Make it possible

My mother barely lets me support Animal's Australia because she thinks they are fanatical and that they believe if you're not vegan, you're not worth the time of day or the air to breathe in.
In my opinion the approach you describe furthers my mothers point of view on animal welfare and rights organisations, which is a view a lot of people share, and I don't think we need to be developing this opinion any further.

Do you live in Sydney? If so, I formally invite you to join myself and friends in engaging in peaceful, non-threatening vegan activism. Perhaps note the way we actually engage people: we ask them questions, we listen intently and respond accordingly. We are always clear on the message of veganism and never attempt to sell them happy meat/eggs/dairy even if they are resistant.

Please understand that yes, we can't control peoples reaction to the message, *but that doesn't mean we compromise the message by being dishonest with them*.

I'm sad to say that no one actually responded to my point about people also disagreeing with single issue campaigns. After all, you can't please *everyone*. So my question is why do you raise this point as one of your main objections to vegan education, yet you do not do the same to SICs which will also be met with dissension/apathy among the general population?

Again, the words of William Lloyd Garrison are applicable:

"I found the minds of the people strangely indifferent to the subject of slavery. Their prejudices were invincible—stronger, if possible, than those of the slaveholders. Objections were started on every hand; apologies for the abominable system constantly saluted my ears; obstacles were industriously piled up in my path. The cause of this callous state of feeling was owing to their exceeding ignorance of the horrors of slavery. What was yet more discouraging, my best friends—without an exception—besought me to give up the enterprise. It was not my duty (they argued) to spend my time, and talents, and services, where persecution, reproach and poverty were the only certain reward. My scheme was visionary—fanatical—unattainable. Why should I make myself an exile from home and all that I held dear on earth, and sojourn in a strange land, among enemies whose hearts were dead to every noble sentiment? I repeat—all were against my return. Opposition served only to increase my ardor, and confirm my purpose."

There is absolutely nothing wrong with an uncompromising message and people shouldn't be afraid of it.

Your premise is flawed though. The more 'humane' changes SIC advocates holler about result in infinitesimal 'changes' to animal exploitation practices; changes which in my most cases won't be made for 10 or more years and still do absolutely nothing in reducing consumption.

Not only that, such 'changes' touted as victories only serve to entrench the property paradigm, reinforce speciesism, make the issue about treatment not use and make the public more *comfortable* about consuming animal products.

As of yet, not one poster has responded to these claims which is telling, IMO.

I'm not though, you are missing mine.

'Anticruelty' laws assume that animals are the property of humans, and it is in this context that the supposed balance of human and animal interests occurs. But we cannot really balance the interests of property owners against their property because property cannot have interests that are protectable against the property owner. The 'humane treatment' principle, as applied through animal welfare laws, does nothing more than require that the owners of animal property accord that level of care, and no more, that is necessary to the particular purpose. If we are using animals in experiments, they should receive that level of care, and no more, that is required to produce valid data. If we are using purpose-bred animals to make fur coats, they should receive the level of care, and no more, that is required to produce coats that are soft and shiny. If we are raising animals for food, those animals should receive that level of care, and no more, that is required to produce meat that can be sold at a particular price level to meet a particular demand. On and on it goes..

This imbalance can never be corrected simply because, once again, animals are considered property. This is the fundamental point that welfarist activists continually ignore.

It is paradoxical to me that you support such 'legislation' and 'reform', yet you agree it does nothing to protect animals, anyway.

The problem lies in the unspoken premise of your discussion which is there is indeed a right and wrong way to exploit other animals for everything they provide us. So, seemingly unbeknownst to yourself, when you promote 'cage-free' eggs over caged eggs, you not only condone the *use* of animals for our purposes (ie. cage free is the right way, caged is the wrong way), you make a clear moral distinction between consuming products produced in slightly different ways but which always have the same end result (as though the means justify the end).

At this point, if you can't see what is wrong with this, there is precious little else to discuss because I don't think I can make it any clearer.

I thought perhaps my suggestion to look up abolitionists groups might have provoked you to do so but it looks as if you skipped the offer. If you hadn't, you would find all the answers to your questions, concerns and objections to vegan eduction.

The reason, IMO, such people 'respect' you is because you are not challenging them on any fundamental level whatsoever. All you are doing is selling them happy indulgences in free range/organic/cruelty free animal products... and they thank you for it by feigning concern for the plight of the very animals they exploit which they now do so guilt-free. I've seen it first hand and I made such mistakes when I first became vegan. I know better now, however..

I am not 'attacking' anyone. I am voicing my disagreement with AA's speciestist and backwards campaign and have clearly enunciated why I disagree. Please, take yourself out of the equation and look at things objectively instead of personally. Remember, this isn't about you and me.

If you still consider what I have said an 'attack', we will simply have to agree to disagree.

Well that should be easy to clear up then: Tell your mother that AA don't hold such views at all and will in fact congratulate anyone who decides to purchase happy animal products instead of the cruel ones. To remove any ambiguity or personal biases in the discussion, perhaps just get her to read AA's own website/literature... that should remove all doubt and her resistance in letting you support them.

To finish, William Llyod Garrison sums it up nicely:

"Starve not your epithets against slavery, through fear or parsimony: let them be heavy, robust and powerful. It is a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil; and to think of beating down his strongholds with straws is sheer insanity. The language of reform is always severe—unavoidably severe; and simply because crime has grown monstrous, and endurance has passed it bounds. But after the reform has been effected, then all agree that no terms can be too strong against the corruption or oppression which has been put down."

Hi Follz - awesome post. Very well written and argued.

How do you respond to the argument that dissing incremental welfare reforms is speciesist in itself? That is, is an abolitionist is content to see the worst cruelty continue (and factory farm conditions involve severe cruelty) until the day that all animal use is eliminated. If it were humans being kept in prisons AND being bashed every day, would we not want to at least end the bashings while simultaneously working for the person's release?

To let animals suffer in the shocking conditions of factory farms while I retain my "moral purity" with an abolitionist approach seems to disregard the present suffering of the animals.

What do you think?

I have looked into it im just having difficulty articulating why this is still not in my opinion a good approach. Ok here's an attempt a lot the general consensus is that there is no such thing as humane meat. I found this quote on one of those sites that goes as follows "those who eat the meat of other living beings in order to satisfy their own flesh they are defiantly murderers"  there is a lot of comparison to murderers nd rapists in your and abolitionists arguments but tell me this. In a world full of murderers and rapists how is telling them they are murderers and rapists more efficient and agreeable, effective in changing these   compared manipulating people into making changes? Rather.than call out the rapist in a world of rapists isn't it better to gain the rapists empathy with the victim? Feel free to.call me out if Im not making sense this is a difficultopinion to articulate.

Thanks for the thoughtful post Anthony.

I think it's important to note that abolitionists, like new welfarists, ultimately have the same end goal in mind: abolition. Where we fundamentally differ are the tactics used to achieve this goal. In this instance, the tactics are diametrically opposed to one another, hence the disagreements.

Abolitionists point to the empirical and practical problems with the view that 'incremental welfare reform will ultimately lead to the abolition of all animal use'.

The first exception I take to the welfarist position is that it creates a false dilemma: They assert that you either help animals 'now' or be content to let them suffer indefinitely into the future until some day when the world is a vegan paradise. This is false for a number a reasons, but for the sake of brevity, I will simply point out that the real choices we have is whether we:

1. put resources into expensive campaigns that go on for years and, if they don’t fail completely:

* results in perhaps a slight modification of current practices that are phased in over a number of years (or decades);
* even if implemented and enforced, at best result in slightly less torture;
* do nothing to change thinking about the moral status of animals and, indeed, reinforce the status of animals as commodities or things that exist for human use;
* have the obviously counterproductive effect of making people more comfortable about consuming animals/using things that are result of their torture; and
* make animal advocates partners with institutional exploiters

or

2. engage in creative, nonviolent advocacy that promotes veganism as the moral baseline, and that will reduce demand and effect a paradigm shift in our thinking about other animals.

This is a zero sum game. Every second spent on 1 is thus less time spent on 2.

A key point also is that *neither* help animals *now* as both involve incremental efforts, however only one is counterproductive and prohibitive to the stated goal of ending animal exploitation.

I know it my seem intuitive that campaigning for less harm is a *good* thing, but what wider message is that sending? It entrenches the idea that other animals are *things* to be used at our whim and thus they themselves have no inherent value. This has the affect of sending the wrong message to people that it doesn't matter *that* we use them, it only matters *how* we use them. This reinforces speciesism and the property paradigm.

Imagine a campaign 200 years ago by slave welfarists campaigning for less raping of the women slaves and fewer beatings of male slaves. Looking at this from an entirely intellectual and objective perspective, what message would you think this sends to the public?

Moving on, the practical problems of ending animal exploitation through incremental welfare reforms are many but I will just touch on two.

First of all, the welfarist campaigns themselves never challenge the demand of animal products, only the supply. Therein lies a conundrum: the conditions and treatment animals are subject to are dictated exclusively by the enormous demand for animal products from the public; it has nothing to do with evil exploiters wanting to see animals suffer as much as possible. Challenging the 'inhumane' supply of animal products therefore completely ignores the actual problem itself (not to mention missing the point altogether).

Campaigning for better 'conditions' or 'treatment' is insanity. For instance, if you cut the demand for animal products in half tomorrow, animals would consequently be subject to better conditions and treatment. It is axiomatic, IMO.

Secondly, the presumption that incremental welfare reforms that do not challenge the existing paradigm will lead to abolition is based on no empirical evidence or historical precedent whatsoever. Anecdotally the opposite is true based on the aforementioned reasons and based on my experiences with vegan activism.

To finish, abolition has nothing to do with moral purity: it is about being honest, consistent and actually advocating the purported solution to all the problems that come with animal use in the first place: veganism.

Hope this was somewhat elucidating.

that is a beautiful idea!! i have a wolf tattoo on my arm and a dolphin behing my ear, i know i want a orca and heaps more ur idea is so fantastic i love it!!!

Yep, fair points. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

And last thing from me:
It seems that countries with the largest welfare campaigns also have the strongest abolitionist movements, whereas countries with limited/no animal welfare laws also have a small/non-existent abolitionist presence. This observation suggests that many people progress through stages to reach an opinion that animals shouldn't be treated as property.

e.g. First I realise that it's not right to keep chickens cooped up in cages, which leads me logically to the next idea that chickens do "have feelings" (to put it simply) ... so therefore I probably shouldn't be eating chickens ... and really, if I'm not eating chickens, logically I shouldn't be eating any animals. Maybe next time I see Follz in Sydney doing outreach, I'll go and ask him for info or tips to make that change to veganism    Or I'll search myself for info on the net which I'd never considered before.

I do see where you're coming from though, by pointing to the increased amount of meat being eaten world-wide, and how that suggests that animal welfare campaigns haven't smashed any property paradigms; but the increased demand from meat is coming from countries where there are limited/no animal welfare campaigns in place.