Easygoing Speciesism.

Moy Park Ireland, chicken exploiters from Northern Ireland, are running a new publicity drive in the Republic, featuring TV advertisements and the usual billboards and posters.

Their TV ad is featured HERE and is based on a family rushing home to enjoy various types of "chicken." The audio on the ad takes the form of a commentary from a horse race - why feature just one type of speciesist exploitation when two is obviously better? 

On other pages of their website, they extol the virtues of the broiler unit (see HERE) - note that the filming was done in extremely low density conditions.

It all reminds me of a quote I used (here) - How do we justify our treatment of nonhumans?  We lie - to ourselves and to each other, about our species and about others.  Deceptive language perpetuates speciesism...  Like sexism or racism...speciesism can’t survive without lies. Joan Dunayer, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation.

Kilkenny 2011

I was very pleased to accept an invitation from a vocational school in Kilkenny to give a talk on vegan abolitionism and the different theoretical approaches to animal ethics.

Many thanks to the students, all busy working on their Animal Care course, who listened intently and asked searching questions in the long Q&A we enjoyed after the initial presentation. So involved were we that we took up all our allocated time, from 9am to 1pm, covering such issues as vegan philosophy, animal rights and animal welfare, the animal rights position on pets, how farmers would transition from producers of animal products to producers of plant-based foods, media and social movements, how social movement messages are received by the general public, reducing the harm vegans cause to nonhuman animals, political campaigning, how children are socialised to become "animal harming animal lovers," and so on.

A special thanks goes to tutor Patrizia Setola for organising the event.

Hello Donald

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

1944 sounds so long ago, right? 

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

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

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

Of course, this feeds into the discussion going on in the animal advocacy movement about how easy or how hard it is to live vegan. Personally, I am torn on the issue because veganism, to quote someone on ARZone recently, is “a cinch” compared to 1979 when I first decided to live in accordance with the philosophy of veganism. However, the sociologist in me also knows that the cinchness of being vegan depends on many factors, like geographical location, social class and circumstances, relationships with significant others, access to amenities, etc.

So…. I want to propose a toast to all the vegan pioneers “out there.” May you continue to live vegan in what can be a very vegan-unfriendly world, and continue to pave the way for others who will therefore find it easier and easier to be vegan.

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

Vegetarianism First versus the Vegan 1-2-3.

In his recent ARZone guest interview, Dr. Will Tuttle, author of The World Peace Diet, suggests that, as a general matter, people tend to move toward veganism by going vegetarian first. He argues that, “Veganism is almost inconceivable to the typical omnivore.” Tuttle writes

It’s also important to recognize, I think, that most of the folks who move from eating a typical diet to a vegan one do so in 2 basic stages – first, they move to vegetarianism, which is actually doable to them, and it’s typically quite a public event. Veganism is almost inconceivable to the typical omnivore. Then, from vegetarianism, the move to veganism is more private. As activists and educators, it’s helpful to be aware of this so we can plant seeds effectively.

Writing in the Vegan Society’s magazine (The Vegan, Spring 2010), law professor Gary Francione suggests that Will Tuttle’s standard approach to this issue is flawed, stating

I would like to suggest that the conventional wisdom on this matter is wrong and that we should educate everyone, including and particularly omnivores, about veganism and should never promote vegetarianism as morally preferable to being an omnivore.

Francione describes an exchange he claims he had on a live chat programme, which goes as follows

“Do you agree with the notion that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering or death on animals?”

“Yes, of course.”

“We could have an interesting discussion about the fine points of “necessity,” but would you agree that it is wrong to inflict suffering and death on animals for reasons of pleasure, amusement, or convenience?”

“No brainer. Sure. I really objected when it was revealed that [American football player] Michael Vick was involved with fighting dogs. I think it’s barbaric to do that.”

“Why?”

“It’s obvious. It’s wrong to make animals suffer and die for our amusement.”

“Do you eat meat or cheese or drink milk?”

“Yes, I do not eat much beef because I know it’s bad for you but I eat pork, chicken, and fish. And I love cheese and ice cream.”

“What is the difference between what you’re doing and what Michael Vick did?”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“Well, Michael Vick imposed suffering and death on animals because he enjoyed the results. Those of us who eat meat and dairy impose suffering and death on animals because we enjoy the results. We just pay someone else to do the dirty work.”

“But surely there’s a difference.”

“What is that difference? You don’t need to eat animal products. Indeed, many mainstream health care professionals agree that animal products are detrimental to human health. And animal agriculture is unquestionably an ecological nightmare. The best justification that we have for inflicting pain, suffering, and death on more than 56 billion animals annually, not counting fish, is that they taste good.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

Francione adds that he and the same person had a follow-up conversation and, “Three days later, the person involved in this exchange wrote to tell me that she had decided to become vegan.”

So, instead of the flawed “conventional wisdom” of vegetarianism first, Francione recommends his “Vegan 1-2-3 Plan,” which introduces a three-stage move toward veganism: “The person goes vegan for breakfast for some period of time (a few weeks, a month). She sees how easy it is and how delicious and satisfying a vegan breakfast is. She then goes vegan for lunch for some period of time, and then for dinner, and then she’s vegan.”

This whole subject seems to bear some similarity to an issue raised during Dr. Mary Martin’s (or Animal Person’s) guest interview on ARZone, when she addressed the issue of language, and particularly Joan Dunayer’s recommended language style. Martin effectively says that people can be alienated from arguments for animal rights if they are couched in difficult and unusual language. She argues that the use of words such as “flesh” and “aquaprison” (Dunayer’s suggested alternative for “fish tank”) have only limited use, suggesting that

People have only so much tolerance for descriptive language that they’re not accustomed to. It’s offensive to them and they become defensive and then the conversation’s over.

I mentioned in a comment on the Will Tuttle transcript on ARZone that I subscribe to Donald Watson’s suggestion (writing in the first edition of The Vegan News, 1944) that people need to be “ripened up” to new ideas. This seems to me to mean that new forms of language may need to be employed to challenge dominant linguistic forms, and that we need to directly speak to people about what we actually stand for – ethical veganism.

It seems that Gary Francione is right to suggest that we should not be seen to promote vegetarianism, or suggest that vegetarianism amounts to an adequate way to discharge our moral obligations to other animals. However, that does not mean that we need to simply ignore what is typically the case in terms of how people respond to claims-making in the animal advocacy movement. In other words, even if it is the case that people move to vegetarianism before veganism, it does not mean that our veganism-as-the-moral-baseline message needs to change. It simply means that we need to recognise that people respond to messages in a variety of different ways.

In the sociology of the media, for example, concepts of encoding and decoding are used to acknowledge that whatever the values a message is encoded with, the audience(s) of the transmitted message will decode it as they will. Our “job,” as animal advocates, is to encode our messages with our values which place veganism as central - and yet expect that our audience(s) will react in various ways to them. If Will Tuttle is right that many omnivores will find the notion of veganism as “almost inconceivable,” that simply means that we have to redouble our efforts to “ripen” them to the values of veganism while not being condemnatory if they choose vegetarianism first.

Vegans need to be critical of vegetarianism while understanding of vegetarians – and of omnivores who choose to go vegetarian first. The issue that would bother me would be if animal advocates were to suggest that we “tactically” tone down our claims-making for fear of alienating audiences, be it in refusing to use words that challenge dominant social views of others animals, or in backing down from a clear advocacy of veganism.