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An Accepted Good

8/17/2015

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This blog entry is designed to further explore sociological understandings of human-nonhuman relations. Its focus, once more, is on the powerful societal role played by institutionalised animal welfarism. 

Essentially, animal welfarism serves to regulate and control the human use and systematic exploitation of other animals while rarely attempting to totally end such use and exploitation. This is certainly true of orthodox forms of animal welfarism, while post-1970s "new welfarism" (law professor Gary Francione's controversial term) insists that step-by-step reform of exploitative practices may eventually abolish use, an ideological assertion disputed by abolitionist animal rightists. 

From a sociological point of view, animal welfarism cannot be solely regarded as simply a set of legislative interventions enacted from the beginning of the nineteenth century to control, regulate and enforce the “humane use” of other animals. Orthodox animal welfarism undoubtedly seeks to perform its regulatory function: it regulates exploitation, while user industries can cope with welfare reforms if profits are not seriously dented - and yet animal welfarism appears to do far more than this. For example, it operates as a firmly entrenched institutionalised ideology that effectively helps to promote and maintain the value of “kindness to animals,” and an ethos of “caring for” or “loving” nonhuman animals, while at the same time justifying routine harmful practices and time-honoured social attitudes. 

As for user industries, it does them no real harm to be seen to respond to welfarist considerations – after all, they routinely claim the status of concerned welfarists, and they routinely reply to rights-based claims with animal welfare assurances. Typically, when animal welfare modifications are afoot, they spend a small proportion of their vast fortune initially opposing all reform attempts. Some fights they win, a few others they lose. However, aware of the transient nature of public attention, even in the latter cases, user industries can subsequently gain promotional benefits by characterising themselves as “animal welfare friendly” or “humane” - and all the better if they can secure ringing endorsements from former opponents in the national animal welfare corporations, which seem to come ever more frequently. 

The apparent transience of public attention is matched by its failure to fully focus on precise detail. This is one major reason why modern-day politics is based on short ~and oft repeated~ sound bites. Likewise, public inattention also helps to explain why Francione, talking to Vegan Freaks Radio a few years ago, that his university colleagues assumed, due to PeTA’s promotion of McDonald’s limited welfare reforms, that the whole of McDonald’s range was to be considered “humanely produced.” 



They even thought that Francione himself would be eating there. 

Sociologists who study the mass media warn that there is an important issue of the encoding and the decoding of messages and – even in the age of the internet, the mass media are still the source of most people’s knowledge of the news. In other words, while PeTA may believe they clearly highlighted the limitations of the McReforms, that in itself does little or nothing to guarantee that audiences will receive the message “as sent.” 

In general terms, animal welfarism is the accepted societal lens through which moral issues raised by the treatment of other animals are made sense of. Animal welfare opinion is so commonplace, and so firmly sedimented in the public consciousness, that regarding human-nonhuman relationships in any other way is most unusual and exceptionally difficult, even for “pro-animal organisations” and individual campaigners in the nonhuman advocacy movement. Therefore, ideological animal welfare has not only served to regulate exploitation but has also, for generation after generation, been a central support system justifying and excusing what humans have done ~and continue to do~ in the name of science, agriculture, and entertainment. 

Conventional animal welfarism - the very name implies as much - is generally seen in a positive light. It is so firmly entrenched in the modern cultural imagination that it is regarded, according to research fellow at the University of Sydney, Barbara Noske, as “an accepted good in Western society.” Furthermore, as stated, effective animal welfare legislation and “good welfare practice” has always been claimed, increasingly so in recent years, as the most serious concern - often the number one interest - of those who themselves wish to actively exploit nonhumans as a commercial or “sporting” resource. In other words, it is fairly rare to find even animal users who do not regularly articulate fervent support for the concept of orthodox forms of animal welfarism. 

Since the emergence of animal rights philosophy represents both a radical rejection of the human use of other animals and also a fundamental challenge to its regulatory mechanisms, conventional animal welfarism responds to rights-based claims ideologically. It responds with a generalised charge that rights-based approaches are “unwarranted interferences,” “extreme opinions” and, most of all, “unnecessary ideas.” New welfarism reacts in a similar but not exactly the same way. 

Thinking about rights and welfarist approaches to human-nonhuman relations means thinking about very different approaches to the subject, whereas traditional and new welfarists simply locate themselves in different places on a continuum that starts at least with regulating use. Essentially, traditional animal welfarism suggests that any desire to go beyond its own established precepts makes no sense, and serves no positive function, not even for nonhuman animals. New welfarists join in with pejorative claims about “utopianism” and “impracticality,” while having abolition as their end game. Not only does animal welfarism stand like a monolith to inform the vast majority of discussions about human-nonhuman relations, fundamental and historical social conventions, and routine practices, gives succour to mainstream, society-wide, views that firmly state that:-

(1) human beings are entirely justified by many religious and philosophical canons in their use of other animals for their own purposes and 

(2) this exploitative use, precisely because it is thought to be strictly controlled and regulated, can be properly regarded as ethically acceptable since the animals so used do not actually suffer in the course of their usage.



Fundamental social “truths” concerning human-nonhuman relationships are thought to be ~and repeatedly asserted as~ so self-evident that the norms and values which support mainstream views about other animals are unconsciously, and without controversy, transmitted on a daily basis at every level of primary, secondary and adult socialisation. 

Put simply and directly, human beings in western societies are socialised to become animal harming animal lovers. 

Since the “normal,” “justified,” and “proper” use of other animals is a central feature of western cultures, the apparent self-evident character ~and the unequivocal “correctness”~ of these embedded social attitudes means that any challenge to them can almost automatically be regarded as unneeded, beyond the pale, unreasonable, invalid, irrational and even “dangerous.” 

Claims from animal rights positions state that society is so prejudiced on the basis of species membership that, fuelled by notions of “human chauvinism,” most people quite unproblematically instil speciesist ideology into children day after day, week after week, year upon year. They do this through routine discourse and everyday social practices - most obviously, at every mealtime (although the majority of speciesist parents do not appear to go out of their way to tell their children what ~i.e., who~ they are eating). 

Similarly, speciesist sentiments are culturally transmitted in common stories told to children, and can be seen reflected beyond food choices, for example in clothing, social rituals, forms of entertainment and social gatherings. In terms of what children learn about human orientations toward other animals, the vast majority of youngsters are effectively socialised as speciesists well before they can be regarded as ethically aware individuals. In other words, most children are encouraged to participate in organised animal-harming activities (again, for example, at every mealtime) prior to developing the ability to morally evaluate what they are brought up to do with nonhuman property and animal produce. 

Furthermore, they are routinely exposed to, and enticed to believe, the justifying ideology that accompanies the human exploitation of nonhuman “resources” – yet again, well before they know for themselves what their own and others’ conduct entails for the lives (and, of course, the deaths) of other sentient beings. Indeed, in effect, adults may feel pressure to mislead their own children, or just lie to them, about the starkest realities of many human-nonhuman relationships. 

This suggests that many parents may feel the need to obscure many of the details (if they know them) of what happens to the animals their children consume, especially those animals consumed as food. After all, who really wants to know the ins and outs of what humans do to other animals when they exploit them? Ironically, an average vegan is likely to know much more about how a piece of an animal’s muscle arrived on a flesh eater’s plate than most meat eaters.

The danger of the new welfarist approach to human-nonhuman relations is that it misleads the public into thinking that caring about nonhuman animals amounts to picking and choosing between different animal production systems. Pay a little extra, and look out for our endorsements, new welfarism seems to say, and then it points the public to animal produce they should eat and to those products they should not. Surely, openly advocating veganism as the baseline position of animal rights is much better ~and even simpler~ than getting our feet wet in such muddied waters?

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The Welfare Response

7/14/2015

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I have argued that animal advocates need not get involved in campaigns to bring about animal welfare reforms - if they campaign for animal rights and make the issue a public matter, the interaction that occurs between a social movement, its countermovement, and state agencies, will bring about such reforms. I've suggested that making the issue of animal rights a regularly-aired public debate creates "turbulence" that state agencies and countermovements react to, increasing the interaction among them.

Those who exploit and regulate the exploitation of other animals automatically translate animal rights "down" to animal welfare. They cannot - and will not - meet animal rights demands for the end of animal use. They can - and do - think about small reforms which may (they hope) have the effect of taking the heat off them. They'll dress up little baby welfare steps the best they can (rather like the victory-hungry national animal welfare corporations do), saying that reforms and the regulation and monitoring of animal use shows that they "care" about their animal property - all the things animal users tend to say routinely for, as we know, all animal exploiters claim that animal welfare is one of their main priorities.

Writing for the "business journal for meat and poultry processors," MeatPoultry.com, Bernard Shire reports on a "discussion in Congress about how much space laying hens should be allowed to have in order for them to move around and spread their wings."

"...should be allowed to have..." The language exploiters use about their victims is revealing in itself.

Part of the Congress discussion was about legislation known as the "Egg Inspection Act Amendments of 2012," which is designed to "codify an agreement between the Humane Society of the United States and the United Egg Producers to double the size allotted to egg-laying hens."

So, the HSUS are in the mix here too. That raises the interesting question as to whether the activities of the HSUS added to the social turbulence I speak of. I can imagine quite a bit of very different claims-making in the animal advocacy movement about that.

At the end of Shire's report, however, is this: 

What’s next? 

Backers of the national plan deny it would lead to a “slippery slope” where animal welfare groups, if they can succeed in changing how hens are raised, would next go after livestock industries, including poultry and meat producers and processors. 

If the national plan were to stand up to the scrutiny it is undergoing, it would then be added to the 2012 Farm Bill being considered by the House and Senate. What would stop additional amendments to the Farm Bill from affecting meat and poultry producers and processors? Could it lead to additional space and humane regulations before animals are slaughtered? 

Recent charges of humane treatment violations in the meat industry are making this issue even more challenging to the industry.


First, we should note that "humane treatment violations" is industry talk for what rights-based animal advocates regard as animal rights violations.

Second, if I'm right about how social turbulence is caused by the interactive activities of social movements, countermovements, and state agencies,[1] and what may follow is increased interaction between the countermovement and state elements of this three-part model, then it is not necessary for it to be "animal welfare groups" succeeding in making changes. Change can also result in the increased interaction caused by vegan-based animal rights campaigning.

In addition, of course, welfarists do welfare, so the welfare corporations will continue to do their thing anyway. What seems clear, though, is that vegan-based animal rights advocates need not busy themselves supporting them - or raise funds for them - or use their style of claims-making. Animal rights advocates can get on with the urgent need to advocate for animal rights.

The grassroots of the movement in particular need not support animal welfare measures - they can simply know that their animal rights advocacy will have the effect of pushing the user industries towards reforms. The national welfare corporations need victories for membership and staffing reasons (all those careerists to pay for), so it make sense for them to want to be able to claim that a particular campaign led to a particular welfare measure. They cannot fundraise as easily if all they can suggest is that their general campaigning may have contributed to this or that reform. They need the direct credit, not to be part of the mix.

The grassroots need not get involved in all of that it seems to me.

Look at that last sentence from Shire again: "Recent charges of humane treatment violations in the meat industry are making this issue even more challenging to the industry." In other words, if animal use is exposed, and rights are seen to be violated, the industry may well end up in deeper trouble. When animal use is exposed and/or talked about, this is the very thing which will increase the pressure on industry from those who regulate it or make law related to its regulation.

When it does - and whether that is caused by turbulence caused by a new film of animal use, or press coverage of an animal rights events - you can be sure of one thing. 

Trust me, you can bet your house on this - they'll respond with welfare. 

It is the only thing the use industry can do. 


[1] Once again, I would like to credit sociologist Richard Gale (see HERE) with first exploring the relationship(s) between social movements, their countermovements, and state agencies. 

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Classes Apart

6/3/2015

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In 1977, sociologist Paul Willis’ Learning To Labour, a now famous piece of research about “how working class kids get working class jobs” was released. Something of a follow-up to Willis’ study, The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling, was published in 1994, authored by Máirtín Mac an Ghaill. Both studies, broadly speaking, identified groups of working class “lads” or “macho lads” who developed a strong anti-school culture, a desire for manual waged labour, racist and sexist attitudes, and forms of social interaction that led to them failing in terms of educational attainment.

Willis’ lads called conventional hard-working pupils “ear ‘oles” (on the grounds that they actually listened to teachers) while Mac an Ghaill’s macho lads labelled succeeding students, “dickhead achievers.” The lads favoured larking around, which they called “having a laff,” while the macho lads saw school as a means of “learning to be tough,” which involved rejecting the traditional 3 R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) in favour of the 3 F’s (fighting, fucking and football).

In the 1980s I took part in an impromptu “inspection” of a “chicken processing plant” in Yorkshire, England. A group of animal advocates effectively stormed the place to “have a look around.” We found the chicken plant workers putting glue in chickens’ eyes and supergluing chickens to wooden posts and using them as cricket bats. Sociologically, along with impoverished immigrant workers, the men committing these rights violations were the lads and the macho lads.

Many animal advocates will have seen the numerous videos showing slaughterhouse employees, circus workers, and “farm hands” using other animals as baseballs, or stomping on small animals, or attacking large animals with sticks, prods, and iron bars. Some videos expose workers sexually abusing animals, or pushing or dragging “downed” animals to their deaths. Most likely, along with impoverished immigrant workers, these rights violations will also have been committed by lads and macho lads. 

in 2011, then working for Farm Sanctuary, Bruce Friedrich showed a slideshow to AR2011. He sought to convince his audience that the sparkling new use facilities he highlighted (new chicken prisons and barns for calves) represented a major step forward in terms of animal welfare. As I also said last time, these new facilities did look “better” than the dirty old battery cages and veal crates he showed.

Are these brand new animal use facilities going to see the provision of brand new staffing arrangements? No, probably not – the animals will certainly still be left in the speciesist hands of lads and macho lads.

Will the new facilities be adequately monitored? Possibly, but probably not. 

If they are monitored at all, they will be monitored by other speciesists. It is unlikely that animal advocates, Bruce Friedrich included, will be nipping around having a gander themselves and, even if they did, workers will know they’re on their way and more care will be taken – for the duration of the inspection.

I have worked in several “working class job locations," including steel works and car manufacturers, as well as being a cinema projectionist for many years. In the first two in particular, there were plenty of lads and macho lads. The only time one saw persons presenting as female persons outside of the work’s canteen, or as cleaners in office areas, was in the porn magazine pages sellotaped about the place. There were plenty of expressions of racism too, as many “rastas” worked at the car plant, while several Germans and Russians worked at the steel plant.

What has this to do with animal welfare regulation and reforms?

In the steel works and the car plant, the first thing that happened when managers or anyone else imposed new rules and regulations, was the finding of ways of getting around them.  New rules were not adhered to as much as circumvented. There is a lot of sociology about what is supposed to happen in work locations as opposed to what actually goes on.

Cinemas are supposed to be regularly inspected by the local fire chief. When I was a projectionist, these inspections were few and far between and we always knew the fire chief was about because phone calls were made as he made his rounds. If he did happen to turn up with no warning, he was taken for a nice cup of tea while we cleared away all the things that were not supposed to be there. Fire chief inspections were a form of monitoring but they meant little in practice.


I wonder whether the middle class animal welfare advocates and their middle class political allies actually believe that the reforms they bring about mean something significant in practical terms? I’d love to be a fly-on-the-wall if ever Bruce Friedrich tried to convince the lads and the macho lads that the new “humane” facilities mean that, henceforth, the animals will be treated "nicely."

After each had stopped “ROTFLMAO,” I expect they’d just get on with their routine rights violations.

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

5/30/2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Strength & Resilience of the Orthodox

5/8/2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Dr. Roger Yates is a rights advocate and sociologist

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