Clowns' Corner: Dr Roger Yates's new sociological approach to animal advocacy. Interview with a supporter

Mission Statement

Clowns' Corner, a website run by two revolutionaries, is dedicated to exploring Total Liberationism By Any Means Necessary (TLBAMN), but above all to respecting one another's choices. We are not threatened by difference and diversity. But while Clowns' Corner exists to create a space for pluralism, contextualism, and multidimensionalism, it approaches animal advocacy essentially from the perspective of business psychology. Understanding that no one really wants to become vegan, just as no one really wants to buy an old banger, we must consider taking an indirect and flexible approach. This will naturally involve never saying what we really want (for people to become vegan) or what we really mean (that killing animals is inherently wrong) – as perhaps the most nuanced and complex means of realizing that goal, that end to which we do actually aspire. Such pragmatism accords with human nature, as it has been elaborated in business psychology, according to which people do not like being challenged to purchase things directly, be it a 1975 mark 2 Ford Capri or social justice; cutting edge sociology, according to which it is elitist to promote only what makes sense (for otherwise we would give the impression that people do not have the capacity to distinguish sense from nonsense); and the strategic principle that we must provide a platform for people who promote animal use, as well as for those who oppose it, lest we should lapse into one-dimensional, fundamentalist animal advocacy.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Dr Roger Yates's new sociological approach to animal advocacy. Interview with a supporter