User Industry Responds with Animal Welfarism (and a bit of "social closure")

This blog entry is another in a series...

A Few Thoughts on Whether Animal Welfare Campaigns—and Many Animal Welfare Organisations—are necessary.

Animal Welfare.

We'll do the Animal Rights, They'll do the Welfare.


This series explores the idea that specific animal welfare campaigning is not required in order to bring about animal welfare reforms. In other words, the progressive animal advocacy movement, especially those in it who regard themselves as animal rights advocates, can get on with the business of educating about animal use - the welfare will happen anyway. Indeed, the more "turbulence" created in society by animal rights advocacy, the more welfare we are likely to see.

My Auntie Lillian would tell me to look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves - this, in a sense, is a similar idea. It means, in my view, that rights-based animal advocates can afford to devote all their efforts in challenging the systems and ideology of speciesist animal use: they can advocate for animal rights and not get into the messy business of trying to regulate atrocities. Animal rights supporters need not themselves expend time, money, or energy on animal welfarism - on increasing cage sizes, moving other animals to "group housing," "pushing" animal users to gas instead of slit the throats of chickens, etc., etc.

The latest support for this idea comes from an interesting source - the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In Europe we tend to regard the HSUS as a version of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: they do not stand for, nor claim to stand for, animal rights. Some North American advocates, however, such as Bob Linden of Go Vegan Radio, suggest that the HSUS deliberately fudge their position on human-nonhuman relations in order to extract money from animal rights supporters. In terms of this little series of mine, this technicality is not particularly relevant - all we need to know is that the HSUS recently published a video exposé of a pig farm, just as the vegan-based animal rights and anti-speciesist group, Animal Equality, do. The major and important difference is the claims-making that these groups produce to accompany their videos.

So - how have the pig users responded?

They have responded, as they always do and in many senses must, with animal welfare recommendations. In a National Hog Farmer article, Make Your Farm YouTube Proof, located in a deeply ironic section of their site about "animal well-being," they advise exploiters of pigs to

Providing feed, water and an environment that promotes the well-being of our animals.
Providing proper care, handling and transportation for pigs at each stage of life.
Protecting pig health and providing appropriate treatment, including veterinary care when needed.
Using only approved practices to euthanize, in a timely manner, those sick or injured pigs that fail to respond to care or treatment.

Now, it might strike us with some force that "hog farmers" apparently have to be told to provide other animals with food and water - but this whole article is about increasing welfare, and the look of animal use, in case "you're next."

This advise comes from the Ohio Pork Producers Council and they are clearly concerned with two things - screening new employees to prevent further exposés and sharpening up on welfare as a general matter.

In other words, a video that could have been making the case for animal rights in civil society results in animal welfarism.

Conclusion: campaign for animal rights.

Inside the Mind of Ludwig Wittgenstein

I had the pleasure of attending a day-long symposium on Ludwig Wittgenstein today at UCD's Newman House in Dublin city centre. The symposium featured graduate sessions from students from UCD, Trinity College, and the University of Notre Dame - and presentation from Wittgensteinian scholars Maria Baghramian (UCD), Andy Hamilton (Durham University), and Peter Simons (Trinity College Dublin).

I was particularly pleased to hear the day's keynote speech, "Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Criticism" by Wittgenstein expert and prolific author Professor Hans-Johann Glock.

Glock (centre of the picture) is developing his theory of animal minds, work which began in the 1990s.

See H E R E to view his paper, ANIMAL MINDS: CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS.

Inside the Mind of Temple Grandin

Here's a fascinating audio in which PeTA award-winner Dr. Temple Grandin talks about animal issues, such as what the consumer will tolerate knowing about how we use other animals, how "Ag" communicates, vegan-this and vegan-that, Pink Slime, animal "its," when bad becomes normal and when normal is presented as bad, how the European Union is over regulated in terms of animal welfare, public opinion as mob rule, nuances, and consumers' attitudes to happy meat.


L I S T E N H E R E


Source

Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis by Clifton Flynn

It is my pleasure to announce that Professor Clifton Flynn's (see here) latest book, Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis is available through Lantern Books.

Until the last decade of the twentieth century, the abusive or cruel treatment of animals had received virtually no attention among academicians. Since then, however, empirical studies of animal abuse, and its relation to other forms of violence toward humans, have increased not only in number but in quality and stature. Sociologists, criminologists, social workers, psychologists, legal scholars, feminists, and others have recognized the myriad reasons that animal abuse is worthy of serious scholarly focus. In his overview of contemporary sociological understanding of animal abuse, Clifton Flynn asks why studying animal abuse is important, examines the connections between animal abuse and human violence, surveys the theses surrounding the supposed link between abuse of animals and humans, and lays out some theoretical perspectives on the issue. The book offers recommendations for policy and professionals and directions for future research. Ultimately, Understanding Animal Abuse challenges the reader to consider animal abuse as not limited just to harmful acts committed by individuals. It asks us to extend our notion of abuse to the systemic cruelty of factory farms and vivisection laboratories.

You can view a sample of the text H E R E

Lantern suggest that copies are sent to libraries and prisoners.

Clifton P. Flynn, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Women's Studies at the University of South Carolina Upstate. He is a past Chair of the Section on Animals and Society of the American Sociological Association. In 2008, he was selected as a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. His Animals and Society course was chosen as the "Best New Animals and Society Course" by the Humane Society of the United States in 2001. He is the editor of Social Creatures, one of the first anthologies in Human–Animal Studies and Understanding Animal Abuse.

Meat Head Celebrates The Meat Fix

Tom Dunne of Irish radio station Newstalk, the home of this idiot, interviews John Nicholson, author of The Meat Fix.

As you'll hear, Dunne can't contain his absolute glee that he's apparently found the perfect reason why one should violate the rights of other animals.


L I S T E N H E R E.

Contextualising Animal Use

Bernie Wright - who featured on a recent On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast - was recently invited to speak on an Irish radio show about school tours being organised by the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB).

As you'll hear from the recording of Bernie's interview, Elizabeth Igoe of the IGB acknowledges that the tours are partly to encourage the trainers, breeders, and owners of the future.

I contacted the station offering a general sociological view of the issue. They invited me to take part in a programme some days later.


THIS is the result.

Starsuckers (film)

The Superior Human? - film in full

"The Superior Human?" is the first documentary to systematically challenge the common human belief that humans are superior to other life forms. The documentary reveals the absurdity of this belief while exploding human bias.

Auntie's Easygoing Speciesism

For an early daily dose of speciesist ideology, BBC Radio 4's Farming Today is a leader in animal-using propaganda.

You are invited to listen out for the exploitative language in this short programme about "rare breeds," not generally confined in intensive conditions - a few "it"s (of course, although not as many as might be expected), "the girls," "animal use," "throw" (give birth), "good meat," "semen taken off them," "earn their keep," "product," "business option," "happy pig," and the apparent favourite of every animal user: "commercial."


You might smile when you hear (near the end) the claim about farmer's "grip on life." Well, they prefer to talk about that, in relation to themselves, than the grip of death they have over the other animals.





Alternatively, LISTEN HERE.

On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast 17: Talking About Hunting with Bernie Wright and Jordan Wyatt.

In this podcast, I address the issue of whether animal rights advocates should involve themselves in animal welfare reform, anti-speciesists sentiments about a footballer and horses forced to race, and introuduce special guests Bernie Wright, from Alliance for Animal Rights in Dublin, Ireland, and Jordan Wyatt of the Invercargill Vegan Society in New Zealand, who explore with me the ins-and-outs of hunting in their respective countries in the wider context of animal rights campaigning.





Alternatively, LISTEN HERE.

Crocodile Tears: The Rise of Happy Meat and Compassionate Carnivores.

Vasile Stanescu presents "Crocodile Tears: Compassionate Carnivores and the Rise of Happy Meat."

We'll do the Animal Rights, They'll do the Welfare

As a follow-up to a previous blog entry about this subject, the "business journal for meat and poultry processors," MeatPoultry.com reports that the US junk food producer Wendy's have improved its "animal welfare standards" and, thus, gained the praise of PeTA prize-winner and slaughterhouse designer Temple Grandin.

The argument is simple. Those who use and abuse other animals cannot countenance the idea of animal rights while they claim to understand, support, and strictly adhere to the principles of the ideology of animal welfarism which essentially suggests that non-cruel use is both feasible and morally acceptable.

This means that when animal-using countermovement interests interact with state agencies and regulators (see HERE on this), the only language they can speak to each other in is the language of animal welfare - we'll treat animals well while we exploit and kill them. They cannot - on any level - understand the issue of other animal use in terms of rights-based animal rights. They cannot think of other animals as rights bearers and they cannot allow themselves to believe that their use of other animals are rights violations.

Of course, the countermovements and state agencies are not the only ones who have difficulty seeing other animals as rightholders, or regard what happens to them as rights violations. This is not the usual way by which the animal advocacy movement frames the issue of animal use. Even those section of the animal movement who go under the "animal rights" banner are often not adherents to the philosophy of animal rights as laid out by the theorists on the subject such as Tom Regan, Gary Francione, and Joan Dunayer. They tend to talk about treatment rather than use, and speak of acts of cruelty rather than rights violations on the grounds that "the public" understands the former and reacts negatively to the latter.

This is why I use the term rights-based animal rights to mark its differences and philosophical departure from rhetorical (empty) animal rights, which is unfortunately the norm in animal advocacy. It remains a sobering thought that only a minority in the "animal rights movement" are rightists.

I believe that the MeatPoultry.com piece again supports and further reinforces the notion that animal rights advocates need not themselves get deeply involved in the incredibly messy business of welfare regulation. The regulation of atrocities does not have an envious track record in the spheres of human rights or animal rights. What animal rights advocates can do - should do in my view - is maintain their rights-based claims-making about what happens to other animals - and let the mainstream animal movement and the animal user industries translate that into welfare. They will anyway; I know you've heard the news by now, welfarists do welfare.

Consequences by Godley & Creme

A website devoted to the album explains that the main action of the play takes place in the office of the increasingly drunken solicitor Mr Haig; he is negotiating the divorce between Walter Stapleton and his French wife Lulu, represented by Mr Pepperman. They are continually interrupted by Mr Blint, an eccentric composer, who lives below; when the building was redeveloped he was the only tenant who refused to sell and a hole remains in Mr Haig's floor which is, technically, Blint's attic; it is through this hole that Blint addresses them.

The litigants are unaware that larger forces are at work; the world is being threatened by a meteorological disaster. Weather is possibly being used as a weapon in a global war, and eventually it dawns on them that only Mr Blint can save them, with his arcane knowledge of pyramids, music and the number 17.

Consequences (wikipedia).

Easygoing Speciesism in Horse Racing

Radio Wales' The Back Page presented an impressive piece of speciesist ideological propaganda this morning with a story about animal abuser jockey Isobel Tompsett who was injured as she beat a horse around a race track in 2011. With stirring light classical music in the background, the programme focused on the routine injuries - and the odd fatality - that befalls jockeys every year.


Nothing about the much more numerous injuries and deaths of horses, of course - or how horses are often "put down" (killed) at race courses after relative minor injuries.[1] In this case, the injured human was resuscitated twice by a doctor at the scene of the incident before she was taken to intensive care. Since then, expensive therapy is improving Tompsett's situation "day by day." No mention, naturally, that jockeys volunteer to race while horses do not. When horse owners claim that their animal property "loves to race," one wonders then why that does not make the standard whip used in racing redundant - or indeed the jockeys themselves. After all, if horses love to race, why employ people to sit on their backs kicking and whipping them along the course?



[1] There are several reasons suggested as to why horses with broken legs are killed, some about "quality of life," others - inevitably in the case of animal property - are economic in nature.

Easygoing Speciesism.

Sociologist David Nibert points out that speciesism is an ideology rather than a personal prejudice held by individual members of society. This means that speciesist values are found embedded within all levels of the fabric of society.

A recent example features in the reporting about a cow who was clearly frightened because he was being put through a slaughter system in a "high school meat processing programme."

Using speciesist "it" language, a school spokesperson make it clear that the steer was frightened:

“The steer turned because it got scared and kind of trapped the instructor.

When the instructor tried to get away, the steer flipped him. He landed on

his head but he was wearing a hard hat.”

By the time TV media gets its grubby hands on the story, however, an animal in fear of his life is transformed into an attacking beast...

You Put Your Left Wing In, You Put Your Left Wing Out…

Dr. Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns appeared on a recent Go Vegan Radio Show (Feb 12th, 2012) to talk about the so-called “rotten egg bill” known as HR 3798. The show is a testament to the naivety of supporters of the messy business of animal welfare who always appear to hope for the best and end up with the worst of scenarios.

In this case, the assumed and claimed “promise” of Proposition 2 – cage-free facilities and the “banning” of the battery cage – has been betrayed and, instead, a system of enriched cages and enriched colonies will be introduced. Karen Davis explained that she herself had given a guarded welcome to Proposition 2 (which should be enacted in 2015) while Bob Linden said he always thought little would come of it.

One of the features that led animal advocates to believe that Proposition 2 – which was entitled “the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act” – would necessarily result in the provision of cage-free facilities was the stipulation that hens must be able to spread their limbs, turn around, and sit down not touching either other hens or the sides of a cage or enclosure. It turns out, however, that this provision is not intended to apply to all the birds at the same time – rather, it may simply apply to one bird at a time - and they may therefore have to “take turns” to stretch and move. This seemed to shock Davis – the sneakiness of it – although Proposition 2 never actually stated that cages would be banned, it was just assumed that this would be the result.

However, these sorts of claims have been a feature of the claims-making of the battery hen industry in Britain for years. For example, when animal advocates complained that birds in what we now seem to be compelled to call conventional battery cages could not stretch either their wings or legs, industry spokespersons would suggest that they could indeed stretch - one limb at a time, and by adjusting their position inside the cage in order to do so.

This, of course, is the language of the exploiter and the abuser, for it is attempting to justify a totally oppressive system, one which Proposition 2, like all messy welfare measures, is designed to tidy up.

Another feature of Bob Linden's Feb 12th show is his continued opposition to the Humane Society of the United States, which he believes has misled and conned sections of the animal advocacy movement. Linden has made this claim for quite a while now, although there seems to be little substance to it. In fact, he does not help his own position by continuing to falsely call the HSUS an animal rights group, which they certainly are not, and specifically state that they are not.

When I asked Bob about this on FB, he suggested that the HSUS will cosy up to all sorts of animal advocates when it suits them and, often, animal rights supporters have been given the view that the HSUS is a supporter of the philosophy of animal rights. In my view, this simply underlines once more the careless, and deliberate, philosophical mess at the heart of the animal advocacy movement in which virtually anything "for the animals" may be characterised as animal rights. I would dearly love that this would change, and organisations who care nothing of rights, like PeTA for example, would stop using the name.

However, I do not expect the situation will change any time soon - just as I'm sure that animal advocates will continue to involve themselves in the messy business of trying to regulate atrocities in the name of "doing something now" and not being "passive."

Bullies, Ads, and Being Vegan.

I tend to say – and this is common of many long-time vegans such as ARZone podcast or “chat” guests Ronnie Lee, Kim Stallwood, Lynne Yates, Will Tuttle, and Gary Francione – that being vegan is considerably easier now than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s when all these poor, sickly, malnourished, and half-dead souls went vegan.

Whilst the relative ease of modern-day veganism is undoubtedly true - and applies without a doubt to well-off middle class professionals, many single people, and many others in certain geographical locations - the “veganism is easy” line should be regarded as sociologically rather crude and more than a little naïve given the varied circumstances and social inequalities that exist in all societies. While the "going vegan is easy" slogan has campaigning utility, it should be recognised that such a message can be very disheartening for those who find, for whatever reason, that they are struggling.

This blog entry explores the likely difficulties of vegan parents living with teenagers, young children and/or infants, and looks particularly at two issues that may impact on them and their children’s veganism: junk food advertising and bullying.

In General.

Processes of socialisation are core concerns in sociology. Ironically, they are so core that the actual details are often neglected in many sociological accounts. However, most people are aware of the common-sense basics of socialisation: that most children are raised and brought up, first of all, within the confines of their nuclear or extended families and then they gradually become exposed to the norms of the larger community and ultimately, in our globalised age, to the generalised values of the wider world. Sociologists call the type of socialisation we get from our family, primary socialisation, and that which follows, secondary socialisation.

In theory, and speaking in general terms, primary socialisation can be rather limited but also fairly consistent: family members tend to share core beliefs about fundamentals such as religion or political persuasion. However, once children are “liberated” into the wider world and, as some sociologists have put it, “escaped” from their families, they are confronted with a wide(r) range of competing ideas on just about everything one can think of.

What social pressures may bear down on vegan households which have children – and what problems can vegan children face outside of a supportive home environment?

The Power of the Junk Food Ads.

In September 2011, the BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme took a critical look at food advertising aimed at children. In Britain, there have been restrictions in recent years on fast food advertisements aimed at children, especially those found in children’s TV programming. For example, figures suggest that between 2007 and 2009, adverts for fast food aimed at kids were fewer by 40%. At the same time, there are health concerns as one third of British children are judged to be obese.

There are similar obesity estimates in relation to the USA. The limitation of fast food ads aimed at children has been concentrated on dedicated children’s programming, children’s TV channels, and now the internet, comics and online gaming are coming under increased scrutiny. The problem for regulators is that many children watch TV outside of dedicated children’s slots and watch so-called family programming and also programmes produced for adults. The “food” advertised outside of children’s TV slots is mainly for fast foods, salty snacks, and sugared breakfast cereals.

Of course, manufacturers are not passive when regulations are imposed on what they can sell or advertise. For example, since Ireland has had a historically low level of breast feeding of infants, the Irish government attempted to encourage more mothers to breast feed their babies. This included limiting infant formula advertising. Industry responded by inventing two new types of powdered milk, which they carefully labelled “growing up milk” and “follow-on milk” in order to side-step government plans.

Advertisers of junk food likewise circumvent attempts to restrict advertising to children by shifted their ads to adult air time, while still using motifs that are engaging for children, such as “fun and fantasy themes.” Other persuasive techniques include the use of brand characters, licenced characters (e.g. Shrek, The Simpsons, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.), celebrity endorsement, bright colours, and appealing musical jingles. When The Food Program interviewed young children, they remembered adverts for sweets such as Skittles and Snickers, ads for fast food outlet KFC, and one child said that advertising made her buy the confectionery M&Ms even though she had previously “hated them.”

Jane Landon of the National Heart Forum explained in the BBC programme that marketing works, particularly TV advertising, especially that relying on the “pester power” of kids who nag their parents for what they “want.” Emma Boyland, of the Biopsychology Research Group at the University of Liverpool in the north of England researched how children respond to junk food adverts. There is little research on the effect on children of adverts about healthy foods for kids because not many of such ads exist (a point made by Gary Yourofsky in his well-known college lecture) – when there has been research on the few ads that exist, then they to increase children’s awareness of products such as fruit and vegetables, and also increase children’s willingness to try them. As a general matter, however, studies focused mainly on TV advertising with other sources of influence emerging (youtube and other internet channels, etc.) suggest that children are being targeted with unhealthy age-specific food advertising.

Often the non-TV advertising is “disguised” since younger children have been found to not have the ability to distinguish advertisements from, for example, website content. Children spoke of internet games which have McDonald’s advertising that moves around attracting their attention. They also talked about the influence of fast food advertising when toys are “given away” with meals and linked with the latest cinema releases. One unregulated method of advertising junk food on the web is known as peer-to-peer advertising when children may get points and prizes for forwarding on details to other internet users. Children in particular, but this is also an issue for adults, have been found to be keen on spreading around the news of “what’s cool” on the internet, and some of this information is sent to them to pass around by advertisers.

Tim Lobstein of the International Obesity Taskforce suggests that it is the branded junk foods that bring in the profits and so these are the ones pushed the hardest and most frequently in advertising. He argues that research has now established direct evidence of kids responding to advertisements. He says, for example, that if children see an ad for high fat junk food, then they are likely to consume that food in the next 30 minutes. This is now regarded as an international problem because countries with relatively strict controls, such as Sweden for example, cannot regulate what children see on the internet.

Bullying for "Being Different."

Bullying is the most common form of violence - with cyber bullying cited as a growing modern day problem. Research published by Oliver, Hoover, and Hazier (1994) found that approximately 45% of boys and 30% of girls believed that bullying has an educative purpose. That is, bullying can "teach" the victims about unacceptable behaviour. Moreover, 64% of students surveyed said victims brought teasing on themselves and 61% of students felt bullying helped the victim by making him or her "tougher." In addition, both boys and girls stated that they regarded bullies to have a higher social status than the victims of bullying.

Exploring both sides of the issue, students’ perceptions of why they were bullied or why they themselves bullied others were examined across the sixth, seventh and eighth grades by Swearer & Cary (2003). External attributes, such as “being different,” “being weak,” and “(not) wearing certain branded clothing,” were consistently cited across social classes as reasons youth were bullied. Reasons for bullying given by bullies, victims of bullying, and observers (bystanders) seem remarkably similar.

Worryingly for both vegan parents and vegan children, simply “being different” is often cited as a major reason why people get bullied. Also, for bullies themselves, others’ manner of talking, the clothes they wear, or perceptions of the other as weak,* were cited as reasons for bullying. Victims report being bullied for being different, or for achieving good educational grades, being overweight, or wearing certain clothes. Those not directly involved in bullying reported that students are bullied because they are weak, overweight, different, and wore certain clothes.

There is anecdotal evidence that vegetarian and vegan children are subject to being bullied for this apparent crime of “being different.” A vegan who was a vegetarian at schools reports other schoolchildren throwing “meat” into her vegetarian lunch box, and also being chased around the playground by children threatening to force-feed flesh to her.

Of course, parent-child relationships can suffer if the child suffers at school for the diet and lifestyle “imposed” on her by parents - Eating the flesh of other animals is such a social norm that attempts to reduce access to this “food” can meet resistance. Famously, “celebrity chef” Jamie Oliver tried to “improve” school meals only to find that parents bought junk food and delivered it to their children, passing the rubbish "food" through the school fence in what was dubbed the “junk food run” on the grounds of doing their children a nutritional favour. One “rebel” parent, “Julie,” said, “I started doing this for my kids and a couple of their friends, but every day more and more are wanting us to do the food run.” She added: “We go up at 11 o’clock and take down orders through the fence. Then we go back at 1pm to deliver the food and give them their change. We’re now delivering 50 to 60 meals a day and there are four of us doing it. We’ve no intention of stopping. We don’t make a penny on it, we just want the kids properly fed.They don’t enjoy the school food and the end result is they’re starving.”

With parents as brain-dead as this – those buying on a daily basis cheeseburger and chips, cones of chips, and sausage, chips, peas and a “can of pop” - is it any wonder that their kids may waddle over and bully vegetarian and vegan children?

In her Q&A book, Being Vegan: Living with Conscious, Conviction and Compassion, Joanne Stepaniak addresses the issue of bullying in schools and youth groups. However, in relation to schools, parents report that their children are subject to some degree of bullying from teachers as much as fellow pupils. A vegan parent tells Stepaniak that she gets a very negative response from closed-minded teachers she attempts to educate about veganism, resulting in a “difficult situation” at a school Thanksgiving party. Stepaniak responded by saying that vegan parents should not expect teachers to take much of an interest in the reasons some of their pupils may be vegan; the issue was that the parent needs to ensure that teachers do not allow their children to be picked on for their veganism. Vegan parents need to tell teachers not to allow their children to be bullied, pitied, ridiculed, or shamed because they are vegan: for “being different.”

Another parent reports how her 16-year-old vegan daughter was mocked and insulted by other children at a youth group gathering while the teaching staff just smiled at the incident. The daughter says she will never eat with the group again because of her experience. Stepaniak rightly says that, during teen years, peer group pressure is intense and, at this in people's lives, “it takes guts” to be different. Sociologically, the easiest thing to do is conform and, during teenage years, that may mean conforming to peer group norms and values. Stepaniak suggests that vegan parents have the responsibility to ensure that teachers and youth group leaders fulfil their guardianship role and that includes preventing vegan children from being bullied.

This blog entry has tried to provide some context to those crude "being vegan is easy" slogans which many animal advocates trot out rather unthinkingly from time to time. For those for whom "going vegan" was relatively easy and quick (I include myself in that group since I never had a "vegetarian phase" - thankfully), it may be particularly necessary to sit down and calmly consider the many social pressures - which are real in people's lives - that make going vegan difficult for others perhaps in different and/or less favourable situations.

Those with children, for example, who are daily set upon by advertisers, and may well also draw the attention of bullies - may feel that social pressure rather more than others.

* It is common on internet forums for the accusation to be made that vegans (and vegetarians) are weak and, sometimes, that they are weak and sentimental individuals.

Oliver, R., Hoover, J. H., & Hazier, R. (1994). 'The perceived roles of bullying in small-town Midwestern schools.' Journal of Counseling & Development, 72, 416-420

Swearer, S. M., & Cary, P. T. (2003). 'Perceptions and attitudes toward bullying in middle school youth: A developmental examination across the bully/victim continuum.' Journal of Applied School Psychology, 19(2), 63-79

Animal Welfare

In August 2010, I wrote a blog entry about whether specific animal welfare campaigning is necessary. The argument is predicated on the idea that there is a three-way relationship among social movements, their countermovements, and (broadly) the state - or specific state agencies.

There may be a complex web on interactions among these groups or entities but one of the strongest links is thought to be between a social movement's counter-organisation and the state agencies. In clear terms, then, this may be a close working relationship between, for example, the meat and dairy industries and the Ministry of Agriculture in a given country. The countermovement interests enjoy what political scientist and co-author of The Animal Rights Debate, Robert Garner, calls "insider status."

The general idea is that the creation of "turbulence" in society increases the already frequent interactions between the countermovements and the state agencies. Obviously, both these groupings are deeply speciesist in nature and so the only way they can "get their heads around" animal rights claims is to translate them "down" into animal welfarism.

I always cite the case of a visiting circus with other animal "performers" which, once met by animal rights criticisms - animal use is wrong, animal use amounts to rights violations, etc. - respond by saying that their "care" for the other animals in their charge is "second to none" and, moreover, they are regularly inspected by the official animal welfare organisations (such as the RSPCA in Britain) and always given a clean bill of health.

They do not address the animal use issue or the rights violations issue because they cannot - and probably even have difficulty understanding their business in such terms. Therefore, when countermovement representatives meet with state agency staff, they are unlikely to be able to make any sense of what's going on except in orthodox welfarist terms about how other animals are treated. The animal rights claims about other animal use, if you will, are rather above them - animal rights claims-making does not compute for them!

What may happen, then, is that through this dialogue the state puts pressure on the user industry to "clean up its act" if, for example, some form of abusive animal use has been exposed by a new open rescue or another form of educative investigation. What transpires in this scenario is the enactment of animal welfare regulation or the review and strengthening of existing animal welfare law.

It seems to me that THIS story is an example of the point or relationship just made.

Here, an animal user industry person is suggesting that media attention and other pressures has resulted in welfare legislation across Europe impacting on business. I'd suggest that part of this process has involved the kind of interactions discussed above and that, in turn, suggests that animal welfare campaigning is not strictly necessary to achieve animal welfare results - that vegan abolitionist campaigning will have the same or similar effect while also presenting to the public a consistent case for animal rights with veganisn as its moral baseline.

Francione on animal rights, veganism, property status, and single-issues.

I had an interesting exchange with Belinda Morris recently on FB about substantial parts of Gary Francione's position on animal rights, veganism, the property status of other animals, and single-issues....

Belinda Morris

Hi Roger. Thank you for your response, and I apologize for the delay in mine; Toronto was hit with its first winter storm and extreme cold weather alert (-15C). After digging out; a power failure; and an evening doing food drops for the hapless neighbourhood strays, my fingers are still frozen! (But pity their poor little paws...) : (

I acknowledge that the property status issue is clearly one of the core tenets of the Francione philosophy. Further, I also concur that the right of personhood is critical to the legal basis for any rights status. Nonetheless, I also agree with Tim that the structure of Francione's position is fundamentally flawed, albeit perhaps for different reasons (?). Here's why:

GF's main arguments, generally speaking, center around his philosophy that "veganism is the moral baseline" within society and accordingly, that society needs to be transformed along these lines (via education, etc.), as a necessary precursor to the realization of social justice for animals. An extrapolation from that, therefore, would be that 'personhood is the lawful baseline' for a just and rights-based society, i.e., that until societal jurisprudence recognizes the fundamental, inherent rights of all beings, there can be no true or actualized justice for animals without a corresponding rejection of their extant property status.

However, herein lies what appears to be an equivocation - or at the very least, ambivalence - in GF's philosophical approach. Further, not only is this problematic, in my view, but antithetical to both a clear theoretical exposition of his stated objective(s), and the practical realization of them.

In his rights theory, insofar as I understand it, Francione is on record as identifying abolitionism - the legal eradication of the property status of animals - as prerequisite to the ultimate social liberation of animals (as I believe Tim points out, above). Yet he also simultaneously identifies, and advocates for, a fundamental paradigm shift of social norms and values, which he then posits as necessary not only for animal liberation - but for the subsequent establishment of legal precedent vis a vis those same rights. Moreover, it is this latter social context, he argues, which would provide the necessary backdrop for property status reforms: "much more work needs to be done to educate in order to gain the necessary social support to make any legal change meaningful." * True, but should one come first, and if so, which?

Similarly, Prof. Francione advocates for reformist gains in these areas of law, by means of specific, ad hoc, legal campaigns that would, if successful, ensure that "...at least some nonhumans have some non-tradable interests".* Aside from obviously falling far short of his standard siren call for all-out abolitionism, this is in direct opposition to his well-known stance on the inefficacy of so-called "single-issue campaigns", and work for incremental change via those campaigns by the animal movement (but that's probably a whole other discussion!).

Had Francione identified any of these sharply divergent approaches as mutually exclusive - or conversely, interdependent - this might have provided some contextual and perhaps dialectical basis for his otherwise conflicting views; however, to the best of my knowledge, he has not. Instead he has taken a position - several, actually - that is as confusing as it is contradictory.

Given that you are familiar with, and generally supportive of, much of the work of Prof. Francione, I thought perhaps you might offer some clarification in this regard. As well, I would be interested to learn of your own views, in relation to some of the points I've raised. Thank you for taking the time to read this rather lengthy post. : )

(All quotes - Animals as Property, GLF, 1996)

Hi Belinda.

Thanks for your post and I hope the weather has settled down for you! On Gary Francione, there are two general points I’d make. First, being a legal scholar, he does frame much of his argument in terms of the law but he is not focused on legal reforms in terms of what drives social and moral change. Second, it is likely that his position has shifted a little since 1995 - but not fundamentally so.

As you say, the main plank of his philosophy is based on abolitionist vegan education and he does say that veganism should be the moral baseline of the animal rights movement (and, subsequently, society). The property status of other animals is a major impediment but I think he’s saying that this counts as much on the psychological level as it does in law or legal proceedings. Therefore – and in terms of your question about “which first” – then it’s cultural change that must occur first. In terms of seeing other animals as moral persons, members of the public are not aided by the fact that they know that other animals are regarded as items of property. I think Francione’s position requires people to reject that characterisation of other animals before the law responds.

The tension you see may play out in terms of transition – will the law slowly begin (Francione accepts that change will be gradual and incremental) to reflect social changes that come from the large growth in the numbers of ethical vegans, and their subsequent demands on the systems level of society, or will law stubbornly regard other animals as items of property despite the cultural change that is going on? I think Francione sees an eventual shift in legal thinking even though the focus of social change is elsewhere; change at the cultural “lifeworld” level rather than – or at least before - at the systems level. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

In a similar example, I began work with Francione on the idea that animal welfare measures will arise in society as a result of abolitionist animal rights campaigning. Direct campaigning for animal welfarism (aside from the activities of traditional welfare orgs like the RSPCA and the HSUS – recuing horses from fields, busting dogfighting rings with the aid of law enforcement, etc.) need not occur because welfare arises from all advocacy for other animals, including vegan-based abolitionism. We were using sociologist Richard Gale’s model of (1) movement, (2) countermovement, and (3) state agency. In this 3-part model, movement activity and claims-making (animals have rights, go vegan, etc.) results in an increase in the often already close dialogue between state agencies and the organised interests of the animal-using industries. However, because they cannot meet abolitionist animal rights demands without closing down animal use, the user industries and the state agencies speak to each other in terms of welfare reform and in terms of the “tidying up” the use of other animals.

I believe that Francione needs to think again about single-issues and, in particular, see a different in single-issue campaigns and single-issue events. He already accepts, in theory, that one can mount a single-issue event within an overall abolitionist framework.

As we can see here, even after giving the green light to a single issue event, he wants to ultimately come down against them in general terms. This part of his thinking needs to be revised I believe, not least because animal advocates – for a variety of reasons, some good and some bad - want to take part in single-issue events. In these circumstances, it would have made more sense to me if Francione had been content to encourage such people to always place their immediate concerns into a wider context of vegan abolitionism, in much the way that Ronnie Lee is doing at the moment. This wider context would explicitly say that no one group of other animals is more important than others but it just so happens that the group is outside a leather shop, or fur shop, or vivisection laboratory on this day.

Of course, Francione will likely respond that he needs not take into account any apparent psychological need of other animal advocates because he is not part of the prevailing animal advocacy movement; he is part of a new and tiny abolitionist movement (of, apparently, self-limited numbers to ensure the social control felt to be required).

There are reports, indeed, that his closest followers are now calling for the destruction of the existing animal advocacy movement since they see little or absolutely no hope in educating (even vegan) animal advocates whilst they appear certain and insistent that the animal-using general public better understands and more fully responds to their abolitionist message. I eagerly await their new army of ethical vegans to march over the hill to sweep away the existing – and troubling – movement.

Happy New Year for 2012

Here's wishing everyone who reads On Human-Nonhuman Relations Blog a happy new year for 2012. Keep on fighting, people, keep on with the abolitionist vegan education. RY