Hello everyone, this is The Jungle blog.
Today we’re going to talk about the minimum that every activist can do to help. When advocating for animals, or talking about injustices committed against them, a common response people say is, ‘humans first.’ For those who are actually involved in activism in other fields, I just want to point out that there are many situations where human issues and animal issues are inseparable.
The first most prominent example would be Climate Change. Fifty percent of all land is used for Animal Farming. We continue to over-breed animals to keep up with consumer demand, which uses up land, food, and water, which could be used for humans. Raising animals for food is extremely wasteful and is one of the biggest contributors to the Climate Crisis. Because of how much damage that we’ve done to the environment, we can only mitigate or reduce extra damage, but even this is important. Female animals are subjected to a forcible breeding process where they’re kept perpetually pregnant for years until their bodies give out, in which case they’re slaughtered. The amount these animals are made to give birth is astounding, and couldn’t be replicated naturally. If nothing else, even with already existing animals needing to occupy land, it would at least be helpful for the environment if they were not forced to give birth to insane numbers anymore.
Second, without Animal Rights, there can be no Worker Rights. Workers on Factory Farms have to witness a lot of terrible things. Animals being cut and castrated without painkillers, forced to live in spaces too small to move, sitting in their own urine and feces. This accumulates into ammonia gas, which burns your lungs and eyes. Workers have to wear special masks. The average worker has to slaughter an average of 250 cows per hour. Turnover rate is up to a hundred percent each year, so workers are new and inexperienced. The animals are already slaughtered improperly because there’s so many of them. Workers having little to no experience makes the issue worse. Farm work is one of the least unionized industries in the country, and it is purposefully exempted from the largest amounts of legal protections for workers. Many workers are Latino, so citizenship is heavily emphasized, and a culture of bullying and ethnic infighting between Whites and Latinos is encouraged. Undocumented Immigrants have their citizenship status used to blackmail them so that they can’t request workers comp, or report a workplace injury. Factory Farms are built next to minority neighborhoods because the owners know the residents will have a harder time fighting back. While most farm animals are allowed to just sit in their urine and feces, pigs produce so much waste that it has to be occasionally disposed of. Therefore, many tons of untreated hog waste is regularly dumped into the water supply. Overuse of antibiotics leads to antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, which kills many people. So do the gasses Factory Farms produce.
Historically, most disease outbreaks can be traced back to practices involving the mistreatment of animals. Because of Factory Farms, disease outbreaks are more likely now more than any other point in history. Pandemics, and Epidemics are more likely, which generally leads to inconvenience, and shutdowns.
Animal Experiments are an outdated bureaucracy, which continues due to tradition. Medical Research is notoriously slow, and Animal Experiments are amongst some of the least efficient ways to gather data; many experiments are bizarre and not useful. Even minor physical differences between species can cause issues for research. Potential disease cures remain undiscovered because they show no results in non-human species. Harmful side effects go undetected because they don’t show up in Animal Tests. Toxicologists know that information about poisons don’t translate well between different species. Data gathered from Animal Experiments often can’t be translated into a form that’s useful for humans. There are much better methods to do research, and with improving technology, this becomes even more obvious. Medical, Veterinary, and Science groups lobby hard to keep these experiments funded. Protests against Animal Experiments go ignored by legislators because they put too much trust in these experts, lacking the time to get expertise on these subjects themselves. But the advice given here is unreliable because the question posed isn’t a scientific one, but a moral one. Companies that breed animals, and create experiment equipment also lobby to keep these experiments funded. Superior techniques for doing research are ignored in lieu of continuing Animal Experiments, which is the easy way out for keeping your lab funded.
Now there is a difference between animals, and human beings in general. Groups of humans can govern themselves. If you abuse a group of people long enough, they will eventually riot or revolt. In this respect, Animals are very defenseless. The eventual goal is to leave them alone, but in the world as it is now, we have to help them. There are institutions which oppress animals, and others working to help them. But because animals are rendered dependent on us, if the people trying to help them lose their heads, or miscalculate a decision on their behalf, it puts animals in a bad position.
Many people have a paternalistic feeling towards minorities, that they will grant them their rights once the white male population is feeling enlightened enough. But the have-nots cannot be dependent on others to grant them their rights. They have to organize, pool their own resources (creating an independent power base) and then pressure the ‘haves’ to hand over the rest of the stuff.
It’s important to not let your outsider status to minority groups mix in with your knowledge of Animal Rights. When it comes to Animals, humans will always possess an outsider status, and right now, when it comes to violations of their rights, every human is an interested party. Despite all this, our attitudes and actions towards animals are still a form of prejudice. If you are willing to do something to a creature because they’re an animal, but not to a human of equal intelligence, then on what basis do you do it? Because they’re a different species from you? That is pure unadulterated prejudice. For example, a dog is most similar in intelligence to a two year old human, able to learn up to two hundred words. Generally speaking, pigs (which we turn into bacon) are considered much more intelligent than dogs. Also, pain is pain. Two creatures might differ in intelligence, but both are conscious feeling beings capable of suffering. Two creatures might have differing needs, but those needs ought to be given equal consideration. We also should not kill the less intelligent for reasons that aren’t justified, like turning them into hamburger.
When it comes to the phrase, ‘humans first,’ being said in response to Animal Rights, what would you think of someone if you were talking about fighting against injustice in Africa, and in response they said, ‘white’s first.’ Anyone who’s made a thorough study of the topic will understand that animal issues are at the very least comparable to human issues. The victimized party adds up to the hundreds of billions. There is so much suffering, and also so much death. It adds up to the billions each year ALONE. Animals live in tiny spaces too crammed to even stretch their legs or move. They sleep in their own urine and feces, and are constantly exposed to ammonia gas. They are cut and castrated without painkillers. They have lives of pain, boredom, and sensory deprivation. Every possible activity is deprived from them, every instinct is frustrated. Animals that can live up to twenty five years are killed at one and two, assuming that we’re not talking about lamb, cabrito meat, and veal, where animals are brought into existence and then killed hours, days, weeks, or months after being born. We simply are trained not to see it because of the pervasive cultural prejudice known as speciesism (Even if it’s a clunky word, speciesism is bluntly what it is.)
More and more people are realizing that without animal rights, there is no basis for human rights. There is no basis for human rights that wouldn’t also apply to animals. We are a society that emphasizes equality, at least in the political sense. But we must realize that not all humans are equal in ability and character. It’s also possible to lose your rights, for example, when you kill an attacker in self defense, you take away the other person’s right to life. When you throw someone in prison, you take away their right to freedom. Yet there are still needs we take equal consideration of. For example, we would not feel justified taking away a person’s freedom of religion just because they are a criminal. Even a person who believes in the death penalty would agree that there are certain forms of torture that are wrong to subject a prisoner to if you gave the person enough examples.
Not all humans are equally intelligent. There are children, young infants, and babies. Someone below the age of five lacks many abstract reasoning skills, language, and doesn’t know that they will die one day. There are also humans with mental disabilities, developmental disorders, brain damage, and dementia. How can we justify extending this equal status on account of being human, starting with the less intelligent, and stretching it all the way to the psychopathic murderer, and then not extend this status to animals? There was once a time we did not extend this status of ‘being human’ even in our rhetoric to many groups of humans; that time being in Ancient Rome. It wasn’t that Romans were soulless, crass people the way some are tempted to think. Many citizens were interested in philosophy and had a sense of justice, but they were also a military society that could not tolerate any kind of weakness. Technically we have continued their beliefs in practice, even to this day, it’s more obvious if you look at previous centuries. But when people undid the old way of thinking, creating the equal status of merely ‘being human,’ they didn’t extend this consideration to other species. This is mostly due to cultural error. On the other hand, our beliefs and understanding of the world have been greatly updated over the past several thousand years. This makes the previous mistake all the more glaring.
Everyone only has so much time and energy, and not everyone can devote their energy to the same causes. I don’t doubt the sincere intentions of a person that is a vegetarian, but is otherwise not very interested in Animal Rights. Some might devote most of their time and energy to other important causes. However, the minimum every activist can do to help is adopt a dietary boycott against animal exploiting industries – that is to at least become a vegetarian. Becoming vegan would make it more complete, however, I think it is better to become a vegetarian first. Other Animal Rights Activists might disagree with me, but it gives you a simpler goal to aim for when you’re inexperienced. It also prevents you from becoming overwhelmed, copping out, and deciding to do nothing at all. You don’t need to do it immediately. The idea just needs to be in your head. You could try it for a month. If you fail, you can always try again. Regarding any worries about failure, actually accomplishing something will feel much more satisfying than worrying about being perfect. You don’t know if your actions will catch on, but no one who starts important things like these does. Institutions don’t act like something is an emergency until we do as individuals; and not eating meat in a society where the majority of people do draws a lot of attention. Anyways, there’s a lot more support now than there was as little as several decades ago. There is a lot more awareness for Animal Rights, and as many as ten percent of Americans identify as Vegan or Vegetarian. Even as an individual your actions can make a difference. Over time, not eating meat accumulates into less profit for the Animal Industry, which causes less animals to be bred for ‘next quarter.’
I’ve spent time appealing to people’s ideals, not because I think that this will work; morality is extremely unconvincing, but rather, to poke holes in the philosophies people use to justify fighting for people’s rights. The culture is becoming more aware of our contradictions in attitudes. Our ideas and knowledge have changed. More people are aware that there is no justification for humans having rights that wouldn’t also apply to animals. As we come to understand how similar we are to other animals, we can no longer believe humans have some special status separate from them. It is similar to understanding that The Earth isn’t the center of the Universe, or that The Sun doesn’t spin around The Earth. Whether you like it or not, The Animal Rights Movement is growing in relevance. That is why companies like Tyson Meats are investing into research on lab grown meats; they are anticipating a rise in veganism and vegetarianism which is obviously large enough to hurt their bottom line. I’ve appealed to people’s idealism, now I will appeal to something much more substantial. Self interest. I’ve already technically named elements of self interest, for example, resource shortage, climate change, disease… While these are already close enough to nip at our heels, they seem too far off, too abstract, and too large to visualize. I’ve mentioned something a lot closer to home, workers rights; there’s corporate greed; Factory Farms blackmailing undocumented immigrants and building next to minority neighborhoods. Some people are already being affected directly, whether they realize it or not, and actually, corporate greed affects everyone. Perhaps people who are already involved in activism will go for this. But each of these things I mentioned are already large issues in themselves. There’s another element of self interest; those who feel they are unable to affect change finally being able to act. This would be an opportunity to participate for those who feel unable to affect the political process. In addition to dietary boycotts; there are smaller, easier boycotts you can participate in to fight against Animal Exploiting Industries; like refusing to buy wool or leather in the future. The processes used to create both of these actually cause a lot of suffering. Creating wool is not ‘just a haircut.’ In addition, wool and leather are expertly tied with meat, milk, and cabrito or veal (depending on the animal) to maximize profit. You can buy artificial leather, cotton, and polyester instead. Though it’s not very glamorous, these small, conscious efforts can make a difference if you make it a trend. But I’m going to point out something else which is very specific.
If you are an activist, and trying to build up a political network, something which is very helpful is utilizing smaller, pre-existing, turn-key networks. This provides a variety of issues to work on and a variety of actions to take which keep a fluid organization like this alive. The larger political networks can be (but not always are) run in a democratic manner, where the various parties in an area work together, and the organization and its people are self-governing. The smaller turn-key groups provide political power and funding. Those in the actual field understand this concept far better than I do. The reason I point it out is because people are becoming more aware of Animal Rights, and the issues are becoming increasingly relevant to people. Animal Rights Organizations are very useful turn-key networks, because a lot of effort is needed to achieve their difficult goals. But with this difficulty comes opportunities. Their growth can provide you with a lot of funding, and political capital. The importance of these groups is certain to increase as a function of time, as Animal Rights issues are increasingly talked about in politics. I believe that in the future, the conditions of the world will have changed so much that every community and political organization will be almost obligated to have an Animal Rights branch… even conservative ones if the issue has become mainstream enough.
Anyways, it’s just a thought, have a good day everyone.