Less Quibbling, More Evidence
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In the comments to this long and well organized blog post (ironically called a digest by one commenter), someone by the nickname VeganB12 says:
“So much debate with so little evidence. The only ‘evidence’ offered on both sides is qualitative not quantitative.”
“there is an urgent need for a well thought out and constructed survey to made into why people went vegan, what or who influenced their decision etc.”
I couldn’t agree more!
Well… except that I think the evidence collected about how and why people go vegan should be compared and contrasted to how and why people make other significant life changes.
What do you think?
We already have solid evidence that welfarism doesn’t work. As Francione often points out, the welfarist movement has been around for hundreds of years, but we are now using more animals in more horrific ways than ever before. If welfarism worked, we would have seen a major decrease both in use and in the degree of torture.
Uh, no we don’t.
Gary Francione admits there is no empirical proof for his claim that “improving animal welfare makes people feel less uncomfortable about animal exploitation.” He asserts that his thesis is true because it’s “common sense and intuition.”
http://www.vegansoapbox.com/criticism-is-not-enough/
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. What sorts of metrics could we use to measure the effectiveness of what we are doing? Is it just media mentions? Or polls that show how many people are vegan or vegetarian? # of donors?
We are seeing average per person consumption of animals increase, but this could be a result of lowered meat prices combined with improved standard of living. We’re also seeing increased numbers of vegans and vegetarians as a percentage of population, as well as an increase in the number of people eating less meat and claiming to be “flexitarian”. Measuring the success of what we do based on such large statistics seems pretty hard.
What other metrics could we possibly use? How could we set up tests to determine what works and what doesn’t?
Uh, yes we do.
Welfarism has existed at least since the time of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), if not before. In his time, it was a radical idea. Nowadays, even carnivores claim to care about animal welfare. According to your logic, animals should be treated better now. They are not. They are treated much worse (we now have factory farms). Also according to your logic, animals should be used less, in terms of quantity. They are not. They are used exponentially more.
I don’t know how you can deny this. Should I draw a graph? As acceptance of welfarism has risen over the past two centuries, animal exploitation has worsened, both in quality and quantity. This is a historical fact. Sorry if you don’t like it.
Welfarism does lead to improvements. The worst forms of abuse against animals and the largest and most diverse consumption of animal products by the way is in countries that have little to no animal welfare laws. The US is a good example of it (still having cat and dog fur in stores legally? fur running wild?). What about China: live skinning of animals ring any bells?
Now, take europe…I have talked about this before on my blog (and mentioned Martin Balluch as one of many examples)… Via animal welfare reforms fur breeding has been banned, wild animals in circusses have been banned. And many people are now against it. The majority of the public in countries such as belgium (my country), Austria, England are against fur, just to give an example. In the US: only 40 % of the population is against fur (In Norway it is 50% who is against fur). In the US I have seen a clear tendency towards abolitionism, while we back here in europe work together with animal welfare and animal protection groups. We are creating a shift in public opinion, while in the US or Canada, the situation for the animals is pretty grave. Is the EU perfect?…NO! But we are getting ahead. We wouldn’t have had a seal products ban, if we just did nothing else but vegan outreach. Gary Francione’s tactics are a disaster as far as I am concerned.
A good animal rights group in Belgium (GAIA) has been able to do this:
http://empathyforanimals.blogspot.com/2009/05/euthanizing-animals-how-change-is.html
The group isn’t liked though by abolitionists. (And I’m not liked very much either by abolitionists :p)
Welfare has been around for some time, so you claim anyway. But it is nice to note, that abolitiongroups have existed for quite some time. A good example: anti-vivisection: has it been totally abolished? How many centuries have these people been trying? On the other hand: animal testing for cosmetics is now illegal in the EU (oh yes, the law still isn’t perfect, because of countries like the US or Japan, no welfare laws to speak of).
Oh and Nick: you made a big error: you say that welfarism is on the rise, and at the same time animal exploitation is on the rise. This doesn’t mean that there is a causal relationship. you haven’t proven this at all. To make my point clear: the number of internetconnections is on the rise, at the same time animals are being exploited more…so?
I can give you the counter argument that more and more practices have been banned because of animal welfare, animals that would still be suffering in cock fights, dog fights, fur farms and so on…are now spared such a fate!
~ Recent blog post: Katinka Simonse and my dearest cat Pinkeltje: Part 4 ~
Glenn,
As animal advocates, what we’re after is changing: minds, habits, laws, and customs. So, we need to look at what works to change those things in our own field as well as other fields. I think controlled sociology and psychology studies combined with historical narratives will be most useful.
One problem is we tend to think in generalities when in reality things are rarely so simple. For example, some welfare reforms are better than others. While some do help reduce suffering and the number of animals exploited (not to mention the number of people educated and hearts and minds changed), other welfare reforms may do more to hender abolitionist efforts. Pattrice Jones does a good job of discussing that problem here: http://pattricejones.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/perplexed.pdf
Another problem in the abolition vs welfare debate is that the so called abolitionists have unfairly coopted the terms abolitionism and animal rights. There are plenty of true and dedicated animal rights advocates who are honestly working toward abolitionists goals but who don’t by into Francionian abolitionist ideology.
I agree that there is too much quibbling. We who want to see an end to all forms of animal exploitation are all on the same side. Let’s start acting like it.
oneandonlyhypnos, you also made a big error. In the U.S. there is no “clear tendency towards abolitionism.” This is the birthplace of PETA, and when people in the U.S think of “animal rights” they immediately think of PETA and its welfarist tactics. Abolitionists are in the minority everywhere, not just in Europe, and the U.S. is a powerhouse for welfarism.
I didn’t made an error and you didn’t adress my points.
There are more abolitionists in the US (and several other countries) then anywhere else, and what was/is the result? Nothing…
Peta spends time on vegan outreach (meat your meat campaign and so on), but then again: no real changes were made for animals on the level of the entire society via this. The same can be said for COK and many other groups. And vegan outreach is ‘abolition on the personal level’ as you people so nicely put it.
It is not a powerhouse for animal welfare, there are no laws to speak of in the US. The UK could be considered a ‘powerhouse’ for animal welfare, and there vegetarianism and veganism are becoming more and more normal.
Everybody thinks about peta when you talk about animal rights, it doesn’t matter where you are. The reason why? they get media attention…
~ Recent blog post: Katinka Simonse and my dearest cat Pinkeltje: Part 4 ~
oneandonlyhypnos, I get the feeling Nick doesn’t actually do anything productive at all. He’s always got some excuse for not getting active for animals. Just ignore him.
I think the fact that animal law is virtually non-existent in America speaks more to the political power of agribusinesses than it does to ineffective tactics. Unfortunately, many of my fellow Americans have an “us against them” mentality, meaning that some of PETA’s tactics only further polarize meat eaters. I think it’s deeply embedded in the culture that meat provides essential nutrients like protein (contrary to virtually all scientific evidence) because of the meat industry’s propaganda bullsh-t, and it’s only through a combination of animal welfarism and animal rights activism that animal liberation can be achieved.
I am currently constructing a survey to answer this very question. Trying to understand the psychological impact of eating meat/being vegan/vegetarian. Most research is extremely confounded by poor classification of vegetarianism (one article said eating chicken was vegetarian). I have a Master’s Degree in psychology with a passion for methodology & statistics.
If you would like to contribute your thoughts, comments, experience, or anything you may feel is of help please contact me.
~ Recent blog post: Non-state of the Twittersphere ~
Sounds interesting, Andrew.