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Thoughts on Whether Animal Welfare Campaigns - and Many Welfare Organisations - are Even Needed. 

5/30/2015

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What if animal welfare campaigns were not necessary? By welfare campaigns, I mean those that attempt to make cages bigger, or “push” the animal user industries to kill nonhuman animals in a way other than the traditional way, not the day-to-day activities of welfare organisations such as the RSPCA whose officers assist the police in breaking up dog fights and who rescue emaciated animals from fields and houses.

What if it turns out that clearly advocating the case for animal rights, veganism, and the total abolition of animal use, brought in its wake various welfare reforms? What if this means that no substantial monies or effort is needed in this area from those who say they stand for the abolition of animal use - and then the funds and energy could be devoted to campaigns against the real structural problem facing animal advocates, cultural speciesism.

Sociologist Richard Gale has looked at the complex and ever-changing relations that exist between social movement organisations (SMO) and countermovement organisations (CMO), and the connections that each has with the state or with state agencies. In terms of animal use, CMOs typically represent the industries perceiving themselves to be under pressure from the animal advocacy movement. The countermovement, this “counterforce,” to use Harold Guither’sterminology, is well funded and very powerful. For example, in the USA, an umbrella organisation such as the Animal Industry Foundation, “works to educate consumers about how modern livestock and poultry producers operate and the importance of their service to the American public.” This group represents the interests of numerous “producer groups, agribusiness associations, and agribusiness companies” such as the National Cattleman’s Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Feed Industry Association, the National Milk Producers Federation and United Egg Producers. 

Likewise, the Farm Animal Welfare Coalition (FAWC) was created to represent 45 industry groups and therefore was, “alarmed by the premises of animal activists, the criticisms of modern confinement livestock and poultry production, and the promotion of vegetarianism,” and worried (in public utterances at least) to the extent that it sees, “the animal rights movement as destructive to consumer choice and the farm economy.” 

Gale points out that there may or may not be direct communication between social movement organisations and their countermovement mobilisations but both will tend to attempt to gain access to, and have influence over, state agencies. Therefore, since it is nearly impossible to conceive of any major social movement activity that does not involve the state to some degree, adequate social movement analysis must be alive to “the social movement-countermovement-state triad.” What this means is that developments and discourse in civil society created by social movement activity, in this case animal advocacy, will create dialogue between state agencies and industry representatives acting as a counterforce mobilisation. Apart from close links that exist between governments and user industries, the latter often enjoying what political scientist Robert Garner calls “insider status”, when governments consult on animal issues, they invite submissions from user industry representatives, academics, and the most respectable of the traditional animal welfare organizations. There is no need for any animal rights input in such proceedings since animal welfare is the only criteria ever applied, be it in investigations into the regulation of the use of animals in circuses, on farms, in laboratories, or any other use setting. 

However, the impact of animal rights campaigning on public attitudes, and the amount of media attention given to animal rights advocacy, can and probably will become constituent parts of these deliberations. The efforts of the animal rights advocate, then, remains best expended at the civil society level, for example, in attempts to shift the way society thinks about nonhuman animals. Success in this sphere will inevitably result in welfare reforms along the way without the need for direct advocacy of it by animal advocates with aspirations beyond that of traditional animal welfarism.

Typically, of course, the animal user industries themselves respond to criticism from - or perceived to be from - an animal rights perspective with claims about animal welfare. The history of single-issue campaigning about animals enslaved in circuses is a classic example, although little of the claims-making is rights-based and is more in line with neo-welfarist orientations. While individual circus proprietors respond to demonstrations and claims-making about animal use with welfare statements, for example, here, here, and here, the circus industry, in consultation with government regulators, welcome - and advocate themselves - the regulation of circuses using animals. They do this because they know nothing beyond the notion of animal welfarism will enter into such deliberations. Therefore, while state-countermovement dialogue occurs on this level, both are likely to part-fund research about the pros and cons of different use systems. In other words, if they are to address animal use at all, they inevitably review it within the dominant paradigm of orthodox animal welfarism. This is what society does – it “understands” animal welfare because animal welfare suggests that “non-cruel use” is both feasible and desirable provided enough use regulation is set in place. Essentially, state regulators and countermovements are searching for welfare reforms that seems to satisfy prevailing public attitudes and also meet their primary objective of animal user industries not suffering economically.

This is where scientific disciplines such as animal welfare science play a vital role. Clive Phillips’ 2008 book, The Welfare of Animals: The Silent Majority, outlines the situation well. For example, Phillips recognises that a rapid intensification of animal agriculture occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century. At the expense of “family businesses” a new corporate enterprise emerged in “a new industrial farming sector,” bringing with it a fresh emphasis on economic imperatives. Phillips points out that there is “no universal truism that intensive systems are associated with low welfare and extensive systems with high.” Therefore, research is required into animal use systems. 

The adoption of welfare modifications are considered where appropriate and especially when they do not impact on profits. The result, according to Phillips, is that in most “developed countries,” industry funds research to meet two objectives. The first is to increase profits, “for example by control of diseases or an economically viable increase in productivity due to alleviation of stress,” and the second is in response to demands by the animal advocacy movement. 

In the latter case, industry insists that “such changes cannot be made without scientific evaluations of welfare impacts” and this research usually takes about ten years to complete. While Phillips points out that industry is reluctant to fund welfare research or implement changes if profits are threatened, there is one important proviso to this: “Of course even if profit is reduced in the short terms, in the long term a better market may be accessible if welfare is improved, such as to consumers paying more to purchase products from animals kept in high welfare systems.” 

Clearly those who profit from the use of animals are carefully and constantly monitoring their own business, as all successful businesses do. They are quite prepared to pay for research to keep them ahead of the game and profitable, and if that means employing experts such as Temple Grandin, they will. However, they also monitor the general discourse about the use of animals created by animal advocacy and, as ever, in league with their political allies, they will respond to rights-based claims-making to abolish animal use with suggestions and implementations of welfare reform. Since they always respond to animal rights with animal welfare, there is no need for specific welfare reforms to be advocated: industry experts and paid consultants will do that regardless. Such reforms will arise in the normal cut and thrust of social movement and countermovement exchanges, media reportage, and as a result of countermovement and state-level dialogue. 

Not only may it be the case that animal advocates who seek abolition of animal use need never advocate for particular welfare reforms, and stick to challenging the power of cultural speciesism, it is also likely that some welfare reforms are delayed by animal advocates demanding them, especially, as PETA did recently in relation to KFC and CAK, when advocates always loudly announce that they are successfully “pushing” business into making changes against business wishes (whether that is factually true or not). As in all political negotiations, none of the parties want others to claim “victory!” at their expense, leaving them vulnerable to the recriminations from within their own community, some of whom are likely to have had their interests damaged, leaving them feeling betrayed and dissatisfied.

As suggested, the overarching sociological reality that must be acknowledged is that animal welfarism is the dominant paradigm when it comes to assessments of the human use of other animals. The ideology of animal welfare, at least in terms of the “western world,” is deeply embedded into the structure of society and the psychology of its citizens. Generation after generation socialize their children to care about the welfare of animals while they use them, and generation after generation internalize these social lessons that amounts to animal use is not the issue. This is why all animal users virtually without exception claim to have the welfare of their animal property at heart; that they “love” the animals they use and commodify; and they are also just as critical as anyone else of cases that violate the basic principles of animal welfare. For example, those in the animal user industries are undoubtedly equally outraged about what Michael Vick did to dogs, and just as opposed to teenagers shoving kittens in microwaves, or people slashing horses in fields and stables as any animal advocate. However, they need not think outside of the principles of animal welfare to hold such views and, therefore, they need not think contextually about Vick’s diet or lifestyle, or consider a kitten-killer’s leather clothing, or a “horse ripper’s” love of ice cream and milk shakes made from the stolen baby food of mammal mothers.

The fact that animal welfarism is so deeply entrenched in the value system of society is also reflected in the general public response to animal rights. Those who grew up learning the tenets of animal welfarism and, believing the generalised welfarist promise of “non-cruel use,” can have a hard time understanding the claim that a rights-based approach to the human use of animals is necessary or desirable. Therefore, taken out of their comfort zone within the welfarist view, the general public also will respond to rights-based claims with thoughts about animal welfare. Likewise, “celebrity chefs” will do exactly the same. Such TV personalities, for example, Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, have taken steps to improve the welfare of battery chickens and other “food animals.” 

However, since many animal advocates accept that only a paradigm shift in human consciousness about animals will bring about any meaningful benefits for them, and since many accept that the general societal reaction to animal rights is informed by the ideology and practice of animal welfarism, animal advocates who engage in animal welfare are merely working within the status quo - moving the pieces around the board - rather than encouraging the adoption of a brand new game. In the words of Donald Watson, vegan animal rights advocates must “ripen up” the population to the idea of animal rights, rather than expending time, money and energy on identifying “low-hanging fruit” which does little or nothing to challenge the property status of nonhuman animals. This conventional view of animals – that they are items of property – “its” to be owned - is, after all, a major problem that prevents their rights being respected. Engaging in welfarism inevitably strengthens the view that animals are items of property and does little to weaken prevailing attitudes.

Although many animal advocates claim to agree that no animal use can be justified, they claim that they must campaign for welfare reform as it is the only thing that it realistic at the present time. However, given the sociology and indeed the economics of welfare
 responses to rights-based claims-making, there are important reasons why making rights claims is the only rational response to animal exploitation. Let the users worry about the welfare of their captives, we have to win respect for the rights of nonhuman animals and convince people that use is a rights violation. The more successful we are in doing that, the more welfare reforms will flow from the ongoing relationships within the social movement-countermovement-state triad.

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AUDIO: Vegan Radio International on Intersectionality

5/28/2015

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Vegan Radio International - Vegan Intersectionality Project (Dublin) (Tuesday 26 May, 8 pm - 9 pm) by Radiomk on Mixcloud

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I was invited to England as a guest of Vegan Radio International based in Milton Keynes to explore the notion of intersectionality within the vegan movement.

How do you think we did?



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VIDEO: Are We Herbivores?

5/25/2015

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Here's two excellent talks from Dr. Milton Mills, a recent one from The World Vegan Summit, and a much earlier one from 2005.

Both of these are well worth watching....



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Abolitionising Single-Issues.

5/25/2015

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If there is a truism within the animal advocacy movement it is that advocates like single-issues. Given their popularity, how can we "abolitionise" them rather than simply shoot them down?

One way is the frame single issues (I prefer thinking about single-issue events rather than single-issue campaigns) within the wider context of general animal rights theory with veganism as its moral baseline.

Although he is not consistent on this, even Gary Francione thinks that there are circumstances in which single issues can have merit: that is, within a vegan movement that contextualises any form of animal use from a vegan justice-for-all perspective.

This is what he said in a 2014 "Go Vegan with Bob Linden" show....




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Palm Oil, Human Rights, and (DIY) Politics are Vegan Issues

5/23/2015

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I’ve seen numerous discussions in recent months about the question – “is palm oil vegan?” This raises the issue of what makes anything “vegan.” “Is it vegan?” is a common enough question within the animal rights community.

What, however, is being asked when the question asked is, “is it vegan?” Does it mean that “it” contains no parts derived from other animals? – or does it mean that “it” is a product or something that vegans who recognise veganism as an ethic and not a diet can be happy and content with?

When we ask, “it is vegan?,” are we merely concerned with a list of ingredients, or do we have a much wider remit that is interested in how and in what circumstances were “it” – or the ingredients of “it” – obtained and produced? It seems to me that vegans are interested in that much wider question – we want to know if the item “contains” suffering: we should want to know if rights violations were involved in the making of the item.

Since its inception in 1944, veganism has been seen by many vegans [1] themselves as a proper and constituent part of radical social movements working towards peace, fairness, social justice, non-violence, anti-discrimination, and so forth.

This means that palm oil is not vegan. Like the famous Irish drink, Guinness, palm oil contains no animal ingredients, that is true, but its current method of production results in suffering and rights violations. Such a product cannot be vegan by definition. A product may be made entirely from plants but that does not make it vegan. Something that arises through the suffering of others, through others having their rights violated, cannot correspond with efforts towards peace, non-violence, and justice. It does not correspond with the thrust of the philosophy of veganism.

The suffering of others includes the suffering of other humans.

Donald Watson is the best-known co-founder of the British Vegan Society and he saw the vegan movement and the peace movement as intertwined. Perhaps as a forerunner to the more developed idea of alliance politics, he suggested that many people will become vegan as part of their “peace aims.” His brother and sister also went vegan and became conscientious objectors in WWII as Watson himself did. When Watson spoke about important social movements, he also seemed to talk about veganism and the cause to end human slavery as interlinked and having similar aims. He believed that the vegan ethic “covered” other social mobilisations, including movements that saved human lives, declaring a “soft spot” for lifeboat and mountain rescue personnel, especially because they are all volunteers.

He suggested that veganism is a humanitarian movement that provides members the opportunity to express the things they “stand for” in life; a radical social movement that may alter humanity for the better, and help to increase the very survival of the planet. He argued, therefore, that we need to take a broad view about what veganism is and about what it means. Vegans must think beyond diet, he said, and realise we are part of “something really big;” that vegans are engaged in a pioneer movement that will aid human evolution and the “moral development” of humankind. Believing that veganism will help to bring about a different sort of human being, he plainly thought that human animals matter. Watson suggested that vegan ethics will bring forth a new “civilisation,” and perhaps forge for the first time in human history a world and a humanity that truly deserves that name.

He said that vegans go beyond “live and let live” and believe in the notion of, “live and help live.” This means, he argued, that veganism includes caring about the exploitation of all sentient life.

While Donald Watson’s BBC News obituary correctly describes a vegan as someone who “eats a plant-based diet free from all animal products including milk, eggs and honey,” and points out that, “Most [sic] vegans wear no leather, wool or silk,” it is clear that Watson saw veganism in much broader terms than this dietary definition, and regarded the vegan philosophy as a means of assisting all animals, nonhuman and human, as well as the biosphere on which they live and depend.

Recent ideas in the animal advocacy movement, that human rights and animal rights are distinct issues; that veganism is some apolitical commodity that can be sold on the high street like cheap fashion items, seem to me not only wrong, they seem dangerous – and they certainly go against the type of thinking of those who formed the vegan movement.

Animal liberation, human rights, one struggle, one fight, is more than a slogan on a t-shirt or placard.


[1] I think it needs to be noted that some times are more politicised than others and I think in such times, the interlinks between modes of oppression on the one hand, and the intersectionality of struggle(s) on the other, is more evident. The early vegan pioneers seemed to be involved in a number of causes. I remember the 1980s as being far more politicised than the present time (something many academics note - and a few complain about). During those times, the prospects of alliance politics are greater and exist among struggles with values that would seem logically to support one another. Steve Best has suggested that the animal advocacy movement is founded on Left values (broadly defined) - he clearly is dismayed by recent suggestions that human rights and animal rights are two separate entities.

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Heard the News? Welfarists Do Welfare. Big Wow!

5/13/2015

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A scene from Shakespeare’s 1602 play wot I just wrote.[1] 

An inn in Scotland.

Donald: Angus!
Angus: Donald! Have ye had y’tea?
Donald: I have!
Angus: Good news my man, good news. Now did ye hear the latest scandal?
Donald: Tell me more, I don’t think I have.
Angus: Well you know that there animal welfarist organisation?
Donald: The one down the road a wee bit?
Angus: Aye, that’s the one.
Donald: What of it Angus my lad?
Angus: Well, you know that they support animal welfare don’t you?
Donald: Aye, I do. And they’re no for being vegan, I've heard that!
Angus: Aye, they’re no for vegan the noo. Well, ye’ll never guess what else.
Donald: What?
Angus: Well, we’ve just found out that this animal welfare organisation does animal welfare.
Donald: They do not!
Angus: I’m telling ye that they do! To be sure, those animal welfarists actually do animal welfare.
Donald: Welfarists do welfare. Well I never! [2]



I was very pleased to hear Gary Francione’s interview on the recent Go Vegan with Bob Linden show. They were talking about a new agreement between the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the North American egg industry to phase in enriched battery cages over 18 years – yes, you heard it, 18 years, since we all know that animal welfarism is all about “helping the animals NOW.”


I was so glad to hear what Gary Francione said because I recall an episode of Bob Linden’s show (from Sept 2009 – you can hear it in the archive) when Steve Best was the guest and when things were very different. In the 2009 show, both Linden and Best were tearing their hair out about the HSUS not standing up for animal rights and for not advocating veganism. In contrast, what Francione said was, in effect, “well, what do you expect, Bob, they are the HSUS.”


Some of Francione’s claims were, however, quite puzzling I thought. What Bob Linden wanted to know most of all was this: “Who elected the HSUS to represent chickens or the animal rights movement?” Francione replied saying that the question was “complicated,” and he said that there were two parts to the answer.


1. The HSUS are an animal welfare organisation and always have been. They do not stand for animal rights and never have done. They do not promote veganism and they never have done. He summed it up by saying, “What can one expect from the Humane Society?”

2. Some “animal rights people” have welcomed with open arms what the HSUS have done and see it as step forward.


That does not seem complicated to me. Yes, welfarists do welfare and yes, some people mischaracterise animal welfare groups as animal rights groups. None of this should be news in 2011.


Point One I fully understand, and have been saying this for years – welfarists do welfare. Big wow, what do we expect? We don’t expect them to advocate for veganism and we certainly do not expect them to take anything like a rights-based view of human-nonhuman relations.


In relation to Point Two, we need to dig a little deeper, for just who are these “animal rights people” who have so warmly welcomed what the HSUS have done with their 18-year phase-in of nothing very much? It is not clear who Francione is talking about at this stage because he immediately begins to cite the large animal advocacy groups which he and I, and everyone else who take an abolitionist approach to animal rights, regard as animal welfarist mobilisations.


He says, quite rightly, that the HSUS is “not an animal rights organisation;” they are pretty open about that themselves but he also says that most existing animal advocacy groups are welfarist anyway. Francione does sometimes talk as though there are homogeneous blocs of people out there who all behave and think in the same way. So, who are these “animal rights people” welcoming the HSUS’ latest move?


Perhaps what’s being said here is that many animal welfare advocates call themselves animal rights campaigners. Well, that’s true in my experience. It certainly is the case that most people who call themselves animal rights advocates do not adhere to – and most have never read – the rights-based literature about human-nonhuman relations.


However, if this is what Francione means, he means that some people who regard themselves as “animal rights people” - those who support animal rights in a rhetorical sense but not philosophically - may have welcomed this HSUS initiative. If this is the case, it is odd that Francione even uses the term “animal rights people” because he refuses to see such people as animal rightists, and calls them New Welfarists instead, meaning those people who want to abolish animal use by using the methodology of animal welfarism.[3]


This should mean that, for Francione, no animal rights people welcomed this egg agreement for all those who have are either traditional or new welfarists.


I have long argued that the animal advocacy movement remains philosophically messy at the best of times. This is not helped by the fact that many animal advocates do not read philosophy books – and I think this is where ARZone does a valuable job, for example, when it organised a “Tom Regan Week” through which animal advocates were given a flavour of Regan’s rights-based position on human-nonhuman relations. It is rather disturbing, however, that anyone needs to go onto the Bob Linden show in 2011 and explain that the HSUS is not an animal rights organisation.


Some readers may think, ah, yes, but does that mean that Francione gets to say who is and who is not an animal rights advocate? It is a fair point for who can impose meaning on a term like “animal rights advocate.” However, it seems reasonable to me that the lead voices in this should be the philosophers and theorists who have written and thought about it for years. In this day-and-age, Tom Regan, Gary Francione and Joan Dunayer are important rights-based thinkers on human-nonhuman relations. They do not agree on everything, as one would expect, if fact they disagree on quite a lot - but they do agree that nonhuman animals are rights bearers and what we do to them when we use them are rights violations. They all want to abolish animal use and not regulate it, and they all champion veganism.


In the “animal rights movement,” groups like PeTA, for example, have successfully had the label “animal rights” applied to them. Sociologically, this meaning has been socially constructed. However, that immediately raises questions about which voices should carry more “weight” than others, and so that brings me back to my point about the philosophers and theorists. Any fair assessment of PeTA’s claims to be an animal rights organisation will fail, in my view, whereas it is clear that Gary Francione is a rights-based animal advocate standing up for animal rights with veganism as its moral baseline.


Perhaps we need to look forward to the day when the majority of animal advocates, on hearing the latest from the HSUS will, instead of getting into a flap over it, simply say either, welfarist do welfare or what does one expect from the Humane Society?


In the Friday Feature for his show, Bob Linden said, “Hey, hey, ho ho, the HSUS has got to go.” Well, no Bob, they do not, so long as people who are interested in animal rights do not support them. They are separate from animal rights and probably do some good work from an animal welfare point of view. Gary Francione always makes the point that all the money given to animal welfare groups would be better spent on animal rights advocacy. He predicts that, if this were the case, then there would be more ethical vegans in many societies, and there would be more people thinking seriously about the case for animal rights. This seems reasonable to me, although some point out that people “go vegan” for reasons other than someone or some group directly telling them to. I think that there is something in that, and investigation of the point would be useful, although my own view is that we should be honest with people and clearly state our position in which veganism is an integral part.


The sooner we can clear up the philosophical mess in the animal advocacy movement, the easier it should be for people to give their time, effort, and money to causes they support the most and, hopefully, we can never again get into a position in which the HSUS, of all groups, can be mistaken for animal rights advocacy. However, animal rightists be warned: the dominant paradigm is animal welfarism, so people are likely to support it as something they both understand and approve of. In fact, sociologically, we are almost trained to do just that.



[1] With apologies to Ernie Wise.

[2] Also with apologies to THIS.

[3] As Francione points out in Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (and a recent podcast with vegan educator, Elizabeth Collins), his thinking about new welfarism has evolved since the concept appeared in his 1996 book, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. He now argues that only some new welfarists want to abolish animal use and thinks that others are content for some forms of use to continue.


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Ronnie Lee: Vegan-Based Campaigning is NEW!

5/8/2015

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Long-time animal liberationist, Ronnie Lee, who went vegan in 1971, was the very first guest on a new venture in England called "Vegan Radio International."  In this short clip from the programme (scroll down to the bottom of post), Ronnie talks about how new vegan-based education is.

He says that when he first encountered the national single-issue groups, such as the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) and the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) in the 1970s, most of their staff were flesh, dairy, and egg consumers, so there was no vegan campaigning going on in those days in the mainstream animal movement. 

During the 1970s, he says, the concept of animal rights emerged and it became influential within the animal advocacy movement. Therefore, there came a time when most -sometimes all - of the staff members of many of the national groups were vegans as individuals.

Nevertheless, despite this, single-issue campaigning remained the order of the day, and there was still no focus on veganism: the idea that 21st century advocates are so familiar with (some even comfortable with) - that veganism should be the moral baseline of the movement, at the very least, the rights-based elements of it, was a long way into the future.

This historical perspective provided by Ronnie Lee shows us that consistent, sustained, vegan-focused campaigning is very new within the animal advocacy movement, and many people will know that I credit Gary Francione with being one of the main driving forces of the notion that veganism should be at the heart of all animal rights campaigning. Ronnie went vegan long before Francione did (1971 compared to 1982). Indeed, I was an ethical vegan before Francione was (1979/1982). In fact, Francione was still calling himself a vegetarian in some of his writing as late as 1996.

The fact remains, though, that the modern focus on veganism owes a lot to Gary Francione.

Much, much, more important than that, however, is to remember the historical fact that Ronnie Lee points out: vegan-based campaigning is NEW!

If anyone tries to tell you that vegan education has "gone on for many years and its not working," inform them that is simply not true and, to quote the cheesy Carpenters (also of the 1970s), we've only just begun.

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Who's Afraid of Big Bad V?

5/8/2015

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An animal advocate recently announced that he was looking forward to a talk by Matt Ball, currently of VegFund.

He posted THIS article written by Ball as part of the announcement.

The article is one of those forget about "purity," don't be "dogmatic," and don't scare people away with your veganism pieces we've seen from time to time over several years now. It might be relevant to point out that Matt Ball used to work for Vegan Outreach and told Animal Rights Zone that the VO team now regret using that title.

Of all the article, this stood out for me...

We need to ask questions such as: Do I bother asking for an ingredient list when eating out with non-veg friends and family, perhaps ending up not eating anything, and risk making veganism appear irrational and impossible?


I asked the poster of the announcement what he thought Ball was getting at - he replied: "I think what Matt is implying is that if vegans make veganism appear to be some sort of exclusive dogmatic club, it can potentially scare off pre-vegans from even trying, and do more harm than good in the long run."

OK, so the construction of some "exclusive dogmatic club" doesn't sound too great in a social movement context. Neither does scaring off pre-vegans "from even trying."

The remedy for that, it seems, is not too ask too many questions about whether some food item is 100% plant-based or not. Don't get too involved with the ingredients when eating out. I'm intrigued by how this is supposed to work out in the real world. The vegan gets to a cafe a little late and finds that the "pre-vegans" have ordered stew with bread rolls for everyone. Is this a case where the vegan does not bother with the ingredients? Don't check if there's dairy, eggs, or flesh in the stew. Don't worry that the bread (or the spread on it) may have dairy in it?


Remarkably, commenting on this issue, someone from a European vegetarian organisation said he could imagine circumstances in which he'd eat meaty gravy rather than make a fuss.



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How Fast are They Spinning in their Graves?

5/8/2015

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This blog entry is dedicated to the memory of Leslie Cross, Donald Watson, Faye K. Henderson, and G. Allen Henderson.

These early vegan pioneers were revolutionaries and visionaries. Sociologist Matthew Cole speaks of veganism, "initial critical vigour and radicalism, summed up in Donald Watson’s characterisation of veganism as 'the greatest Cause on earth'".

How distraught would they be if they saw the current, bland, reduced, and limited vegan movement? Indeed, just how fast would the dead pioneers be spinning in their graves?


Matthew Cole writes:
  • From 1948-1951, The Vegan, the quarterly journal of The Vegan Society (the world’s first, founded in the UK in November 1944), bore the strapline, ‘Advocating living without exploitation’ on its front cover. That ambition to live without exploitation is arguably fundamental to contemporary Critical Animal Studies (CAS), especially when we consider that to live without exploitation entails active engagement with what were in 1944, and remain today, brutally exploitative social systems, for many humans as well as for other animals. In this chapter, I...argue that modern veganism (that is, veganism since the formation of The Vegan Society) was a critical enterprise at birth, in a way that anticipated CAS in some respects: Veganism from its inception was engaged in a revolutionary transformation of human relationships with other animals, with other humans, and of vegans themselves.

Extract from: Cole, M. (2014) "'The Greatest Cause on Earth’: The historical formation of veganism
as an ethical practice", in N. Taylor & R. Twine (eds) The Rise of Critical Animal Studies – From the Margins to
the Centre, Routledge.
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The Strength & Resilience of the Orthodox

5/8/2015

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In a discussion about forms of social knowledge, sociologists David Lee and Howard Newby claim that both common sense knowledge and ideological beliefs suffer from certain limitations (which, they say, sociological knowledge can go some way to overcome). Lee and Newby elaborate on the point, suggesting that these forms of knowledge are self-centred, incomplete and likely intolerant.

This latter suggestion is interesting, especially since they add that ideological belief can, "foster a dogmatic style of thought that insists on being right regardless." Of course, all ideologies may have these characteristics, including those based on ideas and beliefs we all favour and hold, as much as those based on beliefs we oppose or are generally "neutral" about. Constant vigilance and a commitment to critical thinking are required to ameliorate these tendencies to dogmatism.

Traditional animal welfare ideology displays these dogmatic characteristics, built on society-wide opinion that animal welfarism is undoubtedly, self-evidently, almost "naturally," the right and proper way to assess the morality of what humanity does every day to other animals. Animal welfarism remains largely accepted, generally without question, as the reasonable and realistic paradigm for evaluating human-nonhuman relations. Throughout the Western world, the ideology of animal welfarism is firmly institutionalised and its central ideological tenets are widely adopted and culturally internalised.

Claims are made on a regular basis, often by British farming interests and politicians of all stripes, that the "United Kingdom" has the strictest animal welfare standards in the world. Thus, it is suggested, "welfare costs" are substantial to the commercial industries which use nonhuman animals and animal welfare legislation should not readily be further strengthened without very good reason. However, there appears to be a general acceptance - or at least the articulation of a formal recognition - of the welfarist stance that says the "price" paid for maintaining "high welfare standards" is harsh and yet justifiable because, the ideology suggests, the users of nonhuman animals are concerned more than most about animal welfare. That said, the notion of going beyond what is evidently necessary to achieve "humane treatment" is clearly regarded as largely uncalled for, especially since it may dramatically endanger commercial competitiveness. In this sense, and rather like formal supportive claims towards health and safety provisions, animal welfare practices and legislation are presented as "essential," "adequate," and "strong but fair," notwithstanding that its provisions come at a cost. This is essentially the presentation of a pluralist political model allegedly based on seeking some satisfactory balance of various and often contradictory interests, even including some of the interests of the "lower animals" that humans routinely use as resources. This explains why animal rights claims are met by animal welfare statements from animal users.

In practice, organisationally and politically, animal welfarism is a constituent part of the various battle grounds and compromises between and among mobilisations such as the National Farmers Union (NFU), Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), the British government’s Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) and the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA – formally the Ministry of Agriculture). This means that the "reasonable, reasoned and proper debate" over the human use of other animals is seen as rightly the province of legitimate mainstream organisations committed - on some level or other - to conventional animal welfare tenets. 

This means that they are committed to the "non-cruel" exploitation of other animals for human ends. Thus, "on the animals’ side" (although all participants would loudly claim this particular image-friendly status), groups such as CIWF stand for a move toward ~or a return to~ extensive systems of "animal husbandry," while the more politically powerful NFU would more likely support the status quo of substantial intensive production. The most dogmatic elements of traditional animal welfarism are readily evident when they are challenged by animal rights claims, on the one hand, and (now rare) Cartesian-inspired claims that there are no ethical issues involved in the human utilisation of other animals.

Clearly, animal welfarism’s institutionalised status as the firmly-fixed orthodoxy is its greatest strength: from this assured position other perspectives can be authoritatively characterised as "extreme" and "unnecessary." The widespread social orientation to animal welfarism means that any thinking about human relations with other sentient beings is almost mechanically assessed within this long-established and entrenched paradigm. Animal welfarism, unsurprisingly, is all-pervasive, even in campaigns "for" nonhuman animals. Most animal advocacy organisations, even those describing themselves as "animal rights" mobilisations, base their claims on central welfarist concepts such as cruelty rather than on rights violations.

By its own standards animal welfarism can claim to "work," or function, in the sense of reducing "unnecessary suffering" caused by the human use of nonhuman animals. This apparent functionality leads to suggestions that alternative views represent unnecessarily radical or "utopian" views. Just as common sense knowledge is regarded as enough to understand social phenomena, animal welfarism is considered as sufficient to understand the needs and requirements of nonhuman animals. In the early 1990s, political scientist Robert Garner reviewed several philosophical positions on human relations with other sentient beings and situated traditional animal welfarism in a broad centre ground position by characterising it as the "moral orthodoxy" in terms of ethical views about other animals. Garner also identified two comparative extremes to the welfarist "centre": the presently rare "no moral status" position, and the growing "challenge to the moral orthodoxy," which Garner (often mistakenly) claims is represented by philosophers such as Andrew Linzey, Mary Midgley, Stephen Clark, James Rachels, Bernard Rollins, Steven Sapontzis, Rosemary Rodd and especially Singer and Regan.

In her "dismissals model" (absolute and relative), philosopher Mary Midgley underscores the centrality of animal welfarist understandings, while noting that a certain degree of "mental vertigo" results from confusion about these positions, and this was in the mid-1980s, before Gary Francione came up with the added complication of the notion of "new welfarism." While this may be true of professional philosophers, who tend to identify and appreciate the differences between welfarist and rights-based positions, it is probably more correct to state that, in general talk, animal welfarism holds centre stage to the exclusion of other views. It is also important to note in this respect that, despite regularly being labelled as concerning "animal rights," the vast majority of mass media coverage of issues concerning the treatment of nonhumans is unconditionally welfarist in content.

Writing in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Aubrey Townsend attempts to further define the conventional welfarist view of other animals. He argues that the ethical orthodoxy allows a distinction between two sorts of moral considerations. The first applies to human and nonhuman animals and is based on a welfarist commitment to do what promotes the "living of a pain-free happy life." The second consideration is reserved for humans only and is based on a respect for personal autonomy - "for what an individual wants or values." Therefore, since animals are regarded as "only sentient," they can only be accorded an inferior moral status compared to human beings:

Thus, we are entitled to sacrifice the interests of animals to further human interests, whereas we are not entitled to treat humans in the same way - as part of a cost-benefit analysis.
Robert Garner ultimately offers animal rights supporters little comfort, declaring that the position outlined here by Townsend, "amounts to what is the conventional view about animals at least in Britain." He also agrees that this position corresponds to the perspective of many traditional animal welfare organisations. In effect, then, welfarism accords to nonhuman animals "intermediate status" - while animals may be more than inanimate "things," they are nevertheless very much less than "persons."

Understanding the status of nonhuman animals in speceisist societies means appreciating the challenge that advocates of nonhuman rights face. That animal welfarism is the dominant paradigm in assessments of human-nonhuman relations is certain. This is the view a genuine animal rights movement must fundamentally oppose.
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    Roger Yates

    Dr. Roger Yates is a rights advocate and sociologist

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