Conspiracy Theory.

Sociologists often characterise social movements as claims makers in civil society. As such, they become involved in a battle of ideas with ideological opponents in what has been called the ‘movement-countermovement dialectic.’ Sociologists also point out the importance of labels and the social control implications of labelling.

Parties in such dialectical relationships often identify themselves in our era of the 15-second sound bite by a stark differentiation of terms and labels. Whereas it is thought that Mark Twain’s notion of “a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense” amounts to a definition of a sound bite, in the battle of ideas about human-nonhuman relations, clear differentiation appears more important than sense making. As might be expected, the phrases ‘animal rights’ and ‘animal welfare’ are used in interesting ways. For example, while many people in the animal protection movement say that they believe animal welfarism can lead to animal rights, there is a well-organised countermovement, especially active in the USA, which goes to great lengths to categorically separate these terms. Along with some animal advocates, then, countermovements declare that “animal rights is not the same as animal welfare.”

This issue resurfaced for me recently in brief exchanges I had on Twitter with David Martosko of the Centre for Consumer Freedom (CCF) and Erica Saunders of Animal Rights or Human Responsibility (AR-HR). I say brief because Martosko ‘blocked’ me on Twitter because I questioned why he characterises both PeTA and HSUS as “philosophically animal rights” organisations. Indeed, I was careful to stress that I was talking about their philosophical stances since it is clear that PeTA at least is a rhetorical animal rights mobilisation – that is to say, they frequently use the term ‘animal rights’ in their claims-making while they reject rights-based theorising on human-nonhuman relations.

As ever, Singer’s utilitarianism is central. I had asked Martosko, since they follow and promote Singer’s position, and since PeTA spokespersons acknowledge that they use the term ‘rights’ as a convenience, how can PeTA and HSUS be regarded as animal rights mobilisations in a philosophical sense. Martosko told me that he wouldn’t waste his time engaging in my nonsense (which is an interesting echo of what Peter Singer implied when he commented on the PeTA petition). The CCF mouthpiece said he was not interested in “high school mental masturbation,” not that I recall recommending it.

The truth of the matter is as follows. Most countermovement organisations like to characterise themselves as true animal welfarists, and very, very different to the ‘fanatical’ and ‘extremists’ who believe in animal rights. They like to spread it about that people committed to the idea of animal rights are violent terrorists who will force people to give up their pets while tearing ‘their’ leather coats off their backs.

It just will not do for the public to understand that both the countermovements and those who follow utilitarian principles are all animal welfarists, albeit at different ends of a wide spectrum. It may be difficult explaining to the general public the differences among types of animal welfarists; far easier to claim they are very different and have different labels with radically different meanings. There are undoubted differences between Peter Singer’s animal welfarism and what the countermovements stand for but there are important similarities also; similarities criminologist Piers Beirne points to when he argues that, “Despite its great influence, Singer’s act-utilitarianism does not really position animals’ liberation from suffering very securely.” Beirne notes, for example, that Singer’s consequentialism cannot totally rule out all vivisection experiments (which caused quite stir when he confirmed that in a recent exchange with animal experimenter Tipu Aziz), while Singer himself writes in Animal Liberation (2nd edition, p. 176), “I do not, on balance, object to free-range egg production.”

That may be, countermovement spokespersons wail, but don’t PeTA believe that “animals are not ours to eat, wear, or experiment on.” The evidence suggests that PeTA are more committed to their philosopher than they are to their slogans. Having said that, they do insist on characterising Animal Liberation as a work of animal rights philosophy in the face of the efforts its author has gone to in pointing out that the notion of a right plays no part in his approach, that he could and probably should have not used the term at all, and did so merely “as a concession to popular moral rhetoric.”

At this point in time, it is hard to judge what PeTA actually stands for – consistency has never been their strong point. The countermovements themselves gleefully publicise the numbers of animals PeTA kill every year but apparently without questioning whether that would be consistent with regarding nonhuman animals as rights bearers. Countermovements have also not, it seems, wondered for very long why it is that a ‘philosophically animal rights’ organisation draws so much flak from women’s rights groups due to their sexist commodification of young women. While animal rights philosopher Gary Francione argues that human rights and animal rights are perfect together, PeTA seem to get their jollies by alienating all rights-based advocates. This behaviour does not mark a mobilisation that takes rights seriously.

I did not get time to ask – but I was going to suggest to David Martosko that he gives some consideration as to why PeTA do not promote or sell any books of animal rights philosophy. For various reasons we may understand why Francione’s books do not occupy pride of place on PeTA’s bookshelves but does it not strike Martosko as mightily odd to say the least that this ‘philosophically animal rights’ mobilisation does not sell or even mention a book that was published just three years after they were founded called The Case for Animal Rights?

As I mentioned in a 2007 paper, the countermovements cannot seem to do without Peter Singer. Neither, apparently, can PeTA. Where they are at one, though, is that they all desperately want to have him regarded as an advocate of animal rights. That an organisation cannot stomach The Case for Animal Rights and so pretends that Animal Liberation is a text of animal rights philosophy says all we need to know, doesn’t it?

The Welcome Development of Vegan Abolitionist Resources.

At the beginning of 2007, law professor and animal rights philosopher Gary Francione noted, in a considered and important blog entry, how important the internet is for modern day animal advocates – and vegan abolitionists in particular.

A new animal rights movement is using technology to educate. This is an important development, not least because much of the appeal of corporate welfare organisations has been their impressive web sites stuffed full of handy materials to download and forward on. Now, thankfully, there are more and more rights-based alternatives to the enrich-the-cages and gas-the-chickens mobilisations.

Vegan Freaks Radio continues to lead the charge but - watch out Bob and Jenna – others are on your trail, for example, Elizabeth Collins’ NZ Vegan podcast. Other exciting developments of late include the emergence of online vegan recipe shows, such as Vegan A Go-Go, revealing that vegan food preparation is easy (and the food itself is lovely) and one need not be a ‘fanatic’ to be a vegan in very many places.

An intriguing and hot-off-the-press development (if that’s not a too old fashioned way of putting it) is Adam Kochanowicz’s The Vegan News which, I hope, will emerge over time as an animal rights version of Democracy Now. The Vegan News is designed to be the news show ‘covering all things vegan.’

This is an exciting and energising time in the evolution of animal advocacy. Rights-based vegan abolitionists are pioneers of a powerful idea which puts veganism at its heart as its moral baseline and avoids the all too common mistakes in mainstream campaigning which implies that being vegan is hard – and too hard to do it consistently – and characterises vegans as both somehow special while being rather extreme.

Perhaps readers can help, via the comments feature, to construct a comprehensive list of all such developments which we can then make available to all?

Easygoing Speciesism.

In my doctoral thesis, leaning heavily on Christopher Lasch, I coined the term "easygoing speciesism."

The concept defines attitudes and claims-making about human-nonhuman relations and, in particular, highlights the easy assumptions humans tend to make about the rightful place and legitimate use of nonhuman animals. Indeed, the issue of 'place' is very important in routine social interaction. An example of easygoing speciesism occurred in the reporting of an 'escape attempt' made by a female orangutan from an Australian zoo.

The orangutan, named Karta by her captors, constructed a ladder and short-circuited electrical wires in order to scale a wall of "her enclosure" - or "her exhibit," as one of the zoo's officials is reported to have described it.

The public were subjected to the 'trauma' of being escorted out of the zoo compound (and on Mother's Day to boot), while "vets stood by with tranquiliser guns" to shoot the animal the zoo had had "issues with before" if necessary. Zoo curator, Peter Whitehead, told the press that Karta was "ingenious" and liked building things but in this case on the wrong day and in the wrong area. Whitehead speculates that the ape may have known she had "done something wrong" and is therefore "a bit guilty" for either attempting to escape her prison - or perhaps just trying to alleviate the boredom with a new view of "her exhibit."

Described as "wily", the orangutan's intelligence is repeatedly highlighted in reports. However, toward the end of a TV news clip (see here), viewers are told that her long-time partner had recently died. Zoo officials were apparently quick off the mark to utterly dismiss the possibility that she had done what she had due to this event. No, if there should be any focus on an element of 'trauma' at all, better it be the public's in their appalling inability to visit a zoo for a short period of time rather than an animal's loss of a loved one. After all, acknowledging a certain degree of intelligence to nonhuman animals is one thing - pet owners do it all the time - but to allow for complex emotions most prefer to think are limited to human animals is quite another.

Of course the most striking aspect of easygoing speciesism in this whole episode is the fact that no-one appears to even begin to question the legitimacy of zoos in the first place, or start to wonder whether imprisoning intelligent nonhuman animals will inevitably lead to this sort of occurrence. Similarly, expecting anyone to consider animal rights and animal rights violations is even more unlikely in societies saturated in speciesist norms and values.