I hope everyone's been following the discussion on animal rights and environmentalism. I continue to be impressed with the decency and thoughtfulness of the community that's gathered here.
Frogfish said most of what needed to be said. The unit of analysis for conservationism is population; for animal rights it is the individual. If you ask me, animal rights is morally bankrupt in the absence of environmentalism -- not the other way around.
But we should all remember: parsing the logical and ethical differences is a matter for thinkers. For doers, for activists, the job is to get things done. That means rallying people around the things they agree on, not emphasizing those that divide them.
Think, for instance, about CAFOs. They are offensive environmentally, for air and water pollution. They are offensive ethically, for unthinkable cruelty to the animals involved. They are offensive socially, for the way they dominate and sicken neighboring communities. They are offensive economically, for the way they externalize cost and internalize profit at the expense of small, community-based livestock farmers.
Take your pick. There is no excuse for CAFOs, no defense, either philosophically or practically.
What keeps CAFOs in operation is not good arguments but political power backed by lots of money. The way to take down CAFOs is not with good arguments but with political power backed by lots of organizing.
Environmentalists and animal rights activists are both guilty of choosing their battles based on proprietary concerns, often with the result that the most extreme cases are highlighted. They -- and activists from other progressive interest groups -- should think more strategically about pressure points around which a broad coalition can be or already is mobilized. There are many.
There is much we can do working together. Let's achieve the achievable first, then turn to our more quixotic individual crusades.
When environmentalists and animal rights types reach a point in history where their differences exceed their common goals, I'll be more inclined to hash out the nuances. But that point is a long way off.
Climate Citizen: Michael Pollan on agriculture and health care
Tweet for the bees
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:28 am
11 Sep 2006
Yes, absolutely. One of the reasons (maybe THE reason) that the Right has been so successful is that they have been willing to overlook their differences in order to unite on the issues on which they agree. Geroge Lakoff talks about this extensively in Don't Think of an Elephant, which may be the single most important book for people reading this blog to read.
Take your pick. There is no excuse for CAFOs, no defense, either philosophically or practically.
What keeps CAFOs in operation is not good arguments but political power backed by lots of money. The way to take down CAFOs is not with good arguments but with political power backed by lots of organizing.
I agree with your basic statements, but I wanted to point out a potentially important point that your statements do not acknowledge. Political power is key to keeping the CAFO's in operation, but the other thing that keeps them going is the immediate economic opportunity that they offer. Working in a CAFO sucks, but it's a job, and for otherwise-unemployed rural folks, that matters alot. Granted, the long-term outlook for those same people would be better without CAFOs, because they would have more opportunities to actually engage in farming rather than the agricultural equivalent of factory work. But that scenario is in the future, and the need for jobs is now, and it's human nature to take the bird in the hand over the two in the bush.
Big money and big business are an essential part of what keeps CAFOs in operation. But they are not the only driver, and it behooves those who would be change agents to keep that fact in mind. If we want to change the picture, we will need political power, backed by organization. But we will also need to offer (real and immediate) alternative economic opportunities to those rural communities.
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bottleman Posted 3:33 am
11 Sep 2006
Some years ago I did a magazine feature about another cosmic divide -- the one between hunters and environmentalists. I was convinced that an alliance of "sportsmen" and city "enviros" could be a very powerful force since their goals for habitat protection could be aligned.
I discovered that (though there were jerks all around) there were some incredibly smart hunters who put my enviro-style ecological knowledge and care to shame. That alliance can work and sometimes does.
Along the way I found one of the biggest barriers to collaboration was the idea that some hunters had: that environmentalists and animal rights activists were the same thing. It was very useful propaganda for the jerky hunters to lump all enviromentalists in with, say, PETA.
Meanwhile the animal rights activists I spoke to didn't consider themselves environmentalists -- they considered themselves protectors of animals. Environmentalists might not object to eating meat, for example, or animals in product testing.
There was something so solemn about that divide. The hunters and environmentalists liked to scream and make fun of each other's clothes, but at the end of the day they all like being out in the woods and most of them like drinking beer.
I couldn't find such common ground between animal rights people and enviros. The bar set by animal rights people -- protecting every animal -- seemed so high and on some occasions quite contradictory to conservation goals.
So other than a few outrages (CAFOs maybe), I don't see the two groups meeting soon. Maybe someone has some more encouraging experiences?
bottleworld.net
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Jason D Scorse Posted 5:48 am
11 Sep 2006
J.S.
Assistant Professor
Monterey Institute of International Studies
http://policy.miis.edu/faculty/faculty.html?id=171
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caniscandida Posted 6:19 am
11 Sep 2006
That said, I admire Jason for his initial strong challenge. So far as human responsibilities toward animals go, he has wonderful things to say. But so far as requiring environmentalists to repair their moral "deficiencies" regarding the treatment of animals, I am not ready to follow him that far.
Perhaps he has not yet articulated his position as fully as would satisfy all his readers. I look forward, therefore, to anything more he has to say.
I entirely agree with David's remarks about activists in progressive interest groups, who impede their hopes of success by directing indignation at all they may find impure, including fellow travelers and allies. I do not think I would use "quixotic," though.
In his report on hunters, Bottleman quotes a term of insulting dismissal, used to refer to animal-rights activists: "wackos." Given the tactics and the angry public demeanor of some of them, I suppose the term is understandable. Certainly, sitting in trees for weeks and months looks quixoticoid, at least. And that notorious episode of releasing minks, all at once, all in one place, amounted to a liberation out of the frying pan and into the fire.
(On the other hand, in "E.T.," young Elliot's liberation of the frogs was one of the most glorious moments in movie history. Still, what did Spielberg imagine would happen to them then? Did they take hold in Elliot's LA suburb as an unwanted invasive species in fact, and kill off the local wildlife?)
My guess is, probably most members of ALF, and many if not most members of PETA, can be pretty annoying to talk to sometimes. But I wonder, of what they actually do, how much deserves to be considered "wacko"?
And how often has that term been used of other disruptive protesters? Was Gandhi called "wacko" for going on hunger strikes? Were Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists called "wacko"? Were anti-Vietnam-War protesters called "wacko"? In the 1980s, many of us disapproved of the tactic of the anti-apartheid pro-divestment protesters who blockaded our university classroom hall, even as we agreed with their ends. But nobody called them "wacko." Similarly, in the same decade, the ACT-UP people, enraged at the general neglect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, did some very outrageous things, including desecrating the Eucharist at NYC's Catholic cathedral. But nobody called them "wacko."
So why do animal-rights activists deserve that term of dismissal? I am just wondering out loud; I know Bottleman did not himself use that term.
I do not really know PETA all that well. They are consistently plugging veganism, I know, but I wonder how many of their sympathizers feel bullied against their will to accept it.
I find the Humane Society of the US and Greenpeace to be much more balanced and open-armed, in which both animal-rights activists and biodiversity-conserving environmentalists can find a place. Also, WWF, the National Wildlife Federation, and Defenders of Wildlife. Perhaps Audubon, Ocean Conservancy and Andrew's group, Oceana, are tipped more toward environmentalists, but not necessarily, given how charismatic most birds are, and many marine animals, such as cetaceans and sea turtles.
Audubon's great writer Ted Williams has in fact written on Bottleman's subject, the reconciliation of environmentalists and hunters. In that connexion, it should be understood that not all animal-rights supporters attribute gospel-like authority to Disney's "Bambi."
It is on record, in the blogs of the Greenpeace people pursuing the Japanese whalers earlier this year, that they were motivated both by the environmentalist concern, to conserve dimishing species of cetaceans, and by the animal-welfare concern, to report the horrifying manner in which the whales were slaughtered.
So I would suggest that, whether or not it requires all that much ancient Jedi wisdom, there already exist many people who happily find themselves in both groups, who consort happily with members of either group, and who keep the few inevitable contradictions compartmentalized, without allowing them to be disruptive.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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epskionline Posted 5:36 pm
11 Sep 2006
In fact, I consider myself both. I have a hard time separating the two. My interest in protecting the environment came before my interest in protecting animals. When I found out that CAFOs and other modern animal exploitation (over-fishing of the oceans, anyone?) were wreaking havoc on our environment, it was clear to me that I could no longer eat the way I had been.
I probably could have found a slightly more environmentally sustainable way to continue eating animals, but seeing them treated as commodities at CAFOs opened my eyes to the notion that these are thinking, feeling creatures mankind was exploiting. I knew that, if I could be vibrant and healthy without them or their eggs or milk, then I had to stop consuming them.
You can say it was for the animals, but I also like to think it was for myself. Over these past four and a half years of living and advocating vegan ethics, I have become a more aware and active person all around. See, when I stopped supporting an industry based around killing, I started embracing life, and that has strengthened my interpersonal relationships, my citizenship, my humanitarianism, and my environmentalism.
"The choice thoughtful people face is not between helping humans or helping other animals. One can do both." -- Tom Regan
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