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ARKANGEL Journal of animal liberation |
Arkangel Magazine BCM 9240 London WC1N 3XX |
| Welfare Woes And Political Problems |
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by Roger Yates Does it infuriate you when you see or hear a TV or radio debate about humans and other animals and the 'animal campaigners' on the show appear to be reluctant to say what we1 really feel about human-other animal relations? Do you think that it is little wonder that people are so confused about their attitudes to other animals, especially when they so infrequently hear the genuine arguments of animal rights/liberation campaigners? Often the spokespersons who irritate us so much in debates are not animal rightists or animal liberationists at all. Logically, we should not get hot under the collar about this - the problem is, such people are regularly presented as speaking for animal rights or animal liberation. Have you lost count of the number of animal 'welfarists' - such as spokespersons for IFAW, the RSPCA or the League Against Cruel Sports - or even animal 'conservationists' - from groups such as the RSPB - are wheeled on to discuss 'animal rights' issues? What is especially galling, I think, is when such people or organisations are described as being philosophically 'animal rightists' or 'animal liberationists', when they apparently know little about what we really stand for. However, even worse than this - some might think - are those 'animal rights campaigners' who deliberately water down what they could say for fear of looking 'extremist' or 'fanatical' and thereby upsetting their alleged political allies. How many moans do we hear from activists that some spokespersons have hesitated to say whether they are vegetarian or vegan? They may be on a programme to oppose, say, the killing of other animals for their fur - they seem to be prepared only to talk about that issue as a single issue, and they may try to claim, when asked, that there is little connection between fur and meat, or even between fur and leather. Similarly, some 'animal rights campaigners' may also suggest that vivisection can be regarded as a separate issue to animal agriculture. If you are like me listening to these debates, I'm thinking, 'why won't more people just say that, 'yes, worldwide veganism would be good''? Is there shame to state that leather, being the skin of butchered animals, is not deemed suitable attire for those who care about other animals? What would be wrong with more of our spokespersons tackling allegations of 'extremism' head on with the counter-claim of logical consistency? Why will not more people stand up for ANIMAL RIGHTS/LIBERATION? The truth is that the positions taken by some speakers are not consistent with animal rights or animal liberation philosophy. The movement's philosophers (two stand out, Peter Singer and Tom Regan) are themselves not afraid to claim that all sentient life forms have interests or rights, and state openly that there are clear connections between different forms of animal (including human) abuse, yet some of the movement's campaigning spokespersons rarely spell out clearly and honestly the full implications of animal rights/liberation. For animal rights/liberation campaigners who are concerned with getting our message across, animal welfarists presented as animal rightists/liberationists, or AR spokespersons who will not explicitly spell out the animal rights/liberation perspective, represent problems for us. We debate and worry about 'how well we are doing', about whether we are being 'influential', we are anxious about whether our tactics are sound, and we seem to worry so much without ever realising that our true messages are hardly ever heard. How can people properly assess our authentic arguments and philosophy if they most commonly hear distorted and misleading versions of it? Could it be true - almost inconceivably - that a lot of animal rights/liberation spokespersons do not know what adherence to animal rights or liberation philosophy actually means? This is scarcely credible. But what of the other suggestion - they know all right, but many do not have the confidence to state it. And why? 'Tactics'! 'Strategy'! Often, these terms - designed in their use to give the impression of campaigning sophistication - actually means that rarely are animal rights/liberation voices ever heard on the mass media.2 I suggest that to remedy this situation means, first, recognising animal rights/liberation DIFFERENCES from animal welfarism and being willing to spell out what they are. Secondly, there are also problems in an animal rightism which is too scared to say what it really means because it is too firmly embedded in conventional political campaigning in which, as we know, spin is the thing - and principles and true morality mean absolutely nothing. These identified problems mean that genuine animal rights/liberation messages are not reaching the public as often as we need. Such confusion exists that it is common for welfarist and rightist terms to become completely mixed up, be it on the news, in debates, or in journalism. For example, in the press coverage of Barry Horne's hunger strike, time after time confusion was created by writers not knowing the difference between welfare and rights.3 Take for example, this opinion piece from the Telegraph of December 1998. The author states, 'we should learn to balance human need with proper animal welfare', but when discussing the notion of balance says, 'our obsession for treating beasts - our food - as fluffy friends has harmed animals and made fools of humans'. Shouldn't that be, 'our obsession with treating our kin as food...'? The author, clearly ignorant of any animal rights/liberation writing, declares that, 'according to Horne, animals aren't just human, they're better than humans, more worthy of love and respect. A guinea pig is more innocent than a child...a mouse is of greater value than a father of three with a brain tumour who needs tested drugs'. Even before we might attempt to untie that knot of nonsense, there is more. Owning as property and closely controlling the lives of 'pets' is cruel, the author rightly argues, echoing what animal rights/liberation campaigners and philosophers have been arguing for years, 'but this is not something the animal rights activists like to mention. Pet lovers are their staunchest allies'. Really? Don't you get the impression that real animal rights/lib messages are just not getting through? I am convinced that part of understanding this damaging situation means recognising our failure to clearly spell out the very real differences between animal welfare and animal rights/liberation stances. So, let's look at these differences. Although there are obvious connections between the concept of animal rights/liberation and animal welfare, not least that they are all primarily concerned with human-other animal relationships, they nevertheless really do stand for very different things. This point is powerfully illustrated by Peter Singer in the preface to Animal Liberation: Soon after I began work on this book my wife and I were invited to tea - we were living in England at the time - by a lady who had heard that I was planning to write a book about animals. She herself was very interested in animals, she said, and she had a friend who had already written a book about animals and would be so keen to meet us. When we arrived our hostess's friend was already there, and she certainly was keen to talk about animals. 'I do love animals', she began, 'I have a dog and two cats, and do you know they get on together wonderfully well. Do you know Mrs Scott? She runs a little hospital for sick pets...' and she was off. She paused while refreshments were served, took a ham sandwich, and asked us what pets we had. We told her we didn't own any pets. She looked a little surprised, and took a bite of her sandwich. Our hostess, who had now finished serving the sandwiches, joined us and took up the conversation: 'But you are interested in animals, aren't you, Mr Singer?' We tried to explain that we were interested in the prevention of suffering and misery; that we were opposed to arbitrary discrimination; that we thought it wrong to inflict needless suffering on another living being, even if that being were not a member of our own species; and that we believed animals were ruthlessly and cruelly exploited by humans, and we wanted this changed. Otherwise, we said, we were not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn't 'love' animals. We simply wanted them treated as the independent sentient beings that they are, and not as a means to a human ends - as the pig whose flesh was now in our hostess's sandwich had been treated. This passage effectively explains why the phrase, 'Britain is a nation of animal lovers' means little of a positive nature to animal rights/liberation campaigners. To animal welfarists, 'loving' animals ('loving' them to death, often) is the starting point for animal welfarism, based on notions such as 'being kind to them', not causing them 'unnecessary suffering' and promoting their 'humane treatment'. In tune with welfarist thought, Singer's hostess would no doubt believe that 'ham' can actually be produced in a 'non-cruel' fashion. For a further illustration of animal welfarist philosophy, we need only recall the banner on a public house when the live export campaigns hit the news in the 1990s: 'You don't have to stop eating meat to care - ban live exports'. These notions that, somehow, only some suffering is 'unnecessary', or that compassion is consistent with consuming the dead bodies of other animals simply will not do from animal rights or animal liberation standpoints, as Tom Regan points out in The Case for Animal Rights: I regard myself as an advocate of animal rights - as part of the animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive it, is committed to a number of goals, including: · the total abolition of the use of animals in science; · the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture; · the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping. There are, I know, people who profess to believe in animal rights but do not avow these goals. Factory farming, they say, is wrong - it violates animals' rights - but traditional animal agriculture is all right. Toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals violates their rights, but important medical research - cancer research, for example - does not. The clubbing of baby seals is abhorrent, but not the harvesting of adult seals. I used to think I understood this reasoning,. Not any more. You don't change unjust institutions by tidying them up. What's wrong - fundamentally wrong - with the way animals are treated isn't the details that vary from case to case. It's the whole system. In the light of this quote in particular, it seems odd that we do not straightforwardly divide animal welfarists and animal rightists/liberationists into two distinct and separate movements, each with its own separate philosophy regarding the relationships between humans and other animals. In practice, however, we often do not. I'm claiming a benefit in more overtly doing so. In research on US 'animal advocates', published in 1995, it was found that animal 'rights' campaigners tended to stress the logical 'rationality' of their arguments over the emotionality of the appeal of animals, which they associate with animal 'welfare' campaigns and campaigners. For example, animal rightists would explicitly refer to the works of the 'animal rights philosophers' to show that the modern utilitarian (Singer) or liberal rights (Regan) positions on the exploitation of other animals are supported by sound logical argument rather than sentimentality. Singer employs an utilitarian extensionist framework, tracing how the concept of concern for 'others' has extended over time to include more and more groups.4 US activists often describe Regan's work as very scholarly, dispassionate and philosophical. They are often impressed that the first 100 pages of his The Case for Animal Rights does not mention animals at all, but is an analysis of 'rights' in general. Welfarists such as Peter Singer's pig-munching hostess may see themselves as 'animal lovers', but rightists are likely to strongly object to the name: one activist declared at a north American antivivisection rally: I'm not an animal lover. Some animals I like, others I don't like. To say I'm an animal lover is the same as saying I'm a nigger lover. From this brief evidence, it does indeed seem quite impossible to conceive of animal rights/liberation and animal welfare organisations coming together to form a single movement. Forming alliances may seem practicable, but not a single mobilisation. Looking at the philosophical basis of animal rights/liberation campaigning and how animal rights/liberation campaigners often appeal to the logical rationality of their arguments, it is hard to envisage how animal welfarists, who quite often happily conceive of themselves as 'animal lovers', and who believe that the non-cruel exploitation of other animals is in practice feasible, could be regarded as part of the very same mobilisation. However, this is exactly what often occurs: the US research found that animal rights campaigners found three types of 'other': the antagonistic other, the interested other, and the emotional other. The latter type, the 'emotional other', refers to animal welfarists, the 'cat and dog people' who have 'some way to go' along the road to an animal rights understanding. However, although these people are regularly viewed as a fundamental threat to the rationality of the animal rights position: Most activists were prepared to tolerate the 'emotional other' in the organization, believing that they might one day broaden their horizons to include issues other than household pets. This tolerance was found to be based on the notion that animal welfare organisations and their members are seen to be 'partly along the road' towards the full adoption of the animal rights message. Animal rights/liberation activists frequently use the 'partly along the road' concept to explain the position of Peter Singer's hostess and her friend: thus, such 'animal lovers' with their 'fluffy friends' are potential animal rights recruits (who have to come from somewhere after all) - these people are already 'animal people' - but in need of a horizon-broadening education in animal rights/liberation philosophy in order to travel along the right (rights!) road.5 Lacking this 'animal rights education', it is understandable to many animal rights campaigners why such people join the moderate, 'pet'-orientated organisations. Therefore, a task they set for themselves in relation to animal welfarists is to 'transport' them along the road which leads them to a more 'complete' and therefore a more 'rational' regard for other animals. Therefore, many animal activists perceive of their 'educational' role in two ways: persuading the general public (sometimes the 'interested others') that animal rights/liberation issues are important, and further educating 'animal welfare people' as part of the general reflexive development of animal rights philosophy within the animal rights movement. Many animal rights/liberation campaigners, this research suggests, will see their movement in terms of a wide spectrum of diverse opinions, all of which, to some degree are concerned with the ways other animals are exploited by human beings. In a 1995 study of the unity of social movements, similar things were said about the feminist movement; that 'feminism' is constituted from a wide range of collective actions, from consciousness-raising groups to various forms of demonstrations and direct actions; and includes a broad range of opinions on the nature of women's oppression, but 'if it has any unity that is because all actions somehow address the oppression of women'. Similarly, the black liberation movement: ...contains a plurality of beliefs, actors and formal organizations all of which must, in some way, address the oppression of black people. In both cases an experience of oppression and/or a project of liberation provides a core around which individuals, networks and organizations coalesce into a movement.6 If we abandon the earlier 'two separate animal movements' notion and adopt this 'broad church' approach we will discover organisations such as the moderate Animal Aid and the militant Animal Liberation Front, both philosophically 'animal rights' mobilisations by both Singer's and Regan's measures, present with other organisations, such as the RSPCA, the Canine Defence League and the Cats' Protection League, undoubtedly to be regarded as 'partly along the road' animal welfare groups since none would subscribe to Regan's goals and are mostly concerned with specific 'companion animals' like Peter Singer's hostess. (However, more confusion, these latter groups would concur with Animal Aid's advocacy of peaceful campaign tactics but not their equally strong philosophical stance on the rights of other animals: and they would oppose virtually everything about the Animal Liberation Front's tactics and philosophy). As soon as one speaks to the individual members in the animal movement(s), matters become decidedly more complicated. Some people, when they talk about their own allegiances and campaigning for other animals, often use the terms 'animal welfare' and 'animal rights/liberation' interchangeably. Some individual campaigners see complicated overlaps between various welfare and rights issues, yet are wary of using any label other than 'animal rights' for fear of losing the rationality of their arguments compared to the inconsistent animal welfare stances. Others, as noted above, may prefer the label 'welfare' because 'rights' and liberation' are associated with militancy, violence or extremism. Someone once told me that all the apparent contradictions of being 'animal rights/liberation' or being 'animal welfare', or supporting welfare and rights/liberation organisations or individual campaigns, were resolved in his head; but he would have 'no idea about how to write it down'. I am suggesting that we will benefit the animal rights/liberation movement if we learn how to differentiate these issues - whether on paper or not. On a practical level, the existence of 'animal rights animal welfare sanctuaries' shows the problems caused through the tensions between animal welfarism and rights/liberation. There are a small number of 'animal welfare' sanctuaries which are staffed by 'animal rights' activists. The philosophical differences between animal welfare (here expressed organisationally) and animal rights/liberation (in terms of individual belief) challenges these activists each and every day in their work 'caring' for animals. For example, in such sanctuaries we find people who are uncomfortable or philosophically opposed to 'pet' ownership looking after and rehoming abandoned 'pets'.7 Hardline vegan activists, frustratingly regarded by the public as working in 'just another branch of the RSPCA', reluctantly feed meat to domesticated animals even though they themselves will argue that the meat industry would likely collapse if its by-products, such as low-grade meats for pet foods, could not be sufficiently commodified. Some argue that veggie or vegan alternatives are expensive and some animals - especially those brought up on meat - do not take to it; and anyway, rehomed animals will be going to meat-feeding homes. However, the fact of the matter is that those vegan activists are having to 'choose' between the interests of cats and dogs as opposed to the rights of cattle and pigs. How do we make such choices? Can we ethically perpetuate the 'pet' and the meat industries like this? Animal sanctuary charity shops are ostensibly seen as animal welfare establishments, and since the people who come forward to help in them are usually meat-eating 'animal lovers' the mix of activists' 'animal welfare work' and 'animal rights/liberation philosophy' constantly produces difficulties for them to deal with on a regular basis. For example, when offered real fur coats and crocodile leather shoes to sell in their charity shop; when their volunteers want to cook and eat meat products on their premises; when helpers declared themselves to be pro-hunting. I hope I have succeeded in suggesting that the animal rights/liberation movement stands for something very different to animal welfare mobilisations. Increased cage sizes, 'better ventilation', improved 'husbandry', shorter journeys to the abattoir are 'first steps' ONLY for us. Now let me suggest that the favourite campaigning tool of animal welfarism is as wrong for animal rights/liberationists as their philosophy is. A great many laws exist to 'protect' other animals in all 'civilised' countries. Richard Ryder claims that some limited legislation to benefit other animals dates as far back as the 17th century, but the big push to bring animals into the law began in Britain around 1800. 'Animal rights lawyer' Gary Francione has a useful rule of thumb when it comes to evaluating animal legislation. Does it abolish entire aspects of animal abuse? If it does, such as the abolition of bear baiting or cock fighting, then animal rights/liberation campaigners can look at these instances of law making favourably. However, the vast majority of legislation to 'protect' other animals serves to simply regulate their abuse and suffering. Some legislation, such as those laws connected with animal experimentation, appear to protect the vivisectors more than the vivisected. The cornerstone of animal welfare legislation is the concept of 'unnecessary suffering', the phrase itself an acceptance that some suffering will be deemed necessary. And how do the courts decide what constitutes 'unnecessary' suffering? They look at what 'normally' goes on - say in battery farming chickens for eggs - then they see if any given case is worse! A fine idea and I don't think - using the same idea in domestic violence cases would require ascertaining the 'average' amount of beating women receive to decide bad cases. Would anyone expect child pornography to be ethically evaluated by finding out what is regarded as the 'normal practice' of child pornographers? What animal welfarists effectively do in the majority of their campaigns is move the goal posts rather than attempting to stop the game. They may propose more 'welfare friendly' systems, which is a little like asking a rapist to wear a condom. They may put forward alternatives to the worst systems but usually animal welfare campaigning, such as the RSPCA's 'freedom foods' campaign, occurs with the acknowledgement that animal use and exploitation is a given. Measures such as these have never satisfied any genuine animal rights/liberation campaigner I have known. The truth is we want different things. We want more than this. For a start, we would like to alter human attitudes to other animals - not so they will be 'kind' to them - or will 'love' them - but in the name of respect, interests, justice, rights, obligations. We advocate living ethically justifiable lives, perceiving this to mean good things: for humans, other animals and Planet Earth itself. We probably recognise that 'more morality' means less law - if we were moral, would we really need to be told that murder is forbidden - would a moral society even require speed limit signs? So, over the years, animal rights/liberation campaigners have focused a good deal of their legal campaigning on the public. If the public is ignorant of animal abuse issues, they need educating, we have said. Usually the aim of public education is not primarily to get people to 'write to their MP', although that suggestion features in many a leaflet. However, we prefer that, should they bother writing, it be after they take some action and responsibility for other animals, by first looking at their own lifestyle and by joining the campaign. I am suggesting that we must be wary not to castrate our public education roles in subservience to animal welfarist attempts to gain some relatively small legislative advance - or when animal rights/liberation campaigns have been stupidly based on the notion that animal rights/liberation campaigns can be substantially met by animal welfarist means. Consider the lunacy of the request, 'please, House of Commons, we wonder if you would abolish the multi-million pound meat and vivisection industries?'. I am amazed that we have spent money asking - and gobsmacked when some are surprised by the answer! It is important that I should point out that I am not arguing that political campaigning is inappropriate for all animal campaigners - all those laws, some of which are good for other animals, prove that the political arena is entirely the correct campaigning locale for animal welfarists. It does not follow, however, that when animal rightists/liberationists follow on, they will meet with the same degree of success. Plainly, we will not gain parliamentary backing for the far-reaching aims of the animal rights/lib movement. We ask for things they cannot deliver. However, the people can provide what we want. The people are, in actual fact, the only ones who can. The people, not parliament, are OUR proper target. I end by saying that we can acknowledge animal welfare, even support some animal welfarist campaigns - however, we need to do so with the recognition that animal welfare is not animal rights. Once we sort this out, maybe we will look at animal welfarist campaigning strategies with a wary and critical eye - and maybe, many more animal rights campaigners will feel at liberty to say what we really think without the burden of being worried about our consistency being portrayed as 'extremism', or whether our message may frighten off the politicians. 1 I am assuming that 'we' are people who support the notion of 'animal rights or 'animal liberation'. 2 I do not claim that 'the media' is our best or only way of getting the animal rights/lib message across. 3 There is here the ironic issue that Barry's strike ended up being aimed at forcing government to conduct a welfarist Royal Commission on animal experimentation. 4 See Singer's first chapter of AL, All Animals are Equal...or why supporters of liberation for Blacks and Women should support Animal Liberation too, in which he points to the reaction of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women to show the extentionist logic of the animal rights case. When Wollstonecraft published in 1792, her views were widely regarded as absurd, and before long an anonymous publication appeared entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satirical work (now known to have been Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft's arguments by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If the argument for equality was sound when applied to women, why should it not be applied to dogs, cats and horses? The reasoning seemed to hold for these "brutes" too; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been made in each case. 5 In 1992, researchers interviewed 76 adult self-defined 'vegetarians' and their findings can be analysed within a 'partly along the road' concept. For example, some recognized that they were only 'partly along the road' to vegetarianism because they ate fish, and sometimes even meat if they found themselves in social situations where refusing would be embarrassing. Others thought of themselves as 'partly along the road' to veganism, gradually omitting various dairy products from their diet. In other research, activist respondents would be somewhat tolerant of such people, even the fish - and occasionally meat-eating - 'vegetarians', precisely because they are thought of as potential recruits to the animal rights movement. One hunt saboteur said: 'We often have the less thoughful new sabs turning up with their ham and cheese sandwiches. We will gently tell them about their 'error'. After that they usually get the message'. Activists contrast these 'trying to go vegetarian' people with 'militant meat eaters': those people stubbornly attached to flesh-eating no matter what, and who are likely to believe in the concept of 'meat hunger'; that is, the idea that human beings have a psychological need to consume meat. 6 A similar perspective to this is evident in the prologue to Peter Singer's compilation, In Defence of Animals: 'This book provides a platform for the new animal liberation movement. A diverse group of people share this platform: university philosophers, a zoologist, a lawyer, militant activists who are ready to break the law to further their cause, and respected political lobbyists who are entirely at home in parliamentary offices. Their common ground is that they are all, in their very different ways, taking part in the struggle for animal liberation'. 7 Obviously, the specific problem I raise here would not exist in a sanctuary dedicated to the care of 'farm animals'. |