Within Reason - #16 Alex Hershaft - Surviving the Holocaust

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

Dr. Alex Hershaft is a Holocaust survivor, animal rights activist, and co-founder and president of the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM). He has previously had a 30-year career in materials science, and holds a PHD in inorganic chemistry. Dr. Hershaft speaks to Alex about his experiences in the Holocaust, and how they inspired the work he does today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. This episode of the Cosmic Skeptic podcast is brought to you by you. To support the podcast, please visit patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic. Welcome back, everybody, to the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast. Today, I have the real privilege of being joined by Dr. Alex Hershaft. Dr. Herschft is a Holocaust survivor who, after finding safety in the United States,

gained a PhD inorganic chemistry, and as if that wasn't enough of a reason already to have him on the podcast, he's also an animal rights activist and co-founder and president of the Farm Animal Rights Movement, which is the U.S.'s. oldest organization devoted exclusively to promoting the rights of animals not to be raised for food, even beating Peter by four years. So Dr. Hershaft, thank you so much for giving us the time to come on the podcast. It's my pleasure. I've been looking forward to it. Well, that's fantastic to hear. As my listeners and viewers will know, for the past two years or so, I've been talking almost ad nauseum about animal rights. And as I just said to you a moment ago, off camera, I've tended to take quite a rationalistic approach of things, looking at it through the lens of philosophy and ethics.

But there's also a very strong emotive side to the story of many animal rights activists that I think needs to be heard. And when I heard about yours, it was just the obvious choice for broadcasting on the podcast. So I wonder if we can begin. And I know you've spoken about this elsewhere, but because I'm sure that many of my followers won't be familiar with you, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. Sure. So I was five years old in September 1st, 1939, when the Nazi armies invaded Poland. And several months after the invasion, all the Jews from the Warsaw and surrounding areas were ordered to move into the Jewish section of Warsaw. Most of us, most people had to move in with strangers. We were fortunate in that my grandparents had an apartment in the Jewish section, so we were able to move in with them. And several months after the move, rough, sometime in 1940, the fall of 1940, the section was surrounded by a wall of a wall.

topped with barbed wire, and that was basically the birth of the infamous Warsaw Gero, which became one of the Nazi concentration camps where people were kept confined until the death camps could be prepared and gotten ready, which happened in about two years later, in the summer of 1992 and the death camp that was built for the Warsaw Ghetto was a place called Treblinka which was located about 60 miles northeast of Warsaw and in the summer of 1942 the Nazis began to round up ghetto occupants and for shipment in cattle cars to the gas chambers of Treblinka. Initially, there were about 450,000 of us in the Warsaw ghetto.

About between 80 and 100,000 died in the first year of typhus and starvation. And then maybe another 300,000 or so were shipped to So in the fall of 1942, there were, nobody really knows for sure, but maybe between 15, 100,000 of us left. At that point, until then, we were kind of hoping that we were just being detained, that this was kind of an open-ended concentration camp. We didn't really know what the plans were for us. of course we were not told that we would be all murdered because if we had been told there would have been some kind of a revolt so but the but it became pretty obvious after in the fall of 1942 that it was just a matter of time that we were

destined for death so my I my mother my father were able to escape from the ghetto one at a time and we then stayed in hiding for two and a half years between the fall of 1942 and when we were liberated in 1945 with the fake papers and changing our name and changing residents basically staying one step ahead of the authorities So that's sort of how I got started. Yeah, it's one of the most incredible how I got started stories that I've ever had on the podcast. And it's so intriguing to me. I mean, it's such a famous period in history that it's used now as the archetype of evil.

And to speak to somebody who actually went through it is just incredible and it's a real privilege. I wonder how vividly the memories of that time to stay in your mind or if it's a, got a lot to do with what you were told afterwards, because I certainly can't remember very much from when I was that age, but I wonder if going through an experience like that really does stay with you. I remember single episodes, but not a lot of detail. And how was it, if you don't mind me asking, that you managed to escape? Well, it's actually kind of a moving story. It takes a little time to tell. Do you want me to? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'd love to hear. Okay. Well, so my grandparents were fairly well off. They had a fairly large apartment. So there was about six rooms.

So my parents and I actually got two of the rooms. One of the rooms was just my dad's books because he was a collector of old manuscripts, of old books. And so he had hundreds and thousands of books. One room was just his books, and the other room is where we lived. One of the people who was living with us was my grandparents' maid. She was a Russian woman named Juliana, and she had no other family besides my grandparents. And when all Jews were ordered under penalty of death to move into the Jewish section of Warsaw, the same order also specified that all Gentiles had to leave the Jewish section of Warsaw.

Yuliana refused to leave because she didn't know any other family. She only spoke Russian with my grandparents and she viewed my grandparents as her only family. Because of her Russian roots and her affinity for Russian culture, Yuliana, even before the war, joined what was known as the White Russian Society in Warsaw. The white Russians were the people who lost the revolution in Russia and had to escape as contrasting with the Red Russians. And they were, when the Germans invaded, they were cultivating the white Russians because they were hoping that when they took over Russia, that they would be using the white Russians as their puppets to run the country. So when this ghetto situation came on, Yuliana went to her white Russian society and said that she, and explained to her,

her situation. She said she needed a permit to stay in a ghetto. And she basically said that if they didn't give her the permit, that she would jump into the river and commit suicide. And she meant it and they believed her. So they not only gave her a permit to stay in a ghetto, but they gave her an even more valuable permit, which was to come and go. And that was a lifesaver because what she did is we would as I mentioned there was widespread starvation in the ghetto so what Juliana what we did is we would collect clothing and other valuables from friends and neighbors and Yuliana would strap these around her waist and take them out of the ghetto and trade them to farmers for food that should then bring back to the ghetto and then the food would

be distributed to the people who gave us the valuables. When summer and fall of 1942 came on and the Germans were rounding up people for shipment to Treblinka, Yuliana got caught in one of those roundups and she was barely able to extricate herself with her white Russian pass. And when she got home, my grandmother, who kind of ran the household, decided that it was getting too dangerous for Yuliana to be doing these trips in and out of the ghetto. And that Yuliana had to leave and make a life for herself outside the ghetto. Yuliana refused. There was a lot of screaming and crying.

Wow. And eventually, Yuliana agreed. You had to agree with my grandmother. wouldn't take no for an answer. Yuliana agreed but only on one condition and that is that she would take me with her as her son so that I would live and everyone agreed and my grandparents gave Yuliana three batches of jewelry one was for the guard at the gate so they wouldn't ask too many questions as to why Yuliana suddenly had a 10-year-old son. The second was for the hooligans outside the ghetto gate who were there to extort escaping Jews.

And the third one was for Yuliana to make a new life for herself outside the ghetto. So Yuliana brought me out and brought me. to my aunt who was passing as Christian and eventually my parents were able to join me there as well. Wow. And so you managed to get out of the ghetto. And how did you manage to get by after that until the end of the war? Well, my parents joined me. My aunt was a famous actress, but that's kind of incidental. But her husband was active in a Polish underground, so he was able to get us fake papers. And that's what we lived on.

we were able to get an apartment for a while and then people got suspicious so we had to move we just it was just a succession of moves we moved four times during those next two years and you would move when you felt that the people around you were getting suspicious about you exactly yeah so you had to constantly be on you had to constantly be on watch for that kind of thing exactly and it was and I was specifically instructed because I would find out before, because people would speak freely in front of a child, which they wouldn't in front of an adult. So I would pick up on these things before my mom would. Right. And what kind of clues were you looking for? Because I suppose

people didn't outrightly say that they were suspicious of you or something. Well, they would say things like who remember Warsaw at that time it was a very stable society people didn't move around like they do in America or in England now people live wherever they were they they would stay put for an indefinite period of time so they only the only there would only be two reasons why somebody would move in or out. And that is, one would be if they were active in the Polish underground or if they were Jewish.

There were no other reasons. There was no mafia to. So those were the only two reasons for people to be moving and hiding. So I would pick up little clues like I would overheard their mothers talking while I was playing with the other kids. And, yeah, we would pick up on things like that. So it was a struggle not only hiding, but also we didn't have any money.

So my mother had to figure out ways of making a living. Do I remember hearing you say once in a talk about quite a close call when after you left, the Gestapo had come around and barely missed you? Yeah. Yeah, that was that was. later actually yeah what happened one of the things yeah we were living we yeah this was we were living in Warsaw and again there was a remark like I mentioned and we immediately left and we couldn't move to another address in Warsaw for two reasons one is there were no apartments

available we were very lucky to get the one where we were but the old Also, if you moved, you had to register. You had to register out and register in. So the authorities always knew where everybody was. It's not like now. So the only way that you could leave without leaving track of yourself or re-registering is if you went for a vacation, for, you know, in a country. So basically that's what we told them that we were just going for a couple of weeks to the countryside to get some fresh air.

We rented a room from this peasant woman who was running a farm. And yeah, my mom needed to make some money. So what she was doing, she remembered what we did in the ghetto in the trading clothes for food. So what she would do is she would take the train to Warsaw and go to all the street markets and purchase used clothing. Then she would come home and mend the clothing and launder it. And then she would put it in a knapsack in a backpack and go from village to village selling these clothes. And she became very popular to the point where people started actually ordering it. specific sizes and colors from her and she would try to fill those orders sort of like a mail

order sort of arrangement and one of those trips and my mother was very friendly she made a lot of friends she's very engaging person which is what kept us alive actually and and one of those visits one of her friends took her aside and said, well, you know, you'll probably think this is crazy, but this guy who owns the clothing store here, you know, he never really liked you because you're competing with him. But he told me that he thinks that you are Jewish and that he's going to report you to the Gestapo, to the authorities. And my mother was very cool and she thought that was very funny that somebody would think that she was Jewish. So they had a nice laugh and my mother calmly kept walking until she turned a corner.

Then she dropped her backpack and took off her shoes and started running barefoot across the countryside. She arrived to the farmhouse around midnight and she told the farm woman, I need to get to the train immediately with my son. So the farm woman woke her son and they hitched up the horses. And they took us to the train station. There's a lot more detail. I'm trying to make it short. After the war, so my mother got to know the woman's sons in Warsaw.

She had a couple of sons in Warsaw. And when my mother was going to Warsaw to purchase the clothes, she would also bring food from the farm to these sons. So after the war, she came back and found the sons. And through the sons, she found the mother. And she got with her, and she said, I came to you in the middle of the night and asked you to take me to the train station. and you didn't ask any questions, and you did it immediately. What was going through your head? And the woman said, I knew from this moment you stepped in here that you were Jewish.

I don't care about those things. And by the way, the authorities arrived about an hour after you left. Wow. That must have been such an incredible thing to hear. I mean, even after the fact, knowing that you came that close. Yeah. That's just unbelievably powerful. I can't imagine what it must be like to live as you do, to know that that's a part of your history.

But that's, I mean, that's something that you talk about is that this experience of yours left you with all kinds of feelings that you couldn't quite settle. and you went on like a search of essentially trying to figure out how to find meaning in your life after something like this. Yeah, yeah, that's what happens. You know, when you spend so many days and years just trying to survive that once nobody is threatening your life, everything is wonderful. You know, like we spent five years in an Italian refugee camp. And that was, I thought life was wonderful. I mean, nobody was trying to kill us. We had food.

It's just impossible, impossible to understate how much we take for granted when we're in peace time. Absolutely. I mean, to have that as a relevant consideration, like when I think to myself, you know, if I try to try to come up with some affirmations, trying to just be. grateful for things in my life. I might think, you know, I'm glad I have a roof over my head. I'm glad that I have access to food. But I would never think, you know, I'm glad nobody's proactively trying to kill me. It's just something that wouldn't even cross my mind. And it makes me, it, it, it depresses me that I've taken that for granted, that that's not something that

I've been as grateful as perhaps I should have been for. That's one of the reasons I find what you're saying so, so unbelievably powerful. But what kind of... So once I finally got my visa and I arrived in the United States in January of 1951. And, you know, the first few years were pretty hard. You know, I just took out jobs and went to school. I was 16 years old by then. And, you know, then there were times when I could afford to actually start.

thinking about life and things, you know, beyond my immediate physical needs. And that's kind of an interesting process, which I know you go through a lot. But so the first obvious questions that occur to me is, why did I survive when so many other good people perished and then what can I do to repay this tremendous debt I owe to I don't know to whom but to some indefinite entity how can I pay back for having my life and then finally is there you know there's obviously a terrible tragedy just happened and can can we learn something from it can we benefit in some way from this terrible tragedy or was it all in vain so these were the these were basically the the three questions that I was struggling with right so you were suffering from

what they called survivors guilt survivor's guilt yeah that's I found out later there's a name for it Yeah, that it's not just you. And how long were you in this kind of philosophical rut, as it were? Yeah, for about 10 years or so until the, well, yeah, 10, 15 years. Then in, yeah, but, you know, I wasn't thinking about it all the time. Right. Because I was busy with school. And then I went to graduate school.

I got my PhD in chemistry in 1961, then I moved to Israel. I lived there for a couple of years. And in Israel, when I first became vegetarian and started thinking about the relationship between my food and my outlook on the world, that's when I first made some connection. and it was then I went back to the United States and I ended up working for a consulting firm and my specialty was wastewater management because of my chemistry background so they sent me to do an inventory of the wastewater discharges at a Midwestern slaughterhouse.

So I was walking around with my notebook, taking notes, trying to assess what their wastewater management needs were. And I turned a corner and I come across these piles of

hooves and heads and hearts and lungs, these body parts of animals. and I was taken aback as most people would. I mean, I knew I was in a slaughterhouse,

but I was thinking of it figuratively. I wasn't thinking that I would actually physically come across these piles of body parts. And I immediately, in my mind, made the connection with the body parts I saw in Auschwitz, death camp when I visited there after the war, but piles of hair and glasses and shoes and gold teeth, suitcases that were basically bearing testimony to living beings who were no more. And here were these piles of animal body parts of beings who, sentient beings who were no more. And I kept saying to myself, well, but these are only animals. And it just wouldn't work.

I mean, that's what the Nazis were saying about us. They're only Jews, you know. And I just saw the parallels so vividly. And then I figured, well, okay, I'm a scientist. There must be some rational reason for this. After all, I'm in America. I'm in an enlightened country that values civil liberties. And, you know, we would never do horrible things to ancient beings.

There must be some explanation. So I should do some research. That's what scientists do. So I started researching. And the more I researched, the more I saw the parallels, the use of cattle cars to ship my people to the gas chambers. The use of skin tattoos or branding to identify the victims. The housing of victims in wood crates, the hiding of the horrors behind tall walls to prevent the general public from knowing what's taking place and on and on.

and I was I was in terrible shape that was that was the one time in my life when I wished I didn't have a brain because I just did not reconcile what I was discovering with my conception of my American society I just could not reconcile this too and I felt very lonely I there was no one else that I could even share this with. There was it was a combination of feeling a bit crazy and very lonely. Well, when was this? This was in 1972, the early 70s. And then finally, I came across some writings

by Nobel laureate Isaac Bershevish singer. And some of the things he said in his writing, basically is that to the animals, all people are Nazis. For the animals, life is an eternal Treblinka. And that's when I finally realized that there was at least one other person, no less than a Nobel laureate in literature, who shared my views. And that's when I began to relax a little more and start

feeling that I can do something about it and then three years later I ended up at the World Vegetarian Congress in Oranomain and that's when the whole thing just opened wide for me and that's when I became my activism and that's an activism in animal rights

that led you to co-found well yeah back then it wasn't actually animal rights back then it was vegetarianism Right. And it wasn't, so this will be a little difficult for you and your listeners to understand. But in the 60s and 70s, it was a different world in this area. First of all, everybody, including myself, were convinced, absolutely convinced that eating animal flesh was essential to human health and survival.

And I believe this. Now, this is a, with a PhD in science, I believe this. And I assumed that what would happen is that I would not die, but that I would get sick and weak. And then I would just go and grab a hamburger until I felt better and then continue my vegetarianism. Right. My vegetarianism was not based on any of the reasons that people become vegetarian and vegan today. Nothing to do with animal suffering, nothing to do with the environment, nothing to do with public health. It had everything to do with aesthetics.

The concept of taking a beautiful sentient living being and hitting him over the head and then cutting up his body, into little pieces and shoving those pieces in my mouth I found thoroughly disgusting and that's and I knew nothing about any of those other reasons back then and this is

how I stopped eating animals in 1961 actually during a visit to Israel I was in Israel for a couple of years so I see so that's why you were vegetarian even before you had this experience where you realize that animal suffering matters.

Right. So in 1975, when I became active, there was no animal rights. It was about vegetarianism. It was about basically not eating animals. You know, that it was gross. And I knew that other people had other reasons, but for me it was just gross.

And I liked, oh, and I liked the people I met at the World Vegetarian Congress. they were not weird you know i was i was afraid i went there with some trepidation because remember i had become a vegetarian 61 and this was now 14 years later and all those 14 years i never talked to anyone about my vegetarianism i didn't share it with anyone and i always thought there was something weird about me and and and and and i know the feeling and that well i don't know back then It was a different world. And coming to this Congress and seeing 1,500 people of different skin color,

different religion, different clothing, different languages, and the only thing they had in common is there were all vegetarians. That was so uplifting. It was basically a life-changing experience. So it sounds like there were kind of at least two real pivotal moments here. the first being the moment you just talked about, but the second, when you had this kind of light-bold moment later on seeing the product of a slaughterhouse. And I have to say, I mean, like, it's one thing to kind of be aware, as I'm sure, most of my listeners at the very least will be, of the

kind of rationalistic, philosophical, ethical arguments in favor of giving up our consumption of animals and things like this. But there's something just so. emotively powerful about that kind of imagery that cannot be captured in philosophical argumentation. I remember visiting the Holocaust Museum in Israel and seeing similar things, seeing, you know, imagery of, as you say, just piles of shoes and empty beds and all of these kinds of things. And it's just something words can't, can't encapsulate. But it's, I mean, the most interesting thing I find about your particular story, Is the way that you moved from that to kind of finding a, as you said earlier, you were kind of

struggling to find out what you could do to kind of repay this, this vague sense of debt that you felt. And if from what I understand of your work is correct, is this something that you found in animal rights advocacy after that moment? Yeah. Yeah, that's basically what happened is I realized right then and there in August of 1975 that I would be spending the rest of my life, fighting all oppression. I immediately made the connection with my own background in the Holocaust, and beginning

with the biggest oppression of all, which is the oppression of animals for food. Yeah. Now, I mean, I can imagine that. And the way that you've told this is very much a kind of, it's just a personal story. This is just a fact about the means by which you came to understand. that animal suffering matters, but when kind of presented in the form of a campaign, like I know your website, never again, never hyphen again.org, very much kind of trying to draw on the imagery of the things that you experienced in the Holocaust in order to make a point

about animal consumption today, perhaps you can flesh out because this is, of course, an incredibly controversial area in which animal rights activists often fear to tread kind of this discourse around, there's been kind of a history of discourse amongst various animal rights organizations of drawing parallels and comparisons between the Holocaust with a capital H and what they see as a kind of Holocaust, another Holocaust that's happening today, like with Peter's Holocaust on your plate campaign, and using imagery of the Holocaust on billboards and comparing it to animal slaughter and people got incredibly offended by this suggestion that there's a comparison to be made between pigs in gas chambers and jews in gas chambers

it would be helpful if you could kind of flesh out what your views are on that sure well obviously it's not a campaign suitable for billboards it's a campaign that I don't favor because it requires too much explanation. And generally what happens is that the shock value of the comparison is such that it immediately closes people's receptivity to explanations. So you're basically shooting yourself in the foot when you come out with that proposition. So I found that I found that basically I am confining myself to explanations on websites, such as the website you mentioned, never dash again.org, or answering questions when people want to know. And the explanation, there are two parts to the explanation.

So, first of all, when we're comparing the two holocausts, we're not comparing the moral value of the victims. We're not comparing my family with a bunch of pigs, obviously. You know, I care deeply about my family. I care deeply about my people. I care deeply about all Jews. I care deeply about all humans, and I cared also about animals. I do not assign a moral value to my father versus a pig. You know, that's inconceivable.

Now let's dwell on that for a moment. Neither does anyone else. Have you considered, I don't know if you have a cat or a dog, but for most people, if their dog needed, surgery that cost $1,000 to save the dog's life. Or if they knew that some child in the Sudan needed surgery that cost $1,000 to save that child life, there is no hesitation that the dog would live and the child would die. So our moral values are not based on race or space.

species, they are based on our personal relationship with that sentient being, okay? So saying that it's inconceivable to compare the slaughter of Jews and pigs is just not genuine, because we make those value judgments all the time, and they're based on our personal relationships, not an species of that sentient being. Right. I mean, that's an interesting point considering the fact that there are, I mean, you might be accused of being someone who's trying to, you know, put non-human animals and humans on the same moral pedestal.

But like, as you've just said, I mean, there are, there are many meat eaters out there who would do the same thing if it came to something like their pet dog. And it's worth kind of reevaluating the way that we all think about our relationship. the best way to summarize this is that it's not about the victims right it's about the oppressive mindset and that is the real question is what makes it possible for the citizens of one of the most enlightened nations in the world that spawned the scores of prominent writers, musicians, poets, philosophers, what makes it for those people to commit such atrocities as were committed in the Holocaust?

And if that could happen, whatever made that happen, is that what makes it possible for my beloved country, the United States of America, to commit similar. our atrocity against other sentient victims. I see. And my conclusion is yes, absolutely. And that powerful force is called social norms. The Germans were totally complying with their social norms of the time. And their social norms, as all social norms, were totally arbitrary.

their social norms said that the Christian lives, the Jew dies, and our social norms say the dog lives, the pig dies. They make just as much sense as the German social norms, which means no sense at all. Right, and even if the kind of relative value of the victims is totally different, the mindset is still the same. It's still the same level of arbitrariness. It still has the same amount of philosophical justification. I think that's a fascinating way to look at it, that you're not comparing the oppressed. You're comparing the oppressors, right? You're comparing

the methods that we use, the thinking that led to that kind of ethical blind spot and saying if it could happen on an issue as huge as the Holocaust, then of course it could happen with something like animal exploitation as well. And it does. And it does. It does indeed. And I mean, you said, you know, that this is, this is down to social norms. You say, you know, how could such an enlightened country as the United States have this ethical blind spot? Well, it's due to social norms. But, I mean, the further question to that is, how can such an enlightened country as the United States or the United Kingdom have those ethical norms? I mean, how is it that we still, even at this point in our history, even when, you know, veganism is on the rise and people are aware of the environmental impacts in everything, It's still a vast minority of people who are taking this seriously. I mean, what do you think it is that's causing this social norm to remain so deeply rooted in our societies? Yeah. So, well, so the first question before that, since we're dealing with specific social norms,

not just what kind of clothes we should wear or whether we should wear clothes or whether we should wear clothes or whether we should drive. or where we should ride bicycles, you know, these are all social norms, but we're concerned with some very specific social norms, which is why one sentient being lives and another's sentient being very similar dies. How do we arrive at such nonsensical social norms? And the answer is that it happens slowly, gradually. And frequently in response to financial interests or political interests, in the case of the Nazis, it was political interests. There was a lot of the Germans felt very victimized by the Versailles Treaty of 1919.

and Hitler was able to play on those feelings and in order to fulfill his acts, his preachings, he had to find a scapegoat. And the Jews were, people don't understand this, but Jews were the only minority in Europe. It's not like here where you have people of all colors, of all religions, intermingling with white Christians. In Europe, there were no other minorities. In Germany, you were either a Christian or a Jew. In Poland, you were either a Paul or a Jew. So, Jews became the obvious scapegoat. The other reason for picking Jews.

was because Jews had positions of prominence in society. They were doctors, lawyers, bankers. And so people who were felt victimized found it easy to blame Jews for their victimhood. So Jews were so obvious. I mean, if Jews didn't exist, he would have to make them up. I mean, it was in, it was inescapable. Now, in this country, basically people got in the business of raising animals for food. And certain animals lent themselves better for raising than others. And gradually, it just became obvious that those would be the animals that would become food and other animals. were more friendly and more useful for hunting. And so those animals will become our friends.

And there's a similar level of deception being used. I mean, I remember you saying earlier that there was a lot of deception being involved in the Holocaust just by virtue of the fact that if everybody really knew the true nature of what was happening, there probably would have been some kind of uprising. And we see a similar thing with the outright deception that's used in the marketing of animal products. You see these phrases about free range chickens and happy cows producing happy milk and British bread, beef and all of these kinds of things, potentially because of the fact that if people really knew what was going on, they'd stop buying this stuff. But then in my experience, even when people find out about it, because they've gone for so long in their lives,

eating these products and not thinking about it, even now when it's shown to them, even now when we tear down that concrete wall and turn it into glass using, you know, hidden cameras and show everybody what's happening in with utmost clarity, people still just kind of brush it to the side and kind of ignore that it's happening. I mean, people generally these days have at least some idea that animals are mistreated in factory farms and yet still aren't willing to do anything about it. I mean, what do you say to those people? Why do you think that that mindset exists and how do you recommend going about trying to change it? Sure. Well, again, it's social norms. And the I mean, you know, it doesn't occur to us to go out on the street naked even. Let's say it's very hot and we wish we could walk without our clothes. We still don't because of social norms because what would our neighbors say?

and it's not all that different with eating animals you know that that's the traditional common thing to do that's part of our dinner plate what would our friends our neighbors say if all of a sudden we were different nobody wants to be different everybody wants to conform so the solution is not to deny them their social norm but to replace their social norm right with and then not to take away their meat their cutlets and their checks and whatever but to replace them with plant-based products that are just as good if not better more economical easier to prepare tastier and more healthy for them and this is the ultimate salvation for the animals is the production and introduction and replacement of animal meat and dairy products with plant-based

products but I mean don't you think there's something a bit sad about what you're saying in the sense yes you know that's what it would take it sad you can call it realistic But it's very difficult to introduce drastic reforms in society. I am in great hope. I think that I think sociologists will study. I have developed a new admiration for sociology. I stand in awe of what the LGBTQ movement has accomplished in the last 20 years. In 20 years, they have turned our society around totally.

In the 90s, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act here in the United States, which basically said that if a state allowed the marriage between two men or two women, that that marriage would not be recognized in a different state. That was only in the night. There was like two decades ago. And today, the LGBTQ movement is one of the most powerful social forces in America. Exactly. But I mean, does that not fill you with some sense of optimism that maybe there is a potential for a growth of the plant-based movement around the corner and that it actually won't take as long as we might pessimistically think? It's different. I think I know the secret of the LGBT movement.

Okay. The secret is basically when people started coming out. Yeah, speaking for themselves, right? And all these defenders of marriage suddenly realized that their granddaughter, their daughter, their brother-in-law, who were gay. That's when they finally, you know, like Dick Cheney was a good example, the ultra-conservative Dick Cheney founded his daughter who was gay. and that's what broke it. We don't have that open to us. Right, because animals, of course, can't speak for themselves.

That's quite a terrifying prospect, actually, and it's something I've used to get the point across before in talks that I've given when I've asked the question, when we talk about previous ethical movements, like how long would it have taken for women to get the vote if they couldn't speak for themselves and had to rely on men to. speak for them. You know what I mean? How long would it have taken for, you know, um, segregation in

the United States to come to an end? If black people couldn't speak for themselves, if they had to just sit in silence and wait and hope that somebody else who was part of the perpetration of this kind of worked it out and started convincing everybody else around them. But that's, I guess you're right that that's the situation we're in with animal rights because we need to do the talking on their behalf. But I mean, I think about, I think about the way in which you said a moment ago, you know that once we produce these alternatives this will be the saving grace for the animals it's like i would i would pity somebody who has to tell their grandchildren that you know i knew that animals were suffering i knew that pigs were being gassed i knew that cows were being separate

from their calves and bulk gunned in the head and all the works and chicks were being macerated and gassed but man it just didn't taste quite right you know i couldn't give it up until they got that taste just about right i mean this stuff tasted 80% as good 90% is good 90s percent as good, but until they got it right up to 100 percent with, like, lab grown meat, I just couldn't give it up. I mean, I pity the people who will have to explain that to their not only outrage, but also genuinely confused grandchildren, you know. Yeah. Now, that's an excellent point. It's like somebody said, you know, if you want to know how you would feel about slavery during slavery, consider how you feel

how you feel about animals today. Yeah, I mean, in the sense that it seems so obvious looking back that, you know, you think, well, where are I in that situation? I'd have, I'd have figured this out because I have my ethical head screwed on properly. You know, I'm a reflective person. I think about ethics, but it's like the simple fact of the matter is that at that time, there were thousands, millions of educated, intelligent, moral people, ordinary people. Yeah, who just didn't clock it, who just didn't work this out. And the fact remains that today, I mean, for people to think, for people listening, I mean, if you have this kind of sense that, yeah, throughout all of human history, people have always had these massive ethical blind spots. But not now. Now we've worked it out. Now we know that we don't have any ethical blind spots. We're totally right about everything. It's like, I think we need to have some humility here. History has proven that it doesn't matter how advanced a society. it doesn't matter how unified or as you say how stable a society is it doesn't matter there will always be this possibility for unspeakable evils to happen right under

our nose and in this case quite literally right under our nose right yeah and and with our support exactly and that's another difference isn't it is that like you know for atrocities in the past the the real evil was the fact that people would good people would stand by and do nothing right But with this, it's the good people who are actually paying for it. Who are causing it to happen, right? And that's the realization I had. I remember having an exactly similar experience just before I went vegan. And I was sat at some kind of restaurant and I had a steak on my plate.

And I'd been reading Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. And I thought to myself, like, man, you know, if this meal were prepared by a slave, I wouldn't have wanted to eat it. And then I suddenly realized, hold on, no, I'm thinking about this the wrong way. The fact that I'm sitting here and not caring about the suffering in order to eat this steak, had I been alive in a time of slavery, I would have. I would have accepted that meal that was prepared by a slave. Because if I can be so blind about this, I could have been so blind about that. And it just was this horrible realization about myself. And all the reading that I'd done about animal ethics, told me far more about myself than it told me about the animals.

And it just made me realize, I can't be responsible for this anymore. I want to be able to say that were I alive back then, I'd have worked it out. I'd have done the right thing. And I'd have risen above social norms, as you say, to do what's right, or at least avoid doing what's so obviously wrong. And I would only implore people to listening to attempt to eradicate the same kind of cognitive dissonance, the same kind of dogmatic thinking. the same kind of, you know, slavery to social norms that might be in your thinking, too.

Yeah, well, very well, it means a lot coming from you. And so, and, you know, since then, since coming to America, you also then founded farm, the farm animal rights movement, which is the oldest, isn't it, the oldest dedicated to not raising animals for consumption. Right. Most people don't understand this, but when the animal rights movement first started in America, I'm not sure how it was, I think in England too, but it was totally about vivisection. Right.

And, you know, the original incident that put us on the map, of course, was the Silver Spring Monkeys, which also started PETA. which was in 1981 and the entire movement for the next for the next 15 years the entire animal rights movement was totally devoted to vivisection with the exception of our organization ours was the only organization that championed farm animal issues Wow. And I mean, have you seen a drastic difference in reception? Because I imagine at the time, as you say, you know, it was quite a rare thing to care about animals in that respect. But it seems like now it's a lot more popular. I mean, have you noticed as an organization a shift in perspective? Or is it still just as difficult as it once was to really get the message across? no no there's a there's a huge shift in perception right now well for example just the whole issue of veganism we were always on a defensive you know we would we would have to we would have to justify ourselves right now it's assumed that it's a legitimate position yeah and and people would either If they oppose us, they will say, well, you know, I choose to eat animals. Or if they want to be friendly and differential, they say, oh, well, yeah, I should be vegan too.

But we don't have to defend ourselves anymore. That's right. Those days are gone. Yeah, I notice that when I speak to people now and I tell them that I'm a vegan. One of the first things they say in response is something like, oh, yeah, I'm trying to cut down. Oh, yeah, I try to make sure, you know, I get ethically sourced me and all this stuff. As if people now, the kind of the go-to position is to say, I think you're probably right about this. I think you're onto something and I'm trying my best here, whereas it wouldn't have been like that in the past.

And you're right, it's like it shouldn't be us, as I've said before, that have to do the justifying, right? Because we're not the ones who are causing the harm. It's like any action involving a victim requires justification. And sometimes actions involving harming somebody are justified. sometimes, but you need to provide that justification before doing it. It shouldn't be a case of, I'm going to inflict this harm, and it's your job to tell me why I shouldn't. Instead, it should be it's my job to tell you why I have the right to do this to inflict this harm, and that should be the first point of call. And I think that's probably,

I guess that is one of the biggest changes that we've seen in the reception of the vegan movement going from, as you say, being on the defensive to being on the offensive. yeah it's yeah intellectually it's a totally valid and accepted position it's just a matter of developing the habits to conform with the intellectual position that's exactly right and I hope that people listening who aren't already convinced or on the fence or anything like that hearing this conversation that we've had can be moved ever so slightly more in that direction but I think that's a wonderful place to end the conversation I'm interested though, just before we stop here, how long is it now that you've been vegan?

Well, since 81, whatever that is, 40 years, I guess, yeah. I'm 39, 40 years. 40 years. And still healthy, still haven't died of a protein deficiency or a B-12 deficiency. No, I'm 86 years old. I jog or swim every day, and I'm in excellent health. Which is quite remarkable, considering what miserable diet I had through the first half of my life. So there is redemption for meat eaters and junk eaters.

There is redemption. You can, it's not too late. Well, I think I speak for anybody who's listening when I say that if there's anybody who's deserving of a long, healthy life, I think it would be someone like you. Dr. Hirschft I really appreciate you coming on the podcast it means a lot It's my pleasure Can I also plug my blog?

You absolutely can Theveganblog.org It's a biweekly series of essays that are that review critically the history and future of the animal rights movement

in the United States excellent i will i will make sure that um every link uh all the links to your work as well as all the links that are relevant to the things we've been discussing will be available if you're watching on youtube in the description uh down below and if you're listening on on spotify and itunes then you can just pop these things into your URL bar or find the youtube channel uh where all the links will be will be available uh available for you so i'll make sure that's in the description um but except for that uh thanks again for listening i'll remind my I remind my listeners that everything I do is supported by you on Patreon.

So if you want to see more content and more podcast episodes, then please do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic. But apart from that, as always, I have been Alex O'Connor or Cosmic Skeptic. And today I have been in conversation with Dr. Alex Hirschaf. You know, I'm going to