Blog Archives

Easygoing Speciesism: CALF FOOD

6/20/2016

Do you remember the fuss in some media when ice cream made from human milk was put on sale (scroll down for video)?

Some people were "disgusted" by the idea of consuming human baby food. Odd, isn’t it, the strength of a cultural norm that results in people being appalled by the very idea of ice cream made from milk from a human volunteer while milk taken by force from an abused cow who is repeatedly inseminated only to have her offspring taken from her is deemed "normal" and "natural."

I was later reminded of this news story. Having marmalised both Boris Becker and Andy Roddick on Grand Slam Tennis (as one does), I was sat in the "victory bath" listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme called Sarah Millican’s Support Group. During the show, the presenter asked audience members whether they had ever gotten the upper hand over a workplace bully.

One person said that she had on the grounds that she made a cup of “milky coffee” for a bullying nightshift supervisor. He drank the coffee and declared it good.

She then told him the terrible secret; that the cow milk had run out, so she had used her initiative and substituted human breast milk.

She was asked how the man responded and she said he vomited, cue much merriment from the general audience.

0 Comments

Hello Donald

6/20/2016

0 Comments

This blog entry is about vegan pioneers and I was originally going to call it “We are all Donald Watson.” Of course that is not true – Watson and his little band of early vegans “not easily scared by criticism, and filled with the spirit of pioneers,” became ethical vegans when most people thought they would be dead within weeks.

1944 sounds so long ago, right?

However, I think we can still say that these are early days as far as veganism is concerned and, therefore, we are also vegan pioneers. I have meet several people who have effectively said that they would be 100% plant-based if it was easier to do that rather than be consumers of dairy and flesh. Veganism is a lot more than a diet, of course, but a lot of people have difficulty seeing food choices as something to do with ethics and, for many, the whole issue is one of convenience.

Essentially these people are reliant on others leading the way – and this is where being a vegan pioneer comes into play. A vegan pioneer actively “puts themselves out” for the cause, even if it is only a willingness to “read the labels.”[1]

But, of course, we do more than that – for example, in explaining to people that veganism is a movement that stands for justice for all sentient beings, in being fairly content and accepting that there are huge sections of supermarkets and stores where we need not bother going to, in using health and whole food stores, in making that extra journey to the specialist Asian or Polish stores, in walking further to find the plant-based restaurant (or the vegan-friendly ones if one is unlucky enough to live where there are no fully-vegan cafes and restaurants), and so on.

Of course, this feeds into the discussion going on in the animal advocacy movement about how easy or how hard it is to live vegan. Personally, I am a little torn on the issue because veganism, in terms of diet and the availability of vegan-friendly goods, is very easy compared to 1979 when I first decided to live in accordance with the philosophy of veganism. However, the sociologist in me also knows that the ease of being vegan depends on many factors, like geographical location, social class, social circumstances, relationships with significant others, and access to amenities, etc.

However….

I want to propose a toast to all the vegan pioneers “out there.”

May you continue to live vegan and adhere to the justice-for-all philosophy of veganism in what can be a very vegan-unfriendly world, and continue to pave the way for others who will therefore find it easier and easier to gain access to plant-based foods and goods.

There can be little doubt that access to vegan-friendly goods and services assists in a person's decision to live vegan. For example, the dietary requirements of veganism are driven by the thrust of its overriding philosophical stance: justice-for-all. Essentially veganism is about getting the concept of justice over the species barrier, just as philosopher and author of The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan, succeeded in getting the concept of rights over the species barrier.

[1] I attended an anti-GMO event in Dublin recently, along with other members of the Dublin vegan community. During a session led by Dr. Brian John, it was noted that getting consumers to read labels was a major problem. People seem to believe that reading labels is some sort of terrible imposition on their busy day! Reminds me of a radio interview I heard when a Dubliner was complaining in all seriousness that the economic recession had meant that he now had to read the price tag on clothes before buying them.

0 Comments

Rabbit Food

6/20/2016

0 Comments

Sometimes one wonders about human beings. Of course, sociologists and psychologists do it for money and some for fame.

So, there I was spying on humanity in a cafe in Dublin (let's call it "participant observation" because that sounds way better) and this young woman is served something which has a side salad attached. She ate everything apart from the salad which remained untouched.

This reminded me of my second trip to the marvellous Paris Vegan Day (see video below for Paris Vegan Day memories). I was sat at Dublin Airport and a guy came to a nearby table with some sort of murder burger.

He set his plate down, removed the top part of the bun, and very deliberately removed everything of vegetable origin, holding each piece as one does a baby's nappy. He then replaced the top half of the bun and headed for his first heart attack.

Sometimes one wonders about human beings.

0 Comments

A Note on Speciesist Language

6/17/2016

0 Comments

In June 2007, the outgoing British prime minister, Tony Blair, blamed the media for having contributed to his political downfall, complaining aggressively about the media’s double standards, stating that they hunted in packs and acted like feral beasts.

The often-violent images and metaphors of speciesist language are saturated with implicit declarations about how worthwhile lives differ from lives with little or no intrinsic value. For example, we refer without hesitation to humans as human "beings" – a symbolic term of personhood denoting volitional and sentient forms of life with self-consciousness and with bundles of rights and obligations that are worthy of respect. But we rarely if ever refer to nonhuman animals as "animal beings." Rather, they are named simply as "animals – the Other – an implicitly derogatory term synonymous with the notion that they are altogether different from humans and, as such, necessarily less important than humans and less worthy of consideration and respect.

Humans, instead, tend to be understood as complex creatures whose gender is an important item in terms of address. For example, we refer to Jane Smith as "Ms. Smith," to Jack Jones as "Mr. Jones," and to "she who…" or "he who…" Except for animals appointed as companions ("pets"), however, nonhuman animals are seen as undifferentiated objects each of whom is normally identified not as a "she" or a "he" but as an "it" ("it which…"). Speciesism and sexism clearly often operate together and in tandem, with women and nonhuman animals depicted as objects to be controlled, manipulated, and exploited. Thus, when men describe women as "cows," "bitches," "(dumb) bunnies," "birds," "chicks," "foxes," and "fresh meat" and their genitalia as other species, they use derogatory language, essentially to relegate both women and animals to the inferior statuses of "less than male" and, even, "less than human."

Some forms of speciesist language are seemingly more subtle. These often hinge on animals' master status as the property of humans. "Fisheries," for example, refers not to an objective ontological reality but to diverse species that are acted on as objects of commodification by humans and, as such, trapped or otherwise "harvested," killed, and consumed. The same sort of egregious misdescription appears in many other categories as well, including "laboratory animals" (instead of "animals used in laboratories"), "pets," "circus animals," and "racehorses." The last of these, to offer another example, misdescribes as "racehorses" those horses who are used as racehorses. Clearly, radical revision of speciesist language is long overdue. In some cases, new descriptions altogether are needed – for example, misothery for hatred and contempt for animals, animal sexual assault for bestiality, and theriocide for the killing of nonhuman animals by humans.

But the central juxtaposition, namely, that between humans and all other animals, seems a hard one to avoid. Several attempts have been made to overcome it, including "nonhuman animals," a term that has been in vogue among many members of the animal protection community. Other candidates include the rather cumbersome "animals other than humans" (the preferred usage in the journal Society & Animals) and, derivative of this, Geertrui Cazaux’s clever if obscure acronym "aothas" (animals other than human animals).

from "A Note on Specieist Language" by Piers Beirne.
Confronting Animal Abuse: Law, Criminology, and Human-Animal Relationships (2009). New York: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 16-17.

Reproduced with permission.

0 Comments

Gary Steiner, Cosmic Justice and the Vegan Imperative

6/12/2016

0 Comments

Towards the very end of his excellent book, Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status, and Kinship, Gary Steiner says this

What is absolutely clear is that cosmic justice demands universal veganism, the refusal to consume animal products of any kind. The more inured we are to anthropocentric values, the more unreasonable, burdensome, and impractical this proposal will seem. The better we understand the nature of animal experience and recognise the ways in which it is like our own, the more we will appreciate the sense in which we truncate the notion of justice by restricting it to the human sphere. To affirm cosmic justice is to abandon our fantasy of being “the masters and possessors of nature” (2008: 163).

Steiner develops these thoughts a little and says more about his notion of the “vegan imperative” in the audio clip to follow. Steiner’s contribution to the “veganism is easy” debate is reasoned and fair.

The audio clip is taken from this video, which is well worth watching.

0 Comments

Google It

6/3/2016

0 Comments

In 1982, sociologist K.J. Tierney noted that, “In less than ten years, wife beating has been transformed from a subject of private shame and misery to an object of public concern.”[1] Indeed it has, and we are now quite familiar with the presentation of the so-called “battered wife defence” in domestic violence and murder trials.

Ten years after Tierney, criminologists Hester & Eglin asked

Given that in, say, 1970 there were no shelters for battered women, no programmes, no organisations, no news stories, no public concern, in short, no “problem,” and given further that there is no real basis for claiming that there has been any significant change in the incidence of wife beating in the following 10 years, what, then, accounts for the existence of all these things in 1980?

What had altered the situation in those ten years was claims-making and discussion of the issue, not least by feminist social movement organisations. This marks the significance of social movements in civil society: they are claims makers.

According to Spector & Kitsuse, [2] claims-making activities include

demanding services, filling out forms, lodging complaints, filing lawsuits, calling press conferences, writing letters of protest, passing resolutions, publishing exposes, placing ads in newspapers, supporting or opposing some governmental practice or policy, setting up picket lines or boycotts.

Much of that will sound familiar to members of the animal advocacy movement, as will their list of claims makers

Protest groups or moral crusaders who make demands and complaints; the officials or agencies to whom such complaints are directed; members of the media who publicise and disseminate news about such activities (as well as participating in them); commissions of inquiry; legislative bodies and executive or administrative agencies that respond to claims-making constituents; members of the helping professions, such as physicians, psychiatrists, social workers, and sometimes, social scientists who contribute to the definition and development of social problems.

Some of that is rather twee, to be sure, and many may struggle to place social workers and psychiatrists as part of the “helping professions,” but the general thrust is relevant to at least some of the main activities of the animal movement.

Perhaps what we need to distil in our minds, however, is summed up by Brian Lowe thus

Social movements and other subcultures that intend to alter certain cultural perceptions within their host culture often attempt to do so through adding moral claims to previously unquestioned cultural practices.

I regularly note that, sociologically, social movements like the animal advocacy movement are claims-making enterprises. I have also pointed toward the problems created - for those who want to take rights seriously - by the claims-making of the prevailing animal movement.

This is because, despite being persistently labelled (often self-labelled) the “animal rights movement,” most claims within the movement are not rights-based claims and rarely have been. When I say rights-based claims, I mean the claims of the sort made by the human rights movement and human rights organisations. I suggest that, if one were to ask a range of people what the human rights movement is concerned about, what it is against, it would not be long before the notions of rights abuses and rights violations would feature in the answers.

Such answers would reflect how human rights organisations often describe themselves and spell out their aspirations. It would reflect some of their main claims-making. For example, from Amnesty International

DUBLIN, 26th May 2016 - Amnesty International is today publishing its policy on protecting sex workers from human rights violations and abuses, along with four research reports on these issues in Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Norway and Argentina. “Sex workers are at heightened risk of a whole host of human rights abuses including rape, violence, extortion and discrimination…” said Tawanda Mutasah, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Law and Policy.

Similarly, Human Rights Watch says

Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the creation of Helsinki Watch, designed to support the citizens groups formed throughout the Soviet bloc to monitor government compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a methodology of publicly “naming and shaming” abusive governments through media coverage and through direct exchanges with policymakers. By shining the international spotlight on human rights violations in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Helsinki Watch contributed to the dramatic democratic transformations of the late 1980s.

In contrast, ask what concerns the “animal rights movement” – what is it against - and I suggest that respondents will rarely if ever cite rights violations and rights abuses. They are much more likely to talk about a preoccupation with levels of “animal cruelty” and “animal suffering.” For example, the US branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) says this

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 5 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world. PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other “pests,” and the abuse of backyard dogs. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

This is what British national organisation Animal Aid says

Animal Aid is the UK’s largest animal rights group and one of the longest established in the world, having been founded in 1977. We campaign peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promote a cruelty-free lifestyle. We investigate and expose animal cruelty, and our undercover investigations and other evidence are often used by the media, bringing these issues to public attention.

The “animal rights” claims are markedly different from the human rights claims, aren’t they? No substantive claims about right-holding, no mention of a fundamental concern with animal rights abuses and/or animal rights violations. And from the “largest animal rights organisation in the world” and one of the “longest established in the world.” These are animal welfare claims dressed up as animal rights.

PeTA state that it is concerned by intense suffering for long periods. They are opposed to “cruel killing,” and presumably adopt their philosopher Peter Singer’s view that non-cruel killing is morally acceptable. Animal Aid’s declaration, again emphasising cruelty, is a little better; but there is still no mention of animal rights and animal rights violations. To their credit, and unlike PeTA, Animal Aid do stock an animal rights book in their online store.[3]

However, this is pretty poor fare at the end of the day from a declared rights movement – one does not expect or find Amnesty International implying it’s only the “cruel killing” of human beings that bothers them – they are opposed to all killing of human beings, and why? – because they regard human beings as right holders and, thus, killing is a rights violation. Not versed in the language of rights, the “animal rights movement” reverts to animal welfare claims about cruelty.

A Simple Survey

I decided to conduct a simple survey, using the internet, trying to gain some information about the prevalence of rights-based claims in the human rights and “animal rights” movements. In turn, then, I googled the following terms: “rights violations,” “human rights violations,” and “animal rights violations.” Try it: see if you get similar results…

The “rights violations” search resulted in 84 million results. However, I found not one single mention of the rights of animals other than those of human animals – none in any entry on the first 10 pages, nor on pp. 15,　20,　25,　30,　and 35. No mention of animal rights, only human rights.

I then searched “human rights violations” and looked at the first four pages of results. This search revealed consistent references to human rights, human rights violations, and human rights organisations. Finally, I searched “animal rights violations” and, again, examined the first four pages. The results can, at best, be called “mixed.”

Indeed, the results brought up as many if not more references to “animal cruelty” and “animal welfare violations” as it did for “animal rights,” even though, in this case, the key words used were “animal rights violations.”

The very first entry refers to a group called Animal Freedom. Turns out, however, that their idea of “animal rights violations” is reduced to the RSPCA’s “five freedoms” – in other words, to the regulation of animal property use, or animal welfarism. This approach seems to be common in the animal advocacy movement. Since animal welfarism is so dominant in its thinking, the notion of rights are limited to the notion of rights-to-welfare, or some version of “treatment rights” for other animals while they are being exploited.

There was one link toward the bottom of a page worthy of a visit I thought. Journalist Indrani Dutta seems to have written in references to “rights violations” in a report about PeTA. Dutta, however, also writes, “PETA, which was founded in 1980, has been campaigning for some time now against what it describes as cruelty meted out to animals in the country during transportation for slaughter.” She also notes that PeTA sources suggested that, “We have had talks with other animal rights activists in India, like People for Animals and Blue Cross, and we are confident that we can launch a campaign against the leather sector any time we want.” Given the idea that People for Animals and the Blue Cross of India are characterised as “animal rights activists,” this article seems to be crying out for a little deconstruction from linguist Mary Martin Loder.

I make no claim that these findings are particularly rigorous or overwhelmingly significant – but they are indicative and follow a distinct pattern. We are drawn back – once again – to Donald Watson’s notion of ripening the public to new ideas. It is somewhat ironic, isn’t it, that decades of campaigning by an “animal rights movement” has apparently done little or nothing to help the public to seriously consider the claims that other animals are rights bearers and what happens to them are rights violations. A major theoretical fault line remains at the heart of the global “animal rights movement.”

[1] Tierney, K.J. (1982) ‘The battered women movement and the creation of the wife beating problem’, Social Problems 29(3): 207-220.

[2] Spector, M. & Kitsuse, JI. (1987) Constructing Social Problems. Chicago: Aldine.

[3] however, I had to request that they stock a Gary Francione book and justify the reasons why they should.

0 Comments

Thanks Neil. RIP

6/2/2016

2 Comments

For those who did not know Neil Lea, see THIS LINK

Neil’s work with an online database Is it Vegan? and Vegan Buddies is central in terms of promoting veganism as the baseline position of animal rights advocates.

I first knew Neil as he latched on to the fact that he found in me someone who would agree to read and review the books regularly sent into Arcnews magazine which he edited. In all his dealings, he was a straight-down-the-line sort of guy. As someone said at Neil’s funeral on the 28th of July 2007 there were few pleasantries (apart from some talk of Manchester City and the philosophy of Star Trek as I recall). When Neil Lea wanted assistance, he’d ring me and say "have you received the book I sent? I need a review asap." Two days later he’d want to know if it was finished and ready to be sent as an attachment.

It was mentioned at the funeral that Neil was a great motivator. I agree – "constructively pushy" might be the best term. I think he was a born editor too – he knew how to get people to drop everything and work on what he wanted them to be working on. Of course, it was always obvious that Neil wasn’t asking for any of these things for himself – we all knew he was endangering his health by the sheer amount of work he was doing.

Neil was keen on education – vegan education obviously but education in general too. He would phone me to tell me about the latest academic essay he’d written for a course I was never sure he was ever doing, was about to do, or was about to finish. I think he concluded just about every text with a statement that the solution to the world’s problems was global veganism, human co-operation, and peaceful living. I would say I thought his conclusion was fine but perhaps (turning on as much diplomacy as I could muster) he ought to make at least some reference to the fact that the essay might be on Marxist views on poverty and class struggle. I’d have liked to be a fly on the wall during any time some middle class academic told Neil he hadn’t adequately addressed the question!

One thing I’ll always be grateful to Neil Lea for is his reminders to me that I should keep my feet firmly on the ground and not lose all contact with the grassroots vegan activists who make up the heart of the animal movement.

Whether I succeeded to his satisfaction is debatable but I hope I have. In fact, when I wrote my Ph.D I took the potentially risky decision to state openly in the text that some parts of it were deliberately written for such activists, and I referenced several non-academic sources such as Arcnews magazine. Animal activists do not tend to read sociology - and why should they – and yet there is a great deal they can learn from a sociological understanding of human relations woth other animals, even if it is only in the negative sense of "know thy enemy." On the more positive side, however, sociology can show vegan advocates the depth of the cultural norms and values they must challenge and transcend if any real progress for other animals and for vegan philosophy more generally is to become a reality.

Thanks for the guidance, Neil, R.I.P. and, yes, I know, I will try harder.

2 Comments

Easygoing Speciesism: CALF FOOD

Hello Donald

Rabbit Food

A Note on Speciesist Language

Gary Steiner, Cosmic Justice and the Vegan Imperative

Google It

Thanks Neil. RIP

Roger Yates

Archives

Categories

Easygoing Speciesism: CALF FOOD

Hello Donald

Rabbit Food﻿

A Note on Speciesist Language

Gary Steiner, Cosmic Justice and the Vegan Imperative﻿

Google It

Thanks Neil. RIP

Roger Yates

Archives

Categories

Rabbit Food

Gary Steiner, Cosmic Justice and the Vegan Imperative