Animal Rights Sociology's Triumphant Perfection: "Abolitionists...lie a lot."

A fateful few months ago Dr. Roger Yates posted on his blog, "Human Nonhuman Relations," an essay, "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose,"[1] in which he sought to give the purported flaws in abolitionism their sociological remedy. To some (his cat Tidge, for example), his critique is seen as of prophetic sociological significance, of alarming depths; to others, however, it is seen in a less incorrigibly flattering light. In the following, our little exercise in exploring Yatesism, we seek with ideologically unbiased eyes, not fearing "difference and diversity," to give both sides of this impassioned debate their due; to come to a complex and nuanced judgment on the character and color of Dr. Yates's critique; and ultimately, not to say slowly, cautiously, tentatively, with delicate eyes and fingers, to assess the true meaning, the final significance, of Yatesism.

Background

New welfarists take abolitionism to be problematic, of course. With this judgment Dr. Yates agreed and still does agree; and after much sociological cogitation, he formulated a counter-approach, which we have christened Yatesism, or the Yatesian paradigm. Its chief proposition is that abolitionism is not complex and nuanced enough[2], and therefore, from the Yatesian perspective, insufficient, unacceptable, a sociological failure. Yet even so Dr. Yates thinks that abolitionism may be salvaged, provided it is completed by Yatesism. What exactly is Yatesism, that sociological paradigm which can be found on Dr. Yates's blog and...well, just on his blog? We cannot here delve into every aspect of Yatesism, so astonishing is its intellectual fecundity, so dizzying its depth. But we will rivet our "elitist" and "authoritarian" attention on some of it, its constitutive propositions, those aspects which are fundamental, inexpungeable, utterly basic, and through which Dr. Yates's status as an independent thinker, a sociologist of some distinction, can be referred to as an established fact, or at least is so by his Twitter followers. This self-imposed restriction is felicitous, as it happens; for it is important to see Yatesism in its essence, the "norms," the "values," the "socialization" (have we missed anything?), because thus only can its nuances be navigated, its complexity communicated. And though on so profound a subject it is difficult to offer much by way of useful commentary, still less criticism, it is to the Yatesian paradigm, in its essence, that we now turn.

Yatesian Proposition #1: Abolitionists 'lie a lot.'

As though compelled to unburden himself of the superfluity of his sociological wisdom, Dr. Yates has in the essay blurted out all his complex and nuanced ideas at once. It is to be noted, however, that on sociological paradigms less sophisticated than Yatesism, these ideas would in fact be considered a mere hodgepodge of assertions and accusations, all drearily astonishing. These ideas, in any event, take their leave from some comments of one of the ARZone moderators, an expert in property law, on an online academic journal, called Facebook. Backed up by such heavy intellectual artillery, located in a position of tactical superiority, Dr. Yates confidently takes sociological aim at abolitionists, whom he claims "lie a lot and are not really interested in the truth."[3] Where comes the inspiration for such a weighty sociological yield? Dr. Yates mentions the suggestion made by an abolitionist (we are not sure whom) that he "ignored" Professor Francione's challenging him to a debate, a suggestion he dismisses as "disgraceful."[4] It perhaps would be so, or if we wish to be a little less theatrical at least unwarrantable, if it could be shown that Dr. Yates was, on the contrary, (i) stoutly undaunted by criticism of his activism, facing rather than evading or misrepresenting it, or that (ii) Yatesian sociology, being a established paradigm, was at least a match for Francione's abolitionist theory.

For evidence of (ii), heed Dr. Yates's hypotheses that "Society is complex," that "human beings are complex," and that "social movements are complex social entities,"[5] all impressive enough in themselves, and even more so when one considers that his work always attains the quality in evidence in the first two and usually that in the last. Taken together, these hypotheses herald the sublime appearance of a new sociological paradigm, of interest as much to professional sociologists as to animal advocates, and the insightfulness of which is only uncertainly matched, if at all, in abolitionist theory. Moreover, thus interrogated, the problem of animal use has surely received its most comprehensive treatment to date. And all this is of course to say nothing of Dr. Yates's call for "complexity" and "nuance," nor of his championing of "rational discourse," as against the irrational variety. Indeed, we feel, on reading over Yatesism, that whatever shift toward rationality we may see in this century will be traced by posterity to when Dr. Yates, having joined the ARZone podcast, radically began calling for it.

And for (ii), that Dr. Yates misrepresents criticism of his activism, we can find no grounds, further than that of how he characterizes the abolitionist criticism of ARZone in his programmatic essay, "The Operation of the Animal Rights Zone Chats."[6] There he claims, rather obliquely, that he "disagrees with the suggestion made that people in general are not bright enough to be exposed to different viewpoints."[7] Is it not clear, from an exhaustive perusal of abolitionist literature, that abolitionists have never opposed welfarism, but on the grounds that the public cannot understand it? 

Moreover, we shall add another example, similar, though in being from Facebook more intellectually respectable, to the last, and that is Dr. Yates's complex and nuanced take on a certain aspect of abolitionist theory. This take, fully exemplifying Dr. Yates's extreme love of truth, is on the claim that the public can understand the right thing. Where some welfarists reject this claim outright, while Francione on the contrary insists on it, Dr. Yates sociologically synthesises both positions: he agrees that the public can understand the right thing, but strikingly infers from it that we should promote the wrong thing, as well as the right thing: "Since it is more and more argued that people understand the difference between vegetarianism and veganism...and since people are 'not stupid'...can't we trust them to fill in the gaps in an age in which veganism is increasingly seen as the moral baseline"[8] More strikingly still, Dr. Yates assures us that this is in strict fidelity to Francione's own thinking, though those of us "not really interested in the truth" may not be prepared to yield up our unqualified assent here: "ALL I'm doing is agreeing with Gary Francione that people are smart and can 'see through' the welfarist messages they receive."[9] And yet abolitionists, while agreeing the public are smart enough to see through the wrong thing, perversely fill out their time promoting the right thing only, and thus contradict themselves; such advocates are for that reason alone the irreconcilable enemies of logic. Furthermore, as it it contradictory, so it is "elitist" to promote the right thing only: for otherwise we would give the impression that the public cannot distinguish right from wrong, sense from nonsense: "[I] disagree with a suggestion made that people...are not bright enough to be exposed to different viewpoints." Thus, by this learned logic, the degree of respect we exhibit for people's intelligence is inversely proportional to the amount of nonsense we present them with.

This complex and nuanced Yatesian reading of Francione prompts the following question: Can it not be explained as an innocent mistake, and not a deliberate distortion, consistently with what Dr. Yates can reasonably be assumed to understand of the abolitionist position? And does not Dr. Yates's characterization of abolitionist criticism of ARZone reflect a self-consciously fastidious tendency on his part never to misrepresent the abolitionist position, never to raise anything against it that cannot in reflective considered seriousness be said? We shall delegate the task of answering these questions to our readers, lest we should lapse into "elitism."

Yatesian Proposition #2: Nonvegan activism can create vegans.

Dr. Yates thinks that Francione has become irrational[10], and his work, which Dr. Yates used to like, simplistic, simplistic with its unsociological insistence that the only way to create a vegan world is by promoting veganism. Consequently, Dr. Yates has adopted what he takes to be a more complex and nuanced position instead of it. He casually mentions that he recognizes "other possibilities"[11]; i.e., possibilities, other than vegan advocacy, by which people can be convinced to become vegan. But he does not deign to elaborate on these, at least not otherwise than by merely asserting that the "humane" farming industry can 'open...hearts'[12] - not, literally, those of the animals whom it kills, it should be pointed out, but rather those of the "happy" meat eaters whom it purportedly touches figuratively. Such morbidly sentimental apologetics from Dr. Yates may come as a surprise - but we live and learn. Those not so moved by that sort of rhetoric as Dr. Yates, however, may instead think they have a good reason for rejecting that industry, by its functioning as a reactionary counter-force to veganism. And though it may, through pure inadvertence, get some people thinking about veganism, its creating many more "happy" meat eaters than vegans shows that it has no abolitionistic function, no power to shift the paradigm.

That would be so obvious as not to be worth stating, were it not for the fact that some welfarists deny it, citing an alleged want of evidence as a justification. Such a call for evidence itself requires to be motivated, and it can be only by assuming that the "humane" farming industry is either inadvertently defeating its own end by convincing proportionally more people to become vegan than to consume "humane" animal products, or else has as its own end the defeat, the eradication, of itself, again by creating proportionally more vegans. Both of these claims being absurd, neither is in any need of being tested. There is no need to test empirically that which makes nonsense theoretically.

Elsewhere, however, besides offering sentimental rhetoric, Dr. Yates has mapped sociologically these "other possibilities," unrealized by abolitionists. He said the following on Facebook:

What I am saying is - unless Melanie Joy is lying, unless Shannon Keith is lying, unless Tom Regan is lying, that some people go vegan even in the absence of a direct "go vegan" message...I prefer giving them the direct go vegan message but I think it may not be the only thing that "works" and - unfortunately - sometimes it can cause a negative reaction.[13]

Thus for this aspect of the Yatesian paradigm, Dr. Yates finds support in the fact that some people go vegan in the absence of a direct go vegan message. They may go vegan from being presented with a vegan message, they may go vegan from being presented with an anti-vegan message, they may go vegan from being presented with neither a vegan nor an anti-vegan message. We just don't know; the question of what causes people to become vegan being perhaps too difficult for human comprehension, as Dr. Yates mentioned on an episode of the ARZone podcast[14]. Spending labor on vegan advocacy may not always bare fruit, which might more fruitfully be spent on anti-vegan advocacy, on promoting cage-free eggs and "happy" meat, on promoting welfarist reform, on donating to the President Priscilla Feral Fund. There are many "possibilities," some "weird," some "wonderful,"[15] but all tending unswervingly toward the same conclusion: veganism.

There are two issues here, which really should be kept apart. First, are Shannon Keith et al. "lying" in claiming that nonvegan advocacy can create vegans? Second, and more important, would it be acceptable to eschew a clear and unequivocal vegan message, if in its absence we could still create vegans?

The "authoritarian" answer to the first question, wanting in "complexity" and "nuance," is as follows: Dr. Yates has lapsed logically in that part of his brain which is sensitive to theoretical possibilities, the result being a false choice: either Shannon Keith and others are right, or else they are "lying." They are in fact merely mistaken, though not in thinking that by their nonabolitionist activism they have instigated in some a process of thinking that terminated in these people's becoming vegan, but rather in pulling out of this that it is preferable to do nonabolitionist over abolitionist activism. (An even more extreme version of this error is seen when it is claimed that nonabolitionist activism can "get people thinking," which according to [some] welfarists is a sufficient reasoning for promoting such activism, or at least not criticizing it.) We can, by way of answering the second question, accept that nonabolitionist activism can "get people thinking," while denying that this is of itself enough to justify support for such activism. If this criterion were sufficient, it would be fine to judge the acceptability of a form of activism by whether it got people thinking, and then support anything that satisfied that requirement. It might then be okay - it might even be required - to stand on our heads while citing the alphabet backwards, on the grounds that such activism might be a perpetual instigation to the moral thinking of lunatics. But a form of activism is not sufficient when its effect is confined to lunatics, or when it is not of maximal efficacy in reducing demand, or when its abolitionist pretensions are limited to its indirect and accidental, and thus collateral, effects. The only safe test for judging the acceptability of a form of activism is whether it is, or can be said to be, directly and causally responsible to creating vegans. And it is a little difficult to deny that promoting veganism, that engaging in vegan education, is the best way of creating vegans.

One counter-argument is that promoting "humane" animal products or welfarist reform is preferable, not indeed always, but at least when we are talking to someone absolutely unreceptive to veganism. But shift our attention to the general level, and it is again a little difficult to deny that though welfarist reform and "humane" animal products may spark the thinking of some individuals, these things generally salve the consciences of "happy" meat eaters, and are therefore anti-abolitionist. Conversely, vegan advocacy, though it may alienate some individuals, generally has the power to reduce demand, and is therefore abolitionist. To put this point differently: the general effect of welfarist advocacy is anti-abolitionist, even though it may spark some individuals' thinking: that of vegan advocacy, abolitionist, even though it may alienate some individuals. An analogy may be helpful. Even though convincing one person to become vegan will not of itself reduce demand for animal products, it is a little difficult to deny that convincing people in general to become vegan will result in abolition. And likewise, it is a little difficult to deny that even though not every single individual may be receptive to it, veganism advocacy and vegan advocacy alone is of maximal efficacy in spreading veganism,

Moreover, welfarist advocacy, though fostering if not creating unreceptivity to veganism, yet (mistakenly) promoted by welfarists as the remedy to it, generates a vicious cycle process. The more welfarists encounter unreceptivity to veganism, the more they seek to oppose it by promoting welfarism, and the more desperately they promote welfarism, the more they foster unreceptivity to veganism - and so on. The only way to break this cycle is to promote veganism, clearly and without equivocation.

But what of those who will never be receptive to a vegan message? They will ultimately respond to the social pressure created by all those who will be receptive to it.

Yatesian proposition #3: Promoting Bruce Friedrich is "not [being] threatened by difference and diversity."

Dr. Yates provides a platform, called ARZone**, for people who promote animal use, such as Bruce Friedrich, as well as for those who oppose it. This is - as one could put it - the Yatesian paradox, which Dr. Yates himself describes by way of justification as "not [being] threatened by difference and diversity."[16] Respect for a diversity of right and wrong does not play a major role in abolitionism, whereas in Yatesism, its importance is underscored by being given ideological prominence by Dr. Yates in his essay "The Operation of the Animal Rights Zone Chats." There Dr. Yates argues as follows:

ARZone understands that individual members of all social movements tend to hold some competing ideas and differing values. Therefore, the site attempts to foster an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance - we are opposed to banning people merely because they express views other than our own. We are not threatened by difference and diversity.[17]

This argument relies on a suppressed premise, without which it does not work but when stated may be seen to be not a little tainted by controversy. It is that the differing views in question are equally legitimate and valuable; otherwise, it would not be easy to see why we should "foster...acceptance" for them. Further, the rhetoric of difference and diversity is hewed from a specific context, that of the struggle for gay rights, from which it has acquired its historical and cultural resonance. It resonates with the idea that homosexuality is as legitimate and valuable a form of sexuality as heterosexuality; accordingly, that homosexuality is to be given equal respect with heterosexuality. That idea is therefore essential to the correct application of the rhetoric: it can be used where there is such a plurality of equal legitimate values; whereas, where there is not, it cannot. In the absence, then, of a serious possibility that the values in question are equally legitimate and valuable, and in addition similar in importance to human sexuality, the call to respect "difference and diversity" idles.

Now, the rhetoric of difference and diversity, when used by Dr. Yates in the context of the abolition / welfare debate, may sound nice, although we could never discover the least analogy between the struggle for gay rights and Dr. Yates struggle to interview Matt Ball. On the other hand, it might, since we are obliged to respect one another's humanity, be argued that Dr. Yates's sloganeering is an edifying and upbuilding instance of it. For should we not, after all, say that "we must respect one another's choices," to borrow the pregnant words of 'former spiritual director' Norm Phelps, that just as it constitutes an injustice to disrespect difference and diversity in the realm of human sexuality, so also does it in the realm of animal advocacy, where there is also a realm of values, or rather approaches, welfarist and abolitionist? It is importantly true that we must respect difference and diversity in the realm of sexuality; but is it really arguable analogously that we must respect someone's choice to donate to the President Priscilla Feral Fund in animal advocacy? It seems that Dr. Yates has transferred the rhetoric of difference and diversity from the gay rights movement with which it makes sense to the abolition / welfare debate with which it makes nuance-sense.

Yatesian Proposition #4: Abolitionists are "authoritarian[s]."

Of all Dr. Yates's contributions to contemporary debates in sociology, none is more illustrative of the character of Yatesism than his complex and nuanced assessment of abolitionists' online behavior, that is to say as "authoritarian."[18] Being a minority group in our society, and in addition having the human right to post whatever they like on abolitionists' websites, welfarists are continually being victimized by abolitionists, who, in "unfriending" them on Facebook, for example, stand convicted of an utterly unjustified exercise of power and privilege, itself got by those very nefarious means. Such barbarism, in which no horror is wanting, reveals with terrible starkness the counterfeit character of abolitionists' call for nonviolence. This "unfriending" on Facebook, added to the equally odious blocking of Twitter followers, is according to Dr. Yates sociologically explicable only by "authoritarian[ism]"; moreover, as authoritarianism tends to run in groups (witness Comrade Stalin and his henchmen), so Dr. Yates charges all abolitionists with being authoritarian on that account. Thus, abolitionists may have affinity with progressiveness but rather more with Genghis Kahn, with whom they are rumored to stand in a line of direct hereditary continuity. Having thus diagnosed abolitionists as suffering from authoritarian personality syndrome, Dr. Yates suggests ominously that they cannot tolerate "dissenting voices,"[19] specifically welfarist ones, which they see as misguided, counterproductive, a dead end. Suspicious indeed is this refusal to promote what one views thus, not as abolitionist but as reinforcing animal use; important indeed is Dr. Yates's explanation for: that it cannot be accounted for, but by authoritarianism. For is it not worrying, after all, to think that there are some animal advocates who, instead of indiscriminately "respecting one another's choices," be they right or wrong, are promoting only what they take to be right, clearly and without equivocation?

Yatesian Proposition #5: Abolitionists are caught in a contradiction.

Francione argues that being smart enough to understand the arguments for veganism, the public should be presented with an abolitionist message only, and not, as welfarists think, both an abolitionist and a welfarist message (we are assuming for argument's sake that this latter mix is possible, and not, as is really the case, a flat contradiction.). This argument, seemingly of the plainest commonsense, is claimed by Dr. Yates to be problematic, an example of bad reasoning, not yet complex and nuanced enough, sociologically speaking. Indeed, to be itself a contradiction, in that if the public are smart enough to understand the arguments for veganism, so are they smart enough to see through welfarism, which is why it's okay to promote a diverse assortment of messages, welfarist and abolitionist:

Well, if we subscribe to the idea that the public are smart social agents, we can expect them to see through the vegetarian argument - at least many of them...Given this view, it would rather [be] better for Melanie [Joy] to carry on talking about vegetarianism rather than veganism.[20]

To deny this is to denigrate the public's intelligence; is to see them as "cultural dopes" not able to figure things out for themselves, the unwitting "dupes" of the welfarist movement[21], as abolitionists allegedly do, and as Dr. Yates, by noble contrast, most certainly seeks to avoid. The upshot here seems to be that Dr. Yates does not know how we can in consistency say both that people are smart and that they should not be presented with both abolitionism and welfarism; nor consequently, how we can avoid "elitism," not to say contradiction, without promoting both the right and the wrong thing: "He [i.e. Francione] cannot have it both ways. PEOPLE are confused, but PEOPLE see through things."[22] Hence ARZone Zone, which features both abolitionists and welfarists, though disproportionately the latter.

From the Yatesian, then, although not the from the abolitionist, perspective, it is essential that all views one animal advocacy, not merely the right one, should be aired in order to avoid "elitism," which here seems to mean assuming that people cannot figure things out for themselves; as Dr. Yates said on Facebook, "Can't we trust that they [i.e. the public] will fill in the gaps in a age in which veganism is increasingly seen as the moral baseline?"[23] And elsewhere he has added with disciplined political sobriety, "Those with the best ideas surely need not fear others with different ones."[24]

This differentiation between Yatesism and abolitionism is important in that it may help animal advocates to decide whether they wish to approach advocacy from the Yatesian rather than the abolitionist point of view. That the public can understand the right thing provides in abolitionism a reason for promoting the right thing only, whereas in Yatesism, it provides a reason for promoting the wrong thing, as well as the right thing (because, well, if ya can understand the right thing, so can ya see through the wrong thing). That the public can see through the wrong thing is seen in abolitionism as providing no logical reason for providing a platform for it, whereas in Yatesism, it furnishes a sufficient reason, wanting in nothing, for doing so. Promoting welfarists and providing a platform where they can engage in self-promotion are seen in abolitionism as synonymous, whereas in Yatesism, these are seen as radically different in kind. And lastly, for Dr. Yates, although not for Francione, it is contradictory or in other ways logically compromised to claim that the public can see through welfarism when it is critiqued clearly and without equivocation; but not otherwise: as when it is presented together with other approaches under the banner of 'difference and diversity,' as it is on ARZone, implying equal legitimacy and value with them.

I am now, however, in extreme danger of misinterpreting Dr. Yates's sociology, when in characterizing the Yatesian / abolitionist differentiation, I said that he promotes the wrong thing, or the wrong people, such as Brucey Friedrich and President Priscilla Feral. It is not that he supports everyone for whom he provides a platform; he simply provides a platform for many whom he does not support - a triumphant rebuttal, to be studied as fully exemplifying Yatesism. Moreover, Dr. Yates and the other ARZone moderators assure us that they "challenge" their guests: as for example they did when they interviewed Brucey, who, though he used the opportunity to promote "humane" animal products, was deferred to as knowing best[25]; or when they interviewed the Great Professor Robert Garner, who, having informed us that "more 'happy' meat won't make much difference to the demand for meat,"[26] was still treated with all possible respect, that welfarist wisdom being radiant with inspired intellectualism. These are the very best effects of ARZone moderators impressing the rigors of critical dialectic on their interviews with welfarists.

It could, in any event, scarcely be different: not only because an interview must be mutually beneficial for interviewer and interviewee, or else neither would have any incentive for doing the interview in the first place, but also for a more specific reason. Corporate welfarist groups have bloated bureaucracies and their executives and functionaries can be thought of as a cross between politicians and business people who never exercise their intelligence, expect in the service of selling their lucrative campaigns to the public. Welfarist groups depend entirely for their subsistence on membership fees and donations. Most of their donors belong to the group that participates in animal exploitation; i.e., they are not vegan. Nonvegans don't support abolition. They support single issue campaigns, because these campaigns do not challenge, and are not aimed at abolishing, animal exploitation. So welfarist groups focus on regulatory and other single issue campaigns. These serve as fundraising vehicles. Welfarist groups have considerable capital assets. These groups, furthermore, sustain careers and, more important, livelihoods, so that for their employees it would be as disastrous to lose their jobs as it would be for anyone else with financial obligations. Imagine, dear reader, if your delicate sensibilities can bare this pitiless hypothetical, that President Priscilla lost her job as president of FoA consequent upon all animal advocates' getting wind that abolitionist advocacy does not prototypically realize itself in campaigning against Johnny Weir's skating costume; what would be the odds of her landing herself another $100,000 job? 

Welfarist groups are not, in any event, designed to become superfluous by eliminating what purportedly makes them necessary, and must be overridingly concerned with public relations. As a result their employees will, out of a sense of prudence and self-preservation, not appear where they can expect to be seriously challenged, and will instead patronize websites offering them opportunities for self-promotion. That is why the likes of Brucey are to be found haunting the ARZone podcast, and not so that these corporate welfarist apparitions can engage in "rational discourse"[27] with the ARZone moderators.

Thus, in any event, does Dr. Yates treat his guests; not all of them, however. Some he condemns harshly, even labelling them as "elitist" and "authoritarian"'; not on account of their doing anything anti-abolitionist, like promoting animal use, it should be pointed out, but instead to discourage them from scrutinizing his undiscriminating appetite - really, it's a banal predilection - for interviewing welfarist celebrities.

Conclusion

After having read Dr. Yates's densely theoretical expositions on "elitism" and "authoritarianism," who could say that he is playing to the cynical credulities of welfarists by peddling a mendacious caricature of abolitionists, invoking as a rhetorical tactic drearily astonishing stereotypes of them? Has he not rather produced a counter-approach whose brilliance is such, and support in academia so great, that it may really and truly be said that he has effectively neutralized the meaning of the term abolitionist, merely by putting it in quote marks? It is certain, in any event, that there are more Yatesian insights to follow: more complexity, more nuance, more incisive commentary on Gary Francione and other abolitionists. We eagerly await these, and though they may never be published in a reputable journal or book, we will always remain convinced that Dr. Yates has some great sociology in his head.

Footnotes

**It seems that Dr. Yates has now parted company with ARZone. Yet despite this tragic occurrence, we feel justified in commenting on his prolonged association with the website, since the problems with it go much deeper than that, for example, one of its administrator's writes poetry whose sentimentality and banality will not elude anyone with a minimal aesthetic sensibility, or that another administrator's contribution to "rational discourse" reduces to formulaic expressions of stepmotherly moralism (OMG! Shame one you!!!), or that the communication between these and their welfarist favorites is characterized by ceremony without decency. The deeper problem, rather, lies in ARZone's branding itself as "animal rights" while, at the same time, providing a platform for "happy" meat pimps and corporate welfarist careerists - a policy that has in no way been disavowed by Dr. Yates, who was indeed instrumental in its formulation and implementation, and whose densely sociological justification of it can be found on his blog.

[1] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose" (blog essay, "Human-Nonhuman Relations," 4.11.2011)

[2] Dr. Yates: 'I am, however, starting to understand more and more, why Robert Garner [in the Animal Rights Debate: Abolition and Regulation?] had to write 'nuance' a million times.' (http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820)

[3] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[4] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[5] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[6] "The Operation of the Animal Rights Zone Chats" (blog essay, "Human-Nonhuman Relations," 29.01.2011).

[7] "The Operation of the Animal Rights Zone Chats."

[8] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[9] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[10] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[11] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[12] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[13] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[14] Dr. Yates: "My fear...is that we are not going to know [what gets people to go vegan] and there's possibly no way of knowing. So consequently, even the things we might want to be the case might not in the end - it's almost as though we need to have a broad range of approaches because there's gonna be a broad way of experiencing this process."

(http://arzonepodcasts.blogspot.de/2011/08/arzone-podcast-12-vegans-and-veganism.html)

[15] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[16] "The Operation of the Animal Rights Zone Chats."

[17] "The Operation of the Animal Rights Zone Chats."

[18] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[19] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[20] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[21] "The Abolitionist Approach Is Not Fit For Purpose."

[22] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[23] http://www.facebook.com/ButterfliesVeganAdvocate/posts/299145440113880?cmntid=302072706487820

[24] "Is ARZone a Platform for Neo-welfarists?" (blog essay, "Human-Nonhuman Relations," 30.01.11)

[25] http://arzonepodcasts.blogspot.de/2011/10/arzone-podcast-17-with-guest-bruce.html

[26] http://arzonepodcasts.blogspot.de/2011/11/arzone-podcast-21-political-theorist.html

[27] To fully appreciate that for Dr. Yates "rational discourse" has a rather special meaning, one should listen to ARZone podcast #27, where its guest, an incorrigible exponent of "rationality," made some rather interesting comments. He said that Francione is a lair, that he "repressive[ly] control[s]" other animal advocates, and that abolitionists belong to a "cult"; and similarly one of the ARZone administrators insinuated that Francione used to "control" ARZone. Not to be outshone by these sterling contributions to "intelligent discussion," with which he registered no objection, Dr. Yates offered one of his own, alleging that in her support of abolitionism a certain abolitionist is like a "religious devotee." What could be Dr. Yates's amiable purpose in providing a platform for the utterance of such maturely considered analysis? Whatever is finally to be said for it, it is clear that those who deal in such "rational discourse" are of special utility to Dr. Yates, who wants to hear it but is unwilling - some may say out of a sense of cynical prudence - to assert it in the first person.

The importance of gut feeling: a follow up interview with the Great Professor Robert Garner - Part 1

The importance of gut feeling: a follow up interview with the Great Professor Robert Garner - Part 2

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

Source

The Facebook thread referred to in this episode involving Roger Yates and Gary Francione (among others)

Abolitionism vs. Garnerism: an interview with the Great Professor Robert Garner

Podcast 8: Where's the evidence that ARZone is abolitionist? Karin Hilpisch and I offer a critical commentary on ARZone

Podcast 7: fellow abolitionist Karin Hilpisch offers a critical commentary on ARZone

Podcast 6: The Academic Wilderness Part III: President Priscilla Feral and Lee Hall join the Multidimensionalists

Listen to this episode

Podcast 5: The Academic Wilderness Part II: Richard Kahn Joins Steve Best, David Sztybel, and Norm Phelps

Listen to this episode

Podcast 4: Our expedition to the academic wilderness in search of David Sztybel, Norm Phelps, and Steve Best

Listen to this episode

Clowns' Corner Podcast 3: Steve Best, the "putsch," and the "dungeon of marginality"

Listen to this episode

Clowns' Corner Podcast 2

In this episode of the Clowns' Corner Podcast, I review the legacy of Steve Best.

Listen to this episode

The First Clowns' Corner Podcast

In this podcast I offer a few words of appreciation for the inspiration for Clowns' Corner, Steve Best, and then discuss (some of) the merits of Animal Rights Zone.

Listen to this episode

Norm Phelps Weighs In At Last: "[blahblah111!!!!Gooo0OOOO]"

[W]e must respect one another's choices. - Norm Phelps

[The] insistence that animal rights advocates abstain from supporting reform campaigns [is] distracting and divisive... [W]e must all hang together or the animals will all suffer and die separately. - Norm Phelps

Norm Phelps, a religious icon or at least "the former spiritual director of the Fund for Animals," has scribbled down an essay, "Science Weighs In at Last: Campaigns for 'Welfarist' Reforms Cause People to Buy Significantly Less Meat," which is ostensibly a commentary on a scientific study, "Impacts of Animal Well-Being and Welfare Media on Meat Demand." The former essay positively reeks of Norm, in the sense that it is marked most unmistakably by his distinctive style by which - to anticipate our conclusion - he shows himself really and truly to warrant the title of "spiritual director." In the following, then, we explore his latest essay.

We will begin at the beginning, that is to say, with Norm's style christened by us – not without a certain liberty, for who can know what goes on in the minds of such people? - his "spiritual directorness." This spiritual directorness is characterized in its essence by two mutually reinforcing tendencies: first, there is his tendency, underlined by his allegations against them, to say astonishing things about abolitionists; and second, there is his tendency to say astonishing things about welfarism, underlined, for example, by his interpretation - which is somewhat idiosyncratic - of the aforementioned study.

To address the former point first, in depicting abolitionists in - how can we put it? - "spiritual" terms, that is to say, as belonging to a "denomination" with a "rigid strategic orthodoxy," and in addition favoring "theoretical" elegance over "welfarist reforms that ease the suffering of animals," he exemplifies his spiritual directorness. For this depiction - some may call it a mendacious caricature - is astonishing, and appears to be loaded with associations which are never fully explained or exemplified, and which, if he were not a "former spiritual director," we would say he insinuates knowingly and deliberately in an effort to discredit abolitionism. However, since he is, he would surely not be capable of doing a such thing, would he? Yet, at the same time, it must be said that he does wheel out these allegations indiscriminately as his stereotyped response to any criticism of welfarism.

What could be the purpose underlying Norm's allegations? Could it be, oh say to scapegoat abolitionists for the failures of welfarism after all attempts to defend "'single issue campaigns' for reform" miscarried - in much the same way as (other) reactionaries scapegoat minority groups for the failures of right-wing government? How assess this interpretation? On the one hand, he is a "former spiritual director" who dispensed spiritual wisdom - albeit in return for a salary - so it may not be right; but then again, referring to abolitionists, he does say this:

[The] insistence that animal rights advocates abstain from supporting reform campaigns [is] distracting and divisive... [W]e must all hang together or the animals will all suffer and die separately.

So, just to be clear about it: Norm is here claiming that not some, nor yet many, but indeed "all" the animals "will suffer and die" if we reject welfarism - or, to put it the other way around, if we support abolitionism. That, we feel, is a sufficient illustration, in and of itself, of the attribute by which we have claimed his writing on the abolition / welfare debate as a whole, in its totality, is marked, namely its spiritual directorness.

Now, to take the second point, that in saying astonishing things about welfarism Norm further exemplifies his spiritual directorness: in his essay, he comments on a study, as we said, which claims that meat consumption has increased. And yet of the results of this study he says:

The findings are clear and unequivocal: 'As a whole, media attention to animal welfare has significant, negative effects on U.S. meat demand.' (Kansas State University) In other words, publicity regarding the welfare of farmed animals—the preponderance of which is generated by campaigns for "welfarist" reforms—causes the public to buy and eat less meat. And they buy less meat overall; they do not simply switch from one type of meat to another.

In Norm's interpretation, then, meat consumption has decreased "overall" owing to welfarist reform, the latter, a tactical necessity, being a glorified success; whereas, in fact, in the study it actually claims that there has not been a reduction in demand "overall," but merely a reduction in the rate of demand-increase expected by agricultural economists. The study states (on p. 9) the crux of the matter as follows:

Our model suggests that pork and poultry demand increases over the last decade would have been (ceteris paribus) 2.65% and 5.01% higher, respectively, if media attention in 2008(4) was at equivalent levels as 1999(1).

And again (in a summary of the original article):

Using the estimated longrun elasticities it is suggested that pork and poultry demand increases over the last decade would have been 2.65percent and 5.01 percent higher, respectively if media attention in the fourth quarter of 2008 was at equivalent levels as the first quarter of 1999 [p.2].

Not a reduction in any absolute sense, then, but only in demand increase.

We are now in a position to detect some confusion in Norm's interpretation, of which, however, he must be innocently unaware, but which nonetheless is compulsively present throughout it. Perhaps we can illustrate the precise nature of this confusion by an analogy. Suppose, for example, that the murder rate, told by some study, increased by 25% from one year to the next and yet the police had been expecting it to increase by 50%. Now would anyone other than perhaps "spiritual director[s]" say that the murder rate had significantly decreased "overall"? And if someone did say so, what would he be trying to accomplish? Perhaps to impart a spurious imitation of success to the police's policy, which had in reality failed to decrease the murder rate - in other words: to confuse, obfuscate, or whitewash it.

Moreover, again in fidelity to his tendency to say astonishing things about welfarism, Norm says that the study claims that consumers "do not simply switch from one type of meat to another," whereas, in fact, it actually claims that consumers simply do not consume more meat from what it (rather absurdly) calls the "meat complex," a term that ranges over three meats: beef, pork, and poultry. That is a definition, then, that is non-exhaustive, in the sense that it does not encompass all meats, indubitably in consequence leaving open the possibility - which this former "spiritual director" disregards - that consumers could have switched either to some other type of meat, such as fish, or to non-meat animal products, i.e., eggs or dairy.

It may be said in reply that although welfarism has not effected a reduction in demand "overall," it has reduced the rate of demand-increase. Suppose for the sake of the argument that this were so; would it follow that we should support welfarism? That slide is not justified by logic, since even if welfarism had effected such a reduction it would still not be of as great efficacy in reducing demand as abolitionism. To see this quite clearly one need only consider that welfarism, with its non-abolitionist message, can only ever secure collateral wins, whereas abolitionism, by contrast, is causally responsible for creating new vegans, that being achieved directly by its clear and unequivocal message: animal exploitation, in all its distressing manifestations, is wrong. Furthermore, from this it is not to be inferred that welfarism is merely ineffective or vegan-lite, in the sense of simply convincing proportionally fewer people to become vegan than abolitionism does; for "'single issue campaigns' for reform" are correlated - as show by the study - not with a decrease, but an increase, in meat consumption. This being so, it follows that welfarism is actually counterproductive; it moves us backwards, not forwards - and it is by the fear of the exposure of this that Norm's reactionary scare tactics, in all their luridness, are produced.

So, to sum up: increased, meat consumption has; decreased, meat consumption has not - and this despite or because of welfarism, into which hundreds of millions of dollars has been poured. And accordingly vegans have a difficult choice to make between supporting welfarist advocacy, and giving up such advocacy for abolitionist advocacy: all those vegans who want animal use to carry on increasing (though perhaps at a slightly reduced rate) should support "'single issue campaigns' for reform"; but all those who want to reduce animal use "overall," in an absolute sense, with the aim of abolishing it once and for all, should support nothing but veganism.

And, with that, we shall bring this commentary to a close; but not before welcoming Norm Phelps, "former spiritual director," into the CCHF (Clowns' Corner Hall of Fame), where he joins the author of TLBAMN (Total Liberation By Any Means Necessary), Steve Best: illustrious company, indeed.

P.S.: Norm speaks of the idea that progress toward abolition will necessarily be incremental, in the sense of occurring gradually and not all at once. This is an important, if obvious, idea, which - when he says, "Each step forward must become the starting point for the next step forward" - Norm unfortunately degrades to the level of an expression of sickly sentimentality[2]; and this in conjunction with "[We] must respect one another's choices" unavoidably leads us to think of Norm as a spiritual CEO, someone who would, we feel, definitely have a spiritual secretary.

[1] Norm was "the former spiritual director of The Fund for Animals." We wonder how lucrative that position was for him.

[2] Such sickly sentimentality is a constant feature of much new welfarist writing (see, e.g., Anthony Nocella), and is intended, we think, to have a sterilizing effect on new welfarists' propagandistic accusations against abolitionists.

Dispatches from the world of David Sztybel

My name is David Sztybel. (This assertion can incidentally be logically demonstrated by my parents, who named me. Note to self: must write a blog essay on this important animal liberation topic; working title: "Am I David Sztybel?", a companion piece perhaps to my seminal essay "Am I Obsessed with Gary Francione?"). In any event, as anyone who has read my ARZone chat transcript can logically verify, I am a philosopher, one, indeed, who is simply trying to do his job of relevantly distinguishing truth from falsehood.

Being a philosophy scholar, I have my own theory, called "Sztybelism" – so-called for the following reason which I discovered at dictionary.com (which incidentally is where all great philosophers do their research): given that you form the name of a philosopher's theory by adding the suffix -ism to his or her sir name, and given that I am David Sztybel (see future blog writing and/or my parents, as mentioned above), it follows logically that my theory should be called "Sztybelism."

Below are nine numbered points which logically and conjunctively demonstrate that Sztybelism is intellectually superior to Francionism:

(1) The author of Zombie Jesus supports Sztybelism. Could a more compelling proof of my theory be imagined?

(2) US artist Ante Bozanich also supports Sztybelism. Any more evidence required?

(3) The best is not the worst and the worst is not the best. This is the most important proposition of Sztybelism.

(4) We should do what helps animals.

(5) We should not do what does not help animals.

(6) We have to support the worst in the short term in order to promote the best in the long term. This is the second most important proposition of Sztybelism.

(7) We should be fully caring by supporting my theory of Best Caring Ethics. And being fully caring means, of course, doing the best rather than the worst (see [3]).

(8) David Sztybel is not obsessed with Gary Francione. In fact, David Sztybel doesn't even know who Gary Francione is. Therefore, I am not obsessed with Gary Francione, for if I was so obsessed, I would know who Gary Francione is; but, as I said, Gary Francione is not known by David Sztybel, who I in fact am. Is that clear enough?

(9) Being a dignified philosophy scholar, I would never insult the losers, do-nothingists, and futilitarians in the Francionist camp, those who want to sacrifice animals on the alter of personally purity instead of supporting Sztybelism.

Now imagine – just imagine – what would happen if Sztybelism became the dominant force in the animal movement? Imagine – just imagine – what would happen if every animal advocate became a Sztybelist?

I mean, who, I ask you, but the most hidebound Francione fanatic could possibly believe that Sztybelian Abolitionism, enunciated in the propositions above, is one whit less estimable or valid than abolitionism as espoused by Francione in his books Animals, Property, and the Law, Rain Without Thunder, and Introduction to Animal Rights? In fact, anyone who claims that Francionism is better than Sztybelism is either begging the question, engaging in a straw man fallacy, or insulting me.

The Academic Wilderness: Part III: President Priscilla Feral and Lee Hall join the Multidimensionalists

Having heard from reliable sources that President Priscilla Feral (henceforth President Priscilla) and Lee Hall had been cordially invited to the academic wilderness by the multidimensionalists - Steve Best, Richard Kahn, Norm Phelps, and David Sztybel - we decided to return there so as to see what was going on for ourselves. In the following, we document our expedition.[1]

By means of several modes of transportation did we descend to the dark heart that is the wilderness. Once we had arrived here, in this awful and terrifying place, we nestled down in an ensconced position, which, however, was near enough to the Institute to allow us to overhear everything going on inside it with exceptional clarity.

Just then, from inside the Institute, there came an unmistakable sign of life (although not necessarily of the cognitively sophisticated variety) in the form of a single word. It is an incredibly long word incessantly paraded by Steve; and this incessant parading provides indubitable evidence if not of the actual existence of his linguistic erudition, at least of his having expended much intellectual energy in delving into his thesaurus - night after night - in keenly focused pursuit of any pages containing polysyllabic words in some profusion. The word, in any event, was multidimensionalism.

This word was being chanted by Steve, Richard, and Norm; while, on the occasion of every third repetition of the word by the others, David in turn shouted out, "Pluralism!" and then "Diversity!" From this world-historical spectacle we swiftly surmised that the word multidimensionalism was being used by these academics as part of a ritualized incantation; and the result, if not actually the manifest intention, of the incantation was this: to work themselves up into a collectively experienced frenzy of intellectual excitement and thereby to reinforce their multidimensional devotion to the Institute for Critical Animal Studies.

Naively we thought we were safe from the effects of the Institutes's incantation: a strange incantation in which there was more than a suspicion of that inaccessible esotericism which is more commonly associated with the strange mantras of arcane religious sects. And yet, oh and yet! I suddenly realized in horror that the incantation was beginning insidiously to intrude upon my colleague's brain, weakened by a punishing combination of heat and humidity. My colleague started to feel drowsy, next to feel faint, and lastly he began to intone, at first with the inarticulateness of a mumble and then more distinctly, "multidimensionalism," and not just once but several times, each of which reflected a more progressive state of intellectual deterioration. Indeed, when so utterly fevered by the incantation as to be on the verge of becoming hallucinated, with Steve's writing in mind he said, "Perhaps oodles of opaque jargon and corny exploits in alliteration are not instrumental in vitiating rhetorical effect?" And when his fever at last erupted into the madness of outright delirium, he even started spluttering that what he called "Steve's animal rights alliterations" epitomized the dreamy apotheosis of lyrical eloquence: really and truly breathtaking alliterations such as "[B]edroom bloggers blathering..blasé bourgeois values..."

Panicking having realized the danger my colleague was in, I grabbed him by the shoulders in lieu of the feasibility at that current moment of any more sophisticated solutions. Luckily however, the incantation had not managed to completely colonize his brain, for, with a few robust shakes of his shoulders, I managed to break the strange grip it had on him, the upshot being that he returned immediately to his sober belief in abolitionist animal rights theory.

Just then we heard a noise coming from some bushes dense and dark and mysterious. In advance of actually seeing anyone, we heard the following snippet of an conversation involving two people. One of them, whose voice contained more than a hint of wailing and croaking, said, "We don't live in the day of Socrates," to which someone else replied, almost immediately, "Bingo!" This was the giveaway that we had found who we were looking for: a strange exchange, perhaps choreographed, involving two participants, one of whom aired some astonishing wisdom while the other emitted gnomic utterances of unqualified approbation of said wisdom. And, sure enough, a few moments later, President Priscilla and Lee emerged into a clearing in the jungle, looking exhausted after their arduous journey from Connecticut, both carrying much luggage (as befits a President and her second in command), and bearing in their brains a multiplicity of plans for single issues campaigns. For these prophets from FoA headquarters feel that such campaigns are needed in order to bring animal rights advocacy "down to earth" (together with boycotting Idaho potatoes; challenging Johnny Weir's capers on ice rink; opposing the "concept of nations"; questioning whether it is okay for "primates [to be] scanning each other's irises";[2] defending wild animals from being attacked by birth control; and paying President Priscilla the annual sum of $100,000).

We realized by past experience that we were in for a real treat; for whenever President Priscilla and Lee get together amazing ideas about animal rights blaze in profusion, and additionally President Priscilla invariably manages to summon up from the very depths of her amply remunerated soul a great diversity of eloquence which is deeply moving.

Just then, esping the Institute in the middle distance, both President Priscilla and Lee began to walk toward it with renewed enthusiasm. When they arrived, President Priscilla instructed Lee to knock on the door which, a few moments later, was opened by Steve. Standing on the doorstep and without any preamble or introduction, President Priscilla said to Steve, "Gary Francione doesn't like old people or children. I am sure there could be a vegan skating boot. Why doesn't he see this possibility?"[3] To this, Lee responded, like an echo, "Vegan skating boot! Right on!" And, not without the disciplined sobriety one would expect of a middle-aged man and an associate professor of philosophy, Steve replied to President Priscilla, "That's right. Francione is filled with toxic hatred and lusts for power." Then Steve, a look of vacant glassiness in his eyes, said, "Welcome President Priscilla and Lee, welcome to my very own Institute."

Once inside the hut President Priscilla and Lee greeted the others with warm smiles and propitiating words which were, of course, reciprocated in full by all, expect for David, who said he did not have time for such pleasantries as he had yet another time-sensitive project of overwhelming magnitude to complete: he had to proof read Steve's latest 15,000 word essay, "Fallacies of the Mainstream: Why Animal Rights Activism Requires Empirical Anti-Essentialistic, Non-Narcotized Thinking As Opposed to A Priori Essentialistic Narcotized Thinking." Norm, by contrast, who had one eye on Steve at the time, said to President Priscilla, "Other people are not like us." President Priscilla signaled her unqualified assent by twitching her eyebrows, puckering her lips, and crossing her eyes, as if trying to look at a fly that had just landed on the very tip of her nose. Suddenly Richard, agog with enthusiasm, jumped up from the rickety chair on which he had been perched, and said, "This is the kind of magical atmosphere that only artists, or people in tune with spiritual realms, or lovers, are aware of and can admit!" To which Lee, hovering behind President Priscilla, responded, "Yeah! Boom!"

To Steve's clapping his hands twice, the others reacted by sitting down at the Institute's table, a shabby looking object indeed hastily constructed by David from a few old planks of wood and some string. Then Steve rose to his feet, which signaled to the others that the meeting had begun in earnest. Anticipation hung on Richard's lips, which remained open for a few minutes, tongue drooping. After visibly taking a deep breath, Steve said, "We are gathered here today to reach a deal – a historic deal never before seen in the animal movement - that offers the possibility of a rapprochement between embittered enemies, angry adversaries, rancorous rivals: on the one side, the sockpuppet sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome, President Priscilla and Lee Hall, and on the other side, the multidimensionalists - Richard, Norm, David, and of course, me. I know that we have not always seen eye to eye in the past; but that was then and this is now." Then Steve paused for a moment.

Having composed himself sufficiently, Steve continued by saying gravely, "We have a common foe: his name is Gary Francione and his theory goes by the name of abolitionism. According to Francione, both militant direct action (MDA) does not work and single issues campaigns do not work. Clearly, this theory poses a incalculably menacing threat to the multiperspectival perspective on animal advocacy promoted by the multidimensionalists, who advocate a diversity of approaches, a plurality of tactics, a contextualization of contexts; who advocate both aboveground and underground tactics, strategies, perspectives, paradigms, worldviews, cosmologies; who advocate, in short, everything and anything for a trailblazing, synthesizing, dialectical, bridge-building, boundary-transgressing, kick ass movement for the 21st century. Furthermore, it also poses a threat to President Priscilla's group, Friend's of Animals, which campaigned against Johnny Weir's skating costume in what was a truly multidimensional effort to bring animal rights advocacy 'down to earth.'"

Steve paused again in order to prepare himself inwardly for the final and most important part of his speech. When he had finished so preparing, he said with studied emphasis, "I offer the following deal to President Priscilla and Lee: I will stop calling you sockpuppet sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome if you, in turn, agree to stop criticizing MDA."

This was the cue for President Priscilla herself to speak. After getting to her feet and steeling herself in readiness for what she was about to do, she said, "Lee and I are willing to stop criticizing MDA. I agree with you, Steve: we have a common enemy now - Gary Francione - and this means that we should stop criticizing each other, and fasten our critical attention on him instead. Steve has already been doing this: in his essay "The Loss of a Halo: Francione and the Mask of Jainism," for example, he alleged that "Francione is...arrogant, controlling, insulting, duplicitous, conniving, aggressive, and verbally abusive...a pseudo-pacifist who ["filled by toxic hated [sic] and violent emotions"] thrives on conflict and hostility" and whose "tactics [are] designed to demonize and destroy individuals and unleash forces of repression and fear." And in my interview with Micheal Harren on Meat Free Radio, I alleged that Francione doesn't like children and old people. The trouble is that – for some inscrutable reason - people just do not seem to be buying into these allegations." Then President Priscilla, her eyes suffused with incomprehension, looked toward the heavens as if communing with some higher power.

Recommencing her speech with the look of a down to earth holistic activist in her eyes, President Priscilla said, "We don't live in the day of Socrates: university presses are not staffed by volunteers: in a world where 60 billion domesticated animals are killed annually for food, animal rights advocacy ought nonetheless to be focused on defending wild animals from being attacked by birth control: and, what is most important of all, grassroots groups benefit from the fact that I, my husband, Bob Orabona, and Lee collectively earn in animal money the annual sum of around $250,000. That I call bringing animal rights advocacy down to earth. That I call letting animals live on their own terms." To us, this sounded more like letting corporate welfarists live on their own terms; but let that pass. For just then we were shaken out of our meditation and reflection on the nature of FoA by an astonishing sight: in response to President Priscilla's comments, her eyes aflame with excitement, Lee emitted a barrage of utterances, one after the other, utterances which were at once mystical, baffling, and never before heard in the history of human communication, but which nonetheless sounded loosely akin to the ordinary words "Bingo! Right On! Yeah! Bbbbbooooommmm!"

It was clear that from now on President Priscilla, Lee, and the multidimensionalists would unite in an effort to stop Gary Francione from convincing people to reject MDA and single issue campaigns in favor of clear and unequivocal vegan education. But it ought to be pointed out that this deal, this pact, this agreement had nothing to do with the fact that Steve sees Francione as an "adversary" and "rival," that is to say, as one who stands in the way of his cherished wish to become the leader of the animal rights movement (or of any movement, really). No; it does not have anything to do with this. Nor does it have anything to do with the fact that Francione critiques single issue campaigns which serve as fundraising vehicles for corporate welfarist organizations like FoA. No, no, no. For President Priscilla and Lee it's all about the animals - the ones, that is, who can be made the eternal subject of an incessant procession of economically lucrative single issue campaigns[4].

And it was at this point that we decided to leave the wilderness, for we had already achieved the aim of our third expedition.

[1] This post was inspired by the transcript of Priscilla Feral's ARZone Guest Chat.

[2] See the transcript of Lee Hall's ARZone Guest Chat.

[3] These words of President Priscilla's are quoted from her interview with Micheal Harren on Meat Free Radio; see this post for a transcript of their exchange.

[4] See this post for criticism of FoA in general and Lee Hall in particular.

The Academic Wilderness: Part II: Richard Kahn Joins Steve Best, David Sztybel, and Norm Phelps

Strange words, compound words, and invented words must be used sparingly. - Aristotle, Rhetoric

[I]n many respects, critical pedagogy's very success has led to a host of problems––including, to name a few: that a wide variety of pedagogical philosophies (of Left, Center, and Right persuasions) now self-professedly act under critical pedagogy’s aegis in ways that demand clarification, that critical pedagogy has become itself potentially de-historicized as a body of theory, and that a trend towards the de-radicalization of critical pedagogy into normalized forms of non-contemplative praxis and de-politicized, student centered, constructivist curricular activities has emerged. - Richard Kahn, "Diasporic Counter-Education: The Need to Fertile-Eyes the Field."

Having heard from reliable sources that Steve, David, and Norm had set up their very own Institute in the academic wilderness, we decided to return to that dark place in order to verify this occurrence for ourselves. In the following, we document our second expedition.[1]

Once again then, we embarked on the journey to the academic wilderness. Owing to the remoteness of the wilderness's location we had to avail ourselves of various modes of transportation: first boarding a boat which undulated atop the waves first towering, then crashing, then towering again, and all this for hours, as if in their eternal wisdom they were trying to deter us from our present course; then taking a plane which soared across the skies strewn with black clouds foreboding a fearsome storm on the distant horizon; then traveling hundreds of miles by foot across recalcitrant terrain redolent of the landscape trekked over by past explorers in search of mysterious lands intimated to exist in hearsay and rumor; and finally, after all this torrid traveling, by foot, boat, and plane, we arrived for the second time at our destination: the academic wilderness.

Soon after arriving here, in this dark and eerie place, we saw that David, Norm, and Steve had began to change things, to decorate, so to speak, in order to make their environment more congenial to the requirements of their academic natures. Where previously there had been a mere makeshift campsite consisting entirely of a small fire constantly in danger of being extinguished by the swirling breeze and encircled by middle-sized stones functioning as chairs, there now stood a wooden hut, rectangular in shape and about two meters in height, complete with a roof which, however, contained several holes that must have let in a not insignificant amount rain; and above the entrance to this hut there was a sign on which were inscribed in what looked like Steve's neatest handwriting the following words: "The Institute for Critical Animal Studies."

Just then we heard a sound coming from some dense bushes and trees not more than a few metres in front of us. It sounded as if someone was hacking his way through them – perhaps because he was in search of something or on some kind of quest. Then, suddenly, a man appeared, dishevelled in appearance and showing signs of physical exhaustion. When we focused the fullness of our attention on this man's face, we saw that it was Richard Kahn, an academic at Antioch University, Los Angeles and, what is more important, a rising star in the world of pragmatist, pluralist, contextualist, and situationist scholarship. We surmised, correctly as it turned out, that he must be looking for the Institute - probably for the purposes of seeing whether there was any opportunity for him to devote himself, body and soul, to its tactically multidimensional approach to negating hegemony. Again, just as with Norm, David, and Steve, so also with Richard: we decided not to disturb him, lest he be embarrassed by our discovering him in the wildernes. Instead, in order to remain at a safe distance from the unknowing subject of our scrupulous observation, we furtively positioned ourselves behind a large rock covered in moss and vines, where, however, we were near enough to the Institute to able to overhear everything going on inside it with poignant clarity.

Just then Richard, esping the Institute situated in a clearing in the jungle, began running toward it as quickly as his fatigued legs would allow him.

When Richard arrived at the Institute, he knocked on the door in the hope that someone - anyone at all - would answer. Luckily, Steve, David, and Norm were all in and had, in fact, just finished a meeting chaired by Steve where they discussed the question of the deconstruction of binary oppositions and false separations. Standing in the doorway, then, Richard - whose face at this moment was the very epitomization of grave seriousness - avowed to the others that he was committed in the innermost recesses of his heart to pluralism and contextualism. And to this ardent avowal of proud devotion the multidimensionalists replied by exclaiming that it was truly great, in that it was perfectly congruent as an ideological matter with their own multiperspectival perspective on animal advocacy. They also said, however, that there was something else, something more immediately pressing that simply could not wait: they were ravenously hungry having not eaten anything but David's baked bean surprise for the past twelve consecutive days, so that what they wanted to know above all else was whether Richard could cook.

Responding to this question, Richard said that he felt his real talents lay elsewhere, that is to say, in politicizing the currently de-politicized aspects of the critical ecopedagogiocal paradigm, expunging it of its last residue of hegemonic elements, and, after having completed this task (which may be incompletable), disseminating the transformative nexus of critical ecopedagogy and Total Liberationism By Any Means Necessary (TLBAMN) to the children of the matrix. Nonetheless, he also said that, as a gesture of goodwill and as a demonstration of his faithfulness to the Institute, he would do the cooking for the others with, however, the attached proviso that his selfless exertions in the kitchen should, by themselves, secure him a permanent place at the Institute. To this proposal of Richard's, Steve, David, and Norm eagerly nodded their untroubled assent as it was a fair one, after all, and moreover their bellies, by this time, were audibly rumbling. This in turn galvanized Richard into a frenzied state of cooking activity that culminated in the historically significant event that was the Institute's first meal together as a foursome.

Unfortunately, however, this cooking proposal turned out to not be as good as Steve, David, and Norm had vainly hoped: Richard's cooking skills were not up to the high standards the others had wished of them. The cause of the trouble seemed to be his tofu scramble, of which Steve and Norm both had a generous helping. Responding to Richard's question, what do you think of my cooking, Steve said flatly that it had made him feel queasy; while Norm went so far as to say that it needed to be questioned whether it made sense as a linguistic matter to qualify the tofu scramble Richard had served with the word "cooked."

Suddenly, a spontaneous eruption fugitively swept out of Richard. He said in characteristic counter-hegemonic fashion that Norm's stance was a parochial outlook on the meaning of his cooking that committed the analytic error of thinking there was someone who got to define what constituted a tasty tofu scramble, whereas, in fact, tofu scramble was inherently multi-dimensional, could be approached from a plurality of perspectives, and as such should under no circumstances be homogenized into the straitjacket of a one-dimensional approach toward the meaning of his cooking. Moreover, Norm's and Steve's responses were important, he said, irrespective of whether they were favorable, in so far as they proved his cooking's multidimensionality and strength. On the other hand, as a noble concession to multiperspectivalism, he said he hoped Steve's queasiness was not diagnostically a symptom of his movement toward death by food poisoning.

From all this, Steve, David, and Norm all excitedly surmised that Richard's performance was tending unswervingly toward its climax, as in fact it was. For the very next moment Richard - while pursing his lips so as to authoritatively accentuate his articulation - said that, like him, the others should take the "cook standpoint"; and the poignant resonance and depth of this expression in conjunction with his pursed lips produced a tremendous impression on Norm and Steve. Indeed, from their reactions it was clear that Richard's performance had had the intended effect, in that it managed to breakthrough the cognitive stranglehold hegemonic cooking ideology had on both of those pluralists and contextualists. It was not clear, however, whether David too had been so de-normalized and re-radicalized.

Indeed, his forehead wrinkled into a series of peaks and troughs, David pointed out that, according to Rule One of Multidimensionalism, Richard's cooking should have elicited a diversity of responses from Steve and Norm; and yet between them there was a convergence of opinion crystallizing in the explicit consensus that his cooking was, in fact, not very good: and so from this essential lack of plurality (David continued) it was reasonable to infer that Richard had failed to prove his cooking's multidimensionality and strength. Even so, David still nourished in his breast a secret confidence that the tofu scramble could be defended using the rich and nuanced conceptual resources of his Theory of Best Caring Ethics, a defence that he enunciated as follows: given that the best is not the worst and the worst is not the best, and given that one ought to do the best and ought not to do the worst (which is the opposite of the best), and given that Richard's cooking is the worst and not the best, it follows and it is true that it should be rejected on a Best Caring Ethic's analysis.

And, in his conclusion, David added the following: "Besides, I am of the opinion that Best Caring Ethics is fully caring."

The astonishing intellectual fecundity of David's analysis provoked an excited critical reaction in Richard: although having studied logic he agreed with David that the best is not the worst and vice verse, he protested that David had begged the primary question by implicitly assuming that the point of his cooking was to produce tasty food. Instead, its point was far more radical and indeed unpredictable than that: it was to provide a mirror of self-reflection for the others to remind them of what they ought to be doing, namely cooking; to decolonize their minds with respect to the influence of hegemonic cooking ideology which claims arbitrarily that food should be tasty; and, most important, to consider the question (which may be undecidable) what is it to be a cook.

On hearing this wisdom, Steve's eyes widened, his nose began to twitch, and his lips curled in a high smile which had the effect of making him squint. For in a pure instance of dialectical synthesizing multidimensional insight he had realized that Richard's deconstruction of hegemonic cooking ideology was supremely important, the first volley of many to come from one of the most gifted and brilliant thinkers writing today. For this reason (so continued Steve's line of thought), Richard would be a valuable asset to the Institute for Critical Animal Studies; so valuable, indeed, that it would more than make up for his bad cooking.

And it was at this point that we decided to leave the wilderness, for we had already achieved the aim of our second expedition; in doing so, we managed also to observe Richard alongside his fellow multidimensionalists.

[1] This post was inspired by comments left by Richard Kahn in the comments section of the following blog post of Tim Gier's: http://timgier.com/2010/09/29/steve-bests-worst-idea/

Animal Rights à la Lee Hall: Letting Manure Live on Its Own Terms

[I]t's hard for people to understand why one would avoid using manure, say, from an animal roaming about, apparently happy. But put the message as 'letting them live on their own terms' and the point becomes understandable. - Lee Hall

Lee Hall, the Vice President of Legal Affairs at Friend's of Animals (FoA), was recently a guest on ARZone, a website that resembles an abolitionist website to a hair, except that it features an incessant procession of new welfarists.

I wrote On Their Own Terms as an effort to promote, with clarity, the essence and the point of the vegan commitment.

With these bold words Lee announced the aim of her self-published book, On Their Own Terms: Bringing Animal Rights Philosophy Down To Earth[1]. And let us just say that the author of this book is eminently qualified for the task of "bringing animal rights philosophy down to earth," given that she has even published a cookbook. More precisely, to the question, has Lee managed to express, "with clarity, the essence and the point of the vegan commitment," we want to answer Yes and Now. Yes, because her writing imparts to something the poignancy of a new clarity. But it does so not so much to "the essence and the point of the vegan commitment," as to the meaning and the direction of FoA's organizational policy. In the following, we explore the issue with reference to her ARZone chat transcript.
 
To begin, from reading her ARZone chat transcript one does not in fact get the impression that everything that is not "down to earth" she inexorably opposes. Indeed, Lee tries to assert her radicalism ("transcending differing ideologies,"), but unfortunately ends up do doing so by eccentricity of ideas. She opines breezily on a profusion of phenomena, from "[P]rimates scanning each others' irises..." to "the concept of nations" to "domination," but is unsure how to proceed when asked a simple question about moral rights. She claims to be bringing "clarity" to veganism and animal rights, but ironically as her interview progresses she ranges ever more freely over content, sometimes in a strangely anachronistic manner ("...from whence they spawn social injustice..."), and rounds off with a diffuse reply containing references to just about everything save "the essence and the point of the vegan commitment."
 
An example, as instructive as it is illustrative, of Lee's "bringing animal rights philosophy down to earth" is her slogan "Letting them live on their own terms." Perhaps the general problem here is that her ideas lack - how can we put it? - inwardness, so as to naturally lend themselves to sloganeering. Whatever the truth of this matter, it is nonetheless clear that she sees great possibilities of special usefulness in framing animal rights advocacy in terms of the aforementioned slogan. More precisely, she thinks this slogan is perfectly fitted to penetrate into areas that other, shallower, perhaps less holistic, slogans simply cannot reach, and one such area which yields to its advances is "manure." She said:

[I]t's hard for people to understand why one would avoid using manure, say, from an animal roaming about, apparently happy. But put the message as 'letting them live on their own terms' and the point becomes understandable.

Could a more effortless vindication of the significance of this slogan to animal rights be imagined? Shouldn't vegans abandon their confidence in abolitionist theory with immediate effect and instead give their ardent fidelity to this idea for the above reason alone? Also, and connectedly, is it to be inferred that, on Lee's reading, animal rights is renderable, at "the deep level," as whether or to what extent "using manure...from an animal roaming, apparently happy" is consistent with the slogan "letting them live on their own terms"? In any event, with her holistic talk of letting manure live on its own terms it is clear at least that she has gone to the last extremity of animal rights radicalism. To see this quite clearly one need only ask oneself the question: How could one have ever missed this aspect of animal rights in the face of the slaughterhouse?
 
So, what does animal rights actually mean for Lee? She said:

Animal rights doesn't only involve the absence of property; it's about human beings human beings gaining the integrity, stamina, and creativity to envision a world beyond human supremacy [as if the former were not an instance of the latter – Clowns' Corner]

Though there is not exactly a perfection of detail here, this does not matter, since we would not be so inexpressibly dreary as to importune her to provide it, and, in any event, we are impressed by the sterling quality of her rhetoric. For does her vegan vision not sound inspiring - at least to people who only ever skim read things - with its talk of "integrity, stamina, and creativity?" On the other hand, if we really wished to be exacting, we would say that this way of speaking could be excusable if it were merely a preliminary oversimplification, but it really seems that this characteristically vague and undefined talk is all Lee has to offer. In fact, in her writing there is a loquacity of rambling which in its noncommittal vagueness resembles the speech of a politician, for just as the latter tries to maximize his voter base by making empty statements with which no member of the public could disagree ("I support a better society!"), so Lee tries to maximize FoA's donor base by making superficially edifying yet ultimately vacuous and vapid statements with which no animal advocate could disagree (I support a "culture transformed"!). After all, who could possibly disagree that we need "integrity, stamina, and creativity"? Indeed, such talk is not so much a theory of "a culture transformed" from an animal rights perspective as a theory of anything (or of nothing).
 
Yet Lee presents her writing as if it were a concrete advance on the genuine radicalism of the abolitionist critique of the property status of animals, which she feels "oversimplifies the matter," albeit only from the perspective of her impertinent enthusiasm for conflating animal rights with all manner of irrelevances such as the issue of whether it is acceptable for "[P]rimates [to be] scanning each others' irises..." There is nothing whatever "holistic" about encumbering animal rights with irrelevancy; and nothing radical about distracting attention from the real issue.
 
Responding to the question, "Why are vegans opposed to relationships between human & animals?" Lee, full of deep purpose, said:

There is hardly an experience more joyful than lying down on a grassy hill in a park at dusk in summer, waiting for the bats to emerge and swoop and flutter overhead. There is hardly a more exhilarating feeling than camping quietly watching a group of deer walk past - the feeling of letting other animals pass through our lives in peace. The more we think about it, the more exciting the plan to respect animals' freedom becomes. I think, yes! This is what animal right looks like.

We wonder whether Lee takes the above to be an example of "integrity, stamina, and creativity"? We thought that "creativity" in the context of the animal rights struggle meant - not poeticizing about wild animals - but rather convincing people to stop consuming cows and pigs and chickens. This does not mean, however, that we are not struck by this poeticizing by Lee; for it does after all have an unequalled force of expression, so moving in its prosy effusiveness; and her poeticizing in conjunction with her claim that a vegan world "hinges on our motivation to visit the deep level" makes us think that the Vice President of Legal Affairs at FoA is not any ordinary activist but is, rather, a poet - or perhaps even a sage - by an irresistible vocation.
 
On the other hand, in the interests of impartiality and objectivity, we would like to pose the following question: would it be an instance of unfounded suspiciousness to entertain the thought that Lee uses such rhetoric, so strange and unexpected in its floweriness ("...from whence they spawn social injustice..."), in order to exploit people's vulnerability to pathos by offering them the false semblance of it, namely bathos, and also to try to impart a hypocritical depth to the otherwise hopeless vacancy of her formulations? We shall leave it up to our readers to decide this question.
 
Responding to a question about moral rights, Lee said:

People sometimes bring up moral rights to claim domesticated animals, such as animals bred as pets, "are not our property; we are not their owners." That leads to problematic views: for example, notions that domesticated animals have acquired or will be gaining rights through laws or simply through enough love and caring on the part of their caregivers. We can keep things simple through language on which most all of us would agree: Conscious animals have interests. Rather than speaking of something we might or might not believe in, I feel confident speaking of rights as socially created, enforceable protections for the interests we know animals have.

We must admit somewhat shamefully that we are not sure what Lee means here – perhaps because it is an artless kind of half-mysticism accessible in its esotericism only to those who, like her, have "visit[ed] the deep level..."?
 
Lee continued to bring clarity to animal rights by saying:

And the book points out that these free-living beings, ignored in the sprawl of agribusiness and often missed in the animal-advocacy pamphlets, are the ones for whom the idea of "rights" actually applies.

The book also explains that expanded cages and pastures take habitat from free-living animals. Cara says this "sparks a light-bulb moment for non-vegan environmentalists who are opposed to factory farms and still considering larger cages and open ranges.

First, a confession: when we first read these statements, bafflement hung on our lips, which remained open for a few minutes. Which ideologies is Lee's view suited to transcend, we said at once slowly and in unison, as Gary Francione has been claiming for a long while now that we ought not to be breeding domesticated animals; but let that pass.
 
Second, Lee has clarified for us that "expanded cages and pastures" are wrong - for animal rights "actually applies" only to "free-living beings" - not because they mean regulating the exploitation of the animals inside of them, but instead because they mean encroaching on the habitats of the animals outside of them. How convenient for FoA's nonvegan donors who eat the animals imprisoned inside the "cages and pastures."
 
And there is something else, too, besides Lee's clarification. She plays a trick, which she shouldn't be allowed to play. It consists in trading on a certain ambiguity. She says that animals rights "actually applies" to wild animals. There is a sense in which this claim is obviously true: in a post-abolition world there will be only wild animals (for the simple reason that we will no longer breed domesticated animals), and as such one could say that in an ultimate sense animal rights "actually appl[y]" for wild animals. But from this truism of animal rights - which in the delirium of her desire to be seen as radical and innovative she presents as an original insight - Lee pulls out a hodgepodge of ideas that congeal into a false conclusion irrationally held from an animal rights perspective. It is, namely, that in a pre-abolition world animal rights campaigning should be focused on defending the autonomy of wild animals using paradigmatic instances of single issue campaigning.
 
In so concluding, Lee commits two hair-raising howlers considered from an animal rights, though nonetheless not from FoA's organizational/economic, perspective. First, while, as we said, there is a sense in which animal rights "actually applies" to autonomous animals, it by no means follows that non-autonomous, domesticated animals (cows, pigs, chickens, and so on, in short, all the animals that people eat) do not have anything to do with animal rights campaigning. Quite the contrary, for these animals are the victims of what is quantitatively and qualitatively the most significant practice of animal exploitation, namely the consumption of animals/animal products. Second, abolitionist campaigning cannot be conducted through the medium of single issue campaigns, since these campaigns send a confused and confusing message (that some forms of animal use are different [i.e., more or less objectionable] than others), and are a waste of time and resources which could be better spent campaigning against the primary practice. These two reasons compel the conclusion that in its essence and in its point animal rights activism is about abolishing the consumption of animals using the tactic of clear and unequivocal vegan education.
 
After further "transcending differing ideologies" by elaborating on the issue of breeding small people in the Italian renaissance, Lee said:

You know, there are a whole lot of well-meaning people who are going to accuse us of "racism" if we agree with breeding bans. Europe seems to be ahead of the curve on this issue.

Here we can't help but wonder what Lee is getting at. We can't help having the impression that Lee is suggesting that a ban on breeding people as a mere means to others' ends and breeding animals are similar issues, as though both bans would deny the respective beings the right to live on their own terms: people who can live on their own terms and domestic animals who can't. To put it otherwise, Lee seems to be suggesting that a ban on breeding animals who by definition cannot live on their own terms is at risk of being deemed similar to racism in the sense of preventing a certain class of people from reproducing who can live on their own terms, i.e., in human society. We must admit that we have never looked at it like that.
 
Lee also said, "Communities of animals [will be] living right now just as they would and will if and when our culture really becomes a culture, and accepts their rights." Now, at this point, we are confused. Which animals is Lee talking about? As for the 50-60 billion animals raised for food annually, they would not be living in "habitat": they would simply not exist. And if we stopped breeding cows and pigs and chickens, there would be no problem of farms encroaching on habitat. As for those animals living in habitat, this issue cannot be meaningfully addressed in a world in which animals are property (which Lee herself implicitly concedes when she refers to the problem of "expanded cages and pastures" encroaching on habitat); in which animals are bred continually solely for the purposes of being consumed; and in which 99% of people take consuming animal products to be as normal and natural as breathing air and drinking water. Moreover, what Lee is talking about is not even a question of veganism, for veganism is about not using animals as resources and not about the distribution of habitats among humans and animals.
 
Up to this point she has tried to point out in what way her vision is suited to "[transcend] differing ideologies," and now she points out the differences by criticizing as an instance of "lesser-evil thinking" the option of giving birth control to wild animals, as proposed by "wealthy humane bureaucracies and even abolitionist writers." She argues that in doing so "abolitionist writers" reinforce the idea that "the animals are a problem." She must mean that "abolitionist writers" reinforce the problem of "domination." Having delivered herself of this rebuke Lee continued by saying:

Animal-rights advocacy needs a way to resist such assumptions [about the acceptability of giving wild animals birth control], and there is no time to waste. Hence a book about how we can resist them. Hence my work to defend local deer, local coyotes. We need to ensure our theory can be applied on behalf of animals under attack...This points to the importance of starting out by distinguishing ~selectively bred~ animals from communities of animals who could actually experience autonomy, and shouldn't be denied that opportunity...What does it mean to relinquish human supremacy? Are we really prepared for that? That's what's behind a lot of these coyote- and wolf- killing schemes. We resent their power.

To repeat, while from a certain perspective animal rights can be said to "actually appl[y]" to animals who can experience autonomy, it does not follow that animal rights campaigning in a pre-abolition world should be focused on defending wild animals. Nor does it follow that in "letting wild animals live on their own terms," that is, by generally rejecting contraception for them, Lee is respecting their autonomy and even showing that she does not "resent their power." For when wild animals are brought into the world as property, as utterly rightless beings, they are subject or at least exposed to people's power - to their domination, to use Lee's buzz word - in the most extreme way. Thereupon they are killed or injured by being shot, poisoned, or trapped. On the other hand, looked at in a certain light, there is a sort of - how can we put it? - internal consistency to Lee's position. If animals could not be brought into the world to be shot, poisoned, trapped, maimed, then FoA could not run single campaigns defending animals from being shot, poisoned, trapped, maimed: lucrative campaigns from which FoA earns millions of dollars allowing President Priscilla Feral to richly reward herself with the annual sum of $100,000.
 
Responding to the question, would you disagree with giving possums - who are "highly persecuted by everyone and their grandmother!" (i.e., poisoned to death) - birth control, Lee said:

The pills might involve less physical pain than another form of animal control, but does involvement in the manipulation and control of animals mean unintentionally accepting the human agreement that animals simply must be kept in check if not used as food, clothing, entertainment, or objects of curiosity?

It requires a lot of distance from the actual conditions of the animal rights struggle to suggest the choice which we, as animal rights advocates, are faced with is between "unintentionally accepting the human agreement that animals simply must be kept in check" (whatever that is supposed to mean) on the one hand and refusing to give them birth control on the other, as if by plumping for the latter option one could rid the human-animal relationship of domination and thereby alter animals' fate. The real choice in this world is between sometimes giving wild animals birth control and letting them be born into the world as property, whereupon they will be shot, poisoned, trapped, or maimed. This implies that it is pointless for Lee to require us to qualify our sense of the general acceptability of giving wild animals birth control with an empty "from a dominationist perspective," as if her vantage point from which she proffers her anti-birth control rhetoric[2] in and of itself were "non-dominationist." For this vantage point is itself a pious fiction which can be sustained only by ignoring the fact that animals are born into the world as property. Accordingly, with her anti-birth control rhetoric, proffered from a fictitious perspective, Lee is actually potentiating and aggravating the very enabling-condition that gives rise to the absolute domination of animals in the first place - that enabling-condition being to bring animals into existence as property.
 
Lee seemed to be anticipating this objection when she said, "Were the conflict between human groups, one forcing contraceptives on the other would raise alarm bells over human rights and reproductive autonomy." There is a difference here, however, the obvious relevance of which Lee is obstinately ignoring. It is, namely, that humans are rightholders whereas animals are property. Among other things, this difference implies that the risk to which wild animals are subject is categorically, qualitatively different from risk to which we are subject in the sense in which we mean it when we speak (albeit sentimentally and banally) of "the roller coster ride of life," and to which Lee refers when she says, "I want to live in a world in which I am at risk." For Lee, when sitting on a grassy hill watching bats swooping overhead, is in no way at risk from being shot, poisoned, or trapped by hunters, and even if she were at such risk she would have recourse to justice; whereas the animals, on the other hand, are at risk of being shot, poisoned, or trapped by hunters, and they, the animals, have no recourse to justice.
 
Lee went on to claim, in effect, that it is better for animals to be subject to risk than not to be born at all, and also that being subject to risk is an essential part of living an autonomous life. Ignoring the pretense and nonsense involved in claiming to be concerned about animals who do not exist, we wonder if Lee could give an edifying elaboration, in her sentimental style, on what it would be for humans to experience the sort of "autonomy" that wild animals experience. It would perhaps go something like this:

There is hardly an experience more joyful than lying down on a grassy hill in a park at dusk in summer, waiting for the hunters to creep up behind me and kill me. There is hardly a more exhilarating feeling than camping quietly watching for a group of hunters to walk past - the feeling of letting their bullets and bows pass through my body - which I do not own because I am property - in peace. I think, yes! This is what human rights looks like.

What this parody involving humans brings out with stark clarity is that although risk is inseparable from autonomy, autonomy, in its genuine form, is inseperable from the right not to be property. The risk of being shot, poisoned, trapped, or maimed (while also, by definition, having no recourse to justice) is not exactly the sort of "autonomy" we want animals to experience. Indeed, when, like animals, certain beings are bereft of even so much as the right not to be property - when they can be shot, poisoned, trapped, and maimed at will - then one can speak only cynically or with bitter irony of their "autonomy." Accordingly, what Lee advocates, in opposing giving wild animals birth control, is a false or corrupt semblance – a counterfeit – of genuine autonomy.
 
We know Lee is an adherent of the theory of intersectionality in the sense of thinking there to be a "deep level where all oppressions connect," which she thinks we have to "visit." Similarly with her comments: there is a deep level where they all connect, from whence single issue campaigns spawn. Only when we can find the motivation to visit this deep level will we manage to describe an animal rights movement transformed – transformed from a corporate welfarist movement into a grass roots abolitionist movement. We must now ask our readers to follow a discussion that might at first seem like a digression. In fact, we shall put it in the form of a story:
 
Once upon a time there was a corporate new welfarist organization. Like all such organizations, it had a bloated bureaucracy and its executives and functionaries could be thought of as a cross between politicians and businesspeople who never exercised their intelligence, except in the service of selling the group's brand to the public. In order to maintain its activities, the group was dependent on membership fees and donations. Most of its donors were members of the group which participated in animal exploitation, i.e., they were not vegan. Nonvegans don't support the abolition of animal exploitation. They support single issue campaigns precisely because these campaigns don't challenge animal exploitation and make people who use animals feel better about doing so. The group needed to launch campaigns which were suited to elicit financial support, and these were campaigns that didn't challenge, and were not aimed at abolishing, animal exploitation. So the group focused on more "exotic" animals who had a strong emotional appeal to people, like seals, dolphins, whales, elephants. These single issue campaigns served as fundraising vehicles. The group had considerable capital assets.
 
Now imagine a functionary from this group said that rejecting single issue campaigns in the animal context was analogous to rejecting single issue campaigns in the human context – a campaign against female genital mutilation, e.g. This would be a crass misrepresentation of the abolitionist position, which, of course, applies only to animal rights advocacy, not to human rights advocacy, and therefore in no way implies that it is wrong to support a campaign against female genital mutilation. What is important to see here, though, is that this crass misrepresentation would be in total compliance and conformity with the group's economic self-interest (for the group was utterly dependent on single issue campaigns as a economic matter).
 
Imagine also this functionary said that it was speciesist to reject single issue campaigns in the animal context because we support them in the human one. Again, this would be a crass misrepresentation of the abolitionist position which rightly identifies a qualitative, categorical difference between animal rights advocacy and human rights advocacy, a difference that justifies treating these two contexts differentially, which entails that it is anything but "speciesist" to reject single issue campaigns in the animal context. And again what is important to see here is that this crass misrepresentation would be in total compliance and conformity with the group's economic self-interest.
 
To paraphrase Gary Francione's concise formulation of the point about single issue campaigns:

The fact that we choose to work politically on the issue of genital mutilation does not mean that we think trafficking and domestic abuse are acceptable or morally less objectionable. This is because all of these practices are widely rejected in society.

If X, Y, and Z are all viewed as morally unacceptable, focusing on X does not convey the message that Y and Z are morally acceptable.

In animal advocacy, the situation is different. Most people think that eating meat, dairy, and eggs, or wearing wool or leather is as normal and natural as drinking water or breathing air. So when we single out one form of animal exploitation, we necessarily distinguish it for moral purposes. That is, if most people think that consuming animal products raises no moral problem, focusing on meat necessarily conveys the idea that dairy and eggs are different and that their use is morally acceptable or, at least, morally distinguishable.

In sum, if X, Y, and Z are all viewed as morally acceptable and you single out X as morally problematic, you implicitly say to the public that Y and Z are different from X and that they are not morally unacceptable, or are at least morally distinguishable from X.

The upshot of all this is that the group was dependent on single issue campaigns as a economic matter. It made money from them. And lots of it. Indeed, the socio-economic existence of its President and other functionaries - whose salaries were around $100,000 each - was dependent on donations elicited from the public by the group's single issue campaigns. In short: there was a conflict of interest which was manifest. This conflict of interest deprived the group's defence of single issue campaigns of the authority needed for it to be deemed worthy of serious consideration, just as when a politician is involved in a conflict of interest it deprives his defence of it (assuming he does defend it) of the authority needed for it to be deemed worthy of serious consideration. Indeed, it would be self-delusion to credit a politician with having something serious to say about a political issue from which he benefits economically. We shall leave it up to our readers to join up the necessary dots.
 
To conclude by stating the general upshot of this post: "the essence and the point of the vegan commitment" really acquired the poignancy of a new "clarity" in Lee's chat on ARZone; in fact, she did nothing less than to bring animal rights philosophy "down to earth." If we can find the "motivation to visit the deep level," then we can teach people why "one would avoid using manure...from an roaming animal, apparently happy" and perhaps even why it's acceptable for President Priscilla to earn the sum of $100,000 – amid the din and tumult, from which an abolitionist message cannot even emerge fragmentarily, of FoA's cynical efforts to defend wild animals from being attacked by birth control using an endless supply of economically lucrative single issue campaigns.

Footnotes

[1] Lee's claim that animal rights philosophy needs to be brought "down to earth" is just another corporate welfarist attempt to malign animal rights as "utopian," for just as other welfarists claim that we must support welfarist reform in order to make animal rights "pragmatic," so Lee claims that we must support single issue campaigns in order to bring animal rights "down to earth."
 
[2] We feel that such anti-birth control rhetoric would appeal to right-wing anti-abortionists.