A Call For Compromise

By Eccentric Vegan on January 7th, 2012 Print This Post

James McWilliams, a historian and author of Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly has written a multi-segmented piece on abolitionism versus welfarism in his blog Eating Plants. Here are a few snippets and links to the entire series…

Part 1, A House Divided, explains the debate a bit. Here is a quote from that piece:

Anyone who follows animal welfare and rights issues will spot an all-too-familiar trend. Today we have “new welfarists,” advocates who generally work within the confines of current systems of animal production to improve the lives of farm animals. New welfarists will spend considerable resources working to force industrial farms to eliminate gestation crates, enlarge cage size, install cameras, or allow more free range time. The driving principle behind these efforts is largely utilitarian, and there’s no denying that, pragmatically speaking, these efforts have improved the lives of billions of farm animals.

Standing in stark opposition to the new welfarists are the abolitionists. Abolitionists, many of whom follow the ideas of the philosopher Gary Francione, advocate the immediate end to all animal exploitation. Their approach is a moral-rights based one, their arguments are remarkably persuasive, and they have no tolerance for the incremental, issue-based tactics practiced by the new welfarists. In fact, they see such tactics as counterproductive. Many animal advocates have gone vegan and built activists platforms on the basis of an abolitionist ideology.

In Part 2 he says explains how the two parts go together to create meaninful social change:

Principle is pure. It articulates an ideal (one that we’ll inevitably fail to fully achieve). As an abstract model, as an idea, principle shines. It’s an uncorrupted paragon. Process, by contrast, is messy. It stumbles on the obstacles of tradition, grates against the conventions of humanity, tangles and spars with the powers that be. Its flaws are conspicuous, marked by what critics often dismiss as moral compromise and capitulation.

Different as they are, principle and process are equally necessary in the quest to achieve meaningful change.

Part 3 is an example of part 2. Here McWilliams explores “The Slavery Analogy”:

It would be easy to look at the abolitionist movement alone—followed by the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, and Thirteenth Amendment—and portray the abolition of slavery as an example of principle trumping process, immediate change eschewing gradualism, and ideals triumphing over pragmatism.The truth is something more complex. And it has something to do with the fact that the dialect of change—a dynamic blend of principle and process—fueled a process that, after decades and decades of tolerating what many abhorred, eventually reached the purity of principle. Had the Garrisons of the world not had their Madisons, and vice-versa, both process and principle would have floundered, allowing slavery to spread into the American West .

Part 4 seems to wrap it up by saying:

with so many omnivores deeply skeptical about any sort of animal rights message–especially, in this country, when one leaves the coasts–the call for personal abolition of all animal exploitation is more vulnerable to the boos and hisses of public opinion than that of welfare reforms.

[...] the call for immediate abolition of animal exploitation heightens our vulnerability to being ridiculed in a public sphere that knows no nuance. A welfare improvement on a factory farm, by contrast, not only avoids bogus charges of hypocrisy, but it reminds omnivores what they too often forget–an animal suffers. Who’s to say the next step won’t be veganism?

And finally, a reflection:

“I see no reason why we cannot pursue abolition while, at the same time, helping the currently exploited animals who will in no way–at least in the here and now–benefit from an exclusive abolitionist approach.”

To read the entire series, follow these links:

For a roughly similar perspective that I wrote a while back, check out:

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Sections: Vegan Activism, Vegan Theory
Topics: abolitionism, activism, compromise, ethics, Francione, James McWilliams, links, philosophy, quotes, Theory, veg, Vegan, welfarism

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