Animal Writings

I forgot to mention in my last post that I had a great time at the "Becoming the Change" conference in North Carolina. I heard a lot of inspiring, knowledgeable, and articulate speakers; hung out with old friends and met new friends and people with whom I'd previously communicated only online; ate delicious food; and had late night vegan cupcakes, beer, and pizza with a spirited and diverse bunch of animal activists. I'll post some random and deeper thoughts about the conference down the road.

So, to continue from where I was before the conference, I want to talk a little about the messages we should articulate to the general public, particularly those who are at the free-range/cage-free stage, and particularly when coming from national groups who have the power to garner media exposure. Unfortunately (or not), I'm so time-sliced and behind on everything I'll have to split this up into a bunch of mini-posts. And, as always, everything is IMHO.

At the risk of seeming like I am perpetually delaying getting to the bottom line, I want to talk a little more about national groups' current means of conveying animal issues—particularly farmed animal issues—to the public. Well, on second thought, let me talk a little about the bottom line—the end goal. What are we working towards, ultimately? (Really, what is the purpose of life—when you get right down to it.)

I eventually want a society in which veganism is not only mainstream but seen as a priori, so commonplace and agreed-upon that to not be vegan seems preposterously, self-evidently wrong. I want animal agriculture and the practice of eating animals to seem like a nightmare from the dark ages.

But that's not nearly enough. I want a society in which all our interactions with sentient beings, from the hawk patrolling the skies to the earthworm digging in the soil, from the mammoth elephant to the tiny vole, from the most remote deep-sea creature to our familiar next-door neighbor, are based on kindness, respect, compassion, and a deep feeling of empathy and communion. Where rights and legal protections for animals are agreed upon (except for details) and understood yet superfluous.

Why not aim high?

I tend to focus mostly on the so-called "developed" parts of the world, since that is the milieu with which I'm most familiar and experience on a daily basis. Obviously there are pervasive problems and constraints, such as recurring famine and war, that need to be overcome in many areas of the human-inhabited portion of the globe. Nevertheless, I think the revolution in our treatment of animals, which will include veganism, will eventually be worldwide.

Everything is a step toward that ideal vision.

Which brings us back to the present.

As I mentioned before, I'm not too worried about people being stuck at the free-range/cage-free stage. Repeatedly, the most die-hard meat-eaters I come across—the ones who express the least sympathy for farmed animals and the strongest allegiance to omnivorism and who are the most dismissive of vegetarianism—are not even interested in making the smallest step on behalf of farmed animals. (But never say never; sometimes the most ardent defenders of meat become vegan; perhaps they redirect their viewpoint-defending efforts.) Therefore, I think that just about anything we do to move people past this stasis is worthwhile and commendable.

Yes, there are those who use "But they're treated well" as a poorly thought out and essentially selfish excuse for continuing to eat animal flesh and excretions. There are many things wrong with this attempted justification. For one thing, the animals are not treated well. Secondly, killing an animal just to get at his flesh is wrong, and creating an animal for that purpose is deeply anti-compassion; it is a flagrant devaluation, disrespect, and violation of the animals' interests. And so on.

But people use a myriad of excuses to perpetuate their meat-eating ways. They're emotionally vested in eating meat and naturally they're going to defend it, at least for a while. Talking people out of an activity from which they derive great and frequent physical and psychic pleasure, and that they may associate with family, heritage, and comfort is bound to trigger all manner of defense mechanisms.

Variations of the free-range excuse are just one type of manifestation of those defenses. They're probably a stage; a not-unexpected initial reaction from people who are deeply locked into a meat/dairy/egg/animal product lifestyle and have been since babyhood, and who inherited that lifestyle from their parents and loved ones. Before they can see the bigger picture, and see themselves and their behaviors from an objective third-party perspective, and grasp the fundamental wrongness of creating animals just to exploit and kill them, and break free of decades of brainwashing and confidently accept that one does not need animal products to be healthy or to have a diverse and satisfying diet, they will make amendments that seem doable and non-threatening, such as buying cage-free eggs.

Of course, I'm generalizing. A small percentage of meat-eaters go vegan almost instantly—though I'd argue that in the vast majority of those cases, ideas had been percolating for months if not years before the conversion. Other folks cling to their meat-eating ways for life and won't budge, for any number of reasons.

But most people with whom I talk understand basic concepts like suffering, and want to reduce suffering, and have little problem articulating that, and are willing to quite readily make small steps.

Of course we don't stop there, and we don't want to give false pretenses that going cage-free is enough, and so forth. More on that later (and in a thousand blog posts across the net on that subject).

In the next post, a recent example of how free-rangers are not locked into position, as well as a slight diversion: A plug for farmed animal sanctuaries and their role in animal activism.

Labels: advocacy, bottom line, conference, free range