Talk:Philosophical Vegan YouTube Channel

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Freegan Video

Hey all, I planned to keep this partially under wraps for a big reveal, but I don't have a lot of time and could use people's suggested additions, edits, and feedback if you're interested in the subject. It's going up on the Philosophical Vegan channel and can mention your name in the credits.

Resources:

Freeganism - Vegan Video Resource Library https://activistjourneys.wordpress.com/freeganism/

Freeganism - Philosophical Vegan Wiki http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Freeganism

Sections

• Intro

• Definition of Freeganism & History

• Pro-Freegan consequentialists; Unnatural Vegan, ModVegan & Ethologic

• Anti-Freegan consequentialists; LayVegan and Footsoldier

• Contrast with Greece's potato movement

• Consequentialist wrap up

• Liam Anthony on unnecessarily exclusive club.

• Contrast with Feedback and Society of St. Andrews

• Virtue ethics wrap up

• Gary Francione on not eating food cooked on the same grill.

• Contrast with APV who also sees merit in treating some duties to equality as a rule

• Deontology wrap up

• Eisel Mazard on meat eating being cannibalism

• Contrast with my interest in the Situationists concept of psycho-geographies,

• Nihilist wrap up

• Video Summary

Other jobs:

• Coming up with a snappy title and enticing thumbnail

• Any ideas for animations that can jazz up the video

• Sourcing clips - Definitely feel like done this now, aha, got all the videos mentioned here on the desktop ready to go if choose to use them.

Intro

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[Starting out the video introducing the context, Edwins Generation and questioning whether had done something wrong within veganism by still enjoying taste of meat and preventing it going to waste.]

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Throughout the video we’re going to look at the arguments against freeganism about how it might be internally inconsistent, whether that’s because it’s actors don’t consistently act in a way to challenge supply and demand, as they say they wish to. Or because they don’t sufficiently feel the requisite shame attached to the act which cost so many lives in our previous lives as meat eaters.

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At the same time I intend to give counter examples of freeganism in action correlating with the same philosophical tendencies, as in a lot of the cases the critique simply has a short sighted idea of what being freegan means, and I don’t want it to appear that the critique is representative of their entire school of philosophy.

Definition of Freeganism & History

For starters let’s quickly give the popular definition of freegan:

[Voice over screen capture video]

   a person who rejects consumerism and seeks to help the environment by reducing waste, especially by retrieving and using discarded food and other goods.

Ok so main point as shown in the picture here:

   Origin: early 21st century: blend of free and vegan.

That’s also interesting 21st century, I know the biggest group advocating against food waste, Food not Bombs have been around a lot longer than that.

Let’s look up one more definition:

   Wikipedia wrote:
   Freeganism is a practice and ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. The word "freegan" is a portmanteau of "free" and "vegan".

So some anti-capitalist sentiments flowing through much of the movement's origin that makes people wary of identifying with the term, what I’m promoting here could be called freegan-lite, but I think the mainstream image has taken on a different much broader use since then and will continue to change over time.

Let’s just quickly look at the history. Yes so; “The word ‘freegan’ itself was allegedly invented in 1994 by Keith McHenry, the co-founder of Food Not Bombs.” And popularised in the 2000s.

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Food not bombs grew out of the 60s, ban the bomb demonstrations against the building of more nuclear weapons and ratcheting up of tensions between the two superpowers US and Russia fighting a proxy war with each other in places such as Vietnam and Afghanistan.

So now we’re all on the same page, let’s look at present day advocates for veganism, who are for and against freeganism…

Pro-Freegan consequentialists; Unnatural Vegan & ModVegan

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Unnatural Vegan put out a great video discussing the coherency of labels, questioning in reality where is the harm?

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ModVegan also in the same vein discussed vegan gatekeeper syndrome and the future of the vegan movement.

Anti-Freegan consequentialists; LayVegan and Footsoldier

Okay back to the first vegan’s critique:

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LayVegan put out a great breakdown of Edwins Generation video, acknowledging the good freegans do for advocating against the wasteful system of meat production, distribution and consumption. I do want to push back on one thing he said in the video which is:

"You're right, and do you know what would save even more money and methane emissions from being released into the atmosphere, not visiting restaurants, you know like actual freegans."

As I said before I think this stereotype is the reason Edwin and others are scared away from identifying his actions as freegan, but is this really a good thing? I recommend reading our article on all the actions that being freegan can encompass, but are not mandatory:

Freeganism - Philosophical Vegan Wiki http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Freeganism

"The interest in stripping back and living as minimally as possible can be seen to be more synonymous with Zero Waste. However, Freeganism also concerns itself with how society's most abundant, most energy intensive products are poorly managed. In this way, Freeganism and Zero Waste have a similar consumer activist mindset that can mean taking steps to lead the way in changing consumer practices."

Main point being, very few in the Zero Waste lifestyle actually consider that they’ve cut out all harmful waste from their life, but it’s something they’re working towards, we shouldn’t scoff at someone who cares about food waste but also felt it was important to go to a restaurant with their family or friends.

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Quick note, LayVegan also liked this comment, which proposes we don’t pick up the bad habit of eating other’s leftovers and that the solution will come in the form of energy captured from landfills. I find these arguments to be unconvincing; I think they make vegans look like we’re grasping at straws to defend an irrational puritanical form of veganism.

Whilst becoming more and more efficient at recycling resources is definitely a priority as a society, I don't however think a good fix would be that we carry on wasting at the rate we are, but that it gets burnt off in some slightly more environmentally friendly way than being buried. Although calorie counting is a problem for some, which might lead some to want to avoid the habit, it doesn't detract from it being a good carbon negative act for most.

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FootSoldier also put out a video where in response to UV asking people not to fear monger against freeganism because it’s a lifestyle that doesn’t contribute to animal exploitation and saves food waste he says this:

   If anyone who doesn't know about freeganism, it’s essentially dumpster diving for food because either you're too poor or too stingy to actually buy food and so you just get it out of bins.

Really great work staying objective, you've just taken a stereotype of the most prolific image or action people relate to freegans of dumpster diving and declared that "the definition." He goes on:

   The thing is I've got a bit of a problem with this, so situation one there's lots of food being chucked away, and it’s just really wasteful when it could go to feeding people who need the food, well then the system should be addressed better like in Berlin we've got something called food sharing and you get a little membership card and you can go around shops and take all the food that they're going to chuck out, you can just take it, it is really well adopted and really well done in Berlin and so places like in America and in Canada or wherever that they should probably adopt similar schemes, that's a much better solution that people dumpster diving.

   But if you do have enough money to shop, but you're a freegan because you sort of have some sort of objection to the food system, then you're an idiot because I can buy a really good organic food around the corner that has been produced like really well at the highest possible quality standards, why wouldn't I give my money to the farmers who've worked hard to grow this food and to the people who have worked hard to distribute this food for me, I'm perfectly happy paying for that.

So footsoldier previously a member of the Durianrider raw fruit cult, can’t wrap his head around freegans who have money but chose not to consume the highest quality fresh produce and instead pick up food going to be wasted from shop owners or bins out the back of supermarkets, okay, that’s a personal value judgement, but again why misrepresent freeganism?

Freegans want the kind of food sharing solutions you gave as an example like in Berlin, but as a stop-gap to that perfectly legislated system, some are willing to drive to mega-supermarkets fill the van up to the brim with perfectly edible packaged food inside double-wrapped bin bags put out that night, bring it home and cook it up often for the public and homeless by street tabling like Food not Bombs do.

Contrast with Greece's potato movement

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Or look at the potato movement in Greece whose national produce was going to be wasted because the austerity measures had driven consumer prices through the roof; groups organized days for the public to be able to buy in bulk from the farmers directly in town centres from the trucks, streamlining the utility of local resources.

If you are convinced about the hard effect we can have via supply and demand then freegans offset climate change for being carbon negative and reduce animal cruelty by feeding waste meat to their cats or making meals for carnists that would otherwise eat more bought animal products.

Consequentialist wrap up

Okay I think that about wraps up the supply and demand consequentialist concerned section of this video. The consequentialist system being rooted in a hard calculus of weighing observable harm vs. good usually has a broad degree of consensus. So, any disagreement is usually rooted in misunderstandings and incorrect information. I think we’ve demonstrated that this is very likely the case here.

There’s an acknowledgment from those putting down freeganism that food sharing systems are morally positive and reduce harm. However, they question the need for vegans to participate in that for fear of sullying the image with newbies who haven’t acquired the right yuck factor yet. Ultimately though, we have no evidence of harm and plenty of good examples of harm reduction.

Liam Anthony on unnecessarily exclusive club

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So next up we’ve got Liam Anthony on asking servers to change gloves before they start making his vegan food. His position is that if you eat freegan and plan to in the future then you're out of the club and shouldn't identify as vegan as a matter of rule-virtue that you would act like a cannibal.

I try to support vegan cafes and restaurants whenever I can, but if I ever eat at a place that cooks meat and get served something with animal in it, I might not be able to eat it and send it back, but I'm not so naive that I think yelling and having a fit is going to endear them to adding more vegan dishes to the menu.

   Unnatural Vegan wrote:
   Definitely, it's good to let the waiter know it's not what you ordered, even if you do end up eating it. Most won't save it for another patron, unfortunately. The hospital I stayed in for L&D did, though. They kept bringing up trays of food, and we kept turning them away. Every patient got the same thing so they would just take it to the next room.

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Contrast with Feedback and Society of St. Andrews

Contrast with Feedback and Society of St. Andrews who help farmers glean vegetables that were not cost effective to pick because of cosmetic issues that year and give to charity, raising awareness at the same time.

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Gary Francione on not eating food cooked on the same grill.

Gary Francione on not eating food cooked on the same grill.

Contrast with APV who also sees merit in treating some duties to equality as a rule

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Contrast with APV who also sees merit in treating some duties to equality as a rule, her clip of the black panthers free breakfasts program, and clip of food not bombs today.

Deontology wrap up

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Eisel Mazard on meat eating being cannibalism

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Eisel Mazard on meat eating being cannibalism, his wildlife management paradigm of a sign saying don't feed the bears, us on one side, them on the other to do their own thing. Quote of Cora Diamond essay showing how flip of status quo intuitions.

Contrast with my interest in the Situationists concept of psycho-geographies,

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[Explaining why I group myself with the existentialists it’s somewhat dense, and hard to articulate in soundbite form.]

I accept consequentialist concerns such as quantifying material conditions at the base of society. These would include, each persons labor and educating and providing the capabilities to arrive at good consequences such as people being able to follow their own craft. But I feel like the culture that is created out of different egoist ethics is so broad that if you tried to drill down at the level of description you'd find a radical emptiness that allows us to define the limits of our own societies. I don't know if that's true existential nihilism.

There’s also my interest in the Situationists concept of psycho-geographies, being able to cycle tour living frugally on land protests, doing a modicum of environmental consciousness raising through campaigns. The exploration of towns in the time between trains, the randomness of what you'll find, like a pram for a mother that will be able to let her kid sleep while they go out looking for a chance to stow away in a lorry, or lemons that you didn't know would help them prepare the citrus infused food that reminded them of home.

This never felt like a moral wrong. I experienced it as helping them get enough calories, find some comfort in being able to repeat habits from home, and preventing food waste.

Nihilist wrap up

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Video Summary

[Sentiments about hoping it was a good introduction to freeganism and that vegan advocates will take a more inviting role in the future.]

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