Jasmin Singer is the author of “The VegNews Guide to Being a Fabulous Vegan” and the memoir “Always Too Much and Never Enough“. She’s the co-founder & co-host of the award-winning Our Hen House podcast & nonprofit (now in its eleventh year), the Director of Editorial for Kinder Beauty, & the editor of the Encompass Essays: “Pursuing Racial Equity in Animal Advocacy”. Jasmin was named a “40 Under 40” by The Advocate Magazine, a top “Eco-Preneur” by Go Magazine & can be seen in documentaries including “Vegucated” & “The Ghosts In Our Machine”.

In these Sentientist Conversations (subscribe!), we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment & compassion for all sentient beings.”

The audio will also be on our Podcast – subscribe on Apple here (& on most other platforms).

We discuss:

• Jasmin’s activist journey & roles (and books)
• The gaslighting re: animal agriculture
• 1980’s milk and meat marketing
• Atheism, naturalism, comparative religion
• Compassion in religion, but also serious ethical problems
• Growing up as a reform Jew, celebrating Christmas and Hannukah
• The mental gymnastics more “moderate” religions (like reform Judaism) have to do to move away from the harmful ethics at the core of many religions
• Humanism’s focus on the human species
• Do kids start out naturalistic and then get taught fabrications?
• Do kids start out compassionate towards non-human animals then get taught it’s “normal” to kill them for pleasure?
• The parallels between the indoctrination of religion and animal product consumption
• The “kryptonite” effect of animal ethics on otherwise careful, compassionate Humanist thinkers (whereas it’s more understandable for busy people with challenging lives)
• Luna the puppy makes a cameo appearance
• Taking the perspective of the sentient being that is being harmed
• Do all human-caused problems come back to believing without evidence and/or a too small moral circle?
• Compassion doesn’t mean weakness or appeasement
• Humility & learning
• The insularity of academia and philosophy vs. activism. “We have to act!”
• Is most of philosophy focused on the least important problems? Is the most important, urgent philosophy the simplest and the most obvious?
• Activist philosophers and why Peter Singer and Mariann went vegan
• Going veggie at 19 because it fit Jasmin’s “image” and thinking meat was “icky”
• Starting out not being a “mean” vegetarian & then becoming a “mean” vegan 🙂
• The excitement of finding a veggieburger in the late ’90s
• AIDS, domestic violence, safer sex campaigning
• Meeting a vegan, watching an animal farming documentary, being shocked about the sexual & physical exploitation
• The psychological link between human and non-human sexual assault
• Going vegan & instantly becoming a vegan activist
• Trumpism and the undermining of broad compassion
• Hope as a strategy
• Healing from generations of normalising cruelty
• Individualism, interdependency & relationships
• Anti-racism, veganism & anti-oppression advocacy
• White supremacist & carnist cultures
• We can help non-humans while we’re fighting human discrimination. “Just don’t eat animals while you’re doing it!”
• Ending animal farming as a win-win-win
• A compassionate transition for farmers (e.g. RAP)
• Having moral arguments and having an audience are privileges
• The pressures of life mean non-human animal ethics aren’t a priority for most people. Avoiding patronising/condescention in advocacy
• Amplifying the voices and power of those who are marginalised
• Individuals making personal change and driving institutional change
• The ancient, global roots of non-human animal ethics and naturalism
• Making it easier for people to do the right ethical thing
• Every person going vegan makes a difference and spreads the change wider
• Waiting for institutional change is not an excuse for not making the personal change (like litter or voting!)
• A Fabulous Vegan future.

You can find Jasmin at @jasmin_singer and jasminsinger.com. Make sure you subscribe to Our Hen House as well as to the Sentientism podcast!

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info. Join our “wall” using this simple form.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is here on FaceBook.

Thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-prod work on this video. Follow him at @cgbessellieu.