Scenic Route, Social Change and Mental Health Conversations for Perfectionists
Forget the fast lane! The Scenic Route is where perfectionists slow down, get better, and create real change.
We explore:
- Mental health wisdom (minus toxic positivity)
- Social change (that starts from within)
- System critiques (with actionable solutions)
- Inner wisdom (over external validation)
- Mindfulness for minimalists (no crystals required)
Join Jennifer Walter, sociologist (MASoc UCC) and recovering perfectionist, for weekly conversations that blend critical thinking with oh-so-much compassion.
Whether you're questioning everything or trying to find peace amongst the chaos, you'll find space here for your inner voice, mindset, mental health, and collective change — you're in the right place. We make space for both personal healing and collective change — with a side of potty humour.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
The longest way round is the shortest way home – and that's exactly why we're taking the Scenic Route.
Ready to walk the scenic route?
The view here is *chef's kiss.*
Scenic Route, Social Change and Mental Health Conversations for Perfectionists
What We Eat Is Political: Reframing Veganism with Joy feat. Matthew C. Halteman
What we eat isn’t just personal — it’s political. In this thought-provoking episode, Matthew C. Halteman, philosopher and author of Hungry, Beautiful Animals, joins Jennifer to reframe the ethics of veganism through the lens of joy, flourishing, and resistance.
Instead of guilt or perfectionism, Matt advocates for ethical and vegan eating as an act of joyful defiance — a way to challenge systems of oppression while embracing personal and collective well-being. Together, they explore:
- How vegan ethics intersects with moral philosophy and political activism
- Why joyful resistance is more effective than guilt in driving change
- The role of food justice, sustainability, and compassionate living in ethical eating
- How to shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance-based approach to activism
Whether you're vegan, veg-curious, or simply interested in the political and ethical dimensions of what’s on your plate, this episode will challenge and inspire you.
🎧 Tune in and rethink what it means to eat with intention.
Grab Matt’s book Hungry, Beautiful Animals at hungrybeautifulanimals.com
or connect with Matt on LinkedIn
See you on the Scenic Route.
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Hey, beautiful humans, welcome back to the Scenic Route. I'm Jen, your Swiss sociologist, mental health anarchist and host, and today we're flipping the script on everything you thought you knew about veganism. Like picture the word vegan, what comes to mind? Militant activists or that friend who won't shut up about their favorite brand of almond milk. Well, my guest today, matthew Haltman, has written what might be one of the most refreshing takes on veganism I've ever encountered. His new book, hungry Beautiful Animals, isn't about guilt, tripping you into giving up cheese or showing you disturbing factory farm footage. It's a love letter to life itself. And we're not swapping recipes now on the pot, we're unpacking how choosing what goes on your plate can be a radical act of defiance against a system that profits from domination and control, because, at its core, veganism challenges the ultimate form of totalitarianism, deciding which lives matter and which don't. So grab your beverage of choice and join us on the Cinegrad Today's view it's chef's kiss. Join us on the Scenic Route Today's view, it's chef's kiss.
Jennifer Walter:There's a different way to think about mental health, and it starts with slowing down. Sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home, and that's exactly where we're taking the Scenic Route. Hi, I'm Jennifer Walter, host of the Scenic Route podcast. Think of me as your sociologist sister in arms and rebel with many causes Together. We're blending critical thinking with compassion, mental health with a dash of rebellion, and personal healing with collective change. We're trading perfectionism for possibility and toxic positivity for messy growth. Each week, we're exploring the path to better mental health and social transformation. And yes, by the way, pretty crystals are totally optional. You ready to take the scenic route? Let's walk this path together.
Jennifer Walter:Matthew C Haltman is a professor of philosophy at Colvin University in Grand Rapids, michigan, us, and a fellow at the Oxford Center for Animal Ethics in the UK. He's the author of Compassionate Eating as Care of Creation and co-editor of Philosophy Comes to Dinner Arguments About the Ethics of Eating. His forthcoming book Hungry, beautiful Animals is a heartfelt, humane and humorous exploration of how going vegan can bring abundance into our life. Matt, welcome to the Cinegram podcast.
Matthew C. Halteman :Oh, it's wonderful to be here, Jennifer. Thanks so much for the invite.
Jennifer Walter:I think I don't know, but yeah, no, I checked it up. I looked it up, You're the first male guest.
Matthew C. Halteman :The first male guest, no kidding. Yeah it's a premiere everybody.
Jennifer Walter:I don't know it was that intentional, but we are.
Matthew C. Halteman :Well, I can't think of any other way to take that than as a compliment. So thank you very much for having me. Well, it would be hard to be more thrilled than I already was to be here, but I'm smiling bigger.
Jennifer Walter:That's how we do it here. But I'm smiling bigger. That's how we do it. Listen your book. You just had a book out that's called Hungry, beautiful Animals the Joyful Case for Going Vegan, and it immediately caught my attention because it takes such a refreshingly different approach from the usual guilt-inducing shock value tactic we often see in vegan advocacy. Right, instead of leading with disturbing images of factory farms, you've created what you call a love letter to life itself. So what inspired you to take this joyful, flourishing, focused approach rather than the more common path of showing, let's say, the darker side of animal agriculture?
Matthew C. Halteman :Right, well, I wish I could say I got it right on my first try, jennifer, but in fact, what is it? They say the long way around. Exactly, we're on the scenic route, and the long way around was definitely the shortest way to hungry, beautiful animals. I mean, I have to confess that, you know it started as it often does. You know, change often starts for human beings with horror, right, it's like, as they say, if it ain't broke, we won't fix it, right. And so, you know, my first experiences with this were very similar to the ones you know we've all seen a million times the PETA videos and the rebukes from fellow philosophers and the big eyes of my bulldog pouring deeply into my soul and saying what about the other hundred billion just like me? Except they're chickens or goats or cows or turkeys? And so, really, shame and blame is where it began for me, right, the journey started with that feeling that, oh my gosh, I really don't want to give up all these foods that I love, but I feel obligated, right, I feel ashamed of what I am involved with. I feel like if I don't do something, yeah, I deserve blame. And so initially, right, it felt like that, but as I gained confidence, something really interesting happened. I started to notice that it wasn't so much that I was against suffering, so much as it was that I was for flourishing.
Matthew C. Halteman :Once I started on this path and teaching these things and observing in the classroom you know, I'm a I'm a philosophy professor, so I have a lot of opportunities to mess up in front of others right Before I get it right. And I started very much with the traditional right. Here's the arguments. Here's the arguments. Here's the facts. Here's the terrible, shameful right Story that's been hidden from you by late. Capitalism, right, I mean all the things that we're used to hearing when we finally get around to seeing that changes are necessary.
Matthew C. Halteman :But what I observed right in about 10 years of teaching, kind of on the fringes of this more sort of shame based approach, was that, oh, what people really respond to is the delight. What people really respond to is learning that, holy smokes, pigs are smarter than toddlers. They can do math problems with apples and oranges. Look, they can play video games. Or look, wow, yeah, cows show up at sanctuaries and display these completely different sorts of behaviors that look much more recognizably like the way our dogs act. And holy smokes, that's vegan. That tastes absolutely delicious. I didn't know you could have a vegan milkshake or, wow, vegan cinnamon rolls. Are these? These can't be.
Matthew C. Halteman :You know, surprise delight of people's genuinely leavening experience was curiosity rather than defensiveness, and I realized, holy smokes, this is a real opportunity. What if we pivoted the pitch from shame over the obligations we're failing to fulfill to delight in the opportunities held out to us to go out into the world and create spaces for creaturely flourishing? What if we stopped focusing on suffering prevention, right, and started focusing instead on being a part of this amazing leavening project of creating spaces for creaturely flourishing? And that's when I kind of did, you know, I sort of retrofitted the whole business. I realized, well, wait for everything I do that leads with shame, blame, negativity. You know overwhelming arguments, you know really really emotionally depleting experiences, right, there's an equal and opposite joy. That is the soil from out of which the horror arises, right? So the reason it's horrifying to see a cow treated badly is because we know that cows are capable of flourishing. So what if we just pivoted right from the bad news to the good news? What if we stopped focusing on shame and blame and started focusing instead on opportunity and joy? And you know how. It is probably right. We've all had these experiences.
Matthew C. Halteman :Sometimes the only difference between feeling terrible and feeling wonderful is orientation, perspective. Right, we can be in the same circumstances. But if we're oriented to joy, then the struggle feels like perseverance rather than oppression. If we're oriented to joy, then the difficult news seems like an opportunity to be leavening agent in the world, rather than something to feel a burden on our shoulders. And I thought, wow, you know, after 10 years or so of living along that more joyful path, I thought, you know, I've never encountered this pitch in book form, right, I've never seen it done where, you know, a whole philosophy book is devoted to write the more positive framing rather than, you know, punishing ourselves for the consequences of our terrible actions. So that's, you know. That's kind of how it went it was. It was very much a trial and error.
Jennifer Walter:I spent 10 years doing it the normal way and failing at it like this is the synopsis of our conversation.
Matthew C. Halteman :Exactly, exactly, and so, uh, yeah, and, and I guess you know, I don't know what your experience with joy is like, but mine has been one where I joy really teaches me about how complex I am as a human being.
Matthew C. Halteman :Right, it's like because joy comes in so many forms and it's so different from happiness, because happiness, at least for me, is kind of a fleeting thing. Right, it's like I take a sip of the latte, I feel happy, but then later the sugar overwhelms me and I feel terrible, right, or something like that. But joy is this kind of underlying state of flourishing that is absolutely consistent with feeling grief, absolutely consistent with being engaged in a struggle, absolutely consistent with, consistent with enduring hardship, and so that sort of tuned me in to how complex I call it, right, following the psychologist Richard Schwartz, how complex my inner family really is. Right, there's these physical parts and there's my emotional life and there's my social relationships and there's my sort of intellectual capacities and there's my moral discernment capabilities, and where food is concerned, if you're anything like me, those are all over the place, right. I mean, oh yeah, your heart, uh, your gut, wants a burger. Your heart wants to nuzzle a cow did not eat a burger today.
Jennifer Walter:I had already bought in cake today.
Matthew C. Halteman :Exactly right. We have all these inner experiences, all these inner voices and, on the shame and blame model, the going vegan thing feels like a chastening right Of every last one right. The physical craves? The meat Well, you can't have that. That craving is bad right. And the social? You wants to be out and about at a restaurant eating normal foods with your normal friends, and no, you can't do that. You have to stand apart in these really rigorous ways and your intellectual self wants to sort of stand firm where you've always been. Human beings are superior. Or maybe, if you're a theist, you know, you think God gave these animals to us for pleasure and enjoyment. Or maybe if you're, you know, coming from a more naturalistic frame of reference, you think well, you know, we're at the top of the food chain and we evolved as omnivores. Right, the intellectual self is sort of always finding a reason to just always exactly finding a justifying reason.
Matthew C. Halteman :And then, from the moral point of view, you know, if there's one thing I've learned from experiences if your gut and your heart and your head don't want to do it ain't no way an argument from the moral point of view is going to win the day. Right, it's just, and that's why, when people show up with moral arguments that, from a logical perspective, are exceedingly convincing, all that does is, you know, trigger our identity protective cognition, because all those other parts of the inner family are like hell. No right, it's like we don't want any part of this?
Matthew C. Halteman :Absolutely not. You can take your morality and stick it where the sun don't shine, right and so. But when you come at going vegan from this more abundant perspective, right, it takes on a completely different hue, right? I mean, physically, you expect more energy, you expect less inflammation. If you're an athlete, you expect shorter recovery times and longer endurance. Emotionally, you can expect more inner coherence, right, there's no cognitive dissonance, because you think of the pigs in the same way you think of the dog that's snoring at your feet. And intellectually, you don't have to shy away or take shelter in the old arguments, because you're on the cutting edge of what the cognitive ethologists are saying about members of other species and their inner lives. And you know that diseases of affluence are correlated in abundance with eating these sorts of foods. And so, and then, from the moral point of view, because, right, your physical and emotional and intellectual parts see this opportunity rather than this chasing right.
Jennifer Walter:We know a huge driver of climate, of climate change, is like animal agriculture and mass production.
Matthew C. Halteman :Absolutely yeah, so, so, on all of those registers, when you pivot to the abundance perspective, instead of having an inner family that's fighting itself, right, you get this harmony generated across these different parts of who you are and that's where the joy comes in, right, because, no matter what my circumstances are, I find and I know this is a big part as a listener right, I've learned that you always talk about social change from the inside out. Right, that the way social change happens is that we get things right on the inside, we find our joy, we find what allows us to be a leavening agent, and then we go out into the world. Right, and that joy attends to our power, you know, in the circumstances where we find ourselves, and so that really has been. You know my experience in pivoting from the scarcity orientation, where my inner family was always squabbling right, they always wanted you know different things to this more abundance oriented focus where there's real alignment now on the inside, which makes it so much more easy to go out there into the world with joy, right.
Jennifer Walter:I think that's a good. I want to hook in there and here. You're like the philosopher's view on joy. Right, I agree with you on the distinction between joy and happiness and that happiness has more of a fleeting character and joy is more of like an underlying current. But it increased, like right right now, the times we're in, it feels increasingly hard to allow yourself joy, although we know, and I fully agree, joy is a big catalyst for well-being and change. What are your philosopher words on how can we find joy and how can we cultivate more joy in our lives?
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, well, that is such a good question, and I think it is the question of the hour, because if I had to think about the difference between right or you know what is the opposite of joy? I think the temptation is to you know what is the opposite of joy? I think the temptation is to say, well, the opposite of joy is sadness. I disagree. I think the opposite of happiness, maybe, is sadness. Yeah, the opposite of joy is anxiety, right, anxietyxiety is this disposition that sees the future as a threat. Right, it's this fundamental orientation where the unknowability of the future, the things that may unfold, and, of course, at the center of it, our lack of stability, our finitude, our proneness to error, right, the other adversaries pushing in right and and for anxious creatures like human beings, I actually think joy is the one and only antidote right to that feeling of anxiety. And so, at a time in history where, you know, the specter of authoritarianism is wielding its ugly head again, yeah, what those forces want is pervasive anxiety. What those forces want is to be in your head, rent free, at all times terrified of things that haven't even happened yet, so that when they do happen, if they do happen, there's no resistance, right, there's nobody ready to oppose. Right, what's coming next?
Matthew C. Halteman :People who have joy are very difficult to control. Right? Right People and defiance yeah, people who have joy are indomitable in my experience, because what they've learned from experience is you can burn me at the stake and I can have joy. Right, you can take away my property and I can have joy. You can put me under oppression and I can have joy. And when somebody has that level of, I think of it as sort of stability in being right or authenticity in being there's just, it's just so much harder to instill fear. Now that doesn't mean that joyful people, right, can't be afraid. I mean, evolutionarily, fear is a really helpful thing.
Jennifer Walter:Being joyful and being afraid are connected, right? No?
Matthew C. Halteman :no right, no joy, Absolutely, but being yeah, and that's another important distinction. I'm glad you raised that right, Because it's the difference, right, between anxiety and fear, right? I mean, we're always going to be to some extent anxious creatures because we're limited in our understanding and prone to error Exactly.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah.
Matthew C. Halteman :So I guess I'm inclined to think you know, denying ourselves joy right now, joy right now, at least, if you've read any Hannah Arendt, or if you've read any, you know what philosophers have to say about totalitarianism and authoritarian. Denying ourselves joy, community delight, those are the absolute worst things we can do right now. Right, if you're, if you're concerned about, you know, totalitarian rule, if you're concerned about people interested in dominating, the very worst thing you can do is turn inside and abandon joy. Right. And so that's why you know, initially I'm not going to lie, jennifer, I mean, this book came out on November 12th, which is five days after the election in the U? S. I looked at my partner and I said, oh great, what a wonderful time to be out there behind a book about joy. This is just going to be such a delight. And but increasingly, you know, I I've realized man, oh man, that's. We need that Right. There's, there's plenty of people posting right now about the things that we must know, or else there's many fewer people posting now about the things that can make us laugh, about the things that can help us to pull together across difference, about the things that can help us realize and experience solidarity, and those are things that I think we need more of, not less of right, and especially when there are things that can solve a bunch of other problems at the same time.
Matthew C. Halteman :Right, I mean, going vegan is about climate solutions. Going vegan is about worker justice. Going vegan is about worker justice. Going vegan is about right Minimized impact of diseases, of affluence that are making life. You know, I think of philosophy as the lived pursuit of wisdom in our everyday affairs, practice, through daily exercises that move us in the direction of flourishing. I have never found an exercise with more abundance aggregating power than going vegan.
Matthew C. Halteman :And so I'm with Carol J Adams, the feminist vegan, eco-feminist vegan, who wrote a book called Protest Kitchen. She said if you don't like authoritarianism, if you don't want to be controlled, get a plant-based protest kitchen up and running, because this is about everything from the soil to the stratosphere. This is about everything from worker justice to inner healing, to care for the other, to biodiversity. Right, it's one simple thing you can do that leads not only to inner harmony across that complex inner family, but to world transformation on the outside. And for my money, that's a beautiful exercise. Right, to get all those things at the same time, at a time when joy is scarce. I'll take it, jennifer. Yeah, 100%.
Jennifer Walter:And I think you raise such a beautiful point. If joyful people are less gullible to control, raised such a beautiful point if joyful people are less gullible to control, which, even if you're not vegan or not yet vegan or on your journey to becoming vegan, like I know from my, from my personal experience, my diet is way more balanced in general when I'm feeling joyful and satisfied and excited, versus when I'm, like like, feeling bad for myself, feeling ashamed, feeling everything right. Usually when I realize I'm buying, I'm adding shit to the online cart that I don't need. That's my telltale sign of like oh, you're something, you're not. You're not joyful right now.
Jennifer Walter:You're not, you're not, something is off absolutely, and I'm like okay, no, hold on, before I fucking I deactivate like paid one click, that like I have to go get my credit card. Usually those couple of steps help me to be like no, actually I don't need this shit, it's just a fucking bandaid.
Matthew C. Halteman :Right, absolutely, and that I love, I love, I love the way you describe that inner struggle because, right, that's exactly what's happening. Is that, like, there are different parts of you that, when you're down, want to self-medicate with food, and then there are other parts of you like would you, yeah, saying like it can be, like you know, I mean, self-medication is super individual.
Matthew C. Halteman :You know, if, once you know what you're doing, what you're self-medicating, you know right like, yeah, but although sometimes I mean in my experience anyway sometimes you don't know until it takes a minute to pull out that credit card, I mean one of the things, one of the reasons.
Jennifer Walter:I have such If you just walk to life, yeah.
Matthew C. Halteman :Right and that's why I love the scenic route Right and suffering between doing well and languishing. Is that few seconds to walk across the room, move your body and grab the credit card and realize, oh wow, moving felt good. Maybe I can change the chemicals without the Ben and Jerry's or whatever. It is Right, and so that's one of the things I most respect about my inner family. They're all pretty smart. They know how to manipulate. Smart. They know how to manipulate me.
Jennifer Walter:They know how to get what they want.
Matthew C. Halteman :So I respect each and every one of those inner parts and I know they all want what's good for me in the end. But sometimes you need to have that. I love it. You know you'd expect a philosopher to say this, but Socrates says know yourself, right, you've got to have intimate knowledge of that inner plurality so that you can have those conversations and keep the old brain right and the autopilots of the status quo just leading you around in ways that aren't compatible with joy.
Matthew C. Halteman :And I think, right, that's whether you're talking about how you feel physically or whether you feel like you're being ideologically dominated or oppressed. Right, by a political regime it's really the same phenomenon. Right, it's being dominated by forces that make you feel helpless. And so you know, at least for me, the antidote is often to take back my power, but in ways that don't diminish my flourishing, right. And I think that's something that we human beings need a lot of work at, because often we seek to take power back in ways that end up blowing back and hurting us, right? So anger or rage of certain types Now don't get me wrong. I think anger and rage are actually extremely important.
Matthew C. Halteman :And I am not going to be the first man on your show to come in here with some bullshit that anger and rage aren't important. That is not going to be me. They're very, very important, but they can be harder to control, right, they can be harder to do, well. And so, training anger and rage, using anger and rage in ways that don't deplete us even further, in ways that don't right, um, rob us of our joy, um, those, those are really important things. And, uh, and and I think yeah, uh, whether we're talking about an imperious ideology pushing down right or our gut bacteria saying more sugar, more sugar, more sugar, right, we're in the grips, in both of those cases, of powers that do not really want us to push back. And so the trick is to know ourselves well enough to realize I can push back, I can ask questions of myself, I can challenge myself to move in directions that are more compatible with my flourishing and less compatible with being afraid and under someone else's control.
Jennifer Walter:But would you say, the more you know, the better you know yourself, the more power you hold.
Matthew C. Halteman :Absolutely. I mean, I think, without a doubt, because you can't wield power well without wisdom, right, and the only way, um, you know, wisdom is earned through that really careful work of experience, trial and error, right, we're back. We're back to the old trial and error, and you know that's why, um, you know, I've got a lot of respect for, you know, smart, crackerjack young people. But I also respect my elders, jennifer, because in my experience there just is no substitute for experience. Until you've been the long way around five, six, seven, eight, nine times way around five, six, seven, eight, nine times, um, you're not going to have much wisdom to share, um, and you're not going to know yourself, right, well enough to have that confidence to wield power wisely. So, yes, I mean, I think that's absolutely right and you know that's.
Matthew C. Halteman :Isn't that that's an old cliche, right, or an adage, or a nugget of wisdom or whatever. That knowledge is power. And I think self-knowledge, right, is power, because that wisdom leads to a more controlled, a more practical, a more efficient use. Always a limited resource, right, but with finite, uh, error-prone creatures like us, the power is always going to be limited. So discernment about where to put it is, I think, one of our, one of our best tools, and self-knowledge is where that begins and it it feels increasingly hard, right?
Jennifer Walter:I mean, just like with the rise of social media, I think it created this pressure to curate idealized versions of ourselves and making it really hard to distinguish between who we actually are versus who we think others want us to be, and we're, kind of like, constantly expose ourselves to these filtered realities and a lot of us have really a distorted self-perception.
Matthew C. Halteman :Absolutely, and that distorted self-perception, you know, takes on the character of an ideal, which is terrifying, right, I mean when you think about the way that Instagram and branding, and even the idea right of a personal brand, and you know, I think as a scholar right who started, you know, in 2003, where nobody was asking professors- to be all brand managers.
Jennifer Walter:Are you legit?
Matthew C. Halteman :enough for a book deal, exactly exactly. And you know now it's so easy to succumb to this idea that, well, what makes my produce valuable is the number of clicks. But I think what competent people realize, what confident people realize, is what makes my produce valuable is my filtering of experience confidently through this wise right and and. If I say it and it and the, the likes route rattle in a thimble, fuck it. Right, because the value is in the experience of right, producing that work of creativity or the, and you know, if somebody, if somebody finds it useful, that's great for them. But your job is not to get likes, your job is to bless the world in service Right and and and. If people come around to finding that useful, that's a beautiful thing. But I reject the idea that good work comes from conforming to insta culture. Right, I mean, I think, and, and maybe I'm just old, you know there's probably some young, probably, yeah, that's my kids I mean it, it's a curse and a blessing.
Jennifer Walter:Right, like you, you reach. You can reach a lot of new people. Um, once, I don't know when, something maybe a lot of new people. Once, I don't know when some men, maybe a post of yours hits a chord and resonates, and that's beautiful, right. But yeah, at the same time, it can make a lot of things harder. But so how do we? I think it's just such an interesting juxtaposition, right? We? I feel we have an increasingly hard time knowing ourselves. Yet we have this commodification of self-knowledge, right, it's where the journey inward is just yet another product to consume. Right, we have personality tests and like self-help books with shit you have read a thousand times. That's so generic that it doesn't help anybody. Like wellness retreats and social media influencers selling whatever whatnot. Right, like how? What's your take on finding out? Okay, who am I?
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, so I I think that um instrumentalizing culture and we're back to anxiety here, right Um instrumentalizing culture stems ultimately from the fact that we human beings, our home is that we never feel at home, right, our essence is that we are always born to misfit.
Matthew C. Halteman :That's right, and the thing about being human right is that we transcend ourselves in two directions simultaneously. On the one hand, we've come onto the stage the inheritors of a past that we can't fully understand. Right, we're here on stage, we're never sure how we got here and yet somehow the spotlight is on us. So we've always already begun as human beings, and the future is always as yet unfinished, and we're terrified, right, about that unfinished status. We're always trying to find a way to bring it all.
Matthew C. Halteman :We want to bring it, that's right bring it neatly together, right and and in a way you know. You see again, we can't escape the specter of totalitarianism, right? I mean this is the idea to bring history to an end. I mean the reason people want a strong man is because the anxiety of being becomes too difficult to bear right, people want that solution once and for all the savior to come in and end history. And now, right, all these problems that we've been wrestling with will suddenly be solved. So I think the instrumentalizing way of inhabiting the world, what it does right is it's rooted in anxiety, and the hope is that if we can just get enough fancy, powerful tools in the furniture of our lives, that we can beat back right that feeling of being always already underway without really knowing where we're going.
Jennifer Walter:Just busy, that's right Just busy, exactly.
Matthew C. Halteman :And so we engage in idle talk and we get ensnared with materialism and we, if this career isn't making us happy, then we pivot to a new career, and if this family isn't making us happy, then we pivot, right. I mean, we're always looking for ways to reorganize the things, to kind of fill that lack at the center of our being, at the center of our being. But the thing about being human is that lack at the center of our being is a feature rather than a bug. That lack at the center of our being is the beauty of transcendence, the beauty that no stationary constellation of things arranged by the current status quo exhausts who we are, what we're capable of, what we might live to see. And so and that is where I think you get this transition from anxiety to joy right, because once you've made the connection, holy smokes, smokes it's beautiful that this is as yet unfinished- yeah, it's beautiful possibilities on how can this can unfold, right, that's right.
Jennifer Walter:Black hole is like it just gives me anxiety exactly so.
Matthew C. Halteman :Instead of being a black hole, what we have is a constellation of opportunities possibilities for the undoing of injustice, possibilities for the undoing of abuse, possibilities for healing. Right, being unfinished means that the hope of transformation is always still out there, and so I think the trick, right Of of of you know, moving from anxiety to joy, is to recognize that anxiety is actually our friend If we use that feeling of not being at home, we use that feeling of being as yet unfinished to turn to the mystery of possibility instead of to turn back into the manipulation and instrumentalization of things. Because anxiety can push us in two directions Anxiety can open us to the mystery of possibilities beyond the current status quo, or anxiety can send us ever more frenetically into the maintaining right of the things that give us the prosthetic devices, right, that give us the illusion that we're in charge, that were in charge. And so I think you know now don't get me wrong, jennifer I'm not saying that the instrumentalizing mode isn't important. Right, we absolutely have to be able to enter the instrumentalizing mode. Right, we can't tell the difference between Cheerios and Lucky Charms without thing-oriented apprehension. Right, we need to be able to zero in on different things, objectify them in various ways, right, bring some of them into our lives. Exactly, push some of them away. Without the instrumentalizing attitude we wouldn't be alive for 24 hours, right, I mean, it's what moves. That's why we drink water instead of gasoline, because we're able to instrumentalize right and make good decisions about what belongs in here and what doesn't.
Matthew C. Halteman :But the risk, I think, of the instrumentalizing mode is that it can take over our entire being, it can hijack our becoming, it can get in there and bully us into thinking that if we can't instrumentalize it right, then it isn't worth pursuing. And that, I think, is where we end up really capitulating to the wrong kind of anxiety and sort of turn our backs on the joyful pursuit of those mysteries of possibility that lie beyond the configurations that are currently providing us comfort. And I think, politically, maybe the disposition to take now is wow. Maybe what all of this is about is that, in various different ways, people are realizing the current configuration of the status quo is failing us, and it's failing us massively. What is the not oppressive solution? What is the joyful solution? What are the possibilities that lie beyond the absurdities of overconfident man, babies and you know people who, who find right? Uh joy or not joy they find. They find uh enjoyment in cruelty and in the suffering of others.
Matthew C. Halteman :Right, this is entirely, is entirely unstable, and this is why, you know, regimes like that can make trouble for a really long time. But let's be honest, right, about who we are as human beings. Everything we think is important will be a ribbon of ossified ash. That you know. If any of us, uh sparky apes of the Savannah, survive, right, we'll excavate from this thin band of rubbish. Right, that was our entire world. Right, I mean we, the things that we are up to, in the grand scheme of things, in the twinkling of an eye, right Are, are very, I right, are very, very small indeed. But on my view, that should give us courage to hope that the current configuration can be replaced with something much more beautiful.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah.
Matthew C. Halteman :If we can move from the instrumentalizing frame of reference which sadly bottoms out in the idea that, well, if I can't find a way to stem this anxiety, maybe a giant man, baby, with a huge army behind him and a bunch of bullying tactics can make me feel more like I'm on solid ground. I think that our imaginations will succeed in taking us past those absurdities, even though I know that they will cause a lot of harm and suffering. Please do not hear me minimizing the harm and suffering that people will experience on account of this folly. I mean that people will suffer. People are suffering.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah.
Matthew C. Halteman :And I don't want to minimize any of that, but I also don't want to capitulate to the idea that this is the best, that this is what we have to settle for, yeah, we do not have to settle for this and we won't settle for this Um and and.
Matthew C. Halteman :Who knows how long it'll take, who knows how many of us will give up very important things in the resistance. You know, I pray that that we'll be able to do it in ways that you know are nonviolent the peacemaking and the imagination expanding and the invitation right to invite the experience of difference with hospitality and joy right. As a philosophy professor with very limited reach, that's where my focus will be. Nobody will find me leading a revolution, I'm just a philosophy professor. But I think we all have to find the ways that we are going to be defiant of despair, because that's what authoritarian regimes are ultimately a response to.
Jennifer Walter:They're a response to despair and the only thing that can replace them and thrive in despair that's exactly right not see the current climate. We have it's absolutely, that's right.
Matthew C. Halteman :In I mean a joyful. A joyful citizenry with self-knowledge and fulfilling experience would not find itself in this situation. Right, because it's not appealing unless you're in despair.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, it's, it's, yeah but this is an important point, right, like where I also, well, first like you, will always be in the cinegrat hall of fame for calling out man babies I think that's my favorite term. But no, but it's really about like acknowledging the despair of of people, right, because I think that's often something um left, leftist movements or intellectual circles kind of like gloss over absolutely um and where?
Jennifer Walter:then obviously, if someone shows even a fake empathy for their despair, people latch on to it and I call it fake because they cannot feel real empathy. It's impossible in a total like. It's not um. So that brings me to another interesting point I want to like discuss in our, like final minutes here. And it goes. It goes further than just veganism, right, although, like studies show, right, that plant-based diets are more common among people with higher education and income levels, or individuals with university degrees are more likely to engage in climate conscious actions. And we need for, ultimately, for any defiance or any movement, any revolution, whatever you incline to, to start, it needs to be wider, like our circles need to be wider than just the circle of educated people, let's say right, or or overly educated people like how do we bring these concepts also of, like the concepts of industrialism, of totalerism, of trying to find simple solutions to wicked problems? How do we bring these concepts to a wider audience in a way that feels accessible rather than elitist?
Matthew C. Halteman :and I think currently we're really struggling with that yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, I think the elitism of leftist movements played a huge role in the situation that we're in and that's why, when I talk about authoritarianism, I never associate it with conservatism or right, because this is not about conservative and progressive. I mean, I grew up in the United States around people who are conservative, around people who are progressive. I teach at a college with glorious diversity, with conservatives and progressives among the student body, among the faculty. This is not about that, right. This is not about those disagreements. In fact, you know, I have conservative friends and colleagues, progressive friends and colleagues, moderate friends and colleagues there.
Matthew C. Halteman :When their thinking caps are on, it really doesn't matter, right, which ideological bandwidth they're from. They're not authoritarians, right, you know. So this is a response to a different, I think, kind of despair. So I think it's really important to say it's not about conservative, it's not about progressive Right, it's a response to a different kind of social and political failure. Right, where we get we come from on high with fancy degrees and training and and and vocabulary that nobody understands the sociologist talking to you on a podcast.
Jennifer Walter:I mean there you go.
Matthew C. Halteman :Yes, I mean here we. Here. We are in a performative contradiction. We're assholes.
Jennifer Walter:Well, I think we're also white, like yes, yes, but here's the good.
Matthew C. Halteman :Here's, I think, the good news, and white, yes, but here's, I think, the good news. And I don't know what it's like on your side of the big drink, but in the United States, it turns out that lower socioeconomic brackets are leading the way. The most recent studies show that people of lower income are more likely to be vegetarian or vegan. It also turns out that it's cheaper to be vegan by about five or six hundred dollars a year when it comes to groceries. Also, when it comes to who's leading the way with the most cutting edge ideas, it's African-Americans and black folks. In the United States, eight percent of African-Americans self-identify as vegetarian or vegan. We're only, you know, between one and 3%, depending on how you cut it down, of the general population are claiming that, and at least in my book in hungry, beautiful animals, I mean, I, I admit it, I'm, I'm, I'm a white guy from Chicago. There's no denying it, and I never try. But I'll tell you who my mentors are in going vegan. They're African-Americans, right? And so people who read Hungry, beautiful Animals will be surprised to discover that my mentors, you know, in terms of coming into consciousness on these matters, are people like the eco chef and justice activist, bryant Terry, who wrote you know, vegan soul kitchen, afro vegan. The sociologist, michelle Lloyd page the Reverend Dr Michelle Lloyd page a breeze Harper, whose sister vegan project completely transformed my understanding of these matters. So I'm actually really delighted to report that I think the solution to this problem, as is often the case, is simply to start listening right, like if the elitists would shut up right and actually look around and discover how much incredible work is being done by people right who are on the very cutting edge of the positive possibilities that this movement has to hold out to us. It's really a matter of listening to the people who have already had the experiences.
Matthew C. Halteman :Another really tremendous influence on Hungry, beautiful Animals is Afko and Silko, who wrote this book Afroism, and I mean it's a dazzling book that every person should have in their library and one of the many lessons that it taught me well was that as long as we're trying to compare the subjective experiences of different oppressed groups, the oppressors got us by the neck, because if we're arguing whose oppression matters most right, we're distracted and we're fighting against each other and our movements can't come together as one. And what AFCO and Silco have impressed upon me is if we turn away from comparing, unlike subjective experiences, and turn instead to the method of the oppressor. It's always the same Animalize the beings that you want to control, instrumentalize them, turn them into tools and then consume them. Right For the beings that you want to control, instrumentalize them, turn them into tools and then consume them, right For the purpose that you have in mind. Animalize, instrumentalize, consume, no matter what oppressed group we're talking about.
Jennifer Walter:Oh no, I mean this builds the perfect bridge to Hannah Arendt's work. Yet again, right, I mean World War II. We're seeing in the latest invasion of Gaza it's happening.
Matthew C. Halteman :Absolutely, and so what I love about my Black mentors in the vegan movement is this holistic perspective they bring to understanding this matrix of issues.
Matthew C. Halteman :As long as we're in the comparative mode, as long as we're in the instrumentalizing mode, as long as our vision is limited to this kind of consequentialist calculus right Like whose suffering is the worst, whose suffering matters most, how do we get in there?
Matthew C. Halteman :No, what these folks are arguing for is an expansion of consciousness right, beyond that just instrumentalizing calculus, to a caring right About being and sentience more broadly. That's right, and so I think you know the really great news here is that simply by turning to this amazing body of work that already exists right, we can find all the tools we need to for for a vision of going vegan that does not depend on naive whiteness, that does not depend on instrumentalizing calculus, above all else, that does not depend on the moral perfectionism right of white supremacist culture, and that, I think, right is the. I think the most important distinction I make in hungry, beautiful animals is this difference between veganism right on the one, this identity-based perfectionistic rule following right. Is there a leather belt in the deepest reaches of your closet? Did you sneak a Milky Way from the department candy?
Jennifer Walter:dish. You failed at the vegan. You failed at the human being.
Matthew C. Halteman :Exactly shame, blame and expulsion from the group. I'm done with veganism. What I'm interested in instead is going vegan. Our imagination is captured by this beautiful vision of a world where, instead of oppressing and instrumentalizing others, instead of animalizing and instrumentalizing and consuming the sentience of other beings, we turn instead to a way of being that seeks creaturely flourishing for everyone who can, from all those parts of our inner life to the world outside, from the soil to the stratosphere to the stratosphere. And that perspective is one that I have found in deep abundance in the work of black vegans Christopher Carter, the Spirit of Soul, food Af and Silco Afroism, bryant Terry I mean his whole catalog. Anyone who has holiday money left over should immediately buy everything with his name on it.
Jennifer Walter:So don't take notes now while you listen.
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, and then I think I've already mentioned it, but Amy Breeze, harper's Sista Vegan. From seeing veganism as a one size fits all, where you're either in the club or you're out, to seeing going vegan as a way of kind of answering a super individualized cosmic calling right, that's going to be different, um, for every person. Um, you know, and and and and and. Decidedly not a perfectionistic, chastening, right, identitarian way of thinking about who belongs and who does not.
Jennifer Walter:Is that? Do you think that is that at the heart of you know when, when you have a group, when you're meeting new people and someone says, oh, I don't know, is this vegan? When you're meeting new people and someone says, oh, I don't know, is this vegan, Everyone else almost goes like, oh, my God, I roll a vegan. He's going to start a sermon in three, two, one. Like we have, almost like a lot of us have almost like this visceral reaction.
Matthew C. Halteman :A hundred percent.
Jennifer Walter:Do you think that's rooted in this kind of like whole veganism as an identity?
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, I think that's exactly where it comes from, right, is that? And often vegans unfortunately play into that because that has taken over their inner family, right? Maybe? Their moral self and their intellectual self bullies their emotional and social self. Because their emotional and social self, their emotional and social self, because they're emotional and social self, they want to say, look, we're committed to going vegan, but can we please just go to Thanksgiving and be with our families and not be rigid about this? And then their intellectual and moral selves are like you're a fraud, you're inauthentic, you can't you know. And so, when that is what is going on inside of you, that is how you're going to show up in the world. Right, that is how you are going to show up with your friends.
Matthew C. Halteman :My guiding idea, right In in hungry, beautiful animals, is that there is nothing radical about going vegan, that, in fact, going vegan is based on kindergarten ethics, right? Nobody that you know has some radical ethics, right? Nobody that you know has some radical weird right? No, I mean what everybody is what I often think of as a vegan and waiting, you have all the beliefs. You need all the experiences, you need all of the ethics that you need. If you read Charlotte's web by EB White as a five-year-old and you were cheering for Wilbur and Charlotte. You are in. You are in Right. This is not an exclusive club. This is a wide open club.
Jennifer Walter:If you do merge this, this is, this is your T-shirt slogan.
Matthew C. Halteman :Vegan and waiting, yeah.
Jennifer Walter:I tell you.
Matthew C. Halteman :This is marketing gold.
Jennifer Walter:For my last question if our listeners take just one thing away from our conversation that might enrich their lives vegan or not, or whatever they are on their like becoming like going vegan journey, what would you hope that would be?
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, I mean, I think you know, if you want to fall in love with justice, train your imagination on what a flourishing, joyful life looks like, so that you can see what oppression steals away. We need to feed our imaginations right On this vision of beauty so that it's not so much that we're against depression we are, but it's because we're for flourishing. We can't stand to see oppression because we know the beauty of the alternative. Right, oppression can't get a foothold where people understand the beauty of flourishing, because once you understand the beauty of flourishing from the inside, that's what you want for everyone else. Right, scarcity comes from failing to understand that being is abundant. Right, what turns us toward the violence and the oppression is the belief that if I don't hoard others will kill me. Right, if I don't take what's mine, I'll lose my influence. Right, but once you're coming from an abundance perspective, others and difference, right, we can pivot away from that defensiveness and toward curiosity. Right. So I guess you ask for one thing, I'll give you two. Right, it's fair, I would pivot nothing.
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, right, yeah, we can. We can never stick to the script. It's always going to be the long way around. But you're the one who called it the scenic route, so I'm just I'm just helping you build your brand.
Jennifer Walter:I take part of the blame, it's okay. So, matt, where can people find you online? Where can people get your book, like? Tell us, where can people find you.
Matthew C. Halteman :Great. Well, the book again is called Hungry Beautiful Animals the Joyful Case for Going Vegan, and it's a weird enough title that we were able to get the dot com. So it's just Hungry Beautiful Animals dot com. Good for you. Hungry Beautiful the dot com, so it's just hungry beautiful animals dot com.
Matthew C. Halteman :We've got hungry beautiful animals dot com. We've got lots of resources there. You can learn more about the book. You can read about the experiences of readers who have put these tools into action. I'm also, you know, despite the fact that I'm kicking and screaming, I am following the orders of my publicist to post twice a week on LinkedIn, where you can find me, uh, and to make occasional posts on Facebook and Instagram. But I will not lie that part of it is a little bit half-hearted because, for me, joy is not ultimately compatible with spending, uh, spending large swaths of my life online. So I'm doing what I can out there in cyberspace, and there's certainly enough digital breadcrumbs for any of your listeners who are intrigued or inspired to find me. But, yeah, I think the book is probably the best place to really sort of get the whole vision and, I will say, for people who enjoyed listening, I am also the narrator of the audio book.
Jennifer Walter:So if you enjoyed the podcast, you know I was going to say I've got a seven hour and nine minute podcast for you. Oh my God, oh, wow, wow, good for you for narrating. Wow, yeah, no, Like, yeah. If anyone is feeling like, hey, you know, I always wanted to make a step forward and going vegan, then go get the book.
Matthew C. Halteman :Or if you're like, oh, I kind of like Matt's voice, yeah, it's always start small and and and you know, play to your strengths. It doesn't have to be Rome wasn't built in the day and our inner families are too complex, so zero in on what you find intriguing and start there, and then take the long way around, because it's by far the shortest way home when it comes to something as rich and beautiful as sustainable vegan living. 100%.
Jennifer Walter:I could not have said it better, and I think you've stole that from my website, so I did, I did. I love it. Thank you so much, matt, for being on the scenic ramp. Yeah, I'm just kidding, I love it. Thank you so much, matt, for being on the Scenic Route podcast.
Matthew C. Halteman :Yeah, it's really been a joy. Thanks so much, Jennifer.
Jennifer Walter:And just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the Scenic Route podcast. Thank you for spending time with us. Curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode, Visit us at scenicroutoupodcastcom for everything you need and if you're ready to embrace your scenic route, I've got something special for you. Step off the beaten path with my scenic route affirmation card deck. It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic route affirmation today and let it support you. Excited about where your journey might lead? I certainly am. Remember, the scenic route is not just about the destination, but the experiences, learnings and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again.
