https://plantbasednews.org/news/activism/vegans-support-farmers-new-animal-rising-project/

I was reading the failures of Veganuary - https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/19ahfxb/agricultural_college_shuts_down_veganuary/ and it's clear why they failed. I wrote about it https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/19ahfxb/comment/kilgwf8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

It's pretty clear that pseudo vegan gatekeeping (what I call it) isn't working. It fails vegans and non-vegans alike. The guilting and marginalizing via aggressive forcefulness and pressuring only burns people out to no end, which isn't conducive, nor vegan, nor helps out with veganism. I get that veganism isn't about humans, but when people are in a bubble and isolate themselves - they get in the way of their own success (because in the end, it's not vegan - which is "promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment." https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism (maybe the veganuary team can reread the definition - as the 'human' part was glossed over, and it makes sense - a major misconception is that humans aren't a part of the definition, when they truly are.)

Luckily there are those who're doing the opposite - those who I would say are actually vegan, doing initiatives in what I call the right way. Seeing reality for where it's at and helping to take it to where it needs to be. Veganism's for everyone, but once we start discriminating and excluding others (like how it appears veganuary did), it just doesn't really work. So flipping the narrative is key to getting veganism on track.

So I want to highlight what Animal Rising is doing right:

• not blaming the person
• bridge the divide
  • taking away the focus from one vs the other - to togetherness
• focusing on supporting the ones that're most responsible for a vegan future the most
• avoiding excluding, marginalizing, hurting, demeaning, grating, emotionally straining/manipulating, and forcing by focusing on helping, assisting, boosting (especially happiness), encouraging, sympathetic, empathetic, building (morale, capability, etc.) and educating
  • i.e. - controlling (nay - ruthlessly, aggressively, and callously dictating) -> empowering
    • it's about putting the responsibility where it belongs - with the activist that wants the change for themselves - by having them take on the liabilities of who they're placing their ideals onto, rather than pushing someone into a position where they can get incur damages and walk away - blaming them that it's their fault for how bad they are and that they don't have what it takes and were a waste of time to focus on and how it should be a 'certain way'. Idealizing isn't reality - so instead of fantasizing and working with a fantasy that creates pain in reality - do the opposite - fix the pains of reality to bring reality up to the utopia.
• focusing on fixing what's broken first - before bringing everyone else into it
  • otherwise you're bringing people into what's broken - which makes everyone fail (a common pitfall of vegan activism thus far)
• focusing on the whole picture of the nuances of veganism - like locality
• focusing on some of the most effective forms of bringing veganism to the world - which is prevention via lobbying
• meeting people where they're at, experiencing what they experience, and fighting with people instead of against them.
• recognizes that defiance just creates pushback as people rise to the challenge to fight what's going against them to hurt them
• seeing the bigger picture - to work with it to help the smaller, individual pieces assemble into one - for unison
  • unison brings happiness by starting off with happiness to continue and grow it (not on misery)
• realize that people can only be aware and able to make decisions about veganism if they're well themselves - so that means lifting a hand to help out get people to a place to be able to be in a position to make life decisions in their life
  • i.e. - giving people a chance (rather than just tell people what to do, without consideration to needs and wants of those whose life it applies to, actually affects, and are in charge of, as well as the recipients) and putting the decision-making where it belongs (removing people's autonomy and power by overtaking someone's life is really hypocritical - so putting the power back to them to let them life a vegan life, instead of someone else living a vegan life through others that are treated as objects for someone else's whim and bodies to utilize without considering the being inside it turns solving one problem into creating another).

Hope vegan activists are able to see this to see the game plan, roadmap, blueprint to (what I think is) vegan activism success! It's not to tell anyone what to do, but to show what's laid out to learn from to be better than before - and make more educated decisions for when the time comes.

Veganism is a philosophy - it's an individualistic endeavor, regardless if that individual entity is a person, school, society, etc. - so veganism should be treated respectfully like that, so I'm glad veganism is finally going in that direction. It should be all gold from here - showing what's next - what to do - instead of pushing people back - into what not to do (especially slaughterhouse footage - dragging people to the worst of society when we can show what a vegan world looks like instead, but that's a topic for another discussion).

It all boils down to helping people go vegan by making it possible for them - so they can succeed instead of pushing them down when they fail by making them fail.

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Edit: background info

• VSF's latest fundraise (which is mainly about mental health of farmers): https://chuffed.org/project/104445-vegans-support-the-farmers
  • This falls under veganism - in 'promoting animal-free alternatives to benefit humans' - so in order for humans to benefit, they'd need to be receptive to enjoy the benefits and can't if they're dealing with other issues to not be able to focus (or maybe be distracted by vegan initiatives when they need to focus on their health issues). This is a '1st things 1st' approach, which has long been a missing step in vegan activism: making sure people to be able to make a conscious decision to receive benefits and be positioned to do so to the greatest extent possible (this is how utilitarianism succeeds - is via the benefits side - doing the good for the most people (not missing anything in reality for some deontological fantasy), deontology succeeds on the expectations side - making allowances for the bigger picture (such as avoiding trapping people in getting caught up in statuses with hyperfixations about a goal and guilt if it doesn't happen perfectly (such as mistakes being made)).
• To see what they've done so far - https://www.veganssupportthefarmers.co.uk/timeline