We Other Animals

Is veganism healthy?

2012-01-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

As an abolitionist, I promote veganism because animal use is unfair. However, one of the common questions about and objections to veganism is whether veganism is nutritionally sound or healthy. It is important to understand the question of health as a vegan generally, as well as it place in the education process.

Sensational stories in news media aside, many health organizations believe that a well-planned vegan diet can be healthy; still others claims that there are considerable health benefits to plant-only diets in terms of heart disease, cancer, etc. That doesn't mean you can't be unhealthy on a vegan diet; just that the same generally applies to all diets: planning and balance are important. In a 2009 position paper, however, the American Dietetic Association wrote:

“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, July 2009. 109(7): 1266- 1282.

But what about other organizations?
The American Dietetic Association is hardly on the radical fringe, but it is not alone in its position. Private and public sector health organizations across a continuum of care agree that a well planned, plant-only diet can be healthy. Organizations that have made public statements of the healthiness of a plant-only diet include dietetic associations, governmental bodies and private clinics.

The American Dietetic Association (1), Dietitians of Canada (2), the British National Health Service (3), the British Nutrition Foundation (4), the Dietitians Association of Australia (5), the United States Department of Agriculture (6), the National Institutes of Health (7), the Mayo Clinic (8), the Heart and Stroke Foundation (9), among others, all provide information on healthy living as well as nutritional suggestions for plant-based diets.

What are the common recommendations?
The consistent recommendation (should anyone read the sources above) is that vegans should ensure that they intake appropriate amounts of calories overall for their age, sex, lifestyle, etc., and that they should eat a varied diet with foods rich in calcium, iron, vitamin D, vitamin B12, zinc and other nutrients. Although there is ample debate about vegan nutrition in terms of absorption and lots of arcana and which foods to eat in what order, the National Institutes of Health fact sheets for health professionals make it clear that there are plant sources for

Calcium. Plant sources of calcium include tofu, kale, calcium fortified soy, rice and nut milks and (plant-only) breakfast cereals (10).
Iron. Plant sources of iron include various beans, tofu, spinach, raisins, iron fortified soy, rice and nut milks and (plant-only) breakfast cereals (11).
Zinc. Plant sources of zinc include beans, cashews, chickpeas, and zinc iron fortified soy, rice and nut milks and (plant-only) breakfast cereals (12).
Vitamin D. Plant sources of vitamin D include sunlight! But more seriously, many fortified soy, rice and nut milks and breakfast cereals are fortified with vitamin D (13).
Vitamin B12. Plant sources of B12 include B12 fortified soy, rice and nut milks and (plant-only) breakfast cereals as well as nutritional yeast.

If you see a pattern here, that's not surprising Many cereals are fortified (at least in North America) because of concerns that the standard North American diet may not be optimal for human health. Shocking yet true. Fortification, however, varies by brand and by region. Many plant-only cereals may not be fortified, and fortification may not be as common outside of North America. Be sure to check the label for nutritional information.

There has also been a lot of back and forth recently about the Harvard School of Public Health's Healthy Plate and Healthy Pyramid. Regardless, the Mayo Clinic provides a pyramid suitable for vegans that recommends:

2 servings of fats
2 servings of fruits
4 servings of vegetables
5 servings of legumes, nuts and other similar foods
6 servings of grains

That's a lot to eat, but as a vegan, I do my best (see 8 below for more details on recommended servings).

I am not a dietitian. However, I try to eat nutrient dense foods. For example, I'll eat muesli, dried fruit and fortified rice milk when I can for breakfast. I eat salads with spinach, arugula, collards, kale and other greens, as well as lentils, chick peas, and other beans with rice, quinoa, couscous, amanrath and other grains, as well as tofu, tempeh, etc., in order to add calcium, iron and zinc to my diet. I eat fruit in smoothies and whole for a treat. Plants are beautiful, nutritious and they taste wonderful. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

What about 'the health argument'?
Advocacy organizations or individual advocates may claim that the 'health argument' turns people vegan. However, chronic health issues are common among North Americans, as are awareness raising campaigns about health on the part of national health organizations. Taken together, they suggest a general lack of knowledge and concerned action with regard to nutrition and health in practice among the general public.

People may, indeed, claim that health is important to them, but it does not necessarily match up in real life practices. In combination with other motivations, however, it seems plausible that people may see value in at least adopting a plant-only diet. That doesn't mean that health provides no motivation. It simply means that, by itself, however, a 'health argument' does not provide sufficient justification for veganism, or even, necessarily for a plant-only diet. The health argument also does not address leather shoes, circuses and other animal uses that vegans avoid.

On the other hand, few people want to be unhealthy.
Although both are empirical questions, whether health motivates change, the idea of worsening health by adopting veganism probably demotivates change. In that light, it is important for advocates to be able to respond to basic questions about or objections to veganism, nutrition and health, even if it only means providing others with references to expert opinions and evidence-based resources.

All other things being equal, however, there are no substantive reasons to use nonhuman animals for food purposes for human health; in fact, an increasing number of studies show that well-planned, plant-based diets may provide health benefits. A well-planned diet is important, and be sure to check with a registered dietitian if you have dietary concerns.

But if you are not vegan already, morally worried by the use of animals, why not give veganism a try? Don't let health concerns deter you; using nonhuman animals is unfair! The resources below provide elaborate information on healthy plant-only diets, sources of vitamins and nutrients and other information. Read through the information; decide for yourself. Make a meal plan and go vegan!

Notes
1. See: http://www.eatright.org/about/content.aspx?id=8357
2. See: http://www.dietitians.ca/Nutrition-Resources-A-Z/Factsheets/Vegetarian/Eating-Guidelines-for-Vegans.aspx
3. See: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Vegetarianhealth/Pages/Vegandiets.aspx
4. See: http://www.nutrition.org.uk/publications/briefingpapers/vegetarian-nutrition
5. See: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/healthy-eating-tips/tips-for-vegetarian.html
6. See http://daa.asn.au/for-the-public/smart-eating-for-you/nutrition-a-z/vegetarian-diets/
7. See: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_120152.html
8. See: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vegetarian-diet/HQ01596
9. See: http://www.heartandstroke.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=ikIQLcMWJtE&b=4016859&ct=6636807
10. See http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/calcium#h2
11. See http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iron-HealthProfessional#h2
12. See http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional#h3
13. See http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional
14. See http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional#h3

Being funny (and why it's important)

2012-01-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

As is often the case with my blog, I try to teach other advocates. I try to teach them not only how to be better advocates (which strikes me as kind of a smaller endeavour), but how to be better persons (which is often herculean). But for all those vegans who have, hours afterward, think "I shoulda said!!!" a blog on how to be funny (and why it's important).

But why should you be funny? As an advocate, you'll often be faced with situations when you are outnumbered by nonadvocates and nonvegans. This is less common in advocacy situations, more common in social ones. Your job is always the same: seek hegemony!! By which I mean, establish relationships, lead those who agree, and educate those who don't. Humour is an important way to establish social relationships, and it's a fun thing to do, both for yourself and for others.

What does humour signal to others? Some expressions of humour (e.g., more obvious sarcasms) tend to signal a weaker social position, and these (rightly or wrongly) influence other claims you may make. Similarly, some expressions of humour signal a stronger social position that connotes authority, knowledge, and confidence in one's views (again, rightly or wrongly). Between the two, which provides the stronger basis for engaging people about animal ethics? (It's the latter.) In short, you can be a more engaging advocate by being a more engaging person. That means having a sense of humour and knowing when to express it correctly in public.

You might ask, but what's wrong with being humourless? As most people who know me know, I am a deeply humourless person left to myself. But eventually, I had to ask myself, how well did that help me as an advocate? Most people really don't enjoy conversations in which they feel they are being proselytized to at their own expense. It's important to remember, others are not the instruments of our ideology; they don't exist as ways to test our educational skills or to gratify a messianic complex. When you want to have a conversation with someone about something that's important to you, humour is one offering (among others that you might make) in exchange for their time. Being humourless only means you have less to offer someone for their mindshare.

How to be funny (in a nutshell)
This isn't a comprehensive guide. It's simply a handful of things to take into account. Humour, like many things, is a habit that must be cultivated and requires practice. Practice with your friends! Nevertheless, some guidance:

First, don't put down; lift up. If few people enjoy humourless interactions with others, even fewer people enjoy conversations in which they are solely the instrument of someone else's sense of humour. This kind of humour draws us into using others as means to our ends. We're against that, right? That doesn't mean you should never insult anyone; it's often the case that insulting someone still treats them as ends in themselves (indeed, a rakish reductio is sometimes helpful when it comes to explaining why a view is misguided). However, humour that brings everyone into the joke builds a community around easy to understand concepts in which everyone is treated as an end in him or herself.

Second, be accessible, but in a way that enriches people. Marc Bekoff talks about the 'play bow' in dog behaviour in The Emotional Lives of Animals. It is pretty much what it sounds like: dogs bow to indicate they want to play. I think this is a terrific example, both of how dogs are good persons and good philosophers. Humour and play are primarily social. Private jokes that ridicule people are what they are. Public jokes, however, are of much greater use in advocacy, in large part because if the community doesn't understand your joke, it may amuse you, but it's not amusing anyone else. Save private jokes for occasions when they'll be understood by your audience, or at most, use them carefully and strategically.

Third, remember, in text, no one knows you're being funny. Much is lost in nonverbal communication. The tone, among other elements of speech, do not come across in writing. Satire may be misunderstood. Hyperbole may be taken very, very, very, very seriously. Sarcasm may be read as lighthearted, or it may be read as angry and bitter. And with love, many animal advocates say some pretty weird shit that we all hold our breath and hope turns out to be irony or sarcasm. You can signal your joke to your audience in writing with phrases like "but seriously", emoticons, or other ways.

Fourth, always keep in mind the most important thing to humour:

Timing! It's the truth, a truism, it comes from a true place, and all that makes it no less true. Timing is important to saying something funny. So are the elements of surprise, of play, and of saying something that is useful and otherwise valuable to the audience. Jokes that point out the obvious aren't really jokes. Timing is important to saying something funny, in part because it builds up the anticipation of something positive. Good timing is what makes a joke a reward for the audience.

Fifth, observe all the other rules of good humour: don't say boring, tasteless and rude things unless they are really, really funny. As a corollary, racist, sexist, heterosexist, ableist, speciesist, classist expressions are expressions of violence and are not funny; being funny is an expression of knowledge; prejudice is an expression of ignorance.

There are other important things to keep in mind, but myself aside, most people know how to be funny. What many advocates have less experience with is bringing humour into their activism or conversations.

Some examples
Let's imagine someone starts picking on you for being vegan. Assuming that this is not a violent attempt to bully you, but rather more someone who is uncomfortable with his or her own choices overwhelmed by the overwhelming nature of your manifest awesomeness, this is a good opportunity to show a sense of humour.

When people make jokes about bacon and other animals, I don't flip the table; I claim that everything tastes better with avocado. Then I list off all of the things that taste better with avocado: burritos, sandwiches, salads, toast, ice cream, chocolate pie, table salt, champagne, my fingers, etc. If I had put 'my fingers' in the middle of this sentence, would it have been as funny? Timing (seriously).

Or, let's imagine that someone asks about giving sheep the vote. HAR! (and indeed, I slapped my knee after typing that). S/he's trying to be funny at your expense (not very funny, right?). When I encounter this in the wild, I handle it in a few different ways depending on the situation.

But perhaps a better way to address it would be to calmly and carefully explain that yes, we do want to give sheep the vote, but not just sheep...all of them. And then explain in the same earnest deadpan that a right not to be used as property would not entitle sheep to a right to vote. Besides, it's not clear that sheep could punch the ballots; although I have no doubt that they would make smart voting choices that reflected their own interests.

Finally, another common case where humor can be helpful is when people ask what you eat, where you get your protein, etc? Sometimes this question is sincere, and sometimes it's meant to be a gotcha style question, in which the accuser expects your eyes to go wide as if you had never heard this question before. DUNDUNDUNNN!!!!

In that situation, I might say bark and twigs, and that I'm also partial to dirt, and if I feel so inclined, I will throw in a few statistics about the percentage of protein in the average cup of topsoil and how it's the food of the future. And then I'll transition to pointing out the American Dietetic Association and other national bodies agree that a well-planned vegan diet can be very healthy. But seriously, dirt tastes bad and it's probably unhealthy.

Humour in the advocacy community can be difficult. There are a lot of reasons for this: in part, social movements often draw anti-social people, people are frustrated, people are often overly sensitive, many are already picked on enough, etc. When you are dealing with another advocate who ridicules your view, I think the best approach is simply to ignore him or her. Antics and provocateuring are a bane to the movement and, along with a poor sense of boundaries, suggest anti-social tendencies; any attention that goes toward this kind of activity is, I think, not well-spent.

On the other hand, it is sometimes helpful to point out to other advocates that what other animals really need is our sincerity and our seriousness, and encourage them to think more critically about their own views. On the third hand, some organizations deserve a little light-hearted but critical engagement.

In all three examples, humour rebuts the claim of your antagonist, and then clears the space for you to explain the issues in a clear and engaging fashion, and in a way that doesn't turn what you're saying into an early morning visit from someone selling dictionaries (no offense to dictionaries).

If you just glower and make fists in your pockets, you won't have a chance to explain your views. If you start shouting incoherently and flip the table (as I often do), people will wonder whether you are okay. If all you do is make cutting remarks that make people feel stupid, it just discourages someone from thinking critically about their choices.And really, it's the last that makes or breaks vegan education.

No matter how much torture porn an advocate shows, no matter how many donation buttons a website has, no matter how many people go naked and how much chest and back hair they may have, vegan education is a matter of helping others to cultivate a sense that harming nonhuman animals is wrong as a moral matter, and that they can, in fact, choose better for the rest of their lives.

If you're not yet vegan, then I encourage you to choose better; even a worldview tastes better with avocado and like the sticker says, veganism is clucking awesome. If you are already vegan, but want to learn more about veganism or the abolitionist approach, then you can do so at abolitionistapproach.com.

Abolitionizing the debate: Francione moves the public and the advocacy community left

2012-01-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

In no small way, 2011 has been a year that has witnessed a lot of movement in animal advocacy. Francione's work continues to surge in popularity with advocates. Even five years ago, there were not all that many abolitionists. Now there are probably several hundred, perhaps thousands, active worldwide. Active advocacy does not necessarily mean successful advocacy. However, what's more telling of a public shift is the shift in rhetoric among those organizations dependent on public donations to conduct their work.

Although both positive and negative engagement with Francione and his work comes and goes, 2011 has seen a noticeable increase. This blog post doesn't address those phenomena. Instead, it looks at why Francione's work has such enduring popularity, and how the public, by circumstantial evidence, is moving "left" in light of his work, and how abolitionist organizations are gradually abolitionizing the debate.

First, it's worth pointing out that within the advocacy community, abolitionist and abolitionist-sounding organizations have increased their profile. It would be difficult to imagine a growing list of vegan organizations that promote abolitionist views, such as (but not limited to): Alice Springs Vegan Society, Anima, Animal Freedom, Auckland Abolitionist Vegans Association, Boston Vegan Association, Defensa Animal, Grampian Animal Rights Advocates, LiveVegan, Red Animalista Mendoza, Vegan New Brunswick, Vegan New Zealand, Vegan Maine, Vegan Outreach Lincoln and East Midlands, Vegan:UK, Vegan.fr, Veganos pela Abolição, and, dare I say it, Vegan Ireland without Francione's highly influential body of work.

Of course, not all advocates form organizations. Individual advocates have created blogs, podcasts, films and other activities to promote abolitionist veganism. Here, the work of Mylène Ouellet, Karin Hilpisch, James Crump, Bob and Jenna Torres, Robert Bowen, Sandra Cummings, Chris Poupart, Minku Sharma, Nathan Schneider, Maya Shlayen, Paola Aldana, Randy Sandberg, Alex Chernavsky, Dan Cudahy, Angel Flynn and Timothy Putnam, inter alia, comes to mind. My apologies to the hundreds, indeed, probably thousands I have not named.

Those who claim that abolition has little traction either with the public or animal advocates may have never heard of many of these groups or individuals. Nevertheless, it helps to lift an eye from one’s navel now and again to study what's happening both inside and outside the scene. These organizations have met with anecdotal success with the public. And clearly, they reflect movement in the advocacy community toward the abolitionist approach.

But what about the public?

I've written elsewhere that the public is ready to hear about veganism and that animal use is not invisible. There has also been an increase in both "higher optics" commentary as well as in more abolitionist-sounding rhetoric among more traditional welfare groups criticizing "humane" animal use. Each implies that the public is ready to hear not just about any old veganism, but abolitionist veganism in particular. Some more concrete examples:

Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), once a strong proponent of regulated use, claims: "Yes, it took us 15 years or so, but eventually, we got the message loud and clear: the only effective, long-term solution to the obscenity of animal agriculture is to encourage reduced consumption of animal products, leading to the ideal of veganism. It’s the abolitionist approach." At least in this blog, FARM's doesn't merely try to embrace the abolitionist approach, it also tries to embraces abolition's critique of welfare reform: "Welfare reform campaigns are not just inconsistent with, but actually destructive of animal rights advocacy. " (1)

Although I still feel there are issues with FARM's approach (abolitionists promote no consumption of animal products, which is not the same as encouraging reduction), there can be no doubt that this change in attitude (as well as the attitude adopted) would have been impossible without Francione's work. (2) (3) and (4)

As a second example, Marc Bekoff has also recently penned an interesting piece for The Atlantic: “Dead Cow Walking: The Case Against Born-Again Carnivorism.” Bekoff is a prominent animal biologist, ecologist and ethologist whose academic work is very much worth reading. In his piece, Bekoff claims that "pigs, chickens, and other animals raised for food are sentient beings with rich emotional lives. They feel everything from joy to grief." (5)

Although some other sentient animals may not have emotional lives, it seems clear that farm animals do. But what's of interest about Bekoff's claim here is that it's Francione (not Tom Regan) who first introduces the notion that sentience is the only meaningful moral criterion for rights.

Further, Bekoff argues: “No matter how humanely raised they are, the lives of animals raised for food can be cashed out simply as ‘dead cow/pig/chicken walking.’ Whom we choose to eat is a matter of life and death. I think of the animals' manifesto as ‘Leave us alone. Don't bring us into the world if you're just going to kill us to satisfy your tastes.’” Theses claims resonate strongly with Francione's more involved critique of domestication as well as his claims with regard to the moral personhood of nonhuman animals. (6) (7)

As a third example, James McWilliams has also written a number of articles, sharply critical of some expressions of animal use, for The Atlantic. A number of his pieces have been interesting, if perhaps somewhat equivocal (for a vegan) about animal use. Nevertheless, his critique of 'free range' animal use in The Atlantic was searing.

"But what if," he writes, "the free-range experience is nothing but a more humane way to force animals into serving our culinary wants? What if the appeal to ‘nature’ does little more than allow us to forget the reality of enslavement, to take solace in the appeal of false freedom?" and "the appeal to 'nature' in free range farming, like most pornography, is essentially disingenuous." (8) Although some have accused McWilliams of defending the meat industry, this makes his critique of “humane" use no less applicable.

Like Bekoff, McWilliams also draws specific attention to sentience. His critique of free range (although novel in its critique of the appeal to nature) also resonates strongly with Francione's frequent and long-standing critique of "humane" animal products. (9) Both Bekoff and McWilliams' pieces were published in The Atlantic, a highly public vehicle with readership of about 400,000 (subscribers — this would not include Web traffic which could be much higher for all I know). Along with Gary Steiner's lonesome but powerful piece in the New York Times a few years ago, these suggest a rise in public interest for an abolitionist message.

Of course, it doesn't follow from this that the public won't reject abolitionist veganism, that the public is not sceptical or does not require further education (in fact, I believe that all of these things are probably true). Nevertheless, newspapers and magazines are not a charity; they simply don't print what they feel the public will not buy or what they do not feel represents an important part of the public dialogue. There have been other examples (although not all this year), which suggest a gradual build over time, and just to pick a handful:

Francione's own appearance on Citizen Radio:
http://wearecitizenradio.com/2011/03/29/20110329-animal-rights-icon-gary-francione-citizen-radio-invades-democracy-now/
An interview with Francione in The Believer
http://www.believermag.com/issues/201102/?read=interview_francione
Martin Gilbert and Valery Giroux' back and forth in Le Devoir:
http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/le-devoir-de-philo/338600/peter-singer-la-souffrance-animale-la-poule-et-l-oeuf
Gary Steiner's lonesome if powerful piece in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22steiner.html?pagewanted=all
Lisa Mickleborough's piece in Georgia Straight:
http://www.straight.com/article-275282/vancouver/animal-wrongs

But you get my point.

I also don't think there can be much doubt that Francione's work has heavily influenced groups that have had, charitably put, a more ambivalent or cluttered relationship to abolition (e.g., ARZone, Friends of Animals, Igualdad Animal, Humane Myth, and Peace Advocacy Network, among others). It's true that I don't endorse these organizations for various reasons. On the other hand, it seems silly to deny the reality that each has been heavily influenced by Francione's work; in many cases, his ideas have been formative to their approaches (even if only in a rhetorical way).

I have claimed in the past these organizations take an approach that is ideologically different from both abolition and from new welfarism and, also, that they represent a “leftward” shift in the advocacy community. I consider only the unequivocal promotion of abolitionist veganism to be properly abolitionist (regardless of the label) -- although why my opinion on this would be of importance to anyone is anyone's guess. Nor am I disparaging these organizations by pointing this out. In my view, what's important is that all organizations move toward a more unequivocal and clearer promotion of abolitionist veganism.

Francione might well complain that these groups are appropriating "abolition". There is almost certainly some truth here in several instances. Many organizations respond to the public with what the organizations feel will resonate with them; in that sense, however, they function as a barometer of public opinion. My purpose is not to wedge myself into the middle of the appropriation debate, but rather to simply point out that there is obviously a public ear for abolitionist or abolitionist-sounding claims as there never has been before.

In fact, now is a wonderful time to go vegan, and it’s likely that 2012 will see an organized, transnational and larger-scale abolitionist vegan movement coalesce. Other animal advocacy organizations on the wrong side of history may take the time to reorganize their work to promote abolition and veganism clearly and unequivocally. If they don't, they will be increasingly overshadowed as the Humane Society of the United States and its coalition of welfare interests as they drain the field of donors and volunteers who want regulation, not abolition.

In contrast, abolitionist vegan organizations are clearly on the rise and abolition is gaining traction with the public as these groups slowly but surely find their footing and go forward in the struggle to abolish (not regulate) animal use.

1: See http://www.blog.farmusa.org/welfare-or-abolition-farms-president-founder-at-ar2011/

2: See http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-four-problems-of-animal-welfare-in-a-nutshell/

3: See http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/got-faith-in-animal-welfare/

4: See http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/about/mission-statement/

5: See http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/dead-cow-walking-the-case-against-born-again-carnivorism/250506/

6: See http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/animal-rights-and-domesticated-nonhumans/

7: See http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/veganism-just-another-way-of-reducing-suffering-or-a-fundamental-principle-of-justice-nonviolence/

8: See http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/04/an-inconvenient-truth-free-range-meat-isnt-natural/237006/

9: See http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/killing-animals-and-making-animals-suffer/

Vegan outreach: how not to do it

2011-12-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

There are mixed opinions on how best to conduct vegan outreach: are shocking images of animal use helpful to represent the violence animals endure, or are they just a weird torture porn that ingratiates advocates but turns off viewers? Should advocates participate in more online or offline dialogue? Are stunts an effective way to draw public attention? Should advocates lead with a rights argument and then explain veganism as the practice or the other way around?

I don't answer these questions in this particular blog, although I have views on each. In one of my earlier (now almost retro) podcasts, I discuss how to answer a question about veganism (for those who want to think about that particular question). In this blog, I give some ideas on how not to conduct outreach, since often it's the case that advocates engage unknowingly and unintentionally in actions that will make their work less effective.

First, don't confuse your audience. If you want someone to take a particular change, you have to express what change they should take in a clear and compelling way. Be succinct and be clear. Happy meat, humane treatment, single issue campaigns, human rights issues, etc., create a kind of quagmire for most people, the overwhelming majority of whom are already subjective about their relationship to nonhuman animals. If your goal is to promote veganism (and it should be), do that. Do it again, and do it a third time for good measure.

Second, don't engage in a contrived dialogue; when you talk to people, you really have to talk with them. Having watched a number of vegan advocates interact with the rest of the world over the years, many of them sound like they're reading from a telemarketing script. This is often meant to be highly sincere, but to the public, it just seems creepy. And it seems creepy whether you are really good at reading the telemarketing script or really awkward. Instead, have a sincere dialogue with people. Engage them in ways that are meaningful to them. Have a dialogue with them, by, you know, having an actual dialogue with them. Other people are not instruments of your ideology. Most people know a sales pitch when they hear one and will typically respond to it with hostility. If they're not interested in veganism, engage someone who is. Most people don't want to hear a sales pitch full of poorly staged questions meant to lead them to specific answers. Leave that for your handout.

Third, don't lose your temper. This is especially the case for online education. Of course, vegans are often insulted or ridiculed both online and in real life, but most of the public doesn't care strongly either way. In fact, what you're most likely to hear in urban areas is "I respect vegans’ choices, but I could never go vegan,” and then some mild taunting like “I could never give up bacon...” Your role as an advocate is to keep your eyes on the prize and not to get snarky. Sarcasm and passive aggressive remarks don't reflect well on advocacy with the public. It's also worth keeping in mind that many people don't necessarily realize that they are insulting you (and if they are just disagreeing with you, they are not insulting you). That doesn't mean you shouldn't defend yourself, and that brings us to "fourth."

Fourth, be prepared to stick up for your views and for nonhuman animals (and here I mean by promoting the morally imperative nature of veganism). If you don't take your views credibly and sincerely, most people will not know what to think about your views. You shouldn't lose your temper, but that doesn't mean you should act like a doormat (especially, as is too often the case, other advocates attack you for promoting veganism consistently). Too many advocates confuse the public by promoting humane treatment as an acceptable middle ground, suggesting that some animal products are fine, or otherwise being apologetic for taking animals seriously. This is morally and practically problematic; it also lays further ground work for accusations of elitism (since if you can go vegan, what makes you think they can't or won't?). It also makes it that much more difficult for other vegans who don't want to have to be apologetic about their veganism. And it's bad for nonhuman animals if advocates send confusing messages to the public (c.f., first above) and worse if the message that gets through is “it's okay to use nonhuman animals.”

Fifth, don't give up (and don't give up before you get started). Often the task of building vegan societies seems insurmountable. It is, if you set yourself the goal of educating 7 billion people about veganism. If you manage to educate a few people a year, that's a few more people who (hopefully) will educate a few more people and so on. It takes time and discipline to educate other people. It's a learned habit. No one is a natural. You’ll learn to answer questions, anticipate responses, and be able to inform people. All of this comes with practice. The most important thing you can do is practice.

What should you do?
I am still working my way out of the paper bag, but some thoughts on what you should do.

Practice your courage; practice your discussions with a friend. Get accustomed to answering questions and rationally reconstructing the question that someone is asking you (so that you can tell them what they want to know – not all questions are clear, and sometimes, people really want to know something other than what they are asking). Keep in mind that, if you are the average vegan animal advocate, it probably took you a long time and several explanations and lots of cupcakes to go vegan. Learn how to address "gotcha" questions and other things that are meant to draw you away from talking about nonhuman animals. Soon, you won't have to hold your breath, making fists in your pockets, as you wait for someone to reject you. Indeed, they may not reject you. You also have to prepare for that.

Practice your discipline; learn to return to your topic: nonhuman animals. Organic conversations are perfectly fine, but if you're in an antagonistic discussion, it's likely that it's someone's intention to draw you off-topic (e.g., "OMG, HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN!!!"). Don't spend time in a nuanced historical debate talking about whether Hitler was a vegetarian. Get the conversation back to vegansim: (e.g., "I think there's historical debate about that, but I don't promote vegetarianism; I promote veganism. What do you think about that?").

Practice your good judgment; learn more about veganism, abolitionist thought and nonhuman animals, and then learn more about the areas of knowledge that are close to these. For example, you'll undoubtedly (at some point) get questions like: "Should I keep my cat indoors??" or "Is abortion vegan?" These will sound like gotcha questions. They're not. People often sincerely want to know, and often they want to know because they're not really sure themselves. If you understand sentience, and what we owe other beings in light of abolitionist thought, these questions are not too difficult. If you understand some basics about animal ethology and feminist thought, you can give an even rounder answer. That doesn't mean you need to read the Library of Congress before you hand out a Go Vegan pamphlet. It only means that the more informed you are, the more prepared you'll be to answer questions.

Last, but not least, read this important FAQ: http://abolitionistapproach.com/faqs/ You can even print it out, and carry it with you for people who have a lot of questions.

But don't take my word for it -- try it for yourself! And remember, the most important thing anyone can do if you are concerned about nonhuman animals is to go vegan. If you're already vegan, and want to learn more about how abolition proposes to abolish rather than regulate animal use, you can do so at abolitionistapproach.com.

Nonviolence is just the "L" in love

2011-12-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

Beyond silly, other-worldly hypotheticals, it seems strange to me when advocates (some vegan) claim that the use of animals for human ends does not harm those who are used (not only do I believe it harms those who are used, I believe it also harms those who do the using). What these kinds of claims (that we can use animals as our resources without harming them) seem to suggest is that it may be harmful to nonhumans, at least in some instances, if we don't use them as our resources for our own ends. This sounds even stranger to my ear.

If it is right to concern ourselves with the well-being of nonhuman animals (and it is), then it is right to take the most basic step in their interests: a duty of nonviolence (and that starts with veganism); taking that interest seriously continues with promoting and working toward the abolition of their status as our property clearly and unequivocally; it flowers in a relationship of solidarity with and beneficence toward other sentient beings on a social scale. And when we think carefully about this, if we consider nonhumans as moral persons, rather than as things we shouldn't use, then we find we have and should have a rich social relationship to them.

Lots of people have been asking for a plan for social transformation in the last couple of months. Fair enough, here's my proposal. My sense is that our relationship with other animals (human and non) should reflect a reversal and a rupture with the status quo. For every factory and family farm, we should imagine and work to create in its place a rescue and adoption center and (properly) protected habitats.

For every military, for every corporation, we should imagine and work to create a university populated by students who want to understand other animals (human and non) so that they can act well toward others and social organizations directed toward the promotion of nonviolence and beneficence toward all at every turn at a systemic and structural level.

All social transformations begin in the present moment when someone chooses right over wrong. You can get from where we stand today to the result above through nonviolent, creative education (and here I mean education, not just raising awareness), by 1) conducting outreach with the public, 2) effectively training advocates, 3) creating alternative economic structures (e.g., buying co-ops, co-op groceries, etc.) and 4) by establishing shelters and rescues that promote veganism, abolition and the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.

If you're not vegan yet, today is an absolutely wonderful day to start. If you're already vegan, try to talk to someone about veganism and the importance of not harming other animals. Or, rescue someone from a shelter. Or, teach someone how to cook a plant-only feast and why veganism is important to you. Or look into creating a buying co-op. Or, write a play about veganism. Or hand out leaflets about veganism and abolition. Or educate yourself about the abolitionist approach to animal rights. Be brave. Be creative. Think carefully. Act well.

Nonviolence is just the "L" in love. Today is the best day in history for all advocates to start writing the whole word by promoting veganism, abolition and animal solidarity. The problem is not the lack of a plan; it's fear that we will be unsuccessful, worry about what other people are doing, and an uncertainty about what to do. We're all scared of failure, but nonhuman animals require our courage. It is up to each of us to be the organization of change.

To Dr. Roger Yates, Doctor of Philosophy

2011-12-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Roger,

I have decided to withdraw my challenge to debate you, as well as the post that proposed it. I hope at some point you'll change your mind about a handful of things I consider to be important to taking a strong, uncluttered abolitionist position. Nevertheless, I wanted to wish you all the best and to apologize for what were, I gather, some comments that were deeply hurtful to you personally in the original challenge. I'll do my best to treat you (among other advocates), more charitably in the future.

Always my best,
Vincent

Animal advocacy and the principle of charity

2011-12-13T19:06:00.000-08:00

Going forward, I have decided to use strictly the principle of charity (for at least one year) in my dealings with other animals advocates where it is practicable to do so (except where abiding by the principle of charity would draw me into greater harms, issues of sincerity or other misguided positions with respect to other advocates).

Of course, charity is not a panacea to fix the broader problems in the advocacy community. It cannot paper over substantive ideological differences nor will it solve some of the more endemic social problems to the movement. Nor will it inure me from the less than charitable attacks directed toward Gary L. Francione or toward other abolitionist colleagues. Indeed, it is impossible to read some of the most recent and historical attacks charitably.

But neither will charitable reading of substantive and sincere discussion inhibit my criticism (which will remain continuous, involved and, let's say, hands-on). Further, I believe without question that abolitionist and vegan ideas are well-reasoned enough that disagreement with them easily withstands a charitable reading of disagreements with abolition as an ideology or veganism as a practice. Nonviolence in discourse starts with engaging what people have actually written rather than misrepresenting their views as a rhetorical tactic.

I have no doubt that there will be occasional lapses, but no one's perfect. I am deeply ambivalent about any sort of leadership role in our community. But in the end, my work is about me and my relationship to other animals, and that's what I want to keep uppermost in my mind. My sense is that discipline, practical knowledge and a commitment to what we owe others (whether we consider them lovable) are all important parts of a good moral character. Fidelity is important, even with our opponents.

I don't consider much of my interaction with the advocacy community to be particularly uncharitable. Nevertheless, virtue calls us to be models when we can be, and I am daily reminded of just how sorely the advocacy needs good role models.

May peace be upon us all.

Is there evidence that animal use is increasing?

2011-11-27T05:01:00.001-08:00

There has been some underinformed debate recently about whether animal use has increased and whether there is any evidence for that it is increasing. Although this trend is documented fairly well in Gary L. Francione's books (among others sources), I spent about 10 minutes using this amazing tool called Google. This led me to the ultra-secret Web site of the United Nations, and here you go, the smoking gun from the UN's report, Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases:

"Forthe large majority of people in the world, particularly in developing countries,livestock products remain a desired food for nutritional value and taste.Excessive consumption of animal products in some countries and social classescan, however, lead to excessive intakes of fat.

Table 4. Per capita consumption of livestockproducts

Region	Meat (kg per year)			Milk (kg per year)
Region	1964 - 1966	1997 - 1999	2030	1964 - 1966	1997 - 1999	2030
World	24.2	36.4	45.3	73.9	78.1	89.5
Developing countries	10.2	25.5	36.7	28.0	44.6	65.8
Near East and North Africa	11.9	21.2	35.0	68.6	72.3	89.9
Sub-Saharan Africa^a	9.9	9.4	13.4	28.5	29.1	33.8
Latin America and the Caribbean	31.7	53.8	76.6	80.1	110.2	139.8
East Asia	8.7	37.7	58.5	3.6	10.0	17.8
South Asia	3.9	5.3	11.7	37.0	67.5	106.9
Industrialized countries	61.5	88.2	100.1	185.5	212.2	221.0
Transition countries	42.5	46.2	60.7	156.6	159.1	178.7

^a Excludes South Africa.
Source: Adapted from reference 4 with the permission of thepublisher.

The growing demand for livestock products is likely to have anundesirable impact on the environment." [Bolding my emphasis].

I hope advocates will note the steady increase of animal product consumption across the world, including industrialized countries (where it sees steady historical as well as projected increases -- per capita, not overall -- per capita). The consumption of animal products is up.

There seems little opportunity for debate here (except to refuse the United Nations' science). Over the last 30 years of animal welfare advocacy, it has failed to correlate with an overall reduction in the consumption of animal products and instead has coincided with a rise.

Whether welfare measures make people more comfortable consuming animal products, the evidence clearly and unmistakably suggests that welfare reform and activity has not reduced consumption in any meaningful way. The waste of resources (whether time, money, or both) on activism that we know does not reduce animal use poses advocates with a moral and practical problem In part, this is why a consistent and clear abolitionist vegan message is important to animal advocacy.

I encourage everyone to read this top secret report for themselves.

Is the invisibility of animal cruelty the problem?

2010-04-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

Those who promote welfare reform frequently argue that raising awareness about cruelty to animals is a necessary step toward better treatment. They avoid or soft-shoe veganism because, they claim, the public is not ready because they aren’t even aware of animal cruelty. Leave aside, momentarily, that people realize that when they eat animals, they’re eating animals. Leave aside that, even if this were the problem, promoting regulations of animal use would not end animal use. Let's take this question seriously.

Is cruelty really invisible?

To be clear, I am not dismissing the fact that many people do not know all of the details involved with factory farming or animal cruelty. I am asking whether this is 'the problem' or a symptom of another larger and deeper problem.

I have blogged about this in the past, but some additional thoughts. Let’s leave aside the obvious the fact that killing another person unjustifiably is wrong in and of itself. Let’s assume that this question is a serious one. Let’s assume that, regardless of all the obvious social facts in front of us, that there’s a process involved with using animals for food, entertainment and other purposes entirely hidden from the public.

Let's assume that there is no wide social understanding that other animals (like dogs and cats among others) suffer and are harmed when we hurt them. Let's assume that the problem is just a lack of facts about animal suffering and not a lack of moral knowledge about why animal suffering is morally relevant in light of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.

Finally, let’s forget that there is probably a humane society of some sort dotted in almost every region of North America. Let’s also forget that humane societies (at least in Britain, Canada, and the United States) started humane education in the 1820s (give or take) about 200 hundred years ago.

Let's set aside that animal cruelty has been a continuous moral question since at least Pythagoras if not other ancient Greek thinkers. Let's set aside the laws in the Bible, Koran and Talmud (and in the canonical laws of various expressions of Christianity) that address the moral question of animal cruelty during slaughter, and so on. Let's set aside that there are pre-WWII generations still among us who remember life before factory farming, and that there remain places in North America, Europe, Oceania, etc., where other animals are still killed in highly visible ways.

Of course, even if people are aware that they use animals, and that there is cruelty involved in that use, it does not follow that they are not still caught in the grips of some imaginative reality in which the facts, although they are known to them, do not always provide an adequate motivation to change their behaviour.

I never deny the power of wishful thinking about the world or a resistance to change. What advocates should be providing is information, emotional and economic support (e.g., community groups, youth groups, buying co-ops), practical education (about nutrition, cooking, and so on), as well as encouragement to do what's right: and that's to take other animals seriously as rights holders and to go and stay vegan (as a minimum).

But let's return to our question: is the invisibility of animal cruelty the real problem?

Google says it’s not invisible.

First, a search on Google for “humane” returns 16,900,000 returns. That’s almost seventeen million Web pages that mention the word humane in some meaningful way (so, humane societies, The Humane Society of the United States, humane treatment, raise humane, and so on, would all come up). But animal cruelty in particular draws up 3,810,000. There are 13,900,000 returns for the phrase “cage-free.” There are 3,130,000 returns for the keywords “humane raised”. I realize not everyone in North American uses Google, but still, that’s a lot of Web pages for an invisible problem.

SCOTUS and the mainstream media say it’s not invisible.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) just issued a landmark decision that protects acts of cruelty toward nonhuman animals that are filmed as a type of speech.[i] [ii] [iii] Regardless of what I make think of the decision, if animal cruelty were a great mystery up until yesterday, it is now front page news. If that were not enough, Michael Vick’s dog fighting saga in the US[iv], as well as Pink’s comments on and to Prince William (and the ensuing controversy) about hunting[v], debates about whether to legalize fox-hunting the UK, etc., have been all over the new for the last couple of years.

And this coverage is literally all over. We’re not talking about obscure blogs, Coast to Coast or just the Wall Street Journal. We’re talking about coverage from ESPN, MTV, ABC, MSNBC, CNET and more. Can we really talk about an invisible problem when the problem is being discussed just about everywhere, even by celebrities? It’s true that not everyone reads or watches the news, but it seems unusual to suggest that Pink and Samuel Alito are both aware of an otherwise invisible social issue that the rest of North America is not.

Primetime TV, daytime TV and mainstream documentaries say it’s not invisible.

But let’s say no one pays any attention to gossip magazines, current events or the Supreme Court. It’s still all over mainstream TV. Ellen has self-identified as vegan (on a show that pulls in several million viewers [vi]). Oprah, often ranked as one of the most powerful people in the world[vii], went on a public “vegan cleanse”, on yet another show that pulls in about 7.3 million viewers[viii]).

The problem of these promotions aside, clearly, the public is aware on some level of the problem that our relationship with other animals poses and of veganism. It was on Oprah. Questions of animal cruelty have also appeared prominently on primetime TV shows on FOX: on Family Guy, the OC, Bones and other high profile shows. Family Guy has, on average, somewhere between 7.5 – 8 million viewers depending on the specific show and the specific season.[ix] Bones has about 9 – 10 million[x] and the OC had about 4-5 million viewers depending on the specific seasons.[xi]

In the six or so years since its release, Super Size Me, a film all about how unhealthy fast food has grossed $29.5 million (with several mentions of veganism).[xii] Food Inc., a relatively new film that addresses questions of animal cruelty, has grossed $4.4 million in the United States alone.[xiii] We’re not talking about C-SPAN. These are primetime and daytime shows with millions and millions of viewers (each!), and films now grossing in the tens of millions of dollars.

In short, the proposal from the animal welfare advocacy movement is that millions and millions of people in North America are contributing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars every year to solve a problem that has been covered by primetime and daytime TV, by news media outlets, by feature length documentaries and by even the Supreme Court of the United States that is nevertheless invisible. Even more people are spending even more money to continue to try "to solve" this moral dilemma by buying "humane" products. Spoiler alert: the problem’s not invisibility. Did I mention it was on Oprah?

So, the question is, why the pretence?

The public understands that it uses animals and that there is almost certainly cruelty involved in that use. Advocates can't rely on "what their nonvegan coworkers said that one time when they were totally surprised to learn how horrible the conditions in which their lunches were raised!!" One-off, self-report data is not very reliable. Of course, people may be in the dark about the worst excesses, but that’s not the same thing.

What the public doesn’t understand is why animal use is wrong. If there is consciousness to be raised (and I believe that there certainly is), it’s about this fact: that nonhuman animals are moral persons who don’t want to be hurt or used, who have a right to be used as our property, and without whose use we can live very happy and fulfilling lives. Moreover, they are increasingly aware of veganism as an alternative way to solve this moral problem, and they seem more receptive now than ever before.[xiv]

Why are animal advocacy groups either misunderstanding the problem in such an obvious way or why are they pretending that the problem is one of invisibility, when clearly, that is not the case?

Almost certainly, there are a number of factors. I’m sure some people do sincerely want to educate the public about cruelty, believing cruelty to be the moral problem. But this elides the question of whether we should use animals at all without justification (we shouldn't), and why cruelty to other animals is morally wrong (a hint: it’s because they’re sentient!), as well as what else we might owe them in light of their sentience.

While I don’t believe that we should use other animals, I accept as a statement that describes reality that there are many people who believe that cruelty, environmental impact, human health concerns, etc., are “the real problem” to animal use. But it doesn’t follow from this, however, that there isn’t also a lot of money to be made by advocacy groups in telling the public what they want to hear: “it’s not your fault; you didn’t know any better; you can keep using other animals so long as you make better choices [and buy from our certified vendors].”

Furthermore, raising awareness about cruelty encourages the publicly (intentionally or not) to keep using animals just in more “humane” ways. "Humane" labels and certification schemes from their partners in 'animal advocacy' help agribusinesses to differentiate their products 1) in a crowded marketplace, 2) under a great deal of price pressure to find higher-margin offerings, 3) with a public concerned about the moral problem that animal use poses. That is the purpose of "humane" labelling schemes:

Certified humane animals are gaining popularity among food service purchasers. (Restaurant Business, September 2006). [...] “Humane” was consistently the top-ranked choice among respondents when asked to choose products that were identical except for the standards, according to a survey of 1,000 households and five focus groups by the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California. Over 30% of survey respondents chose “humane” in every comparison among five standards. (Center Research Brief #5, Winter 2005).

http://www.certifiedhumane.org/producers/whyproduce.html

In short, "humane" products are profitable to some businesses within the larger industry. Welfare advocacy groups are often helping industry get that message ou (sometimes, quite intentionally)t. Even when they are not the inadvertant propaganda tools of the industry, they unintentionally condition the public to see "humane" products as a positive step for other animals with singular focus on cruelty rather than use.

Humane certification, a lucrative industry all by itself.

For large scale animal welfare organizations, there’s a tremendous amount of money on the table. The Humane Society of the United States has generated half a billion in revenues over the last several years[xv], but humane certification is itself a growing industry. There are potentially hundreds of millions to be made just certifying a product to be “humane”.

For example, to be “Certified Humane” by Humane Farm Animal Care (who partners with the ASPCA, the HSUS and others), it will cost an agribusiness between $1.00 and $0.0009/animal (paid on a monthly basis), depending on the species and the number of animals certified.[xvi] The more animals certified, the lower the cost/animal. The species is also a factor. Chickens cost substantially less than cows. A dollar an animal may not seem like a lot of money, but there are about 10 billion nonhuman land animals raised on land in the United States every year for food alone who could potentially be certified. [xvii]

Businesses that just do the certification will not have to buy and feed the animals involved or need to address fluctuations in production costs or prices in the market much. Whether we imagine that the industry is only worth a few hundred million dollars or a couple of billion dollars, it’s likely to be high-margin (the cost to provide the service and the cost they can charge for the service is larger). High margin businesses tend to be fairly profitable.

Regardless of exactly how much money is at stake, it raises serious questions about why organizations like the ASPCA and the HSUS are partnering with other agribusinesses to develop label schemes that help market animal products to consumers when, if only nominally, they are concerned with animal cruelty.

Certification schemes, industry regulation and other expressions of red tape.

As important, in addition to the profit involved, certification schemes draw attention to other animal cruelty issues and to animal cruelty more broadly as a moral issue. That is, they do what animal welfare advocacy groups claim they are supposed to do: raise awareness with public about animal cruelty (and their profitable solution to this problem).

What is important to understand is that this, by itself, doesn’t lay the ground work for meaningful systemic or personal change to our relationship with nonhuman animals. Instead, it just further convinces the public of what they already believe: that cruelty is wrong, and that we can use other animals without being cruel to them.

By telling the public to buy humane, to donate, etc., animal welfare businesses like the HSUS and the ASPCA (among others) avoid doing the one thing that actually does help nonhuman animals, that actually does help the public solve its moral problem and that’s to promote abolition and veganism unequivocally and clearly.

Moreover, they also advance a general overall sense that the problems that animal use (whether they are moral, environmental or personal in terms of human health) can be managed and regulated without the need for immediate abolition. That agenda and strategy expresses itself through a number of tactics: certification schemes, piecemeal legislation and other ways of regulating animal use rather than abolishing it. That regulationist groups exist at all is testimony to the fact that the public understands that it has a problem that regulation is necessary to solve (that means those problems are not invisible).

Is the problem invisibility or obfuscation and a lack of a serious commitment to vegan education? These are different things.

It seems clear that raises a couple of questions, but I think we would be justified concluding that people do know that there is cruelty involved in our relationship to nonhuman animals. Further, even if we imagine that the millions and millions of North Americans aware of animal cruelty are the exact same across Oprah, Ellen, ESPN, CNet, etc., just raising their awareness about animal cruelty obviously isn’t resulting in meaningful social transformation for nonhuman animals.

That is, even if cruelty were a secret, which it is not, just raising awareness about it is obviously not resulting in wide-spread systematic or personal change. The question this raises is: why not? What the public doesn’t understand is why they should care about animal use and why they should take action in light of it. They don’t understand that other animals are moral persons or what they should go vegan in light of that personhood.

This reflects not the invisibility of cruelty, but one part apathy, one part confusion, one part economic difficult in some cases (e.g,. with food deserts) but also one substantial part active obfuscation on the part of organizations that stand to make or lose hundreds of millions to billions of dollars every year if the public decides to go vegan.

Intentionally or not, animal advocacy that promotes regulates use and treatment rather than abolishing use in light of nonhuman animal personhood, is actively obscuring and delaying the progress we might make on behalf of nonhuman animals by miseducating the public. Even if all of this were untrue, welfare reform would not provide a practical solution to end the slavery of nonhuman animals and all of the cruelty that stems from their status as property.[xviii]

Going vegan is easier than it ever has been. If you’re not vegan yet, you should go today. If you are not an abolitionist, but what to learn more about the approach, you can read through my other articles or visit www.abolitionistapproach.com to learn more.

NOTES
[i] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002980-38.html
[ii] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33194414/
[iii] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/supreme-court-overturns-

ban-animal-cruelty-dog-fighting/story?id=9536559
[iv] http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2884063
[v] http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1477185/20030825/pink.jhtml
[vi] http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/item_

2to0VTPnLInzqizVYpTvNK;jsessionid=19D13FF332AC8384B238C3FB43E9DB64

[vii] http://www.time.com/time/2001/influentials/
[viii] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26oprah.html?_r=1
[ix] http://abcmedianet.com/web/dnr/dispDNR.aspx?id=051909_05
[x] http://www.abcmedianet.com/web/dnr/dispDNR.aspx?id=052709_07
[xi] http://web.archive.org/web/20070930155240/www.abcmedianet.com/

Web/progcal/dispDNR.aspx?id=060204_11

[xii] http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2004/SIZEM.php
[xiii] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=foodinc.htm
[xiv] http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2010/03/word-peace-diet-hits

-1-can-we-all.html
[xv] http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/11/hsus-half-billion-dollars

-in-revenues.html
[xvi] http://www.certifiedhumane.org/pdfs/fee%20schedule0708.pdf
[xvii] This figure doesn’t include counting animals raised for fashion, entertainment, experimentation or other uses, or those animals like fish, whales, deer, etc., taken

from the wild for food uses, or other animals used or killed for other unnecessary purposes).
[xviii] http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-four-problems-of-animal-

welfare-in-a-nutshell/

Is activism an obligation? Some thoughts

2010-04-18T06:58:00.001-07:00

This question is circulating both the vegan blogosphere with interesting pieces from Stephanie Ernst and a response from Mylène Ouellet, as well as other social media. Since I hate to be left out of the conversation, some thoughts follow.

ETA: I have changed this blog based on some feedback from a colleague, which I thought was quite helpful and useful. No need for anyone to panic. I often change my mind when I hear a better rational account for something, and I think differentiating between wide and narrow duties provides a simpler and better way of thinking about what we owe other animals than differentiating between ought and obligation does.

Duty, obligation and ought: What's the difference? (or, rather, what's the difference between wide and narrow duties?)
The question seems to be whether we should think of activism (beyond going vegan) as a duty or just as something we ought to do. Since I am not a philosopher (caveat lector!), I often use philosophical terms incorrectly and interchangeably (e.g., "I ought to do X", "I am obligated to do X", "I have a duty to do X"). Some philosophers differentiate between ought and obligation in relation to duties, while others see 'having a decisive reason to do X' means we ought to do X and that that is basically the same as saying that we have an obligation to do X.

In the original version of this essay, I differentiated them, but based on some comments from a colleague, I think this was a mistake on my part. Instead, we might say that we have wide duties, and narrow duties. For example, let's say you invite me to your house for dinner. I might have a narrow duty not to pee on your couch as a guest. I am obligated not to do so. I ought not to do so (in the sense that I have decisive reasons not to do so). In light of modern Western hospitality customs, if you and I are friends, I might want to bring something delicious.

But I do not have a narrow duty to bring cookies (or anything for that matter). I am not obligated to bring cookies (or anything else) specifically, the same way I am obligated not to pee on your couch, specifically. I do not necessarily have similarly decisive reasons to bring cookies (although I may) in the way that I do typically have decisive reasons not to pee on your couch (although some hosts may be more open minded about this). In short, some duties (narrow duties) are fulfilled in very specific ways. Some duties (wide duties) may be fulfilled with a wider range of actions.

There might be decisive reasons that we should be excused, or we might be released from fulfilling the duty, or other justification, and so on, but the onus falls on us to justify. For example, if I don't pay my taxes, I am typically required to explain in a clear, well-reasoned way (i.e., that I provide some justification) why I should be excused from paying them or why it is wrong to expect me to pay them.

If I don't shower for a day, for example, I do not necessarily required to provide a clear and well-reasoned explanation (or justification) or even an unclear, mumbled and incoherent one for why I did not shower that day, although if I don't shower for months, people might start to legitimately wonder if I am not neglecting a wide duty to properly care for myself, and I may actually have to account for my actions.

So, we might say, for example, that we ought to go vegan, and, indeed, we might also say that we are obligated to go vegan in light of the sentience of nonhuman animals, their interests, and their basic right not to be used as property. We might also say that we ought and are obligated to engage in activism beyond going vegan, but that to go vegan is a narrow duty, and the activism we might engage in beyond veganism is a relatively wide one.

Veganism as a moral baseline (of animal advocacy activism)
Having written the foregoing, ought we engage in activism (beyond going vegan) with respect to nonviolence, including veganism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, and so on? Of course, I think the answer is yes. But I do not think it follows that it is required that anyone do so.

I think people misunderstand veganism as a moral baseline in two ways: first, in the sense that it means "going vegan is all that we owe other animals" and second, in the sense that it means "veganism is not itself a form of activism." I think the notion of "activism" is somewhat sociologically problematic, but if I stopped drinking Coca Cola during the 1980s (which I did) because of their investment in South African apartheid, not many people would say: "that's not activism!"

Oddly (although veganism is not a boycott), I think people would be more inclined to see that as a type of activism than if I went vegan, but I can't account for strange inferences. What "veganism is a moral baseline" means is that: if you only can do one thing in relation to nonhuman animals, then you should at least go vegan; but second, that if you can do more, you should do more. That is, a baseline is exactly that: a minimum. The minimum is required. More than the minimum is good, but very specific actions beyond that minimum are not necessarily required.

For example, one might engage in rescue work, abolitionist vegan education, prepare a plant based dish for a work function and explain veganism, etc. These all fulfill a wide duty to help other animals beyond simply going vegan ourselves.

From an abolitionist standpoint, there is no narrow duty to engage in specific types of activism other than going vegan (although any additional activism should meet abolitionist criteria). However, taking the rights of nonhuman animals seriously and going vegan is itself a form of activism. It often models just and virtuous behaviour, and it has clear economic consequences. Most important, it ends our unjust behaviour.

Finally, veganism (and nonviolence more generally) is a kind of activism. If everyone in the world simply stopped actively harming everyone else unjustifiably (and started the active process of avoiding harm), the world would be definitely improved. It seems unintuitive to think of the social transformation toward wide-scale and systemic harmlessness as something other than a kind of active behaviour. In that sense, our narrow duty is to go and stay vegan, even if we ought to do more at times if we can. Both are active behaviors, even if we are cannot be more active in all circumstances.

Why is activism as a moral requirement problematic?
If we say that activism involves a set of narrow duties (akin to not using nonhuman animals in the first place), that poses the problem that, as my colleague suggested, it would create an endless string of demands upon us to be activists at every turn (although it it not clear to me that that is what Ouellet was claiming -- I am not staking a claim, simply confirming my ignorance). However, as a general matter, I think I agree with his concerns as I understand them. Moreover, it poses the practical problem of having to continuously assess each demand in relation to every other demand placed upon is. This might be morally and intellectually overwhelming.

Intuitively, activism beyond veganism as a set of narrow duties (e.g., you must rescue a cat, you must attend this protest or a protest for that matter) also seems to suggest that not using animals and being an activist that opposes animal use are morally equivalent, and that we could reasonably exchange them. Let's say I have a narrow duty to run 50 miles and I have a narrow duty to swim 20 miles in any given week. Let's say I only have time to do one of them on a particular day this week through no fault of my own. Would it be reasonably excusable for me to do one and not the other? Most people would say yes, that failing in my obligation to do one was wrong, but understandable (depending on the specific reasoning).

If any kind of animal advocacy and veganism itself are duties on a par, it might follow that I could be excused from grabbing a big Mac if I am legitimately late through no fault of my own to my local AR book club meeting. This would be problematic from an animal rights standpoint. It does not necessarily follow from this that we should never be excused from unavoidable animal use (e.g., walking on sidewalks made with animal products) in order to conduct educational work. I am only saying that it is good to think as clearly as possible about the relationship between activism and avoiding harm. It seems reasonable that we should have decisive reasons for the actions we take with respect to other animals.

It doesn't necessarily follow from this that all duties are absolutely equal or that we could not reconcile differing duties, etc., or that some duties are equivocal and some note. Duties are unequivocal; how we might fulfill wide duties, however, is simply more open-ended. I am simply saying that, in addition to being impractical, posing activism beyond veganism as a narrow set of required duties may be very confusing and may lead people to draw very misguided inferences about what they should do, what they may be excused from, etc.

Do we owe other animals restitution for our time as nonvegans?
I think that as a typical matter, when we violate the rights of others, that it is normal to have a desire to make restitution and that we may owe them something beyond simply not using them in the future. For example, if I step on your toe, I probably owe you an apology as a kind of restitution. Restitution for murder, rape, torture, etc., is typically very substantial in the West but this has not always been the case.

Moreover, the nature and degree of restitution varies substantially. Sometimes, it is symbolic. Sometimes it involves money. Sometimes it involves reciprocal harm (e.g., an eye for an eye). It is difficult to asses whether and when to provide restitution with regard to wider systemic harms (e.g., systemic racism), and they often involve a great deal of debate. Suffice it to say, restitution (even when it just involves human beings arguing over a property boundary on the People's Court) is a complicated moral and legal matter.

With respect to our violations of the rights of nonhuman animals, the idea that we can make restitution is more problematic. Most of the rights-holders we would have violated as nonvegans are dead or persons to whom we cannot make any kind of proper restitution. We cannot make restitution to their families. Further, it seems misguided to suggest that we can make restitution to random rights-holder X for what we did to random rights-holder Y.

In fact, this way of thinking about the problem could be potentially very confusing (and unhelpful) to understanding what we owe other animals as individual rights-holders. This way of thinking about restitution seems to suggest that if we are kind to cow X then we can be forgiven for killing and eating dog Y. That is obviously misguided. I am not suggesting that we should not engage in virtuous work with other animals (e.g., adoption). I am simply saying that we cannot buy our way to redemption, and we certainly should not think of ourselves as being in a position to buy an indulgence to cause harm with good works.

Since we should treat similar cases similarly, because of the complexities of restitution, because of the open-ended nature of restitution, and so on, I think it may be problematic to suggest very specific activism as a kind of restitution. However, I think a desire to act well in light of previous wrong actions is usually very normal, and that we should act well when it is reasonable for us to do so.

It's always better to do the right thing for the right reasons
Finally, we should also be concerned about privilege and activism. Going beyond veganism, many people simply do not know how to be more active, some people (quite legitimately) cannot be more active because of their particular (class, race, sex, ability, etc.) circumstances, some people focus on human rights issues or other kinds of activism, and so on. I believe that is all certainly understandable.

Solidarity work on behalf of nonhuman animals should not be conflated with veganism (either by vegans or nonvegans) and it should not be a pathetic subcultural bicep-flexing contest about who does more for the animals, as it often is in animal welfare advocacy circles. In short, I can understand why some people can't or don't get more active, even if I hope everyone will.

It's also worth noting that not all activism is helpful. In fact, I'm sure a great deal of PeTA's work is harmful to the interests of other animals. I think it's terrific if people want to jump in and get to work. But learning how to do activism correctly (from an operational, "how do I respond to someone's question" standpoint) and learning what kinds of activism are morally and practically correct (from an ideological, "how do I lay the ground work for social change” standpoint) are also very important types of work. Between doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and doing the right for the right reasons, I am in favor of the latter.

But the most important thing any of us can do to help nonhuman animals is to go vegan. If you are not vegan, please go vegan today. If you are not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Adoption vs. single issue regulationism: What’s the moral difference?

2010-04-12T12:51:00.001-07:00

This has been a topic of conversation for a couple of months on Twitter. I do not consider single-issue regulationism to be significantly similar to adoption campaigns except in mostly superficial ways. AnimalEmancipation (hi, Jo!) does not advocate single-issue campaigning for a number of reasons, although we do advocate adoption, rescue and sanctuary work.

In fact, I am deeply troubled by the disparagement implied by a comparison between the direct saving of a nonhuman animal's life through rescue work and an opportunistic campaign like HSUS' call to boycott Canadian seafood until Canada bans the commercial seal hunt. I find this kind of opportunistic and misguided rhetoric to be damaging to an understanding of nonhumans as moral persons who call us to be honest, humble and diligent as their advocates, not to scene posturing.

There are, of course, moral complexities to adoption, rescue and sanctuary work and reasonable questions about its nature. However, we consider this work to be defensible. In fact, we consider it to be morally necessary, on the basis that nonhuman animals are rights-holders and that there are no morally acceptable alternatives to conducting rescue work with the present nonhuman animal population (even if some kinds of rescue work are preferable to others).

Further, we consider the vast majority of single-issue campaigns to be much closer to promoting vegetarianism, which we also consider to be morally and practically problematic. That is, in short, because it's possible to imagine a single-issue campaign that may be defensible from an abolitionist standpoint, it does not follow that all, many or most single-issue campaigns are either abolitionist or helpful to nonhuman animals generally or helpful to the species they purport to help. Adopting and restoring the personhood of another animal (another person) as best we can in a private home or shelter (and encouraging others to do the same) are qualitatively different actions.

Some additional thoughts follow:

First, it’s certainly possible that some adoption campaigns and virtually all single issue campaigns do reinforce societal prejudices about whether some animals are more valuable than others (even if that is not the intent of the authors). For example of the first, most people do already believe that cats and dogs are more morally important than other animals. Although not all rescue campaigns focus on dogs or cats for that matter, many do, and those may tend to reinforce a public perception that dogs and cats are more important than other animals, but it's not necessarily clear that this is the case. Adoption campaigns often focus on individual animals rather than on species, and that would tend to position them as individual persons who need saving rather than as species. For an example of the second, campaigns like HSUS’ which position seals as more important than other marine animals almost certainly further convince the public that seals are more important than other marine animals.

Second, it’s also certainly possible that at least some adoption campaigns and very likely that many single issue campaigns, depending on how they are designed, may reinforce the notion that animals are our property or our resources. For example of the first, an adoption campaign with a headline like: “Need a new guard dog? Adopt today!” should be criticized because, obviously it unnecessarily reinforces the view that other animals exist for human use. For an example of the second, a single issue campaign that regulates the property status of nonhuman animals (the vast majority of single issue campaigns) by banning a particular use or treatment or by trying to improve treatment should also be criticized.

Third, and however, because people are left with the wrong impressions by some of our work, it does not necessarily follow that we should not fulfill our moral duties. For example, if I stop a pimp from beating a prostitute because I take nonviolence seriously, it may leave someone (Glenn Beck perhaps) with the impression that I support human trafficking. People often draw poor inferences. Of course, it would be best never to leave the public with the wrong impression, even if this is not always possible. Because it may be impossible to avoid confusing some people some of the time, however, it does not follow that we have a free pass to miseducate the public in any and all instances. There will be times when fulfilling our moral duties to other rights-holders outweighs the consequences of the public take-away. In our view, adoption, rescue and sanctuary work is often one of those exceptions.

Fourth, it does not follow from any of this that a campaign that addresses adoption or a campaign that addresses a particular species must (or should) reinforce either a sense that animals are our resources or that some animals are more important than others. It is simple enough to add language to any campaign to explain that animals are moral persons who have a right not to be used as property and that veganism is the moral baseline to taking that right seriously. That is, it is always possible to educate the public about abolitionist veganism and about particular actions with respect to nonhuman animals within context. In fact, it is likely that changes to the status of nonhuman animals generally and as individuals will be very up-hill until there are sufficient numbers of people who take animals seriously as moral persons.

That is, should we ever wish to make progress for nonhuman animals, the way to do so is to educate the public about rights and veganism as the practice of taking those rights seriously. Looking at the statistical evidence over the last 30 years in North America, animal use is growing faster than human population size in spite of intensive single-issue and welfare campaigning. Whether abolitionist outreach will be successful, regulationist approaches clearly aren't working in substantial ways to help nonhuman animals.

Fifth, single issue campaigns are frequently proposed as a way to get people into the movement. This is morally and practically problematic. It is misguided to think that we can, should or must "lure" or “trick” people into veganism. Moreover, this kind of activism promotes a view that because X attended an anti-fur demo once or just made a donation, X is an animal rights advocate. Unmistakably, this harms and muddies both the notion of animals rights and who is an animal rights proponent.

Further, single issue campaigning consumes resources that could be better utilized in a number of ways: SICs systematically miseducate the public only to have to re-educate them about what they owe other animals down the road, and it applies the same amount of effort to a single issue often for a single species rather than addressing all use at once and up front. Moreover, there is no meaningful moral difference between promoting a single issue campaign without promoting veganism and and promoting vegetarianism as "stepping stones". Neither is morally sound; neither is strategically or tactically sound. Adoption, however, is not a way to bring people into the movement either way; it is a way to save lives directly. An adoption campaign premised on "luring" people into the movement would be equally misguided.

Sixth, it seems clear that many animal organizations do not use the funds they receive for single issue campaigns for animal care. That is, SICs typically function as fundraising tools that do not help nonhuman animals directly. HSUS’ campaigns are probably the poster child example. However, that is not often the case with rescue work to my knowledge. There are, of course, examples of elephant sanctuaries that sell elephant paintings or farm sanctuaries that sell eggs or pony rides. These actions should be criticized insofar as they reaffirm nonhuman animals as property. It doesn't follow from this that all SICs or all rescues are undertaken for economic opportunism. However, this kind of opportunism is less the case with animal rescues and adoption centers; when it is the case, this should be criticized.

In short, while it’s possible that some shelters or sanctuaries do use nonhuman animals for profit, it is certainly not to the breadth or depth that an organization like HSUS focuses on single issues campaigns for profit. This kind of corruption is undoubtedly damaging to public perceptions of advocacy generally. Further, the proposal that animal advocates should be untruthful by omission as to the rights of all animals in their work in order to suit a given organization is misguided.

Seventh, ideological problems aside, it’s always possible to campaign poorly (for any cause, including for veganism). For example, just because a campaign is well-intended, it does not follow that it is not unintentionally harmful. For example, advocates often promote veganism in ways that are probably more harmful than helpful (e.g., as a way to ‘reduce suffering’ of other animals rather than as a daily practice of what we owe other animals). Any campaign can inadvertently confuse the public, and this is why they should all be subject to critical scrutiny and improvement.

Eighth, there may be times when defending our personal companions requires exceptions to all of the above. But these are atypical cases. For example, I would definitely save my cats from a burning building. Further, if one of the cats were to somehow to escape and get lost after this rescue from the burning building, and was then being held at the local Humane Society, I would definitely pay the shelter’s fee to release the cat to me.

It doesn't follow from this that I believe cats as a species are more important than other animals, just that my cats are very important to me as moral persons for whom I have taken responsibility. Further, my moral duties to my companions would outweigh consequences in terms of public perceptions. Finally, it is worth noting that there is a substantial difference between an advocate engaging in work to defend persons for whom they have agreed to care and a large animal ‘advocacy’ organization creating a campaign to drive fundraising dollars around a single issue.

Ninth, because specific expressions of one type of activism may be problematic, it does not follow that we should never engage in it. Adoption/rescue/sanctuary work, for example, is a moral necessity. There are a number of moral complexities involved with adoption, rescue and sanctuary work. However, there is no morally acceptable alternative if we consider the nonhuman refugees we have either enslaved from the wild or bred for different purposes who are now dependent on us. We are not in any moral position to say: don’t adopt! Close the sanctuary! We also should not promote the “euthanasia” of healthy animals who could be housed in sanctuaries, and so on.

Finally, there is always a morally acceptable alternative to single issues campaigns, and that’s abolitionist vegan education. The notion that we should engage in the harm of reinforcing social prejudices against some animals to benefit the movement is exactly the kind of speciesism and anthropocentrism animal advocates are supposed to oppose. There may be cases when our options are limited, but single issue campaigning is rarely ever one of them. Many animals are dying unnecessarily because of human fancy. Some in factory farms. Some in shelters. Some in family farms. Some in the wild. Some on vivisectors’ tables. Regardless of their species, if they are sentient, they are all equal in their right not to be used as property. All of this violence is morally wrong.

In that light, it would not only be perfectly morally acceptable, it would be morally preferable, to never engage in single-issue work and to promote abolitionist veganism exclusively as an end to all of this violence. There may be rare exceptions to this, but it doesn’t follow from this that we should base our typical activism around exceptional cases. That we may act in a particular way in exceptional circumstances, it does not follow that we are justified or excused in typical circumstances. Someone who eats a fellow castaway on a lifeboat with no hope of rescue would probably be excused. Someone who kills and eats a fellow shopper at Walmart because “they’re hongry!” would not be.

In contrast to single issue campaigns, however, it is incompatible to propose that we take nonhuman animals as rights-holders seriously on one-hand, but to treat those we have created or enslaved as moral burdens we can cast off and allow to starve or freeze to death. In short, proposing that we abandon rescue and sanctuary work would be morally derelict in terms of our obligations to nonhuman animals. To propose that we should abandon single issue campaigning does not cause similar moral or practical problems (in fact, it would eliminate many of the unnecessary moral and practical problems that surround single issue campaigns).

But the most important thing any of us can do to help other animals is to go vegan. If you’re not vegan, please go vegan today. If you are not an abolitionist, but want to learn more about the approach, please read through my other articles or visit www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Of oysters and education: why a rights-based approach to vegan education makes sense

2010-04-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a series of blog articles about vegan education and the very serious need to change our advocacy models when a truly fascinating piece appeared in Slate. Myléne Ouellet at My Face is on Fire shared it, and she'll probably blog about it. I'm scooping her, though!

In the Slate piece, Christopher Cox treats us a lengthy argument as to why eating oysters is not a moral problem if we only take animal suffering and the environment into moral consideration as our reasons to be vegan.

Because I eat oysters, I shouldn't call myself a vegan. I'm not even a vegetarian. I am a pescetarian, or a flexitarian, or maybe there's an even more awkward word to describe my diet. At first I despaired over losing the vegan badge of honor—I do everything else vegans do—but I got over it. Oysters may be animals, but even the strictest ethicist should feel comfortable eating them by the boatload. There are dozens of reasons to become a vegan, but just two should suffice: Raising animals for food 1) destroys the planet and 2) causes those animals to suffer.

I could go on about the problems here, but what's even stranger in light of these kinds of stories is the continual harangue from many advocates that we need to "raise awareness about animal suffering". It reflects a serious divorce from social reality.

To be clear, I am not defending Christopher Cox. He strikes me as a very misguided person who obviously enjoys pleasuring himself with oysters more than he concerns himself with moral questions. But what is he doing rhetorically? He is using the claims that most of the animal advocacy community uses (that animal suffering is wrong, that people should go vegan for environmental reasons) to stage a rhetorical claim that vegans should not object to oysters because they do not suffer meaningfully and their cultivation is not bad for the environment. The bigger picture is that these are claims that animal advocates should either avoid or put them more clearly into the context of rights-based advocacy.

What I'm saying is that, as a community, we need to start interrogating the received wisdom of our figureheads when they tell us that dressing up in a chicken suit to encourage people to cut back on chicken until KFC starts gassing them using CAK puts the revolution on the horizon. We need to stop advancing any old reason to go vegan and focus on animals as moral persons who have rights and veganism as the appropriate practice in light of those rights. We need to stop thinking in terms of eliciting an emotional response that can be solved by a donation for national organizations and their figureheads and instead start thinking about how we'll radicalize and organize vegans to change society as we know it.

In the modern West, animal suffering, liberation and other aspects of "the animal question" have been publicized by the animal welfare community for about 200 hundred years (give or take). In the last several years, animal use has figured prominently on The OC, Family Guy, Oprah, Ellen, in the Guardian, in the New York Times, (not including a few documentaries, as well as recent books by Jonathan Safran Foer, Mark Bittman -- now even Moby is getting in on the act), as well as countless, countless, countless other TV shows, and publications. I'm not pulling anyone's leg: the public is ready to hear about these issues and about rights-based veganism.

More important, HSUS has raked in half a billion dollars in the last several years. The 'humane' meat industry rakes in even more. Why do animal advocacy groups continue to insist that the North American public is unaware of animal suffering as a moral problem?

Of course, the public is confused about what that suffering means to them in moral terms, its causes and what they ought to do in light of it. They may also be in the dark about highly specific methods of torture, but the general secrets are out: we use animals; they suffer because we do; it is typically very bad for the environment when we do. The advocacy problem is that, historically, most people have not really cared enough to change their lives and go vegan in light of these reasons.

It is not because the public are sociopathic monsters who have no empathy; it's because large animal advocacy groups do not unequivocally promote an end to animal use and have told the public: don't worry about it, just donate or just phone your congressperson or just cut back, or just buy 'humane'.

The public is sent conflicting and unclear messages and the public often takes the easiest path afforded to them. Advocacy groups have not historically focused on educating the public as to why it is critical for them to take the rights of other animals seriously and go vegan as a result. They have not focused on veganism largely because it is not in their financial interests to do so.

This is also why rights-based, abolitionist vegan education is both critical and completely ideologically distinct from animal welfare-focused, 'happy meat', 'reduced-use' and other forms of education. When we say: "we should treat animals better!" the public will demand and suppliers will respond with (at best) better (and more economically efficient) treatment, or vat grown meat, or animal species that cannot feel pain or any of the other complicated schemes intended to keep people buying and consuming animal products.

When we say: "Using animals is bad for the environment!" The public will demand and suppliers will respond with (at best) more environmentally (and economically) efficient methods. When we say: "Fur is wrong! Let's ban it!" the public may or may not agree, but suppliers (at best) will look for loopholes and/or repurpose the minks, foxes, or the other animals involved for some other use. When we say: "Foie gras is terrible!", again, the public may or may not agree, but suppliers (at best) figure out ways to either make foie gras 'nicer' or they figure out how to start repurposing the birds for down and other uses.

More important, however, no one in the public will have been educated about veganism and the rights of nonhuman animals. They will not take the rights of animals seriously (except by accident). They will not go vegan (except by accident). Most important, they will not lay the personally-driven but community organized foundation required to change the fundamental nature of the social relationship between human and nonhuman animals. We need to educate them to do so, and not just as individuals, but as a community.

Rights-based vegan education and community organization

What is critical to nonhuman animals is veganism based on the view that animals have (at least) one basic right: the right not to be used as property because they are moral persons. I didn't come up with this last idea. Gary L. Francione did. But I believe it. It is not just about educating people that animals suffer or that animal use is bad for the environment (although these are both often true). Those secrets are (increasingly) out.

Instead, animal advocates should focus on educating people about why causing other animals to suffer and exploiting them is morally wrong and why veganism is the most important thing (even if it is a basline) they can do in light of the rights of other animals. As important, advocates need to start building a community.

Handing out fliers is very important, but we need to shift our work from an ‘individual to individual’ approach, and instead, start building a lasting community with different institutions (e.g., youth groups, cooking classes) that emphasize different social relations (equality, feminism, anti-classism, anti-speciesism, etc.). We need to catalyze both personal and systemic change. Advocates need to undertake the work of organizing a community to build that change, since certainly, political communities do not build themselves.

We need to do the work to eliminate food deserts. We need to educate people about nutrition. We need to create shelters and rescues for nonhuman animals. We need to bring other human beings out of slavery (and you'd be surprised how many human beings still live in slavery or very close to it). That's the basis for change, and we can only do it as a community. That means doing outreach, but also creating youth groups, breakfast programs, co-op buying programs, businesses that create plant-based alternatives for food, clothing, entertainment and other animal uses today, teaching cooking classes and more.

In short, we need to create the alternative set of social relations right now today that will help turn personally-driven change into community-organized and organizing change. We need to start creating lasting social institutions in our community so that they will feel at home, want to stay and want to build with us. It's not a small task, but if we want to see social change, they we have to create it.

If you are not vegan, you should go vegan today. If you are not an abolitionist, but want to learn more about the approach, feel free to read my earlier articles or visit www.abolitionistapproach.com to learn more.

Dear Erik, or should we call you The Terminator now? An open letter welcoming you to the moral community

2010-03-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Erik,

It's true that I haven't always been that supportive of you, but I hope we can put that in the past. But i wanted to write a letter to say that I think it's terrific that you finally spit your candy coated thumb out long enough to be one of the last people in the animal advocacy community to jump on the "PeTA has serious problems" bandwagon. Welcome to the moral community!

I also think it's fabulous that there's absolutely nothing about your recent article back-handedly praising PITA that makes it sound like you'd go naked to be PITA's new Vice President and Chief Terminating Officer. I'm not even going to wonder aloud about a guy who clearly fantasizes about himself as a younger, veg*n Arnold Schwarzenegger and the sexist and heterosexist connotations thereto. I'm not.

The Terminator. I shake my head.

I know a lot of people will probably criticize this blog, but that's okay. I'm willing to take the abuse. Maybe you thought it was cute of you to refer to nonvegan commenters at Digg as "some of the stupidest people on the Internet." I'm not sure how much that helps spread veganism. But the way you almost fell all over yourself to defend PITA through the first part of the piece made me wonder a bit at first. You seem to have quite a few harsher things to say about HuffPo. Still, I'm prepared to be open-minded.

More important, though, Bruce Friedrich has said some interesting things about PITA lately. My take? Over the next 12-24 months, PITA will be retooling its brand to be less confrontational, to line up better with HSUS and that Friedrich is pushing them internally to head in that direction already. Considering who Friedrich is, it makes your piece look cautious to the point of timidity, but don't let that stop you: baby steps.

But your first order of business (and I do mean business) as The Terminator? Changing the name of PITA's blog. Really? That's what you thought was most pressing? I'm going to have to go ahead and point out that as far as baby steps go, that's some serious neonate action (no offense to neonates). PITA is still killing thousands of animals. If you couldn't start there, maybe you could have picked something a little less trivial.

In short, we get it. We're glad if you're finally getting it.Who in the animal advocacy community doesn't get it at this point that PITA has very serious problems? But there's more to being a vegan advocate than throwing PITA under the bus for trivial reasons. If you want to criticize PITA, I think it's overdue, but you might want to think about what's most important. Hell, why not criticize your own apologist attitude toward agribusiness and your counterproductive hostility toward nonveg*ns and abolitionists vegans alike while you're at it?

But still, what's most surprising to me is that, in your entire article, you didn't bother to mention that PITA is killing thousands of other animals every year. Surely, those nonhuman persons all deserved at least a passing mention in your first article, and seriously, not even your first priority as self-appointed head of the PITA police? But now I'm digressing. Don't let me discourage your new found enthusiasm.

If you do really believe that PITA does have serious problems, I want to introduce you to the work of a new and amazing writer: Gary L. Francione. You had him on your show once. The link for those who are interested in that discussion:

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/media/mp3/eriks-diner-2007-02-25.mp3

Well worth listening. Francione has been talking about PITA's problems for more than 15 years now. I realize you probably still haven't read Francione's books. However, I will personally buy and send you copies if you swear by Burger King or Chipotle (or whatever large agribusiness you think of as holy these days) that you'll read them. Not sure what I mean here? Read my previous blog entry: Erik Marcus: Bullying others is sexy! No, not really.

But the real question is: what took you so long? I'm not asking that to be mean. I seriously want to know whether your break with reality up until this point was sincere false consciousness about PITA, their antics, their animal killings, their campaigns laced with racist, sexist, ableist and classist overtones... Or if you're as opportunistic as other figureheads in the animal welfare advocacy community and see a plum opportunity for yourself here.

I'm sure a LOT of people believe that your latest article reflects the thinly-vieled opportunism of a guy looking for a job (whether it's from a new, kinder, gentler PITA as they try to remake their brand or from HSUS as they become all singing, all dancing). But I'm going to cross my fingers and hope you're sincere even if you're misguided about what the most pressing problems at PITA are (hint: it's more than just crass and offensive marketing).

And, look, I know a lot of people have been confused by PITA in the past, and that many still are. But I'm afraid I can't let your years and years of apology off the hook just yet. You're a self-appointed leader in our community. You took it upon yourself to write three books about animal advocacy.

Did you really not know?

Now, it's true that your career is flagging. I'm not insensitive to that (really). Squeezed between Vegan Freak v2 (an excellent book), Gary L. Francione's Animals as Persons (another excellent book) and Bruce Friedrich's/Matt Ball's latest "activism as marketing" missive, I understand that your old books are looking pretty old and your recent book is not doing very well. What's it called again? I doubt many of my readers even know (hint, it's the inaptly tittled: The Ultimate Vegan Guide). It must be hard to watch Will Tuttle's book The World Peace Diet go to #1 at Amazon.com recently.

But buck up! It's never too late for you to stop promoting happy meat and to do work that will seriously help other animals (and that's promoting abolitionist veganism and adoption, shelter and sanctuary work). I believe in you.

Sincerely,

Vincent J. Guihan

PS: if you're not vegan yet, you should all go vegan today! If you're not an abolitionist, you can read through my articles.

I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against; activists shouldn't hit people with pies

2010-03-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

"I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against." Malcolm X

I haven't read Lierre Kieth's book in its entirety and I can't say that I care that much about it. I know that she is an ex-vegan, and I wish it were otherwise. But someone hit Keith in the face with pies (allegedly) laced with cayenne pepper at a recent speaking engagement.

To be clear, I am against ecoprimitivism(s) (and most expressions of non-vegan ideologies) for dozens of reasons, none of which I'll be belabor here. I am also regularly reminded of the serious inadequacy of animal welfare activism by all of the ex-vegans rising to the surface these days. Others have criticized her for transphobia, which I also find deeply, deeply objectionable. So, it would be an understatement to say that I think Keith's views are misguided.

I also have little doubt that her book will be much more than another in an endless stream of paeans that justify violence against vulnerable nonhuman animals for a number of unfounded pretexts. I have even less doubt that it will convince some misguided "vegans" to stop being vegan; it will also provide rationale for those who are not vegan in the anarchist community (and some outside of it) to keep right on being not vegan.

But at a time when the public is beginning to understand and warm to veganism, this was neither the right nor the effective thing to do. "As Keith stood at a lectern," writes Demian Bulwa at the SF Gate:

at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, three people in masks and black hooded sweatshirts ran from backstage, shouted, "Go vegan!" and threw pies in her face. While they fled, some in the audience cheered or handed out leaflets. [...] Keith said her values are similar in most ways to those of her attackers. She believes in militant action, even property destruction, if it can lead to change. In her book, she said, she railed against factory farming and promoted the restoration of prairies and forests.

My views on this are fairly straightforward: there's more than enough violence in general and there's more than enough sexism, heterosexism, racism, speciesism, ableism and other wrong kinds of isms (far too few of the right kinds of isms) in the animal welfare community and its "militant" wing to go around. This was the wrong thing to do. It was also the ineffective thing to do. What did this do to help other animals? Absolutely nothing (unless you count enriching the owner of the store where they bought the ingredients).

I have written elsewhere that violence is a river and that violence on the part of animal advocates is a matter of pissing into that river. There's no need for any vegan (or anyone else for that matter) to piss in that river and call it a dam.

Although I wouldn't describe Keith's values as similar to my own, clearly she shares at least some values with her attackers. Is she going to change her opinion as a result of this attack? Almost certainly not. Will anyone in the public change their minds? If so, it will almost certainly be in the wrong direction.

What the public will take away from this bit of "work" is that those who promote violence toward nonhuman animals are the victims of vegans. This only provokes the repressive apparatus of the state. That only provokes the hostility and the defensiveness of the public. This only pushes the faces of those already living and dying in slavery further down into the mud of their status as human property as well as the cultural prejudice and fear that underlies that status.

Had neo-Nazis done this to a vegan, the advocacy community would be outraged. A justice predicated solely on an affinity with the victim is hollow and hypocritical. Like Malcolm, I am for a real justice no matter who it is for or who it is against, regardless of what I may think of the victim. And yet she and her attackers (for that is the appropriate word) will remain under the impression that violence can wring change; they remain mired in a similar if not identically dogmatic and imaginative worldview in which these acts will achieve something positive. It can't and they won't.

Instead, what this will provoke is a rehardening of the already fossilized power relations in which many human and all nonhuman animals are varying degrees of vulnerable and some select human beings hold a knife to their throats deciding when and who it cuts. It will summon dismissal. It will provide the opponents and detractors of veganism one more in a series of outstanding examples that link veganism with violence toward human beings in ways that make all advocates look as far from reality as they are from adulthood.

But more than anything else, this underscores the creaking irrelevance of what is incorrectly dubbed "militancy" in North America. Left to praise antics that mimic PeTA's, the bored, confused and bourgeois apologists and provocateurs in the advocacy community who cheer this kind of rubbish only further remind us all that those who preen for the cameras and draw themselves the limelight by announcing and extolling the violence of others don't just misunderstand veganism or the rights of animals, they misunderstand militancy and militant social struggle.

I condemn these actions in no uncertain terms, as a vegan, as an animal rights advocate and as someone with a long personal history of broader social justice work, as someone who grew up poor, as someone who grew up white, as someone who grew up with a disabled parent, as someone who grew up male, as someone with a mother, as someone who went to university, and as someone who used to work as a janitor cleaning apartments. Activism is always a matter of doing what's right most effectively. Harming another person (human or non) to gratify the emotional needs of "advocates" is neither.

It is now easier than it ever has been to go vegan, it is more and more a matter of public discussion, and why some advocates feel the need to push the public from it in an effort to emotionally gratify themselves at the expense of other animals, I'll never be able to guess.

Simon the Sadist vs. Christine: Ideological non-violence, veganism and solidarity as social transformation

2010-03-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

Let’s imagine that we encounter Simon, who is torturing a dog by burning the dog with a blowtorch. Simon’s only reason for torturing the dog is that he derives pleasure from this sort of activity. […] Simon is violating a moral and legal rule that just about everyone agrees with—that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering or death on animals. And what do we mean by “unnecessary”? We mean that it is wrong to inflict suffering or death on animals merely because it gives us pleasure or we find it amusing. Simon is inflicting unnecessary suffering and death on the dog; he is torturing an animal for no reason other than his pleasure and amusement.

Gary L. Francione

Simon the Sadist is a powerful metaphor, one that Francione introduces primarily in Introduction to Animal Rights, but now is a recurring figure in Francione’s work (with this particular sample taken from a piece about Michael Vick, whose violence has inspired a tremendous amount of anger in response). Although it is a recurring metaphor, it is not one that has been extensively explored.

Considering Francione's work more as a kind of moral theatre rather than purely as what is literally being proposed, I think Simon the Sadist reflects this double motion: to imagine the dog he blowtorches as a 'rights-holder', we start with a common idea of liberalism, but then we are already beginning a discussion of the dog's personhood and the moral value of that personhood.

Once we have started this dialogue, then we have already taken several important steps along a journey that leads us well past many of the signposts of the way that world is organized today, even if we're not entirely sure where it will lead us or all of what we'll discover about ourselves and others along the way. What Simon teaches us about non-violence is, I think, worth considering in detail.

Often, we may be unsure and unclear about what violence is, even if we often know it when we see it. But I do not think this prevents us from understanding clearly what non-violence is; and in this piece, I explore some of my own views (as they are informed by Francione's work). I argue that non-violence (as an ideology) is a refraining from, but it is also a drawing closer to and a belonging with. Of the three, we are most accustomed to thinking of it as embodied in the first. If I am using the word in an unusual way, perhaps I may be forgiven if I am, nevertheless saying something true, right or, if nothing else, novel.

Non-violence as a refraining from
Most are familiar with non-violence as a refraining from. That is, most of us would understand our duty to be non-violent toward others as 'not harming them', or for non-violent utilitarians, as not causing others suffering in undue ways. Pacifism, as one expression of non-violence, is a refraining from harm. This is not the same as simply “not harming.”

Only in a very basic, non-ideological sense could I refer to myself as “non-violent” when I am sleeping and not harming others. Instead, non-violence as a refraining from is an active behaviour. Non-violence as a refraining from expresses itself as an active practice of justice that calls us to avoid harming others, even when there are rational reasons to do so (personal gain, emotional gratification, utility, among others). Non-violence as a refraining from is a rational limit of the will.

Non-violence as a drawing closer to
Ideologically speaking, non-violence, in my view is more than a simple refraining from. I say that it is also a “drawing closer”. It will not be immediately clear what I am proposing with this, but perhaps an example can show what I mean more clearly.

Let us say that I wish to act non-violently in a broader ideological sense. Let us say that I already practice non-violence as a literal refraining from violence. But let us say that I hold all others at a distance. Let us say that I apply the same sense of 'not harming' to all beings identically. Let us say that while I always refrain from direct harm, I never help. Is that all that is required for me to say, “yes, I am non-violent”? Or does this show us that understanding non-violence as solely a refraining from is lacking? If an elderly woman slips on the ice, it may not be violent to leave her there, but I would not say this is non-violent in the way that I mean it.

Intuitively, I find non-violence as a refraining from to be required but insufficient when I consider non-violence as a broader ideology. I believe that in some ways, non-violence requires that we also draw closer to others and to help them to draw closer to us. This is meaningfully different from “keeping handy” or “chasing down” others, both of which tend toward violence, both of which tend toward or embody the organization of other animals as objects for our use. A drawing closer is a movement made by one person toward another person. It involves acknowledgement of the other person as a someone rather than as a something to whom we owe something, but also as a person we would like to know better so that we might act better in relation to them.

If it is a form of violence to use others as our instruments (and I believe that it is), then we might also say that those who excel at violent behaviour know how to use their tools well, are good at chasing them down or careful to keep them handy when they need them. Further, we might say that those who promote violence study their victims (whether it is the bank robber, the serial murderer). It seems reasonable to suggest that those who are non-violent must draw closer to those with whom they wish to act non-violently; indeed, that they must study those they would wish to make the subjects of their non-violence.

So, if we wish to take non-violence seriously, although I do not think drawing closer to others is all that is required, nevertheless, I think it is best to cultivate an understanding of how our actions as individuals, as well as how they build the broader social relations or our societies harm those who are not just like us (and even those who are).

To be non-violent toward others, I would say, is at least to refrain from harming them unjustifiably, but that this also involves a drawing closer to them in both our thoughts and actions in order to cultivate a deeper understanding of what non-violence is in relation to them as other persons. This drawing closer reflects a kind of empathy.

Non-violence as a belonging with
But even if we agree that non-violence is a refraining from and a drawing closer, it is not immediately clear why these are intuitively appealing to me or how I understand them as adding up to something I describe as 'non-violence'. What does the intuitive impulse toward non-violence already assume about the world and about ourselves as agents within it? Following the stoics, I often describe my relationship with other animals (particularly those in my care) as a “belonging with.”

I say, for example, that Julius (one of the cats who lives with me) does not belong to me, he belongs with me. I know him and he knows me, but more important, he is a person who needs my care and for whom I have agreed to care. If he did not know me and were a complete stranger, he would still belong with me. I do not know many of my neighbors, and yet, we each make any number of decisions throughout the day to make one another's lives better (e.g, not blaring New Kids on the Block at 2am, making sure our smoke detectors work and so on).

And so, although I do not think merely thinking of others as belonging with us means all of our actions with respect to them are non-violent, I think perhaps that non-violence must involve some sense of belonging with in some way or another. Perhaps this may seem less clear than it ought.

Belonging with is an older idea, and although we often think of ourselves as belonging with others who are already close to us (friends, family, classmates, neighbors), the transformation of the world through modern information technology has had its effects on a traditional understanding of belonging with. Many of us in the West understand our relationship to others as a matter of individuals relating to individuals; that we are each discrete and separate, but I believe this to be problematic.

Whether or not we consider our inescapable relationship to others to be ontological in nature, certainly, the ecosystem makes this a matter of reality and not merely ideas. We cannot cut down a tree without dispossessing someone. To be non-violent, I would say, is to understand what this action means in grave detail, not simply as a set of words but as a knowledge of how this affects the world and the others who belong with us.

This is very far from the too-frequent projection of emotional needs hidden behind calls for justice for others; it involves cultivating a deeper sense that we belong with one another. The former calls us to use others as props in a personal theatre. But the latter draws us closer and causes us to refrain from harming others, even when it does not gratify us to do so. This belonging with is an acknowledgement of our togetherness in the world with others.

Returning to Simon
So, what does Simon the Sadist propose to us as a metaphor? As “violent”, Simon does three things: first, he refuses to 'refrain from' harming the dog. Second, he also refuses a 'drawing closer to' in the sense that the dog is not a subject with whom he feels any affinity, but rather an object he “keeps handy” so that he may use the dog for his own pleasure. Finally, he understands his relationship to the dog as a “belonging to” rather than a “belonging with”. S/he is a tool for his use.

But there are important questions that our focus on Simon as the villain leaves out: what is the dog's name? Let us call her Christine. What does Christine like to eat? What is Christine's favorite toy? Who were Christine's mother and father? It does not interest me as much to know who Simon is, or what he wants, as it would to know who Christine is and what it is she wants, what is good for her, and so on. Certainly, I have little desire to draw closer to Simon, but nevertheless, I do not feel as though I can say he does not belong with me.

As another animal, in some sense he does belong with me, but then, so does Christine. In fact, he is lucky in the sense that, in acknowledging what I owe Christine, I cannot avoid acknowledging what I also owe him for similar reasons. The dilemma that Simon poses is not a matter of regulating Simon's use of Christine; it is a matter of resolving a dispute between two persons to each of whom I owe something similar.

Posed with choosing between them, I have a greater emotional experience of owing something to Christine (even if I am not sure what it is I owe or why I owe it); indeed, I think if we are properly non-violent, we should all have that experience. But this also draws us to an understanding that the choice is not just between Simon or Christine, but between violence and non-violence as ideologies. Neither should we fail to speak in Christine's defense, nor can we use Simon as the instrument of our own emotional gratification.

In fact, looking at the length of human history, there is nothing novel in hating Simon; emotional retribution is as old as human history. Looking at contemporary social relations, as the constant of all oppression, there is nothing unique or transformative about violence; instead, the system relies on violence in order to sustain itself. To take non-violence seriously as an ideology is to understand this and to work toward a meaningfully different future by rejecting a continuous (and continuously violent) history for ourselves and for Christine. It is our solidarity that binds us to Christine, calls us to act radically and non-violently on her behalf rather than in respect to our own gratification.

Non-violence, veganism and animal solidarity
As Francione proposes, Simon is breaking a rule we almost all agree is wrong, but why do we have this rule? In my view, our belonging with others, our empathy toward and our limiting ourselves with respect to other animals do not constitute an ideology; the first is only a statement that describes the world. The second is an emotional state, and the last is only a behavior.

Instead, I would suggest that solidarity with other animals is the ideology that adds up our belonging with other animals as a kind of togetherness in the world, our drawing closer to help them when we can and our refraining from harming them in a way that makes sense to us. Indeed, solidarity seems to me to be the word that best describes our togetherness with other animals (including human beings) as we all try to live in the world. If our actions and words do not stem from a sincere sense of solidarity, then I do not think we are properly non-violent.

It is our sense of solidarity with Christine that makes it clearer to us that what Simon is doing is wrong: we understand that other animals belong with us, we wish to draw closer to them, and this turns us (no matter how minimally) in the direction of refraining from harming them. Many people already have this sense deep within them. The task of vegan education is to blow upon the embers of this solidarity.

I do not think that we can be fully non-violent without understanding ourselves to be in a relationship of solidarity with other animals. It is this solidarity that it is most important to cultivate in ourselves and others. A limit of the will, empathy, and an understanding that we are together with other animals are the parts of the sum of this solidarity, but the sum is also more than the parts.

From education to transformation
Personal change is not necessarily political change, although it seems to me that the latter is impossible without the former. Theory is the brush that helps us to paint a metaphor of 'the world' on the sky, but love is the fire that transforms it. The former we make; the latter makes us. So, when I propose that non-violence is a refraining from, a drawing closer to and a belonging with, I am at once proposing both a sketch of the world, a vision of its transformation, and finally, a set of tactics by which we might do more than merely imagine that transformation, we might realize it instead.

When we consider our relationship to all other sentient animals, when we really consider fully the contours of what non-violence poses to us, we know, if only intuitively, that non-violence presents us with, and calls us to, more than just a refraining from. It draws us to a transformation of social relations that is unrivalled in human history. My liberation is not their liberation (or vice versa). Our states of liberation from and our modes of resistance to Capital, Empire, Patriarchy and other regimes of power that oppress us all may be very different.

Nevertheless, our respective liberations are unmistakably bound up together. Veganism is a baseline and emancipation a milestone. Veganism is the least we do to act non-violently with respect to other animals, and once nonhuman animals are emancipated, the struggle toward justice does not end; it merely takes on new shape and possibility. For those would prefer a simpler explanation, I think this blog is an excellent example:

The importance of adoption; there are so many Christines
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-importance-of-adoption-there-are-so-many-christines/

Abolitionist veganism proposes to us a basis for personal and broad political change, as well as a clear strategy and set of tactics to help other animals, the ecosystem on which we all depend, and ourselves. If you're not vegan, did you know that it has never been easier to go vegan? If you are not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

The World Peace Diet hits #1. Can we all please promote veganism now?

2010-03-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Will Tuttle’s The World Peace Diet hit number 1 yesterday on Amazon.com. Today, it’s number 11 (Amazon updates hourly), but still, this was a serious feat. I like to research questions to inform my views (and I like data as a general matter). So, I did some quick key word search at Amazon and at Google.

As I understand "best-seller", what that means is that for part of the day yesterday, Will’s book was the best-selling book in Amazon’s catalog. That means his book was more popular (briefly) than Karl Rove’s book, more popular (briefly) than Michael Pollan’s book, Alicia Silverstone’s book The Kind Diet (which has also done very well) and about 10,000,000 other books that Amazon sells according to Internet Retailer in terms of sales.

There are 2,621 books that turn up with the search term ‘vegan’ at Amazon.com. That may not seem exorbitant but there only 16,998 that return for "feminism" and only 936 return for "transgender". Not all of these books are about veganism or necessarily pro-vegan (key word searches aren't that reliable). But there are a wide variety of books about veganism available to the market today. The more important question is: who’s making these books financially successful? Who's taking the financial gamble to decide that these books are ready for public purchase?

I don't think it's an enormous but strangely undiscovered continent of vegans. It’s far more likely to be a generally non-vegan public who are curious about these issues and non-vegan publishers who see a clear opportunity to sell books to them. And it’s not just books and people who buy books.

Veganism, animal use, animal rights, and animal liberation figure prominently in North American popular culture. I’m not talking about C-SPAN. I’m talking about prime-time television shows such as Family Guy, The OC, and Bones (among others) on FOX (hardly a network known for its progressive values).

Google returns 14,500,000 returns for the word “vegan”. Not all of those returns will be pro-vegan, but it is obviously a matter of public discussion. For comparison “buffy the vampire slayer” returns 3,370,000 and “everybody loves Raymond” (a show whose popularity I could never figure out) returns 85,000. “Olympics” returns 78,100,000. I wouldn't say there is anything scientific here, but clearly, veganism is in the public sphere.

The truth is, we don't need to keep veganism in the closet, and we don't need antics and sensationalism to draw public attention to veganism. Public attention is already increasingly on us and on the important questions of the ethical nature of our relationship to other animals, the role that animal agriculture plays in environmental destruction and the role that animal foods play in human health.

The public gets it (and if they don't, all the more reason to educate them clearly and consistently). But this raises a serious question about what value antics and sensationalism have, except to draw attention to specific animal welfare brands like HSUS and PeTA to distinguish them in a quickly overcrowding market.

If the public’s ready to hear about veganism, why aren’t animal advocacy groups talking about veganism?

Although not books that promote veganism, the popularity of Michael Pollan’s books and the popularity of Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, Eating Animals, points to the public desire to think more about their food and their relationship with nonhuman animals generally.

And yet, prominent animal advocacy groups regularly insist that the public is not ready to hear about veganism and doesn’t want to discuss its food choices in ethical terms. Clearly that isn’t the case. The rise of "humane" labeling schemes and “happy” meat makes it quite clear that people are willing not just to have a dialogue about these issues, not just to change their behaviours, but are willing to pay extra to feel better about their choices.

Of course, it doesn’t necessarily follow from this that there are millions and millions of people who are just waiting to go vegan. But surely, they’ll never go vegan unless we ask them to do so, make it clear to them why we think they should and, most important, help them to do so. Education is more than just handing someone a flier or dressing up in a chicken suit.

More important, that’s what makes consistent, non-confrontational and supportive education more necessary than ever. If people don’t understand veganism or abolition, that last thing anyone should do is respond to their questions either with hostility, defensiveness, violent posturing, or with lukewarm indications that "veganism is really difficult but donations are easy!" or that veganism is a personal choice like choosing between Coke and Pepsi.

We can educate clearly and consistently without making people feel bad about themselves. In fact, veganism is terrifically good news for people who want to change their lives for the better, for other animals, for themselves and other human beings (as animals) and for the environment (as the place where animals, including human beings, live). Why not talk to others about it?

Clearly, the public is hungry to learn more about these issues, which raises a serious question: when are animal advocacy organizations going to come out of the single-issue/better treatment closet and promote veganism and abolition? Even with their curiosity, many people are still hesitant to accept that animal use is unnecessary to be healthy, happy, for the environment or other reasons. It’s time (indeed, it is well past time) that every animal advocate start to educate the public that animal use is unnecessary and unjustifiable.

If you’re not vegan yet, did you know it has never been easier to go vegan? There are alternatives in virtually every grocery store in North America, Web sites, discussion forums, books, magazines, videos and more all available to help you make the transition. If you’re not abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com or from my previous articles.

Only promoting veganism promotes veganism; some notes on single-issue campaigns

2010-03-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

Jo (hi, Jo!) and I are often asked why AnimalEmancipation does not support single issue campaigns. With that in mind, we have written some notes on the various problems we see with SICs, some of which are political and some of which are practical. We hope that other advocates will find them useful as they think about how best they can help other animals and organize their work accordingly. As always, we do not want anyone to stop working. However, we do encourage people to focus their work on abolitionist veganism and shelter/sanctuary/adoption work that makes it unequivocal, unambiguous and explicit to the public that all sentient animals are moral persons.

SICs are defended by advocates in various ways, and rather than write a 5,000 word essay elaborating each (the first draft of this blog was actually a 5,000 word essay), we've chopped it down to dealing with those arguments in defense of SICs that are most problematic. I know people are mad at me for not just promoting veganism but also encouraging advocates to educate themselves. But I hope this blog won't offend too many people!

“SICs raise awareness.” This may be true, but not all education is the right kind of education. For example, welfare organizations have historically miseducated the public about what we owe other animals in terms of abolition of their property status and the moral necessity of veganism. It does not follow that a campaign that raises awareness raises the right awareness, and in a speciesist society, SICs tend to further entrench speciesist paradigms. Most people assume that animal use is perfectly fine. If we tell them fur is not fine, they are very unlikely to connect that to veganism. The best way to avoid this problem is to address all use from an abolitionist vegan standpoint up-front. We can always address specific uses once the primary 'animals have a right not to be used as property; go vegan!' message has been imparted.

As a corollary, “advocates shouldn't criticize other advocates.” This is a standard chestnut that gets floated every time someone disagrees with someone else in the advocacy community; it is an effort to dismiss substantive criticism. I read it often in defense of SICs. It does not follow that any campaign, even a campaign that is strongly abolitionist and vegan in nature, of necessity raises the right awareness. We should always critically evaluate all education activity to ensure that it is both morally correct (in terms of our intents as the educators) and understood by the audience (even if they do not agree with the message). I am not proposing we should spend hours debating what color to paint the bike shed. I am saying that no animal advocate should ever consider his/her/zir work to be above criticism.

“SICs help animals in the here and now.” This is also problematic. First, not all SICs are successful. Attempts to ban fur are among the longest running failures in SIC history. Second, if they are successful, many are skirted. Chicago's very short-lived ban on foie gras didn't free geese; it encouraged businesses to sell foie gras illegally or to give it away. The resulting press and giveaways introduced foie gras to a whole new customer base that probably would have never tried foie gras if it had not been for the ban. Third, even if they are successful and not skirted, they are often local and they do not necessarily free any animals. Animals will simply be repurposed or sold for other uses or to different geographies were particular uses are permitted.

If we wish to help animals in the here and now, vegan education is the best way to do so (c.f., my previous blog); shelter, rescue and adoption work are also excellent ways to help other animals. I am not saying there are no moral complexities to nonhuman animal solidarity work of this kind; I am saying that if you want to help a nonhuman animal in the here and now, don't waste time with an SIC. Head down to your local shelter and save someone's life. No balaclava or bucket of red paint is required.

“People will make up any old excuse not to go vegan.” Many people do rationalize their nonveganism in various ways. However, this is not an effective defense of single issue campaigns. In fact, SICs, like other forms of regulating animal use, are likely to send the message that the moral problem that animal use poses can be solved by regulating or modifying that use rather than ending use. Many people will not 'go feminist' overnight. It often takes a lot of education to explain sexism, racism and other forms of violence. So it is with speciesism. Because work is difficult, it does not follow that we should not undertake it.

“SICs promote vegan values without mentioning veganism.” This is very problematic (and so, a longer discussion is required). Although an advocate's veganism may encourage him/her/zir to promote an end to specific uses, the fact is that the public is not vegan. It's not about advocates' values; our task is to educate the public. “Not not promoting veganism” is not the same as promoting veganism clearly and unequivocally. More important, as Roger Yates argues, speciesism is an ideology (because I'm a Gramsciist, I would say it is a set of social relations motivated by different ideologies, but as per my last post, abolitionists often disagree). Regardless, if speciesism is a coherent ideology (or a coherent set of relations that involve similar ideologies), then the best way to fight speciesism is with a coherent anti-speciesist ideology, not with confusing piece-meal approaches that may actually reinforce speciesism socially.

For example, let's say I think it's a moral imperative to promote atheism. Should I start a single issue campaign to ban Communion (a particular ritual in a body of rituals in one particular subgroup of a particular faith in a world of many faiths) or should I focus on explaining atheism to people? Obviously, the latter is going to be both the right and the more effective thing to do, and so it is with veganism. Most people only have one religion; they use nonhuman animals in hundreds of ways daily. As an advocate, I may have a specific conversation with a specific person about cheese, eggs, leather, circuses or other animal products or uses, but as an advocate, I always make it clear that veganism is what is most important to nonhuman animals as moral persons with the right not to be used as property. That is substantially different from creating a campaign around a singe issue.

"SICs that don't negotiate treatment necessarily make it clear that we are opposed to use.” This is simply untrue. In a deeply speciesist society like ours, the general take away from an SIC (at best) will be that it is wrong to use/treat that animal in that particular way not that it is wrong to use other animals and that we should all go vegan. Moreover, if we want people to go vegan, we should just ask them to do so upfront and help them to do so. When we are educating others, there is no value to miseducating them first (with an unclear SIC) and then “properly” educating them second (by educating them about veganism after a while). Abolitionist groups should make it explicitly clear that they oppose animal use because nonhuman animals are moral persons.

“SICs end the property status of nonhuman animals." This is also untrue. A given SIC could call for an end to property status of particular animals or particular species (this would still be problematic from a speciesist standpoint). However, the vast majority do not. Instead, they almost all focus on bans on a particular use/treatment. Even if these types of bans are wildly successful, they do not free any particular nonhuman animals. For example, if I were a slave, "banning" my use for dishwashing would not free me (it would not end my status as property). A ban on my washing dishes would not end my use, it would just regulate my use. I could still be used as a slave for other purposes. Campaigns that regulate use, regulate use; they don't end it. By definition, abolitionists focus on campaigns that promote an end to animal use in light of the moral personhood and rights of animals, not campaigns that regulate that use in light of human prejudices. It's certainly possible that some incremental changes may 'erode property status', but it is not clear why there is an advantage to invest time and resources into dicey campaigns that may not erode property status (and that's if they are successful, which they may not be).

“SICs help bring people into the movement.” HSUS has a large campaign around 'taking action' that leads people to believe that doing anything other than going vegan means they are helping nonhuman animals. SICs may bring new people into the movement, but so does vegan education. Moreover, given that SICs often miseducate the public, what this results in are new advocates who miseducate the public further. Tricking people into the movement in this way does not provide a sound social basis for change based on a coalition approach. It lays the groundwork for future fragmentation when the 'coalitions' that were improperly formed split apart because there is no common ideology that opposes animal use, supports animal rights, supports abolition and sees veganism as the moral baseline for that movement. Reaching out to people is very important, but in honest and effective ways based on truly shared values.

"Without SICs most animals will be wiped out." Almost a direct quote from a long-standing but very misguided advocate in defense of an anti-fur campaign (without even a glimmer of understanding that 'most animals' are actually arthropods). This is problematic for a few reasons. First, many animal species face extinction generally as a natural process, and many more face it as a direct result of animal agriculture/animal use. The notion that we could always stop all of the former is simply wrong. The notion that we could stop many of the latter extinctions without stopping animal agriculture is very unlikely.

Second, these kinds of campaigns, intentionally or not, suggest that the lives of cuddly, intelligent or otherwise 'human like' mammals who face a highly publicly visible extinction have more value that the lives of individual animals who are in no danger of extinction, who are not like us and/or about whom the public doesn't really care (e.g., many arthropods). That's specieist on its face. Third, we will not stop anthropocentric use of the ecosystem until human beings see other animals as moral persons and rights-holders. If we take the extinction of species and our shared habitats seriously, the answer is not SICs, but abolitionist vegan education.

“The Endangered Speciest Act gives nonhuman animals rights.” This is also untrue. ESA regulates the use of nonhuman animals as state property. The treatment as free-living state property and in a vivisector's lab is different, but property is property. Defending campaigns that regulate the use of state property are as problematic in terms of speciesism as happy meat campaigns are, if we take nonhuman animals to be moral persons. ESA protects some animals – as resources – for various reasons. It does not confer anything like legal or moral personhood upon nonhuman animals. Even if it did, it would still be problematic and speciesist insofar as it focuses on animals only in terms of their importance to the state and human beings more generally. Francione has a great Tweet on this here.

“Talking about specific uses is an effective gateway to vegan education.” This is a bit problematic, although the least problematic of all of the objections to SICs. It assumes (to a certain degree) that we have to ease people into a discussion of veganism. In some cases, this may make sense, and others not. However a sustained focus on SICs is unnecessary to introduce people to veganism in North America. Veganism and animal use are all over the place in popular culture these days. Animal use and liberation has figured prominently on two prime-time Fox television programs (The O.C. and Family Guy), as well as in the New York Times, the Guardian and other highly public vehicles. Talking about a specific use may be effective in certain specific social circumstances (c.f., the previous paragraph). However, a mass campaign that focuses on a specific use is more likely to be confusing, the available evidence suggests that is is completely unnecessary and finally, we're going to have to educate people about veganism, why not just do it up-front?

“SICs encourage advocates to get active locally.” This may be true, but it is a 20 year-old solution to a problem, the scope of which has been significantly reshaped by two things: economic globalization and the Internet. SICs may make sense in very, very specific, imaginable contexts, but SICs are not intuitive to younger advocates for a lot of good reasons. Younger advocates know that the real battle today is not with the local Mom and Pop Meats and Furs, but between international cartels: huge and sprawling agribusinesses with global supply chains, agribusinesses like HSUS that sell certification schemes for "humane" animal products as well as indulgences to a nonvegan public (as well as their various, increasingly international, partners), and abolitionist vegan advocates collaborating internationally. The boom in "humane" animal products makes it clear that people are already trying to come to grips with the moral problem of animal use big picture. In that context, it is little surprise that SICs don't resonate with younger activists who can write a pamphlet and ask a vegan friend in Guatemala to translate it and hand it out there. Besides, people can be just as active locally by promoting veganism.

So, with all of these problems to SICs, it remains a serious question why organizations still engage in them except insofar as they find it beneficial to them. I will not speculate that it is entirely an attempt to remain relevant in an industry in which HSUS and its growing cartel of humane brands is rapidly sucking up donors and volunteers. That kind of opportunism assumes a coherent strategy that not all animal advocacy businesses clearly have. It may also be confusion, an imaginative misunderstanding of how SICs actually work, or a misunderstanding of the struggle on the ground today or other reasons. But none of this would be substantive enough for AE to back an SIC, and we do not think it is sufficient justification for any abolitionist.

If a campaign does not support the rights of nonhuman animals not to be used as resources and does not support veganism, Jo and I do not support it. If an organization does not engage in explicitly abolitionist work, then we do not support that organization. That doesn't mean we cannot have a meaningful (if critical) dialogue with other advocates who do support these kinds of campaigns and organizations. In fact, we often do. But we make it clear where we stand, both to the public and to other advocates that we only support what is clearly abolitionist vegan.

If you are not vegan, you should go vegan today! If you are not an abolitionist but want to learn more about the approach, you can do so at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

When it comes to the truth, I am a broken record; the song is: "you should go vegan!"

2010-03-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

“I am for the truth, no matter who tells it” –Malcolm X

I am often surprised by the lack of sincerity and the underhandedness of many of the 'would-be figureheads' in the animal advocacy community. Misrepresentation has become a business model. But in spite of their protestations about “understanding the differences between welfare and abolition”, so many of them seem to get it so very wrong. If people disagree with our views, that's one thing. There are serious and important differences between a regulationist approach that many figureheads and businesses take in our community and an abolitionist approach. But when they simply fabricate things, that's intellectually and morally irresponsible.

I understand, for example, that Mylène Oullet is now being personally attacked for her blog on vegetarianism over at My Face is On Fire. Of course, I am in favor of critical discussion, but when advocates of vegetarianism put forward criticisms that are deeply misguided, it is difficult to take that too seriously; when they put forward things they know to be patently untrue, it’s disingenuous. It’s also sad for me to see some 'would-be figureheads' take an inventive approach to criticism in an effort to resuscitate what are obviously failed academic careers (not naming any names…).

More to the point, some common untruths:

'Abolitionists do not care about helping nonhuman animals in the here and now.' This is untrue on its face. First, abolitionist vegan education helps nonhuman animals in the here and now both by helping people to transition to veganism and by laying the groundwork for abolition. If someone were beating me to death with a pipe and someone spoke in my defense to try to get them to stop doing so, s/h/ze would certainly be helping me in the ‘here and now’.

Second, Joanne and I live with several rescued cats, and many of my colleagues personally engage in shelter, sanctuary and other kinds of adoption work. If I were left for dead on the side of the road, and someone picked me up, took me and cared for me, s/h/ze would certainly be helping me in the here and now. There are, of course very substantive and very important differences between what regulationists and what abolitionists believe we owe other animals and how best to help other animals. These essays provides some ideas on those differences.

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-four-problems-of-animal-welfare-in-a-nutshell/
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/11/caring-for-other-animals-does-personal.html

In the interests of full-disclosure, I only wrote the second one.

'Abolitionists just repeat uncritically whatever Gary L. Francione says.' On its face, this is both untrue and it is disingenuous. First, there is serious and often difficult debate (over fine details) in the abolitionist community over the nature of our work, what exactly we owe other animals, how best to achieve abolition tactically and other topics. Indeed, some of my colleagues are “vegan abolitionists” and some of them are “abolitionist vegans”. There are a couple of discussion forums that focus on discussing abolitionist ideas with dozens of members.

Second, there are often tactical differences. Some might put a greater emphasis on economic activity (e.g., by starting coops that reduce the cost of plant-based foods or by starting a business that provides plant-based alternatives), some might focus on starting sanctuaries of their own or just working with established rescues and shelters. Many other advocates focus on podcasts, blogs, on in-person outreach, potlucks, street theatre, youtube videos and other expressions of creative and nonviolent activism. Joanne (hi, Joanne!) and I run a forum, create posters and other education materials, but we’re a vibrant and diverse community, no matter what our opponents claim.

It varies. A lot.

But what if we all repeated the exact same thing? So what? If 1,000,000 people spoke clearly and with one voice to say that: “Animals have a right not to be used as property. Did you know that going vegan is easer than ever and that it is the right thing to do for nonhuman animals?” how would that be a bad thing? I’m sincerely puzzled by this constant and strange “criticism”. In fact, this kind of criticism is just a way for our opponents to try to draw us off message, and to silence us. Don’t be silenced! Activism isn't just a matter of being original: it's about doing what's right most effectively.

'Abolitionists eviscerate activism.' I’m not even sure what exactly this claim means, but again, I think it’s also untrue on its face. Abolitionists engage in critical discussion in order to encourage other advocates to engage in the best work that they can. That means, first, understanding what it is we owe other animals morally (and that’s veganism and respecting their rights not to be used as if they were our resources, etc.), and second how we may act virtuously on the behalf of other animals as the moral persons that they are (e.g., promoting veganism and abolition, conducting and encouraging shelter, adoption and rescue work).

Because we disagree, it does not follow that we want others to stop working. As an abolitionist advocate, I simply encourage people to do the most meaningful work they can for nonhuman animals. That means focusing on abolishing (rather than regulating) their use as our slaves, promoting abolitionist vegan education and with personal adoption, rescue and sanctuary work (in AE’s literature, we often refer to this as solidarity work).

'BUTOMGYOUMENTIONGARYLFRANCIONEINEVERYBLOG!!!!11111' Sure, but as a matter of intellectual honesty, it’s required ethically and professionally for me to do so. I should actually cite him more and the citations I provide should be more careful and specific, but I take my blog to be a work of journalism and not an academic piece. Still, we should always give credit to others for their ideas.

But let’s examine the argument in terms of its logical consequences a little further: if someone else comes up with a really good idea (e.g., the wheel, sliced bread), am I supposed to pretend like I came up with it myself? Should I pursue bad or impractical ideas (e.g., the rectangular wheel, shredded bread) just so that I can feel like I’m being different? In fact, what our opponents propose as their “deep and critical thinkings” are often the kind of mystical and misguided proposals that we should all agree have no place in any justice movement, let alone the struggle to end the last great legal slavery.

I don’t understand why our opponents feel the need to try to belittle abolitionist advocates personally for their work, but I know that it coincides surprisingly often with an inability to engage substantively with our views. I guess if someone can't knock my dress, they insult my shoes. As misguided as they may be, it would be a huge step forward if other figures simply stopped lying and engaged in the discussion in a principled and thoughtful way.

If you are not yet vegan, try not to let mystical, self-appointed figureheads and the opportunism of welfare business put you off. As Francione suggests, veganism is the most important thing we can do with respect to other animals. If you are not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach from my earlier articles or at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Roasted vegetable and hummus sandwich with fries

2010-03-04T16:51:00.000-08:00

Lulz, I posted this to the wrong blog. This post is here:

http://www.veganimprov.com/2010/03/roasted-vegetable-and-hummus-sandwich.html

More animal rights/go vegan stickers

2010-02-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

For those who are into stickers, another batch. These are all designed for the 1.5" circle size, except for the obvious 3x5 one. Feel free to download, print and distribute. More materials (e.g., posters, fliers, etc.) are available here:

http://www.box.net/shared/o2trrjs7b0

Nonviolence as the basis of personal and systemic social change

2010-02-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

This week, at Opposing Views, many animal advocates raised their voices in a clear and spirited defense of other animals and nonviolence. It reminded me how important it is to other animals that we must each be bold and courageous in the struggle against pessimism about our capacity to change the world nonviolently; we must each be clear and steadfast in a positive approach that emphasizes moral dialogue as the basis for ending the slavery and respecting the moral personhood of other animals.

I am, of course, not talking about self-defense or the rule of law. I am talking about how North Americans (as some of the most privileged people on earth) choose to advocate for other animals as a rule. Our ends and our means will be most effective when they are complementary. Our objectives of personal and systemic change will be more effective when they flow from the same strategy and the same tactics: personal and systemic nonviolence, organization and education.

Many of the comments encouraged me to think more about how I could make nonviolence a more central part of my life. If I would not intentionally harm a ladybug (which I would not, because as many of my more regular readers know, I take other animals seriously, wherever they live, just because they are sentient), then it only seems reasonable to oppose all violence, all intimidation, all actions that harm others (and all actions that call me to be both less than myself and to be a less effective advocate for all other animals), when it is simple for me to do so. If I wish to be clear for the ladybug and her rights and her personhood, then I must be clear for the rights and personhood of all (and that includes human beings, even when I very strongly disagree with their views and actions).

I encourage all advocates to consider this more thoroughly and to devote some time to considering how they may incorporate nonviolence more thoroughly into their daily lives. Some thoughts maybe be just plain wrong, but thinking by itself never really hurt anybody. Anyhow, some wonderful and articulate examples that I wanted to share with those of you who are not interested in the often acrimonious debates about violence in the advocacy movement from the discussion at Opposing Views:

“I use an approach that doesn't compromise on the moral message, and I urge all advocates to do so, just as human rights advocates don't compromise on the moral message. Anything less by us is perpetuating speciesism, and as speciesism is the cause of the violence , perpetuating it is not the answer. So when I talk to people, I make sure to talk about our moral obligation to animals. […] I love tabling for abolition. I have fantastic results on the street using abolitionist education, focusing on non-violence and never, ever, compromising on the moral issue."
-Elizabeth Collins

“Putting aside the moral/spiritual aspects of violence, those who promote violence are deeply confused about the basic economics of animal exploitation. Institutional users engage in animal exploitation because the public demands it. Institutional users are, for the most part, indifferent to whether they are selling beef or bananas. They will put their capital wherever they’ll get the best return.”
-Gary L. Francione

“Violence can never work as a tactic. It is also unethical and inconsistent with veganism . We cannot expect to be taken seriously when we voice our opposition to the violence inflicted on animals every day if we ourselves are prepared to use violent means in order to achieve our goals. Using violence as a means to end violence is no different from the idea of the State condemning people to death in order to teach that killing is wrong.”
-KerryW

“Advocating for animal rights means rejecting violence . It is an affirmation of peace. The animal rights movement should be moving to end conflict between humans and nonhumans. Violence can never achieve this.”
-Carol Hughes

“Violence is nothing new. It's a dead end. It creates future enemies and strengthens public empathy for industry. Ultimately, those who engage in or support violence either spend their days supporting someone in prison or they wind up in prison themselves.”
-Trisha Roberts

“If a fast- food joint worker drops a hamburger patty on the floor, that doesn't mean that one less burger will be sold that day. As long as there is a customer waving a fistful of money at the cash register, another patty will be retrieved and thrown on the grill. If you remove one animal from the cycle, as long as there is a meat wholesaler waving a fistful of money at the producer (since he has someone on his own end waving a fistful of money at him, eager to sell the various body parts to his own individual customer--the consumer who drives the demand) another animal is dropped into the cycle.”
-Mylene Ouellet

“I'd like to add my small but earnest voice to those championing the necessity for nonviolence. Veganism, in the form that made itself indelibly clear to me, is at its core premised on the principle of nonviolence; it seems pretty obvious, and vitally important, to me that its praxis ought to match the theory. I believe that animal rights advocacy is coherent only when it fights for the rights of ALL animals -- and that includes human animals.”
-Nathan Gilmore

“We must work to assert the moral personhood of animals, and a call to moral action cannot be won by the immorality of violent force.”
-veganethos

“To focus on institutional exploiters doesn't make sense particularly because, for them, exploitation is what they make a living off (and more); that is, to them, there is a vested interest at stake in that their economic existence is being targeted, whereas for the consumers, there is not.”
-Karin Hilpisch

There were many other excellent and thoughtful comments (I also commented here and there myself).

Many of the comments exemplified the fact that abolitionist veganism stands for the emancipation of nonhuman animals, for the rights of animals (human and non) not to be used as property, and for the restoration of their moral personhood. If a group we're working with, or a book we're reading, or a figurehead we're following encourages us to focus on anything but the most creative, the most nonviolent, and the most effective change for other animals (and that's abolitionist vegan education), we should ask why.

No one should stop working, but we should all focus on what helps other animals most. Many figureheads and businesses are calling themselves abolitionists these days, but abolitionists have always stood for the unconditional end to the use of nonhuman animals as our property by the means most effective. That's talking to other people about veganism and the need to abolish the property status of nonhuman animals. I know talking to other people (unless it's on the Internet) terrifies many vegans, but talking to people about change is not only what's right, it's also what's effective.

If you are not yet vegan, today is the day to start. If you are not an abolitionist, but want to learn more about the approach, please read my previous articles or visit abolitionistapproach.com to learn more.

New AnimalEmancipation stickers in various sizes

2010-02-12T07:25:00.001-08:00

The following are just small sizes (1.5" round stickers, 2x3s and 3x5s). AE has a number of larger pieces available for download and printing here (or available through the widget no the right):

http://www.box.net/shared/o2trrjs7b0

1.5" Round stickers

2x3 (Business card size) Stickers

3x5 Stickers

Family Guy and shifting public perceptions of animal use

2010-02-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

Forget Victor Schonfeld's piece in the Guardian, forget Gary Steiner's piece in the New York Times, forget figure skaters like Johnny Weir: when Family Guy (an often remarkably reactionary show in a prime-time Sunday slot on FOX, an often remarkably reactionary network) addresses the issue of animal use, it's unquestionably a public phenomenon. Watch the video as a character on prime-time TV on one of the most popular networks discusses animal testing, veal and other issues:

http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/11/family-guy-takes-on-animal-rights-video/

This is not a new clip, but one that appeared some time ago. It is not even the first time that animal use has ever been discussed on Family Guy. And yet advocates continue to convince themselves that we have to lift a public veil to convince people that when they use animals for food, clothing or entertainment that they are using animals for food clothing or entertainment.

Folks, no offense (seriously), but the secret is out. And even if it were not, the problem is not just how we treat other animals, or which other animals we use, it's getting people to care, to change their behaviours, to stop using all animals, not just to improve their treatment and keep using them. That's a problem that is best solved by vegan education and I think people are fundamentally misunderstanding the amount of work that it involves. Popular culture is already outstripping the antiquated tactics and positions of the animal advocacy movement. A lot of folks have done great work challenging the received (and too often copy-and-paste repeated) dogmas of single issue campaigning in the last couple of weeks.

http://challengeoppression.com/2010/02/02/do-domesticated-animals-need-their-skin-any-less-than-exotics-um-no/

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/is-every-campaign-a-single-issue-campaign/

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/single-issue-campaigns-and-in-human-nonhuman-contexts/

http://my-face-is-on-fire.blogspot.com/2010/01/fur.html

Regardless of organizational affiliations, of labels, of how we may feel, or of how emotionally satisfied a single issue campaign may make us, the facts are on the ground: single issue campaigns that ban specific types of treatment do not free other animals from being property; and when a figure skater like Johnny Weir's highly public response to requests to not wear fur is that it's silly because he wears leather skates, these kinds of campaigns are not educating the public, they're making animal advocates look like they are remarkably out of touch with public awareness and understanding of the issues. More important, they are laying the groundwork for agribusiness and its much more organized and much better funded lobby to poke holes in our arguments that anyone who watches television can easily understand.

I am not saying we don't have to educate. I'm saying now more than ever, it is important for us to educate the public correctly, by making it clear: animals have a right not to be used as property and that veganism (as the practice of avoiding actions that contribute to the suffering or exploitation of all animals -- and here, all means all) is the moral baseline of that view.

I am not trying to offend anyone, but if the public gets the fact that single issue advocacy is problematic and confusing, why don't we? If people will use any excuse to avoid not using other animals and going vegan, why should we invest so much time and effort to hand them a series of excuses on a platter? As Francione argues, the problem is not treatment; it's use. The issue is not asking one guy to not wear fur to one occasion or insisting that he be a level-5 vegan over night or risk excommunication forever. This is a false choice.

Education is often a long, steady and involved process that should always be conducted with humility, sincerity, in good faith and without confrontation. Further, we can educate people about specific uses within a of veganism, abolition and solidarity at the same time. I still have yet to hear or read a reasonable justification of why every campaign that advocates engage in should not have at least some mention of the moral necessity of veganism and a call to abolish the property status of all animals.

The question we must ask ourselves as a community is: why aren't we doing this? And what does it cost us in terms of our credibility, our opportunities and what does it cost nonhuman animals when we refuse to do so? Whether we want to face the facts or not, the public is already moving forward on these issues without us. The happy meat industry is already well-established. The public is ready to hear an abolitionist vegan message, and it makes me wonder why animal advocates seem so reluctant to give them one.

There are certainly a wealth of abolitionist vegan materials available to anyone who wants them. And I have included one of AE's more popular pieces in this blog. I never ask anyone to stop working; just to focus on work that will make a serious difference to other animals and that's abolitionist vegan education and solidarity (whether it's personal adoption, shelter or sanctuary work). Animals living in slavery or waiting to be enslaved need their advocates to unite behind a consistent, coherent and tactically organized program that seeks their unequivocal, unconditional and immediate emancipation. If we want unity, fine. Why not unify around a consistent, clear and meaningful praxis that will make a serious difference for other animals and one that the writers at FOX won't be able to pick apart so easily?

If you are not already vegan, you should go vegan today. If you are not abolitionist, but want to learn more about the approach, you can do so by reading my previous articles or at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Stop violence poster in grayscale

2010-02-03T07:25:00.001-08:00

A couple of people have asked for a greyscale version of the Stop Violence poster. So, here it is in grayscale for legal sized (8.5" x 14") paper.

Stop violence and got nonviolence? posters

2010-02-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

Joanne and I have designed a new poster that speaks more broadly to veganism, nonviolence and its relationship to other forms of oppression. One of the criticisms of the animal welfare movement is its too frequent focus on bourgeois politics and, just as often, it's reactionary take on sexism and racism. I certainly agree with that, and as an abolitionist and a vegan, I think all forms of irrational prejudice are a form of violence. I have also included an older poster that I did for Gary L. Francione, whose pioneering work has provided the basis for mine.

So, Joanne and I put together a poster that we hope speaks to some of those issues. The design is for US Legal sized paper, but if there is demand, we may produce for international paper sizes. A few people have asked about translations of our materials. Since we're in Canada, eh, we typically do French translations but it's Quebec French. We will translate into any language assuming that a translation can be provided.

I also want to thank people for the even more overwhelmingly positive response to our previous poster. Literally, a couple of dozen people commented positively and I'm glad so many of you like the work and are willing to help get the message out with retweets, Facebook shares, and in person. It's important to talk to as many people as we can about veganism and not all of us are equally experienced with doing so. Never be afraid to agree with other advocates when it is right to do so or to speak out with your own ideas when you don't agree.

Today, the world is organized around violence and nonviolence proposes the largest social transformation in human history. Oppressions are held in place by violent means. We must tell our opponents clearly and unequivocally that we will fight on our terms. We must tell them that we are not afraid. We must tell them that we will not accept violence from them. We must make it clear that public discussion and change is the only acceptable way that they can meet our demands for the unequivocal, unconditional and immediate freedom of other animals (human and non).

We do not need corporations, bureaucracies and figureheads who want to line their pockets with donations while paying their presidents and CEOs six figure salaries. We must fight for all and for each individual with veganism and solidarity work through anti-oppression, adoption, shelter or sanctuary work. Love is not a single issue; it is all issues addressed with the single most powerful word in any language. Don't let anyone tell you different, don't let yourself or another advocate be bullied, and don't let your voices be silenced.

If you are not vegan, you should go vegan today. If you are not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com or by reading my previous articles.

My voice can't be silenced. I say, go vegan!

2010-01-31T08:07:00.001-08:00

I want to thank everyone for the overwhelmingly positive response to my previous blog (as well as to the blog before the last one). I was surprised and very touched by some of the comments of complete strangers.

After I clicked 'publish post' yesterday, I started the clock to see how long it would take for another animal "advocate" to attack me personally for promoting veganism consistently. It took about 7 hours. The comments were the typical silly sarcasm that denote an inability to respond substantively to the issues that my blog raised. I would have preferred to be wrong, but it is what it is, and it was a tiny trickle compared with the otherwise remarkably positive response.

But I do want to take a second to underscore what vegan means: veganism is not just about food animals and it never has been. I don't know why some advocates keep repeating the argument (over and over and over) that veganism is just about food animals. I am not trying to offend anyone, but this reflects a serious misunderstanding of what veganism means.

But this argument also reflects a serious misunderstanding of how animals are used: in many cases, the same species is used for labor, for food, sometimes for entertainment, and so on. Geese are a good example. They're used for food, for clothing and often for entertainment. The argument that we should just address "only food animals" with veganism is misguided. We should speak for all sentient species as much as we possibly can at every turn and veganism does that.

Veganism refers, and always has referred, to animals as a whole. Donald Watson and the Vegan Society didn't sit down and write out a million-species long list of nonhumans to whose suffering and exploitation we shouldn't contribute. All animals meant all animals. All animals means all animals today. Promoting veganism and abolition is the best way to speak for all kinds of animals at once, regardless of why they are used or whether they live and die in factory farms, family farms, in circuses, in laboratories, in the wild or other places. Single issues campaigns probably do a great deal of harm to animals by confusing the public about veganism and what we owe others (and to which other animals we owe something, and so on).

If we take all animals seriously (we all should), then abolition, veganism and adoption are the meaningful ways to help them as a group and as individuals. No matter how silly the slogans, no matter how attention-grabbing the antics, if a group denigrates veganism and denigrates other advocates for promoting veganism, we should start asking: why? If we take what we owe other animals seriously, there is absolutely no reason not to promote veganism in every campaign, poster and press release. If it's easy to go vegan, surely, it's even easier to type "everyone should go vegan" and add it to the press release before it goes out.

In any case, I find the argument that veganism only refers to food animals to be as strange as the argument that veganism only refers to other animals used in entertainment or only other animals used for fashion would be. Veganism means considering all of our actions in a way that contributes the least possible to animal suffering and exploitation, whether it's for food, clothing or entertainment, and abolition (as an ideology) calls us to understand other animals as moral persons and to do what we can to make real and substantive social change for nonhuman animals in positive ways. I'm very disappointed to see people try to discourage advocates from promoting veganism in general; done in this way in particular, it strikes me as very misinformed. Furthermore, anyone who wants to save the life of a nonhuman animal can go right now today to any animal shelter and do so. Please adopt.

Of course, I could have spent hours criticizing the critics of criticization, but I know there is a growing body of advocates who understands clearly that what we owe other animals is veganism and wants to educate others about veganism. The public clearly understands this more and more. Moreover, The abolitionist vegan community is coming together and increasingly, ours will be the voice that the public hears. The goal of our opponents is always to keep us responding to them and not speaking to the public to promote veganism. Do not let your voices be silenced!

So, instead, I decided to express myself in a poster so awesome, so controversial, so hard-hitting that I know that all of my opponents will tremble at the mere sight of it. I've also included a previous poster that Joanne and I created that makes it clear what veganism means. I'm sure people will also complain because I'll give credit to another advocate where credit is due: I got some of the ideas for this post from someone else. I am neither ashamed of thinking for myself, nor about being intellectually honest when I use someone else's ideas.

I don't know how long it will take before the petty personal attacks for this blog start to surface. But I do seriously hope that animal advocates will start getting their poop in a group. I never want anyone to stop working, I want them to start doing work that will seriously help nonhuman animals. Other animals deserve our most thoughtful, our most careful, our most honest, and our most creative work.

Disagreement, discussion and moral dialogue that help to educate other advocates is wonderful and important work. Denigrating other advocates personally is a very petty thing. We should expect better from our opponents, and I even hope for better for them. Lurking around social media like Twitter and Facebook fuming passive-aggressively about the fact that I am right and they are wrong is no way to conduct advocacy and it's no way to go through life.

If you're not vegan yet, you should go vegan. If you are not an abolitionist, but want to learn more about the approach you can do so from my other articles or by visiting www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Dear Johnny Weir, I think you should go vegan

2010-01-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I don't start off all of my articles like this (with a call for an apology and an encouragement to go vegan). But your agent has said in the Huffington Post that you were contacted by a number of animal advocacy groups, including PeTA, Friends of Animals, and others. Gary L. Francione and Mylène Ouelett have already blogged about this, and I don't like to feel left out.

It's also worth noting that Francione has invited just about anyone who wants to do so to discuss this issue on his podcast. It might be worthwhile for you (or anyone else) to take him up on the offer. I was on his podcast last week, and I can say that both he and Roger Yates are very nice people.

Your agent has also claimed that you received threats, and I am sorry if that has been the case. But it sounds now like you (or someone in your organization) was not being completely forthcoming about your being threatened. I am certainly not saying that you are lying. I am not saying that anyone in question is lying.

Certainly, individuals act of their own accord regardless of what groups or leaders may want them to do on all sides. What I am saying is that falsehoods and half-truths have absolutely no place in public discourse, and that nowhere is that more true that in the advocacy for other animals. I believe that when anyone misleads the public that s/h/ze should apologize for doing so. That goes for everyone, and I'll get back to that in a bit.

But getting back to the story, rather than simply say no, or yes, or can you explain to me why? You said:

“Every skater is wearing skates made out of cow,” Weir said.

“Maybe I’m wearing a cute little fox while everyone else is wearing cow, but we’re all still wearing animals.”

Sure, but what follows out of that is not that you should feel free to use fur but that you shouldn't use leather or fur (or dairy, or eggs or other animal products or labor). I know the groups in question probably didn't explain this very well to you, and it's wonderful that you saw the obvious contradiction. I'm just saying that you should keep going. Pursue that to its logical conclusion: take the rights of all other animals seriously and go vegan.

Now, I'm not going to agave-coat it. And other advocates may boo me or demand apologies or harangue me on Twitter and Facebook all they like, but I am not going to be silenced: I think these campaigns (regardless of the group doing it) were misguided. It's nothing personal. But I think just asking you not to wear fur asked you to do less than you should; I am always opposed to that. I think single issues campaigns confuse the public about what they owe other animals (veganism, abolition and in those cases where it is appropriate, care).

I also think that single issues campaigns often have speciesist overtones insofar as they actively suggest or passively lead people to believe that some species are more important than others, or that some kinds of treatment are worse than others, and so on. But more important, I believe that the only substantial 'victory' for nonhuman animals is the social, legal and personal acknowledgement of their personhood and all of the changes to human life that that entails.

Bans on particular types of treatment and use do not remove animals from the property system and magically make them into legal or moral persons; so, I do not support organizations or campaigns (regardless of their labels or claims) that focus on that kind of work. Again, it's nothing personal. I just believe that you (and everyone else) should take the rights of other animals seriously, and abolitionist veganism, as one of my colleagues likes to say, is the starting point.

As an advocate, I keep it simple. I am a proponent of three simple sentences: Other animals are moral persons who have at least one basic right not to be used as property and I think you should go vegan. Did you know that going vegan is simple and straightforward and the most important thing you can do to help other animals? How can I help you with the transition? In the interests of full disclosure, I got the idea for these three sentences from the work of someone else.

So, how can I help you with your transition? I want you to not only not use fur, I want you also to not use leather. I think you should eat an entirely plant-based diet. I want you to replace all the cleaners you have (vinegar works wonders!), your personal deodorant, your hair gel – everything you possibly can, with alternatives that contribute the absolute least possible to animal suffering and exploitation. That includes products tested on other animals and products manufactured with animal processes.

I want you to stop going to the circus if you do (I don't know you personally – you may not be a fan) and I think you should stop patronizing films, TV and other entertainment produced with animal "actors". I think you should also think carefully and arrange your other behaviours in such as way to contribute as little as possible to the suffering and exploitation of other animals.

To be clear, I am not asking you to do anything beyond the pale. I am not asking you to stop taking life-saving medication. I am not asking you to sacrifice your grandmother to a hungry tiger if the three of you are trapped in a lifeboat. I am not asking you to stop walking on sidewalks. I am not asking you to support the rights of sheep to vote.

Nor am I asking you to martyr yourself. I am asking you to pick up some alternatives at the local grocery, maybe do some Internet shopping, to buy some new clothes, to read a book and, more important, to start thinking about and living your life more fully and completely in a way that contributes the least possible to the harm and suffering of other animals.

I'm asking you to fill your life with all of the overwhelming number of alternatives that justice, virtue and most of all, love allow. That's what vegan means.

Abolitionists propose to end the property status of nonhuman animals and restoring their personhood. We believe that other animals are persons who are sentient, have interests (e.g., an interest in not feeling pain, in continuing their lives), and so, they have a right not to be used as property. Abolitionists believe that in light of that right, everyone should go vegan, that prejudices against other animals are irrational (we refer to this as 'speciesism' and we think of it as being as objectionable as racism or sexism), and that we should all work toward the abolition of the property status of nonhuman animals.

Whether we call them free living, domesticated, whether they are "state" property (e.g., some species in controlled habitats), "personal" property (e.g., a rescued pit bull), "institutional" property (e.g., cows in family or factory farms) or property "waiting to be claimed" (e.g., foxes in nature), animals have a right not to be used as property. There may be minor legal differences between types of property, but property is still property.

All animals are property or 'property waiting to be claimed' through labor (e.g., through hunting). That includes honey bees, zebras, cats, dogs, elephants, otters, cuttlefish and a world full of millions and millions of species whose name you and I will probably never know. They are moral persons just by being sentient, and they should all be treated as moral persons. None of them is properly safe (even the ones we love and care for personally in our own homes) until the property status of animals is abolished. Working to end the property status of animals means working to end the property status of all animals, wherever they live.

But I can't entirely blame you if you were confused, There's been a lot of (very) silly talk on the Internet about veganism lately. Some people have suggested that veganism only applies only to food animals, and I'm telling you that that's not the case. Some people have suggested that eating free range veal makes you a level one vegan. That is also not the case.

In addition to avoiding animals use for food, clothing and entertainment, vegans also try to avoid the suffering and exploitation we cause to other animals whether by actively destroying their habitats whether they are orang-utans or neighborhood squirrels, or with the passive apathy involved with leaving an injured person alone on a roadside. In short, abolitionist vegans take animals seriously as moral persons in the widest possible sense of "seriously". I also think you should also consider lending your personal time, if possible, to promoting veganism, animal adoption/care and abolition.

If I can do it, so can you. In about ten minutes, I am going to eat the tofu salad I made with shiitake mushrooms, wakame, onions (and tofu!). It's going to be delicious. Then I'm going to go thrifting for some suit trousers (no wool or silk). Then I'm probably going to do yoga. When I'm done, I might play scrabble, pet my cats, work on my dissertation, design a flier or any of the other countless things I do to fill my life that don't involve unjustified and inexcusable animal use.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: abolitionist veganism is a life that goes well. I'm writing this letter not because I want donations or because I expect anyone to thank me for it. Actually, I'll probably be personally attacked by other advocates for writing it (the downside to our community is that there is a lot of scene drama). I'm writing it because I believe in you as an agent of change. I believe that veganism is what we other animals, and that it's also better for the ecosystem (and the other animals who live in it) and for ourselves (as animals to whom we also owe a duty of care and nonviolence). Most of all, though, I'm writing this letter because I believe in you.

Getting back to the apology, if you or anyone else in your organization misled the public (which sounds like it may be the case) I think you should think hard and long about a public apology. The work of animal advocates is often very misguided, but the overwhelming majority of animal advocates care very seriously and sincerely about nonviolence, about the rights of other persons (human and non), and about changing the world for the better. Having apologized myself a lot over the years, I can say that apologizing is very often the right thing to do when we do the wrong thing. But even if you don't apologize, you should definitely go vegan.

Even if you're not Johnny Weir, you should go vegan today. If you're not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com or by reading my previous articles.

Of HSUS and hegemony: abolitionist veganism as a rising force

2010-01-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

One of the things I addressed in a recent podcast with Roger Yates and Gary L. Francione was how the community is shaping and reshaping itself. Definitely worth a listen if you haven’t already heard the podcast.

In this article, I wanted to follow-up and expand on my comments. As I said during the podcast, In my view, the advocacy community is shaping up into three basic factions: a sphere of influence led by HSUS (and that includes groups and figureheads like PeTA, “Vegan” Outreach, Erik Marcus, COK and others). They are shaping into a coalition of interests that takes a “happy meat, indirect, let’s improve animal welfare not end use” position.

The second faction are welfare groups (some militant, some nonmilitant, some traditional who say they’re not in favor, some new welfare groups who say they’re in favor of abolition someday, but for now, want to focus on treatment issues). These groups don’t want to come under HSUS’ sphere of influence for whatever reasons. Further, some advocates in this faction have already declared that HSUS is hegemonic, but this misguided. It reflects either an ivory tower view distant from the struggle on the ground, or a desire to misrepresent the situation.

The third faction are abolitionists. Unlike welfare groups that typically focus on wild animals or domesticated animals, or food animals, or fashion animals, and so on, abolitionists focus on the rights of other animals generally. Opposing the property status of all animals means opposing the property status of all animals, and taking their rights seriously, including their space within the ecosystem we all share. We’re small in number, but we’re obviously growing. The uptick in personal attacks on abolitionist advocates through social media like Facebook and Twitter make it increasingly clear that these groups are afraid of us. But clear analysis suggests that the political situation is very much up for grabs.

There’s little convincing evidence that HSUS has attained hegemony yet, although they’re certainly working toward it. I'll address this first. As a hundred million dollar/year organization, it’s likely to happen. But saying HSUS has achieved hegemony, even among welfare groups, ignores key facts. For example, it leaves out SPCA factions and other smaller groups who are not interested in coming in under HSUS’s sphere of influence, as well as grassroots abolitionist groups (since we’re obviously very critical of HSUS, welfare, and new welfare no matter the label).

The ASPCA is also another 100-million dollar a year animal welfare organization. Even within the SPCA circle of influence, things are not settled. There was also a serious spat just last year between two rival SPCA groups in the UK between the RSPCA and the Scottish SPCA over whether the former should advertise in Scotland. Even if HSUS is working toward hegemony, there's a huge political differences between having hegemony and fighting to get it.

Everything points to HSUS as being in the position of working quickly to consolidate a strong foot-hold in the advocacy movement, but things are far from decided. Moreover, the Internet as an organizing basis allows for counterhegemonic work and activity that is historically unparalleled. Many advocates have positioned HSUS and now PeTA as straw figures to establish their own “abolitionist” creds. Advocates shouldn’t confuse scene posturing and donation diving with the serious critique of welfare groups involved with abolitionist work.

If an "animal advocacy" organization is not spending the vast majority of its time and budget on promoting veganism or with hands-on animal rescue, we have to start asking: why not? The room for businesses in the industry is shrinking, but the room for serious advocates is expanding. HSUS’s movement toward hegemony leaves a lot of welfare groups scrambling to show how they are different to volunteers, donors and fans. Welfare groups who are reluctant to align themselves with HSUS/PeTA/VO will remain viable only insofar as they can convince the public that they are meaningfully different from the HSUS/PeTA/VO, and they are starting to do so by trying to position themselves as abolitionists. These other groups typically sell adventurism or meaningless bans on particular types of treatment to advocates who recognize that traditional welfare like HSUS doesn’t work, object to PeTA’s antics and oppressive tendencies and so on.

In some cases, these groups promote veganism (which is good, so long at this promotion of veganism is clear and abolitionist in nature). To sustain their donation flow, these groups typically sell the same single-issue, high optics, low-value welfare victories that HSUS sells. They are ambivalent (or even critical) about the prospect that HSUS may start to promote veganism entirely because that will eclipse almost all differences between HSUS and them as far as donors are concerned.

In other cases, these groups promote violence and adventurism, along with single issues campaigns and veganism. Again, to sustain their donation flow, these groups drive donations, not with reform of the system, but promises of individual lives saved through confrontational work. Sometimes they claim it’s to fight speciesism, but these campaigns are practically poster-children for a focus on the treatment of mammals insofar as they tend to focus on fur and farm animals.

In some cases, the differences with the HSUS faction may be ideological with some financial consideration. In some cases, it might be mostly financial with minor ideological difference. I tend to think of social phenomena as being economic in nature, regardless of how people imagine it, and so, I tend to see it as largely a battle over the size of the slices of the donation pie. But it’s always possible that even the leaders of these groups are sincerely convinced that they are doing abolitionist work even as they promote what amounts to a position that is inimical or counterproductive to abolition.

What unites them is their opportunism, their focus on shortcuts and their fear. They know that there are only so many dollars and volunteers to go around. They know that to remain relevant, they have to try to make inroads somehow. These groups are trying to convince advocates who reject welfare that they represent an abolitionist alternative, and that’s not the case. If an organization focuses on addressing specific types of animal treatment, not on all animal use, if they engage in violence or adventurism, and so on, then they're not doing abolitionist work. Just promoting veganism or just rejecting happy meat here and there or just talking about anti-speciesism are not enough to make a group abolitionist in nature.

But most of all, if these groups are serious about abolition, then they must stop conflating what is in their interests with what is in the interests of nonhuman animals and focus their work exclusively on the latter. Advocates who work in these groups shouldn't settle for half-measures and opportunism; instead; they should form their own abolitionist groups.

That's not a personal condemnation of any advocate: it's a political critique of organizations driven by opportunism and a personal statement of my faith in everyone who takes other animals seriously to do the hard but desperately necessary work that will lead to their freedom. If I disagree with anyone, it's only because I take them seriously enough to have a dialogue with them.

Abolitionist veganism, the rising force. There are certainly grass roots abolitionist organizations. I run one with my colleague. Joanne (hi, Joanne!) and I always encourage advocates to work with those groups or start their own abolitionist groups. We don't have donors, nor do we need them. We're both firm believers in Francione’s view that we all have to become leaders.

What Schonfeld’s program and his piece in The Guardian, and Gary Steiner’s piece in the NY Times have done is to make it clear that that hiding veganism is unnecessary. None of this would have been possible without Gary L. Francione's pioneering work. We can all speak for ourselves. We can say go vegan. We can say that we should abolish the slavery of nonhuman animals as soon as possible. The public isn’t going shriek in terror and run away. Worst case, they’ll ask for some well-reasoned arguments, and some evidence to show why veganism is important and they’ll ask for some alternatives.

We can fight for all nonhuman animals with three sentences: animals have a basic right not to be used as property and you should go vegan. Did you know that veganism is easy and the most important change any of us can make? How can I help you to make the transition?

We do not need these national organizations and figureheads to do our work. In fact, I never ask advocates to stop working; I want them to start working consistently on things that will make a serious different to nonhuman animals and that’s promoting and educating people about veganism and working toward abolition in meaningful ways with vegan education. When we miseducate the public about what we owe other animals, we are harming their interests. Racist and sexist campaigns are bad, but so are speciesist campaigns. So are ambiguous campaigns. So are confusing campaigns. It’s always best to be clear and unequivocal in our education efforts. That puts veganism, abolition and anti-speciesism front and center to our work.

What these businesses and figureheads are afraid of is a public dialogue about these issues. They don’t want the public to know all sides of the argument. They know the public can make up their own minds, as can advocates, and they’re afraid. Don’t allow them (or other advocates) to silence you). If you agree with another advocate or have ideas of your own, don’t be afraid to express yourself and don’t be afraid to engage in a sincere dialogue with anyone in our community.

Of course, if you’re not a vegan already but take animals seriously, you should go vegan today. If you’re not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com or by reading some of my earlier articles.

Redressing the State of the Union: How to respond to PeTA effectively

2010-01-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

Mortified by the sexist and/or racist overtones in PeTA’s latest State of the Union campaign? Horrified that PeTA (according to Newsweek) has killed tens of thousands of dogs, cats and other animals since 1998? This article is for you. With PeTA’s latest round of antics further enriching them off the backs of nonhuman animal slavery, I decided to write a handy article on responding to PeTA. If you want to make it clear to people that you're for animal rights but don't agree with PeTA, but aren’t sure how to do so effectively, this article will help you get out your own ‘go vegan and abolish animal slavery!” message out.

Gary Francione also has a great piece on this at opposingviews.com. Be sure to comment if you get the chance to let everyone know that animal rights is not about sexism, racism or other kinds of opportunism, it's about helping nonhuman animals.

Why not just criticize every little thing PeTA does? One of the ways PeTA manipulates the public and the advocacy community is to keep critical attention focused on them. For any of you unfamiliar with the term, PeTA's marketing and communications strategy is driven by what's called guerrilla marketing in the industry. As much as I dislike Wikipedia, you can learn more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_marketing

This should help you understand the tactic and how it fits into an outreach strategy. In short, though, the purpose of PeTA's campaigns are to draw attention to PeTA (shocking, I know). But the premise of guerilla marketing is that

Most people cannot take-in or remember highly detailed discussions of substantive issues, but they can easily remember brand names and
Antics and stunts provoke discussion of those antics and stunts (and their perpetrators) in the public sphere for what amounts to free media coverage and free marketing.

That's very important to marketing and donations activity when you want to get your message out in a way that is not "obviously marketing" and to keep as many donations for yourself as you can. So, when we respond to PeTA, even when we do so critically, we are engaged (if only partially) in helping them to market themselves.

To be clear, I am definitely not saying we shouldn't criticize PeTA. We should. I am saying that animal advocates should be careful to use PeTA's marketing, their notoriety, their brand awareness to the advantage of nonhuman animals as much as we can and to let them use us for their advantage as little as possible.

So, when we respond to PeTA, we must be careful to always lead with the clearest, most urgent and mostly publicly understandable criticism (e.g., PeTA has killed animals by the tens of thousands according to Newsweek, PeTA engages in offensive campaigns with racist and sexist overtones that alienate people potentially interested in animal rights and veganism). What’s important is to tell people what’s important for them to know as clearly as possible.

Stick to the facts and rely on credible sources and strong rational arguments. For example, this Newsweek article claims that PeTA killed 17,000 animals since 1998. More than 85% of the nonhuman animals they took in. Moreover, PeTA often uses racism and sexism in its campaigns, and that alienates interested people from taking nonhuman animal rights seriously. Further, PeTA engages in campaigns that do not meaningfully help nonhuman animals, as Gary L. Francione explains better than I can in The Four Problems of Animal Welfare in a Nutshell. Definitely worth reading for any advocate. Finally, PeTA rarely promotes veganism, which is the most meaningful way any of us can help nonhuman animals (and that includes animal advocates going vegans themselves).

Do not be afraid to repeat the facts. You may read another advocate's post or comment and think, I'll just add this point since s/h/ze has already covered X, Y and Z. Or you may think, some petapologist will jump out of an Interweb corner and call me a minion if I agree with another advocate. But

This kind criticism reflects a strategy aimed at getting advocates to go 'off message' ourselves by 'trying to be original' in our criticism and/or, even better from their perspective, getting us to self-censor. It's meant to either splinter or silence our voices and to create a vacuum in which only national organizations like PeTA and similar figureheads can be heard.
Remember, welfare figureheads and national groups are the same people who promote form letter campaigns, write for-profit guides to nanny advocates while enriching themselves and other kinds of cookie-cutter outreach when it suits them.
Anyone in the public grappling with weighty moral questions like veganism cares more about the facts than who tells them the facts. If you know the facts, don’t be afraid to tell someone the same facts and arguments, even if another advocate already has. Education sometimes takes more than one try to take.
Don’t be afraid to talk about veganism and why it is morally necessary. Get your abolitionist animal rights message out in front of the public. They’re ready to hear about veganism, as Victor Schonfeld’s recent piece in The Guardian and Gary Steiner’s piece in the New York Times make clear.
Finally, people do not read everything presented to them in detail. They skim. Your blog article or your comment may be the only comment they read. Make it count.

In short, pay no attention whatsoever to attempts to silence you. Keep going. Of course, I am not saying copy someone's post or comment as your own. I'm saying think about what others have written, and don't be afraid to repeat their ideas if you agree (a link back or a proper citation is the right thing to do, though). If we care about racism, then the solution is more discussion and more leadership, not less. If we care about ending sexism, then the solution is more discussion and more leadership, not let. Why do national groups work so hard to tell regular advocates how to think and what to say?

They’re afraid that you’ll tell the public directly, and without confrontation, that veganism is absolutely a joyous celebration of nonviolence, and that the abolition of animal slavery is an ideology of love and justice that lifts us all up in a moral community together. That’s the last thing animal welfare groups (whose donations rely on convincing the public that happy meat is morally fine) want the public to hear. Their fighting for their relevance.

What nonhuman animals need is more discussion, not less. What they need is more leadership, not less. Groups like PeTA don’t want to share the spotlight with you. Advocacy is not about scoring hipster points by coming up with the most original criticism in order to impress people in the scene or being silent to make Nanny happy. It's about making a difference for nonhuman animals with effective outreach to the public (that's original, that's authentic, and that's powerful). Just think for yourself and express yourself based on the facts.

As a community, animal advocates must remind the public that the smears against our community are unfounded. It is difficult to think of a community more vibrant, more thoughtful, more creative, more progressive or more passionate about nonhuman animals than the abolitionist community. PeTA (and not just PeTA but their cronies in HSUS, “Vegan Outreach” and other groups) do their best to silence our community, to shame us for having our own idea and our own views.

As the only meaningful political force that stands a chance to life animal up out of slavery, we must resist. Criticism is one important part of that. We must also continue to build our own campaigns, our own outreach and our own creativity in coordinated ways, not with dehumanizing antics but with work that uplifts, inspires, and draws positive attention to what everyone owes other animals. I believe in you. As your colleague, I am not asking anyone to stand behind me, just beside me, and to make your own voices heard.

If you take animal seriously, but are confused by a confusing message from animal welfare groups, don’t feel bad. They don’t want you to make change. They want you to donate change. You can help nonhuman animals best by going vegan. Go vegan today if you aren’t. If you’re not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com or by reading my previous articles.

Do I have hegemonic tendencies? You’re god-damn right I have them.

2010-01-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

I understand there’s been some passive aggressive bad-mouthing going on the Internet that accuses me (among others) of having ‘hegemonic tendencies’. I don't take offense. Insults are always the hallmark of lesser thinkers. It is hard to take seriously. But I do want to put this debate to rest once and for all. Do I have hegemonic tendencies? Of course, and so should you. Anyone who hopes to see change the world does.

What’s unfortunate is that many would-be academics and salonists misuse the term, hegemony, a term loaded with political meaning by Antonio Gramsci. For those who don’t know Gramsci’s work, he was a communist. He wrote his prison notebooks while in prison for being a communist and having hegemonic tendencies himself because he was a communist. Mussolini, who also had hegemonic tendencies, put him there in the mid 1920s.

Gramsci has had an enormous, if not immediately obvious effect, on left politics in the post-WWII era in North America (along with Chomsky, Zinn, Foucault and Wallerstein). Like many great theorists, he tends to be most popular with other theorists. My blog is based on some of his most important ideas. I don’t agree with Gramsci on every tiny detail, but Gramsci doesn’t require that. Many people use 'hegemony' as a synonym for authoritarianism, fascism and other specific politics, but that is not how Gramsci means it.

When a group attains hegemony, Gramsci merely means that they are in a position of sufficient social power in order order social relations mostly (although not totally) to their advantage. A hegemonic group organizes those social relations based on a coalition of friendly groups through a combination of leadership and coercion. That is, they provide hope to their allies, and they strike fear into the hearts of their opponents.

The Republicans attained hegemony in the United States in 2000 when Little W led a coalition of religious, fiscal and social conservatives to power. As the Republican coalition was whittled away over the next 8 years, we all witnessed how the specific interests of those groups were often in competition with one another, even if they agree substantially on supporting Bush's administration. The coalition a hegemonic group forms is sometimes referred to as ruling relations by Gramsciists, and the individual groups often have competing interests. Change happens when group allegiances change, power shifts, new coalitions emerge and social relations shift.

What Grasmci proposes is not that communists and other leftists should oppose hegemony per se, but that they do their best to attain their own cultural hegemony against right wing and reactionary groups and their hegemony. This is sometimes referred to as ‘counter-hegemonic practice’ by Gramsciists, since most hegemonies tend to be right-wing. But that doesn't make hegemony itself reactionary; it depends on the politics involved.

Lord knows, I’m trying my best to bring my hegemonic tendencies to fruition. And I don’t believe in hegemonic tendencies just for myself. I also believe that other abolitionist vegans should have hegemonic tendencies as well. I would love nothing better than to see to the world reorganized based on veganism and the rights of other animals. I am not a utilitarian liberal in a poncho and no deodorant who believes that any criticism is a form of hierarchy; and I am not afraid to criticize others if they require criticism.

If other would-be leaders of our movement do not have hegemonic tendencies, are not willing to stand alone in the field of cultural struggle, that is their prerogative. I am prepared to struggle by myself. I agree, without reservation, with the view that:

“[the animal advocacy movement has] ceded the authority to these leaders of these national organizations, and activism has become, “Let me write a check to this group or to that group.” And that’s never gonna work. We need to see ourselves as moral centers for change—each of us.” (Gary L. Francione).

If there were 1,000 abolitionist vegan groups, each with petty demagogues like myself, refusing cheques, refusing half-measures, refusing violence, insisting on education and change, where would the struggle for the rights of other animals be today?

If there were only 10 abolitionist vegan groups each creating their own literature, writing their own pamphlets, performing their own plays, holding their own knit ins, holding their own bake sales, running their own shelters, building their own sanctuaries, we would show our opponents a kind of power and tenacity that the proponents of an adolescent adventurism can only barely begin to understand.

A revolution of the heart, as Francione puts it, is not something that can be undone. Solidarity with the oppressed, properly understood, cannot be stopped by petty inconveniences. An insurance check can’t cover it. Industry can’t lower prices fast enough to strangle it. It cannot be hushed up or papered over with a stangnant and recycled propaganda. It is a social transformation embodied in each agent of change; so long as there is one abolitionist vegan, the system will always have to answer to someone.

Each of us should be prepared to be that someone.

If we want to strike at the walls of oppression, to shake its foundations, rather than merely contenting ourselves with complaining vacuously about the wallpaper, then advocates should put down the petty antics and pick up some truly revolutionary work. And that’s education. Not raising awareness, but serious, hands-on, “read the book, think about the ideas, make the changes required to pay what you owe others” education.

Someone who has been ‘educated’ about gravity but still walks off of cliffs has not been educated about gravity. Someone who has been ‘educated’ about veganism but still persists in the use of other animals has not been educated about veganism. Advocates need to stop saying education won’t work and start understanding that they have misunderstood education at a fundamental level.

If being handed a pamphlet is education, I’d have a dozen PhDs by now.

In closing, dear colleagues, you are either with me or against me. By that, I mean that you either support immediate, unconditional and unequivocal abolition, veganism and animal adoption, or you are not clearly and unequivocally in favor of these things. If you are against me, then you should be prepared to read a never ending set of poorly designed pamphlets, poorly proof-read blogs, and a mountain of tweets until you change your mind. My talents may be meager, but my sincerity is unrivaled and my will is a force of nature.

I am simply the kind of advocate who will not stop until everyone has been educated, no matter how intransigent. It is not because I am hopeful. It is because when we experience real solidarity with other animals (whether human or non), we know that the only victory is their absolute emancipation and the restoration of their personhood by the wholesale transformation of society.

We cannot experience real solidarity and coddle ourselves with fantasizes about our defeat. We cannot pursue real solidarity work and pursue "shortcuts" that will never bring us to the future to which we all aspire. There is simply too much at stake in the life of one nonhuman animal in slavery for the movement to continue the way that it is has. Trying to turn back the clock is reactionary. Inviting defeat with a carnival of tactics that don't work is reactionary.

We must change course and devote all energies to abolition, veganism and adoption. Not because I say so, but because reason and empirical evidence say that we must change and because change is what justice and virtue demand of us. I am for the hegemony of justice, virtue, but most of all, love. I will not apologize for it and neither should anyone else.

If you are not vegan, you should go vegan today. If you are not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach .com.

SVĚT JE VEGANSKEJ! Když to chceš. (Czech banners)

2009-12-22T10:20:00.000-08:00

Banners in Czech.

DE WERELD IS VEGANIST! Als jij dat wilt. (Dutch banners)

2009-12-22T07:18:00.000-08:00

Banners in Dutch. Thanks to Elizabeth Collins and one of her colleagues for the translation.

LE MONDE EST VEGAN! Si vous le voulez. (French banners)

2009-12-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

Banners in French.

IL MONDO E VEGAN! Se si desidera. (Italian banners)

2009-12-21T08:33:00.000-08:00

Banners in Italian.

DIE WELT IST VEGAN! Wenn Du es willst. (German Banners)

2009-12-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Banners in German. I want to thank Mesiu for help with the translation.

The World is Vegan! If you want it (and you are willing to work for it).

2009-12-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

I believe that love is a material force in the universe. I believe that there was love in the world before I was born. I believe it will be here after I die. And, as often as it may seem otherwise, my blogs are often written from a position of love. There are, of course, plenty of days when I wonder how many animal advocates would have to piss on a third rail or fall down a flight of stairs before anyone would even notice. The world might ask itself: "where's all that shrill shrieking gone to?" or "what happened to all that mouth breathing and muttering?" But it hurts me to think so.

As much difference as there may be between all of us who are sincerely concerned about how to help other animals about how to do so, many of us are united in our sincere moral concern for them no matter how misguided the expression of that concern. It's not because people hate nonhuman animals that they might not miss animal advocates; it's because they are confused about what they owe nonhuman animals. And it is because, rather than educate them about the morality necessity and the practical ease of going vegan, most advocates instead alienate the public, either on one hand with lukewarm and confusing messages about why it's fine to keep using nonhuman animals or on the other hand with a lot of mouth-breathing posturing about violence.

As an advocate, I've read a million cliches passed off as 'critical and individual thinking': not everyone will change; not everything is black and white; animals are dying; we have to help animals now; veganism is hardcore; veganism is absolutist; all vegans are angry; we'll never have a vegan world; I just believe in two track activism: regulating animal use now and ending it in the future (read here: never); we have to hurt the oppressor economically; we have to work with industry to promote change. These are all various formulas that accept failure on their face, whether the speaker understands that or not. They are meant to excuse the speaker (intentionally or not) from the hard work of promoting veganism and the rights of other animals. They also reflect a kind of uncritical unwillingness to show the courage and determination required to reshape the world into a more just and more compassionate vision.

We cannot meaningfully help nonhuman animals get free so long as we promote their regulated use. We cannot meaningfully work to achieve a nonviolent society through violent means. Promoting justice, compassion, love, nonviolence, creativity and equality makes us all vulnerable. I am not saying, at all, that it is easy to be an advocate. I'm saying that courage is among the most important virtues that any advocate should cultivate, and that each of us can be brave with practice (so, get out there and practice!).

But for all this talk about change, I haven't seen much. The animal welfare advocacy movement (in both it's militant and nonmilitant strains) is even more sterile, less organized, less passionate, more opportunistic and less disciplined than the environmental movement (hard to believe when you look at Al Gore, but I believe it's true). Oh, yeah, I left out clumsier. More important, I still have yet to read one substantive argument against a principled, disciplined, creative and nonviolent movement organized strategically and tactically around the abolition of animal slavery through vegan education and the restoration of nonhuman animal personhood with the abolition of the property status.

Not one.

I have read, however, a lot of poorly reasoned catch phrases about the nature of change that are meant to shut down discussion that wouldn't get a passing mark in a first year philosophy, sociology or history class, much less in an adult social justice movement. Bullying other advocates with silly and irrational rhetorics as so many of the self-appointed mouthpieces of 'the movement' do is not a kind of activism. It's a way of hiding (but also revealing) just how small and broken they really are as human beings while they trade off the slavery of nonhuman animals. Now, I'm not blaming anyone for being broken. But is this the kind of stuff that helps nonhuman animals? Is that the best we can do?

We could be a movement that not only proposes but makes social change on a level that's unmatched in human history. A right not to be used as someone else's property summons not only an immediate, unequivocal and unconditional end to animal slavery, it pushes us in the direction of environmental change, economic change, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, ant-racism and all of the other social transformations that we must make if we wish to earn our survival as a species. Instead, many of us content ourselves with games, name-calling, silly rhetorical flourishes, threats of violence and other forms of posturing. It's sad.

Even as your "colleague", much less a member of the public, how am I supposed to take seriously someone who's afraid to promote veganism tirelessly? How am I supposed to take seriously someone who's afraid to say what they mean clearly? I can't take someone seriously if they've already given up before they've even gotten started, and I can't take someone seriously if they're always in the process of taking back what they say and saying one thing, and then another. If advocates want to talk trash in between sucks of their thumbs, it's unfortunate. I am not saying that people shouldn't defend themselves then their views are misrepresented. But no one who is unwilling to stand up for the rights of all sentient beings unequivocally, human or non, should expect more than the sand I shake off my shoes.

I don't care whether rhetorical games are meant to be funny, sarcastic, ironic, satirical or any of the other words we use to avoid saying what we mean. I have a sense of humor, but I'm completely humorless when it comes to my work on behalf of nonhuman animals. They call me to be serious, not juvenile. And the sad, not funny, truth is the I couldn't refer to the "violent wing" and the “indirect wing” of the animal advocacy movement as clowns without being threatened with a defamation lawsuit by the American Clown Lobby (no offense to clowns or their lobby).

Mostly, the leadership of the advocacy movement seems to consist of a bunch of over-privileged babies with diaper rash (and their propaganda machines and flunkies) who know little about even less than little, least of all organized, socially transformative political work. I'm not trying to insullt anyone, just capture reality in an appropriate metaphor. They either fail to understand the arguments of abolition, or they appropriate them in an effort to turn them back into the same watered down welfarism we've had for decades now, or they actively misrepresent them as straw arguments because that's all they can deal with. Perhaps that was too harsh; in the interests of full disclosure, I don't meant to disparage babies nearly as much as that comparison implies (I'm even more afraid of their lobby than the Clown Lobby).

Frankly, I think it's a shame that so many apologists have passed themselves off as John Browns in our movement. There's a sense among vegans that taking turns kissing the ass of welfare reform (for years and years and years) and cashing in on a public that knows it needs change but also wants to continue using nonhuman animals, while promoting a rhetoric of hysterical confrontation to move poorly written books, blogs and Web sites is radical. It's anything but radical. Too many of the movement's figureheads live in the house (and not just in the house, but in plush offices of the house) and call it the field. But they shouldn't think that the grassroots of the movement haven't noticed.

I'm not angry, nor am I surprised. I'm not even disappointed because I never had any serious expectations on anyone except for myself and other abolitionists. But I hope someday many, if not all, of our movements 'leaders' and their devotees will figure these things out, stop stewing in their diapers and take up some real work. Solidarity work is not an academic exercise, a trip to the mall, an apologia, a t-shirt or a text-messaged death threat before you pop into KFC. It's hard work, good faith and sincerity guided by sound principles and discipline. It's a debt we pay to the living and the dead, and we'll spend the rest of our lives paying it.

As an activist, I may run either hot or cold depending on the mood in which you catch me, but I'll never be lukewarm. I believe that animals have a right not to be used as property, and I'm vegan because that's the minimum of what I owe them. I pay what I owe. I'm not afraid to say that I'm vegan. I suppose people play games when that's what they have to do, but the rest of us have work to do, change to make, history to form, nonhuman animals to save and a social transformation to nurture. We'll keep busy without you. I'm not about to shrink from a clear and sincere expression of my views or the work that my views entail. As a vegan and an animal rights advocate, violence is inimical to me, but so is complicity.

What will be sad for me is that at least some of my readers won't even know that this letter was written to them out of love. While others may have written you off your entire lives, I still believe in you. If I let you content yourselves with being less than the best that you can be for nonhuman animals without saying anything at all, I'd be selling you and them short.

Our activism could be more than pranks to pass the time or ways to grab attention for yourselves or for poseurs. I hope someday we'll all put away these childish things and that we can build something together. Until then, I have to keep my eye on the prize. I hope some of you will give sincere thought to what I've written and decide to focus on creative nonviolent vegan education as the basis for building the mass movement we'll need to make change for nonhuman animals. And if not, may peace still be upon you.

The world is vegan if you want it and you're willing to work for it. If you are not vegan yet, you can start by going today. Be a movement unto yourself. If you are vegan but not an abolitionist, you can lear more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN Banners

2009-12-18T09:06:00.000-08:00

I have updated the rest of the banners and now they are available in various languages at various sizes on separate pages.

English:
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/world-is-vegan-if-you-want-it-banners.html

Dutch:

http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/de-wereld-is-veganist-als-jij-dat-wilt.html

French:
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/le-monde-est-vegan-si-vous-le.html

German:
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/die-welt-ist-vegan-wenn-du-es-willst.html

Italian:
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/il-mondo-e-vegan-se-si-desidera-italian.html

Portuguese:
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/o-mundo-e-vegano-se-voce-quiser.html

Spanish:
http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/el-mundo-es-vegano-si-lo-quieres.html

Jonathan who? What's all this fuss about Foer?

2009-12-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

"I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things." --Jonathan Safran Foer

I read an interesting blog article over at My Face is On Fire about a recent interview with Jonathan Foer. I tried to listen to this interview. But in all honestly, and I am not saying this to be snarky, at all for a change, and I mean that seriously, but I find it really difficult to understand what Erik Marcus is saying with so much of the agribusiness industry's ass in his mouth. Honestly. I'm really not sure what to think of these 'animal advocates' who think that we can sabotage the boots of the oppressor with our tongues.

In the Twitterverse (a phrase I don't like but will use anyhow), I’ve been surprised by some of the jackbooted demands of movement figures that vegans should all gush over Jonathan Foer’s book (Eating Animals -- I can say already that I don't like the title). Criticism is sloughed off with ridiculously silly rhetorical claims or not responded to at all. It's a shame to see prominent advocates bully high school and college students who have thoughtful questions, but that's what goes these days.

But, back to Foer. I don’t have any personal feelings about Foer, haven't read his books, don’t know him, etc. Yes, I live in a cave. I just know that Foer doesn’t endorse veganism, and so, I don’t endorse Foer. Those who have defended Foer have argued a standard line: that he raises consciousness about factory farming. There are several problems to this view. First, if he raises consciousness and then tells people to do the wrong thing (continue eating and enslaving animals) that’s probably even worse than if he said nothing.

Certainly, Foer's not telling anyone anything particularly new insofar as he proposes that we can resolve our moral duties to nonhuman animals by continuing to use and kill them, just do so more 'gently'. For decades, the regulated use movement has promoted better treatment. It hasn't worked, which is why, desperately, some advocates are praising Foer's work as a potential break through. it won't be.

Second, insofar as the regulationist movement proposes ‘consciousness raising’ about how we treat animals to be critically important, this seems to be predicated on a sense that nonvegans don’t know that they are using animal products when they use animal products. Of course they do. They see the bodies of the dead, sanguine and dismembered, every time they go to the grocery store in the extensive meat section. They just don’t see the moral problem with animal use; neither does Jonathan Foer, and neither does most of the animal advocacy movement.

Furthermore, “they treated me like an animal!” is a melodramatic cliché in the English language entirely because the way we treat animals (horribly) is so well known and understood that it is a colloquialism. The Humane Society of the United States takes in hundreds of millions of dollars every year on the pretext of fighting cruelty to nonhuman animals. And if that weren't enough, the “humane” animal products movement is an industry that involves hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars every year and promoted actively and aggressively by agribusinesses and animal welfare businesses like HSUS and the RSPCA alike.

If violence towards animals is a secret, then it’s the worst-kept secret in human history.

Let’s pull the thumb of wishful thinking out of our mouths and accept some unpleasant realities, shall we? Let’s do it for animals. We claim to take them seriously, and if we do, let’s think about what’s good for them. Animal use is not a secret; that we treat many of the animals we use horribly is not a secret. There is no need to raise consciousness of those facts. People may not fully comprehend just exactly what it is that nonhuman animals suffer on factory farms, but lots of people watch Earthlings and other films and just keep right on using animals. And even if there were a need to raise consciousness about those facts, that doesn't mean we should endorse nonveganism in doing so. A trip to a slaughterhouse might also drive some people vegan, but it doesn't follow from this that vegans should endorse slaughterhouses. What is necessary is to educate people about the moral need to go vegan and why that is important.

So, for animals, Jonathan Foer’s book is not good news at all. Insofar as Foer advocates killing and eating animals, he’s not helping animals, he’s making their lives worse and continuing to affirm that they are our slaves. Those who promote Foer are not helping animals. Veganism is straightforward and simple, and if there is any consciousness that requires raising, it is about this fact.

Let’s start with a definition, the Vegan Association’s historical definition of veganism. Vegan lifestyles are: “ways of living that seek to exclude, as far as is possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” Not an especially complicated proposal, and there are hundreds and hundreds of plant-based alternatives for food, clothing and entertainment these days.

But many advocates who promote regulated animal use who call themselves “vegan” have a tremendous inability to determine what vegans should and shouldn’t do. In general, the regulationist movement is deeply confused. What do they want? Liberation or slavery? You cannot work to continue slavery by regulating use and to further emancipation simultaneously. What do we want? I can’t blame Foer entirely for his views, since most “vegans” are falling all over him to tell him how awesome he is. I can blame him even less considering just how deluded many regulationists are. Some examples:

The (in)Humane Society of the United States: half a billion dollars in revenues, not a penny on abolition (but about $20 million in 2008 on fundraising). Wayne Pacelle leads an organization that has drawn in approximately half a billion dollars in revenues since 2005 ostensibly to help nonhuman animals. Yet, Pacelle has agreed on Agritalk that it's not his or HSUS' intent to shut down the livestock industry, and that he's not in favor of the rights of animals. Pacelle further claims that “No one can reasonably claim that our work is moving in the direction of eliminating animal agriculture." Now there are accusations floating around about lying and deceit in HSUS fundraising appeals. The animals thank you for that, Wayne.

Peta has killed 17,000 adoptable nonhuman animals since 1998 according to Newsweek. Ingrid Newkirk has described euthanasia "as the kindest gift to a dog or cat unwanted and unloved.” Replace dog or cat with boy or girl and you’ll get a sense of just how deeply, deeply disturbing this kind of proposal is. Newkirk has also proposed eating road kill and eating whales. Promoting whale meat and road kill undoubtedly contributes to animal suffering and exploitation. This doesn’t include the sexism, racism and classism and speciesism of PeTA’s campaigns, many of which harm animal interests (human and non).

Erik Marcus, an enthusiastic support of the BK Vegggie. In 2004, Erik Marcus declared that he "had been an enthusiastic supporter of the BK Veggie since its launch in March of 2002," even though the product contained “dairy products.” Marcus seems to think that products with animal ingredients are vegan. I guess he's the kind of guy who never got hooked on phonics and never bothered to look up the word 'vegan' to see what it mean before using it. In fairness to Erik, he did eventually stop promoting the BK Veggie, but he still continues to praise and promote aggressive exploiters of nonhuman animals and their product offerings. Vegans do not use dairy products and promoting nonvegan products contributes to animal suffering and exploitation. Marcus has also recently praised Chipotle’s new veg*n menu item, saying “if you’re not excited, you must not have a pulse.” I’m not excited. I’m sickened on behalf of nonhuman animals by this kind of pathetic sycophancy.

Finally, Matt Ball and Jack Norris of “Vegan” Outreach don't seem to know that bees are animals. On VO's Web site, they ask: "So is honey vegan? Our best answer is ‘We don’t know.’” So, bees have brains. They have a memory. They live in remarkably complex social order. They're animals, and they're the particular animals who make honey (honey doesn't make itself). Hunh. A puzzler, eh! (Here’s a hint: bees are animals, honey is an animal product, vegans don't use animal products, and so, vegans don't use honey; it doesn’t depend on your definition of “vegan” it depends on knowing what the definition of "vegan" actually is). This doesn’t even include their active promotion of nonveganism, if it reduces suffering. Strange for a group that claims to focus on veganism to promote nonveganism, but that's the animal regulationist movement.

If we take the definition of veganism seriously, as avoiding what contributes to animal suffering and exploitation, what do their actions say about these “vegans”? So long as there is money on the table, opponents of the rights of nonhuman animals will delude themselves into whatever intellectually and morally anemic rationalization is required that allows them to profit by blathering just about anything about animal ethics. It's not clear that they care if what they say is truthful, accurate, thoughtful, or if it helps or harms other animals. I'm sure it's just dumb luck that these ravings coincide with a growing market of people who want to ease their consciences about animal use while continuing to use nonhuman animals.

So, I can’t blame Foer all that much when he doesn’t promote veganism (he should, though, and he should go vegan himself). So much of the animal advocacy movement is willing to throw veganism under the bus to advance their careers or because they’ve been taken in by some cultish nonsense. I’m glad to say that I’m vegan, and I’m opposed to the use of animals. Call me absolutist. Say I take an all or nothing approach. I feel the same way about pedophilia, pogroms, and lynching -- I'm against them all, no matter how 'gentle'. And I am uncompromisingly opposed to slavery (human and non), to anti-Semitism, to sexism, to heterosexism, to racism and to other forms of irrational and violent behaviour.

Thankfully, if you want to take animals seriously, it’s simple and straightforward: go vegan. If you’re not vegan yet, go vegan today. If you’re not an abolitionist, but are interested in the approach, you can read my other articles or visit www.abolitionistapproach.com.

O MUNDO E VEGANO! Se você quiser. (Portuguese banners)

2009-12-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Banners in Portuguese. I want to thank Vera Cristofani for help with the translation.

El mundo es vegano! Si lo quieres (Spanish banners)

2009-12-16T10:07:00.000-08:00

Banners in Spanish. I want to thank Pao Aldana for help with the translation.

The World Is Vegan! if you want it Banners

2009-12-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

A few people have asked for HTML and what not to post these to their blogs. Codes follow the image. For Blogger and WordPress, you just want to add an HTML widget (vertical images for a sidebar widget or horizontal ones for a top or bottom banner widget). Select and copy the HTML code, create the widget and then past the code into the widget. But you should be able add these to any Web site or blog that allows you to add simple HTML to your pages.

Enjoy! It's unlikely that I'll be able to answer technical questions, but if I have time, I may.

Translated banners in other languages:

Czech | Dutch | French | German |Italian | Portuguese | Spanish

Dear University of Arizona: I'd like a PhD in Philosophy just like Jean Kazez, please

2009-12-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

Dear University of Arizona,

I understand that you granted Dr. Jean Kazez a PhD in 1991. I realize that you cannot be responsible for what happens to your students after they graduate: whether they do well, or do ill, whether they improve or whether they lose intellectual ground the way a popped balloon loses air. University of Arizona, I'm not blaming you. I know it's tough to graduate students these days and ensure that they understand what it is that they profess. For all I know, University of Arizona, Dr. Kazez may have lashed out at you unprovoked the way she did at Gary Francione. If that's the case, you have my sympathies.

I just have trouble believing that Jean Kazez seems to have worsened so tremendously since graduation that she doesn't understand basic reasoning, doesn't understand the difference between the major moral frameworks and doesn't understand the difference between rhetorical posturing and substantive argument. I imagine it happens. Someone who seems to idolize slaughterhouse designers like Temple Grandin seems to me to be very misguided on a number of matters. But on the very off chance that you are just giving away PhDs in philosophy to anyone who asks, I would like one. I am not judging. I am not claiming you are, I am just saying that if you are, I would also like one, please.

Before you say no, please, let me make my case:

1a) It seems clear that Dr. Kazez' reasoning skills are as shaky as my buttocks would be if I were performing in a hip-hop video. First, it's not clear that she understands basic historical fallacies. I still do not know what Dr. Kazez' actual position is (analogies don't always tell us exactly what's being argued), but historical analogies are often fraught with opportunities for error.

For example, reasoning that because W did X in the past (the amelioration of the conditions of human slavery) that Y should do Z today because it seems analogically similar does not follow of necessity. It may follow. It may be good. It may be right. The point is, we have to form an argument to establish that. As I argued in a previous post, for example, it does not follow that because W did X 150 years ago to solve one type of social justice problem then Y should do Z 150 years later to solve another, potentially very different social justice problem. In short, whether or not anyone attempted to ameliorate the awful conditions of human slavery in nineteenth century American South, it does not, of necessity, follow that campaigns to regulate animal use that continue nonhuman animal slavery are a good, useful or right thing to do today.

The reasoning here would be problematic on multiple levels. It does not follow that what W did resulted in X. It does not follow that, even if what W did did result in X, that W was doing something that yielded positive consequences at the time. Nor does it follow that if the consequences were positive, that W was doing something right. It does not even follow that if W and Y are in the same social justice movement (e.g., class struggle) that the what was justifiable 150 years ago makes much sense today. All of these claims needs to be established with a substantive argument, not just rhetorical questions and pseudo-historical analyses that we pull from out of our asses.

For example, let's say I claim Frederick Douglass gave a simply amazing speech and then the Civil War happened. It would not follow that, if I gave an amazing speech today, it would result in a new Civil War. That is, historically contiguous events do not necessary have a causal nature. Further, it would not necessarily follow that it was right for Frederick Douglass to have given that speech. It would also not necessarily follow that it achieved positive consequences, and so on. But even if it were right for him to do so at the time, it would not necessarily follow analogically that I would be right to do the same today. The work of history is in elaborating these arguments in a way that is reasonably sound and well-evidenced. The work of moral, political and sociological theory is to guide us today in light of what happened historically -- if history provides us with meaningful guidance.

In short, there are multiple opportunities for misguided thinking when we attempt to string any (let alone all) of these kinds of assumptions together in a single analogy. When we mobilize historical analogies, it should be to clarify a rational argument, not draw a sloppy and misguided comparison that occludes the need for justification. Now, let's go back and assume that Douglass didn't really give the speech that I claimed he did, and yet I continue to insist my argument follows analogically. It is only a statement of the obvious to say that my argument would be unfounded.

This kind of argumentation would reflect a deeply misguided understanding of history in general, a lack of knowledge with regard to the specifics of the history of slavery in the Southern United States, as well as how to reason with respect to both. Francione's work, in contrast, relies on contemporary historical data, sound moral theory, a sound understanding of political economy and sociology, as well as analogies to make his claims. Although I am no expert, this seems to be a good way to form moral judgements to me.

1b) Related: analogical reasoning is one of the weaker types of argumentation. Most of Dr. Kazez' argument to defend amelioration (improving the conditions of slaves in the short run) seems predicated on an analogy (which has already seems to be poorly reasoned and historically inaccurate). Leaving aside the specific problems with how Dr. Kazez may be reasoning with respect to this analogy, surely the University of Arizona only graduates students who know that there are a plethora of other ways to argue outside of analogy?

I wonder how someone completes a PhD in philosophy only to turn around and make an argument about the life, death and well-being of another sentient person and pin it on what looks to be flawed reasoning about a flawed and historically problematic analogy. I suppose it is what it is, but it is still disappointing. To be clear, I'm not claiming that Dr. Kazez can't reason. I don't know for sure one way or another based on the evidence so far. It would be a bad inference to assume that Dr. Kazez can't reason just because she's not reasoning well in this case (like, if I may be permitted an apt analogy, assuming that all swans are black because all of the swans I've seen so far are black). But if she can reason effectively, I wonder why she doesn't seem to be trying very hard.

2a) It's not clear that Dr. Kazez takes philsophy very seriously.

In her blog, she writes:

A fairly offhand remark I made about Gary Francione in the comments to my last post apparently caused offense, so I need to expand, explain, etc, especially because Gary tells me he plans on using me as a poster child for the “welfarist” (i.e. utilitarian) stance in a planned podcast. My forthcoming book is actually steadfastly non-utilitarian, so this doesn’t make much sense.

First, what Dr. Kazez should do is just apologize and reread Francione's work. That's pretty simple. She got Francione's position wrong. She got "reasoning" wrong. She got the history of the slave trade wrong. Then she got "philosophy" wrong. She lashed out at Francione (by her own admission) because another commenter, in an effort to be helpful, posted some comments to her blog, citing Francione to source his argument. In that sense, she got her duties as a professional wrong and typical human etiquette wrong. But spinning it as an off-hand remark gets things even more wrong, in the same way that suggesting Glenn Beck's accusation that Obama hates white people were just off-hand remarks would get a great deal wrong.

In good faith, though, let's take that claim seriously, that this remark was, indeed, off-hand. The reasonable implication to this kind of statement is that she considers her professional responsibility not to misrepresent the positions of other thinkers to be relatively unimportant, her basic human responsibility not to lash out at others unprovoked to be relatively unimportant, animal slavery to be relatively unimportant and even the ideas she herself expresses to be relatively unimportant. All of this is a shame, of course, but I think Dr. Kazez may be onto something with the last point.

The confusion here is reality TV-esque. I am not making light of anyone's emotional and intellectual fragility when I say that, given the amount of plagiarism and groupthink in the animal welfare advocacy community, I think it was only responsible for another advocate to cite Francione if he was discussing Francione's ideas. I don't know why that would be a source of Internet rage. But turning back to point, it seems very unclear from her statement whether Dr. Kazez understands Francione's argument with respect to new welfarism or she doesn't understand utilitarianism or she doesn't understand both. She does claim to teach Francione's work, but that doesn't make me feel any better because:

2b) It's also not clear that she understands the differences between moral frameworks (and it's still not clear whether she understands what "wants" means). David Tong touches on this a bit in his piece here and I want to expand on what he has written:

http://thesolution.org.nz/2009/12/02/francione-and-kazez-abolition-and-welfare/

Why is Dr. Kazez's misunderstanding of the relationship between welfare and utilitarian positions problematic? First, anyone can take a new welfare position without being a utilitarian. In fact, many new welfarists claim to be in favor of the rights of animals but working on addressing their well-being in the short term. Some welfarists also take the position that it is fine to continue using nonhuman animals (and violating their rights) because nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continuing their lives, and so, do not have a moral right to have that interest protected. Both positions are possible without taking a utilitarian view. In some sense, insofar as new welfarists claim to take animal rights seriously, it's likely that they're taking a position at least partly informed by deontology (or at least rule utility, even if they are confused about what actions the rights of others call us to take).

Further, utility is just one consequentialist position within a broader continuum of positions, and even within utility there are multiple strands that propose that we should form moral judgements using different formulas -- as I understand it; I am the first to admit that I am not a philosopher. But the idea that new welfarism is somehow synonymous with utilitarianism reflects a lack of understanding around these words and the ideas they reflect.

To be a new welfarist who takes animal well-being seriously because of a utilitarian view may be a common position, but it is not required that anyone take all three positions together. To lump these positions together as mutually required involves a kind of reasoning that is also problematic. It is like reasoning backwards to the conclusion that, if I want to make voters happy by lowering taxes, I must be a Republican. Of course, there are probably plenty of Republicans who would agree that lowering taxes and making voters happy are good and related. But it does not follow from this that I have to be a Republican to "want" to lower taxes, or that I have to "want" to make voters happy, or that I necessarily want to either lower taxes or make voters happy if I identify as a Republican. And so on.

In short, it is a mistake to conflate positions that, although they may be commonly related in practice, are not mutually required. Being a utilitarian and a new welfarist are not synonymous. I can understand why the polysyllabic richesse involved might confuse someone, but taking our time to sort through ideas helps. In general, I have no doubt that many new welfarists (who argue that we are simultaneously working toward abolition animal use while we work toward regulating animal use) are confused about what they owe nonhuman animals. What troubles me, though, is that I am not sure whether Dr. Kazez understands the basics of philosophy, the basics of Francione's position, or how these ideas are related.

Again, I am not claiming in absolute terms that Dr. Kazez has managed to go through several years of graduate study and almost two decades of post-graduate professional life without understanding even basic philosophical terminology and how to use it. I just wonder why she seems intent on keeping her knowledge of the basics entirely to herself and, seemingly, intentionally misrepresenting these ideas on which she professes to have some authority.

3a) Dr. Kazez seems to prefer silly rhetorical questions and polemics to substantive discussion. Francione's offered to have her on his podcast a couple of times now. She's dismissed my plea for her to take animals seriously and go vegan (that makes me sad). I think it's a shame when someone is willing to go to all the effort to write a book about animal ethics but can't be troubled to read a few labels, make a few basic changes to eating habits, buy some new clothes as expense allows, change some household items, etc. Going vegan, typically, is trivially easy for most people.

I also think it reflects a kind of bad faith when we're reluctant to engage others in a serious dialogue about their ideas and instead rely on rhetorical grandstanding and summary dismissals. She has so far refused to apologize to Francione for a ridiculous misrepresentation of his position. Personally, I think that evinces a serious lack of professionalism on her part, but I guess I'm old-fashioned about these things. More worrisome, I imagine that she'd refuse to give the students she has "taught" over the years their money back (she should really consider it). Most worrisome, she is not giving other animals what she owes them, and that's veganism and the abolition of their slavery.

I'm sorry that Dr. Kazez found my encouraging her to take nonhuman animals seriously and to go vegan offensive. I wasn't denigrating her or her vegetarianism, although as a matter of reality, vegetarianism involves animal use and harm. In fact, I was assuming in good faith that she was a relatively decent and moral personal capable of understanding the arguments when they were presented to her. I'm sorry she misunderstood the gesture, even if I find it strange and troubling when people take offense at good faith. Nevertheless, I still don't have any personal ill will for her, even if she's insistent on proving that I mistook her and her capabilities.

3b) But, and here I pause theatrically to add some studious emphasis to what I am about to write, it does not follow from this that she should not go vegan. Again, we're still just talking about basic reasoning here. If I were doing something racist (or sexist, or heterosexist, or speciesist, etc.), if someone took the time to help correct me, I wouldn't be off the hook because I was offended by the correction. This goes back to the difference between explaining behaviour and justifying it. We cannot excuse ourselves from doing what is right just because anyone's attempts to correct us offends us.

Children use this type of reasoning a lot, but in an adult, it's surprising. So and so was doing X to me and so I shouldn't have to do Y or should be allowed to do Z! Yes, it's troubling behaviour, but everyone loses his, her or zir temper every once in a while. Even academics (loose use of the term here) are people. What's more troubling, though, is the basic misunderstanding of moral reasoning that this kind of insistent claim reflects in someone with a PhD in philosophy.

So, I still think Dr. Kazez should go vegan and should apologize to Gary Francione. Of course, it is entirely her prerogative, but I think both would be the right thing to do. I also think Dr. Kazez should take her academic responsibilities more seriously and that she should brush up on her basic knowledge of history, sociology and reasoning skills. It's never too late! But if she can only go vegan, that's really the most important thing for her to do.

That's not just true for Dr. Kazez; it's true for everyone. If you are not yet vegan, you should go vegan today. If you want to learn more about abolition, read my previous articles or learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com. And University of Arizona, please let me know if I should be expecting my diploma soon!

Erik Marcus: Bullying others is sexy! No, not really

2009-12-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

The number of regulationists using social media to engage in silly personal attacks seems never-ending the last few weeks. Now, Erik Marcus joins in. On Twitter, he writes:

"Bashing activists and groups behind protected tweets is completely cowardly. @garylfrancione"

I have to say though, I think it's really cool when someone uses the Internet to reinforce silly masculinist stereotypes about bravado with tough-guy posturing. No, I'm only joking (seriously). I think this kind of show-boating and preening for the camera makes someone look like a passive-aggressive buffoon (no offense to buffoons), and I find that kind of bravado to be really unnecessary and unhelpful. Seriously, why not just challenge Francione to a professional wrestling match?

With Twitter, there's no need to add the @ part of the response to the end of the statement. Normally, when replying, the @ comes at the beginning. This is a common social media technique to make sure that everyone on your follower list sees the statement. In this case, it would have ensured that everyone following Erik will see him attack Francione publicly and personally. To be clear, I am not saying Erik is a buffoon, but I am saying this kind of act doesn't help anyone or anything (except for Erik's hurt feelings, I guess).

What's wrong with this kind of behaviour? First, it's disingenuous. Anyone can request to follow Francione (and anyone else on Twitter for that matter). Since I used the "secretly guarded magic" of following Francione, because I wanted to learn his "deep and highly secret thoughts", I can say that Francione was not bashing activists and groups. Having read Francione's tweets (along with the 800+ other people who follow Francione), the tweets were mostly innocuous, with some criticism, and a little infrequent ribbing here and there. I know people often take offense when someone makes a funny at their expense, but really, let's all grow up a little (no offense to actual children). There's a lot more at stake in animal slavery that the vanity of activists.

I know it hurts my feelings when people disagree with me, but critical disagreement and bashing are not the same thing. Attempts to bully other advocates into silence, whether it's by bravado, or rhetorical questions meant to silence with shame, or simply acting crazy is not helpful to nonhuman animals who rely on us to act like professional advocates. That means behaving like adults, and sometimes that means taking criticism and an even the occasional witticism.

Does this kind of behaviour help nonhuman animals in any way or does it make Erik Marcus feel better? Now, don't get me wrong. I think it's awesome that Erik managed to get his tongue out of KFC, BK and Chipotle's asses long enough to find his voice and say something directly. And I'm not saying he is not entitled to his feelings. When we're criticized, it's only normal to be miffed. But I think it is important, as an advocate, to show some moral character and restraint rather than just lashing out at people with this kind of machismo. It makes the lasher look foolish (and by extension, the movement look foolish). Instead, we should at least try to sincerely engage people. When someone offends me, I start by just asking for an apology and try to pursue whatever dialogue comes from that.

I know a lot of you will probably think, well, this is just the nature of our community. There's some truth here, and I am not trying to single Erik out for irrational and problematic behaviour towards other advocates. If I addressed everyone who behaves badly in our community as an individual, I'd be here all day, everyday. But when someone who has appointed himself to a leadership position in our community behaves this way, it's very problematic.

Why is this kind of bravado wrong? Well, it creates an atmosphere in which bullying other advocates is the way to address disagreement. It also reinforces (intentionally or not), heteronormative and sexist stereotypes of masculine bravado. It relies on a coded language to imply that Francione is somehow less manly because he's not willing to subject himself to the vicissitudes of everyone who wants to accuse and abuse him on Twitter. With this kind of tantrum, who can blame him?

But so long as we put up with this kind of behaviour, we'll have to put up with this kind of behaviour.

If someone doesn't like personal attacks, if someone doesn't feel they raise the level of discussion in our community, it raises a serious question about the beliefs they claim when they engage in behaviour that is the direct opposite of what they claim they value. That is, if someone really doesn't like personal attacks, then they really shouldn't engage in them. Regulationist advocates wilfully ignore things like reality, evidence and how regulation and an indirect approach leaves nonhuman animals in slavery all the time. But I guess when someone waters their inner child, parched and destitute, by showing them a little bit of attention, it's hard to pass up some retaliation.

Honestly, I think Erik is pretty confused about his beliefs in general. He claims to be vegan and yet actively promotes nonvegan food and businesses. He recently nearly whizzed himself (metaphorically speaking) in order to publicly praise a veg*n menu offering from Chipotle's, writing that “If you're not excited, you might not have a pulse.” In fact, of the BK Veggie, he said in 2002: "The Burger King Veggie Burger represents an unprecedented opportunity in the vegetarian movement's history but if the burger flops, it might set the growth of the movement back ten years." Yeah, not a hint of hyperbole there.

Further, in 2004, when BK added some egg white to the patty, he wrote: "Until now, if ordered without mayonnaise, the BK Veggie was essentially a vegan product. Although the bun contains a speck of dairy products..." Vegans don't eat dairy, Erik. But then, he keeps going, "But the inclusion of egg whites as a key ingredient in the patty has forced me to withdraw my support from the BK Veggie." So, dairy, in a completely unnecessary and trivial to avoid product, is fine for vegans, but egg whites, in a completely unnecessary and trivial to avoid product, is not? That's not confusing at all. It misrepresents veganism, which, by definition, involves not contributing to animal suffering and exploitation when it's possible and practical to do so.

Some advocates respond to criticisms of this kind of willy-nilly nonveganism with "it's not about personal purity!", but eating animal products and contributing to animal exploiters is hardly a matter of personal purity. First, animals have a right not to be used. When we fall all over ourselves to use them unnecessarily, we're doing something wrong. Second, it provides a poor role model for virtuous behaviour when advocates cheat (sorry, Tiger Woods) and it's even worse when advocates actively promote cheating. Finally, where do they think the money goes? It goes to a business whose entire lifeblood is predicated on exploiting more nonhuman animals.

But yeah, about the idea that it might set the movement back a decade if a vegetarian product from BK were to fail: 1) the BK Veggie did flop, 2) it didn't set the movement back ten years and 3) insofar as it drew people into subsidizing the marketing department of one of the world's most prominent exploiters of nonhuman animals, it subsidized a gross amount of animal use (and the attending suffering that stems from use). Nice work.

When I die, I'm going to donate my savings to a library for animal advocates populated with books on basic logic, basic sociology and basic political economy. Whether telling people that a nonvegan product is vegan, and encouraging them to rush out to subsidize a business whose sole purpose is to exploit no human animals for profit is the kind of thing that sets the movement back is an exercise I'll leave to the reader (hint: if it doesn't set the movement back, it's a very lucky accident and testimony that people have the good sense not to take Erik Marcus very seriously).

As a general matter, Erik also defends an 'indirect' approach that involves taking pains to not directly educate people about veganism or the moral necessity of abolition. While I do not favor being confrontational generally, that's not the same thing as a refusal to educate people directly. What's surprising and disappointing is that when someone let's him know that another advocate has disagreed with him somewhere on the Internet, he's all over it directly getting in there and directly personally attacking.

Huh. I don't know what this says about Erik's priorities. I only wish he showed the same SIMMERING PASSION (albeit, restrained, principled and rationally guided) for the justice we owe nonhuman animals.

In closing, it may seem like a certain propensity for tantrums and misguidedness is required to be vegan, but I can assure you all that that's not the case. It doesn't matter how larger your virtual biceps are, and it doesn't require a lot of heavy breathing and pouting when someone disagrees. It only requires you to take the rights of nonhuman animals seriously and act accordingly (and that means not using them, and that means going and staying vegan and promoting the abolition of their slavery). If you are not vegan, you should go vegan today. If you are already vegan, but want to learn more about the abolitionist approach, you can do so from my other articles or visit Gary Francione's Web site: www.abolitionistapproach.com.

Regulating slavery: why the regulationist approach is morally and intellectually backwards even if personal adoption is the right thing to do

2009-12-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

It is an ad hominem that is one part common and one part simple-minded to suggest that abolitionists want to leave nonhuman animals in the worst possible conditions in order to make their case. I have read it several times over the years in various, equally boring and misguided expressions. But it is often the way of those who cannot address arguments correctly and substantively to engage in misrepresentations and 'faux' analyses predicated on creative semantics and concocted straw. One thing about straw, though, it almost always involves a fair amount of shit, even if the percentage varies. The most obvious example of why this claim is ridiculous lies in the promotion of abolition itself; and second, in the promotion of personal adoption by many abolitionists.

In short, though, because we may be able to improve successfully the well-being of individual animals privately with adoption, it does not follow from this that we should waste time and effort trying to improve the well-being of nonhuman animals with campaigns that are 1) unlikely to succeed, 2) if they do succeed, are unlikely to ever come into effect, 3) if they do come into effect, will be skirted, 4) if they are not skirted, would still not result in promoting veganism or abolition and instead may confuse people about the moral necessity of both, and 5) still would not help nonhuman animals in serious ways. For example, let's say a campaign proposes an extra quarter inch of cage space. It may not pass, it may never come into effect, it may be skirted, and even if all of that does not come to pass, all it yields is an extra quarter inch of cage space and may further confuse people about the moral need to go vegan and to stop using animals. Anyone who would consider that campaign meaningful to the well-being of a nonhuman animal doesn't know much about nonhuman animals.

Similarly, to hide Anne Frank from the Nazis in a cupboard makes sense. To engage in a campaign to compel the Nazis to pack fewer people into each cattle car to Auschwitz or to add a little violin music for the ride would be a very, very deeply misguided use of time; anyone who would claim that the latter is a seriously expression of human rights activism would seriously fail to comprehend what is at stake.

Of course, there are many good reasons for abolitionist advocates not to propose, not to endorse, and not to devote time and resources to campaigns that propose to regulate the use of nonhuman animals rather than abolishing that use. Analogically, these campaigns are the moral equivalent to asking rapists to wear condoms and murderer’s to use a sharper knife since these may reduce the gross amount of suffering rape and murder cause. In that sense, they are deeply morally problematic. Moreover, even a basic understanding of political economy helps us to determine that these campaign would never achieve much for nonhuman animals. They would still remain in slavery. As Francione argues in Rain Without Thunder and elsewhere, many reforms improve efficiencies (and therefore, profits) of agribusiness and helps the industry continue. Moreover, because a regulation may harm a smaller producer, it does not follow that this will harm the industry or that, indeed, it would not help a larger producer, and so on. Regardless, it does not follow from any of this that advocates should not adopt or should not promote personal adoption as a way to improve the well-being of nonhuman animals in the here and now.

An abolitionist refuses campaigns to regulate animal use for the same reason that feminists refuse campaigns that propose to regulate gang rape by encouraging rapists to wear condoms: because it is morally wrong, intellectually wrong and a waste of resources. It would not follow from this that feminists are in favor of gang rape or that they would want it continue in order to make their case. To suggest as much would be misguided -- indeed, suggestive of a moral and intellectual ineptitude that borders on clownish (no offense to actual clowns). Moreover, the painful emotional appeals dotted by melodramatic rhetorical questions (often pleas for attention) that tend to saturate these kinds of claims only evince the naiveté, the ignorance, and as a general matter, the thoughtless of the questioner. These reflect a rhetorical flourish that veils thinly an attempt to shut down critical discourse through shaming.

Sadly, the regulationist movement hierarchy is populated by bobble-headed mouthpieces who have decided to cash in the slavery of nonhuman animals long enough to shout and bluster that abolitionists are doing something wrong by doing what is best for nonhuman animals. The sycophants of the movement have created a winning business model; it combines the ingratiation of their own sadly deformed emotional needs, by turns confused, angry, oafish, and abusive towards other advocates with confusing a nonvegan public with its mutually exclusive hopes both to do right and to keep eating nonhuman animals products.

Of course, that’s entirely shameful, but still, it is not often clear why abolitionists support one type of activity related to the well-being of a nonhuman animal (personal adoption) and another type of activity, nominally related to the well-being of a nonhuman animal (welfare reform). This article will clarify some of this issues. Let’s address the rather pathetically anaemic complaint that abolitionists want animals to remain in poor conditions. That this is contrafactual is evidenced in a number of ways.

First, to promote abolition, rather than regulation, proposes to end outright the conditions in which animals are held as slaves. Whether they are tortured, or humanely murdered does not matter to the abolitionist insofar as abolitionists believe that animal use is wrong as a moral matter regardless of the treatment involved. Instead, welfare advocacy focuses almost entirely on saying: “we should change these horrible conditions!” without addressing the root of that condition in substantive ways (through abolitionist vegan outreach). It seems only reasonable to suggest that someone who wants to alleviate the suffering of animals but does not advocate and work toward an immediate end to their slavery (as the root of that suffering) is either very misguided, is selling something, or both.

Second, were this not the case, any abolitionist who promotes the personal adoption of nonhuman animals obviously concerns him or herself with the well-being of at least the animals they personally adopt or the animals whose adoption they promote. Regulationist advocacy, in contrast, often expresses itself ambivalently toward animal adoption, with some groups promoting it as a part of their fundraising, some groups (like PeTA) collecting and killing animals (17,000 since 1998 according to Newsweek), and some groups simply shrugging it off as an activity that is not worthwhile. The motivations for these positions varies, but certainly, no proper abolitionist is ambivalent about the morally pressing need for personal animal adoption.

But what makes personal adoption helpful and working on welfare unhelpful from an abolitionist standpoint? Sometimes, confused advocates do not understand why abolitionists promote personal adoption but not regulated animal use when both claim to improve the well-being of animals. It is not because abolitionists are opposed to well-being. It’s because, as Francione argues, promoting the regulated use of nonhuman animals is, at best, a zero sum game. This is not the case with personal adoption for several reasons.

First, addressing the well-being of a nonhuman animal through personal adoption is not as constrained by their property status as legal reforms are. I can adopt an individual nonhuman animal and treat him or her as a person in my home, and foster his or her well-being accordingly. Regulationist advocacy typically proposes nothing serious to help nonhuman animals, is constrained by the legal property status of nonhuman animals. Regulationist reforms often amount to fussing with the wallpaper rather than to addressing the walls of animal slavery.

Second, adopting nonhuman animals is very unlikely to confuse anyone about whether or not adoption affirms the view that animals are our property, any more than pushing a 2 year old child out of the way of an oncoming car is likely to suggest that pushing 2 year old children as a general matter is morally acceptable. Space aliens perhaps could not figure out the difference, but most people understand that adoption is an act taken with the intent of benefiting the well-being of the adoptee. Moreover, even if this were not the case, we may still have a duty to individual animals, and we should put what we owe others ahead of what others may imagine in response; there is no similar moral duty to promote animal use as morally acceptable the way that regulationist campaigns do.

Third, personal adoption does not incipiently pose the nonhuman animals adopted as instruments for human use the way regulationist campaigning often does. Regulationist campaigns frequently promote welfare measures as harmful to agribusiness. This suggests strongly that nonhuman animals are merely economic units whose well-being can be turned into an economic expense for agribusinesses. It is often unclear whether regulationists would prefer to hurt agribusinesses more or help nonhuman animals more. Regardless, this kind of authoritarian and self-serving calculation often reflects serious confusion about what we other other animals. Suffice it to say, abolitionists do not promote personal adoption out of a sense of ‘movement gain’ the way that many regulationist advocacy groups promote legal reforms. If we take nonhuman animals seriously, then obviously, we should not regard them as our instruments in any regard, even as props for our political theater to help us move the movement forward.

Finally, personal adoption is often the right thing to do for an individual animal should we wish to act in a way that is most in accord with their rights. To be clear, adoption is not an absolute moral requirement to be an abolitionist or even to be vegan. But it does not follow from this that abolitionists and vegans should not adopt nonhuman animals.

As an abolitionist vegan, for example, I consider many of my decisions from a comprehensive moral standpoint. I use all the tools at my disposal to make the best decision. For example, I do not use nonhuman animals for food, clothing and entertainment because they have the moral right not to be used. But I also do my best not to harm spiders accidentally because I believe it is virtuous to act beyond the moral baseline that the rights of others calls me to observed, if the opportunity for them to do so is there to do so. Finally, I avoid contributing financially to agribusinesses with my purchasing power to avoid the consequence of enriching these businesses and to avoid leaving others with the impression that we can buy our way to social transformation.

Of course, it is important to understand that our duty to respect the rights of nonhuman animals is what is most important. Nevertheless, when we consider what it is to do what is good for an individual animal (human and non), it is unwise to confuse the moral baseline with all of what we might do, just as it reflects a kind of moral and intellectual sickliness to propose that we can marry our interests with those we choose to exploit through the act of exploitation. Still, what we owe another rights-holder is certainly the most important point, and the point that should guide our thinking primarily, but it is a moral baseline.

As advocates for other animals, it is best to ensure that how we organize our political work for nonhuman animals as an aggregate of rights-holders, complements our political work for nonhuman animals as individual rights-holders. The maximal way to take the rights of individual animals seriously and the rights of animals as an aggregate of individuals seriously is with vegan outreach, abolitionist education and personal adoption. In contrast, regulationist advocacy achieves nothing substantive for nonhuman animals either as an aggregate or as individuals, even if it may temporarily medicate the self-esteem of advocates.

So long as nonhuman animals are property, even the well-being of individual companions are under threat; pit bull bans being the most obvious example. And so, abolitionists promote legal and moral personhood and an end to property status even for companion animals who may already be well-cared for. It would be a bad inference, ignorance or simple misrepresentation to suggest that it is the abolitionist position that we wish to leave nonhuman animals in any kind of slavery or that it is necessary to our position.

To learn more about why those who advocate abolition rather than regulation, and why regulation is completely inimical to abolition, these articles may also be helpful.

The problem with happy meat:
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/happy-meat-making-humans-feel-better-about-eating-animals/

Why welfare reform is not a viable approach if we take animal well-being seriously:
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-four-problems-of-animal-welfare-in-a-nutshell/

Why vegetarianism is morally problematic:
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/commentary-aspects-of-the-vegetarianvegan-debate/

There are, of course, some moral complexities to personal adoption, but because there are rational questions, it does not follow that there are no rational answers. If we wish take nonhuman animals seriously, as Francione argues, the most important thing any of us can do is go vegan. If you are not vegan today, you should go vegan today. If you want to learn more about abolition, visit www.abolitionistapproach.com to learn more about the approach.