The conversation with Tim Gier continues. As in my previous entry I explained, I took Tim's blog entry Saving the World in a kind of interview/dialogue. It was mind flexing and fun, but I ran out of steam before I ran out of Tim's questions and thoughtful responses.

TG's Question: Is there another reason that would obligate you to try to convince others to stop using animals?

TG: Perhaps it is the case that since human beings have created the problem relative to the misuse of animals, we are all obligated to work to solve the problem.

I don’t think this is true either. You did not personally create the systems that misuse animals. If you are currently abstaining from all uses of animals, then you are not now contributing to the continued misuse of animals. You cannot be required to ameliorate the harms that are caused by others, when you have had no part in their perpetuation.

Otherwise, for example, it could just as easily be said that since you had a home mortgage once that benefited you greatly, and even though you no longer have any mortgage at all, because you are part of a system that still uses mortgages, you are obligated to personally assist any current mortgage holders who are in crisis. That makes no sense.

SW: Tim, I'm finding it difficult to apply that analogy. That said, can I have permission to rephrase the analogy to something I think might make it clearer for me to answer?

Take the case of those who call themselves homeless. I see them at the base of the Interstate exit three or four times a day. One guy has a sign with "Visa & Mastercard accepted here" on one side, and on the other, "Try and hit me with a quarter. EYE dare you too."

Do I have an obligation to sling a quarter or two at him? Did he not have the same opportunities for making life decisions that I do? Did he perhaps make some really bad selections? Who knows? But just because I have a job am I obligated to give him  some of my money? I don't, not because I don't think he needs it, or because I'm judging him. I don't because I see the same group eating fried chicken under the overpass.

The way I see it is that the current animal production "system" has morphed over the last hundred or so years, with the most far reaching negative impacts in the last fifty or so. Maybe I am not "obligated" to ameliorate the harm by abstaining from animal use, but I am obligated to the collective soul of all beings to try to improve the planet so it can continue to support any/all life forms.

TG: So, again, while maybe it would be a good thing that you take it upon yourself to work for the cause of animal rights, you are not obligated to.

SW: Let me interrupt for a second, Tim. Perhaps I'm overlooking the use of obligation as you mean it. Perhaps I'm choosing to take on the mantle of obligation as an act of restitution for all those years that I was not vegan. I would agree with you then, that many may think the simple act of being vegan is enough, and there is no obligation to perform any activism other than representing the animals when walking into the lunchroom, at least that is my experience in our break room.

TG: Another source of confusion with regard to our obligations to others is the result of our political system. For example, you might think that we have an obligation to provide at least basic health care to every person in the country. Do you mean that you personally accept an obligation to provide such care? No. What you actually mean is that you think we should all, collectively and through the mechanisms of government, provide such care. As members of a democracy, we agree to be bound by the decisions reached in our political process. There is a difference between being a voluntary part of a system and being obligated by moral imperative.

SW: Good point. But please also consider the amount of disease and illness directly connected with the consumption of animals and their products. I have no desire to withhold necessary medical care to any one. However, like insurance companies charging higher premiums for smokers, I'd prefer more vegans (well, all vegans in a perfect world) so the world would be a healthier one and easier to provide medical care to those who needed it as there'd be fewer sick and dying people.

Additionally consider this: If I don't consume flesh, I will not be exposed to BSE. As you and I both know, our meat producers cannot be trusted to follow the most basic laws in place and there is very little policing done to be sure they're not violating WRT both human and non-human rights. BUT (and it is a very huge but) if a class 5 hurricane goes spinning up the coast and enters pig country - well I'm going to try to resist fan references, but you get my drift. That said, the risk of vegans getting sick from airborne diseases like Swine flu - and I am NOT going to call it H1N1 to protect the guilty, is a risk I'd like to not take. So it is indeed in my best interest to actively promote veganism for that reason. Am I obligated to do so? No, but I see a piano falling down from that great height and I am getting out of Dodge.

TG: Finally, since the basis for you accepting your obligations toward animals is that they should not be treated as just a means to an end, then you have a right to the same consideration for yourself. In other words, even though the end result of the cessation of the use of animals as things is a noble one, you cannot be used by others as merely a way to achieve that end. You get to decide what you will do, no one gets to decide that for you. While it might be a good thing for you to try to convince others to accept their own obligations towards animals, you are not obligated to do so.

SW: But it is in my best interest to move away from the piano falling and if you are beside me reading your Kindle, I'm going to shove you too. If you drop your Kindle and it breaks, I'll hope you see my actions as still in your best interests.

TG's Question: So why is any of this important?

TG: It is important because when one person has made a commitment to veganism, they have done all that is required of them. Vegans are not obligated to change the minds of other people, whether those people are perfect strangers or significant others. Vegans are not required to take part in campaigns, or put bumper stickers on their cars, or proselytize their views in every possible forum. Maybe it would be a better world if they did, but they are not obligated to.

The process of educating others about veganism, and the questions about whether to do it, when to do it, and how to do it, are personal matters beyond the reach of the obligations that each of us have to other sentient beings.

Our obligation to animals is to stop using them, to stop treating them as things. As each of us does that, our individual obligation has been met. Accept that obligation, and your work is done.

SW: Nicely done. I agree that I don't want anyone threatening to take away my vegan card if I don't go to meetups and try to change the mind of every omnivore I know. I'm not sure, however that it is a personal matter beyond what I owe to non-human persons.  If I don't speak up, then am I not complicit? I'm reminded of the poem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

Pasted from <http://timgier.com/2010/03/09/saving-the-world/>

Cruelty is in the eye of the beholder

I did laundry yesterday. The laundromat lady had a pizza delivered. Another customer walked across the street for her Church's Fried Chicken fix. I took my copy of Prof. Gary L. Francione's Animals as Persons to the farthest corner of the room to avoid the sights and smells of the "food" they thoughtlessly consumed. I went back to my reading, absorbing the concept that as long as animals are "things" and not granted the rights of non-human persons, not much is going to change.

Today I saw a news story which proved that point, about chickens that were spray painted and set loose at Carnegie Mellon University and the outrageous cruelty perceived by the woman who is caring for the 9 hens delivered to her by campus police.

Understand, I think chickens are awesome. I like them so much, in fact, that I neither eat them nor their eggs. Every time I've got a birthday gift to buy, I make a donation to a farm sanctuary for the care and feeding of a chicken. Furthermore, I don't advocate anyone spray painting any animal unless said animal is a consenting adult and has requested to be engaged in some spray painting activity. But I digress.

What intrigues me is how the general public  can compartmentalize the dichotomy of consuming animal products and yet be so outraged when as a prank (perhaps, I am speculating) some college students spray paint chickens and cut them loose in the hallowed halls, the very same hallowed halls they'll walk through to get to the cafeteria for the Chicken Noodle Soup.

I wonder if Beth McMaster is vegan. She's a wildlife rehabilitator. I'd think she might be, but I've got no way to confirm or deny. It doesn't take much evidence to realize she's mighty miffed about the spray painting of the hens.

From the article: "Ms. McMaster said that as of Wednesday evening, no one from the university had contacted her about the animals, which surprised her.
"I would think if they're serious about this and they want to get to the bottom of it, somebody would have called to inquire about how they're doing," she said.
"Do they want to keep these things quiet? Is it routine for a college to hide crime? I mean, I think it's a crime," she said. "I'd love to see this go public, because this ... shouldn't be tolerated at these schools or anywhere else."

McMaster sounds like she genuinely cares for chickens, right? If so, she must be vegan. If not, she's a hypocrite and in very good company.


Professor Francione wrote: "Alternatively, if we are to make good on our claim to take animal interests seriously, then we can do so in only one way: by applying the principle of equal consideration - the rule that we ought to treat like cases alike unless there is good reason not to do so - to animals."

I therefore propose that we vegans call upon those who would be outraged at the cruelty to look at the cruelty inherent in their lives as evidenced by whose skin they wear, by who is in their bellies,  and by who has been killed for their convenience.

Dear Welfarist Vegan,

When I first became vegan, I thought you - as a more "experienced" activist had the right ideas about how to forward the movement, to get the word out that using animals as food or clothing was morally reprehensible on too many levels to name. So I signed up, and I joined, and I participated in tabling events where there were PeTA brochures, stickers, DVD's, and all the other propaganda they produce. I looked into the eyes of those very people we were trying to convince to see the reality of the damage they were inflicting upon us all with the continued consumption of animal corpses. I saw them take in the PeTA connection, and shut down their very souls. They know, I know, and if you examine your heart, you'll come to know that PeTA is loathed for its blatent sexualization of the very cause they claim to promote.

Sometime later, after looking at the animal rights movement, I came to realize that the only way for the movement to succeed was by adopting an abolishionist approach. At that juncture, I stopped attending meetings and tableing events where the PeTA propaganda was present. I retracted my membership to the Yahoo! group, and I simply went about my business of quiet determination to live by example, and triage (if you will) those who asked respectful questions about my vegan life.

You wrote asking if I wanted to continue to be on the email list and I asked to be removed, and you seemed confused by my desire to be removed from the factory farming committee, a committee dedicated to “improving the welfare” of the animals. For the purpose of clarification, I offer the following:
I believe that working toward "more humane" methods of using animals for our own needs is indeed increasing demand and therefore is counterproductive. The only way we can convince anyone that the use of animals as food or for any other use is by showing them the truth, and abolishing gestation crates and battery cages just isn't enough. This page demonstrates it better, though, and I thought you might take a glimpse of some of the examples. http://www.humanemyth.org I would also like to recommend you read Making a Killing, by Bob Torres, PhD, as well as Rain without Thunder by Gary Francione. Both books are written by gentlemen who possess great powers of critical thinking as well as tremendous influential arguments for abolition over welfarism.
It is my firm belief that aligning with PeTA is a mistake. The general populace views them (and correctly so, I believe) as nutcases who use the hearts of good people such as you to generate income. I cannot in good conscience stand in front of a table with brochures from an organization who uses girl on girl action to promote a cause as important to me as animal rights. For crying out loud, PeTA can’t manage a no kill shelter! I cannot view KFC’s commitment to “happy meat” as a victory. It is not. It is clear to me that you, and the rest of the group believe you are changing things for the better, but I think in the end run, you are granting people permission to consume animal products as long as they have nice labels like “free range” eggs, which we all know is a bold faced marketing lie told to justify the egg consumption at the cost of millions of male chicks, the cost of the damage to the environment, the wholesale slaughter of millions of “spent” hens, and the inherent psychological damage to those whose jobs depend upon the slaughter and production of the “happy meat” KFC buckets at the end of the day.
I hope you know I think very highly of you, and indeed all of the members of the group for their veganism. I feel compelled to separate from the group at the crossroad of welfarism over abolition, because at its’ roots, it is little different from justifying slavery as long as the slave master treats the slaves well.
Be well and happy, and above all else, vegan.
Warm regards,
Selah