Here are my thoughts on the “Factors Animal Rights activists should consider when choosing a path” section of the “Why Cultured Meat” article.

Their points are bulleted and italicized, mine are in bold:

The human species (as do other species) is inherently selfish and programmed for its own perpetuation.

Agreed, people are selfish. However, evidence suggests that altruistic behavior can be selfish. And selfishness ain’t all we got. Moreover, veganism is beneficial to humans, thus, selfish. Read more about selfishness and evolution from Seed Magazine >>

“Humans are much more social than rational creatures. In everyday life on average, people try to merge into society, behave correspondingly, and afterwards rationalize their behavior, i.e. find “rational” reasons why they act as they act.”
Most of them lack the intelligence required to understand the concept of Animal Rights.

That’s two points. I agree wholeheartedly on the first point: humans are more social than rational. And that’s why I think any successful animal rights organization MUST have a strong social component in order to be successful.

On the second point about human intelligence I strongly disagree. Animal rights are self-evident. Even very young children, who haven’t been abused or neglected, can understand the core concept of animal rights through a “Golden Rule” idea.

Most humans lack the emotional intelligence required to understand what farm animals go through in factory farms.

This may or may not be true. I’m not sure it matters a whole lot. They can be persuaded to change their eating habits through health or environmental reasons; they don’t need empathy. Once they’ve changed their habits, they become much more open to understanding and accepting veganism in nonfood areas of their lives.

Most humans don’t care about things which are not related directly to themselves or to the group to which they relate themselves (family, race, specie, etc.).

Agreed. This is why it’s important to stress similarities. Simply telling a child, “Pigs wag their tails just like dogs. Does your dog wag his tail?” can plant the vegan seed in a child’s head.

Humans in general have a strong need for social security, they want things to stay as they are.

Agreed. In general, people are afraid of change.

Religion: for billions of people around the world, the concept of Animal Rights (not necessarily veganism) is not even a consideration due to their religious beliefs.

This trend is changing as more and more religious people who care about animals stand up and speak up. I know more religious vegans than nonreligious vegans. Religion is not a true barrier to animal rights; it’s merely a common excuse.

The birth rate in the world is much higher than the death rate & rate of people turning vegan combined.

Yes, this is true. However, if every vegan convinced 5 others to go vegan, eventually we’d all be vegan.

Animal Rights is a philosophical idea; it cannot be proven as mathematical theorem can.

True.

More than half of the activists in the movement do not even make rights-based claims when facing rational non-vegans but concentrate on factory farms practices. Moreover, many of them do not believe in Moral absolutism, but rather in Moral relativism.

So what? Since when have all people agreed on anything? I aim to change habits, not minds. I don’t care why someone stops exploiting animals so long as they do. I’m pretty sure the animals don’t care either. And, as stated elsewhere, when people stop engaging in exploitation of animals they become much more receptive to animal rights philosophies.

I often use factory farming arguments because my experience has shown me they are more effective than rights-based arguments. That said, I personally tend more towards the practical side of things: I’d rather show people how to be vegan than to explain why they should be vegan.

More than half of the activists in the movement believe animal welfare is a positive step towards abolition/liberation and therefore cooperate with the exploiters.

Personally, I think too many people confuse incremental abolition with welfarism. There is a big difference and that difference is worth noting. A ban on few exploitative practices is NOT welfarism.

Moreover, there is potential to use welfarism to promote abolition. Welfarism can be analyzed as an education campaign to enlighten people to animal rights. Too often in AR discussions, welfarism is analyzed as though welfarist laws are the only goal or consequence of all related welfarist activism. That’s an extremely narrow viewpoint which excludes the reality that many welfarist campaigns produce vegans, plain and simple.

Many activists dedicate significant amount of their activism to issues like companion animals & fur, not to vegan education.

True. Though it’s possible to do both – at the same time. For example, when I attend single-issue protests, I wear a “vegan” button and keep vegan leaflets handy.

I attend these events more as an act of solidarity with fellow animal advocates than for the specific issue. I bet many other activists participate for much the same reason. Again, humans are social creatures.

The ramifications of vegan education are “theoretical.” Apart from ALF, animal rights activists rarely receive instant gratification for their hard work; they don’t get to see all the nonhumans they are saving.

This is absolutely true and it makes vegan education tiring, depressing, and frustrating. Many people who attempt vegan education give up very quickly when they realize how low the conversion rate is. (For every 100 people you reach, only a tiny few will even consider the vegan message seriously and even fewer will go vegan. The vegan population is around 1-2% right now.) I think the people who are most successful at vegan education are people who do not need instant gratification. They are motivated by something else: compulsion, entertainment, experience, reason, etc.

With regards to past struggles, the Animal Rights struggle is unique: the strugglers are not the ones who are being oppressed and exploited.

This is true only by ignoring animals’ cries and screams and struggles to escape. But yeah, in general, the ones fighting for animal rights who are heard by the exploiters are the human activists. We are allies to animals.

The struggle to end Slavery in the United States took hundreds of years and was finally won in a Civil War which broke out more as a result of political interests than as result of moral interests. All this, when there were much more activists, the movement had much more money, the strugglers were the ones who were being oppressed and the oppressed side was closer specie-wise to the oppressing side.

Let’s not get too pessimistic, OK? Times have changed and there is hope for a vegan world. I’m not going to argue that this vegan world will come about purely through vegan education, however, I do think vegan education is worthwhile. And I think far too many animal advocates discount it as a real tool for change.

Most people still can’t correctly identify what the word “vegan” means. We haven’t successfully educated the public about veganism. This form of activism hasn’t truly be tested. It deserves a chance. If an activist is inclined towards vegan education, they should pursue it.

The Western society is an achieving society. From childhood people are being brainwashed and taught that their worth is measured by their grades and that winning is everything. Losing and low grades are a negative. Most people are not willing to compromise or accept anything less than what they have right now. On the contrary, even the wealthiest of people try to raise their quality of life even higher.

This, of course, is rather irrational since studies show that happiness does not actually increase with increased wealth. Once someone’s basic needs are met, additional wealth doesn’t relate to “higher quality of life.” Regardless, people behave irrationally and they do continue to want more and more.

To become vegan, many must give up on what they consider to be one of the greatest pleasures in their lives.

Yes, sadly many people cherish their Big Macs. I see this more as a problem that there aren’t enough other competing pleasures in people’s lives than as a problem that many people believe animal flesh tastes good. That is, if people were enjoying their lives more fully, they wouldn’t view the absence of meat as a great loss. But since they are so stressed out, sad, and scared, they see their animal-based foods as the only true comfort in their lives. I think a practical solution is to promote nonharmful hedonism.

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Sections: Vegan Activism, Vegan Theory
Topics: activism, Theory, veg, Vegan