In issue 25 of Philosophy Now, Jane Forsey wonders what it is about human beings that makes us so special and important. “Can we,” she asks, “continue to rest easy in our claims to, or unspoken assumptions of, a privileged position over the rest of the natural world?” The suggestion of unspoken assumptions may seem odd and can be challenged, since humans appear hardly ever to remain silent for very long about how their species stands proudly “atop the scala naturae,” as Dess & Chapman put it.

Indeed, the socially constructed nature of conventional human attitudes about other animals implies an almost continuous social discourse on the matter. Essentially, Forsey wants to know about historical orientations to human exceptionality claims which speak of human beings being over and above the other animals. Human exceptionality is claimed on various if fairly familiar grounds, including:

• (a) we have souls and so share in the Divine (and animals do not);
• (b) we have free will and so can make choices (and animals cannot); and
• (c) we are rational (and animals are not).

Such real or assumed factors serve and have served for a long time to morally separate humans and other animals, perhaps enough to create and maintain the “wide and bridgeless chasm” that Spiegal refers to: the same “sharp discontinuity between humans and animals” which Noske finds in Western culture and discourse.

Although Forsey regards Cartesian views as those representing what she calls “deep chasm arguments” concerning the moral status of humans and other animals, it is clear that even the “softer,” apparently more inclusive views embedded within animal welfare ideology allows the greatest interests of nonhumans to be “sacrificed” for arguably trivial human ones. Therefore, although animal welfarism can be logically posited as a position that tends toward the bridging of suggestions of a “deep chasm” between humans and nonhumans, species differences remain sufficiently distinct within the orthodoxy to allow the routine exploitation of other animals.

Sociologist Bauman claims that a certain degree of everyday human social activity involves erecting and maintaining boundaries - human beings do appear to like placing objects in neat, orderly boxes. 

A feature of the social construction of the orthodox moral view of human-nonhuman relations is the stock use and the preferencing of phrases like “humans and animals” to differentiate groups: all humans linguistically separated from all animals. Let’s have a look at some of the particulars of this routine, systematic and incredibly “useful” differentiation.

Start with God.

Ryder argues that early Christian views created a sense of human-nonhuman separation within the assertion that men and women could not be animals since humans were created in the image of “God” who had given only “their kind” an immortal soul. Such views explain why a good deal of recent animal rights discourse has sought to challenge this absolute separation and remind human beings that “we” too are animals.[1] However, even long before Darwin, it appears that there was recognition and acknowledgement that humans were indeed “animals,” although “developed” ones. 

Ryder states that “classical literature, Epicureans and writers such as Lucretius, Cicero, Diodorus Siculus and Horace had suggested that humankind had only slowly developed from the animal condition.” Aristotle, despite his insistence that humans, animals and nature were held in a “natural hierarchy of value,” never claimed that a human being should not be regarded as an animal. Later William Shakespeare’s Hamlet would describe humankind as “the paragon of animals.” 

Nevertheless, Ryder notes - using an interesting term - that a full awareness of our kinship with other animals was “intermittent.” Moreover, acknowledgement of kinship became “discouraged by the Church.” Therefore, it was [and remains] common for people to behave as though human beings were altogether different from animals: of a completely different order to them: indeed, “made in the image of God.” 

Reacting to this continuing tendency, many modern animal advocates began in the 1980s to use the phrase “nonhuman animals” to make it clear that there are such things as human animals (although it is interesting that this term itself is rarely, if ever, heard; and presumably not merely because it would be regarded as a tautology).[8] 

However, some campaigners have complained that the term ‘nonhuman animal’ can imply that the standard is the human one, which may further imply that nonhuman individuals may be regarded as much less important in comparison. Such people often favour phrases such as “animals-other-than-human” or “humans and other animals.”Piers Beirne reports that fellow criminologist Geertrui Cazaux uses “a clever, if obscure” acronym “aothas” (animals other than human animals).

Dess and Chapman remark that they were struck by jarring taxonomy in a radio broadcast they heard concerning the aftermath of a hurricane: “Not only were humans affected by the storm, birds and animals were affected too,” the report stated. Since birds, humans and other animals are all animals, why the malapropism, they ask.

They state that they realise that such routine differentiation is simply a version of an established linguistic convention. However, it is perhaps safe to say that when a linguistic construction exists long enough to become a firmly fixed convention, it is because it continues to hold meaning and/or utility for those (or many of those) who use it. Moreover, it is probably safe to speculate that very few fellow radio listeners would have registered the problematic taxonomy identified by these authors. 

Perhaps the central meaning of the common separation of human and animal categories may be correctly identified by Dess and Chapman when they note that, “In everyday parlance, animals means not, and less than, human.”[3] 

Thus, “The ‘animals’ in ‘animal hospitals’ are understood not to be human;” furthermore, the negative usage of “animal” is never far away: “the insult is clear in a snarled, ‘You’re an animal!’”[4] On the origins of these long-standing, firmly-sedimented, and socially-transmitted understandings, Peter Singer argues that Western intellectual roots lie in Ancient Greece (especially when the school of Aristotle became dominant) and in the Judeo-Christian tradition. “Neither is kind to those not of our species,” he states.

Alexander Cockburn’s advice about addressing the issue of the construction of human attitudes toward other animals is impressively clear: “Start with God,” he says. With a lively and belligerent style, Cockburn declares that, “The Bible is a meat-eater’s manifesto,” or at least it is after a mythical event known as “the Fall.” 

Until then, the story goes, hippie prototypes Adam and Eve were vegetarians, eating grains, nuts and fruit. But, as though she ran across a trippy Jack Kerouac novel, Eve could not resist eating from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” and boy, have we all paid for that mistake. Cockburn explains what is said to have happened next:

• Hardly were Adam and Eve out of Eden before God was offering “respect” to the flesh sacrifice of Abel the keeper of sheep and withholding “respect” from Cain the tiller of the ground. Next thing we know, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, slew him and we were on our way.

Thus began “Man’s” “dominionism” over and above creation. Genesis I: 26-28 reports the edict of the Almighty: “Man” was given dominion over the earth and was told to be “fruitful and multiply” in order to “subdue” the planet. Cockburn is right: we really were “on our way;” and it has been largely slash and burn ever since. Some Christian writers, such as Tony Sargent, seek to provide a far more animal-friendly account of common Biblical events,[5] and “animal rights theologian” Andrew Linzey is unflagging in pointing out that “dominion” really means “stewardship” rather than “despotism.”[6] 

Yet it has to be admitted, Cockburn’s account seems to be the popular version, commonly reproduced in accounts of the development of human attitudes towards the other animals. 

Moreover, “stewardship” sounds a great deal like animal welfarism which has rationalised rather than halted the human exploitation of nonhuman animals. Since it tends to organise the exploitation of other animals, Mason speaks of the “stewardship apology” in Christian cosmology.

That anyone actually believes in the existence of “trees of knowledge” and “gardens of Eden” is quite bizarre and, of course, sociologically fascinating; but believe it, and live and die by such “teachings,” many do. Several modern religious wars seem to testify to the fact that people earnestly hold such religious beliefs. 

Thomas Luckmann suggested in 1967 that religious belief go beyond church going. That religious teaching may remain influential in the creation of culturally-transmitted meanings, even in an increasingly secular world. Of course, people also believe in Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, Gandalf and Middle Earth, and Aslan the Lion and the Old Narnians, but less real blood has flowed from these fables. God-stories, on the other hand, have been instrumental in the creation of entire belief systems which people will kill and be killed for. 

Apart from a remarkable increase in human-to-human violence, Cockburn states that “the Biblical God” launched humans on the exploitation of the rest of the natural world, a world newly conceptualised as seriously “un-Christian” and “theirs for the using.”

• [1] When I mentioned this theme to my sister, Lynne, a chemistry teacher and vegan since the 1980s, it reminded her that she had caused uproar in class when explaining the common ‘animal, vegetable, mineral’ formulation. She had used a picture of a human being as an example of the animal category. This resulted in several objections from angry students who declared flatly that they were not animals, and that they did not want anyone else to have the opportunity to call them one.
• [2] I suspect that initial reaction to such a phrase would be to regard it as rather odd, rather than the immediate reaction to focus on the tautology. This, I believe, is significant in itself. In terms of the “truth” of the phrase, many may be quick to reassert “points of separation.” Take this, the very first words in the first chapter of Michael Haralambos’ introductory textbook of Sociology: Themes & Perspectives: “Human beings learn their behaviour and use their intelligence whereas animals simply act on instinct.”
• [3] On April 28th, 2003, The Sun tabloid “newspaper’” featured a story (Stars Learn the Art of Survival) about a TV programme called “I’m a Celebrity…… Get Me Out of Here” in which the contestants must gut fishes and prepare chickens for eating. They may also encounter dangerous wild animals. Lembit Opik says of his “weathergirl” girlfriend Sian who was taking part in the program: “If she ends up in a scrap with an orang-utan, it’ll be the animal that runs off with a thick ear. She knows how to look after herself.”
• [4] The particulars of the use of “animal” would surely provide an interesting area of research for ethnomethodological conversation analysists. For example, in April 2002 regular TV and hourly radio bulletins featured the comments of a police officer investigating the murder of a pensioner in the north of England. The officer described the killers as “animals” with such emphasis that the phrase was unusually striking. Enough that the editor of the animal rights magazine ARCnews was prompted to write to him with a complaint about the usage.
• [5] Francis of Assisi appears to have based his compassion for animals on notions of indirect duties and animal welfarism. There is a story of a disciple who is said to have sliced off a pig’s trotter: Francis rebukes the disciple, not for the cruel act toward the pig, or because of violating rights, but because he has damaged the pig owner’s legal property.
• [6] Journalist Jonathan Dimbleby featured on Radio 4’s farming programme on 22/7/2001. Dimbleby is a part-time farmer and, in relation to farming animals, he described himself in the programme as a “steward.”

Not everything Mr. Tobias Leenaert says is dreadful. For example, one of the most sociological things he tells audiences is that “most people eat meat because most people eat meat.” That is a fairly neat way of stating that the majority of people have a tendency to bow to the dominant norms and values of the societies in which they are born and grow up in.

Mr. Leenaert also believes that animal advocates – and perhaps all social movement participants - should work on their communication skills. For those seeking widespread cultural change in the absence of immediate revolution, these are wise words.

So not everything Mr. Tobias Leenaert says is dreadful.

Where it all goes rather pear-shaped is when he seeks to attack and undermine the philosophy of veganism, in the name of his version of flexi-veganism. One way he does this is to insist that to talk about veganism in other terms than it being “about food” is a mistake which will backfire on advocates attempting to “ripen up” the public to the original justice-for-all vision and scope of the philosophy.

Because of his habit of seeking to attack and undermine the philosophy of veganism, it is fair to say that Mr. Leenaert and I do not get on very much.

I particularly object to him encouraging people to think about veganism in a shallow, impoverished, way; and the fact that he’ll actively suggest to vegans that they should consume animal produce in some circumstances. Only a few weeks ago in the ARZone Facebook group, he was busy telling a vegan that eating bits of other animals was an acceptable thing to do.

However, this one-on-one “advice” is rare – usually, Mr. Leenaert constructs what’s become an increasing bizarre set of hypothetical situations which encourage the conclusion that the “best” course of action is for vegans to consume food items that come from other animals who have had their rights violated. These hypotheticals are delivered to audiences in conference talks, speeches, and “workshops” that appear to be largely attended by young and possibly impressionable animal advocates.

Essentially, his position amounts to this: animal rights violations now for a better future.

Before we discuss some of these hypotheticals in details, one general point should be made. They all seem to be constructed in such a way that vegans are inevitably caught on the horns of a moral dilemma that suggests to them that the safest course of action is to deliberately  eat products made from the exploitation of other animals. They are carefully formulated in order for Mr. Leenaert to suggest that vegans should participate in processes that violate the rights of other animals.

There is little to no suggestion that they are drawn up in order to help vegans explore solutions to the prospect of “having” to eat animal produce. The hypotheticals presented by Mr. Leenart are not designed to allow vegans off the hook but to firmly impale them on it. He apparently wants to devise situations where vegans feel justified in eating other animals themselves, or sanctioning the eating of animal produce in others. They are designed in such a way that the vegan feels virtually compelled to go against their own values and beliefs.

One example involves a being Mr. Leenaert calls “this rabbit.” The situation is constructed thus: a “normal omnivore” declares that they are willing to consider becoming a dietary vegan but there is a problem. A relative whom she does not want to hurt consumes a dish made with rabbit flesh once (or twice) a year. Mr. Leenaert proceeds with the moral hook by telling vegans that they must not express criticism of this – but also that they must be willing to label this “once-or-twice-a-year rabbit eating” veganism.

Moreover, if the violation of “this rabbit’s” rights is not sanctioned by the vegans and called veganism, then the whole deal is off – the omnivore, if not entirely satisfied, will do absolutely nothing for other animals from that moment on. Whatever has gone through this person’s mind in order that they contemplate the adoption of a largely plant-based diet is simply thrown out of the window if vegans refuse to say that infrequent rabbit eating is compatible with dietary veganism.

Then there’s another twice-a-year scenario. Vegan audiences are asked whether it may be possible that veganism (meaning, let’s not forget, only the adoption of a plant-based diet) would be more “attractive” if it “allowed” for the consumption of “non-vegan stuff” a couple of times every year. Actually, the twice-a-year figure was picked out of the air, so that number could be greater. Of course, the phrase “non-vegan stuff” rather hides the fact that the discussion is about consuming material gained from the violation of the rights of other animals. It is a consistent theme in a Tobias Leenaert presentation that the current, on-going, violation of animals’ rights are downplayed, dismissed, and generally made pretty-much invisible.

Things move further into the bizarre – and the totally unlikely of course – in a further hypothetical involving a rich person who’s apparently as keen as mustard to see vegans eating other animals. There are two set-ups here. In general terms, vegan animal advocates are asked if they would eat a “steak” if given €10,000 and, more precisely – not to mention remarkably more odd, would a vegan in a restaurant finish a half-eaten “steak” for a large amount of money after the original eater of the flesh feels unwell and departs the scene?

We may be hoping that these scenarios are to explore the weird psychology of the rich person who seems to get a perverse kick out of asking vegans to violate their own philosophical principles, but no – it’s just the hook Mr. Leenaert constructs for the vegans in his audiences. Moreover, the hypothetical is not designed to explore how the vegan might deprive the strange rich person of her money while slipping the flesh to a hungry dog she noticed outside the eatery on her way in. Maybe the hypothetical is designed to alert people to the fact that there may be something rather dangerous about the cooked flesh in question, thereby warranting the calling of health inspectors and not, after all, giving it to the dog?

Alas, no, this hypothetical is designed for one reason and one reason alone. Mr. Leenaert apparently likes to place vegans in contrived made-up scenarios where the most judicial course of action seems to be “eat the flesh.”

Finally, and as if to prove that these scenarios are drawn for the singular purpose of placing vegans in a bad place and nothing more, there’s the lasagne example. This particular scenario was discussed at length when Mr. Leenaert and I took part in a recent debate about our respective positions organised by ARZone. The sociologist in me was intrigued by this one. We are to imagine that non-vegan friends invite a vegan to dinner for the first time. Indeed, they are novices at making plant-based food but they generously go out of their way to get plant-based versions of necessary ingredients.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, a mistake is made and the lasagne dough bought and cooked is found to have hens’ eggs in it. What does the vegan do? Once again, in Mr. Leenaert’s presentations, the idea is not to get the audience to explore ways of minimising the problem caused if this scenario was real – or to take steps to prevent it happening. The hypothetical “wants” the vegan to be faced with eating hens’ eggs or face upsetting their friends who, apparently, no doubt about it, would be terribly upset and, moreover, put off veganism for life.

A short digression is in order here. Mr. Leenaert founded a vegetarian organisation called Ethical Vegetarian Alternatives which receives €165,000 every year from politicians who, Leenaert claims, believe that vegans, as a general matter, are “crazies.” In addition, in some presentations, Mr. Leenaert introduces his audiences to the “crazy vegan,” a person he mimics exaggeratedly scrutinising labels on jars, aggressively and loudly telling waiting staff that they don’t want a list of items in their food, and shouting in the street while wildly waiving arms in the air.

Personally, I don’t know vegans like this, although I imagine there may be a number of them somewhere. However, the point is, Mr. Leenaert seems to neither like nor trust vegans, especially those who try to be consistent in their vegan principles. Leenaert tells his audiences that, “consistency is overrated.”

Because Mr. Leenaert neither likes nor trusts vegans, he thinks it extremely unlike that all but a few (perhaps only one) has the grace and social skills to negotiate their way through the lasagne hypothetical. Vegan audiences are not, for example, asked to give examples of how they would diplomatically approach this dilemma, or tell others how they’ve been in this very scenario and found an elegant solution. These things are, apparently, way beyond the “crazy” vegan.

However, in contrast to the rather socially inept beings Mr. Leenaert thinks vegans are, isn’t it likely, knowing full well that many lasagne doughs do indeed contain hen’s eggs, that the invited vegan might contact their friend ahead of time to mention this fact, and perhaps offer the names of lasagne brands that are egg-free?  Of course, this is all a little “Captain Kirk,” getting out of a no-win situation by altering the rules of the game.*

However, the point I raised in the debate was that vegans, like most people, are skilled social animals, and they could well “head off” the lasagne problem, not least because it’s not hard to imagine that one’s friends could easily be caught out when buying the lasagne dough. In a very real sense, friends would simply be helping friends out. Of course, Leenaert would have none of it and came up with reasons why the scenario must be as he presents it: that is, the vegan is stuck with no other prospect than eating the product made with hens’ eggs or risking upsetting and offending their host(s).

One is left wondering why an animal advocate would go to such efforts to continually place vegans in such moral binds. He says it’s to critique the idea of “purity” in the vegan community, to combat “The Vegan Police,” and so on.

Personally, I think Mr. Leenaert is a vegetarian who has not quite managed to be comfortable with the dietary aspect of veganism (and, once again, he rejects all others aspects out of hand in the first instance), so he devises a version of “vegan” that includes the consumption of animal produce. He has a list of “exceptions” he either makes himself or advocates for himself and others, while seeking to convince his audiences that “flexible” veganism is actually the best (and fastest) way to bring about a (dietary) vegan world.

At a time when veganism is still not generally accepted as the moral baseline of the animal rights movement (another concept Leenaert rejects), we are ill-advised to move away from explaining the case for vegan animal rights (ripening people to the philosophy). This is certainly the case for active vegans. I challenge anyone to say that there is something more important in campaigning than to increase the numbers of ethical vegans (vegans) in society.

Vegans should ignore Tobias Leenaert. Let the more numerous vegetarians take part in and support his vegetarian, “meat” reduction, veggie-day, campaigning. There is absolutely no need for vegans to become involved.

 
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru

In this ARZone podcast interview, the one-and-only Ronnie Lee outlines his involvement in a new public education initiative, EVE (Encouraging Vegan Education). EVE is a grassroots mobilisation concentrated on forging change on a cultural level. As Ronnie explains, if "ordinary people" continue to exploit and use other animals in the ways that they do, and if they continue to hold the speciesist attitudes towards them that they currently hold, then little will change. If such people do not change, things for other animals remain the same.

As mentioned in the interview, Ronnie Lee will always be remembered within the animal advocacy movement as the co-founder in the 1970s of the direct action phenomenon, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). However, Ronnie suggests that the ALF could only ever have hoped to play a small role in the liberation of other animals from human tyranny due to the cell-structure of the “organisation,” which tended to keep things small-scale, and – were the ALF to have become a mass movement as he (and I) once thought it would – the state would have crushed it just has they have recently cracked down on the activities and activists of SHAC.

Apart from what Ronnie said about the ALF and its role, what he said about veganism being the moral baseline of the animal rights movement caught my attention, and it is those remarks that are the basis of this blog entry. 

In the show notes, Ronnie is described as speaking about “the long history of veganism within the animal protection movement.” When Ronnie talks about “the long history of veganism within the animal protection movement,” he’s referring to the fact that, even from the 1970s, at least in Britain, there was a steady increase in members of the animal movement becoming dietary vegans as individuals, although few of them “campaigned for veganism,” and fewer still in any consistent sense, or in a sense that veganism was at that time integral to campaigning or campaign claims.

It seems to me, then, it is wrong to suggest that veganism had been established as the movement’s moral baseline earlier than it has been, although I think the 1970s and 1980s can be said to have marked the time of its initial inception. It needed a determined effort to “push” veganism centre stage, as it were and, as Ronnie states very clearly in his interview, it certainly wasn’t central in those days.

Before we try to locate when this baseline position for veganism emerged, and the extent to which it has been established within the animal movement, what exactly does it mean to say that “veganism is the moral baseline”? There seems to be some dispute or confusion as to what we should regard this phrase to mean within a social movement context, so this is my attempt to articulate its meaning.

A fairly standard definition of the word “baseline” indicates that it is, “an imaginary line or standard” and “standard of value.” The word is synonymous with words such as “criterion” and “touchstone.” It seems to me that we can take “veganism as the moral baseline in the animal rights movement” to mean the value placed on veganism as an integral part of what standing for animal rights means (it is hard to stand for someone while deliberately exploiting them) and, in terms of movement claims-making, appeals to the philosophy of veganism would be central in all that is done and claimed for and about other animals.

In my presentation at the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg in September 2012, I suggested that we might think that it is within the rights-based section of the animal movement that the moral baseline idea for veganism makes the most sense. That is to say, if one believes that other animals are rightholders, and that what humans do to them routinely and systematically are rights violations, then being vegan yourself, and integrating the advocacy of the philosophy of veganism into one’s campaigning activities, seems logical and necessary - and precisely because it would seem odd and contradictory to stand for the rights of those one is violating.

So, leaving that last point rather hanging, when was veganism established as the moral baseline of the animal (rights) movement - and why does it matter?

Credit where it is due, I have always accepted and acknowledged the crucial role law professor Gary Francione has played in bringing about the concentration of veganism in the animal movement. I think that grassroots campaigners, without vegetarian and flesh-consuming subscribers to consider as financial supporters, and with no reliance on any politician who may think of vegans as "crazies," have taken to the vegan moral baseline in its fullest sense. Moreover, if veganism can be said to have been developing to any extent as the moral baseline “before Francione,” then it would have been in the grassroots part of the movement - and the grassroots of most social movements have traditionally been regarded as that movement’s backbone and heartbeat.

However, I would claim that Francione, more than most, worked to bring veganism to be seen as an integral part, and an integral logic, of the animal advocacy movement from the 1990s onwards. He has been critical of the “vegetarian first,” and “vegetarianism as the gateway to veganism” arguments, while fully accepting that people may not be able to “turn vegan” overnight or "all at once." There is a lot of acceptance of inevitable incrementalism within Francione’s position on human relations with other sentient beings which is often ignored or downplayed.

The substantive “push” towards establishing veganism as the moral baseline began in the 1990s - in the sense of being absolutely integral to campaigning and to claims-making – and that indicates why it is important to acknowledge its recent origins and not attempt to do what Ronnie and Ms. Bailey did in Ronnie’s podcast: imply that philosophical veganism has been central within the animal movement for much longer than it has been. Ronnie is perfectly correct to suggest that many and probably most of those early campaigners he rubbed shoulders with were vegans as individuals - but he’s also right to acknowledge that they did not campaign for veganism in the senses that we see it campaigned for now. This means, I suggest, that veganism was not the moral baseline back then – far from it: that move, that flowering, that flourishing, has been in very recent years.

The idea is so new that the amount of references to veganism on Facebook alone makes it easy to forget how new it is. Moreover, even now, not all sections of the animal advocacy movement embrace the idea, or are ever likely to, not even all in the grassroots movement; and certainly not in the national corporations who continue to have good business reasons to fudge the issue with use of terms like “veg,” “veggie,” and “veg*n.” Thankfully, the latter term, which I have always hated, seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years.

As late as 1996, Gary Francione, the person I am suggesting was instrumental in establishing veganism as the movement’s moral baseline, was still self-identifying as a vegetarian, and there is no mention of veganism in his 2000 book, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or The Dog? Q&As taken from the book are still featured on Francione’s web site and mention vegetarianism rather than veganism. 

THAT’S HOW NEW AND RECENT THIS “VEGANISM AS THE MORAL BASELINE” IDEA IS!

By 1996, many campaigners Ronnie knew – and many campaigners people like Kim Stallwood, myself, and my sister Lynne knew – were self-identifying vegans, and had been so for 10, 15, or 20 years – but that fact does not mean that veganism was regarded as the movement's moral baseline in the 1970s or 1980s. Those early campaigners were within a movement that did not campaign for veganism, and did not include veganism within its routine claims-making until many years later.

If I am right about this, we could and should recognise the newness of veganism being our moral baseline, central to everything we do, and we should take heart that this incredibly new thing has really taken off in the last few years. Now, we are in the position to much more reliably test out how the idea of veganism “plays” within the public imagination. We need to keep going with our new idea and, as Ronnie Lee says, continue to encourage vegan education. We do not need, for whatever reason, to imagine that veganism was the moral baseline of the movement for longer than it actually has been. Moreover, the recent trend to slide away from veganism as some so-called "strategists" in the vegetarian movement suggest, should be rigorously resisted.

LISTEN TO THE RONNIE LEE PODCAST HERE.

Director of The Animals Film, Victor Schonfeld, introduces Joan Dunayer, author of Speciesism, who talks about our use of speciesist language.




LISTEN H E R E.

This is an archive piece - but interesting...

The two-part One Planet: Animals & Us programme is half way through. In the style of "half-time analysis" at a sports event, Professor Gary Francione, Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan Podcast, and I, talked about the first show which was focused on factory farming (the next one is about vivisection).

The podcast can be heard by following THIS link.

Gary, Elizabeth and I talk about all the points raised in the following critical review of the first programme.

I was impressed in that it covered quite well a great deal of themes in such a short time. It included the state of industrialised farming today, which is still horrific, and the globilisation/spread of animal farming and meat consumption over the wider world, its increased intensification and “meatification” of the world’s food system, to a point that may not be sustainable for people and the planet; a visit to the Mind Lab, a neurological institute, to investigate, via an approach-withdrawal response experiment, if eating meat is part of our human makeup and root cause of why we want to eat meat; it is alleged how from children on we generally don’t make the connection between eating meat, and the psychologist, Melanie Joy’s notion of “an invisible dominant ideology” (called “carnism”) that shapes our perception of meat and the animals we eat, that enables us to eat some animals as meat and love other animals as pets; our use of routine language we use and euphemisms regarding animals which, its alleged, dissociate us from the animal origin of our food.

The program featured Gary Francione, Wayne Pacelle of the HSUS and the prominent Austrian animal activist, Martin Balluch in an interesting discussion on the animal movement’s working strategies and to what extent the animal movement groups have actually made any real changes for animals with respect to meaningful humane treatment, or abolishing animal use or even to significantly reduce the number of animals used. (I noted that the radio host called the HSUS an “animal rights organisation” and talked of “the animal rights movement”, whereas Francione said “the animal movement.”)

There was discussion on promoting a non-animal based diet, how our dietary guidelines come about, and the lack of published peer-reviewed scientific literature on vegetarian and all-plant/vegan diets to replace meat in a general population context in spite of continents with populations doing well on at least vegetarian diets, and mention of an American Dietetic Society report that reviewed the medical literature regarding nutrition and which concluded vegetarian and vegan diets as healthy for all stages of human life. Then a pessimist (or realist) view of the difficulty in getting people to think about food and change from meat to non-animal.

There was the Holocaust analogy used to compare what was done to the Jews in Nazi Germany, which, Joan Dunayer (also a Jew) said pales in comparison to what is done routinely and continually to factory farmed animals in numbers and in atrocities. Also, Holocaust scholar, Prof Dominick LaCapra, discusses the usefulness of the Holocaust analogy because of there are similar structures )”the open secret” and the very active process of turning oneself off in spite of knowing what is going on).

I found the programme generally a reinforcement of the no animal use beliefs, which was fine and interesting in itself. Not sure if there were any new insights for me as to why the majority continue to eat meat: I still think it’s because we are physiologically omnivores and we’ve got to where we are as a successful and unique species in large part because of meat eating. All species seem to exploit other species. I found the Mind Lab experiment most attention-grabbing for me, though not completely convinced of the interpretation of data based on using just those 3 people, but I’m open to learning more on the experiments and subject. The idea that vegan diets must be artificially supplemented but meat-based diets not, but also the phenomena of people who turn vegetarian and/or vegan but return to meat eating, and people who make serious efforts of vegan diets but find them not fulfilling and strength-sapping as compared to meat-based diets, yet how others are just fine on long-term vegan diets - I find interesting.

The program did focus solely on factory farming, the industrialised over-intensive use and exploitation of animals as food, which is the most dominant form of animal-based food production and which I do believe is the least humane of all forms of animal ag. I guess that is relevant to the question of why, given the intensive conditions of most animals produced (particularly chickens and pigs, who sometimes never see the light of day) which are really less than humane, why do people still eat not so much meat per se, but meat that is produced in this fashion. I think the taste and nourishment of meat and the fact that it is there (the animal is now dead and the flesh on the shelf, and people don’t feel directly responsible for how the animal was treated) and that it is cheap trumps. Still, issues of what keeps meat so cheap were not discussed. Also, other forms of animal farming, ranching and other meat procurement means were not mentioned in the program as more humane that could play a more dominant role in a meat-based food system (with industrialised meat as less dominant and, as such, could then be made more humane) and as a better strategy for change than asking people to completely stop eating meat.

One must respect, though, that the presentation is a personal perspective and very much from the no animal use standpoint. Indeed, from the beginning the listener is forewarned that “this is not balanced, dispassionate journalism.” The radio host makes it clear from the start that he is opposed to animal suffering for human needs and pleasures, and most of the people featured were as well.

In 1995, Julian McAllister Groves published an article in The Sociological Review entitled Learning To Feel: The Neglected Sociology of Social Movements in which he found that animal advocates are often accused of "spoiling" family celebrations or other social gatherings due to their philosophies on human-nonhuman relations and their diet.

One activist respondent told Groves that friends invited him and his wife to their home but they were keen on the child of the household remaining ignorant about what "meat" was. The friends said to the activist, "We're not going to say anything about food" - and essentially they seemed extremely worried that information about the "meat" in the boy's meal may "start him thinking."

Couldn't have that, of course.

I was reminded of the article when I helped run an information stall in a Dublin district. The location for a good spot to catch passing shoppers happened to be outside one of the doors of a small McDonald's restaurant which is part of a shopping complex.

We set up with our vegan leaflets, recipe books, etc., and soon noticed the McDonald's manager staring at us while talking into a mobile phone. He was spelling out the dread word: "V-E-G-A-N."  Oh no, the vegans have landed! Of course fearing for the well-being of all of humanity, the manager rang for the Guardians of the Peace of Ireland.

Two police officers duly arrived - not a lot of domestic violence and banking fraud on this day apparently - but they did not even get out of their car, looked at us for about 30 seconds, and sped off, no doubt having got the important message that the doughnuts had arrived at the station.

There was nothing for it but for the intrepid McDonald's manager to approach the vegan table.

Positioning himself in such a way that he would not read the terrible mind-boggling vegan literature on the table, he asked us to move on. When we requested why we should, he said that our presence outside the fast food emporium was not welcome, mainly because it "reminded" his customers about what they were eating.

We asked if he thought his customers so unknowing that they were not aware that McDonald's served dairy and flesh products. We said he thought they probably were aware of that, yes, but he nevertheless did not want them "reminded" of the fact (and despite the fact that the table has no graphic pictures or posters on display). He said that customers had been firing anxious glances over at the vegan table - we were clearly in danger of starting them thinking.

Couldn't have that, of course.

We declined his offer to do him a favour and move on and so, a few minutes later, the heavy mob arrived in the shape of the regional supervisor who hailed from London, England. This guy is so ambitious that he's worked for McDonald's for more than 10 years at this stage and "loves it." He gave us a much more aggressive version of the "please move along" routine. We also declined his kind offer.

After that he arranged for his staff members to parade in front of the information table trying to block its view. He also attempted to place a sign advertising McDeath's meals immediately in front of the table.

At all costs, it seems, his customers must not begin to think.

This blog entry can be read as a companion piece to an earlier one, entitled "Understanding the Social Construction of Boundaries."

Sociologically, because human beings are social animals, we may be regarded as being free and unfree at the same time. Through influential processes of socialisation, our groups make and shape us. However, it may be noted that, in part, "the dialectics of freedom and dependence" means that -at some stages- there can be opportunities to "choose groups." For there should be no impression given that socialisation processes can successfully manufacture an utterly homogenous population. 

Rather, individuals are socialised into particular and varied social groups and worldviews whose values may oppose - and be opposed by – other groups. After early childhood, there are greater chances to change - or even form – these all-important groups. In this "multi-group situation," according to social philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, individuals often judge other members of humanity by reference to an imaginary line, a continuum, which is based on the notion of social distance. 

Social distance grows, Bauman argues, "as social intercourse shrinks in its volume and intensity." Variations in social distance involves a decrease or increase in empathy or "fellow feeling" based on feelings of mental and moral proximity regulated or influenced by physical and/or psychic distance. This, then, is the social construction of morally important "in" and "out" groups populated by "us" as opposed to "them." Bauman argues that "we" and "they"

• do not stand just for two separate groups of people, but for the distinction between two totally different attitudes - between emotional attachment and antipathy, trust and suspicion, security and fear, cooperativeness and pugnacity.
  

Bauman also says that "the ‘We’ group stands for the group to which I belong": 

• What happens inside this group, I understand well - and since I understand, I know how to go on, I feel secure and at home. The group is, so to speak, my natural habitat, the place where I like to be and to which I return with a feeling of relief.
  

However, the "They" group:

• stands for a group to which I either cannot or do not wish to belong. My vision of what is going on in that group is thereby vague and fragmentary, I poorly comprehend its conduct, and hence what that group is doing is to me by and large unpredictable and by the same token frightening.
  

Bauman maintains that part of being "trained to live" in a world constructed by human beings involves making boundaries that are "as exact as possible."

This exactness is important because it is necessary that boundaries are both easily noticed and unambiguously understood. 

Bauman argues that this is a matter of supreme importance. He notes that, "well-marked boundaries send us an unmistakable signal" in terms of expectations and in relation to which learned patterns of conduct to employ. Following Georg Simmel, Bauman describes how others perceived as strangers can be seen as less morally valuable than non-strangers. Others seen as strangers - by definition, cases in which moral proximity can be regarded as reduced - means that moral responsibility toward them can be correspondingly lessened. 

The lack of moral proximity results in the increased possibility of overcoming the "animal pity" which Bauman - citing Hannah Arendt - argues is the basis of morality and is generated by humans beings being with each other. [1] 

In other words, a moral "proximity lack" means that social actors have no special need to abide by the usual ethical character of human relationships. However, this is not to say that, necessarily, strangers are automatically treated like "enemies." But, importantly, they may be and, if they are, this can mean that strangers are liable to end up being "deprived of that protection which only moral proximity may offer." 

There are different "levels" in ideas of moral proximity - but "civil inattention" may be only a "short step away" from the more serious notion of "moral indifference." Both may lead to "heartlessness" and a "disregard for the needs of others." According to Bauman, the construction of stranger creates the outsider classification: "They" are conceptualised as different; an important building block to forge a feeling of unity – a unity between insiders. Such feelings of unity may be genuine or may be merely desired.

Such elements are part and parcel of "the community type of belonging." At its most basic and obvious, a "community" does not exist if the factors that unite people are weaker than the factors that divide them. What is essential, and Bauman suggests that this is an "overwhelming consideration," is a certain similarity between community members. As a "community" is idealised, its perception is all the stronger during times when it does not need to be talked about. In these circumstances, the "hold of community" can be significant: normative strength is gained through its very invisibility. 

The very idea of "community" is so sociologically important that it may simply exist as a postulate (an assumption without proof). It is therefore assumed that community exists even though it may be "an expression of desire, a clarion call to close the ranks, rather than a reality." Constructions of community are so vital, argues Bauman, that:

• we attempt...to bring to life, or keep alive, or resuscitate a community of meanings and beliefs which has never existed ‘naturally,' or is already about to fall apart, or is to rise again from the ashes.
  

In effect, then, a social community is largely an ideological construct, no doubt effectively serving many useful and necessary ends for the social beings inside it (some more than others to be sure), not least in the drawing of the apparently essential boundaries between "us" and "them."

Once constructed, boundaries need - naturally enough - to be jealously, or at least studiously, guarded. 

Important attention must, therefore, be given to gate-keeping activities. After all, insiders and outsiders cannot merely choose themselves in an unregulated manner. Ways of deciding who’s who are crucial material and on-going requirements. Bauman has argued that the "universe of moral obligations" is, in fact, "non-universal." In this, the sense of "social closure" is clearly seen and felt. However, there also exists the additional sense of moral closure. Again, for this, means of differentiation are extremely important. 

While it is a sociological convention to focus on notions of social class, "race," and gender to explore social differences which may result in levels of inequality, in relation to issues of morality, Bauman appears to acknowledge and accept that perhaps the deepest divide is based on species membership. 

For example, he argues that humans are most likely to remain categorised as moral subjects if they can remain categorised as human beings. Humans have evolved notions that "being human," on its own, entitles the subject to special treatment: treatment reserved for human beings only, and regarded (at least in theory) as the proper treatment of every human being.

As some building block or consequence of human rights thinking, this construction of "proper treatment" is so strong, Bauman claims, that "one may even say that the concepts of a ‘moral object’ and ‘human being’ have the same referent - their respective scopes overlap." In terms of moral proximity and physical treatment, there is, of course, a flip-side to this: 

• Whenever certain persons or categories of people are denied the right to our moral responsibility, they are treated as ‘lesser humans’, ‘flawed humans’, ‘not fully human’, or downright ‘non-human’.
  

If simply being ‘less-than-human’ can be a serious threat to one’s moral standing, the apparently thoroughly unforgiving status of nonhuman puts one far away from the likelihood of being treated as morally valuable. 

Thus, historically, some early human communities deliberately described themselves with names that literally meant "human," thus automatically casting all "outsiders" and "others" into nonhuman categories and therefore beyond the boundary of ethical concern.[2] By the same token, human slaves have been traditionally regarded as nonhuman beings - or as distant "beast-like" barbarians.[3]

Bauman, however, – in the light of his analysis of the rational, bureaucratic and ultimately "modern" Nazi Holocaust - comments that, "Our century has been notorious for the appearance of highly influential worldviews that called for the exclusion of whole categories of the population - classes, nations, races, religions - from the universe of moral obligations."

The Exercise of Exclusion: Moral Closure.

Philosopher Tom Regan [4] also examines the notion of the non-universal nature of the universe of moral obligations. In a chapter entitled, "Patterns of Resistance," Regan outlines how religious and scientific ideas have been used throughout history to attempt to block access to the "moral universe." He argues that, regardless (and because) of the use of the phrase "all men" in the North American Declaration of Independence, not every person was deemed to be possessors of the rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Clearly exploring notions of processes of moral closure, Regan asserts that, "the plain fact is that not all humans, not even all men, were included under the rubric ‘all men.’" Regan focuses his attention on four excluded groups: African Americans, women, gays and lesbians, and animals other than human. 

He details the patterns of resistance that were (and are) utilised to preserve their exclusion from the moral "in-group." This historical exercise of exclusion is the history of boundary building, boundary guarding and boundary maintenance for the benefit of moral insiders, initially of course "white male property owners." According to Regan, exclusion results in the construction of what he regards as a "less than ideal" moral community. He asks, "How do the beneficiaries of membership in a less than ideal moral community act to retain their privileged status?" 

Brute force is one frequently employed option, he says, but there are other powerful social institutions that can also assist in the process of exclusion, such as religious and scientific ones. Although these are the forces he chooses to concentrate analysis on, Regan immediately acknowledges that other social institutions are involved as well, not least those of economics and politics, and "the sheer power of custom, including popular culture - the media, the songs that are sung, [and] the art of the times."

Humour.

It has been argued that humour plays an important sociocultural and ideological role in society,[6] featuring as it does in popular culture, songs and, indeed, the ‘art of the times’. Humour can play a substantial role in terms of social control and resistance to such control. 

Thus, through a "jokelore," social and political values can be transmitted within and between societies and, as theorists Chris Powell & George Paton point out, sociologists of all people should appreciate that extracting any human activity from its social context is problematic and unwise.

Christie Davies’ chapter in Powell & Paton’s collection on "stupidity and rationality" is supportive of Bauman’s contention about the moral benefits of "insider status" - as well as having something significant to say about human-nonhuman relations. 

For instance, Davies writes that people of various nationalities often use humour to poke fun at and, more seriously, denigrate both the social and moral standing of selected others. Thus, the British have traditionally told jokes about the Irish, North Americans have told jokes about the Polish, the French aim their humour at Belgians and so on. 

Davies claims such jokes enjoy an "enormous and universal popularity." Moreover, part of their ideological function is to present or construct a group of people who are characterised as "stupid outsiders." This is not a small or inconsequential matter, he argues, because people have a "deep-seated" need to manufacture these outsiders. 

Davies’ position thus underlines Bauman’s perspective on the social significance of moral distance and the corresponding link to notions of moral respect. For example, he writes, by telling jokes about the stupidity of a group on the periphery of their society, people can place this despised and feared quality at a distance and gain reassurance that they and the members of their own group are not stupid or irrational.

Davies reproduces a selection of the jokes to reveal the "stupidity" of the victim population: the butts of the joke. In one example, the way of suggesting that a targeted human being is a stupid person is to indicate the possession of less intelligence than a nonhuman animal. 

This joke concerns a rocket being launched with a crew of one human [a representative of the victim population] and one chimpanzee. Every so often the chimpanzee is instructed by "mission control" to complete complicated and important flight and safety tasks inside the rocket. Unemployed throughout, eventually the human gets extremely irritated and restful; but then his orders finally arrive. They read: "feed the chimpanzee."

On one level, the human is simply denigrated by being shown to be intellectually and hierarchically inferior to the chimpanzee pilot. However, whenever chimpanzees have been blasted into space they have been sent there as experimental animals and "scientific" models. Thus - in this joke - this human and the other animal share the same designation of an "experimental tool" or "model," even though the chimp is given superior status. 

Keeping the focus on the position of the human, and recalling Bauman’s "holocaust thesis," which discusses depersonalised humans ~ that is, humans-conceptualised-as-nonhuman-animals ~ being subjected to experimental procedures, it seems to be suggested in the joke that once human beings can be said to share the same referent as "animal,"[7] then they may be used in potentially stressful, painful or lethal experiments.

However, as in many jokes, the status of the nonhuman as an exploitable and legitimately "harmable" being, while essential for the internal logic of the joke, is silently assumed as a given reality. 

In another example, Davies reproduces a north American joke about a Polish couple who buy chickens and proceed to plant them in the ground like vegetables. Their stupidity is predicated on their surprise that the birds died. 

However, the deaths - and the property status of the chickens - are not important, or problematic, within the internal logic of the joke. 

After all, it is this very lack of importance which leads Bauman, citing Stanley Milgram’s infamous social psychological experiments about authority, to warn that any successful "moving away" of people from the status of human being is likely to lead to negative consequences for the individuals involved. The process of dehumanisation can only "work" (function) if the successful transformation of humans to the status of nonhuman is widely understood as an act that is imbued with sociopolitical and hierarchical meanings. 

In other words, intentionally placing humans into a category of "animal" in order to subsequently exploit or oppress them would seem to serve little purpose if many other animals were not already constructed as potentially exploitable or, for various reasons, "killable" (ideologically "cullable") beings; or "human resources" and so on. 


[1] Bauman, Z. (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust. Oxford: Polity. Such sentiments can be traced at least as far back as Rousseau who claimed that human beings were made weak and "more brutish" by society: they were "naturally" gentle and noble (cited in Adrian Franklin’s Animals and Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human-Animal Relations in Modernity. London: Sage, 1999).

[2] Midgley, M. (1983) Animals and Why They Matter. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

[3] Stephen Clark, writing about the philosophy of Aristotle in, Clark, S. R. L. (1985) "Good Dogs and Other Animals," in P. Singer (ed.) In Defence of Animals. Oxord: Blackwell.

[4] Regan, T. (2001) Defending Animal Rights. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

[5] Regan points out, however, that he is not denying that scientific and religious ideas have played a "positive role" and challenged the exclusion of the groups under discussion.

[6] Powell, C. & Paton, G.E.C. (1988) Humour in Society: Resistance and Control. Aldershot: Arena.

[7] Of course, the fact that human beings are animals is largely irrelevant. Human beings tend to call each other animals when they want to insult each other – or when they make comments about sexual prowess – they do not generally do it as a simply status description.