Sentientism | "There's no philosophical basis for being against dog meat but eating a chicken" - Cat Besch - EP:79 @Sentientism | Uploaded October 2021 | Updated October 2024, 24 minutes ago.
Cat (twitter.com/CatBeschVN) founded and leads Vietnam Animal Aid & Rescue (vnanimalaid.org/). She is also a writer (cat-besch.medium.com/) & activist addressing many non-human animal issues.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & pod.link/1540408008.
We discuss:
0:00 Welcome
1:10 Cat's Intro
- Founding Vietnam Animal Aid & Rescue
- Growing up in Virginia, USA
- Studying International Relations in Washington DC
- A political/military family
3:10 What's Real?
- Growing up as a liberal Lutheran with very religious parents
- The church as social fabric
- Figuring out that "I just don't really believe in any of that crap"
- High school & Baptist society in Alabama
- The church seeing all sex as shameful... "holding virginity in such high esteem"
- Feminism & Islam. "Headscarves & Hymens" by Mona Eltahawy.
- "The way the institutions look at sex & sexuality just makes you want to put your fist through a wall"
- "A whole bunch of girls that think they're going to hell"
- That was the turning point. Everything started to crumble
- Not picking at the church too hard as it was the social fabric. "Life is hard enough at 16." I left it silently on my own
- The hypocrisy of religious compassion & judgementalism
- Atheists & agnostics are not immoral people
- "I attended church... I took communion... my sins are flushed... now I can go back to being a dickhead"
- Religious compassion is often conditional & constrained
- The immorality of even "moderate" religious worldviews (e.g. hell, sexism, homophobia)
- "Women are not emotionally stable enough to be leaders in the Catholic church"!
- "I found it oppressive." Leaving the church was a moment of liberation
- Travelling & living in many religious cultures
- Starting the "Let's not be an asshole" religion
- Being wrong. "I used to hate vegans", now I'm "on the side of all sentient beings"
- Everybody has a chance to change
- "I just don't know" as a strong naturalistic stance
25:09 What (& Who) Matters?
- An early empathy for animals "they were my best friends", but living in an environment where killing sentient beings was normal
- I never met a vegan in the horse riding world
- "I love what you do for me" isn't love
- Being angry at our previous selves for not seeing
- Thinking all vegans must be "dirty hippies"
- Meeting first vegans hosting couch-surfers in Mongolia
- Being challenged "You love animals but who are you eating?"
- "I looked at dairy & was appalled"
- Going vegan at 34
- Advocating for fishes after diving
- Living with Louise the chicken
- We can philosophise, but compassion can also come from lived experience
- Jonathan Balcombe's "What a Fish Knows"
- Humanity to Sentientity
- Animal ethics in Vietnam. Dog meat & chicken meat
- Rejecting dog meat is not a gateway to veganism
- Millions more likes for resisting dog farming vs. chicken farming
- Being worshipped for saving a dog by the "gods of bunny-hugging dumb-assness" but don't talk about veganism
- There's no philosophical grounding to rejecting dog farming then having chicken for lunch
- Generous funding available for resisting dog funding but not for other animals
- The racism that underpins much single-issue activism against dog farming
- Bio/ecocentrism
- How non-human & human animals are seen in disasters
- Psychedelics & experiencing everything as connected
57:45 The Future
- Sentiocentrism, naturalism leaves space for broad pluralism
- So many un-founded beliefs: MLMs, Goop, Anti-Vaxx, Flat Earth, Religion, Cults...
- Telling the RSPB "You know chickens are birds, right?"
- Social indoctrination re: religion & animal ethics
- Rebels are too rare
- Welfarism vs. abolition
- Welfarism gets all the money
- "I lost 60 grand [of charitable funding] by being an outspoken vegan"
- "If all those big organisations finally just stood up for animals, period!"
- They take so much money from people diametrically opposed to the idea that they have to stop or change anything
- Ban dog meat but "humane" farming of other sentients is fine
- "Vegan is not a dirty word" - It's a moral baseline!
- Gary Francione
- #JustTransition paths
- Oregon's IP13 yesonip13.org
- Driving change in different cultures. Going local & getting out of the way.
- "I suffer from delusional optimism"
- "Even the worst people can change"
- "People are assholes & people are amazing"
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall here: sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Main one: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks for the post-prod, Graham twitter.com/cgbessellieu.
Cat (twitter.com/CatBeschVN) founded and leads Vietnam Animal Aid & Rescue (vnanimalaid.org/). She is also a writer (cat-besch.medium.com/) & activist addressing many non-human animal issues.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & pod.link/1540408008.
We discuss:
0:00 Welcome
1:10 Cat's Intro
- Founding Vietnam Animal Aid & Rescue
- Growing up in Virginia, USA
- Studying International Relations in Washington DC
- A political/military family
3:10 What's Real?
- Growing up as a liberal Lutheran with very religious parents
- The church as social fabric
- Figuring out that "I just don't really believe in any of that crap"
- High school & Baptist society in Alabama
- The church seeing all sex as shameful... "holding virginity in such high esteem"
- Feminism & Islam. "Headscarves & Hymens" by Mona Eltahawy.
- "The way the institutions look at sex & sexuality just makes you want to put your fist through a wall"
- "A whole bunch of girls that think they're going to hell"
- That was the turning point. Everything started to crumble
- Not picking at the church too hard as it was the social fabric. "Life is hard enough at 16." I left it silently on my own
- The hypocrisy of religious compassion & judgementalism
- Atheists & agnostics are not immoral people
- "I attended church... I took communion... my sins are flushed... now I can go back to being a dickhead"
- Religious compassion is often conditional & constrained
- The immorality of even "moderate" religious worldviews (e.g. hell, sexism, homophobia)
- "Women are not emotionally stable enough to be leaders in the Catholic church"!
- "I found it oppressive." Leaving the church was a moment of liberation
- Travelling & living in many religious cultures
- Starting the "Let's not be an asshole" religion
- Being wrong. "I used to hate vegans", now I'm "on the side of all sentient beings"
- Everybody has a chance to change
- "I just don't know" as a strong naturalistic stance
25:09 What (& Who) Matters?
- An early empathy for animals "they were my best friends", but living in an environment where killing sentient beings was normal
- I never met a vegan in the horse riding world
- "I love what you do for me" isn't love
- Being angry at our previous selves for not seeing
- Thinking all vegans must be "dirty hippies"
- Meeting first vegans hosting couch-surfers in Mongolia
- Being challenged "You love animals but who are you eating?"
- "I looked at dairy & was appalled"
- Going vegan at 34
- Advocating for fishes after diving
- Living with Louise the chicken
- We can philosophise, but compassion can also come from lived experience
- Jonathan Balcombe's "What a Fish Knows"
- Humanity to Sentientity
- Animal ethics in Vietnam. Dog meat & chicken meat
- Rejecting dog meat is not a gateway to veganism
- Millions more likes for resisting dog farming vs. chicken farming
- Being worshipped for saving a dog by the "gods of bunny-hugging dumb-assness" but don't talk about veganism
- There's no philosophical grounding to rejecting dog farming then having chicken for lunch
- Generous funding available for resisting dog funding but not for other animals
- The racism that underpins much single-issue activism against dog farming
- Bio/ecocentrism
- How non-human & human animals are seen in disasters
- Psychedelics & experiencing everything as connected
57:45 The Future
- Sentiocentrism, naturalism leaves space for broad pluralism
- So many un-founded beliefs: MLMs, Goop, Anti-Vaxx, Flat Earth, Religion, Cults...
- Telling the RSPB "You know chickens are birds, right?"
- Social indoctrination re: religion & animal ethics
- Rebels are too rare
- Welfarism vs. abolition
- Welfarism gets all the money
- "I lost 60 grand [of charitable funding] by being an outspoken vegan"
- "If all those big organisations finally just stood up for animals, period!"
- They take so much money from people diametrically opposed to the idea that they have to stop or change anything
- Ban dog meat but "humane" farming of other sentients is fine
- "Vegan is not a dirty word" - It's a moral baseline!
- Gary Francione
- #JustTransition paths
- Oregon's IP13 yesonip13.org
- Driving change in different cultures. Going local & getting out of the way.
- "I suffer from delusional optimism"
- "Even the worst people can change"
- "People are assholes & people are amazing"
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall here: sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Main one: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks for the post-prod, Graham twitter.com/cgbessellieu.
