Analysis Of Gary Yourofsky's Speech About Veganism

The title of Gary Yourofsky’s speech carries a strong claim: “Best Speech You’ll Ever Hear”. This speech addresses every aspect and reason that would lead someone to veganism. It was delivered to a class at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010. The speech goes on for over an hour and the ‘Q&A’ is another 30 minutes; he delivers a lot of information.

One of the main parts of the argument is the benefit of being able to make a real difference in the world. Yourofsky highlights the difference between being vegan and having a ‘Coexist’ bumper sticker or a ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bracelet. He suggests that veganism is the easiest way to effect change. He also spends a large amount of the speech on the treatment of animals and describing their lives in factory farms. He frames things from the victim’s point of view and he argues that we, as a society, view farm animals as if they are machines.

The speech also goes into detail about the systems of human biology to demonstrate that animals and their byproducts aren’t necessary to survive in this day and age. Another large part of his speech focuses on the food industry and their advertising techniques. He argues that the meat and dairy industries spend billions of dollars on publicizing their products versus the few, if any, advertisements for vegetables and grains. Part of his speech is dedicated to giving many different suggestions on how to change your dietary choices to plant-based alternatives. Overall, this speech has many different arguments, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

ourofsky uses pathos as one of the main parts of his argument. He starts the speech with a very powerful question, but offers a simple solution. What can I do to actually make a difference in the world? His answer? Veganism. Throughout the speech, he uses emotionally charged words to get a response from his audience. He uses a specific word very often: speciesism. He defines this word as, “... the unethical, unprincipled point of view, that the human species has every right to exploit, enslave and murder another species.” His language is often abrasive and aggressive, not to mention graphic. He describes factory farms and slaughterhouses in great detail, using language like, “... psychological and physical abuse, torture, dismemberment and murder.” He uses a short video with examples of abuse towards animals, including the dehorning of cattle, castration of piglets, male chicks being ground up alive, and more. He urges people to not look away saying that, “... if you choose to eat meat, cheese, milk and eggs, you are obligated to see the pain and suffering you are causing.” Showing the video was a strong idea because most people don’t like to watch anyone being abused, even animals. Watching someone inflicting pain on “innocent beings,” as Yourofsky puts it, would make almost everyone despondent, or at least uncomfortable. If his language and the video can make the students feel this way, he has a better chance of convincing them that his argument and call to action are both valid.

Yourofsky is very proud of his activism. He touts the fact that he’s been arrested 14 times and banned from 5 countries for “random acts of kindness and compassion, on behalf of my animal brothers and sisters.” Although, he doesn’t forget to mention that he was not raised as a vegetarian or vegan. Yourofsky makes it very clear that he, “... ate meat, cheese, milk, and eggs for around 25 years.” This makes him seem more accessible and relatable to his audience, most of whom currently eat those products. He establishes a sense of ethos by letting them know that it possible to live a vegan lifestyle, even if they’ve never considered it before, because he’s been in the same situation. Some of the strongest and weakest parts of this speech are the author’s use of logos. He provides many facts, discussing the structure of the human digestive system, nutrition, and the effect on the environment. The biggest downfall of the author is that not of all of those facts are true, or even realistic. The statistics he gives range from accepted facts to wild inaccuracies. This makes him lose some of the credibility he established earlier in the speech. He provides no source for any of his statistics.

In conclusion, Yourofsky’s speech has both its strengths and weaknesses. The author utilized pathos very well, especially by appealing to the audience’s compassion through the use of language and diction. He His use of ethos is limited but relatively effective.