Review of a Presentation by Passionate Vegan Gary Yourofsky

Gary Yourofsky's presentation on veganism was a passionate one to be sure. I could tell that he sincerely believes in what he is talking about. He presented a lot of different examples, "facts", and video clips to hammer his point home. His argument was, however, riddled with fallacies and flaws. These are what make his argument an impossible one to truly sell to the public.

One of the biggest things that was also a carry-over from The Witness was his play on emotions. In the video he showed initially, there was emotion-ridden music playing during the clips of animals being killed. This, combined with the fact that all the imagery included blood and slaughter, is a major fallacy. The video provided no statistics or any other hard facts. It simply relied on people to be grossed out by the blood and for the music to make the animals seem human, when they are in fact not human. This way of presenting definitely shows the importance of emotion Gary's attempts to convince his audience that what he is saying is true.

The "facts" that Gary presented were not always completely accurate. Yes, there are a lot of animals that are killed every year for human consumption, but his facts on what happens to some of them and what their meat does are completely inaccurate. Gary stated that eating meat increases the acidity of blood, thus causing bone mass to be lost to restore normal pH levels. However, after doing some research, I discovered that after eating many foods the balance of pH is out of balance, and that certain parts of meat, such as the skin, help maintain a healthy pH balance. Also, Gary said that all dogs and cats that are euthanised are sent off to the dog food plants. This seems to be another fallacy, since I have been unable to find true accounts of this actually happening. Yes, "meat not fit for human consumption" does go into dog food, but it is usually animal byproducts from livestock that go into the making of it.

Gary also seemed hostile to viewpoints that contradicted his own beliefs. If someone raised an issue that contradicted him, he would cut them off, attempt to sway the argument to his side, and then ignore them. He would even ignore them if they had not completely addressed the issue that they were trying to raise. An attitude such as this shows me that he is afraid of opposing viewpoints.

From Gary's point of view, he is living an ethical life. However, form an outside point of view, it would appear that he is not. He attempt to coerce his audience using emotion and false facts mixed with truth. I'm not saying that we should not take better care of our environment and everything in it, I'm just saying that if you truly believe in something, then you should argue it correctly. Show the audience the truth, whatever it may be, don't play on their emotions, and let them make a real choice.