On Human-Nonhuman Relations

Bullies, Ads, and Being Vegan.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:55:00 +0000

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

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:17:00 +0000

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.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:55:00 +0000

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

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:21:00 +0000

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

"The Abolitionist Approach" Is Not Fit For Purpose.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:42:00 +0000

In a recent very interesting Facebook discussion, Tim Gier wrote (in part, and perhaps it is unfair to extract this out - but I'm gonna anyway!), “I don’t accept that the property status of other animals necessarily entails harm towards them.”

[I began to write a response to Tim’s observation for the FB discussion - but then realised that I was writing a blog entry, so that is why I have decided to post it here instead. In addition, I have not written a blog entry for a while, so that’s my second excuse!]

So, here goes.

It seems to me that being an item of property is not good in terms of having your rights respected. When Gary Francione talks about this issue, he does so as a law professor and, therefore, often asks us to imagine a legal arena in which the interests of property are put up against the interests of property owners.

On a psychological level, I believe that animal advocates are hindered in terms of arguing against animal use because we are arguing for items of property and not about legal persons. While animal advocates may regard other animals as moral persons, society certainly does not. Therefore, it seems to me that, be it in the courtroom or wider society, having other animals moved from the “thing” side of the person/thing divide to the “person” side would be desirable.

Even so-called “companion animals,” who arguably come closest to being regarded as individual persons in society, are still things in law and (ultimately) are treated as things in society. This is why we have few and sometimes no issues about surgically altering them, controlling their sex lives, controlling their movements (including bowel movements) and having them "put to sleep” often when it suits us and not them.

The Francionian case against welfare reform in this respect revolves around the claim that reform does not challenge the property status of other animals and, therefore, does not address fundamental issues in human-nonhuman relations.

I agree. I think there is a lot of merit in Francione’s position about the property status of other animals. Whether the “problem” could be reduced or even eliminated by the claims that accompany abolitionist reforms would be something worth exploring but I doubt Francione is capable of rational discourse at this stage, and certainly not with Tim Gier.

I regard “The Abolitionist Approach” as pretty much a busted flush. It is not fit for purpose. However, I’m inclined to think that this is not because the approach is wrong in any - or certainly many - of its fundamentals; it is very much more about the delivery of the approach which has been an absolute disaster, and seems to be getting far worse, more dogmatic, and more shrill and hysterical in tone.

A general issue is the habit of animal advocates to use broad brush strokes to describe something sociologically and psychologically complex. This is another failing of “The Abolitionist Approach” since it seems to simultaneously suggest that the public are both stupid and not stupid. On the one hand, they are presented from an elitist position as cultural dupes and dopes who can be persuaded to do this and that, and buy this and that, by welfarist promotion of items and, on the other hand, they are depicted as far too clever to be so fooled.

The reality is likely to be that some people can be persuaded by the promotion of some “humane” item and see no need to further boycott animal products, while some others will see through the propaganda and still see the cruelty and rights violations therein, so to speak. It is also possible that, by thinking about the ethics of our use of other animals as a result of "humane" product promotion, people will open their hearts to animals for the first time and make adjustments in terms of their behaviour towards and consumption of other animals. Others will better respond to a clear "go vegan" message. I favour giving out, consistently, the latter message, even if I recognise other possibilities.

My own position is not to be as worried about the promotion of animal welfare by animal welfarists as “the abolitionists” are. I do not promote animal welfare reforms myself, I do not recommend, ever, that others do, and I do not recommend vegetarianism rather than veganism, or the consumption of “happy meat.” Due to my involvement with Animal Rights Zone (ARZone), it has recently been suggested that I am now a raving animal welfarist in favour of the welfare paradigm described above. I believe that one "abolitionist" recently called me, and others associated with ARZone, "vile."

My position is clear: animal welfarists do welfare, and what should be much more of a concern for “the abolitionists” is the fact that their arguments do not resonate with the vast majority of animal advocates.

Now, there are lots of structural reasons for that, which they rightly point out; it is true, for example, that animal welfarism is the dominant way by which society and the “animal rights movement” looks at human-nonhuman relations, and it is true that the large advocacy groups have too much of a say and they are not challenged enough. However, it seems to me to be a major concern that “the abolitionists” simply do not possess the educational skills with which to advance their own position. They do not talk with people, they talk at them. They are so sure that their position is 100% correct, that they cannot cope with the mildest form of questioning. Speak back and one is accused of being both “morally confused” and a “new welfarist.”

Theirs is a one-way-street model of education which is ultimately based on strict social controls. This is why they can never get more than 30 people actively and regularly involved at any given time. Whenever they set up a forum, they first work out how to exclude people rather than welcome them. Their apparent insistence in employing systemic social control mechanisms seems to demand the inclusion of only a small number of adherents. In effect, then, they are an anti-movement faction, and they cannot hope for, nor seemingly desire, a mass movement which inevitably would contain diverse and dissenting voices. I’d suggest that they actually like their marginalised position and the freedom they believe it gives them to snipe from the sidelines. Although they regularly seem interested in addressing animal advocates, and they sometimes use "we" language, "the abolitionists" often claim not to be part of the existing animal movement. They often claim that "the general public" are much more open to their message than are the "people in the animal movement" (see Francione's podcast with Rob Johnson). This begs the question as to why they waste so much time with people they see no hope in and why, more importantly, they have failed to build a pretty large movement of their own from this very receptive audience that they claim to have. In truth, they know they must speak to people in the existing movement, they just do not know how to.

For them to make a mark in the prevailing movement means talking to animal advocates and not merely lecturing. They need to find ways around the obvious blocks that exist preventing their message being heard. In the internet age, they cannot claim that powerful movement gatekeepers are capable of maintaining their marginalised status. They are marginalising themselves by, for example, not participating in forums such as ARZone. Ironically, due to their inability to educate – for education requires the ability to listen as well as talk – they would quickly make themselves unpopular in such forums and, indeed, regularly seem to: there are recent reports that some “abolitionists” regard being banned from other groups’ FB pages, for example, as a positive “achievement.”

Sorry to say – but they also lie a lot and are not really interested in the truth. When they have decided something – especially if they decide that someone is a new welfarist – then that is what that person is, period. The fact that such persons do not fit into their blueprint of “new welfarist,” and instead correspond to their own model of “abolitionist,” does not matter in the slightest.

I have recently been challenged to a debate by Gary Francione, which he suggested he could arrange to be chaired by Gary Steiner, author of some wonderful books on human-nonhuman relations. I have accepted.

It came to my attention, however, that “an abolitionist” forum contained false claims by two of its most prominent members suggesting that I had ignored Francione’s challenge (he himself taunting and mocking on FB that I had run away from him). When a member of this forum pointed out that I had indeed accepted the debate, she claims that her post was deleted so that members could not see it, and she was warned by one of the moderators about such postings. Disgraceful behaviour in my view - but apparently not untypical, sadly.

I have recently written to Professor Gary Steiner – cc’d to Professor Gary Francione – confirming my availability for the event but have heard nothing back from either of them. Perhaps they are busy?

OHNR Podcast 16

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:42:00 +0000

In Podcast 16, I interview my good friend from Paris Vegan Day and the Gentle Gourmet, Paris, Deborah Brown Pivain, and talk about recent ARZone events featuring sociologists David Nibert and Helen Masterman-Smith, and political theorist Robert Garner.

or play HERE.

Slag-Aid

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:40:00 +0000

David Nibert and Helen Masterman-Smith on ARZone Podcasts

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:34:00 +0000

Professor David Nibert, author of Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation, and sociologist Dr. Helen Masterman-Smith, were recent guests of ARZone for their podcasts 19a and 19b.

The podcast was organised so that David and Helen could explore David's "entanglements thesis" with a particular focus on the prospects for alliances between the animal advocacy movement and social justice movements of The Left, broadly defined.

Also see Animal Rights Zone Podcasts.

David Nibert in Dublin.

Classes Apart.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 08:40:00 +0000

In 1977, sociologist Paul Willis’ Learning To Labour, a now famous piece of research about “how working class kids get working class jobs” was released. Something of a follow-up to Willis’ study, The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling, was published in 1994, authored by Máirtín Mac an Ghaill. Both studies, broadly speaking, identified groups of working class “lads” or “macho lads” who developed a strong anti-school culture, a desire for manual waged labour, racist and sexist attitudes, and forms of social interaction that led to them failing in terms of educational attainment.

Willis’ lads called conventional hard-working pupils “ear ‘oles” (on the grounds that they actually listened to teachers) while Mac an Ghaill’s macho lads labelled succeeding students, “dickhead achievers.” The lads favoured larking around, which they called “having a laff,” while the macho lads saw school as a means of “learning to be tough,” which involved rejecting the traditional 3 R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) in favour of the 3 F’s (fighting, fucking and football).

In the 1980s I took part in an impromptu “inspection” of a “chicken processing plant” in Yorkshire, England. A group of animal advocates effectively stormed the place to “have a look around.” We found the chicken plant workers putting glue in chickens’ eyes and supergluing chickens to wooden posts and using them as cricket bats. Sociologically, along with impoverished immigrant workers, the men committing these rights violations were the lads and the macho lads.

Many animal advocates will have seen the numerous videos showing slaughterhouse employees, circus workers, and “farm hands” using other animals as baseballs, or stomping on small animals, or attacking large animals with sticks, prods, and iron bars. Some videos expose workers sexually abusing animals, or pushing or dragging “downed” animals to their deaths. Most likely, along with impoverished immigrant workers, these rights violations will also have been committed by lads and macho lads.

In my last blog entry, I mentioned the slide show presented by Farm Sanctuary’s Bruce Friedrich to AR2011. He sought to convince his audience that the sparkling new use facilities he highlighted (new chicken prisons and barns for calves) represented a major step forward in terms of animal welfare. As I also said last time, these new facilities did look “better” than the dirty old battery cages and veal crates he showed.

Are these brand new animal use facilities going to see the provision of brand new staffing arrangements? No, probably not – the animals will certainly still be left in the speciesist hands of lads and macho lads.

Will the new facilities be adequately monitored? Possibly, but probably not. If they are monitored at all, they will be monitored by other speciesists. It is unlikely that animal advocates, Bruce Friedrich included, will be nipping around having a gander themselves and, even if they did, workers will know they’re on their way and more care will be taken – for the duration of the inspection.

I have worked in several “working class” job locations, including steel works and car manufacturers, as well as being a cinema projectionist for many years. In the first two in particular, there were plenty of lads and macho lads. The only time one saw females outside of the work’s canteen, or as cleaners in office areas, was in the porn magazine pages sellotaped about the place. There were plenty of expressions of racism too, as many “rastas” worked at the car plant, while several Germans and Russians worked at the steel plant.

What has this to do with animal welfare regulation and reforms?

In the steel works and the car plant, the first thing that happened when managers or anyone else imposed new rules and regulations, was the finding of ways of getting around them. New rules were not adhered to as much as circumvented. There is a lot of sociology about what is supposed to happen in work locations as opposed to what actually goes on. Cinemas are supposed to be regularly inspected by the local fire chief. When I was a projectionist, these inspections were few and far between and we always knew the fire chief was about because phone calls were made as he made his rounds. If he did happen to turn up with no warning, he was taken for a nice cup of tea while we cleared away all the things that were not supposed to be there. Fire chief inspections were a form of monitoring but they meant little in practice.

I wonder whether the middle class animal welfare advocates and their middle class political allies actually believe that the reforms they bring about mean something significant in practical terms? I’d love to be a fly-on-the-wall if ever Bruce Friedrich tried to convince the lads and the macho lads that the new “humane” facilities mean that, henceforth, the animals will be treated nicely. After each had stopped “ROTFLMAO,” I expect they’d just get on with their routine rights violations.

When Animal Welfare Reforms Are Ideal.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:43:00 +0000

Some people, such as David Sztybel and representatives of the National Animal Interest Alliance, argue that there are several versions on animal welfarism. In this blog, I tend to talk about two types, which I have called traditional (or conventional or orthodox) animal welfare and neo- (or new) animal welfare.

I tend to think of the former (traditional) as animal welfarists who want to regulate the use of other animals in the main and do not want to end it. Organisationally, I mean groups such as the RSPCA and the HSUS. However, these groups will claim that they do want to abolish some forms of other animal use. For example, this RSPCA animation talks about (well, booms really, since Brian Blessed did the voice-over) the banning of fur farming in Britain, the banning of hunting with dogs, the banning of cosmetic testing, the banning of veal crates, the banning of conventional battery cages, the banning of the use of drift nets in “EU waters,” the banning of sow stalls, and the banning the import of “wild birds.” Historically, the RSPCA was involved in campaigns that led to the abolition of lower class “sports” such as bear baiting, bull baiting, and cock fighting. On this theme, the HSUS would likely point to their campaign to totally end horse slaughter.

Of course, such bans have their limitations, and none aimed to end other animal use as a general matter. For example, post-“ban,” hunting still goes on in England, Scotland and Wales; calves are still “farmed” in “group housing,” and conventional battery cages are to be replaced by “enriched” battery cages. Even many bans, in other words, are part of the general idea to regulate the use of other animals. According to the lead organisations in the campaign, the British hunting ban was never meant to stop the killing of foxes, just as the other bans were never meant to prevent “animal farming” or vivisection.

Neo-welfare organisations, in my view, are groups such as PeTA and Animal Aid. Both of these groups suggest that they are animal rights organisations, although they do not show much evidence of adhering to the philosophy of animal rights, by which I mean the reasoned theories on human-nonhuman relations laid out by rights-based thinkers. Animal Aid are much better than PeTA on this, as the latter deliberately distort the meaning of animal rights. Animal Aid’s online bookstore, for example, is far superior to PeTA’s. It does, for example, feature texts by Gary Francione, Andrew Linzey, and Joan Dunayer. The absence of Tom Regan is a real shame but I think Animal Aid have sold The Case for Animal Rights, Defending Animal Rights, and Empty Cages in the past. PeTA will not go near these rights-based writers with a barge pole, preferring to sell the work of Peter Singer only and, moreover, lying about it being an animal rights philosophy text.

A few weeks ago, an AR2011 video was released featuring Alex Hershaft of Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) and Bruce Friedrich, late of PeTA, now earning a crust from Farm Sanctuary. Hershaft made the case for abolition while Friedrich presented the classic new welfarist view, as conceptualised by Gary Francione, arguing that animal welfare reforms both reduce animal suffering and can act as stepping stones to animal liberation.

Acting much like a salesperson for the user industries, Bruce Friedrich showed the audience slides of conventional confinement systems and newer “humane” conditions. I was struck by how clean and shiny the newer exploitation facilities were compared to the dirty, broken down, old ones, reminding me that the HSUS also specialise in publishing such images on their web site: clean, bright, and new = humane, versus dirty, dingy, and old = cruel. It seems that the user industries along with Farm Sanctuary and the HSUS have vested interests in presenting this stark contrast. However, it is rather misleading to say the least.

Essentially, this formulation of the new is similar to the presentation of a crude Weberian ideal type, a concept – an abstracting tool - used in sociology. At its most basic, this involves the construction of a perfect or ideal example, one which is never to be found in the “real world,” and placing what is found in the world next to it. The aim is to gain some understanding of the “gap” between the two. In foundational sociology classes, I would give the example of the construction of an ideal football (soccer) team. It is fairly easy to think of what the perfect football team would look like, what the manager would be like, how good the players would be in their different positions, how big the ideal squad would be, even how good the backroom staff and player’s facilities would need to be. No real team would match up to the constructed one in which everything is “just right” in every detail.

I think animal welfarists consistently make this sort of error when they compare the horrible old to the “much better” new. The pictures of new use facilities don’t look “too bad” if and when the places are empty or “just stocked,” as they seem to be in the favoured photographs. However, give it a few months, a couple of years certainly, and then see the conditions, as perhaps revealed by an open rescue, in circumstances when the user industries and animal welfare organisations cannot stage manage everything. Then, the pictures will reveal the terrible realities: the filth, they’ll give some idea of the stench,[1] the amount of “deads,” and the number of those soon to die.

It seems to me that animal advocates who are more often than not pessimistic about abolition are very often far too optimistic about welfare improvements. They rarely seem to give much thought to the actual day-to-day running of these “improved” units.

Not only will the conditions rapidly deteriorate from those shown in the publicity shots, there is the brutal truth that new facilities will still be operated by speciesists who give little thought to the interests of other animals apart from considerations connected to the economics of exploiting them. Add to that the fact that measures supposed to regulate use are themselves poorly regulated. For example, there have been a number of exposes of the RSPCA’s “Freedom Foods” scheme which exists to endure strict welfare standards. I doubt if it will take long before someone provides footage of the realities behind PeTA’s agreement with KFC to gas chickens, and the HSUS’ deal with the US egg business to phase in “enriched” battery cages (once both their lengthy phase-in periods are over), something even Compassion In World Farming are worried about. Bruce Friedrich made great play of the part of the HSUS-egg industry agreement that is designed to end forced moulting within a year. Who will monitor if that is the case? Who will be there to monitor what goes on in those massive sheds, often located well off the beaten track? These sorts of agreements often pay lip service to notions of “high quality stockmanship,” but is any of that worth the paper it is written on with no-one to monitor the system?

There have been some defence of animal welfare reforms on Animal Rights Zone (ARZone) lately. I get the impression that much of this defence is defence of the ideal – the on-the-face-of-it idea. I think animal welfare reform supporters need to look rather deeper at the actual operation of exploitative use systems – and look beyond the sales pamphlets, photographs and glossy presentations.

[1] I have been in plenty of intensive farming units and the smell and the heat – and often the noise - is almost unbearable.

Important Workshop on Veganism on Animal Rights Zone following ARZone Podcast.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:20:00 +0000

I'm really looking forward to this weekend's workshop in Animal Rights Zone (ARZone). Having said that, I'm hoping not to be saying much. I want to hear the stories from the ARZone members about how and why they became vegan. Of course some of the stories may be about still becoming vegan - and I guess a couple of brave persons may claim that they are comfortable being vegetarian. I'm not sure if many - or any - flesh consumers are members of ARZone. They would we welcome. of course, if they are there to explore issues in human-nonhuman relations.

I'm hoping to not have to say much, because I've tried, along with other admin personnel from ARZone, to explore the issue of going and living vegan in the latest ARZone Podcast (ARZone PC 12).

The reason I think this workshop will be of particular importance is because there is no settled agreement about how best to approach people with the vegan message. In fact, saying "people" is problematic in itself, and John Robbins' "different strokes for different folks" (from Diet For A New America) applies here.

Hope to see you there.

Be With You In A Second.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:22:00 +0000

Many if not most animal advocates will be familiar with this graphic

This graphic is (graphically) ticking off the deaths of other animals by the second. Chickens die at the rate of 287 per second; pigs at almost 4 per second; and cows at more than 1 per second.

As shocking as these numbers seem, they are only the tip of the ongoing problem since they represent only three types of other animals used and exploited by humans and, moreover, the numbers apply only to the USA.

I wonder, then, as I see essay-length postings on Face Book and elsewhere, when animal advocates are essentially talking to one another - and that usually means criticising one another - whether we ever pause to think of these numbers while we type. I think we should. I think we owe it to other animals that we do.

I say "we" because I am guilty of taking part in this internal incessant noise that goes on in the animal protection movement - and in all social movements in fact. Indeed, to some extent, I favour it within reason, since social movements need to think critically about what they do and about why they do what they do. Critical thinking is - or can be - aided by respectful dialogue and thoughtful interaction among concerned parties in movements.

Whenever I'm through reading (or helping write) the latest 50-post exchange, I wonder if my time could be better spent. I think many times the answer to that is an unequivocal "yes."

Momo to self: must do better.

We do well to remember that old slogan: it's for the animals, folks: not us, not careers, not ego, not gain, not social or "movement" status. It really is for the animals.

Whatever You Do, Don't Do That.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:46:00 +0000

In 1995, Julian McAllister Groves published an article in The Sociological Review entitled Learning To Feel: The Neglected Sociology of Social Movements in which he found that animal advocates are often accused of "spoiling" family celebrations or other social gatherings due to their philosophies on human-nonhuman relations and their diet.

One activist respondent told Groves that friends invited him and his wife to their home but they were keen on the child of the household remaining ignorant about what "meat" was. The friends said to the activist, "We're not going to say anything about food" - and essentially they seemed extremely worried that information about the "meat" in the boy's meal may "start him thinking."

Couldn't have that, of course.

I was reminded of the article (see it briefly written up here) yesterday when I helped run an information stall in a Dublin district for Vegan Ireland. The location for a good spot to catch passing shoppers happened to be outside one of the doors of a small McDonald's restaurant which is part of a shopping complex.

We set up with our vegan leaflets, recipe books, etc., and soon noticed the McDonald's manager staring at while talking into a mobile phone. He was spelling out the dread word: "V-E-G-A-N." Oh no, the vegans have landed! Of course fearing for the well-being of all of humanity, the manager rang for the Guardians of the Peace of Ireland.

Two police officers duly arrived - not a lot of domestic violence and banking fraud on this day apparently - but they did not even get out of their car, looked at us for about 30 seconds, and sped off, no doubt having got the important message that the doughnuts had arrived at the station.

There was nothing for it but for the intrepid McDonald's manager to approach the vegan table.

Positioning himself in such a way that he would not read the terrible mind-boggling vegan literature on the table, he asked us to move on. When we requested why we should, he said that our presence outside the fast food emporium was not welcome, mainly because it "reminded" his customers about what they were eating.

We asked if he thought his customers so dim that they were not aware that McDonald's served dairy and flesh products. We said he thought they probably were aware of that, yes, but he nevertheless did not want them "reminded" of the fact (and despite the fact that the table has no graphic pictures or posters on display). He said that customers had been firing anxious glances over at the vegan table - we were clearly in danger of starting them thinking.

Couldn't have that, of course.

We declined his offer to do him a favour and move on and so, a few minutes later, the heavy mob arrived in the shape of the regional supervisor who hailed from London, England. This guy is so ambitious that he's worked for McDonald's for more than 10 years at this stage and "loves it.". He gave us a much more aggressive version of the "please move along" routine. We also declined his kind offer.

After that he arranged for his staff members to parade in front of the information table trying to block its view. He also attempted to place a sign advertising McDeath's meals immediately in front of the table.

At all costs, it seems, his customers must not begin to think.

Vegetarians - who'd have 'em?

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:17:00 +0000

The latest comments by Morrissey have rattled a few cages. The "vegetarian singer," or less than 20 words later, "The 52-year-old vegan" (see, social change can be well rapid) is reported to have said, "We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown, with 97 [sic] dead. Though that is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald's and Kentucky Fried shit every day."

Hmmm - so why the "sic" inserted into that quote I hear you wondering. I think the "journalist" Caroline Davies is suggesting that Morrissey means - or should have said - "97 incredibly important human beings." We don't like human beings reduced to numbers, do we? No - too livestock that is.

I suppose Morrissey should have known that his comments would make waves, even if he did utter them immediately before singing the title track of The Smiths' number one album "Meat Is Murder."

So, why the title of this blog entry (I hear you wondering). Well, according to Caroline Davies [sic], an outraged Twitter tweeter tweeted: "I've been veggy for 22 years. Today Morrissey's made me want to start eating meat."

Really? The commitment to vegetarianism is that pathetically shallow is it? Now, not for a minute would I suggest that this comment - if accurately reported by Caroline Sic - is representative of all or even most vegetarians but, come on now, someone would resume eating the flesh of tortured beings just because of what a singer said? What is all that about, a fear of guilt by association?

Let's Not Give Up Before We Even Get Started

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:33:00 +0000

Let's Not Give Up Before We Get Started, Part 1 of 4 from Tribe of Heart on Vimeo.

Let's Not Give Up Before We Get Started, Part 2 of 4 from Tribe of Heart on Vimeo.

Let's Not Give Up Before We Get Started, Part 3 of 4 from Tribe of Heart on Vimeo.

Let's Not Give Up Before We Even Get Started, Part 4 of 4 from Tribe of Heart on Vimeo.

Easygoing Speciesism. Calf Food.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:02:00 +0000

Do you remember the fuss earlier this year when ice cream made from human milk was put on sale (see here)?

Some people were “disgusted” by the idea of consuming human baby food. Odd, isn’t it, the strength of a cultural norm that results in people being appalled by the very idea of ice cream made from milk from a human volunteer while milk taken by force from an abused cow who is repeatedly inseminated only to have her offspring taken from her is deemed “normal” and “natural.”

I was reminded of this news story today. Having marmalised both Boris Becker and Andy Roddick on Grand Slam Tennis (as one does), I was sat in the “victory bath” a little later listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme called Sarah Millican’s Support Group. During the show, the presenter asked audience members whether they had ever gotten the upper hand over a workplace bully.

One person said that she had on the grounds that she made a cup of “milky coffee” for a bullying nightshift supervisor. He drank the coffee and declared it good. She then told him the terrible secret; that the “milk” had run out, so she had used her initiative and substituted human breast milk.

She was asked how the man responded and she said he vomited, cue much merriment from the general audience.

Heard the News? Welfarists Do Welfare. Big Wow!

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:54:00 +0000

A scene from Shakespeare’s 1602 play wot I just wrote.[1]

An inn in Scotland.

Donald: Angus!

Angus: Donald! Have ye had y’tea?

Donald: I have!

Angus: Good news my man, good news. Now did ye hear the latest scandal?

Donald: Tell me more, I don’t think I have.

Angus: Well you know that there animal welfarist organisation?

Donald: The one down the road a wee bit?

Angus: Aye, that’s the one.

Donald: What of it Angus my lad?

Angus: Well, you know that they support animal welfare don’t you?

Donald: Aye, I do. And they’re no for being vegan, I've heard that!

Angus: Aye, they’re no for vegan the noo. Well, ye’ll never guess what else.

Donald: What?

Angus: Well, we’ve just found out that this animal welfare organisation does animal welfare.

Donald: They do not!

Angus: I’m telling ye that they do! To be sure, those animal welfarists actually do animal welfare.

Donald: Welfarists do welfare. Well I never!

I was very pleased to hear Gary Francione’s interview on the recent Go Vegan with Bob Linden show. They were talking about a new agreement between the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the North American egg industry to phase in enriched battery cages over 18 years – yes, you heard it, 18 years, since we all know that animal welfarism is all about “helping the animals NOW.”

I was so glad to hear what Gary Francione said because I recall an episode of Bob Linden’s show (from Sept 2009 – you can hear it in the archive) when Steve Best was the guest and when things were very different. In the 2009 show, both Linden and Best were tearing their hair out about the HSUS not standing up for animal rights and for not advocating veganism. In contrast, what Francione said was, in effect, “well, what do you expect, Bob, they are the HSUS.”

Some of Francione’s claims were, however, quite puzzling I thought. What Bob Linden wanted to know most of all was this: “Who elected the HSUS to represent chickens or the animal rights movement?” Francione replied saying that the question was “complicated,” and he said that there were two parts to the answer.

1. The HSUS are an animal welfare organisation and always have been. They do not stand for animal rights and never have done. They do not promote veganism and they never have done. He summed it up by saying, “What can one expect from the Humane Society?”

2. Some “animal rights people” have welcomed with open arms what the HSUS have done and see it as step forward.

That does not seem complicated to me. Yes, welfarists do welfare and yes, some people mischaracterise animal welfare groups as animal rights groups. None of this should be news in 2011.

Point One I fully understand, and have been saying this for years – welfarists do welfare. Big wow, what do we expect? We don’t expect them to advocate for veganism and we certainly do not expect them to take anything like a rights-based view of human-nonhuman relations.

In relation to Point Two, we need to dig a little deeper, for just who are these “animal rights people” who have so warmly welcomed what the HSUS have done with their 18-year phase-in of nothing very much? It is not clear who Francione is talking about at this stage because he immediately begins to cite the large animal advocacy groups which he and I, and everyone else who take an abolitionist approach to animal rights, regard as animal welfarist mobilisations.

He says, quite rightly, that the HSUS is “not an animal rights organisation;” they are pretty open about that themselves but he also says that most existing animal advocacy groups are welfarist anyway. Francione does sometimes talk as though there are homogeneous blocs of people out there who all behave and think in the same way. So, who are these “animal rights people” welcoming the HSUS’ latest move?

Perhaps what’s being said here is that many animal welfare advocates call themselves animal rights campaigners. Well, that’s true in my experience. It certainly is the case that most people who call themselves animal rights advocates do not adhere to – and most have never read – the rights-based literature about human-nonhuman relations.

However, if this is what Francione means, he means that some people who regard themselves as “animal rights people” - those who support animal rights in a rhetorical sense but not philosophically - may have welcomed this HSUS initiative. If this is the case, it is odd that Francione even uses the term “animal rights people” because he refuses to see such people as animal rightists, and calls them New Welfarists instead, meaning those people who want to abolish animal use by using the methodology of animal welfarism.[2]

This should mean that, for Francione, no animal rights people welcomed this egg agreement for all those who have are either traditional or new welfarists.

I have long argued that the animal advocacy movement remains philosophically messy at the best of times. This is not helped by the fact that many animal advocates do not read philosophy books – and I think this is where ARZone does a valuable job, for example, when it organised a “Tom Regan Week” through which animal advocates were given a flavour of Regan’s rights-based position on human-nonhuman relations. It is rather disturbing, however, that anyone needs to go onto the Bob Linden show in 2011 and explain that the HSUS is not an animal rights organisation.

Some readers may think, ah, yes, but does that mean that Francione gets to say who is and who is not an animal rights advocate? It is a fair point for who can impose meaning on a term like “animal rights advocate.” However, it seems reasonable to me that the lead voices in this should be the philosophers and theorists who have written and thought about it for years. In this day-and-age, Tom Regan, Gary Francione and Joan Dunayer are important rights-based thinkers on human-nonhuman relations. They do not agree on everything, as one would expect, if fact they disagree on quite a lot - but they do agree that nonhuman animals are rights bearers and what we do to them when we use them are rights violations. They all want to abolish animal use and not regulate it, and they all champion veganism.

In the “animal rights movement,” groups like PeTA, for example, have successfully had the label “animal rights” applied to them. Sociologically, this meaning has been socially constructed. However, that immediately raises questions about which voices should carry more “weight” than others, and so that brings me back to my point about the philosophers and theorists. Any fair assessment of PeTA’s claims to be an animal rights organisation will fail, in my view, whereas it is clear that Gary Francione is a rights-based animal advocate standing up for animal rights with veganism as its moral baseline.

Perhaps we need to look forward to the day when the majority of animal advocates, on hearing the latest from the HSUS will, instead of getting into a flap over it, simply say either, welfarist do welfare or what does one expect from the Humane Society?

In the Friday Feature for his show, Bob Linden said, “Hey, hey, ho ho, the HSUS has got to go.” Well, no Bob, they do not, so long as people who are interested in animal rights do not support them. They are separate from animal rights and probably do some good work from an animal welfare point of view. Gary Francione always makes the point that all the money given to animal welfare groups would be better spent on animal rights advocacy. He predicts that, if this were the case, then there would be more ethical vegans in many societies, and there would be more people thinking seriously about the case for animal rights. This seems reasonable to me, although some point out that people “go vegan” for reasons other than someone or some group directly telling them to. I think that there is something in that, and investigation of the point would be useful, although my own view is that we should be honest with people and clearly state our position in which veganism is an integral part.

The sooner we can clear up the philosophical mess in the animal advocacy movement, the easier it should be for people to give their time, effort, and money to causes they support the most and, hopefully, we can never again get into a position in which the HSUS, of all groups, can be mistaken for animal rights advocacy. However, animal rightists be warned: the dominant paradigm is animal welfarism, so people are likely to support it as something they both understand and approve of. In fact, sociologically, we are almost trained to do just that.

[1] With apologies to Ernie Wise.

[2] As Francione points out in Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (and a recent podcast with vegan educator, Elizabeth Collins), his thinking about new welfarism has evolved since the concept appeared in his 1996 book, Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. He now argues that only some new welfarists want to abolish animal use and thinks that others are content for some forms of use to continue.

Podcast 15... Talking to Animal Welfarists.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:39:00 +0000

In this podcast, I'm happy to be joined by Carolyn Bailey of Animal Rights Zone (ARZone) and Jordan Wyatt of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals Podcast.

The task we set ourself was to explore the idea that those who take an abolitionist approach to animal rights have more difficulty talking to animal welfarists than they have in speaking to members of the public. Both Carolyn and Jordan have had recent experience of interacting with a range of people concerned about live exports from Australia and Indonesia. They have exchanged views on Facebook with meat eaters who have set up anti-live exports pages and with people who regard themselves as animal advocates.

The topic of the podcast was prompted by a subject raised in an ARZone Podcast about who we talk to as animal advocates.

or LISTEN HERE.

or HERE.

David Nibert in Dublin.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:36:00 +0000

David Nibert, author of Animal Rights Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation was a welcome visitor to Ireland last week.

A few animal advocates met up with him, his partner and son, in Dublin and spent the evening discussing animal rights, human rights, the "entanglement" thesis, capitalism, and socialism.

A good and instructive time was had by all - thanks David and Julie.

ARZone Podcast 4. ARZone Tour & Animal Equality.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:00:00 +0000

In this podcast, the ARZone team provide a tour around the Animal Rights Zone (ARZone) website, explaining it uses and features and then they discuss an ARZone guest answer by Animal Equality's Jose Valle about a particular style of demonstration made popular in Spain when animal advocates quietly and respectfully hold the dead bodies of the nonhuman animals they have found on Spanish farms, making the usually invisible visible again.

FOLLOW THIS LINK.

ARZone Podcast 3. Communications

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 10:44:00 +0000

In this podcast, the ARZone team talk about talking to those we disagree with - and those we agree with, taking our lead from a clip from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Vegetarian Food for Thought podcast.

FOLLOW THIS LINK.

Rotten to the Core.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:14:00 +0000

I was close to being killed last Saturday.

This is a picture of my poor bike, confirmed as a write-off since the front end is smashed up pretty bad. A car pulled out right in front of me and I lost control of the machine trying to avoid a collision. Luckily I came off on the right hand side of the bike, which then hit the car as I slid past the rear of it. Although it is a cliche, my life passed before my eyes.

One image I seemed to have was of when I was waiting outside a store in Scunthorpe with my son, who was about 4 years old at the time. He was eating pieces of an orange if I remember right and a man approached me saying in all seriousness, "don't be rotten, give him some sweets."

A recent Facebook entry by the mighty Elizabeth Collins reminded me of something else from the past. Elizabeth posted this message: "I very much regret my 34 years of not being vegan." This reminded me that, in the early 1980s, I used to apologise to the "meat" as I passed by butcher's shops in Liverpool because I had not been about to do anything to save the nonhuman animals involved.

I think all this is linked to the pain campaigners often feel deep inside and the issue of burnout. In my 30+ years of campaigning, I've seen a lot of people come and go as one might expect. It is true that some of the brightest lights have burnt out the soonest and I still feel that fierce frustration about the fact that we have not achieved animal liberation yesterday - many yesterdays ago in fact. However, that's just not the way things work: in the absence of revolution, social change is slow, generational and incremental.

One advantage of being "at it" for so long is seeing the changes that younger campaigners don't see and certainly do not appear to appreciate. For example, when I decided to live vegan in 1979 in England, there was not a single type of soya milk on the market - no soya ice cream, none of that fake meat and cheese (assuming that's your thing), apart from "textured vegetable protein," a foodstuff with possibly the most off-putting name ever.

Obviously the availability the vegan foods and other goods on the shelves means little in itself - but social ideas have shifted too. A little. Gone are the days when the only vegetarian restaurants were called "Cranks," and people tend not to faint so quickly at words and phrases like "vegan," "animal liberation" and "animal rights" any more. If new and recent animal advocates could be transported back to the late 1970s and early 1980s just for a day or two, I think that they would see that things have changed and changed for the better.

Don't think this is about complacency or sitting back - its about context.

ARZone Podcast 2 - Mission Statement/Live Exports

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:40:00 +0000

Tim Gier reads out the ARZone Mission Statement and then the ARZone team, Carolyn Bailey, Barbara DeGrande, Tim Gier, Jason Ward and Roger Yates discuss the ongoing controversy about live exports to Indonesia from Australia.

LINK.

ARZone's First Podcast.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:11:00 +0000

Animal Rights Zone have begun podcasting.

Click on THIS LINK to hear the first podcast which talks about the aims for the podcasts and then presents and discusses points raised by animal rights philosopher, Tom Regan's recent ARZone guest Q&A interviews.

Podcast 14.

sos044@bangor.ac.uk (Roger Yates) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:54:00 +0000

On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast 14 - The Ian Hunter Podcast.

In this podcast, I cite the work of criminologist Piers Beirne and author Jonathan Safran Foer, as well as recounting a recent blog entry of mine, "A Numbers Game."

I also mention that Animal Rights Zone is due to start producing it own podcasts - oh joy!

LISTEN HERE