In Our Heads: Abolitionist Manifesto Part I
James Crump and Karin Hilpisch wrote the “Abolitionist Manifesto” at the Abolitionist Animal Rights blog. Over a month ago I promised to examine each part and add my thoughts. Well, I’m finally getting around to it now. Eh, better late than never!
Part one discusses the origins of our movement.
“I. Animal liberation begins in our heads. Animals will never be free unless or until we cease viewing them in instrumental terms. This means that animal liberation hasn’t even begun in the heads of the new welfarists, who endorse measures (e.g. welfare reform and “humane” animal products) that reflect an instrumental view of nonhumans and as such show that they do not — at bottom — reject the property paradigm. An indispensably necessary precondition of animal liberation is thus that we view animals in noninstrumental terms — as inherently valuable bearers of moral rights — and treat them — without exception (including in campaigns) — pursuant to that view. As Gandhi said, we must be the change we wish to see.”
While I agree that animal liberation requires that human animals perceive non-human animals as beings with their own rights and that we must stop viewing them as our instruments, I don’t agree that animal rights begins in our heads. I think experience and habit are just as effective beginnings, if not more so, than deep, critical thought. In fact, if the welfarists had to experience their versions of “humane meat” and so on, they might be more easily reformed than these intellectual debates.
For example, children convert to vegetarianism and veganism fairly easily. They are often horrified when they learn where meat comes from and they want to reject meat. So our meat-eating society trains them to ignore their conscience and to accept the cruelties that come with some forms of human pleasure. They are taught that humans require meat to survive (a lie) or that animals are raised humanely (a lie) or that animals don’t understand or feel pain the way we do (a lie). But ultimately, if presented with a baby chick and an orange, most children will choose to eat the orange and play with the chick, not the other way around.
The habit of eating meat is just that, a habit. It’s just like any other habit and it can be broken in any variety of ways. But once it is broken, the new habits form new pathways in the brain and new thoughts as well. The thought that animals are not for human consumption - of any kind - enters. And sometimes that new thought takes over.
I believe experience is essential.
I’ve known many vegans, myself included, who knew consciously that animals deserve rights. They were meat-eaters or lacto-ovo vegetarians and they knew intellectually that veganism was a moral imperative. But they found excuses not to go vegan. They said it was too difficult (not true) or too expensive (not true) or unhealthy (not true). So they postponed changing their lives. They forbade their bodies the knowledge that their mind had. They didn’t live the life they felt they needed to live. Until…
Usually a key experience flipped the switch for them. Often a trip to the Farm Sanctuary or a vegan meal with friends pushed them over the edge. The experience was necessary. The thought alone wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Like Crump and Hilpisch quoted Ghandi, “we must be the change we wish to see” the fundamental element is the way we are, not the way we think. We can wish, think, philosophize all we want, but until we act, we’ll get nowhere.
They wrote, “An indispensably necessary precondition of animal liberation is …that we view animals in noninstrumental terms…and treat them…pursuant to that view.” But we can treat animals pursuant to the view that they have rights without understanding the view. Children can learn that murder and kidnapping is wrong before they understand the concept of rights. They don’t need to comprehend a complex idea before acting in accordance with it. And adults are the same way. No one needs to understand animal rights in order to be vegan. They can be vegan just as easily as a hardcore activist. And in fact, acting in accordance with certain views can help foster a belief in those views.
Welfarists should be treated just as all others should be treated: as people capable of helping certain animal rights causes, but capable of hindering others. They are people who may some day convert to a more full fledged and consistent perspective or they may forever remain obstacles to our goals. But it’s their actions more than their specific views that are most destructive to the animal liberation cause. And therefor, we should focus on their actions. (”Actions” here are all physical acts, including the act of writing. So, debate is action. But thought alone, without expression, is almost worthless.)
Some theorists spend too much time worrying about welfarists and distinguishing abolition from welfare. It’s an important distinction, but ultimately it comes down to what we do differently more than how we think. Welfarists (in general) eat meat or encourage meat-eating and abolitionists don’t. That’s the biggest, yet also the simplest distinction. There are others: welfarists own animals as pets while abolitionists don’t have pets or they are guardians for needy animals, not pet-owners.
It’s the actions that are the most meaningful. These habits, these experiences that can foster change.
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