Entries tagged Hell Is Other People

I’m with Stupid
13 August 2008

Every so often, kind readers or listeners will forward us particular bits of the news that make me wish that I had nothing to do with the so-called animal “rights” movement (when it comes down to it, it really seems to be a movement that is less about rights and more about humane treatment). Here are 3 things that are not only embarrassing for us as animal rights activists, but damaging to our overall message and potential impact:

1. PETA ad compares Greyhound bus attack to slaughtering animals

Playing off of the heinous stabbing-decapitation death aboard a Greyhound bus in Canada, PETA came up with an ad comparing the suffering of the decapitated passenger to the suffering that animals experience in slaughter. While there is little doubt that animals do suffer significantly during slaughter, the subject of this ad makes PETA not only appear to be completely fucking bonkers, but also insensitive to the plight of human suffering. It drives home the idea that any and all animal rights activists focus on animal suffering to the exclusion of all other suffering. None of this does the animal rights movement on the whole any favors, and PETA gets what PETA always wants: attention. The question is, at what cost?

2. PETA wants to advertise vegan message on border fence

Speaking of PETA’s stupidity, we again see them riding the coattails of another current news item in a desperate attempt to draw attention to themselves. This time around, PETA wants to put up billboards near the US border with Mexico that say “If the Border Patrol doesn’t get you, the chicken and burgers will—go vegan.” In the article linked above, PETA tries to play this off as concern that the undocumented workers from Mexico will be leaving behind a relatively healthier diet in favor of the standard American fast food fare. While there may be something to this on a factual basis, it stretches the bounds of rational comprehension to imagine that PETA actually cares about the well being of undocumented immigrants. As far as I can tell, they care about one thing and one thing only: shamelessly forcing themselves into the spotlight, so much so that any message that they originally had about animals or vegetarianism is lost.

3. Firebombings at Homes of 2 California Researchers

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The police and federal authorities are investigating firebombings at the homes of two researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The attacks, which the university described as “antiscience violence,” occurred nearly simultaneously before dawn on Saturday, just days after the police in Santa Cruz discovered pamphlets in a coffee shop warning of attacks against “animal abusers everywhere.” The pamphlets included the names, addresses and other personal information of several researchers at the university, according to a news release put out on Friday by the university.

In my book Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, I discuss why violent property destruction is a poor solution to the problem of animal exploitation. First and foremost, it makes animal rights activists look like hypocrites. If we claim to care about “life,” there’s certainly no point in doing things that threaten human life. As I wrote in the book:

Today, most people see the violence and torture done for their palates as absolutely acceptable: animal exploitation is the norm, despite the contradictions inherent in it. Given how overwhelmingly strong the societal currents run against treating animals as anything more than commodities and property, the kind of change we need will require more than violence, more than property destruction, and certainly more than a re-creation of the exploitative dynamics that got us here to begin with. If we are to ever win or advance, we must do so by changing the social relations that are at the heart of the problems we face. If we re-create those damaging social relations by relying on the dominance and oppression of violence, we are essentially doing nothing but deepening the problem we are, more often than not, claiming to fight.

In short, we can’t force people to make decisions about morality while they’re staring down the barrel of a gun (or on the receiving end of a bomb). We have to do the hard and often inglorious work of creating a broad-based social movement that will call into question the speciesist dynamics that underlie our social and cultural norms. Bombs or guns or violence or completely shameless attention whoring cannot achieve this, ever.

  Posted by Bob Torres    Permalink    Filed under: Hell Is Other PeopleNewsStupid Welfarists
More on Bittman
11 February 2008

I wanted to add to Bob’s critique of Mark Bittman’s response to his vegan critics. Bittman also relies on this tired argument against veganism and abolition:

Humans do not tread lightly on this planet (understatement of the year, I know). Many of us agree we need to minimize our footprint. I’d rather argue against unnecessary cruelty, against overconsumption, for better human and planetary health, than for a strict regimen that the majority of the earth’s citizens will reject outright. I think people can hear “eat less meat,” and I can say it. But “eat no meat?” Few people are listening, nor will they.

I’m sure the welfarists are loving this part of Bittman’s article, because it legitimizes their approach to reform: call for nicer methods of production and reducing animal consumption, but don’t you dare mention not eating animals at all, because people won’t listen. While vegan education might not be easy because of the societal and psychological blocks it has to overcome to be successful, it is the only way to be morally and logically consistent if you claim to care about animal rights. Bittman’s (and the welfarist) arguments make veganism sound completely untenable, unsustainable, and unnecessary, which is great if you want to keep convincing yourself that humans have to eat meat to be happy and healthy. After all, it tastes good and it’s our tradition!

But those of us who lead happy, healthy lives without consuming animal products know that veganism is doable, and necessary. We’ve listened to the arguments for and against veganism, and we’ve make the choice for living our ethics. There are many, many more people out there who will change if they are given information and support. Our radio show is proof positive of that - I can’t tell you how many emails and voicemails we get from people who, once they heard all the arguments for veganism, decided to make the leap. Yes, change is difficult, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t try. We owe it to ourselves and to the future of the planet to do so.

  Posted by Jenna Torres    Permalink    Filed under: Hell Is Other PeopleNewsStupid Welfarists
Eating Meat is Only Human?
10 February 2008

Last week, on Vegan Freak Radio, we discussed an article by Mark Bittman in the New York Times. In the article, Bittman made a compelling case against the mass consumption of meat, linking its production and consumption to concerns about the environment, human health, and animal welfare. In our estimation, the article was a good mainstream treatment of the subject, but we discussed on our show, Bittman stopped short. Our reasoning was plain: if meat is troubling on so many levels, why continue to eat it? Why not just go vegan? After all, no one can honestly maintain—in the face of such overwhelming evidence—that eating meat is in any way necessary for human well-being.

If we don’t need to eat meat for our health, then why do we eat it? The reasons are multiple and obvious: tradition, taste, and convenience. We justify what we do to animals—at the tune of 10 billion lives a year in the US alone—simply by referring back to the old adage that “this is how we’ve always done it.” Collapsing into this odd logic of “might makes right,” when pushed, most people who eat meat cannot really justify it much beyond this simplistic thinking. Like the privilege of any other form of domination, those who benefit from the privilege are hesitant to see the relationship of their benefits to the exploitation of others. Men are often hesitant to see the domination of sexism; white people are often hesitant to see the wages of racism. Similarly, those of us that enjoy species privilege are hesitant to honestly acknowledge how our privilege benefits us at the expense of the freedom of others.

Sadly, Bittman falls into this trap in his blog at the Times when he responds to some of his vegan critics. In his piece, Bittman treats meat like any other resource when he writes:

Maybe I’m thick, but I don’t get it. If I write a piece about Americans driving too much, do I get trashed for owning a car? For using too much electricity, do I become a bad person for turning on the lights? This would seem to counter 90 percent of the arguments about continuing to eat meat: I choose to; it’s part of my life and my work; in general, I eat the most conscientiously raised meat I can find; and — relatively — I don’t eat much of it.

In this clever little comparison, Bittman ignores one central point: animals are unlike other resources in so far as they are sentient and feel pain. Clearly, driving too much has horrible impacts that have ethical implications, but it isn’t like driving your car makes it suffer. Similarly, using electricity depletes natural resources, but no one would really ever argue that electricity can feel pain, or have a continuous mental existence. Thus, while we do treat animals like resources—indeed, this is the central problem of animal exploitation—animals are sentient beings, which changes our obligations towards them. In this regard, the moral wrong of consuming animals is one that cannot be mitigated by doing less of it. Simply put, either consuming animals is a moral wrong or it isn’t. If it is a moral wrong, doing less of it or doing it more nicely does not mitigate that moral wrong. Analogously, several hundred years ago, Bittman could have argued the same thing about slavery: he chooses to treat his slaves well; they’re part of his life and work; and really, he only has a few slaves. Most of us (I hope) would find this logic objectionable concerning humans. The only reason we can stomach it for animals is that we are conditioned to view animals as somethings and not as someones.

Bittman continues on with his justification for eating meat, writing:

It’s traditional. It’s mainstream, and almost everyone alive who can eat meat does so.

Traditional “values” have been used throughout time immemorial to justify all manner of exploitation. Women should be most sensitive to this particular line of reasoning, for “tradition” has often been used as an argument to keep women in positions of domination within patriarchy.

In the end, what we get from Bittman is another weak justification for eating “happy meat” (and sadly, this is a position most of the animal rights movement is happy with, too). By falling back on the old, unexamined arguments about tradition, Bittman does little to really challenge the central dynamic of animal exploitation. In doing so, Bittman will only help to drive the creation of a niche market for the consumption of “happy meat” for the wealthy “ethical consumer,” the “conscientious omnivore.” Bittman sees animals as just another commodity; this mistaken logic undercuts his own arguments on welfare, and will ultimately condemn many more animals to a life of pointless suffering. 

  Posted by Jenna Torres    Permalink    Filed under: Hell Is Other PeopleNewsStupid Welfarists
Oh, but I couldn't live without….
12 March 2005

There always seems to be that “one thing” that prevents vegetarians from going vegan. That thing that they couldn’t live without. I have to admit that when we were vegetarian, I always thought of vegans as a bit extreme or out there. I just didn’t get it.

So for me, it was cheese and surprisingly, half and half. I thought I just couldn’t live without either. Eggs were always slightly gross to me, and I didn’t like the taste of milk on cereal. But my coffee had to be just right … and at the time soy milk tasted funny in coffee.

But at one point in our lives, something clicked. How can we say that we are concerned over animal welfare when we still eat eggs, cheese, and milk? The half and half in the coffee suddenly started to seem insignificant.

So, we ate the last egg in the refrigerator, stopped buying cheese, and started trying soymilk in our coffee. Now, it all seems so normal. How could we every enjoy eggs? They are so gross! And milk? Yuck! The thought of them now makes my stomach turn. (Btw, Silk’s enhanced soymilk is wonderful in coffee – better than their version of half and half.)

It’s amazing how your perceptions can change so quickly. Now, I find myself having little patience for vegetarians who protest “but I couldn’t live without x!”) even though I try to think back to when I was in the same position. We have a professor friend who is lacto-vegetarian and who is always telling us about how she just could not live without her daily yogurt and her mom’s sweets, even after just having watched Peaceable Kingdom, a movie about factory farming and the Farm Sanctuary. I understand the part about the sweets more than I do the yogurt; for her, the milky sweets are part of her heritage and have strong family connections, so they are harder to give up. But, I might just have to bring her a container of silk yogurt one day to try. I don’t want to be annoying and push too hard, but I guess I would like to see someone else have that moment of epiphany – that it just isn’t worth the suffering of animals to have that daily yogurt.

And on that note, I need to also put in a word of thanks to the vegan friend of ours who showed us, with gentle reminders and through example, that life as a vegan is possible and happy. I guess for us it took meeting “a real live vegan” to understand and to start to change our perception.

  Posted by Jenna Torres    Permalink    Filed under: Hell Is Other People
Making the connection
10 February 2005

My father is a “good eater.” He loves his food. He drinks heartily. He has a big belly. He also loves to talk about food, and he often waxes poetic about some meat dish that he’s recently had. The other day he was telling me about some sort of steak pie he ate at a friend’s house, and he always loves telling me about the veal dish he eats at this one restaurant. I used to just put up with it, because he’s not doing it out of malice. I figure he does it because he doesn’t make the connection between my diet and the implications for his diet – he’s perfectly happy eating what he eats, and he wants to share that good experience with his family. I understand that. I can wax poetic about aloo gobi masala or chinese broccoli.

But over time, I have become more and more physically disgusted with just the thought of meat. It’s getting harder to listen to his stories without a horrible grimace on my face. I haven’t figured out the best way to say that it’s disgusting without hurting his feelings. If it were some random person, I wouldn’t feel so bad but it’s always harder with family.

  Posted by Jenna Torres    Permalink    Filed under: Hell Is Other People