Hey there modern vegans and vegan curious!
It's Margaret and welcome back to ModVegan.
Today on ModVegan we're going to be
discussing Tobias Leenaert's new book
"How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic
Approach."
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If you don't know who Tobias Leenaert is, 
he has been a vegan
advocate and activist for over 20 years;
he has worked for a number of different
animal rights organizations, he also
founded the Ethical Vegetarian
Alternative [EVA] in Belgium, and that
organization was one of the first
organizations in the world to help
create a vegetarian day in his city of
Ghent. It's pretty exciting they created a
vegetarian day in their city to try and
encourage people to try out vegetarian
meals.
Tobias Leenaert also started the Center
for Effective Vegan Advocacy [CEVA] with
Melanie Joy, whom many of you already know
her work already - and he's been involved
in so many different projects, including
Pro-Veg, which is a Pro-vegan
organization that tries to advocate for
veganism around the world. So he has a
long history of animal advocacy and of
vegan activism. Tobias's work is
not without controversy, he is well-known
as the author of his blog, Vegan
Strategist, where he advocates a
pragmatic approach, which is something
that not everyone agrees with, and it's
something that I'm going to be talking
about here today...and that is kind of the
bulk of what we're going to be
discussing here today. "How to Create a
Vegan World" focuses on a pragmatic
approach to vegan advocacy, and Tobias
explains why he takes that approach. He
starts with looking at where we are in
the vegan movement and what we really
want, and this book is written primarily
with ethical vegans in mind. It's written
to that audience, but also with other
audiences in mind as well. And he writes
that we still have lots of work to do:
only about one percent of the population
is vegan, and we also know that many of
the people who GO vegan don't STAY vegan.
So we have a huge task ahead of us, and
that's what this book is written
about. It's written about how to create a
vegan world, and then it looks at a
pragmatic approach to solving that
problem. Pragmatic approaches to veganism
often come under fire from ethical
vegans, and that's because groups like
the Abolitionist vegans - kind of led by
Gary Francione, who wrote the
"Abolitionist Approach" - they tend to feel
that veganism is a moral baseline: that
we all need to accept that, or we're not
truly vegan, and the only way to create a
truly vegan world is to change hearts
and minds. And they believe that the only
way to do that is through this very
ethical approach, where we try to change
hearts and minds. Tobias
takes a slightly different approach -
that's what's presented in this book,
it's also the idea is presented on his
blog, and Vegan Strategist - which is
also rather controversial - I discovered
Tobias about a day after I decided I
wanted to be vegan. I had run across
articles from Peter Singer, and that kind
of led me to this effective advocacy
idea, and so I was very interested in his
blog right from the beginning. I loved
the Vegan Strategist. It was interesting
to me, and I I always have found the idea
that we need to change hearts and minds
appealing, obviously - we do need to change
hearts and minds - but there are different
ways to change hearts and minds. And the
main way of doing it may not be by
making veganism a moral baseline. In his
book, Tobias argues that we need to
allow every reason for going vegan. To
allow all the reasons. And that's
something that the Abolitionist
vegans are very much against: they don't
want us to allow those reasons, because
by allowing people to go vegan for the
"wrong reasons" we might be creating a
more polluted, diluted, movement. That's
not what veganism is really about, and
you notice on this channel I do focus on
the ethical approach, but that doesn't
mean that I don't think it's okay for
people to go vegan for their health or
to go vegan for the environment. And I
also know that works. And that's
something that Tobias suggested in this
book, and it's something I've seen in my
personal experience. My husband first
went vegan for the environment, and he
only later decided to go vegan for
ethical reasons as well. And while it's
absolutely true that the only reason
to be 100% vegan is probably for ethical
reasons, it doesn't mean that we don't
need those people who go vegan for other
reasons in the movement as well. So I
think allowing those reasons is very
important in order to build a greater
movement. And that's because Tobias
believes - and he prevents in this book -
the idea that we need to achieve a
"tipping point" if we want to create a
vegan world. We need to get enough people
seeking out plant-based options - for
whatever reason - and once we do that, we
have a real chance of creating a truly
vegan world. I really enjoyed this book.
I loved the discussion of the creating a
vegan environment, how we can do that, and
by that we mean an environment that
supports veganism. When you say, go to a
cosmetics counter and all of the options
are vegan because that brand has chosen
to adopt vegan principles - and maybe not
even vegan principles but they just
decided that those cosmetics are better
for your health, that they're easier to
make all those kinds of things - that
becomes a way to make vegan options the
default, instead of something that is out
of the ordinary. And the same is
true when it comes to milks or things
like that, if people choose plant-based
milks because that's what they enjoy - say,
they are lactose intolerant and they
discovered vegan options in that realm -
they may choose other options as well.
And as those things are becoming more
and more popular, and we're seeing them
more and more - like with the video that I
just did on Tesla and Tesla's decision
to make all of their vehicle interiors
vegan. That decision was made partly for
the environment, partly for manufacturing reasons - you know, the vegan
alternatives happened to be the best
alternative, they were having the most
success with it, customers liked it the
best - those are reasons to do that. And it
doesn't always have to be coming from an
ethical framework. It doesn't always have
to be an ethical decision. I like that
idea, and I think that creating this
vegan environment through vegan
businesses and things like that is a
wonderful strategy for helping to turn
the world vegan. I do disagree with
Tobias somewhat when it comes more to
how we should define veganism. and I
understand that some people want to
change the definition of veganism, that
they want to make it a little bit more
loose so that more people can call
themselves vegan. For me, personally, I
think that we should leave the
definition of veganism the same, that we
want all avoidance as much as we can of
animal products as far as practicable or
possible - we all know that there are
certain things that you can't avoid like
walking on asphalt, things like that -
there's lots of products - you know, if you
if you ever use transportation
that it comes from biodiesel that
contains animal fats and things like
that - some of those things are not
avoidable. But overall, I think that we
should be retaining that idea that it's
about the avoidance of animal
exploitation as far as possible and
practicable. I think that the vegan
society made a great definition a long
time ago, and we don't need to mess with
that so much. So while he he suggests
perhaps opening up the definition of
veganism, I wouldn't change the
definition. But I do think that if people
consider themselves vegan, it should be
up to us to make our lives as vegan as
possible, and not worrying so much about
the transgressions of others. I think
that is more important. You know,
there are the gross transgressions,
there are the minor transgressions, and
it's up to each one of us how we're
going to decide whether 
something is worth..."calling out" - for
example, here on YouTube - or if it's not.
For example, I made a video talking about
Kat Von D, and that I wish she would make
some of her eyeshadow palettes - her older
eyeshadow palettes - vegan; that she hasn't
made - that she hasn't made vegan yet. But
I've noticed all of her new palettes are
vegan, and I buy her products, I wear her
products -I'm wearing her products today! I
wear those things because I think it's
great that she is doing the right thing,
that she is trying to make a difference
in the world, and I want to support that.
I want to support more brands
offering vegan cosmetics. And so, we don't
want to allow the perfect to be the
enemy of the good. I do think that in
order to create a vegan world we will
have to do some things that may not be
perfect. And that's in our personal lives,
that's in our broader lives in public -
there are things that we do every day
that are not perfect, and getting hung up
on that idea of perfection does alienate
people. And that doesn't mean you
shouldn't try to do your very best, but
it does mean that we shouldn't allow
the perfect
to be the enemy of the good. I also think
it's interesting that we tend to to say
that people who are more pragmatic are
not as likely to succeed, or they're not
as hopeful or anything as someone who's
the perfect, for example, ethical vegan.
And I kind of disagree. When it comes to
this divide between pragmatism and
idealism, I genuinely think that
pragmatists are a bit more optimistic.
I'm a pragmatist. I want to create a
vegan world. I want to create a perfectly
vegan world - as far as is possible or
practicable - that's what I want to see.
and I don't worry so much about people
being perfect vegans. I want to see that
vegan world. Because, when veganism is the
default option - when we can you know, buy
tylenol, for example, that doesn't have
gelatin in the capsules and things like
that, or steraric acid or whatever it is
that's in Tylenol - when we can do that,
then that is the way to...we need to be
working on achieving that, rather than
making ourselves perfect. In the meantime,
I think that our goals need to be that
perfect vegan world, really. And I'm much
more optimistic about achieving that. And
I think Tobias actually is - I think
this is an optimistic book, and I
recommend it for anyone, because he does
talk about things like like business and
enterprise and how we can use those
things to help create a vegan world. The
way we can do effective advocacy - all
those things are really important...
political lobbying, things like that -
because there are certain vegans - Gary
Francione comes to mind - who really
don't want to do those things, because
they want to focus on converting
individual people to veganism, in the
hopes of making veganism a bigger thing.
Rather than really creating a vegan
world, they want to create many more
vegans in the hopes of one day having a
completely vegan world. And it almost
reminds me of a religious approach to
veganism. I do think that there are some
some parallels between abolitionist
veganism and religious conversion,
because the idea is converting people
and making them purely vegan - making
yourself purely vegan, being a
pure-hearted vegan - and I don't think
that's very effective. And that's what I
really like about this book, because
people don't always do things for the
right reasons.
And it's much better to get people to do
the right thing for the wrong reasons - in
my opinion - then have them struggle to do
the right thing and give up for the
right reasons. And I do think that's very
important, because each one of us can
make decisions in our daily lives that
will contribute to a vegan world without
being perfect. And that's something, I
think, to keep in mind. Does that mean we
need to water down the definition of
veganism? I don't think so. But I do think
that it means looking at the world in a
bit of a different way, and focusing on
creating that tipping point, rather than
making everyone perfect right away. All
in all, this is a book that I really
recommend. I really enjoyed it. I'll be
putting a link to the book in the
description box below, it's available on
Amazon in both digital and hardcopy
you can get either a hard copy to read
at home or a digital copy I read it on
my Kindle or my iPad, but it was a
great book. I really enjoyed it. And there
aren't that many books like this. There
are very few books that really look at
practical steps. There are a few. I did
enjoy Gary Francione's book. I did
a discussion about that book with Eisel
Mazard, and I will put a link to that
discussion here. But I really enjoyed
that book as well, and even though they
are very different approaches, I think
both are legitimate approaches for
different people. And that's something
where I'm sure probably both Tobias and
Francione would certainly disagree with
me about that, but I think I think
different people will take different
approaches. It's one of the reasons why I
support Direct Action Everywhere and
people who are involved in Direct Action
Everywhere, because they are a
non-violent organization - which is very
important to me - and even though they do
things that are not necessarily easily
palatable by the general public, I think
that they helped to plug in people and
get people involved and feeling like
they're doing something in a way that is
generally beneficial to the people
involved. I think that that is beneficial
as well, because not everyone is going to
do the same things. Not everyone is going
to be lobbying City Hall, not everyone is
going to be creating a youtube channel.
Some people have a hard time talking
with people and I think sometimes
expressing your frustration can be a
good thing, too. And it's part of
democratic process and I understand that.
So that's why I don't necessarily feel
that there's only one way to do this. And
I do understand where abolitionist
vegans are coming from. It may not be the
approach that I choose to take, but I
respect that approach and, you know, it's
part I think of this movement towards
creating a vegan world. Some of us have
more black-and-white visions of the
world, and if you have that view then you
probably will be attracted to abolitionist
veganism. I am NOT - I am far more
pragmatic and progressive in a slow and
methodical way. I think that making a
vegan world gradually is probably what
will happen, and it makes me more
optimistic about the future of veganism.
And I think that's important, too. You
need to take the approach that will
allow you to be able to hold out in the
long run and remain excited about
veganism. The fact that 84 percent of
people who choose to be vegan or
vegetarian quit eventually is a problem.
And I think that problem is partly
stemming from the fact that people take
approaches that do not suit them as
individuals. We need to find the way to
do our activism or advocacy that works
for us,
and we need to find the reasons that
work for us. And as advocates, we need to
allow people to have those reasons and
allow those people to have different
approaches. This may make me an apostate
in terms of abolitionist veganism, but I
think that it's important to allow
those differences of approach. And it's
an important part of creating a vegan
world. I hope you enjoyed this video.
Please do let me know what you think in
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Take care, bye!
