Speciesism and Veganism: Transcending Politics and Religion

I wrote this article with Angel Flinn, who is Director of Outreach for Gentle World — a vegan intentional community and non-profit organization whose core purpose is to help build a more peaceful society, by educating the public about the reasons for being vegan, the benefits of vegan living, and how to go about making such a transition.

This article was originally published November 10, 2011 on Care2.

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Although this may come as a surprise to some, there are ethical vegans across the political spectrum and in every major religion. Veganism transcends politics and religion because it is based on the simple matter of rejecting a particular form of prejudice: speciesism.

Speciesism, racism, sexism, and other prejudices rely on a morally irrelevant criterion (in this case, species) as the basis on which to deny the interests of an individual belonging to a different ‘group’, even if those interests are more significant than one’s own. As such, speciesism is simply a different form of the same underlying wrong at the foundation of all prejudices. It really doesn’t matter which morally irrelevant criteria we base our prejudice on – sex, race, skin color, age, sexual orientation, species – it is ethically wrong to use such arbitrary criteria to deny the rights of others.

Despite the cultural evolution that has brought humanity a long way from the ‘kill or be killed’ mentality of prehistoric times, the world today remains profoundly speciesist. The extreme prejudice of our cultural speciesism reaches far beyond disregarding an individual’s right to avoid persecution. It extends as far as absolute indifference to the right to be free from unjust imprisonment, mental and emotional torment, extreme physical violence in the form of mutilations and the infliction of injury and death. Owned as chattel property, with no laws to protect their most fundamental rights, those who are not human are condemned to a life with no protection against the brutal and unremitting oppression from those who control their world: Us.

Animal exploitation is perfectly legal and socially acceptable everywhere in the world, despite the emergence of satisfactory alternatives to virtually all uses (not to mention those yet to be developed, once our society rejects our current speciesist practices). Although there is a growing movement drawing attention to the many brutal rights violations routinely carried out against nonhumans being used for human gain, we continue to confine, injure and kill animals of all kinds, maintaining unnecessary, antiquated exploitative practices for food production, research, fashion, and even entertainment.

The ubiquitous nature of this extreme cultural prejudice explains why speciesism (and the proper moral response to it: veganism) is unrelated to political leaning. Although social justice movements generally arise from the left, there are some political conservatives who are principled vegans, while some on the political left, sadly, continue to scoff at issues of animal rights. In fact, it is remarkable that the vast majority of those on the political left choose to remain uninformed and to deliberately ignore these glaring justice issues, including their own participation in practices that would be rightly abhorred by anyone in touch with their conscience.

As it is with politics, so it is with religion. Christians were strongly divided over human chattel slavery in antebellum America, with slavery proponents using Bible quotes to defend their “God given” right to own slaves. Opponents of slavery used different Bible quotes to point out that slavery was condemned by God. And so it is with regard to animal rights today. Those on both sides of the issue use quotes from religious texts either to justify unnecessary killing, or to validate the vegan ethic of nonviolence.

Eastern religions are no exception. Many of today’s Buddhists attempt to justify animal use, unnecessary killing, and speciesism by pointing to loopholes in the various contradictory writings about the Buddha’s teaching of universal compassion for all sentient beings. Other Buddhists choose instead to practice and promote veganism as the rational response to the essential Buddhist teaching of nonviolence. Presumably, having been liberated from their own speciesism, vegan Buddhists are able to see through such prejudiced rationalizations, and recognize the higher authority in the truth the Buddha was apparently trying to impart to his students.

(In other words, if the Buddha wasn’t a vegan, as some people claim, then he wasn’t living up to his own teachings, which state very clearly that reverence for sentient life is a fundamental principle of a spiritual existence.)

In any case, it is clear that politics and religion are irrelevant to rejecting our common prejudice against fellow sentient beings. Regardless of whether we are conservative, liberal, leftist, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, atheist, or fall under any other category, we have the choice to acknowledge and reject the underlying cultural speciesism that we have all been conditioned to accept.

In fact, one might say that a deep-seated awareness of the essential rights and needs held by all sentient beings is the common ground that we every one of us shares. Despite our many differences and divergences, underneath religion, politics, worldviews, interests, personalities, shape, size, sex, color, and even species, underneath it all, every single one of us is made from flesh and blood. Or, as the Buddha himself is said to have taught:

“All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?”

The Importance of Being Vegan

I wrote this article with Angel Flinn, who is Director of Outreach for Gentle World – a non-profit educational organization whose core purpose is to help build a more peaceful society, by educating the public about the reasons for being vegan, the benefits of vegan living, and how to go about making the transition.  

This article was originally published July 8, 2011 on Care2.

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“If a man earnestly seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food.”

- Leo Tolstoy

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Intellectually, most of us agree that inflicting unnecessary harm is unjustified – whether the victims are human or not. Yet somehow, most of the same people who subscribe to this belief are willing to turn a blind eye to such harm when they themselves receive some kind of advantage from it – whether the benefits are in the form of food, possessions, vanity, or amusement.

Sadly, because widespread violence against animals in the form of ‘agriculture’, ‘research’ and even ‘entertainment’, is sanctioned by mainstream society and its legal systems, the majority of people tend to be unwilling to see this brutality for what it is, and to step outside of the pervasive conditioning that makes such atrocities possible.

It’s true that more and more people are beginning to speak out about the many abhorrent abuses that occur within the animal industry, and the movement to ‘improve conditions’ for these animals continues to gain popularity. And yet, each one of the awful practices that animal advocates protest passionately against – intensive confinement, enforced insemination, separation of mother and child, castration, de-horning, tail docking, de-beaking, mulesing, de-toeing, live scalding, force molting – all of these horrific procedures, and many more, exist because an ever-growing number of human consumers continue to create demand for animal products. To an industry that views sentient beings as economic units – money-making machines – it is unavoidable that such violence will be viewed as an acceptable means to the end of delivering products that turn a profit.

In any case, even if every one of the aforementioned practices were abolished, it would still be immoral and inexcusable to use other sentient beings as resources. In today’s world, vegan alternatives are available for every single significant purpose for which we currently use animals*. Increasing numbers of people are embracing veganism as the solution to the problems we experience as individuals and as a society – from our many health crises, to our environmental emergency, to the issue of escalating violence – all of which have us living in some degree of fear for the future.


*NB: Although animal products are used in certain items for which there currently are no consumer alternatives – such as computers and car tires – there are alternatives that could easily be used in their manufacturing.

As this movement for animal emancipation grows in size and strength, a powerful example is being set by the individuals who refuse to take any part in the brutal oppression of innocents that we call ‘the animal industry’. Men and women all over the globe –simply by living as vegans – are demonstrating that there is no moral justification for the harm we inflict on animals.

Some people might attempt to justify consumption of animal products for reasons of health. And yet, an increasing number of medical professionals are beginning to realize that not only are plant-based diets nutritionally complete, but they are actually more nourishing and far less toxic than their animal-based counterparts. In addition, the public is beginning to realize that many of the major dangers associated with diet – heart disease, cancer, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and many, many more – are exacerbated by the consumption of animal products, and can actually be avoided by adopting a vegan diet.

According to the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, the American Dietetic Association (“the ADA”):

“…Appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases… Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”

In other words, the official position of the – very mainstream – ADA is that including animal products in one’s diet is not only unnecessary, but can actually be harmful to our health.

What about our other uses of animals? Leather, wool, silk, down, fur, toiletries, cosmetics, entertainment, sport, the vast majority of our experimentation – all of these are also clearly unnecessary under any coherent concept of the word “necessary”, as there are vegan alternatives available for them all.

Veganism is not a fringe philosophy – it is a moral baseline that is consistent with beliefs that most of us already hold. Veganism is a simple matter of refraining from participating in unnecessary and harmful use of sentient beings. As most people are naturally opposed to unnecessary violence, becoming and staying vegan is not a matter of changing any of our basic moral beliefs. It simply requires us to be willing to change the habits we have developed that prevent us from living according to our principles.

Every one of us has been conditioned by the propaganda of a highly speciesist society – a worldwide culture that is extremely prejudiced against the interests of those animals who did not have the good fortune to be born onto this planet in human form. And yet, every one of us has the power to break free from this indoctrination. Becoming vegan is simply recognizing and admitting who we really are – it is the opportunity to become who we would be if no one had ever taught us that it’s okay to turn our backs on the needs and rights of our fellow animals, that it’s okay to ignore their pain if it leads to our pleasure.

Is veganism a sacrifice? Not at all. On the contrary, it is every non-vegan choice that sacrifices our own inherent goodness. Once you make the decision to live consistently with your values, the rewards – in the form of a healthier body, clearer mind, and more peaceful conscience – will be both profoundly apparent and a source of continuing joy.

But even if veganism does require us to give up some of our favorite foods, beloved items of clothing, and cherished habits, does that question really matter? The institution of slavery and the treatment of sentient beings as ‘things’ – whether human or nonhuman – are inherently and gravely unjust.  The changes that veganism requires of us, and the rewards that veganism brings, are irrelevant to the true moral question:

Is the taste of a particular food, or the way you feel in your favorite pair of shoes or your winter coat, more important than the life and freedom of another living, feeling being?

Killing by the Numbers

The intentional, unnecessary deaths we inflict on sentient individuals of other species worldwide -- mainly for food choices, and excluding animals from the water -- is greater in five days than the deaths we’ve inflicted on humans in all wars and all genocides in recorded human history. Even if every non-vegan cut their current animal product consumption by 90%, it would take us only about 41 days to kill as many sentient nonhumans as we’ve killed humans in recorded history. [1]

Our treatment of individual sentient nonhumans as renewable resources -- as property, things, commodities -- is a moral blind spot. The reason for this moral blind spot -- the reason we contribute, individually and collectively, to this extreme and senseless violence -- is that we have been heavily indoctrinated into speciesism throughout our lives. Additionally, by nature, we often “rationalize” this indoctrination and ignore unpleasant facts for various reasons set forth in this essay. I hope that the magnitude and severity of the atrocity of institutional animal exploitation will encourage readers who are not already ethical vegans to open their minds and hearts to learn about what speciesism is; the extreme and unnecessary violence speciesism causes in society; and to go as far as reasonably possible to avoid speciesist attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. The two links above are a good start. There are many other links on the side bar, including information about vegan food and nutrition. Keep learning; keep growing more just, more empathetic, and more courageous.

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[1] We intentionally breed, raise, and murder approximately 56 billion innocent land animals annually, worldwide. That’s about 1.07 billion weekly, or about 153 million daily. The total of the highest estimates, with some double counting, of all humans killed in all wars, all genocides, and all other human-caused atrocities in recorded human history is about 619 million. That means we kill as many innocent, sentient nonhumans in less than five days days (for food choices alone, excluding animals who live in water) than we have killed humans in recorded history.

If we cut animal product consumption by 90% worldwide, we would murder about 15.3 million daily, and within 41 days, we would murder about 627.3 million (compare to the 619 million human mass-murder total in all recorded history).

I intentionally used the highest estimates and allowed double-counting of human deaths to avoid doubts about possible inaccuracies in the source. The highest estimates did appear too high in several cases, based on other sources I’ve read of those wars or genocides. If there is anything inaccurate about the above facts, it is that we kill as many sentient nonhumans in less than three or four days (for food choices alone) than we have killed humans in recorded history.

On the Environmental Benefits of Being Vegan

While the environmental benefits of being vegan are tremendous, and probably the single best thing one can do for the environment, the environmental benefits do not compare in importance to the moral reasons for going vegan.

Sentient nonhuman beings are just like us in all of the morally relevant ways. They value their lives. They strive as hard as they can to live. They feel pain intensely. It is wrong to breed, exploit, torture, and kill them for food or any other preferences.

Focusing on the environmental benefits of being vegan is therefore much like focusing on the environmental benefits of avoiding an unjust war. True, war and animal agriculture are both “tough on the environment” (to say the least), but to oppose an unjust war and the killing of innocent civilians, or animal agriculture, by appealing to environmental protection ironically misses the point in the same way.

We need not be silent about the environmental benefits of veganism, but when we do address such benefits, we should imply or point out that, while great, they are very much incidental to the grave moral wrong of exploiting and unnecessarily breeding and killing the innocent.

On Ex-Vegans

On Variety in Meaning

As the word “vegan” has fully entered mainstream media during the past five years, it has come to have many different meanings for many different people. For some of us, “vegan” means a strong, lifelong, and morally internalized commitment to avoiding the use of animals and animal products as much as is reasonably possible in an extremely speciesist society that uses animal products ubiquitously. For others, “vegan” might mean avoiding animal products only in one’s diet for some period of time ranging from hours (“vegan before 6pm”) to days (“a vegan cleanse”) to a few months or a few years (a vegan fad diet). So, when someone says “I am vegan”, the statement by itself means virtually nothing without adequate definition provided explicitly or in context.

Likewise, the standalone term “animal rights” has become virtually meaningless, unless specifically defined or used in a well-defined context. To get an idea of just how meaningless the term “animal rights” has become, consider a quote in the recent book authored by Professors Gary L. Francione and Robert Garner entitled The Animal Rights Debate. On page 2 of the book, Professor Francione quotes Randy Strauss, President and CEO of Strauss Veal and Lamb International, Inc. a large American meat processor saying, in an effort to increase veal and lamb consumption, “Animal rights are important.” Animal rights has come to meaning everything from the right not to be tortured over and above the routine processing torture endured in a slaughterhouse (traditionally known as “animal welfare”) to the right not to be the property of another. Like the word “vegan”, when such a term has come to mean virtually everything, it has also come to mean virtually nothing, unless adequately defined explicitly or in context.

The point of addressing the variety in meaning of the terms “animal rights” and “vegan” is that when people claim they are no longer vegan or animal rights vegan, it has very little meaning outside of the context in which those terms are used. There may be a lot of “ex-vegans”, but when they were “vegans”, what did that mean? Did they go without animal products for several hours daily (“vegan before 6pm”)? Did they go on a “vegan health diet” for a few weeks, months, or years only as a fad diet right after their Atkins diet? If they were vegan for “animal rights” reasons, what did they mean by that? Are they referring to a concern about animal welfare?

We should be careful about the claims of people who currently call themselves “vegan” and those who call themselves “ex-vegans”.

On Variety in Character

Just as there is extensive variety in the interpretations of the terms “animal rights” and “vegan”, so is there at least as broad a variety in the character and type of people who identify themselves as “animal rights advocates”, “vegans”, and “animal rights vegans”. Indeed, they are likely as varied in character as the public-at-large: from moral exemplars and unsung heroes; to hard workers and good Samaritans; to moral cowards and liars; to attention-seekers and megalomaniacs; to criminals and con artists; and everywhere in between.

So although we might expect to find the majority of people we meet who self-identify as “animal rights vegans” to be good, honest, conscientious people – solid, reliable, and stable people – we should also expect to find a minority who self-identify as such to be flaky, unreliable, dishonest (intellectually or otherwise), and self-absorbed. And so it should not surprise us that some people go “vegan”, but eventually succumb to weak character traits and become “ex-vegans”.

The point here is that ex-vegans are at least partly a reflection of their own character traits at this point in their lives (character can be built and improved upon or diminish throughout life), not a reflection of veganism.

On Variety in Reasons

Although we might expect to find the majority of self-identified “animal rights vegans” to be vegans for good reasons, we should also expect to find a minority who go “vegan” for poor reasons or who lack a sufficient understanding of good reasons to be vegan (and perhaps never were vegans), and then become “ex-vegans”.

The point here is that vegans often become ex-vegans at least partly due to the poverty of their reasons for previously being vegan, which is no reflection of veganism or the many excellent reasons for being vegan.

On Variety in Egos

Regardless of whether the fall from veganism was a matter of poor reasons, a character flaw, or both, if ex-vegans liked a lot of attention when they were “vegan” (whatever that might have meant), chances are great that they’ll like a lot of attention when they go “ex-vegan”, so we shouldn’t be surprised when such people publicly showcase – often quite dramatically – their “justifications” for consuming animal products, often including “confessions” about how awful and intolerable it was to be vegan, how “self-righteous” they were as vegans, and how “relieved” they are to “come back home” to where they belong. As drama queens and kings are common in life generally, so are they common among self-identified “animal rights vegans” and “ex-vegans”.

Again, the negative grandstanding is a reflection of the ex-vegan’s ego and character at this time in life, not a reflection of veganism.

Combining Varieties

When we combine the above varieties in meaning, character, reasons, and egos, as well as the individual anecdotes and tales of drama, we see that the stories of ex-vegans can tell us nothing of significance or of any reliability about veganism, what vegans are like, what being vegan is like, or what good reasons there are for going vegan. For that kind of information, we should consult longtime vegans, unbiased dietetic professionals and vegan nutritional books and materials, abolitionist animal rights books and education materials, and most importantly, commit to veganism and vegan education ourselves.

“Failure to Thrive”

Since animal product consumption and use is virtually always unnecessary for humans and harmful to nonhuman animals, and unnecessary harm is wrong, it’s impossible to justify or even excuse animal product consumption outside of genuine need, such as survival. Because of this, one of the most common excuses for not being vegan or becoming an ex-vegan is that the individual needs animal products either to thrive or for a minimum standard of health.

This excuse plays on the problem of induction in science where we cannot “prove” that X is the case for 100% of a large population, even though all scientific reasoning and evidence to date on less than the entire population has show that X is extraordinarily likely the case for the entire population. Combine such doubt-from-inductive-reasoning with pseudo-science, false or mistaken inferences, anecdotal claims and exaggerations, drama and ego, and you have a recipe for the chaos of anything-goes regarding personal health claims. A recent rebuttal written by a registered dietitian of ex-vegans’ common claim that “vegan diets are not for everyone” displays the typical unscientific nonsense that is put forth as “evidence” by ex-vegans and non-vegans to “support” their claim. It is also worth noting here that the mainstream American Dietetic Association’s position paper on vegan diets concludes that well-planned vegan diets are appropriate for people of all ages and all stages of life.

Bad health is unfortunate, but what is much more unfortunate is blaming the bad health on the wrong cause, which is almost certainly the case when people blame it on being vegan rather than looking for the real reason (perhaps unrelated to diet) or the specific nutrients they’re lacking and can obtain from non-animal sources, if only they would conduct proper investigation and research into their particular case.

Failure to Justify

As a way to activate the smoke alarm on the “failure to thrive” health nonsense, ask ex-vegans and non-vegans if they are still vegan except for the particular animal product(s) in the particular quantity that they cannot thrive without. I have asked this question to many who plea “failure to thrive”, and while I have received many different responses (usually some version of avoidance or silence), I have not yet received the response “Yes, I’m vegan except for that.”

If such ex-vegans are serious and genuine about a “failure to thrive”, we should expect them to continue veganism in every other way they are reasonably able, and to continue to fully support the ethical reasons and environmental benefits they previously did. If they do, and they are genuine and sincere about their health issues, and consume limited, prescribed quantities of animal products with the strong reservation that a person who was prescribed a highly undesirable medicine took the medicine, I see no reason why they should announce that they are no longer vegan. Inherent in the concept of veganism – the way genuine abolitionist vegans define it – is reasonableness: Vegans avoid using or consuming animal products to the greatest extent reasonably possible.

While I’m almost certain that, based on significant reading of materials written by experts in nutrition science, absolutely no animal products are necessary for any human to thrive, I could believe in the sincerity of someone who embraces veganism in their lives as much as they believe they possibly can, even if they consume some “limited, prescriptive amount of certain animal products” with the regret and reservation of someone who undergoes a painful treatment to maintain their health. Sadly, I have yet to see one case among ex-vegans that would even remotely fit this description. What we have is not a failure to thrive, but a failure to justify.

Go vegan; learn what you need to learn about nutrition from reliable dietetic professionals; learn the best reasons for being vegan as a minimum standard of ethical behavior (i.e. reasons set forth in the abolitionist approach to animal rights); and stay vegan for life.

On Indoctrination and Education (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 of this essay defined indoctrination, contrasted it with education, and briefly described the indoctrination process from early childhood through our teenaged years. Part 2 continues with the on-going indoctrination we receive as adults and concludes with vegan education as the antidote to indoctrination at any age.

Indoctrination as Adults

As we enter our adult years, the indoctrination and pressure to conform continues relentlessly throughout our lives. From working and business relationships to friendships to family and romantic relationships, most of us have far more contact with people who have never questioned the speciesist indoctrination of animals-as-things than people who have rejected speciesism in favor of animals-as-persons [1] to be respected. Not only have most people not questioned it, but the indoctrination is so entrenched that they are likely to find our rejection of speciesism odd and even personally threatening. As such, depending on the relationship, we will usually find reactions to our sane, nonviolent views ranging from evasive to defensive to passive-aggressive to hostile.

Indoctrination also continues heavily in entertainment, news media, and advertising. Virtually everywhere we look in our commercial society, we are constantly bombarded with the speciesist assumption that animals are things with only instrumental value, and no more intrinsic value than dirt.

Indoctrination is even strong in religious and other groups known for promoting nonviolence, justice, and compassion “for all sentient beings”, such as Buddhists. Animal exploitation, animal product consumption and the adamant “defense” of them are almost as common within such groups as in the general public.

Can we look to large animal “protection” groups, such as PETA and HSUS, to challenge our indoctrination in any meaningful way? No. Instead, they send us a mixed message: “animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use or entertainment” mixed with “animals are ours to eat, wear, experiment on, and use for entertainment, if we win this welfare campaign or single issue campaign. So send us your donation today, and then it’ll be okay.”

The speciesist indoctrination is a self-perpetuating vicious circle, similar to when child abuse continues to occur across generations, in which formerly abused parents become child abusers themselves, perpetuating the cycle indefinitely until some strong, educating agent breaks one or two generations free of it.

As individuals, can we overcome such indoctrination? Many of us who have overcome speciesist indoctrination provide conclusive evidence that it is possible through vegan education.

Vegan Education

Vegan education seeks to inform people about why and how to avoid animal products and use as far as is reasonably possible, and does so without the use of undue influence, power, coercion, or appeals to authority or tradition. It is generally one-sided because the opposing side is already overwhelmingly present in speciesist indoctrination. It is also “one-sided” in the same way that racial tolerance education is one-sided: racial tolerance education does not promote racism or unjustified and unnecessary harm and killing of people of other races or it would not be racial tolerance education.

The reasons to avoid animal products and use include the fact that more than 99.999% of nonhuman animals we exploit have the same morally relevant characteristic (sentience) as we do when it comes to a fair assessment of inherent value, as opposed to instrumental value. Just like certain abilities – such as abstract reasoning – do not count when it comes to assessing the inherent value of a human being, such abilities do not count when assessing the inherent value of a sentient nonhuman being. Another way of saying it is that if sentient nonhumans do not have inherent value, then neither do any humans have inherent value. To think any other way is pure prejudice: it is no different from denying a sufficiently-abled human a university education or vote based on her sex or race. Speciesism is the same underlying wrong of favoring morally irrelevant characteristics over morally relevant characteristics that is found in sexism, racism, and heterosexism.

The way to avoid animal products and uses is to learn all you can about animal ingredients and vegan alternatives to your food, drink, clothing, personal care products, and entertainment choices, and act accordingly.

A well-planned diet free of animal products is very healthy. Also, like any other kind of diet, planning should include both the nutritional profile of various foods and an individual’s particular needs. Fortunately, there are plenty of vegan cooking, baking, and nutritional resources available in books and on the Internet (see the side bar of this blog for links). Also, consider seeking out other vegans, either on the Internet (forums and social networking sites), and/or, if you live in an urban area, vegan social groups. It is much easier, especially as a new vegan, to socially identify with others who have rejected the violence and injustice of speciesism.

Finally, as a new vegan, constantly remind yourself why you are vegan to offset the incessant speciesism that you will encounter in your everyday life. Remind yourself that, as a vegan, you are one of the strong, independently-minded people who has made their own choice -- despite being heavily indoctrinated otherwise for years or decades -- to reject the blatant injustice and unnecessary violence of speciesism and animal exploitation, and embrace veganism as a minimum standard of decency.

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Note:

[1] Many people get confused when they hear or read animals referred to as “persons”. This confusion stems from two misunderstandings. First, in a speciesist society, animals are defined, referred to, and thought of, literally as things, both legally and in common language use. Second, people get confused between the words “people” and “persons”, which have very different meanings. “People” is a synonym for “humans”, plain and simple. Animals are not people. “Person” has a much broader meaning, both legally and in common language use, but especially in law. A person is an entity due moral or legal consideration, and can be a human; a legal entity, such as a corporation, foundation, or trust; or a nonhuman animal. Animals are persons.

On Indoctrination and Education (Part 1 of 2)

Introduction

Indoctrination and education are similar processes except for two differences: one conditional difference, and one crucial difference. The conditional difference is that indoctrination is one-sided and uncritical, while education is multifaceted, allowing for free and critical evaluation of at least two perspectives, either intentionally or by default. This difference is “conditional” (a difference depending on circumstances) because education can be entirely one-sided in an environment of indoctrination and still be education, since the existing indoctrination serves as the strong presentation of the other side of the issue.

The crucial difference is that indoctrination necessarily involves some sort of influence, power, coercion, or appeals to authority or tradition to maintain a monopoly or similar control over information, and thereby control agreement or consensus; while education shuns influence, power, coercion, and appeals to authority or tradition of any kind as a method of controlling agreement or consensus. It is this difference that essentially distinguishes indoctrination from education.

The influence, power, coercion, or appeals to authority or tradition that defines indoctrination can come in many forms, and does not necessarily use any kind of violence or threats to maintain agreement and consensus. For example, the power inherent in financial or economic control over mass media and what information mass media presents is the kind of power that does not involve any violence or threats whatsoever against the public, but it is extremely effective in maintaining control over public opinion. Similarly, parents’ sheltering of their child from information and reasoning that encourages the nonviolence of veganism can be entirely free of any violence or threats of violence. Even the momentum of mass market economics and widespread cultural prejudice itself is a form of domination, undue influence, and power over belief that qualifies it as a strong – and perhaps the strongest – mechanism of indoctrination.

Our Speciesist Indoctrination

We live in a society that heavily indoctrinates us, throughout our entire lives, to accept the widely shared dogma that animals are things, property, and commodities here for us to use, consume, and exploit in virtually any way we desire, as long as we do it “humanely”. (“Humanely”, as used in this context, is so inaccurate and misleading from a practical point of view as to be close in meaning to its antonym. See Note [1] at the end of the essay for an important elaboration on this point.)

The remainder of this two-part essay will focus on how, and how much, we are indoctrinated, in the hope that seeing the power-based, one-sided, and uncritical nature of such indoctrination, along with vegan education as an antidote to indoctrination, will help in overcoming it.

Indoctrination in Early Childhood

Our indoctrination begins when we are, as infants, fed certain foods before we have any idea what (or whom) we are eating. When we find out as children that we are eating the bodies of dead animals, many of us are uneasy about our new-found knowledge. Our parents or guardians, heavily indoctrinated for decades themselves, try to assure us that some animals are “meant” for us to eat, and that we “need” to eat animals to be healthy. Many of us continue to question such assurances, but even the most precocious of us will generally get no more of a “reason” from the adults in our lives than some form of “that’s just the way it is” (e.g. the Bible says so; God put them here for us; they had bad karma in previous lives; they’re not rational like us) or false statements to ease our consciences (e.g. they don’t mind being our food; they couldn’t live comfortable lives if we didn’t eat them, and so on). Either way, the vast majority of us are forced – whether by threats of punishment for not eating our meat, or by duress in wanting to please our parents and siblings – to accept that animal products will be what we eat, whether we like it or not. Note the influence and power differential involved in, and uncritical nature of, our “learning” about animals-as-food, and how our concerns are almost always dismissed out of hand by the vast majority of non-vegan parents.

Indoctrination in Youth and at School

From pre-school to high school, the indoctrinated beliefs formed in our early childhood are further reinforced by teachers, other students, the school lunch menu, the “food pyramid” and nutritional “education” (formed by a political process heavily involving animal agribusiness interests), and a constant bombardment of advertising by industry on television, radio, billboards, and in newspapers. For the vast majority of us, there are no alternative perspectives. Our society and the institutions of which it consists have an extremely powerful monopoly on the information and perspectives we receive. Not only that, but almost without exception, the influential people in those institutions have been heavily indoctrinated themselves, whether or not they are aware of it.

We are to uncritically accept the claim that dairy, eggs, and meat are “necessary” for our health. We are to uncritically accept that there are no satisfactory alternatives to animal products. We are to uncritically accept that killing, enslavement, and exploitation is “humane”, necessary, and morally acceptable.

Most of us, if we critically challenge or reject animal products in our diet and life as school-aged youth, are swimming upstream against an overwhelming current of parents, teachers, other students, the school lunch menu, and relentless advertising. Critical challenges of society’s dogma regarding animal product consumption and animal use are often met with hostility and even ridicule. The exception is when we have parents who either are vegan or strongly support our decision to be vegan. Even then, however, indoctrination and hostility from non-parental sources is strong, and our sense of independence must be equal to the task. Again, the power differential is strong, and the nature of the reinforcement of the paradigm of animals-as-things is almost always blind and uncritical.

Indoctrination as Teenagers

As we enter our teens, the same indoctrination continues from the same sources as when we were younger, but there is perhaps a shift from parents and teachers to advertisers and our peers being the most influential on us. Most of us start attempting to create an identity for ourselves, and often choose role models to assist in this process. Our peers and potential role models will rarely, if ever, be vegans who have rejected the cultural prejudice of speciesism. In fact, as victims of powerful and heavy indoctrination themselves, they are just as likely to be as deeply prejudiced regarding species membership as anyone else.

Even if we are exposed to a positive vegan role model as a teenager, indoctrination from other sources continues, powerful and uncritical, and again, our sense of personal independence from those speciesist sources must be equally strong.

This concludes Part 1 of this two-part essay. Part 2 will continue with the on-going indoctrination we receive as adults and will conclude with vegan education as the antidote to indoctrination at any age.

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Note:

[1] “Humane”, under the law, means no more pain, suffering, and torture than is approximately deemed “necessary” by the owner of property to achieve the instrumental goal in question; therefore, enslavement, solitary confinement, burning, torturing, beating, rape, stabbing, shooting, bone-breaking, electrocuting, inducing psychosis, inducing drug addiction, inducing severe mental illness, severe psychological torment, electrical shocking, and just about any other form of torture you can think of is perfectly legal, as long as it achieves legally established industry-specified or owner-specified instrumental goals set by animal experimenters, hunters, trappers, family farmers, dog owners, or any other industry or adult human. Even when the torture can be shown to be “gratuitous” or “unnecessary” for achieving the owner’s goal, and violates a welfare law, the animal is still property, and therefore the legal consequences are trivial enough to almost never act as a deterrent to the cruel behavior. Consider reading Animals, Property, and Law (see recommended books on the side bar for a link) by Professor Gary Francione for more details on why legal welfarism protects, and will always protect, almost every kind of torture imaginable.

On Cruelty Videos

At least a few times every year, an animal welfare organization sponsors an undercover investigation and generates a “cruelty video” showing the torture that various innocent nonhumans endure in slaughterhouses, feeding operations, laboratories, rodeos, zoos, circuses, or various other locations of animal use. I covered a classic case of an undercover investigation and the resulting video in a blog post entitled, PETA’s Undercover Investigations: Another Example of the Welfarist Business Cycle.

As I noted in the blog post on PETA’s investigation, undercover investigations (and the related cruelty videos) don’t seem problematic from an animal rights point of view. After all, human rights organizations routinely investigate, report, and promote videos depicting severe human suffering to bring the public’s attention to a problem and garner political support to end such abuses. However, when human rights organizations depict cruelty toward humans, they are sending an unequivocal message that the rights violations – slavery, exploitation, and killing – are wrong and should end. In contrast, animal welfare organizations (PETA, HSUS, et al) object only to how the slavery, exploitation, and killing are carried out. They do not object to the unnecessary slavery, exploitation, and killing, per se. The animal welfare organization’s call to action is for the viewer to send a donation to the organization and usually a letter to an industry executive or governmental official either to enforce existing regulations or to adopt new regulations or methods.

In contrast to an animal welfare organization (e.g. PETA, HSUS, Mercy for Animals, et al), an animal rights organization might show the video; but if it did, the message would be first, that all institutions of animal use are unnecessary and harmful, and therefore wrong and should end; second, that the viewer should therefore go vegan as a minimum standard of decency; third, how to go vegan by providing information on vegan recipes and nutrition (perhaps in the form of Internet links to various sources of information); and fourth, perhaps consider a donation to help our work in providing vegan education to the public.

Cruelty videos are considered essential for animal welfare advocacy because it is the treatment, not the unnecessary use, to which welfare organizations take exception. Cruelty videos are nonessential, and possibly even detrimental, for an animal rights organization because it is the unnecessary use alone to which the animal rights organization takes exception. The reason that cruelty videos can be detrimental to an animal rights organization’s mission is that such videos inherently focus on treatment, not use, even though the cruel treatment is an inevitable symptom of the disease of use. By focusing on treatment, such videos do not suggest that use ought to end, but that use ought to be regulated.

Given that cruelty videos focus on treatment instead of use, a question arises as to whether it is ever appropriate for an animal rights organization or advocate to use cruelty videos in vegan education. On one hand, Professor Gary Francione provides good reasons to consistently avoid cruelty videos in vegan education. On the other hand, there have been many people who have become vegans as a result of the emotional impact that such videos can deliver. Some of these vegans have later gone on to become abolitionist vegans after hearing or reading the overwhelmingly strong evidence and cogent arguments supporting the abolitionist approach.

Is the emotional impact of cruelty videos strong and effective enough to justify occasionally showing or linking to them, despite the confusion that may arise by the focus of such videos on treatment rather than use, and other good reasons to avoid them set forth by Professor Francione? The best answer appears to depend on the circumstances.

Since cruelty videos are essential to animal welfare organizations and provide big fundraising opportunities, animal welfare organizations will continue to generate these videos and the big news stories that usually accompany the initial publication of the videos. At times when these videos are in mainstream news, abolitionist vegan advocates should at least have a response to the videos that includes, but goes beyond, the legitimate complaint that they focus on treatment, not use. A more effective response would be that all commercial use is cruel, and that virtually all cruelty and use, illegal and legal, is unnecessary, and therefore gratuitous.

There is no meaningful difference between the legal use and cruelty that is required to process animal commodity units efficiently versus the illegal so-called “gratuitous cruelty” that is not required to process animal commodity units efficiently. As Professor Francione has correctly stated, 99.999% of our uses of nonhumans are for pleasure, amusement, or convenience. None of those uses are necessary in any coherent sense of that word. Therefore, whether the pleasure and/or amusement is that of the non-vegan’s preference for animal products or the slaughterhouse worker’s preference for a diversion from the boredom and frustration of processing sentient commodity units, it is all gratuitous, and the “legal cruelty” is often far more severe than the “illegal cruelty.” The difference between legal and illegal treatment is whether or not the cruelty results in efficient processing. The severity of the cruelty is irrelevant in the eyes of the law, and always will be irrelevant as long as nonhumans are legal property. [1] And as long as people are not vegan, nonhumans will always be legal property.

Aside from responding to such videos by explaining that all use and cruelty is unnecessary and should be abolished, not regulated, abolitionist vegan advocates should be careful about sharing or promoting such videos while they are headline news. If the videos are shown at all by abolitionists while the videos are headline news, the abolitionist message should be front and center: that use must be abolished, not regulated; that people must go vegan to end the torture and unjustified use, not choose animal products with a vacuous feel-good label. These videos are already getting plenty of viewing attention; the problem is that the associated message is predominately for enforcement, more regulation or more efficient methods, not a call for veganism and abolition.

During quieter times when such videos are not in the news, they might be effective for emotional impact. If the video has an explicit regulationist message, such a message may override any benefit derived from emotional impact, despite an advocate providing a contrary abolitionist message, and the video should therefore be avoided. If the video has no explicit welfarist message, and a strong abolitionist message is presented both before and after the video, the video’s treatment focus may be overcome sufficiently to justify the option of its presentation for the purpose of emotional impact.

Finally, cruelty videos are always, at best, optional tools for abolitionist vegan advocates to generate an emotional impact. The abolitionist message does not depend in any way on how animals are treated; only that they are used, and that all of our uses are for unnecessary pleasure, amusement, or entertainment. When in doubt, it is best to avoid such videos.

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Note:
[1] Professor Gary Francione provides overwhelmingly strong evidence in case law and legal theory that anticruelty laws are based solely on maximizing the efficiency of animal exploitation and have nothing to do, in any practical sense whatsoever, with the type or severity of the cruelty or maltreatment. Moreover, since humans have respect-based legal property rights of which the object of that right protection is nonhuman animals (who have no rights), the most trivial of human interests will always trump the most crucial of nonhuman animals’ interests. Our legal system strongly resists punishing rightholders in the least for violating even the most crucial of interests of their property. Consider reading 1) Animals, Property, and the Law; 2) Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement; and 3) Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog, all by distinguished law professor and philosopher Gary L. Francione for detailed analyses and numerous case law studies supporting these claims. (Note: There are links in the side bar to Amazon.com for Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement and Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog.)

On Veganism and Being Fully Human

Those who accept speciesism often do so because they believe humans “superior” on the basis of rationality and empathy, but in a terrible twist of irony, reject all rationality and empathy in refusing to acknowledge sentience as the morally relevant characteristic on which to base inclusion in the moral community. In refusing to apply such rationality and empathy, they behave far worse than the nonhuman animals toward whom they feel so superior: They are like an odd bird who has functioning wings, but refuses to fly when it is appropriate to do so.

Those who reject speciesism apply that rationality and empathy – ever so exalted but forgotten in speciesism – in acknowledging sentience as the morally relevant characteristic on which to base inclusion in the moral community. Lifelong veganism is the natural outcome of such rationality and empathy. Being a vegan is what it means to be fully human; to live up to one's potential in accordance with the rationality and empathy that are supposedly strong human traits.

Why I Am a Vegan and Why Hope and Fear Are Irrelevant

Note: For various reasons, I was not satisfied with my previous essay on this topic posted on February 17, 2010. I am therefore replacing it with this one. If you read the previous essay, I hope you find this one more useful.

Why I Am a Vegan and an Advocate

I am a vegan because it is the minimum standard of moral belief, behavior, and attitude regarding nonhuman animals. Speciesism is the same underlying wrong as racism, sexism, and heterosexism, only in a different form. The speciesism of our society is extreme, and that is the only reason veganism is not widely considered a minimum standard of decency.

I am not a vegan to “boycott” animal suffering, exploitation, cruelty, or killing. A boycott implies a temporary suspension of support until certain conditions are satisfied. Animal welfare proponents “boycott” animal products until they perceive that “cruelty” is reduced to an “acceptable” level. For me, on the other hand, all animal exploitation is unacceptable and there are no ordinary conditions under which I would agree to use animals or animal products in any way (i.e. under extreme duress, I might use or consume human or nonhuman animal products, but it would take extreme duress to force me to do so). In other words, I am a vegan for precisely the same set of reasons that I am not a cannibal.

I am a vegan advocate and educator because it is the morally right thing to do, and my motivation for advocacy and education is moral principle alone, without regard to hope or fear.

Why Hope and Fear Are Irrelevant and Often Harmful

Hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. They are both future-directed and rely on uncertain speculation about what might happen. Where there is hope, there is necessarily a complementary degree of fear. If our hope does not materialize, then what we fear will materialize. We can unwittingly (or dishonestly) ignore our fear and focus on our hope, but if we are thinking clearly and honestly, we cannot have one without the other.

If we are thinking clearly, our confidence in predictions of the future ought to wane exponentially with an increase in how far in the future we are considering. Social change, like changes in the weather and many other phenomena, is best described by chaos theory. The further out we go, the less certain we can be. With billions of people in the world and the complexity of global politics and social change among even thousands of people (much less billions), we could get radically more violent and destroy ourselves just as easily as we could get radically less violent and civilize ourselves. More probable, however, is that we will not see radical swings in either direction, at least not over a short-term period of a few decades. This is not pessimistic musing, but clear thinking based in the reality of history and experience.

Hope and fear are irrelevant because they tell us absolutely nothing reliable about the future and have no bearing on what is right or wrong or our choices regarding right and wrong. Hope and fear can be harmful because they lead so many people into unnecessary worry, frustration, or despair and therefore away from doing the right thing.

We ought to keep in mind that we control our own thoughts, speech, attitudes, and behavior. Other people may influence us based on sound reasoning and providing new facts and perspectives, but nobody controls us. We are responsible for our thoughts, speech, attitudes, and behavior.

Implications for the Abolition of Animal Exploitation

The rights-based abolitionist movement is literally only three years old, and while still small, it is growing rapidly. Where it goes from here, I’ll be the last to opine on, since I have the strongest confidence that I have no idea.

What I do know, however, is that my hopes and fears about where it goes are utterly irrelevant. What matters is that I separate my irrelevant hopes, fears, and feelings from my relevant thoughts, speech, and actions. What matters is that I don’t drink the Kool-Aid of welfarist and single-issue “victories” to “keep my hopes up” only to have them slammed one year or ten years later when fur or seal slaughter (or whatever of the thousands of symptoms-of-speciesism that provoke the single-issues-of-the-day) comes back with a roaring, laughing vengeance. Why? Because the disease of speciesism and the cure of veganism was not addressed; only the superficial symptom of fur, gestation crates, seal “hunts”, battery cages, and thousands of other symptoms of the disease.

What matters is that I speak out on how speciesism is racism is sexism is heterosexism – all the same underlying irrational prejudice sporting different Halloween costumes. What matters is that I educate people about the why (1, 2, 3) and how of veganism. What matters is that I think, say, and do the right thing here and now.

On Erik Marcus’s Rant Over Gary Steiner’s NYT Opinion Piece

On Saturday, The New York Times published an excellent opinion piece written by Professor Gary Steiner. The essay questions whether we are justified in exploiting and killing animals for food and other uses, and also explains some of the challenges of being a vegan in a speciesist society. It is worth every second of your time to read it.

Yesterday, Erik Marcus, author of the blog “vegan.com”, published a short, vacuous rant over the piece, specifically targeting Steiner’s honesty about some of the challenges vegans face in avoiding animal products and handling awkward situations, especially when other people are consuming animal products. Apparently, Marcus would prefer that we market veganism in a way that makes it more attractive to people who would rather not make an effort to identify and avoid animal products and/or who simply don’t care enough about the issue to pay much attention to what goes into or comes out of the mouths of people who aren’t vegans.

Among the questions Steiner raises in the essay is how we should feel about spending time with people who are not vegan, and whether, by doing so, we implicitly condone speciesist attitudes and behavior.

Steiner asks:

“Is it O.K. to eat dinner with people who are eating meat? What do you say when a dining companion says, “I’m really a vegetarian — I don’t eat red meat at home.” (I’ve heard it lots of times, always without any prompting from me.) What do you do when someone starts to grill you (so to speak) about your vegan ethics during dinner? (Wise vegans always defer until food isn’t around.) Or when someone starts to lodge accusations to the effect that you consider yourself morally superior to others, or that it is ridiculous to worry so much about animals when there is so much human suffering in the world? (Smile politely and ask them to pass the seitan.)”

These are honest, legitimate concerns that Erik Marcus apparently would rather not disclose to potential vegans. Instead, Marcus worries about potential vegans being offended, turned off, or frightened, as if we’re selling a luxurious fad to fickle socialites rather than being honest about what’s right and wrong and thereby gradually changing an entrenched social paradigm.

In contrast, Steiner is concerned about being perfectly honest: 1) we are not justified in exploiting and intentionally killing sentient nonhumans; 2) being a vegan, while it would be very easy in a non-speciesist society, can be difficult at times in a speciesist society that uses unnecessary animal ingredients and processes in the production of so many products; and 3) people who are not vegan can be arrogant and inconsiderate because it’s socially acceptable to be a hardcore speciesist in a way that it is not acceptable to be even a mild racist (despite these two prejudices being identical in substance).

Steiner has set forth superb social criticism questioning the speciesist paradigm that sees sentient nonhumans as commodities while honestly confronting the subtle issues that vegans – the sane and nonviolent people – must face in an insanely violent world. While seeing this piece in The New York Times indicates a big step forward in encouraging meaningful dialogue about speciesism, we’ll know we’re making progress in society when we see opinion pieces as consistently honest as Steiner’s in The Times on a regular basis.

Veganism as a Minimum Standard of Decency

In discussions with non-vegans – particularly non-vegans on the Internet who are familiar with the assertions of both the vegan animal rights movement and the assertions of the countermovement – the issue of “drawing the line” is often raised as a sort of objection to veganism. While it’s true that vegans avoid a lot of harm, so the argument goes, vegans also indirectly cause a lot of harm: animals are killed by crop harvesters and motor vehicles; natural and artificial pesticides are used in crop production; and often one cannot tell exactly what harm might have been done either to animals directly or to the environment in any given purchase, even at the local natural foods store or farmers’ market. Since vegans haven’t achieved perfection of purity in the art of non-harming and non-violence, it is really only a matter of line-drawing, and until one achieves absolute perfection of purity, one has no business criticizing any other lines that might be drawn. To criticize other lines is to fail to recognize one’s own shortcomings from Platonic perfection, and therefore to fall into – dare we say it – ‘hypocrisy’.

Drawing lines can be difficult in any area of morality, and the more precise the line drawn, often the more difficulties that arise. However, the difficulty of drawing precise lines should not deter us from exploring less precise lines of minimum standards or moral baselines that are (or should be) reasonable for the vast majority of people in society, even if it would require a complete abolition of animal agriculture.

We establish and philosophically defend moral baselines regularly in society in the form of laws regarding such issues as murder, involuntary manslaughter, assault, declarations of war, and speed limits, even though these issues can be just as difficult to draw lines in as animal issues. None of us are “pure” when it comes to protecting humans from cruelty and death either; yet we do draw lines: we aren’t cannibals; and most of us don’t knowingly or happily support human enslavement and slaughter. [1]

We ought also to establish and philosophically defend such baselines regarding animals. Instead, we have a morally relative (and wrong) laissez-faire policy of refusing to even discuss line-drawing regarding animals, despite their overwhelming similarities to us in terms of the morally relevant characteristics: sentience and perceptual intelligence and awareness.

Given the morally relevant similarities and irrelevant differences between humans and other animals, and given that we are likely to find absolute perfection in non-harming far too ascetic or practically impossible in our modern society, veganism is the baseline we ought to promote and live by. Veganism is not the end point or the most we can do; rather, it is the least we can do.

Veganism is essentially refraining from contributing to the exploitation and intentional killing or slaughter of nonhuman beings. Preventing accidental and incidental human fatalities in traffic accidents and police action – even foreseen human deaths – is not required by laws prohibiting slavery and murder. In the same way, preventing accidental and incidental deaths in traffic accidents or harvesting crops – even foreseen deaths – is not required by veganism. In other words, abolitionist animal rights, as currently conceived, and the corresponding moral baseline of veganism are precisely the same in “line-drawing” as laws prohibiting chattel slavery and murder. Laws prohibiting slavery and murder say nothing about preventing motor vehicle injuries and fatalities, or how much cost we should incur in saving an injured child’s life, or “friendly fire” (unintended killing) in a justified war of self-defense. We should certainly take appropriate measures to reduce such deaths as much as possible, but again, veganism is merely a first and minimum standard, not the final or the best standard.

Choosing to consume animal products is a choice to partake in the exploitation and intentional slaughter of sentient beings. Given our wide variety of food choices today, we can easily refuse to partake in such exploitation and slaughter. In many cases, such as this one, drawing lines can be very appropriate and strongly defended, especially when one acknowledges that the line drawn is only a minimum standard of decency, not a maximum standard of purity.
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Notes:

[1] If you live and pay taxes in an industrialized nation with a strong military, such as the United States, you inadvertently and indirectly, and hopefully unwillingly and regrettably, support the slaughter of innocent humans in the form of warfare in other countries (waged primarily for economic reasons; the economic reasons controversially thought to be also ‘national security’ reasons) and arms supply to violent militias, just like vegans inadvertently, unwillingly, and regrettably support the slaughter of innocent nonhumans by living and paying taxes in our animal-exploiting society.

[2] I have edited this essay as of July 9, 2009 to remove two references to Jainism as suggesting an ascetic standard of non-violence. It was my previous understanding that many or most followers of Jainism went to ascetic lengths to avoid harming. I have since learned that this is not the case, and that, although veganism is increasing among followers of the religion, many are not vegans, much less practitioners of an ascetic form of non-violence.