How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach

The author believes in animal liberation, but considers the right methods to achieve it at this point in time when vegans still don't have mainstream recognition. He suggests that we need to be more strategic (manipulative) in order to spread the right message because most people don't succumb to correct messages, but marketing strategies (manipulation). Most people aren't moral and don't want the truth is what he observed from slavery as slavery laws had to be reenacted gradually.

The author raises some interesting points, like he believes that if people change their behaviour, they can later change their whole ethics or be more susceptible to change it more. That means that there might be moments when people making small changes might mean that animal liberation happens sooner. He considers letting people become vegan for other reasons in order to spread veganism further and for it to be more in the public spheres.

This book being targeted towards vegans sure doesn't seek to empower them, to understand them or to validate their efforts, but more so to criticise them and validate the ones who would insult vegans on a regular basis. On a large part I get it and we do need some dose of criticism, but this is leaning more towards apologising to meat eaters and it doesn't validate the perspective of the existing ethical vegans enough. Also it's quite literally advocating to play into capitalism and dishonesty, looking down on people and not having faith in them.

He states that young people, intellectuals and students are more likely to be pursued by ethical messages and I agree on that. They are less likely to be indoctrinated and can be more open minded, kind and smart.

It is a bit difficult to form an opinion on such a work for me because it goes like “I love vegans and all the methods, but also look at this method I have which most vegans do not consider and also maybe those other vegans are a bit too vain to think of all the reasons people eat meat.” It leaves me with confusion.

Why is it not about empowerment if you like all vegans? Why can't all the strategies listed in the book be separated from what you don't like about ethical vegans? Are your goals really the same if you hold your methods as most appropriate now and dismiss the methods of others as methods that can only be used late game in the vegan movement?
Also if the vegan movement is incomparable with other social injustices then why should these methods be used? Maybe the vegan movement needs more focus on the morals then? It's not like we have a vegan world so who knows? (I believe author wrote something like this at one point, but against the ethical vegans)

The author frames veganism methods in an idealism vs pragmatism spectrum and wants a balance between them depending on the situation. It's similar to welfarism vs abolitionism. There's some validity to it and technically he argues for balance and appropriate situations, but again it seems that he dismisses the urgency from the ethical vegans perspective and how their activism works. He just assumed that it doesn't and that it is wrong to shock and to surprise other people in order to get them to think.

Actually the more I write this review the more I seem to dislike this message, first I thought four stars then three and now I am willing to give two. I won't give one because at least it's about the vegan message and I doubt the intentions are bad. Like this raises discussion and references some great thinkers, but there are way better books than this and this could have been worded and written better. Do we want to focus on all this and how to appease the non vegan world, call our safe spaces islands and dismiss our own efforts? Thanks, no.

When a person advocates for half-truths and strategic persuasion (manipulation), I suppose his work and books and writing style starts to contain it and it becomes hard to determine the real arguments being made.