On Human Relations with Other Sentient Beings - The Blog

Alex O'Connor and the Animal Movement's Failure

3/17/2023

I have been extremely perplexed at the amount of hand wringing that has occurred over Alex O'Connor's (Cosmic Skeptic) recent announcements that he is "no longer a vegan."

It is not actually possible for someone who was never a vegan to be "no longer a vegan." Who said Alex O'Connor was never a vegan? Well, Alex O'Connor did - repeatedly - but the movement failed to listen to him.

The video below from Perspective Philosophy shows that Alex O'Connor was neither a vegan nor an animal rights advocate. In fact, because O'Connor does not believe in rights - including all animals' rights, including yours dear reader - and because he thought that the Vegan Society definition of veganism was way too strict, he repeatedly redefined it in order for it to become what he wanted veganism to mean.

Bear in mind that the video below was released when O'Connor had been a reluctant "vegan" for just over two years.

He kept redefining veganism to mean an attempt to reduce the suffering of other animals. One word in the definition he rejected - and therefore ejected - from his personal definition of veganism was "exploitation." Sadly he is not alone in this. Many vegans appear to omit this word from the definition or, even if they do include it, they place it second to the word "cruelty," thus weaking and diluting the definition.

In organisational terms, Alex O'Connor disliked the fact that veganism is an abolitionist philosophy - standing for, and advocating for, the end of all animal use. He therefore conceived of The Vegan Society as some modern-day version of the RSPCA and nothing to do with animal liberation and, much more than that, absolutely nothing to do with the dread idea of animal rights.

As Perspective Philosophy explains below, by routinely reducing and weakening the definition of veganism, he was able to reason that vegans can kill and eat other animals as he insisted that they do not have a right to life.

The real question is this: why did the animal movement put up with O'Connor's nonsense for two or three years rather than listen to the critique of his vegan reducetarianism such as the one below? Had O'Connor chosen not to be honest and had hidden his consumption of products derived from other animals, camp outs and conferences would still be cheerfully hosting him and facilitating the spread of his non-vegan anti-animal rights stance.

So, animal movement, can we please stop getting ourselves in a knot over a non-vegan who eats products derived from other animals?

Thanks a mil.

On language: both Alex O'Connor and Perspective Philosophy use speciesist language.

Social Movement

10/14/2022

As this speech from Professor Steve Best comes up to it being ten years old, it strikes me how much things have changed in the last decade.

With so much emphasis now on careers, individuals, psychology, being an "influencer," the continued growth of the welfare corporations, etc., one wonders if Best's language of social movements, alliance politics, and ideological ideas registers any more.

Foul-Mouthed Veganism

4/26/2022

The march to create a vegan movement that resembles the RSPCA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) continues apace – or so it seems to me.

Social movement theory warns us that, once social movements grow, their core values may be placed in danger. Is this happening to the vegan social movement? Has it already happened?

All I hear now are foul-mouthed vegans using the dread c-word. Cruelty this, cruelty that, cruelty the other. I’m heartily sick of the damn word!

This welfarist language is now largely dominant in the vegan movement. On platforms such as TikTok, cruelty is about the only word one sees or hears in relation to what humans do to other animals. I see advocates frequently saying things such as, “veganism is a stance against animal cruelty.” Ask a modern-day vegan why using other animals is wrong and most will reply suggesting that animal use is “cruel.” We seem to have lost the ability, to the extent that we ever had it, to make the case for animal rights, so we rely on moral shocks laced with welfarist language.

Never likely to say, or even think about saying, that all animal use is a rights violation, we’ve ended up saying that all animal use is uniformly cruel. Of course, much of it is cruel but, as animal rights philosopher Tom Regan points out, cruelty levels are not the fundamental wrong.

This welfarist focus has led to vegan “influencers” saying that veganism is about “reducing animal suffering,” “abolishing the worst forms of animal abuse,” and getting into debates with slaughterhouse owners about the percentage of times the stunning of other animals fails. Reducing suffering, tackling worst cases, improving slaughterhouse practices. This is exactly what the RSPCA is concerned with.

This is what the British Vegan Society says veganism is

"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

This is the definition of veganism that most vegans appear to use, although it seems that most do not include even the first sentence in full. Instead, they tend to end at the phrase, “...and cruelty to, animals.” When they talk about the meaning of veganism, the phrase “exploitation of” tends to disappear, as does, often, the word “philosophy.”

By the way modern-day vegans talk about veganism, they seem happiest with the idea that the definition of veganism reads: “Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude – as far as is possible and practicable – all forms of cruelty to animals.” Exactly the way the RSPCA sees the world.

Of course, the growing contingent of “animals only” vegans apparently and absolutely hate the reference in the full definition to benefitting humans, so that never gets mentioned.

This means, of course, that many modern-day vegans are totally out of step with the way veganism was thought of by the people who began the vegan social movement and who, indeed, coined the word. The vegan movement’s founders saw themselves engaged in a collective cause to bring about the moral evolution of humanity for the benefit of all sentient life - and the planet.

The full definition I’ve cited above came about between the years 1979 and 1988. I regard it as a weaker statement about the meaning of veganism than those that went before. However, this definition does include the word “exploitation” (in the sense of – at the very least - the human exploitation of other animals). That word was favoured by the movement’s founders; the very word that many vegan newbies reject.

Moreover, the word “exploitation” comes before the word “cruelty,” even in the 1979-1988 definition, not that anyone would know by the way vegans talk nowadays.

What social movement theory warns us about – a process of moderation – is occurring within the vegan social movement it seems to me. Essentially, a once-radical, even revolutionary, idea is being neutered by welfarist moderates, and to such an extent that even the grassroots is now using traditional welfare language to describe vegan aims.

Cultural Speciesism

The human use of other animals – and the attitudes that support such use – is a structural matter. The values of speciesism are embedded into the very fabric of society. The use of other animals is institutionalised. It is not the case that the vegan movement is faced by a few cruel individuals who do cruel things to other animals. The problem is much deeper than that, sadly, and that means the problem is much harder to fight against. We are fighting against cultural speciesism.

What all vegans need to appreciate – and I would venture to suggest, the newer vegans the most – is that the ideology of animal welfarism is part and parcel of cultural speciesism. Cultural speciesism and animal welfarism are values that are generationally transmitted in society through the processes of socialisation.

In other words, generations of humans are brought up to believe a set of interrelated values. The basic idea is that animal use is not wrong because animal use can be (and largely is) done in a non-cruel way and it is animal cruelty – when it occurs - that is wrong. We are all, by and large, taught “don’t be cruel” as children. However, “don’t be cruel,” and “cannot use” (cannot eat, wear, own, test upon, etc.) are not connected in the general cultural imagination.

It may be the case that vegans see a direct link between “don’t be cruel” and veganism but that is not the way cultural speciesism informed by animal welfarism sees it at all. There was outrage in vegan circles recently when the RSPCA was “exposed” for not being a vegan organisation. Of course it is not a vegan organisation! Never has been, and never pretended to be. What many vegans appear to have done is see the word “cruelty” in the “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” name and simply assumed their anti-cruelty position implies veganism.

There is no such linkage in people’s minds, nor in the culture that directs those minds. What “don’t be cruel to animals” means is what we all are taught through socialisation. Don’t kick your cat or dog (animal property) but that has nothing to do (culturally) with eating fishes and chickens. The RSPCA are far more likely to say this than “go vegan.”

Of course, vegans may argue that they are trying to effect cultural speciesism – which is true – and to create a strong linkage between “don’t be cruel” and veganism. If vegans take that line, their disadvantage is based in the reality that such conversations occur within the dominant paradigm: speciesism informed by welfarism, and articulated by traditional animal welfare groups such as the RSPCA.

I contend that discourse within the dominant welfarist paradigm is likely to prevent people from thinking about veganism. Why should they think of veganism if all they are asked is not to be cruel to other animals, a value they already agree with? The dominant view about eating other animals, for example, is that, while consuming them is not a moral issue, being cruel to them is. Therefore, and all vegans know this, people explore ideas like “free-range” and “humane” farming, seeking out that thing their culture has promised them: non-cruel animal use. They know that non-cruel use is possible and “out there” somewhere, it is simply an issue of finding it. The “it” is not veganism.

I suggest that a clearer and an unequivocally more direct line to veganism comes from the philosophy of animal rights, not through the messy corridors of institutionalised animal welfarism. Animal rights demands that other animals are regarded as rights bearers and demands respect for that status. It says that, when humans use other animals for any purpose, they commit violations of other animals’ rights.

As I suggest, animal rights is a demand. It does not beg people to “not be cruel” to other animals, nor does it beg for “mercy.” To my dying day, I will contend that whoever came up with the group name of “Mercy for Animals” is an absolute monster. Well, perhaps monster is too strong. There must be another name, equally damning. Ah, yes, of course: welfarist.

Radicals & Revolutionaries: Thanks to Tylor and Jake for my Recent Interview

4/9/2022

"As the Animal Liberation Front exploded (literally and figuratively) onto the scene, the desire for the clandestine organization to have a public mouthpiece grew bigger. And so the ALF Press Office was born.

"Born in 1957, Roger Yates would find himself quickly drawn towards direct action by the attitudes, philosophies and actions of, you guessed it, the Hunt Saboteurs Association. (Are you picking up on a trend here?)

"At the request of Ronnie Lee, Roger became the ALF Northern Press Officer which would eventually lead him to facing years in prison on conspiracy charges. But Roger had other plans…"

HERE'S the Roger Yates episode.

Radicals & Revolutionaries feature Ronnie Lee

4/2/2022

My old - very old - mate, Ronnie Lee is the second guest of the new Radicals & Revolutionaries Podcast series.

"At the beginning of the Band of Mercy and the Animal Liberation Front, someone liberated that first animal and struck that first match. And it was Ronnie Lee.

Born in 1951, Ronnie would become interested in veganism and the world of animal rights by seeing a TV program in the early 70’s about the Hunt Saboteurs Association. He would soon join, and launch his own chapter, sometimes sabbing by himself.

But he realized that if you could keep the hunt from leaving in the morning by sabotaging their equipment and vehicles, you wouldn’t even need to be in the fields. So in 1972 the Band of Mercy was born. Starting out with low level attacks on hunt vehicles and kennels, he and his friends turned it into a crusade against all animal use. By 1976, they had become the Animal Liberation Front, and as they say, the rest was history."

RONNIE LEE (part one) - "And then we had heard about a vivisection laboratory that was being built and we used to go hunt sabbing in that area. “Oh blimey! That’s quite a lot of it there now…” We happen to have a gallon of petrol, of gasoline in the – in our car. So we thought “Well, why don’t we have a go now?” Y’know? So we sloshed it around in the annex, and threw a couple matches down, and it went up – woosh! And we made our getaway!"

RONNIE LEE (part two) - "I was arrested in ’86, and charged with conspiracy – charged with conspiracy to cause arson, to cause criminal damage and to incite other people to cause criminal damage. I didn’t do the damage myself, what I did was encouraged other people to do it. They said “oh, we suspect that Mr. Lee dabbled himself in this action,” which I did, a lot! But they couldn’t prove it!"

Introducing Radicals & Revolutionaries Podcast

3/31/2022

Tylor Starr and Jake Conroy have launched an excellent oral history podcast series under the title, Radicals & Revolutionaries.

Tylor and Jake write: "Social justice movements have always embraced a wide variety of strategies and tactics to move their struggles forward, including direct action. The idea of taking action to immediately stop an opposing action, often using illegal and controversial tactics, has forever been the focus of debate, even amongst it’s participants."

THIS is their primer episode, and then they get to it, with their first guest being Dave Wetton, a remarkable man with an amazing story of activism that dates back to the 1960s. Dave's story is told over two episodes.

DAVE WETTON (part one) - "Dave was born in 1943, and went to his first animal rights demonstrations in 1961. The Hunt Saboteurs Association would be born in 1963, and Dave, at the age of 20, joined shortly after. He would spend decades with the HSA, often in leadership positions, helping it grow into the amazing network of activists that it is today."

DAVE WETTON (part two) - "I remember going back to 1965. There were 3 of us. We went down to Salisbury with the intention of liberating some of the dogs from the chemical warfare establishment."

Welfare Veganism

2/22/2022

GOODBYE CRUEL WORD

[Warning: details of animal slaughter, fairly graphic video, and lots of speciesist language].

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is getting a right old battering at the moment due to an Earthling Ed/Surge graphic cartoon [see below] about the killing of calves who are found alive when their mothers are cut open in slaughterhouses.

The RSPCA produce a series of guides on how to violate the rights of other animals (they are not an abolitionist or vegan organisation - never have been, never pretended to be).
For example, for "dairy cattle": https://science.rspca.org.uk/documents/1494935/9042554/RSPCA+welfare+standards+for+dairy+cattle+%28PDF+7.76MB%29.pdf/41638530-20de-c6cc-5e9c-7b73f9c8f4b7?t=1557731468543

In the "Slaughtering/Killing" section of the report (pp. 47-55), there is a page on the "Slaughter of pregnant cattle."

S 9.0 * Abattoirs must have a written protocol in place for dealing with animals in late gestation, and this must be made available to the RSPCA Assured Assessor or RSPCA Farm Livestock Officer.

S 9.1 * There must be a named person such as the AWO [Animal Welfare Officer] who is responsible for ensuring that the animals are treated according to the requirements laid down in the standards.

S 9.2 * Cows in the last third of their gestation period (i.e. ≥27 weeks pregnant) must not be sent for slaughter, except for disease control of emergency/casualty slaughter purposes.

S 9.3 * Producers sending pregnant animals to slaughter (see standard S 9.2) must inform the slaughterhouse of the impending arrival of any animals that may be, or suspected to be, in the last third of gestation.

S 9.4 * Any foetus in the last third of gestation (i.e. the dam is ≥27 weeks pregnant), or suspected of being in the last third of gestation, must not be removed from the maternal carcass until at least 5 minutes after maternal sticking, but preferably between 20-30 minutes after the dam is dead in order to ensure that the foetus does not gasp and start to breathe air.

S 9.5 * If, for any reason, a foetus is found to be showing signs of life upon removal from the uterus (i.e. a foetus that has gasped and is now conscious), it must be immediately killed with an appropriate captive bolt or by a blow to the head with a suitable blunt instrument.

S 9.6 * Attempts at reviving the foetus must not occur under any circumstances.

It is S 9.5 that Earthling Ed's recent cartoon highlighted. The RSPCA responded on Twitter with information from S 9.2 - that cows in late pregnancy should not be sent to slaughter (presumably, they are supposed to stay on the farm, give birth, have their child killed, or otherwise "dealt with," and *then" be sent to slaughter.) There are a few reasons why a pregnant cow would arrive at a slaughterhouse, stated in clause S 9.2 which explains why clause S 9.5 exists, but they are not supposed to the there in the first place.

However (surprise!), not all farmers and not all slaughterhouses follow welfare rules, so the chances are that considerably more cows in late pregnancy are arriving at houses of slaughter than the guidelines allow for. Due to this rule breaking, it may be argued that S 9.5 is "needed" more than ever, from an animal welfare point of view. I was told by a worker at an Irish slaughterhouse that farmers are supposed to starve cows 24 hours prior to arriving at the kill factory. However, because the farmers cannot be trusted to follow the rules, the cows are kept at the slaughterhouse for 24 hours and then killed. This results, of course, in the case in which the farmers actually abide by the regulations, that the other animals they bring are not fed for two days before they are killed.

The Reaction of Vegans to the Video.

The comments that poured in from vegans on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram were remarkable and, sadly, often ignorant. The chief problem seemed to be that many commentators did not know what the RSPCA is as an organisation, and that seems to be a product of a general ignorance of the difference between animal welfare and animal rights/liberation.

People responded to the video by saying that they were cancelling their subscriptions to the RSPCA, and responses were full of dismay from existing donors to the organisation who apparently thought the RSPCA "stands for veganism," and other such gross misunderstandings. Many people believed that "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" simply implies a vegan stance.

It is worth noting again that the RSPCA is not an abolitionist or vegan organisation - never have been, never pretends to be. In other words, the organisation is not opposed to the USE of other animals, they just believe that the elimination or reduction in animal suffering while they are being used for human purposes is desirable. It begs the question as to how these vegan commentators were convinced to financially support the RSPCA in the first place.

Bottom line: it is not the RSPCA's fault that many vegans apparently have no idea what the organisation stands for, and who base their outrage on the simple basis that the "C" in RSPCA stands for the word "cruelty."

In Earthling Ed's (Ed Winter) recent book, This is Vegan Propaganda, he writes (wrongly in my view) that the RSPCA is a paradoxical organisation ("The Paradox of the RSPCA," pp. 51-56). He acknowledges that the RSPCA is "arguably the largest animal welfare organisation in the world." He complains that the actions of the RSPCA have allowed "cruel practices" to be inflicted upon other animals while, at the same time, allowing the consumers of animal bodies and their secretions to feel better about their consumption. This is essentially the same point Peter Singer made in 1975 in his book, Animal Liberation. Earthling Ed asserts that the RSPCA should be like the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) and seek to "end cruelty," as opposed to normalising it. Would the NSPCC work alongside those who abuse children, he asks.

However, we live in a culture that is deeply speciesist. The NSPCC are not expected to regulate how millions of children are deliberately bred to be eaten, fattened, transported, and finally sent through slaughterhouses (unless that's how one sees children's homes, of course). Ah, rights! The NSPCC no doubt see human children as rights holders who should not have their fundamental rights violated. However, it is the RSPCA's job to oversee the violation of other animals' fundamental rights. This is why they write guide after guide about how different species of other animals' rights should be violated. The RSPCA will argue that they do work to "end cruelty" and their guidelines are means to this end. But, within the ideology of animal welfarism, ending animal cruelty and ending animal use is not seen as the same thing.

Comparing the RSPCA to the NSPCC is faulty, therefore. These are not like cases - significantly, perhaps, the main thing these two organisation have in common is the word "cruelty" is in their names.

So, what is going on?

Messing with the Definition of Veganism.

The current official definition of veganism was set in place by The Vegan Society between 1979 and 1988 (not 1944 as many vegans claim). In my view, this definition is weaker than earlier statements about veganism from the people who began the vegan social movement. For example, in 1945, Donald Watson made this solid statement: veganism is the opposition to the exploitation of sentient life. Leslie Cross said that veganism was about ending animal use and "was not so much welfare as liberation." Eva Batt argued that veganism is "a way of living which avoids exploitation."

What's the difference between modern-day vegans and the earlier pioneers? It seems to me that, although the people who began the vegan social movement certainly spoke about "animal cruelty" among other things (for example, in the 1940s, Fay Henderson declared that "dairy and stock farming" is "unnecessary, extravagant and cruel"), this language is now the chief - the absolute dominant - claims-making of those relatively recent to the movement. What modern-day vegans have done with the vegan definition is interesting too. The 1979-88 definition reads

"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

I owe a debt to Jeremy Hess at this point. When we worked together in the last couple of years on The Animal Rights Show, Jeremy noticed that vegan activists in particular were using, and promoting, an edited version of this definition. They - and incredibly The Vegan Society itself - had cut out what for me are significant parts of the definition, thus further weakening it. The word "philosophy" was cropped, unforgivably, as was much of the end section of the definition.

all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals - on this section of the definition, note that the word "exploitation" comes before the word "cruelty." I believe that, in the minds and talk of many modern-day vegans, those words have been reversed and then "exploitation" became largely neglected.

This left the definition of veganism, in the minds of many, being something like: Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude - as far as possible and practicable - all forms cruelty to animals.

I've noticed on the recently-used platforms such as TikTok that "animal cruelty" claims are absolutely dominant in the claims-making of vegan activists. This word is virtually the only word used to describe human relations with other animals.

I believe this is one of the major reasons why many vegans equate being anti-animal cruelty with being vegan, and may be why they would mistake a traditional animal welfare organisation like the RSPCA as a vegan group.

The Mistake of Single Issue Militancy and the Need for a Deep Radicalism Instead

2/20/2022

In February 2022, in the lead-up to his 50th veganniversary, Ronnie Lee (who became vegan in Spring 1972) and Wenda Shehata released a video that looked into some of the history of the vegan and animal protection social movements. Amongst a whole range of issues, Ronnie and Wenda looked at the issue of movement take-off, an interest of sociologists like myself who look at social movement theory, and the concepts of “militancy” and “radicalism.”

Ronnie and Wenda’s discussion can be viewed on the Forward to Animal Liberation Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/110009078121280/videos/470017964600001

Ronnie identifies what he now sees as grave mistake of the modern animal protection movement: the failure to see the potential and thus bring into being widespread grassroots-led vegan education. Remarkably, almost unbelievably, the vegan social movement was not engaged in vegan education until the beginning of the 21st century. In Ronnie’s view, this was at least 25 years too late and, had this move occurred earlier in the history of the movement, the mobilisation for animal liberation would be further advanced now than it is presently. I agree with Ronnie's analysis, as would Gary Francione, who has been an advocate of vegan education as the major MO of the animal movement since the 1990s.

Ronnie notes that when direct action arose in Britain - starting with the Hunt Saboteurs in the 1960s, the Animal Liberation Front in the 1970s, followed by the liberation leagues and SHAC in the 1980s and 1990s, several national groups were already campaigning on single issues such as vivisection, hunting, and intensive (factory) animal farming. With an influx of younger people into the movement, there began a shake-up of these “conservative with a small c” organisations. Some responded to the demands of the younger generation, or were taken over by them. One major change was that largely inactive groups that traditionally merely asked members to send them donations and write to their member of parliament became campaign and protest groups which were staffed by vegans. The vegans who were part of a large increase in veganism Ronnie observed in the 1970s. In addition to the transformation of existing groups, new campaigning groups such as Compassion In World Farming (1967), Animal Aid (1977), PeTA (1980), and Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (VIVA! - 1994) were formed. Ronnie says that, although the animal protection movement was changing, it’s conservative welfarist base remained: “To some extent, it carried on being welfarist but, like, militant welfarist shall we say.” The movement also remained dominated by national groups that keep a fairly firm grip of its financial resources. Indeed, as can be seen, the number of such organisations grew at this time.

In relation to events such as "World Day for Laboratory Animals" (initially organised by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection or The National Anti-Vivisection Society), which are attended by about 700-800 people in the modern day, these marches attracted 10,000-20,000 in the 1980s, both Ronnie and Wenda remember. Similarly, tens of thousands of people would attend “save the seals” and “save the whales” events in those years. For Ronnie, the fault line in the movement was revealed by the fact that, although “there were vegans in these organisations campaigning on all these different issues, nobody was campaigning for veganism.”

I think this is one of the strangest things for 21st century vegans to try to grapple with. A social movement that had significant and growing numbers of vegans within, nevertheless largely ignoring veganism in terms of its campaigning focus. How does that make sense? In the US, for example, although PeTA began as an animal rights group in 1980, by the early 1990s, its “president” Ingrid Newkirk took up the fight for animal welfare and for “the regulation of atrocities” against animal rights philosopher Tom Regan, and animal rights lawyer Gary Francione who were, respectively, advocating for rights-based animal rights, and veganism as the movement’s moral baseline. In 1993, the Vegan Outreach organisation was founded but, by 2005, its founders were regretting having the word “vegan” in its title. In 2011, co-founder Matt Ball, complained that “vegan” meant reduced donations: “Foundations and rich non-vegans give to groups with similar philosophies and approaches, but they won’t give to “vegan” outreach.” Ronnie’s summary of such times amounts to this: “In some ways the movement became more radical, but in many ways it stayed just the same.”

However, Ronnie adds: “Probably ‘militant' is more accurate than ‘radical' because militant describes a form of action, [whereas] radical is more about philosophy.” Radical means getting to the root of the problem and clearly, until very recently, and often due to the movement’s corporate nature and the number of wages they thought they must finance, prime movers in the animal movement were absolutely resistant to making veganism the moral baseline of the movement. They often put about the idea that veganism was “a scare word.” Ironically, it was a scare word for them - they thought their incomes would drop if they used it, so they favoured words such “veg,” “veggie,” and even “veg*n” instead - however, it turns out it isn’t much of a scare word from the general public’s point of view, or for the manufacturers of plant-based foods and products. It appears that even the national groups in the movement are no longer petrified of the dread 'V' word. For example, VIVA! (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) now declares itself, “The Vegan Charity."

The status of The Vegan Society has always remained something of a puzzle in this story. Ronnie and Wenda noted that it wasn’t seen as a campaigning organisation - it wasn’t (and isn’t) an “on the street” group like Animal Aid, for example. I doubt that most of the large influx of vegans in the 1970s onwards ever bothered to join The Vegan Society. I have never been a member despite being vegan since 1979. I also doubt that their membership has risen massively even in the wave of vegan popularity currently being seen. As far as I can tell, the only engagement modern-day vegans have with The Vegan Society occurs when they quote (and often misquote) the official definition of veganism.

The Two Garys.

At least as far back as the publication of his 1996 book, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement, Gary Francione has argued that the promotion of veganism should be the central plank of the activities of the animal advocacy movement. History will likely remember him as very influential in moving the animal movement (finally) to adopt veganism as its moral baseline. However, he will still argue that the movement has failed to do that and, instead, promotes veganism as merely one option that will reduce animal suffering among other things like reducing the consumption of animal bodies and their secretions, and taking part in things like “Meatless Mondays.” For him, as for many vegans, being vegan is a moral imperative if one adopts the philosophies of veganism and animal rights. Francione will also say that there is no animal rights movement in reality, just an animal welfare movement bearing its name. He may point out that, for example, national groups like Mercy for Animals and Animal Equality spend millions of dollars per annum on animal welfare “cage-free” campaigning instead of vegan campaigns (see the Open Philanthropy Project grant database). Gary Francione has left the movement but is still active in what he calls a “counter-movement” known as Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach.

Many people relatively new to the vegan movement will tell you with a straight face that Gary Yourofsky started the vegan movement and has created more vegans than every other vegan activist combined. That may or may not be amusing to Ronnie, since Yourofsky was two years old when Ronnie became a vegan activist (he was 9 years old when I became vegan). Although veganism wasn’t promoted to the public in those early years, it certainly got around the activist communities, which is why Ronnie claims that there was a big increase in the numbers of vegans in the 1970s. By the 1980s, I’d say the majority of animal “militants” were vegan (although some will have been vegetarian for sure). Yourofsky’s first impact was the launch of his website in 1996 but that ended up in a financial disaster forcing him to resign. PeTA stepped in and offered him a paid job as their "national lecturer," and so the college lecture tours he became famous for began. By 2010, he had given the same talk hundreds of times so he was good at it. His talk at Georgia Technical College in the Summer of 2010 was filmed and was subsequently heavily promoted within the animal movement.

A year later, in 2011, I was part of the Animal Rights Zone team that asked Gary Yourofsky whether he was prepared to retract talk of his extreme violence fantasies, part of which involves regularly wishing for humans to be viciously sexually assaulted until they were disabled for life. Yourofsky replied in something of a rant, saying he “adores” his violence essays, while defending his drugs use, and attacking “animal rights people:” Yourofsky has said that he hates humans, apparently including himself. “Most animal rights people LOVE their families and worship humankind,” he said. By this token alone, and despite repeated claims in the modern movement that he has made more vegans than anyone else, ever, Gary Yourofsky clearly does not understand vegan philosophy very well. While he hates humans, and calls us all “parasites,” the pioneers of the vegan social movement remained optimistic about humanity believing that the widespread adoption of a vegan mindset would mark their moral evolution, leading to a less-violent humanity. Social movements are, after all, made up of human beings. Yourofsky has since bailed out of the vegan movement and “retired,” leaving the other animals to their fate after a mere 21 year’s involvement.

Of the "two Garys," I'm sure that movement historians will regard Francione's as the much more significant contribution.

How We Got to Where We Are!

Social movement theorists often talk about movement cycles, waves, and stages. In terms of the latter, social movements may emerge, grow, professionalise, and die (they may die because they’ve done their job, by the way!) It can be a rocky road for social movements, and there are certainly likely to be highs and lows in their journeys. In Bill Moyer’s social movement action plan, there are eight movement stages including “take-off” which, as the name suggests, can be dramatic and, for some, an overnight phenomenon. The stage before “take-off” will intrigue those who know the history of the vegan social movement, since it is called “ripening conditions,” echoing something Donald Watson wrote in November 1944 in the very first Vegan Society newsletter. Moyer’s theory dates to 1987. He writes:

“The ’take-off’ of a new social movement requires preconditions that build up over many years. These condition include broad historical developments, a growing discontented population of victims and allies, and a budding autonomous grassroots opposition, all of which encourage discontent with the present conditions, raise expectations that they can change, and provide the means to do it.”

Of course, not all of that “fits” exactly with any actual social movement, not least the vegan movement, but the broad outline seems pretty solid. It further appears evident to me that the preconditions that Moyer speaks of, related to the present-day vegan movement, rely on the fault line Ronnie Lee identifies having being rectified. In other words, the recent growth of the vegan movement has depended on the groundwork for decades before but, in particular, the widespread, if delayed, establishment of veganism as the moral baseline of the animal advocacy movement. From all of this, we should not get the idea that the present surge in the movement is a product of the recent “influencers” in the movement, including Yourofsky, but owes its origins to the late 1960s onwards. Rather than creating the present “vegan wave,” those who came into the movement in the last 10 years are riding the wave that “built up over many years.” Ironically, as suggested above, some of the main conservative resisters of the move to establish veganism as the movement’s moral baseline, those in the national groups, have finally (by and large) abandoned their “veg,” “veggie,” and “veg*n” claims-making in favour of talking directly and openly about veganism.

It would not make any sense to the current generation of vegan activists to talk about anything else other than the need for veganism. Wenda and Ronnie reiterate that had the rather obvious fact of the vegan movement focusing on veganism as its campaign been much earlier, then things would be better for other animals than they are now. The movement “missed a trick,” says Ronnie, “of tackling the oppression of other animals at the most fundamental level;” while Wenda says that, sadly, we must regard what actually happened within the vegan movement as a tactical and philosophical “oversight."

Technology.

The advance of technology has undoubtedly been part of the story of the advance of veganism. Before the internet, for example, much of the movement’s literature was 4-time-a-year magazines or the more regular zines, often simply photocopied. The Cranky Vegan - Jake Conroy - notes that, for many modern-day vegan advocates, if it’s not on an high quality video, it may as well not exist. One example of that is an old VHS recording from 1988 of a Tom Regan’s speech at an anti-vivisection rally in North America (see https://youtu.be/oruKMOR7krw). At the time, the video was regarded as the “best animal rights speech ever given,” but its quality is admittedly poor. At the same time, the speech is incredibly rousing and can make the audience really feel that they are attending the rally. As a consequence of its low quality, the speech is not well known in the animal movement, and I do not think because it should be regarded as totally out of date.

Perhaps the advent of smart phone technology, resulting in thousands of high-quality video now available, hinders recent members of the movement from researching the movement’s history, to the extent that they are interested in doing so. Consequently, I have noticed that many recent activists unfortunately hold a rather distorted view of the vegan movement’s development and some really do believe that it began in the 1990s!

Easygoing Speciesism on the BBC

9/24/2021

This audio clip comes from the BBC Radio 4 programme, The New Quiz. It's one of my favourite programmes on the radio. However, due to the fact that society is drenched in speciesist values, cultural speciesism is always likely to raise its ugly head at any given time. This is what happened during the 24th September 2021 programme.

Now, I know from experience that vegans, in the main, have an excellent sense of humour and, yes, The News Quiz is a comedy take on the week's news, so we shouldn't be too critical.

However, the first voice you'll hear in the clip below belongs to Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell who obviously hasn't fully internalised the mythical nonsense from the Irish farming industry that "Ireland has the best animal welfare in the world" (yawn). He doesn't seem to know why other animals in slaughterhouses are stunned and doesn't understand the difference between stunning and killing - whereas the Irish welfarist farmers would emphasise how "efficient" their stunning processes are, rendering slaughtered other animals senseless when their throats are cut open.

The other voice is that of Ria Lina.

Play on the media player below - or HERE.

Towards a Vegan Ideology

6/18/2021

The following is the text of an article by Rob Murdoch from the Autumn 1989 edition of The Vegan magazine.

The intellectually lazy among us see veganism as the ‘be all and end all’ – a panacea for the world’s ills. Others recognise that, although wide-ranging, this particular ‘ism’ has its limitations: it cannot provide all the answers because it lacks an all-embracing systemic explanatory system and plan of political action – an ideology.

Commonly motivated by ethics, ecology, health and spirituality, vegans choose to abide by a set of rules, but here their similarity ends. They interpret, apply, and promote vegan principles in accordance with their beliefs and values – the result of a vast array of economic, social, religious, political, and cultural influences.

Some have developed their beliefs further by ‘moulding’ themselves to a particular ideology – be it ‘loosely-knit,’ where a more rigid programme shows the way to political salvation e.g. (state) communism, anarchism, and fascism.

However, none of these ideologies, nor even their derivatives, even partly encompasses veganism in its purest form, indeed, it is difficult to imagine how any one of them could fully accommodate such a radical, uncompromising, and far-reaching concept – certainly not the ‘loose’ and ‘soft’ ideologies, based on institutionalised animal abuse and environmental annihilation.

Assuming that no sane, rational, individual would choose to exist within a totalitarian regime based on fear and power worship, that leaves anarchism – but classical anarchism, like socialism, is not noted for its concern for non-human species! That aside, anarchism offers the most suitable and desirable political model for the establishment, and maintenance of a just and equitable society based on vegan principles – a new, revolutionary path to utopia, an ideology I shall term ‘anarcho-veganism.’

The anarchists.
We commonly see them in town centres, sprawled defiantly on, and around, war memorials: leather-clad, ‘Conflict’-following punks, with obligatory bottle of Merrydown Cider or, for the more sophisticated deviant, Special Brew. They’re the anarchists – or are they?

The truth is that our punk stereotype is no more representative of an anarchist than Margaret Thatcher is of a caring, compassionate, human being. Certainly, our stereotype displays anarchic traits: ‘doing his/her own thing;’ refusing to conform to dominant norms of behaviour; perhaps the occasional spot of hunt sabbing or caving in a butcher’s window. However, his/her understanding of anarchist theory and practice tends to be rather shallow.

Anarchists, and those who refuse to be labelled such but demonstrate core characteristics, come in a variety of forms: libertarian socialists, anarcho-pacifists, anarcho-syndicalists, Situationists, revolutionary communists, free communists, individualists, green anarchists… All united by a central belief: anarchy is liberty.

Anarchists seek anarchy – a form of social life without authority – in which nobody is in a position to exploit or oppress anyone else, and in which all the means to achieve maximum material and intellectual development are available to everyone equally. Order in such a society is obtained by voluntary agreements concluded between various individuals, groups and organisations – both geographical and professional – freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, and also to satisfy the needs and wants of civilised human beings.

Anarchy is not, as your dictionary informs you, about chaos and violence. This popular definition is a gross distortion of the term resulting from sustained denigration by those with the most to lose from its implementation – the rich and powerful.

Whenever rulers lose control and the ruled begin to organise themselves, the rulers cry ‘Anarchy!’ to indicate that such a condition is highly undesirable – of course it is from their point of view! Their authority usurped, excessive force is the only answer: witness Tiananmen Square.

Anarchism is the method by which to achieve anarchy. It is based on a number of premises including: nobody is fit to rule or exert authority over another; duties, such as patriotism, obligation to the state, worship of God, submission to higher classes or authorities, respect for inherited privileges, are lies; property is theft – laws serve the privileged and allow a minority to ‘steal’ that which belongs to us all; governments, of whatever political flavour, are inherently oppressive and coercive, and cannot be modified or reformed – therefore they must be overthrown (revolution); voting (where permitted), serves to reinforce and legitimise a corrupt system; the world is divided into ‘haves’ (the rulers) and the ‘have nots’ (the governed); capitalism is divisive, exploitative, inefficient and produces for profit rather than need; state communism is totalitarian; anarchy is liberty, order and sanity.

Fundamental to anarchist organisation is the theory of ‘spontaneous order:’ given a common need, a collection of people will, by trial and error, by improvisation and improvement, evolve order out of the situation. It has been witnessed in most revolutionary situations: the early stage of the French Revolution; in the formation of Soviets (workers’ councils) after the Russian Revolution of 1917 – before they were taken over by the anti-libertarian Bolsheviks; Spain in 1936; as well as in the ad hoc organisation that spring up after natural disasters and emergencies.

To further illustrate this point: when faced with a mutual threat such as the prospect of a motorway dissecting the community or a hypermarket on their doorstep, those affected naturally draw together and co-operate for the common good. Anarchism is essentially about striving for freedom, taking back responsibility and regaining control of our lives.

Being the ultimate decentralists, anarchists tend to form groups based on the locality in which they live. In addition to seeking to raising revolutionary awareness, they may participate in community issues and in other struggles such as those fighting racism, sexism, militarism, imperialism and, increasingly, speciesism. A significant proportion – ‘classical’ anarchists – concentrate on the ‘traditional’ revolutionary stamping ground: class struggle – perhaps as agitators in the workplace.

Unsurprisingly, the preferred vehicle of the anarchist is direct action (not necessarily the illegal variety). Consequently, it is no coincidence that many Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activists describe themselves as anarchists. Their ‘artwork’ frequently incorporates the internationally-recognised symbol for anarchy: a circled ‘A.’

Any vegan worth his/her salt not only craves animal and planetary liberation but human liberation as well. There is no way that capitalism – based on inequality and hierarchy – or, state communism – highly centralised and dictatorial – can possibly meet all our ideals.

Neither, I might add (conscious of the likely political allegiances of my readers), can the green parties. They mean well and perform a useful educational functional, but they are by no means vegan-friendly – the August [1989] newsletter of the Kent Association of Green Parties carries advertisements from companies specialising in organic beef and pest control! – and are part of the loathsome system we should be seeking to destroy. Green politics are well-intentioned but remember: power always corrupts – though maybe you would prefer green politicians compromising, switching tack and running your life?

By way of a conclusion, if you passionately desire an end to animal abuse, veganic agriculture as the norm, a return to community living, working because you want to, no politicians deciding what is best for you and how to spend your money, no bosses, teachers, policepersons, judges and ‘experts’ telling you what to do, no homelessness, poverty, despair, yuppies, sexism, racism, ageism, environmental destruction, wars (courtesy of governments) and multi-nationals, then anarcho-veganism – a complete ideology – is for you.