Radical, Idealist, Vegan: Jordi Casamitjana on Ethical Veganism, Legal Protection, and Building a Movement That Lasts

Jasmin Singer: Oh, good. Oh, I'm so glad. And Jordi is a vegan zoologist specializing in animal behavior. But in addition to his scientific research, he has worked as an undercover investigator, an animal welfare consultant, as well on zoo closures, illegal hunting prosecutions, and the banning of bull fighting in his native Catalonia. So much to talk about. He also became pretty well known in 2020 for a legal case regarding the legal protection of ethical vegans from discrimination in Great Britain. He's a freelance content writer, video creator, public speaker, and is the author of Ethical Vegan, a personal and political journey to Change the World, and most recently, Why Vegans Don't, A Philosophical Guide to Vegan Behavior.

Wow. Jordi, that's a lot. That's, does it make you tired to

hear, uh, an intro like that?

Jordi Casamitjana: Well, not really because I do many of these and I... the, the truth is my life is long, so, and I, you can see with my white hairs for those that can see my image, so I'm, I'm older, so I'm bound to have done a lot of stuff in my life.

Jasmin Singer: I love it. That's a beautiful way of looking at it. And I definitely, we talked a lot about, uh, what happened in 2020 when it happened, and I'm just excited to be able to pick your brain about it today. Before we jump in, just a quick reminder to our listeners and viewers about the Our Hen House podcasts. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report on Thursdays, and the long form interview, that's this, on Fridays. Bonus for Flock members comes out on Mondays We're a podcast. We're on YouTube. Hit subscribe. Hit like wherever you listen. Okay, Jordi, let's jump in. We have already, I feel like laid out the foundation for a lot of the ground you cover. A vegan, a zoologist focused on animal behavior, an undercover investigator, a successful campaigner, and the person behind what I think is the only legal decision recognizing ethical veganism as a protected philosophical belief. So what would you say when you hear all of that, and I know you just said you have like a charming, dapper whitish beard.

So you have the, you have the years behind you to prove, but what is the through line? What is the problem that you've been trying to solve your whole adult life?

Jordi Casamitjana: Oh, that is a very good question. I love when I get the question I I never expected, and this is one of them. So I would say if I have to summarize it in a single... a quest. Is the quest for the truth. Everything I do is about the truth. The truth about who I am, the truth about who the animals are, animal rights, all these sort of things.

The truth about somebody that broke the law, who has to be recognized as guilty. The truth about veganism being, uh, a belief that is as important as any other belief or any other religion. Uh, so all is, and even a scientist, you know, a scientist means trying to find out the truth and explain it in a way that everybody's convinced that is the truth.

So it's always either the legal part of it or the scientific part of it, or the campaigning part of it is always about being trying to discover the truth myself and trying to express the truth, uh, the truth to other people in the hope that I might be helpful to someone. So it's about the truth, really.

Mariann Sullivan: I love that answer. I mean, if everyone would acknowledge the truth or at least try to understand the truth, the world would be a very different place. All right. Let's talk about this word vegan, which can be a very problematic word, I think. It has come since it was, it was kind of an invented word, but since then, it has come to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

It might describe a person, a philosophy, a diet, a type of food, vegan burgers or whatever. And when it describes a person, it might mean one who, who just doesn't eat animal products for whatever reason whatsoever, or only those who do so for very specific philosophical reasons, which I think certainly defines you and many of the people listening to this podcast.

So what's your meaning? What is your particular meaning for the word vegan, which I think is a very important word to you?

Jordi Casamitjana: For me, it is the most important word of all. It really, uh, if, if I only had to eliminate all the words and only use one for the rest of my life, I would choose that word. Because almost everything that is meaningful to me has the word vegan attached to it. Uh, all the variation of it, veganizing, veganized. It's so useful and so translatable. It has the right number of vowels and consonants. It is beautiful in itself, independently of the content. For me, it means many things. It's complex work. It makes many think mostly the most important part is a philosophy. For me, it's a philosophy that's the beginning, the core.

That's where everything begins. But that philosophy develops into something, a way of living, a lifestyle. And that lifestyle develops into a different way of eating, different way of wearing clothes, different way of buying and shopping. And that all together develops an identity. It's also an identity.

That identity also develops a transformative sociopolitical movement. and it is the agents and the channel to actually change the world to the better. So it's from the very small thing, a philosophy, a thought that one day you wake up and say. Ah, I'm a vegan now, I have a thought. To changing the entire world.

It basically encompasses every detail from the small to the big that humans are involved with because the..at this moment. So we have created so much suffering and so much harm, that the only reason that we should still exist is correct that harm and the process of correcting that harm for your body, for you fellow human beings, for you fellow sentient beings, and for the environment.

I call all this veganism, so it's a huge thing for me.

Jasmin Singer: Wow. That is, I love that answer too. Uh, the, it's changed a lot, I think just people's reactions to it. Certainly in the, you know, 22 years I've been vegan and the 30 some odd years Mariann has been vegan, and even the 16 years since we've been doing Our Hen House. What would you say is the most common way that you see even serious vegans shrinking veganism into something smaller than it should be?

Jordi Casamitjana: Well, the most common way that the general public does and sometimes even vegans, is strictly to a diet, simply a way of eating food, which I, I think that would be like, uh, I dunno, summarizing Islam into a way of excluding pigs in, in diet. It's a very small, narrow aspect of it. But when you consider veganism, what it means, uh, is much bigger than that.

But most people don't know this. More people assume it's just the diet. What I say is well reminding people that they call themselves vegans, the only thing they do is they eat the, the diets the vegans eat. And, and, that is an issue of, uh, should you use that term? Are there other terms that fit better, like plant based and all that?

Well, there's a huge debate about who deserve the label. Who, what's, which type of vegans they are, how, how much you should accept somebody else's to be vegan. All the gatekeeping, all this stuff. That's part of a movement, that's part of anything that has a word and a label. It will be fights. I accept that. For me, I have a very specific way of looking at it.

I look at the past, I look at who created the word the first place, who, who I looked at the history, how the concept was developed. I look at the present, how many different type of people use it, and in which way, and I look at the future, where we going, and from all that, I have my understanding of what veganism is. But I accept that other people might use it differently and, and might use it in a way that I would, uh, prefer not to use it because my confuse bystander that tries to figure out what veganism is.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I have often wished we had a few more words 'cause, 'cause that word vegan is carrying a lot of different baggage for a lot of different people. But it is the word we've gotten. I, I love it too. I, I am not gonna deny it. So the legal case, let's talk about that a little bit. What became protected there wasn't vegan products or dietary preference or anything like that, but ethical veganism as a philosophical belief, and correct me if I'm wrong, but also just tell us the story.

Jordi Casamitjana: Yeah, what it became protected is basically holding that belief. So basically the belief, uh, that many people might have, some of them by law in different jurisdictions are protected or not. That means if you hold that belief, you're gonna be discriminated or harassed for that belief. And yet you call different terms.

In the US you call it protected classes. In the UK we call it protected characteristics, but it's the same thing. You have one of those, you cannot be discriminated against that. So veganism, uh, in the UK has become a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, which means it's as protected that will be gender orient, gender, sexual orientation, religion, um, marital status, all those protected characteristics that tend to be quite similar in different countries.

Uh, now in the UK we added ethical veganism, particularly ethical veganism with this word, which is kind of a legal term in a, in a way to prevent what were asking me before, to prevent the word vegan to be used in a too wide sense. So the term ethical vegan has now officially in the UK been defined as following the official definition of veganism of The Vegan Society.

Those who created the word vegan in 1944. And the definition took them decades. They finalized it in 1988. That definition, if you follow that, the, the philosophy in that definition, you officially regarding the UK as an ethical vegan and therefore becomes illegal, unlawful to discriminate against you because of that, to harass against you because of that, to victimize you because of that.

In the world relationship, in public and private services, in landlord, uh, tenant relationships, it really embraces a huge amount of human interaction where discrimination might occur. And you are right, is the only jurisdiction in the world so far that has reached that level of protection, and that happened in the UK by, I would not say by chance because we, veganism has been quite advanced in the UK we compare with other countries.

I'm not surprised the UK is the first one with this because again, The Vegan Society was created here. The world vegan was created here. Even if veganism wasn't invented here, there were vegans millennia ago. The words were created. So it's not surprising that we advancing in that regard, but I didn't expect that I was going to be involved in this because it happened to be by chance.

I was fired for being a vegan and I was working in an animal welfare organization. Uh, which course I've been a vegan in animal, animal welfare as opposed to animal rights organization doesn't mean that, uh, that's not that surprising to me that vegans are seen sometimes as a bit of a radical, even within animal welfare organizations.

So in my case, I, I, I've worked in many animal welfare organizations. I always been the, the odd one, the vegan one, the more radical one. But in this case, I didn't expect that I would lead me to be fired and I was fired because what happens is I discovered that the pension fund I was auto enrolled to, in the UK there is a law that says if you are, uh, you join any organization, you have to be auto enrolled, uh, into a pension fund selected by the employer. You have a state fund too, but then in addition to that state fund, you need to have extra money from a private fund, and that has to be chosen by the employer, by law. So when I checked the one that I was assigned to by the employee, I realized it wasn't one of the worst possible pension funds.

It was investing in vivisection companies, pharmaceutical companies, gas and petrol companies, tobacco companies, the the worst possible ones. I could not believe that animal protection organization had chosen that particular one, where there were others that had the label ethical in there that didn't do any of that.

So I complained and, and they said, Well, we'll change it, don't worry. And I kept complaining that it didn't change it. I, I said, well, I don't want any percentage of my salary going to that, and they put it anyway. And because I didn't drop it after a year of pushing, I was fired. Then I realized, Well, I had no choice. As a vegan, I had to find any option that minimizes my contribution to animal exploitation.

They are pension funds that they don't have these, uh, companies. So that's an option. I should pursue this. I have no choice. And I realized I've been fired without having any choice because I'm a vegan. Then I approached a lawyer. I said, look, I think I'm being fired because I'm a vegan. That must be unlawful bullying.

He said, Well, not, not really. So the veganism is not protected class or characteristics yet, but it can be 'cause the Equality Act has a clause that says, uh, uh, philosophical beliefs, which means non-religious beliefs, can also be protected if you follow a procedure process in which you have to show that belief and, and the judge have to look at the series of characteristics and if they fulfill them all, this belief fulfill them all, then the judge will declare that belief protected.

If not, it would reject Nobody had done veganism before, so I was going to be the first. So the whole responsibility on my should is if he rejects it, all the vegans will hate me forever because will not be protected forever. But if I'm successful, I will help all the vegans. If I help all the vegans, or the vegan cause, because the more protected you are, the more you can express your veganism and fight for the animals.

So I decided to go for it. I asked the lawyer how much you charge me? And I realized I could not afford it. That's where I had to qualify. I had to take two years of fighting for this. A litigation took two years, and eventually I was successful. But the saga was so long and, and movie like that I, I wrote a book called Ethical Vegan to explain how I did it. Uh, so, because it was like a thriller. Uh, but I, uh, I, I have spoiled the end because I was successful. Veganism in 2020, in January, 2020, become a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010.

Jasmin Singer: Wow,

Mariann Sullivan: I, I just wanna mention for people listening who are in the US, there is a similar principle in law, and I think it has been pursued, but never, as in your case, did it result in a published decision that people can follow or if, if, if so, very lower courts. But, uh, it does exist, and I know that people have argued it in, in, in prison cases, for example, like saying that people are entitled to vegan food. You know, various kinds of situations in which it might become relevant.

Yours is certainly a very unusual one. Um, but I just, uh, not, not to, not to hijack the conversation, but I just wanted people to know that that's not exclusively a UK principle. It is, it is a principle, uh, under, under US constitutional law.

Jordi Casamitjana: You are right. And many people from many countries have contacted me since. In fact, the, the publicity of my case was so huge because really the issue is relevant everywhere. Veganism is the same concept everywhere, and there's some sort of equality law in most places. So the point is when it will happen in other places, so many countries approached me, uh, many people in similar situations.

I just offer advice, how I did it. So obviously my evidence is available to anyone. I I produce more 1000, more than one 1,200 pages of evidence. Many of it can be used in other cases. And there've been success, legal successes in other cases.

There was somebody in Bologna in Italy, regionally, uh, there was a problem with the teacher that she was vegan and the law in Bologna says that vegan pupils have the right to have vegan meals at the school, state run school, but not the teachers.

And then she was, she felt discriminated. She took, uh, the, the, this, uh, official education system to court, use my case, even if it has no jurisdiction there, and won. So, because the arguments. And, and the pitch, my picture was in the Bologna

papers so that that shows that even if without jurisdiction, the legal argument has weight and goes

Mariann Sullivan: Absolutely.

Jordi Casamitjana: goes international.

So.

Mariann Sullivan: I mean, you can, if you have no, if you have nothing to cite, that's like in your own jurisdiction, of course you would go to another, another court that has decided this. And, uh, so it, it, it really does have the power to spread around the world.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, and I mean, speaking of spreading around the world, you gave us a couple examples right now, but I would love it if you could go a bit more into how this outcome works in the real world, because presumably it doesn't mean that everyone has to accommodate anything a vegan asks for. At least... In your view, what is the boundary between legitimate accommodation and what will be seen as overreach, especially for vegans working inside

non-vegan institutions?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yes. What what this law does is, is a level up. Puts vegans at the same level than any other protected class, any other protected groups or, or people. So it doesn't give you more power than anybody else. It doesn't give you less power either. That means if somebody discriminates against you for being a vegan, meaning treating the non-vegan members of the company differently, giving them, for instance, free food where you have to pay for it, or giving them free, uh, uh, equipment, boots, for instance, while, while you have to pay for it, that now is unlawful in the UK. In fact, what happens immediately after my case was successful, was that the fire brigade, the, the British fire brigade issue automatically vegan, leather, uh, uh, boots to the vegan firefighters, the kind of the next week. Up to that point, everybody was fighting and tried to, it kind of went automatically.

Everybody that is vegan that can get it, as anybody else, otherwise it would be discrimination. Immediately I got calls and messages from people saying, Look, I've been fighting for having soya milk in my company for 10 years, and now next day after your case, I got it on the fridge. Or I, my pupil in... My, my children are going to school, they're vegan, but they're not providing them vegan meals. But now after your case, they just had did it straight away.

Even some bizarre cases. The, uh, the Freemasons in Scotland that, you know, the Freemasons, they do lots of rituals. So, they, they changed the, the bot, the, some of the, the leather components of the rituals into non leather versions for allowing vegans to become Freemasons. After centuries of having the same thing for, they are really obsessed with the tradition, and yet they had, they changed it. So there it was quite widespread, the effect. And often things are not, don't, they don't make headlines, but they are real changes in real lives of people.

And every now, then, every time I meet somebody that knows my case, they always tell me how their life improved because my, my, my legal victory, so.

Mariann Sullivan: How wonderful that must feel. There's one, I mean, we, we have other things to talk about too, but I do wanna go back to one thing about the case. And, and you mentioned earlier and, and it's the same in the US that this legal principle be behind protecting a philosophical belief is very similar to that protecting religious belief, but you really make a point of explaining why the belief that underlies veganism is not a religion. It's different than a religion. Can you just go into that a little bit?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yes, the, the good thing about Equality Act that many laws don't have is that has this separation between religious belief and philosophical belief. jurisdictions don't use this term. For instance, in Ontario, which is a case, is a case trying to achieve the something I have been achieved for a long time.

For firefighter there, they don't have a philosophical belief. They have creed, they have religion and creed. Of course, it's not quite the same as philosophical belief, it's a bit closer to religious concept, but the advantage of philosophical belief is that clearly it doesn't link it at all to philosophy.

So the only thing... sorry, to religion. The only thing it has to have is some co coherent, uh, to be accepted as a protected belief. And there is a test in the UK it's called a Granger Test that is applied. It was created by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which is a higher court that, uh, creates precedent. And when the first contested belief was put on the table was about environmentalists and it was appealed, then the, uh, the higher court set, set the rules basically, which are the conditions that a believe have to fulfill become protected.

And my case was, uh, was successful because I, I fulfilled all those conditions and things like it, it, it have to affect more a substantial part of someone's life. It have to be coherent, it have to be cojent. It should not affect negatively the rights of others. It should be more than just an opinion. All things like that. Actually the system worked quite well because there've been beleifs that've been rejected and they're being beliefs that've been accepted. And if I had been the judge in all of them, I would have accepted and rejected exactly the right ones. So the bad ones, like homophobia and things like that were rejected.

The good, the good ones like pacifism, uh, environmentalism, uh, they've accept it. So it is actually works. That system works. Uh, but it is because the, the letter of the law, it makes it easier for us to do it. While in, for instance, Ontario, they have to, the lawyers will have to argue that creed should include non-religious belief too.

And that's a been more harder to do. So.

Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, absolutely.

Jasmin Singer: So I wanna switch gears and talk about your latest book, Why Vegans Don't. It initially sounds from the title as if it's essentially negative, but you suggest that the don'ts are really a series of yeses. So, yes to non exploitation, yes to justice, yes to sentient life. So what is your key advice to helping fellow vegans not come across as only interested in personal purity?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yes, I, I would say the word no or don't is the most powerful word humans have ever conceived. In fact, probably is the first word that we ever conceived, even as individuals. The first thing we said when we were born. It's moving the head like that, but we we're trying to be fed by something we don't want, and that's how the first communication with another human began.

So the first thing we say is no. And as a, a society saying no to injustice says no to abuse, saying no to dictatorship, saying no to everything that is bad is what has driven progress. There hasn't been any progress in accepting the status quo. It is always denying that the status quo should stay forever.

So it should... and, and therefore you should be quite proud to know that we can say no. In some places, you are not allowed to say no. In the countries that you can say no, you have to use it. You have to use it all the time. And a way to say no, which is a very complicated way, say I'm vegan because a vegan said, I don't participate in animal exploitation.

I don't wanna be part of this. I don't accept this food because it contains this. I'm not gonna go. Since you, you should not be afraid to say no because we live with a yes obsessed culture. That is quite shallow. Saying yes to everything doesn't change anything. And, and in the world we live, without change, things will get even worse.

So we have to hold the banner of no and carry it with, with pride. And that's why I wrote the book, Why Vegans Don't, because I wanted to label it quite clear and unapologetically that we are rejecting bad things. And, and if you are rejecting bad things systemically, you are a decent human being. So decent human beings reject bad things.

So that's my books.

Mariann Sullivan: Jasmin like alluded to, but I really wanna get it in a little more into the whole question of personal purity and being seen that way. And, and purity has become something of a dirty word in vegan advocacy. I think, uh, and, and I can see why, you know, some people... has more to do with personality, I think than than position sometimes, but, uh, but I wonder what its role is.

I mean, you are obviously very firm about, I won't call it purity because I just said that was a confusing word, but, but drawing, drawing sharp lines and, and, and complying with them. So is there, and it just runs the risk, uh, I think of being just dismissed as self-righteous or, which is how it's usually framed or as making veganism seem impossibly difficult, um, rather than something beautiful and productive. I, I'm not sure what my question is here. How do you pull off the whole, the whole project, and I think this is something that everybody listening probably struggles with the whole project of actually complying with your values and not pissing everybody off?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yeah, I mean, you are right. The word purist, uh, is an slur these days against the vegan. You, you purist, or even the pragmatist within the movement, they will label you as a priest, as, as an insult. But, but I'm not purist. Uh, I like imperfection. Uh, I'm a fan of wabi sabi, this Japanese concept of beauty comes the from imperfection.

I love imperfection and I think the nature is, is perfect because it's so imperfect, but I'm morally consistent and that's a different thing. Being morally consistent doesn't mean that you are a purist. For instance, I like video, I I games too, board games. I will never, ever win through cheating. I will never.

Although you might think strategically, if you wanna win, you should cheat. I wouldn't because I have morals. And for me, following my morals consistently across the board from a game to real life, and that situation is essential. First, to understand who I am, to make sense of my life. Not to lose my sense in a fuzziness of nothingness, but also to communicate to other people the difference between right and wrong, here and there, today and tomorrow.

If you're not clear about these things, you are just bubbling wrong. And and yeah, you will be born, you will bubble along, you will die, nothing will change. If you wanna change the world, you need to know which direction you go. That means here is right, there is wrong. So, we shouldn't stay here, we move over there.

These are very clear things. And so for, I'm a very clear person. My brain is designed to be quiet and strategically clear. So I have a particular brain that, that works better in black and white situations. I'm giving advantage for me, but I also given advantage to communicate black and white concepts and not to, uh, dilute them unnecessary and, and that's what could happen.

So, for me, there's gonna be people explaining the veganism cause and the movement, we are in different ways. I think I have to be the one that makes it clear in black and white, because that's the role I chosen. I, I don't know that's the right direction. Who knows? We are not in charge of the movement.

All the things that we can do, the only thing we can do is to give our point of view. That's the only thing unique. We have our genes. Nobody had my genes, nobody had the books, I, nobody had the information I received in the order I received it. So my point of view is unique and I'm, the only thing I can do, I don't know whether would be the right strategy of static, is say it as I see it from my point of view, hoping that that will inspire others, help others find solutions to problems.

And if not, that's, I kind of, uh, go beyond that. I kind of go beyond expressing my point of view. For me, the word vegan give me that clarity. Is a clear term concept, with a clear definition, with a clear philosophy, with a clear horizon, with a clear solution to many those, the problems. So I'm gonna stick to the clear solution.

Jasmin Singer: I love that. I'm just curious about your brain. Uh, this, how did, how do you think you developed this way of communicating in, I, I mean, to just put it the way you put it in black and white terms?

Jordi Casamitjana: Well, I'm gonna give you a revelation that hasn't, I haven't publicly said it yet, although many people know this. One day I will probably do it because I wanna write a book about this. I'm autistic and AuDHD, so I, I have ADHD and autism, so I have already a brain that works better in a black and white scenario.

So it's not just me, it is everybody that is autistic, which many vegans are, uh

Jasmin Singer: I, I saw a study, I mean, I, I don't remember anything except the headline that there, there was a connection between autistic individuals and vegan individuals.

Jordi Casamitjana: And that's a book I wanna write. I wanna write that book is, it's my second book in, in the, in the pipeline, uh, at the moment. Uh, but yeah, there are many reasons why it works because we are more black and white. Veganism is very black and white, so we are very ethical. There many research that shows, uh, autistic people tend to be very ethical.

Why? Because we understand rules. This is wrong. We don't do it anymore. The fuzzy areas of gray areas, this is a very neurotypical way of looking at the world. We don't. If that's incorrect, if that's wrong, we will don't do it. And also we empathize more with non-human animals. People used to say that autistic people empathize less.

That's now is understood as the opposite. Sometimes we don't look at people's faces because we see too much. We don't look at people's eyes because we can read too much, and it's overwhelming. So we do have empathy. I'm, I, my, I, I didn't know it was autistic, uh, most of my life, but I did know I could understand non human animals better than anybody else I knew.

So all that together make me, my, an easy, an easy for me a vegan by default, almost. Uh, it would be very unlikely to me to have reached my age and not have become a vegan, uh uh, uh, because that's my natural way of looking at the world, but also helps in communication, uh, because it, it prevents you to get too lost, too confused, too much influence from external forces.

There are forces, internal, externals, that are constantly trying to dilute our movement, uh, from other movements, mixing with others. They might be especially legitimate people to follow different movement, but sometimes it's easier if, you know, when one begins at the other ends and all these sort of things. You, you get less confused.

Uh, so in all that, I think, uh, it helps understanding. So that's why I decided at one point, okay, what I'm gonna be contributing in this vegan endeavor, building the vegan world, will be writing, explaining things, looking at patterns that others cannot see. Trying to see how the past and the future and how we mix in the present.

Try try to see directions where that nobody sees. Try to see, uh, the mechanics of the movement, so it's called systematizing, is very autistic people do that very well, seeing mechanics and find out what's wrong and try and try to find out troubleshooting how to solve it. So I'm applying all that, that comes natural to me into the vegan, uh, discourse.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I have a follow up question, but it's, it's to Mariann and, and help me out here because I'm only like partway there, but I think it's really fascinating to hear Jordi talking about this kind of black and white way of looking at it. And when I think of you Mariann, and maybe it's 'cause you're a lawyer, and I just know the way you, you know, think, I think of a lot of, uh, a lot of gray, like not, not black and white thinking. And, and yet you are, you know, for all intents and purposes, very much of a excuse my, uh, turn of phrase here, but very much of a purist vegan. So what am I missing in terms of the fact that like, I'm sitting here staring at a screen of like a black and white thinker and a gray, gray thinker? Like, what, what am I missing, Mariann?

Mariann Sullivan: That all roads lead to veganism.

So simple

Jordi Casamitjana: Precisely. Yeah, I agree. You know, I always say I, I, I used to call, uh, people, uh, like particle people and wave people. You know, the light, it has this duality that is both a particle and a wave and for many years physicists, and we discuss it.

Mariann Sullivan: Quant like quantum physics.

Jordi Casamitjana: And they say if you look it as a particle, it looks like a particle.

If you look it as a way, it looks like a way. So it's basically both. So I think the humans are both particle and wave people. Particle is the black and white people. And the wave people is the gr, the the others, the opposite, the grays. And I think we all both, but if you look at us from a particle point of view, it, we look more a black and white type of creature.

If we look at us from a wave point of view, we look more like a wave type of creature.

We still basically the same thing. So I just basically decided that I will express myself as a particle person

Jasmin Singer: I like that

Jordi Casamitjana: Because, that thing I, it fits more what I want to say and how I want to say it, and my brain helps me because it works better in that way.

Other people are more wavy. That doesn't mean that I'm bad, I'm right and they're wrong. They, they express it more with color shades and waves of nothing begins and nothing ends. And uh, but we all the same. And as you just said, we are fighting for the same vegan world of the future. We only contribute to that building with whatever tools we have.

Mariann Sullivan: Exactly. exactly. I mean, the, it doesn't, whether, how you're looking at it doesn't change what's right and wrong, it just changes how you, how you express it, how you come to the conclusion. Uh, but I think they all, uh, lead to the same place.

And that's, um, veganism.

Alright, let's, let's move on to, because I do wanna talk a little bit more about the things you cover in the book, which I, you know, I'm not sure whether this book is for experienced vegans or new vegans or somewhere in between, because it serves both, but in different ways. But the kind of the core of the book are these five core axioms. So could you just tell people what they are?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yeah. Uh, I, uh, long time ago I decided that I wanted to go deeper into the philosophy of veganism. In any philosophy, is never gonna be completely defined by a simple definition. The definition is the starting point, then you need to go into the principles. The core principles, which in philosophy you call them axioms. Axioms are those statements that those following that philosophy believe, whether they believe by common sense, by evidence, by logic, doesn't matter.

They are convinced. They're convictions. And I looked around, which were the axioms, the five, I looked for five, that all vegans of all types, uh, that I met, uh, clearly believe, and I identify five. I did the same with the philosophy of animal rights too, in another, in an article I wrote about the axioms of animal rights, which are different.

They're not the same. Uh, and the the ones of, of, of veganism. The first one is ahimsa. The most important one, ahimsa, is Sanskrit word that means do no harm or, uh, nonviolence. For me, it is essentially that not harming all or, or trying not to harm others is the, the basic moral baseline. So this is the minimum we can do, attempt not to harm others.

This is the most important one for me, not, is not a reduction of suffering. This is animal welfare like lingo. It's not reduction, it's uh, it is not suffering we're talking about it's harm, meaning there's an agent that harms another one. So this is what we stop. The agent should stop harming the other one.

The second one is the animal sentience one, which is that all members of the animal kingdom as sentient beings. We don't make distinctions. We don't only say that the primates are sentient beings. For us, for all vegans, we consider all members of the animals kingdom sentient beings. The third is the anti exploitation, which means all forms of exploitation of other beings harms them. And because it harms them is against the principle number one. Therefore, that means, uh, this, these three ones can be summarized, uh, that with the sentience. Veganism is against the exploitation of sentient life, which is precisely the first definition of The Vegan Society in 1944.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Jordi Casamitjana: So it kind of fits what it was in the past and what it's in the present.

The fourth is that is anti speciesism. The anti speciesism means discriminated against anyone for who they are is wrong. So basically non-discriminating being anti speciesist is the right ethical way because it goes beyond to harm. It goes, goes into treating them with or without respect and all these sort of things.

And the last one, which is the one it took me some time to figure out, is the one actually explained why veganism is a social movement, not just a personal thing. It's called the vicariousness.

Vicariousness, you probably, Mariann, have heard this term, married, uh, linked to law because it's that principle often used in law that says somebody else's commits an offense, you might be guilty of that offense even if you didn't do it, if you have a relationship such as being the boss of that person or things like that. So you might have a vicarious liability even if you didn't commit the, the crime in this case.

Mariann Sullivan: Huge, hugely important concept in law, figuring out not just who did it, but who's responsible.

Jordi Casamitjana: In this case, what it means in, in practical terms for veganism is that indirect harm caused by somebody else's is also harm we should try to stop. And that's when it becomes beyond you. It's not long I'm gonna avoid harming, I'm gonna avoid exploiting, I'm gonna avoid being discriminated. Now you have to avoid somebody else's harm to somebody else, even if it's indirect.

So that fifth is the one that makes vegan activists, and that fifth is the ones make veganism a sociopolitical movement trying to change the world.

Jasmin Singer: So I, let's just stick with that fifth axiom for a moment because in your discussion of that, you point out that the reason vegans do not use animal products or use services where animals were exploited is not to reduce the supply by reducing the demand. This is a, as you say, a narrow-minded capitalist approach that we often have believed. But because otherwise we would be complicit of the harm the exploitation causes. So it's a philosophical reason, not an economic reason. That's, that's, I believe, according to you. You'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you're talking about a common misconception of the reasons for veganism that is embraced by many non-vegan as an excuse to not be vegan.

Like it's pointless, it's hard, it would be totally ineffective, so why bother? Tell me your thoughts.

Jordi Casamitjana: Yeah, no, you, you got it right. So the, the reason why people don't become vegan could be very diverse. But the, the most important one, perhaps, and this the one less discussed, is because they're comfortable with the life they have. We vegan say we're gonna change the world. And we are like me, vegans black and white like me.

We are not going short. We, we say we are gonna change everything, every single aspect of the world, the politics, the, the consumerism, the way we treat each other, the way we treat the environment, the treat to the animals, and the way we treat everything. Of course, people say, No, I don't want to change anything.

As people tend to not to want to change the status quo. Well, that's exactly the, the challenge that we always progressive movements have. We have a stable status quo that is conservative, doesn't wanna change. And a minority of people that is pushing for a change. And veganism is, uh, one of the leading progressive movements these days that we wanna change everything.

Of course we have a reaction, but the solution is not saying, oh, okay, let's lower the goals until they gonna say, fine, I'm happy. Because if we do that, the only thing they're gonna change is the minimum, minimum possible. So they still consider that nothing has changed. They still consider they can eat the same thing.

They can do the same thing. And that is not really changing the status quo. That's only removing the guilt of recognizing that the status quo is incorrect. So I think we have to be strict as well in, not reducing our goals in having vegan goal as the goal of the future. That makes me both a radical and a idealist. And I accept these two, with honor.

I hope nobody thinks that I'm less than a radical or less than idealist. Radical meaning I want to change a lot. Idealist meaning I am looking for something I haven't seen yet, an idea that doesn't exist. But nevertheless, that's where I'm going because I'm not a pragmatist. I'm not just looking at solutions for now, I'm looking for a change in the future. future I'm working for not this generation, not the next, not the, the, the fourth or the fifth that will change the vegan world and that's quite far away. So I can only work with an idea. That's what many vegans like me, we work on that premise of changing a lot for a future is quite far away.

Most people don't do that. Most people don't think about the future, especially if they don't see it and, and they don't think about changing. So that's why we find an opposition. But how can we change that? Well, we not, we are not gonna change it through persuasion, I don't think, because they're stuck into the waste.

We are actually gonna change it by us growing in numbers, us meaning the radical animal rights vegan idealist and other people looking at us from distance saying, you know what? I wanna be like them. So the we, you, I, they look in the right track. They look decent people. They look that are the ones achieving the things that I'm more proud of in this world.

So I wanna be a decent human being, I gonna join them. So it's not about persuading them if they don't wanna be. It's about attracting them to our way of thinking. And for that, our way of thinking has to be pristine, it has to be nice, has to be good, has to be embracing other cultures, has to be open, has to be energetic, optimistic, and it has to work.

And that's what we need to do as a vegan show. That what we do works and what we mean is meaningful.

Mariann Sullivan: That's really beautiful and it's a beautiful way to live. But what is your advice? I mean, everybody working it it, well, I was thinking of this when you were talking about that, that almost everybody working even for minor welfare reforms, because they see that as the way forward is vegan themselves.

They're just trying to do this, the thing that they think is going to help them help animals. I mean, the people who are, who are fighting for it. But it, so it's more disagreement about, about, uh, technique than it is disagreement about, about what the world is about. And so, you know, we all, I think everybody working for it deserves respect for, for, maybe they're getting it wrong, maybe they're not, I don't know.

But, you know, they deserve respect. But the way you're talking about is a way that I think many people would like to embrace 'cause they wanna be open and public about what they really believe, and they wanna fight for the thing that they actually believe in, not for some halfway measure. But in addition to being all the things that you mentioned about, about clarity and, and, and, trying to get it right and, and being open to, uh, or, or being, being this, the ethos to other issues as well. How do you act in the world? I mean, what you're doing is writing books. What is your suggestion to other people who, I mean, I think this has like always been the whole goal of Our Hen House is to, uh, be a platform that can bring ideas to people who have this passion, have this understanding, want this world to exist, but are trying to think of the way to do it.

So what are your ideas of, of how do you, how do you, how do you pull this off rather than just staying home and thinking the right thoughts?

Jordi Casamitjana: That's the right question. So the, what I did, I only can tell you what I did, is tried as many things as possible and tried to see the ones that work for me. And through the process of trying, learning first my skills, which I, uh, the things that are compatible with my way of looking at the world or the things that are too hard for me to do, and then also how other people react and whether I'm achieving anything.

So if you look at my, uh, CV from an animal protection, I have done loads of stuff for different organizations, for different subjects, animal subjects, bullfighting, hunting, uh, investigations. Now I'm writing. Kind of feel that that's what, uh. I've been looking for, for, for decades, but it took me a long time.

I already was a writer before I discovered I was a writer. It took me even a long time to identify my quality as a writer, being, uh, thinking, oh, how can I write in English is my fourth language, nobody's gonna read? And then overcoming this psychological barrier, and then suddenly, yeah, people like the way I write.

So that's what you need to do with yourself because I can tell with each individual person, which are the qualities they have, which are the obstacles they have to overcome, and keep trying until you find something that fits. But rather than reduce your goals because you wanna fit in quickly, uh, don't reduce.

Keep your integrity as strong as you can and as intact as you can, and move around until you find a niche for it, as opposed to don't move around, just change who you are in order to accommodate whoever's around you or the campaigners you know, or the vegans you know. No, there might be vegans you don't know that do other things that actually fit better the things you wanna do. Just move around, try and experiment. And don't feel bad if you stop something and then start something else. This is part of the learning process.

And sooner or later, if you live long enough, you find something that you realize, Oh, that is it. That is it. That's what I'm good at. And, and I didn't really reduce a ounce of my goals or, uh, a ounce of my optimism. And even if the world is very bad, I can see the light for me keep doing this, uh, for the rest of my life.

Jasmin Singer: Well, sticking on the kind of theme of advice, and as we start to wrap up a bit, even though, my God, I, I could talk to you about so many things, what is your advice to those who are listening about dealing with the costs of becoming the person who sees what most people won't look at. Like how, how do you avoid either numbness or rage becoming your

entire personality?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yes, that that is tricky one because people are different and people go through different phases. People, there's some people are angry or they have an angry phase. Other people are sad, they have a sad phase. Of course, there are activism and words to express in a sad way that are better than others. Like video, for instance.

Or in a more aggressive, if you are angry, like a demonstration that. But is sometimes the character of the person as a whole, or sometimes it's a phase that the person go through during an age period or because something happened personally that make that that way. So there is always one way of activism that will feel more your mood, I would say.

But the point, the most, most important is, is that this moods might be temporary and it might just not necessarily define who you are. I think the most important thing you need to do is to define who you are. Figure out first who you are, which is not an easy thing to do. You're constantly, uh, hearing people, telling you who you are, uh, with them not knowing anything about you.

When I was born, I was born in Catalonia. That was under, Franco's uh fascist dictatorship at the time. My name was an illegal name. Jordi was a Catalan name. It was illegal under Franco. So I said, my parents said, you're Jordi. People in the state said, No, you are, you are not Jordi. And people told me, No, you are not Catalan.

So you constantly, I was constantly receiving information about who, who was I, the wrong information about my identity. So I had to go through and discover who I am. Anybody should go through that. And if you can find through that process the, the identity of vegan in whatever word you want to put it, that means somebody wants to dedicate the life of trying not to harm anyone and trying to help the most to those that need the most help.

Simple as that. Not harm. Help. If you can find these as, this is actually who I am, then everything will come naturally. Then because if you try to imitate somebody's behavior without actually changing yourself. It will be forced. You will, you will be too tired. It will be, uh, you will not achieve what you wanna be.

You will, you will be disappointed, uh, because you're not really living your life. You're living somebody else's life. So you need to find who you are first, what you wanna do, and then look around the places that you feel more comfortable with. That's what sentient beings do, do. Sentient beings, we have sentience so we can get information from the outside, decide, is this the right place or not?

No. Then I move. That's what a sentient being is. So do what animals do is move away from the bad places and the bad situation into the nice places for you. But you need to know who you are first. Simple as that.

Jasmin Singer: I remember, oh, uh, years ago having like a, a friend breakup, and I remember the friend was kind of saying mean things to me, the former friend. And I remember she said, you don't even know who you are beyond being a vegan. And I will never forget that because. I, I think maybe it's true, and I think maybe that's because that's the foundation of who I am. I don't know. I honestly forgot all about that until listening to you talk and just thinking like, I found it fascinating more than offensive.

Jordi Casamitjana: Yeah, to be honest, imagine rather than using the word vegan, which some people might not feel sympathetic with, just use the word good and imagine the same question. You don't know who you are, uh, you just think that you are good. Well, yes, exactly. That was the whole point.

So when you say, Mariann, that the, the weight of the, of veganism is so big.

There's so many things that, that little word is carrying so much weight. Well, imagine the word good or the word right, it's even more than that. So, but that's exactly it. That vegan is, one of those category words of right, good and vegan. They are for me synonymous of what people should aspire to be.

Uh, and, and, and also not just that, what I would say is there, there is a vegan in everyone. So if you don't let that vegan to grow and manifest itself, that might be your fault or the environment fault, but it is there. It is there because everybody has the capacity to be good. And that's what veganism is all about, is to be good in a systematic way that translate from both your behavior and the structures, political and social that you live with.

Jasmin Singer: Look at my eyeballs. There's, I'm tearing up. That's what's happening.

Mariann Sullivan: I'm sorry. I, I just want, I, I, I know we have to tie up, but I, I just, I maybe this is just a place you don't go and you just don't bother to go, but I always wanna ask people like it. I find it very surprising that everybody isn't vegan. Not everybody, you know, there's the psychopaths and there's the bad people and all of that, but most people, most people are, do wanna be good. A lot of people really care about animals, like really do, or think they do. What's your explanation for why this is so hard?

Jordi Casamitjana: Yes. For, for, this is not the explanation, but for a moment, when I discovered I was autistic that my answer was, Ah, because they are not autistic. But it's not that simple obviously, but it's part of it. The part of it is simplicity, not really understanding what, what to do. Not really understanding the difference or, or where the line is crossed.

So, uh, having the intention to be good, but really not knowing the difference between good things and bad things because they're surrounded of people that say, This is good, what is not. So how they gonna learn the difference? It is contrary, constant contradiction in the labeling of good and bad, uh, around you.

So you need to be either very detached of somebody's opinions and be very, uh, trustful or in your own instincts and, and logic. Or trust people that you know, they tend to be more right than wrong and they, they know the stuff, they have the knowledge, they have the credibility necessary to understand the difference between wrong and right.

And today is more difficult than any other time in the history to do that because we are surrounded in false good so much. And we live in the post truth era. Almost everything we do, it's 100% non-truth. So there is truth underneath, and you need to navigate the world of, uh, falsehoods one on top of the other to identify the truth.

But it is there, it is underneath. And that sometimes takes skills, sometimes takes luck. Uh, uh. So it's more difficult now. Uh, we, we are more, uh, uh, uh, we are more potential victims of being conned. You, uh, you just been mentioned in one of your podcasts no long ago that you were thinking, Well, we had been conned during our lives before we become vegan.

Well, we still are conned. Our brain hasn't changed. We still vulnerable to somebody coming with an idea that sounds good and it's not, even within the vegan movement as well. So we are constantly need to reassess our belief and be sure, are we not being conned again? Are we not being given a false profit, a false flag, a false direction?

Where is the right track? And that's why for me, uh, have you north. Have the vegan world in the background, always knowing where you're going, but also you look at your step, how you contribute and with every action you do to that bigger picture. That constantly checking the bigger picture and the smaller picture is how I navigate all this world of falsehoods and, and, and, and still, I'm the victim and I still gonna be, I'm gonna be deceived by people, but at least I make an effort to find my north through all these jungles.

Jasmin Singer: Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about?

Jordi Casamitjana: No, only that my books are there for people to read them. Ethical Vegan and Why Vegans Don't. Uh, uh, many of my ideas are there develop and they developed themselves further in blogs I had written. Many of the things I had written come from the books, and, and they, they will be useful for vegans and non-vegan.

For non vegans to understand what we talk about when we say veganism is a philosophy, but for vegans to find that clarity that we just talking about. That many just got the label and that's the only thing they got. They still don't quite know the difference between vegan and vegetarian and plant-based and animal rights and animal welfare.

And you need help, uh, to understand this. And who can help you? Well, the only thing I can say is the people have been vegan for longer and they're older and they have experience and they move around and they've seen the world, they're, they have a higher probability to understand better the situation than somebody that hasn't done any of this.

Uh, and I, that's what I write books now, not when I was 20 years old, because I, I'm already in my sixties and so now I can say, okay, I'll learn something. I'm gonna see whether that helps anyone. So read my books and everybody else's books.

Jasmin Singer: I love it. Wow. And just reiterate how people can follow you online. What's the easiest way?

Jordi Casamitjana: Well, uh, just Google my name, uh, I'm in all social media. So in, in, and I have a, a, a Wikipedia page as well. And from there you can reach me in any way you want to.

Jasmin Singer: And we will also put the links in the show notes, uh, for anybody who might be, you know, driving or on the treadmill right now. I'm gonna say your name correctly, again in three two... Jordi Casamitjana.

Jordi Casamitjana: Yes. Perfect. Perfect.

Jasmin Singer: Thank you again so much for joining us today. I know you're gonna stick on for a few minutes, but I, you know, I've never said this before, Jordi in, in like the podcast land or in non podcast land, but if you ever start a cult, please let me know 'cause I would join it.

Jordi Casamitjana: If I

Mariann Sullivan: I was wondering what that was gonna be.

Jordi Casamitjana: if I ever start a cult, I would not be part of it.

Jasmin Singer: Wow. On that note, thank you. If you're listening, if you're watching, thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to hit subscribe, and like, and comment on your favorite pod catcher or YouTube. And thank you again to our guest. We will talk to you next time.

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