Episode 53: Vegan sociologists Kate Stewart and Matthew Cole speak about speciesism in the media and popular culture

This week, I am pleased to present my second interview with the vegan sociologists Dr. Kate Stewart, Principal Lecturer in Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, and Dr. Matthew Cole, Lecturer in Criminology at The Open University. Matthew and Kate are the authors of the 2014 book, Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Relations in Childhood, as well as a number of academic articles and book chapters about the sociology of veganism and human-nonhuman animal relations.

In this interview, Matthew and Kate speak about the following topics:

• how children are socialized into accepting and participating in animal exploitation in society
  
• how the mainstream media and popular culture normalize animal oppression and marginalize veganism
• why some people become very hostile in response to the mere mention of veganism or vegan food
  
• why, for many of us, being vegan is actually easier than being non-vegan
• whether a vegan world is possible
  
• what we can do to help normalize veganism in society.

We spoke about the Doctor Who television series (as it relates to veganism and animal ethics) later on in this episode. My guests also discussed their research into the speciesism of animal farming games that people play on their mobile phones, among other topics.

It's a very interesting interview, so I hope you'll listen in!

You can also find my first interview with Kate and Matthew on Episode 28 of the Always for Animal Rights.

Note about Doctor Who: At the end of this section of the 2005 Doctor Who episode "Boom Town", the Doctor orders "steak" and chips at the restaurant, and then in this section (still at the restaurant), he lectures Margaret (a murderous alien) about why she shouldn't kill innocent people. We discussed this scene in the interview.

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/51787.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-april-28-2021.
   

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!

Episode 52: Interview with Dr. Frances McCormack about asking questions to promote veganism, measuring our success as advocates, and holding veganism as a moral baseline

This week’s episode features my recent interview with the abolitionist vegan advocate Dr. Frances McCormack, who has been a vegan since 2010* and promotes the Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights.

In this interview, Frances tells me about the experiences that led her to become a vegan and find out about the Abolitionist Approach. We also discuss the role of asking questions in vegan advocacy conversations, how we can reflect on our progress as vegan advocates without using false measures of “success”, whether the concept of “carnism” helps or hinders discussions about veganism and animal rights, and why it’s important for vegans to promote veganism as a moral baseline and stay true to our ethical values, despite any social pressure to do otherwise.

Thanks to Frances for being a guest on the show!

* Coincidentally, 2010 is also the year that I became a vegan.

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/51639.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-april-14-2021.
   

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!

Episode 51: Veganism and Virtue Ethics with Professor Carlo Alvaro

This week, I am pleased to present my interview with the virtue ethicist, ethical vegan, and author Carlo Alvaro. Carlo is an Associate Professor of philosophy at CUNY New York City College of Technology. He is the author of Ethical Veganism, Virtue Ethics, and the Great Soul, published in 2019, as well as Raw Veganism: The Philosophy of The Human Diet, which was published in 2020. His third book, The Book of Raw, will be published by Lantern Publishing & Media in November 2021.

In this interview, Carlo tells me about what led him to become a vegan, and he explains the philosophy of Virtue Ethics and how it leads to veganism. Then we discuss why vegans should reject lab-grown meat and whether it’s problematic to consume plant-based replicas of animal products. Carlo also speaks about a particular issue that we’ll need to address in order to achieve a vegan world.

As my listeners are probably already aware, I promote a rights-based approach to animal ethics. At the same time, I think that Virtue Ethics also provides valuable insights into ethical questions. Carlo's academic journal articles about Virtue Ethics and veganism, which you can find on his Academia.edu page, are a good place to start if you'd like to learn more about a virtue-oriented approach to veganism.

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/51544.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-april-7-2021.
   

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!