http://www.animalsuffering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5863
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that discussion of animal rights issues on the general Animal Rights Talk forum is a waste of time. The thread focused on the Monty Python Flying Abolition of Meat Circus provides a rather profound (albeit humorous) example of this.
I am thinking that those of us who are interested in serious discussion about the abolitionist approach consider using the ARCO Abolitionist Forum. We can discuss a variety of issues, including ways to address the welfarist strategies that we all have to confront when we seek to discuss abolition with others.
Unfortunately, the welfarist position is the "default" position as a general matter (the welfarist ethic has defined the human/nonhuman relationship as a cultural matter for the past 200 years in most places) and as a matter of the animal "movement" (the large animal groups, for the most part, promote welfarist regulation). A solid critique of the various welfarist arguments, and one that can be understood by the average person, is essential.
The problem of critiquing welfarist arguments is that there are so few of them. There are welfarist slogans, such as "you're utopian and divisive" and welfarist laws are supposedly "incremental" etc. But welfarist arguments? Are you suggesting we examine the writing of Erik Marcus, Norm Phelps, Vegan Outreach and -- get ready -- Steven Wise and David Stzybel ? Should we write rebuttals of these authors and then summarize our rebuttals into simple statements that the public can easily understand? I ask this in all seriousness.
I have found the following to be an excellent way to explain abolitionist to the average member of the public. Here's an example that happened to me three weeks ago. I'm friends with the owner of a local vegetarian restaurant. One day, when I was in the restaurant, he gave me a copy of the magazine from Animal Liberation New South Wales -- a welfarist group. I asked him where he got it. He said he got it for free because he donates to them. I waited awhile and then asked him: "When human beings were slaves -- the property of other humans -- there were plenty of laws that regulated the slave trade. For example, there were laws saying that slaves must recieve water, because without water, the slaves would die and not be exploitable. Do you think that having laws like this could eventually lead to the abolition of slavery?" The man I asked is from Singapore, and he answered "no" -- giving me a detailed explanation why the answer is no, which went into the history of slavery in ancient China. "Great," I said, " I agree. But slavery laws are exactly what Animal Lib NSW stands for. Animals are property. Animal Lib NSW spends its time creating and enforcing laws that regulate the use of animal property. As you said, these laws will never lead to the end of animal exploitation. Don't you agree?" You should have seen the expression on his face. He was shocked. I could see in his eyes that he agreed with me, but he was used to thinking the opposite for a long time. He said "Yeah, but people need to learn to accept things gradually. If you start talking about vegetarianism straight away, they might not listen. But they would listen to information about making things more humane." I said, "What about 'humane' slavery?" He nervously laughed and shook his head "no." Then he had to go back to work, but he left really thinking about the issue I raised.
We are all speciesist, regardless of being vegan abolitionists. We are all racist, regardless of what we look like. That is, we've been socialized into speciesist, racist cultures. We don't eat animal products and we don't tell racist jokes, but we sill have speciesist and racist thoughts bouncing around in our sub-conscious minds. We struggle to rid ourselves of our oppressive assumptions and thoughts. One small example; I would never SAY "that's like killing two birds with one stone." But I might THINK it, and then say something else that's not speciesist. That's me; a vegan abolitionist. But the average member of the public has many more speciesist thoughts and assumptions, words and actions. The best way to cut through this speciesist mindset is to use a human analogy. In the case of welfarist laws, you can see my analogy above. In the case of "free-range" dairy, I say things like "Imagine a group of women. They cannot give informed consent to anything, or make any choices for themselves -- because they are mentally challenged. Imagine if they were kept in large, luxurious cages where there every whim was catered to. They could listen to beautiful music, watch TV, read books, talk to empathetic counsellors, eat gourmet food -- anything they want except leave. Then, they are 'humanely' restrained and 'gently' raped. With as little suffering as possible, their babies are taken away. Again, they are 'caringly' restrained and have their breasts pumped for milk." When the average person hears this, they are repulsed. And it lets them see why even the mythical free
range dairy farm is immoral.
In short, we can critique welfarist arguments in a way that anyone can understand by using human analogies.
Cheers,
Jeff
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