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Veganism: the Future of an Illusion.
This is the book that resulted from eight years of discussions on Youtube, where Eisel Mazard was the voice of à-bas-le-ciel, criticizing veganism from within, eventually reaching six million views with his jarring portrayal of the vegan movement as a deeply corrupt and dishonest failure. Published at a time when most of the leaders of the movement were celebrating its seeming success, "Veganism: the Future of an Illusion" offers an analysis of the psychological and philosophical reasons for its ongoing failure, contrasted to a positive model for the life of a dissident intellectual pursuing unpopular political change.
Daydreams of a vegan majority future have distracted leaders and followers alike from taking the action necessary to make a positive difference in the world while continuing to lead a meaningful life —a life that is not ruined by activism itself.
The new strategy reflects an honest admission that vegans will remain a despised and internally divided minority for the century ahead, rather than pretending that we will imminently witness the esoteric ethical assumptions contested within the movement becoming the dominant cultural norm.
Being right or wrong is irrelevant to the personal and political struggle ahead: atheists have been right for a thousand years and nevertheless remain a powerless minority today, although not nearly so powerless as vegans. The preoccupation with "being right" is itself a losing strategy: we need to learn to win within the context of a culture that will always regard us as wrong, no matter how many scientific studies (under the headings of health, ecology, or the social sciences) may prove us right. Science will not transform society: we will. Veganism will not transform society: we will. We need to understand our own powerlessness in attempting that transformation in order to find new roads to power, discarding the phony populism of political leaders who pander to the fantasy that veganism will eventually become powerful simply because it's right. The future belongs to those who are willing to be wrong and, therefore, the future of veganism is an illusion.
Daydreams of a vegan majority future have distracted leaders and followers alike from taking the action necessary to make a positive difference in the world while continuing to lead a meaningful life —a life that is not ruined by activism itself.
The new strategy reflects an honest admission that vegans will remain a despised and internally divided minority for the century ahead, rather than pretending that we will imminently witness the esoteric ethical assumptions contested within the movement becoming the dominant cultural norm.
Being right or wrong is irrelevant to the personal and political struggle ahead: atheists have been right for a thousand years and nevertheless remain a powerless minority today, although not nearly so powerless as vegans. The preoccupation with "being right" is itself a losing strategy: we need to learn to win within the context of a culture that will always regard us as wrong, no matter how many scientific studies (under the headings of health, ecology, or the social sciences) may prove us right. Science will not transform society: we will. Veganism will not transform society: we will. We need to understand our own powerlessness in attempting that transformation in order to find new roads to power, discarding the phony populism of political leaders who pander to the fantasy that veganism will eventually become powerful simply because it's right. The future belongs to those who are willing to be wrong and, therefore, the future of veganism is an illusion.
- GenresPolitics
129 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 9, 2022
6 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 21, 2022
This book brings a lot of value for vegans with it, not least because it gives the reader a sense of self-importance and awareness for being the creators of the movement's destination in the content form of political art, meant quite literally as physical art. Thus, aptly, the philosophy explained in this book is one of an artist (talking to his fellow artists), of what it means to be an artist, an activist and a radical.
Is viscerally espoused ethical veganism a litmus test for the intelligence of our future leaders of veganism as they are going to be judged by their art?
The morality of the message shouldn't only be important when it comes to vegan propaganda, but all political art. So my concern is about the ethical quality of our future art which will result from this book's encouragement.
I hope the experiment will last long and be fruitful, setting the stage for the improvement of our society as a whole, on different levels.
Is viscerally espoused ethical veganism a litmus test for the intelligence of our future leaders of veganism as they are going to be judged by their art?
The morality of the message shouldn't only be important when it comes to vegan propaganda, but all political art. So my concern is about the ethical quality of our future art which will result from this book's encouragement.
I hope the experiment will last long and be fruitful, setting the stage for the improvement of our society as a whole, on different levels.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 12, 2022
Stolid prose; tepid insights; unfounded assertions; logical unsoundness. A rambling, pointless bloviation from the fingers of a bitter mediocrity. If it were worse with respect to technical parameters, it would be better, it that it would at least be engaging and memorable. If you want to experience this book without having to drag your eyes over pages, just find a 3rd-rate, 105-IQ professor at a community college, and ask him to talk about something recondite for 2 hours. Actually, that wouldn't constitute the full experience, as it's not possible to add erroneous grammar and punctuation to speech.
To even download the free sample on Kindle would be an expenditure as wasteful as spending one's money: you would be burning your time. Thankfully, I pirated this, so I only wasted the latter -- though this was ameliorated by how much I skimmed.
Don't bother.
To even download the free sample on Kindle would be an expenditure as wasteful as spending one's money: you would be burning your time. Thankfully, I pirated this, so I only wasted the latter -- though this was ameliorated by how much I skimmed.
Don't bother.
April 13, 2022
Veganism,
Its been years.
Even though I had seen the massive ongoing failure I remained optimistic.
I've stopped believing in many things , religion , certain economic notions , philosophies,etc
The idea that somehow veganism was inevitable and that sometime in the future it would magically happen never left though.
If we don't make it happen no one will.
This book is a call to action.
Its been years.
Even though I had seen the massive ongoing failure I remained optimistic.
I've stopped believing in many things , religion , certain economic notions , philosophies,etc
The idea that somehow veganism was inevitable and that sometime in the future it would magically happen never left though.
If we don't make it happen no one will.
This book is a call to action.
April 14, 2022
This book brought back some lessons I, upon reflection, wanted to forget. Whose will bends who, the unsettling fact of veganism as elitist, and the critique of humility and compassion.
I can remember a time when I believed veganism was going to happen no matter what. That feeling left a long time ago, but the struggle remains of what I can do next. Eisel provides an answer here that no one else in veganism (or atheism, nihilism etc) presents.
I can remember a time when I believed veganism was going to happen no matter what. That feeling left a long time ago, but the struggle remains of what I can do next. Eisel provides an answer here that no one else in veganism (or atheism, nihilism etc) presents.
April 26, 2023
Must read for anyone interested in vegan activism
The author has a very experienced and sophisticated approach to activism, unlike the plethora of popular vegan activists who have no intelligence in assessing the effect of the paradigm of activism they have followed for years.
The author has a very experienced and sophisticated approach to activism, unlike the plethora of popular vegan activists who have no intelligence in assessing the effect of the paradigm of activism they have followed for years.
September 14, 2022
garbage
October 5, 2025
Most annoyingly smug writer in the world goes on a repetitive, often thinly veiled misogynistic rant about the innate superiority of himself over the masses.
The thing is, he often has the glimmer of a good point. The current animal rights tactics aren’t working. The belief that everyone will turn vegan if we just present them with the facts and walk them through ethics has been proven false.
In that sense, Mazard is spot on. But his conclusion leads him to elitist ranting, taking long detours into talking about how universal education is pointless because some people are too lazy and stupid to learn. He takes a reasonable conclusion - yes, some people are more motivated than others - and uses it to essentially argue in favor of segregated, elitist education ruling over the stupid masses.
His ideas here aren’t unique, they’ve been used for thousands of years to withhold education and power to those deemed undeserving. To make such grand, oppressive claims to illustrate the point that yeah, the world isn’t going to go vegan out of a moral epiphany, is dangerous.
If he had stuck with the understanding that veganism needs to be made structurally convenient, that only that sort of change will get people to go along with it, the book would have been good, but almost a full 70% of this is arrogant, condescending, classist rants about the author’s own superiority.
He calls out the vegan movement for its infighting while hypocritically doing it himself, calling vegan theorist Carol Adam’s a whiny, petulant child stamping her feet (going with his hatred of women, he also chooses to go on for a long time about a hypothetical, inferior “fat sister”).
His very first chapter has an irrelevant detour about vegans who like pets, and how people who don’t let their dogs get in violent fights at the dog park aren’t true vegans.
So yes Mazard, tell us about how infighting is such a problem and how you’re so above it.
And then his grand recommendation for the vegan movement is to “make art.” Citing Bambi as an example in what it did to hunting’s public image. Bambi has not made hunting a pariah. To use it as an example of effective change for animals is laughable when you decry any other form of actual action as useless. Art is important, but does he really believe writing a fiction novel is what’s going to make the difference for animals, the great strategy vegans must employ?
Mazard is not a unique type, you can find this sort of guy obsessed with their own iq anywhere. You don’t need to read this book to get this sort of ranting.
Veganism needs a good, in-depth critique of the movement’s tactics. I’d love a book like that. But you don’t need to read this one to get the fairly simple critique Mazard has realized.
The thing is, he often has the glimmer of a good point. The current animal rights tactics aren’t working. The belief that everyone will turn vegan if we just present them with the facts and walk them through ethics has been proven false.
In that sense, Mazard is spot on. But his conclusion leads him to elitist ranting, taking long detours into talking about how universal education is pointless because some people are too lazy and stupid to learn. He takes a reasonable conclusion - yes, some people are more motivated than others - and uses it to essentially argue in favor of segregated, elitist education ruling over the stupid masses.
His ideas here aren’t unique, they’ve been used for thousands of years to withhold education and power to those deemed undeserving. To make such grand, oppressive claims to illustrate the point that yeah, the world isn’t going to go vegan out of a moral epiphany, is dangerous.
If he had stuck with the understanding that veganism needs to be made structurally convenient, that only that sort of change will get people to go along with it, the book would have been good, but almost a full 70% of this is arrogant, condescending, classist rants about the author’s own superiority.
He calls out the vegan movement for its infighting while hypocritically doing it himself, calling vegan theorist Carol Adam’s a whiny, petulant child stamping her feet (going with his hatred of women, he also chooses to go on for a long time about a hypothetical, inferior “fat sister”).
His very first chapter has an irrelevant detour about vegans who like pets, and how people who don’t let their dogs get in violent fights at the dog park aren’t true vegans.
So yes Mazard, tell us about how infighting is such a problem and how you’re so above it.
And then his grand recommendation for the vegan movement is to “make art.” Citing Bambi as an example in what it did to hunting’s public image. Bambi has not made hunting a pariah. To use it as an example of effective change for animals is laughable when you decry any other form of actual action as useless. Art is important, but does he really believe writing a fiction novel is what’s going to make the difference for animals, the great strategy vegans must employ?
Mazard is not a unique type, you can find this sort of guy obsessed with their own iq anywhere. You don’t need to read this book to get this sort of ranting.
Veganism needs a good, in-depth critique of the movement’s tactics. I’d love a book like that. But you don’t need to read this one to get the fairly simple critique Mazard has realized.
March 16, 2024
A trash written by another ''nature admirer'' who believes that nature is something ''good'' and ''ethical'' and that dogs and cats are ''suffering'' with people. A completely delusional guy. Don't waste your time on reading this crap.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews