Victor Schonfeld on flaws in animal advocacy

[Sunkanrags]

But the Animals and Us series made vivid that the organised group efforts on behalf of animals have been largely fruitless to date, in terms of the end goals, and campaigns for small changes are quite possibly counterproductive. The organised activism is sorely in need of fresh perspectives. Thus I submit here for scrutiny five fatal flaws of animal activism:

1. Instead of promoting animal rights goals as a major plank within broader social change movements, animal organisations insist on going it alone. Yet the Green party's animal rights goals are as radical as any animal rights organisation's.

2. One of the world's largest animal rights organisations routinely employs naked young women, including porn stars, to chase mass media attention. Would a human rights organisation stoop so low?

3. Animal rights organisations have been handing out awards and lavishing praise on slaughterhouse designers and burger restaurant chains after "negotiations" for small changes that leave the systems of exploitation intact.

4. Instead of animal rights organisations promoting a clear "moral baseline" that individuals should become vegans to curb their own demands for animal exploitation, groups have given their stamp of approval to deeply compromised marketing concepts such as "happy meat", "freedom foods", "sustainable meat", and "conscientious omnivores".

5. Tactics of violence and personal intimidation have at long last fallen out of favour, but activists now pour energy and resources into organisations that lack any real strategy for bringing an end to animal exploitation, whether for food or science.


FULL STORY: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... l-activism

Animal rights philosopher, Gary Francione, on the issue: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/vic ... -activism/

...

[JP]

this is interesting that guardian would print a column like this, thats pretty cool.

I dont know how well placed he is to write those criticisms, especially considering that vegan and AR movement is not a singular group and there are many groups and individuals working outside any of those criticisms - for instance majority of people i know.

And some groups even have these tensions internally with campaigns varying in great degree.

Then again, i might be looking at it from my own bubble. After all, the biggest groups are the ones falling faul with one or more of the criticisms.

[ratfan]

This is an interesting article and it ties in with some of my own thoughts on the very slow progress for animals.

I think Victor (like so many others) totally overestimates human kindness.

It's interesting that he made The Animals film and thought just putting the info out there would make the difference. I used to think that too when I first began campaigning - "this is so awful, all we do is show people what happens and they will join us in demanding the exploitation stops" almost 20 years later I know that doesn't work - Victor seems to be beginning to realise it too.

I really dislike the way he (and Francione) constantly talk about animal rights groups - when they are always focused on PETA - there are plenty of groups who don't use their tacky campaign approaches and don't congratulate KFC etc, but they make it sound like all AR groups are the same.

Sadly the groups who are doing it better don't have the amount of support that PETA have - perhaps because the more 'radical' vegan message just doesn't appeal. In fact a look at the responses to the Guardian piece shows that many folk think veganism is too preachy and a real turn off. (I know there have been many discussions on here of the abolitionist v incremental so I won’t go there)

However I'm always glad to see people pointing out the negative impact of intimidatory campaigns – to be successful we must WIN hearts and minds.

It’s great that he is saying this stuff and I hope it can lead to a mature and open debate within AR circles (and not a Lee Hall style attack)

[JP]

I used to think that too when I first began campaigning - "this is so awful, all we do is show people what happens and they will join us in demanding the exploitation stops" almost 20 years later I know that doesn't work - Victor seems to be beginning to realise it too.

i disagree with this. As vegans with a lot of vegan friends and so on we always assume that people know whats up. But if something can be learned from the undergrouns investigations of finnish factory farms (and the ones in sweden and elsewhere) is that when the images got public it came as a total shock to 99% of the people, even some people I have talked about these issues for ages.

So i used to agree with you, till these investigations hit the headlines in finland, then i changed my mind totally

However I'm always glad to see people pointing out the negative impact of intimidatory campaigns – to be successful we must WIN hearts and minds.

yeah that was just an opinion. It could be true, but it wasnt based on anything but an opinion.

For instance in case of fur farming radical actions have been the main reason of reduction of fur farms in many countries. That is just one example though and it could be that the negatives outweigh the positives anyway.

[ratfan]

Hi JP

I think that maybe on some issues it (exposure) works better than others, eg fur farms. Does the shock of the truth lead to folk changing their ways though?

I don't presume folk know about the cruelty of stuff - I spend my telling them about it - and I realise that many of them don't react like I did when I was exposed to the horrors of factory farming and vivisection.

Sadly most folk like the idea of suppoerting animal welfare - but fully accept their deaths.

[mabli]

I agree with most of it, he is referring to large mainstream organisations and not individuals.

Concentrating on removing cruelty is dangerous because it encourages businesses to look at less cruel ways to kill and exploit. I would imagine that folk who become vegan because of this aspect of animal exploitation are more likely to succumb to eating “cruelty free eggs”. I personally dont talk about cruelty when I explain veganism to others

Out of interest, how many social movements have achieved their goals without violence?

I cant believe the comments, it makes Daily Mail readers look left wing.

[EceGled]

Concentrating on removing cruelty is dangerous because it encourages businesses to look at less cruel ways to kill and exploit.

Similarly, many people concentrate on improving conditions for factory farm human workers, which are really horrid. I read an ethnography of a factory chicken slaughterhouse, and the anthropologist spends much of the book talking about how the workers want better conditions and therefore the solution is for the corporations to actually start caring about the workers. Yeah, right. Maybe that is achievable; at least, the author made it sound so. But today people are realizing that factory farms need to go for a lot of reasons. And it's almost laughable the way the author mentions at the end the need to improve factories for the sake of animal welfare, which is the only time out of the entire 250-or-so-page book that he even expresses the slightest concern for the chickens as sentient beings.

In a place where people treat the lives of chickens as factory parts, where they even endure extremely poor conditions for themselves as workers (resulting in many health problems and their bodies falling apart from mechanical motions), do you think anyone is ever going to care about the well-being of chickens? Please.

[JS]

I think any campaign to try and get people to change their ways is slow progress and plenty of folk are shocked at the imagery they see about animal welfare so they can have food and I think only a small percentage of them turn veggie as a result.

I think as with any campaign it has a short lived affect and new promotions have to be used to try focus the thoughts in peoples minds so when they do consume they do so with compassion for workers and animals equally.

The average joe wants cheap food and clothes and doesn't want to think about where it originates from and the harm done during production.

I think vegan folk are very special people and show great empathy for the world around them. We all had a trigger that set us off down the vegan path. It took me 15 years after being veggie to do it and I turned veggie after a conversation with a mate about how can i love animals but eat them. I think I was an easy win to the veggie cause but a slow win to the vegan cause no matter how much I saw diary farm / egg farming as cruel I just saw it as a very tough option in the world today.

I have to admit I feel uncomfortable showing shock images to folk about animal welfare as I don't know how to react to the folk who still don't care

There are groups that do a great job out there and I hope one day I find the strength within me to campaign too.

[JP]

there are no shortcuts in this. Animal movement is remarcably young and i sometimes despair when people try to say that not much has been accomplished. Any other progressive sociel movement have been at work for often centuries, with much "easier" goals and have still not achieved their aims (womens, workers, minorty & gay rights etc - not to mention the environmental movement!).

So i think you first have to analyse how do you measure a succesful tactic. Clearly trying to judge them from the basis of whole world sweeping to veganism is a cracpipe way of measuring.

Against all this, i think the factory farming exposes in finland have been the best single tactic i have seen in action so far. Thousands have gone veggie because of them, and still do. It has changed the whole nature of debate over there.

"best single tactic" doesnt mean that others are not useful. Anything which produces more vegans/vegetarians and closes down places of animal abuse is a good tactic in my book, and people react to different arguments, tactics, approaches and so on, so the diversity is a must and in my opinion the most important thing in any strategy.

Also, i think we need to increasingly look outside the current vegan bunch for what works, because we as "pioneers" of this business turned vegan when it was fucking hard and lonely. Most people wont, and thats understandable, so instead of just doing things which turned "us" vegan, we also need to try new things.

[mabli]

"best single tactic" doesnt mean that others are not useful. Anything which produces more vegans/vegetarians and closes down places of animal abuse is a good tactic in my book, and people react to different arguments, tactics, approaches and so on, so the diversity is a must and in my opinion the most important thing in any strategy.

Also, i think we need to increasingly look outside the current vegan bunch for what works, because we as "pioneers" of this business turned vegan when it was fucking hard and lonely. Most people wont, and thats understandable, so instead of just doing things which turned "us" vegan, we also need to try new things.

I agree.

In fact Im not sure what data there is to show what convinces someone to be vegan and stay vegan long term. There probably hasn’t been any research to show why someone who is exposed to harrowing images or simple explanations doesn’t become vegan. I have a feeling from talking to others that the single biggest factor is a form of peer pressure/ encouragement from existing vegans. But in truth there probably hasn’t been any all encompassing research that actually proves what the biggest “ROI” is, which means that some efforts dont necessarily have the impact that warrants the energy or costs.

I increasingly believe that in a brand conscious society where many folk simply follow what marketing folk tell them to do, our best tactic is to follow the example of the big brands. I believe the best way to encourage mass veganism would be a “weightwatchers” style weekly programme that was accessible in every town, that had good brand coverage, that appealed to the average punter, that proved a link with obesity and eating animal, that showed obese folk “easy” weight loss through the vegan diet, probably that had branded food, and gradually introduced other aspects of the philosophy. As we live in a capitalist society it seems logical to follow capitalist methods.

IMO given the good world coverage of veganism, such a brand could be launched in many towns, simultaneously across the globe, individuals could be responsible for holding a weekly meeting in a church hall just like weightwatchers and veganism would be adopted by more. I am not convinced that “the masses” can make decisions for themselves, I believe it has to be made easier for them in a language and way in which they are familiar and which “normalises” the whole concept. And unless we do change the language to one which average folk understand then we will only convert folk who are happy to stand outside the norm.

Just my opinion. I have launched brands in the past, I am always surprised at how quickly they are adopted and assimilated and I am absolutely convinced that this would work.