaking moment in Vegan activism, which has influenced hundreds of thousands to go vegan, as well as many others to go into Vegan activism.

The speech can be viewed here if you'd like to follow along.

Introduction (0:00-

Yourofsky doesn't fuck around, he gets right into it.

Guilt-tripping can be very powerful here. Calling out people's slacktivism will make people feel inadequate and help compel them to actually do something very useful to help the world (Veganism). He does get back into this a little later in the speech too.

Humans are Herbivores (25:40-30:24)

This is the first really problematic part of the speech, considering it's a whole section based on an appeal to nature fallacy, and it goes on for nearly five minutes. While most of the science Gary is talking about is accurate, it isn't relevant to whether or not humans should be eating only plant foods. The penis evolved to rape, so should men be raping women?

There are many animals that are thought of as herbivores that have been observed to eat small amounts of meat on occasion, so the line becomes blurred there when he makes the claim that the human body is completely herbivorous, since very few if any animals are completely herbivorous. There aren't even any completely carnivorous animals either (the most carnivorous animal alive is the polar bear, with 90% of its diet being meat-based).

If you want to make the argument that the reason why we have so many diseases from animal products because we didn't evolve to eat the stuff, you'd first have to establish that it's causation, not correlation, which is a headache in and of itself. Instead of going through all those mental gymnastics, it's better to just show how animal products are the cause of these diseases and save everyone time.

Environment and World Hunger (42:10-43:02)

This section of the speech is far too short, considering how important these issues are.

Yourofsky makes the mistake of claiming that animal agriculture is the root cause of world hunger, but this isn't entirely accurate. Sure, it does bring problems with food security, but there isn't any incentive for these companies to give this food to third-world countries, and any food that is attempted to be exported is usually rejected by the countries due to the food being genetically modified. It's an important point to make, but it isn't as simple as Yourofsky claims.

The environmental issues are discussed in literally ten seconds (he just lists the issues, never elaborated on why they're problems or how animal agriculture causes them), which is insane. The environmental issues with animal agriculture are some of the biggest problems with it, and given how environmentalism is a huge thing at colleges, Gary made them look like they're trivial compared to everything else. Sure, he tells his audience to go to his website to learn more about it, but it's unlikely that most of them went to the website to learn more about the issue.

It's fine if you want to have a focus on animal ethics over the environment, but the environmental issues must be discussed more than in just ten seconds.

In your activism, when it comes to food security, point out how ineffectively food is used, but don't say that it necessarily is the root of world hunger. Instead, talk about how unsustainable and wasteful animal agriculture is, and how meat consumption is why a higher population would be an issue, whereas feeding people Vegan is easy with the amount of crops we currently have.

Showcasing Vegan alternatives (43:03-51:22)

It may not seem like it, but this is one of the most important parts of the speech. A big reason why people are so daunted to go Vegan is that they feel as though they're sacrificing too much, and have to make huge adjustments in their diet. By showing the audience all of the vegan alternatives available, it makes the task look much more achievable, seeing how little is really sacrificed.

The only issue that can be brought up with this section is that some of the products Gary recommends contain Palm oil (at least at the time some of them did), however Gary has (largely) corrected himself on the palm oil issue, and at the time of this lecture it wasn't brought up as much as it is today, so this issue gets a pass.

When talking about alternatives, you don't necessarily have to show all the products available as Gary did, but it is important to point out a few brand names, and saying how many are available in the grocery stores.

Gross-out Arguments (51:23-56:56)

Here's the other very problematic part of the speech. While Gary intended for this part to be more of a comedy roast, it isn't very useful considering how it isn't based on any rational argument. Comedy can be a very useful tool, but it has to be used more effectively.

Gary may have also intended to get back at the people in the audience who were grossed out by the alternatives he showed, but if it's just a handful of people (in his words) it isn't worth roasting the entire class for it.

The most unfortunate part about this section of the speech is that it took time away from Gary being able to talk more about the environment and sustainability, which is a much more compelling argument.