How Has the Vegan Movement Changed?

[Jamie in Chile]

I used to keep an eye on the vegan movement online watching videos on Youtube, discussing on facebook pages and other forums instead of this one, and followed the likes of Emily Moran Barwick, Yourovsky, and Francione etc. Especially around 2016-2019 when I first gave up meat etc but in recent years I've stopped doing all that.

What has gone on in the vegan movement? The sense I get is that it's got weaker, but I'm not really following it. You don't hear as much about famous people doing it? The named people above are less active, or have less new ideas I think.

Is there any change in attitudes, how to go about things? Feels like it needs some new ideas and new personalities.

What's been going on in 2023-2025?

 

[Lou]

instead of thinking "vegan movement" think "animal rights movement". Ideally all vegans are animal rights advocates. Although someone might argue that not all animal rights advocates are vegan.

Anyway my impression is that the animal rights movement is as strong as ever. for good or bad it's diversified into many different groups with different strategies, tactics, and priorities.

but most importantly its no longer made up of the crazy cat ladies who live down the street. Now there are varied people including more young people in it. Although animal advocacy in universities are lower.

one thing worth noting but I don't have much more than subjective observations as evidence, it seems like the success it has had also has reduced the urgency that existed. And with Trump in charge it seems like there are more urgent issues to pay attention to.

 

[LoreD]

instead of thinking "vegan movement" think "animal rights movement". Ideally all vegans are animal rights advocates. Although someone might argue that not all animal rights advocates are vegan.

Anyway my impression is that the animal rights movement is as strong as ever. for good or bad it's diversified into many different groups with different strategies, tactics, and priorities.

but most importantly its no longer made up of the crazy cat ladies who live down the street. Now there are varied people including more young people in it. Although animal advocacy in universities are lower.

one thing worth noting but I don't have much more than subjective observations as evidence, it seems like the success it has had also has reduced the urgency that existed. And with Trump in charge it seems like there are more urgent issues to pay attention to.

Agree. The vegan movement has gone mainstream. It isn't just a bunch of unshaved, long haired hippies. Everyday people are vegans. And importantly, it has influenced the Reductionist movement. People who ate meat several times a day have reduced their consumption of animal products to several times a week.

 

[Graeme M]

What has gone on in the vegan movement? The sense I get is that it's got weaker, but I'm not really following it. You don't hear as much about famous people doing it? The named people above are less active, or have less new ideas I think.

I agree. I have previously mentioned here that we saw peak vegan around 2019. For a brief period, veganism seemed to be powering ahead, but it wasn't genuine ethical veganism. I think the reason veganism got its brief blaze of glory was a purely selfish phenomenon - it was sold as a healthier, more sustainable diet able to tackle global warming. And predictably, the animal ag industry fought back. And very effectively at that.

Covid changed a lot of things and all of a sudden people weren't worrying so much about their food or the state of the environment. The meat industry meanwhile rallied and developed some powerful themes - regenerative agriculture, sustainability, natural health and natural production compared to those evil ultra-processed foods (like fake meat), and the carnivore diet. These appealed to a sudden sense of needing to get back to traditional values and hunkering down against the evils of a modern world that had spawned covid virus from a lab in Wuhan.

Veganism's momentum faltered and unfortunately a whole bunch of previous star advocates burned out and disappeared. In Australia, the well-meaning Tash Peterson single-handedly destroyed the image of veganism as being worthwhile and the efforts of Chris Delforce to expose the shortcomings of animal ag were cast in the light of evil wrongdoer bringing down the decent Aussie farmers.

However, it's true that veganism is mainstream now. All those efforts weren't in vain with more people knowing of veganism, vegan food options more available and I think there is still efforts to get "alt" meats etc up and running. There are more and newer advocates out there, although some have some odd ideas about how to promote veganism. And sadly, it's still being sold as cruelty-free or being about reducing suffering, leaving the door open to critics who almost all focus on "crop deaths tho".

However, how HAS veganism changed? Well... there's a growing undercurrent of interest in advocating for a less "pure" form of veganism - for encouraging folk to take an interest and make a difference when they can. One such theme that has appeared just of late is direct action for animals, and I don't mean DXE. Here's an example:

And another:

I have high hopes again - I think I can detect a renewed vigour and urgency to get the message out to more people, but hopefully a more measured, realistic, fact-driven and perhaps more graspable form of veganism.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Yes, good point Lou. There are issues like ICE deporting people, and the terrible situation in Gaza. I'm not convinced that these deserve higher priority than animals in theory, but in practice they do.

It feels slightly more mainstream, broader, but less energetic from the hardcore at the same time.

Another curious thing is the negatively about vegan "meat" companies even though more products are available. I think because Beyond didn't justify its once sky high valuation, and its clearly growing slower than expected at one point, but it's still growing.

In Chile veganism peaked in end 2019 and start of 2020. Well, there may be more today. But that was the peak of interest, growth and excitement even if say the actual number of restaurants is much higher now. In 2017, there was only one really full vegan restaurant in Santiago, which is 4-7 million people, and it was an off the beaten track place down a side street. There was clearly a massive gap in the market for more. Now there are many and they aren't always full however. One I've been there and a couple of times and it was just the two of us, admittedly on a weekday.

I have been pushing for veganism to be a bit broader in its appeal and less of a strict thing for the hardcore and perhaps some of us had an effect there as I do think it has nudged very slightly in that direction. Or perhaps the slight dilution of the message - if that even really is happening - is an inevitable consequence of expansion. The video you posted “Why Veganism Doesn’t Actually Matter”is a clickbait unfair title, but it's central point that animal suffering rather than veganism itself is what matters makes sense, and is pragmatic, reminds me of the book I'm reading on How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach by Tobias Leenaert.

The second video - talking about things like whether or not to take non-vegan medicine seems stuck in the kind of strict vegan debates that I saw in 2016 or 2017. But yes we should do more beyond our own diet and lifestyle. I haven't looked at Animal Charity Evaluators for ages.

 

[Graeme M]

How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach by Tobias Leenaert.

Yes, Tobias is another taking the broader approach. He was interviewed by David Ramms about that only recently.

 

[Graeme M]

And just for good measure, Chris Bryant's hot off the presses take on Jack's video:

 

[Ahimsa24/7]

Making one's self vegan is a clear and obvious first step. Advocating for animal rights while eating animals is a ridiculous paradox.

Once that first step is firmly in place, I'm open to debate about how to proceed. Certainly in my early days of being a vegetarian (21 years ago) I was much more about "informing" people in a harsh manner and being judgmental. With many years of experience behind me, I try to engage people more and to be a role model (particularly for the college students in my courses). I particularly want to leave people in food service with the impression that "not all vegans are a**holes".

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Making one's self vegan is a clear and obvious first step. Advocating for animal rights while eating animals is a ridiculous paradox.

Once that first step is firmly in place, I'm open to debate about how to proceed. Certainly in my early days of being a vegetarian (21 years ago) I was much more about "informing" people in a harsh manner and being judgmental. With many years of experience behind me, I try to engage people more and to be a role model (particularly for the college students in my courses). I particularly want to leave people in food service with the impression that "not all vegans are a**holes".

I asked for a vegan option today after I couldn't find one and the server pointed to some things with cheese so I ordered them. The owner of the restaurant is the father of the girl that befriended my daughter when she arrived scared to a new school at the age of 7 and was her best friend throughout the school. That girl was working in the restaurant today. I think that's a better way to handle it.

"Advocating for animal rights while eating animals is a ridiculous paradox." It is a bit silly, but if it helps the animals maybe OK. I think there might be some meat eaters that would actually support the abolition of factory farming because they are actually happy to move into a mostly vegetarian world. Maybe these people will be needed to get to the majority. They could be occasional meat eaters, people that lapse, or even people that are regular meat eaters but that's because that's the culture and would be equally happy to see more vegan options.

The number of people that say yes to abolishing factory farming is way higher than the people who are vegetarian - it is about 30%-50%. I am not sure if they realize though that this would mean meat would be an occasional "luxury".

 

[Graeme M]

Advocating for animal rights while eating animals is a ridiculous paradox

It is when we take a sort of all or nothing approach, and I get that. But what are animal rights? I think I've mentioned before that the only rights we are really concerned with are related to freedom (liberty), bodily autonomy and protection from cruelty. I boil this down to saying veganism and animal rights as an ethics seek just two things - freedom and protection for sentient animals. But unlike the exact same things for people (which are what the first five or so human rights are concerned with) we haven't fully legislated these into practice, so all we can expect people to do is what they are comfortable doing, or are willing to.

So I think people CAN be concerned with animal rights while still eating animals though of course they aren't thinking about this in terms of advocating for rights, which I think usually means legislating for rights. What's an example? Someone who sources their meat from highly ethical sources where the animals experience high welfare and have the freedom to conduct natural behaviours. Immediately, you've ruled out all CAFO systems, or about 99% of US animal farming. An example of this might be the Ethical Omnivore Movement, which is of course a welfarist philosophy so not vegan but they ARE eating meat while attending to some extent to the standard set of animal rights.

I wrote about that recently.

The Ethical Omnivore Movement – An Application of Vegan Principles

I have suggested that Ethical Omnivorism (EO) is a practical application of vegan principles but I have been criticised for this claim. Nonetheless I stand by it. Let me explain. I propose that veg…

justustoo.blog

 

[Ahimsa24/7]

IMO, treating a creature better than other people treat creatures before they are murdered is not "ethical" by any logical definition of the word.

Which mass murders of humans were more ethical than others? Who was kinder to their victims? Who cares.

 

[Lou]

Well this isn't fair because I'm the one who brought up Animal Rights., but I just finished listening to Sapiens by Harari, and I'm reminding myself of what he said about rights. this gets way deep and philosphical and I still haven't quite digested it.

According to Harari, all rights are imaginary. People made them up and they exist only in people's minds. Some people say that rights are god given. Which God? according to who?

The constitution assigns rights in the first ten amendments. I think the right to live is only brought up in the Declaration of Independecne and it's probably safe to assume they weren't extending those rights to animals. At the time they weren't even extending rights to women or blacks.

So I guess when we talk about animal rights we are only talking about the legal protections we have extended to animals.
And the animal rights movement pretty much concerns itself with extending those protections.

I think we can think of the animal rights movement being adjacent to the vegan movement but not exactly the same thing.

One way of illustrating it is to look at PETA. Peta is not a Vegan organization. It's an Animal Rights organization. They do promote veganism and IMHO they do a good job of it. I pretty much agree with @Ahimsa24/7, but I like to phrase it as Not eating animals is least you can do

I also like the way veganism sidesteps the whole philosophy quagmire and just states Don't exploit. or as Peta says, Animals are not ours to.....

Which mass murders of humans were more ethical than others? Who was kinder to their victims? Who cares.

Sure, there is right and wrong but also in the real world there should be a recognition of a spectrum. More and less. Utilitarianism. Trolley cars.

 

[Graeme M]

According to Harari, all rights are imaginary. People made them up and they exist only in people's minds. Some people say that rights are god given. Which God? according to who?

Yes, this is true. "Rights" are an abstract concept that formulates our duties and expectations to and from others; they aren't a physical property of the world (well... at least not beyond the neural patterns involved within a human head, I guess). Rights exist only so long as the parties agree to abide by the duties defined and that only happens more generally when we (society) enact those rights at law. Luckily, we've done that for many human rights (imagine how we'd go without the law to enforce our rights?). On the other hand, the basic rights we seek for other animals are not legislated, so we do not have general agreement to abide by them. The basic right not to be treated cruelly IS legislated to some extent, though.

Animal rights theory proposes that animals have the rights to be free and not treated cruelly, but we've not generally agreed to these duties. I think it is true that the animal rights movement seeks to have that legislative power enacted so we do all "agree", but with little real progress. Veganism is the idea that we behave as though such rights place a duty on us, so vegans choose to behave as though animals have those basic rights. I think veganism and animal rights are effectively synonymous and emerge from the same underlying moral belief that other animals matter in and of themselves. As I put it,

"Veganism recognises the inherent value and dignity of other species and aims to treat them fairly by our choices whenever we can.”

I reckon that because veganism emerges from that one single moral concept, then whenever anyone does anything at all for the good of another animal for its own benefit (and not merely for ours), they are enacting vegan ethics. You can't have anyone do that unless they have the moral belief in mind (to some degree) that animals matter, and that belief we can call veganism. Veganism just is what it means to care about other animals for themselves.

Veganism is the moral baseline

Unlike other animals, humans have moral agency – we care about what’s right and wrong. We’ve been developing this quality for thousands of years with the goal of making life go we…

justustoo.blog