Our Common Capacity to Suffer

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On Nonhuman Slavery

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"We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past

civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves." -Donald Watson

August 1, 2010

We Say We Love Animals

On the one hand we say we love animals, but what it really comes down to is that we love to use

animals for our own purposes. Lesli Bisgould

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Early Animal Advocacy & The Power Of

Learning From Our Past

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onhuman Slavery http://www.nonhumanslav

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The following is excerpted from an interview withDiane Beers conducted by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau for

Satya Magazine.

You use the phrase historical amnesia to refer to the fact that contemporary animal activistsand

society as a wholeknow nothing of the legacy of animal activism in the U.S. What are some of theeffects of having historical amnesia? Why is it so important to know our legacy?

Animal advocacy has an amazing history, yet it is essentially an untold story. African American activists will

often say, A people without a history is like a tree without roots. Indeed, if activists dont know the history

of their cause, they can have no sense of their movements struggles, long-term strategies, achievements and

heroes. In addition, they cant promote their long impressive movement to the public, and their

opponentsthe meat industry, medical research industry and the governmentwill fill the void. They have

been the ones most aggressively and successfully constructing negative images and outright myths of animal

advocacy that the public often believes. Read the rest of this entry

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July 28, 2010

Fetishizing Ancient Indigenous Rituals

To Ease The Modern Mind


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A disturbing trend among carnists is to claim that its morally acceptable to kill and consume animals so long

as we do so respectfully, and honor the animals with a prayer thanking them for their gift or sacrifice.(As though the animals are choosing to willingly donate their lives for our trivial gastronomic pleasures.)

As part of this defense, carnists will cite the killing rituals of indigenous tribes or Native Americans as a

rationale for their decision to continue to consume animal products. But, as Mary Martin notes, If youre

going to claim that it was good for Native Americans so its good for us, please know that they had an

ecological ethic that we simply dont share. They killed only what they would eat, used practically every part

of the [animal], killed him themselves, and didnt consider animals beneath them as we do. Saying a prayer

and thanking the animal are parts of a larger spiritual context and a relationship with Mother Earth that

most mainstream people in the developed world dont ordinarily live by. And yet they romanticize and even

fetishize indigenous peoples practices when its to their advantage. However, if you dont need to kill

anyone to survive, no amount of storytelling and mythmaking (or myth borrowing/co-opting) around thatslaughter excuses it. Read the rest of this entry

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July 25, 2010

Toward a Non-Speciesist Psychoethic


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Art by Pat Racimora

Speciesism is a ubiquitous ideology in which countless nonhuman beings are sacrificed to serve human ends

(Singer, 1990). Moreover, the system may well be supported by a web of deleterious psychosocial processes

(Arluke & Sanders, 1996) and, as such, can be detrimental to humans as well as nonhumans. Psychology, as

the field that seeks to understand human motivation and defines the parameters of social values and

normative behavior, is ideally positioned to challenge the speciesist status quo. However, the widespread

practice of using animals other than human for psychological research (Sharpe, 1988), the failure to consider

that speciesist practices may incur psychological repercussions, and the dearth of literature on the paradoxicalhuman-nonhuman relationship demonstrate psychologys apparent sanction of speciesism.

Indeed, the received psychological view is based upon a set of implicit assumptions that shape and support

anthropocentric beliefs and behaviors. Most notable is the assumption that the only psycho-emotionally and

ontologically meaningful relationships are inter-human. By assuming that the nonhuman-human relationship

is of little or no consequence, psychology disregards the ways in which humanitys treatment of other species

may both reflect and reinforce mental wellness and illness. Read the rest of this entry

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Praying For Peace With Blood On Our Hands


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Today, people all over the country will go to church and pray for a more compassionate, peaceful world.

Later, they will go home and consume the products of slavery, misery and violence. How can we expect to

achieve spiritual harmony and live a compassionate, ethical life while contributing to the suffering of others

for no other reason than for our own selfish pleasures and desires?

Peace, justice and compassion all begin within ourselves and are reflected by our everyday actions and

choices. We must, as Gandhi remarked, Be the change [we] wish to see in the world. If we want peace, we

must be peaceful. If we want compassion, we must be compassionate. If we want mercy, we must be

merciful.

Those who believe they are practicing these virtues by occasionally purchasing free-range eggs or

humane meat, should carefully consider the truth behind such labels, and ask themselves whether its

ethical to take the lives of other sentient beings simply for our own enjoyment, regardless of how humanely

they are treated. Read the rest of this entry

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July 23, 2010

Choosing Nonviolence As a Way Of Life


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Photo by Kent Marshall

Nonviolence as a way of life isnt about taking on yet another cause or making your life more complicated.

Its about simplifying your life by connecting to your values. Its about realizing that you have choices and

that those choices matter. Start making more choices aligned with your values of justice, kindness, and

compassion and youll build a world reflecting those values. Its about living smarter, not harder. Matt

Bear

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July 22, 2010

Animals Suffer a Perpetual Holocaust


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Isaac Bashevis Singer fled Nazi Europe in 1935 and came to this country. He married my grandmother, whohad escaped from Hitlers Germany in 1940. He went on to become a lauded author and won the Nobel Prize

for literature in 1978. His family those who stayed behind were killed in the concentration camps.

My grandfather was also a principled vegetarian. He was one of the first to equate the wholesale slaughter of

humans to what we perpetrate against animals every day in slaughterhouses. He realized that the systems of

oppression and murder that had been used in the Holocaust were the systems being used to confine, oppress

and slaughter animals. He attributed to a character in one of his books something he believed in himself: In

relation to [animals], all people are Nazis. For [them], it is an eternal Treblinka.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has come under fire from the Anti-Defamation

League for a campaign highlighting my grandfathers ideas as well as writings from others including

German Jewish philosopher Theodor Adorno, who was forced into exile by the Nazis, and Edgar Kupfer-

Koberwitz, who was imprisoned in Dachau that compare the suffering of Holocaust victims with that of

farmed animals. Read the rest of this entry

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July 21, 2010

The Feminists Dilemma


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Im a proud feminist, as anyone who cares about the plight of women on our

planet should be. In many parts of the world, women are still treated as property. They have few, if any,

rights and are subject to exploitation, indignities, and violence on a daily basis. As we feminists struggle for an

end to female oppression, we must also consider the females that we, ourselves, unknowingly oppress. Dairycows, though not human, are perhaps the most horribly abused females on the planet. As we fight for human

equality, should we not also concern ourselves with how humans exploit the very thing that makes an animal

female, that makes an animal a mother?

If you think that statement sounds crazy, its likely because you, like most Americans, know little about what

goes on in our nations dairy farms. (PETA recently released shocking undercover footage from a Land

OLakes dairy supplier). You may think its silly, even offensive, to compare the plight of female humans

with that of another species, but keep an open mind as you read further. You may just be surprised.

Read the rest of this entry

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July 15, 2010

The Answer Is To Change Our Perception


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As long as we see animals as ours to eat, ours to manipulate, ours to exploit, ours to confine, ours to kill,

theres no end to what we can do to them. Its that mindset that simply lends itself to the kind of mechanized

system we have today. The answer isnt to change production methods. The answer is to change ourperception of and relationship with non-human animals. Colleen Patrick Goudreau

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July 14, 2010

Our Common Capacity To Suffer

Both humans and animals share the ability to suffer from restricted

freedom of movement, from the loss of social freedom, and to experience pain at the loss of a loved one.

Both groups suffer or suffered from their common capacity to be terrified by being hunted, tormented, or

injured. Both have been objectified, treated as property rather than as feeling, self-directed individuals

From all of this we see that the liberation of animals, while a pressing and worthy goal in its own right, is not

of importance only to non-human animals. While people are no longer branded, inspected at auction or


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displayed in zoos, subtler forms of oppression are still in operation which have their counterparts in animals

slavery. Advances towards releasing animals from our dominion and control of their lives will also serve to

lessen the oppression of blacks and others who suffer under the weight of someone elses power. By

eliminating the oppression of animals from the fabric of our culture, we begin to undermine some of the

psychological structures inherent in a society which seems to create and foster masters. With a philosophy of

universal respect for others lives, treating anyone human or non-human in a cruel manner begins to be

unthinkable. Marjorie Spiegel, The Dreaded Comparison

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On Nonhuman SlaveryAbout

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"We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past

civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves." -Donald Watson

July 13, 2010

On Violence


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Photograph by Donna Ferrato

It is a mistake to see issues of human and animal exploitation as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, all

exploitation is inextricably intertwined. All exploitation is a manifestation of violence. All discrimination is a

manifestation of violence. As long as we tolerate violence of any sort, there will be violence of every sort.

Gary Francione

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July 9, 2010

No One Is Free While Others Are Oppressed

If we are serious about animal liberation, then we must work for the liberation of all animals, human and

nonhuman. If we are serious about feminism, then we must shun speciesism just as we shun sexism. No one is

free while others are oppressed. And, if we work together, understanding how seemingly different struggles

are related to one another, then someday we will all be free. Pattrice Jones

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July 6, 2010

Liberty And Justice For Some


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Elephant Journal asked its contributors to post our thoughts in honor of this holiday. Sure, the Fourth of July

is supposed to signify freedom. How many times have we been told that what separates America from lesser

countries is that we are free? Yet this idea of freedom only extends to humans, never non-human animals,

who feel pain and suffer for our pleasures.

I sit here thinking about the ten billion land animals that are confined, tortured and murdered in the name of

taste, tradition and selfishness for American diets. I think about the 150 million animals that are confined and

tortured in laboratories all over the country so Americans can have cosmetics, household cleaners, and

pharmaceutical drugs.

I think about elephants and tigers that are confined so that Americans can be entertained at circuses. How

many wild animals languish in zoos, no longer free? How many dolphins, seals and other sea animals are

imprisoned in marine parks across the country, ripped away from their families? How many horses are locked

in stables, raced until they collapse just to entertain human beings? Read the rest of this entry

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July 5, 2010

On Carnism


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Carnism allows people to eat animals without thinking about what they are doing or why. But just because

an ideology is so entrenched and widespread doesnt mean its natural or true. It was once widely believed

that the earth was flat, womens honorable position in life was in the home, serving men, and that black

African-Americans were suited to slavery. Katrina Fox

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Cass Sunstein On Animal Use

I believe that in the long-run, our willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen as a

form of unconscionable barbaritynot the same as, but in many ways morally akin to, slavery and the mass

extermination of human beings.

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The Social Construction of Edible Bodies and Humans As Predators


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By Carol J. Adams

Are we predators or are we not? In an attempt to see ourselves as natural beings, some argue that humans are

simply predators like some other animals. Vegetarianism is then seen to be unnatural while the carnivorism of

other animals is made paradigmatic. Animal rights is criticized for it does not understand that one species

supporting or being supported by another is natures way of sustaining life (Ahlers 1990, 433). The deeper

disanalogies with carnivorous animals remain unexamined because the notion of humans as predators is

consonant with the idea that we need to eat meat. In fact, carnivorism is true for only about 20 percent of

nonhuman animals. Can we really generalize from this experience and claim to know precisely what

natures way is, or can we extrapolate the role of humans according to this paradigm? Read the rest of this

entry

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July 4, 2010

Solutions to the Unwanted


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Discarded chicks are suffocated, crushed or ground

alive

the production of milk and eggs involves as much cruelty and killing as meat production does: surplus

cockerels and calves, as well as spent hens and cows, have been slaughtered and otherwise brutally destroyedthrough the ages. Historically, there have been two main solutions to the problem of unwanted bull calves:

club them to death or bleed them out slowly for a couple of days and then slaughter them for veal. The veal

calf was a solution to the surplus bulls of dairy farming for many centuries, long before 20th-century

factory farming. The male chicken of the egg industry cannot lay eggs, and he has not been genetically

manipulated to develop excess muscle tissue for profitable meat production, so the industry trashes him at

birth. Spent commercial dairy cows and laying hens endure agonizing days (four or more days) of

pre-transport starvation and long trips to the slaughterhouse because of their low market value. To be a

lacto-ovo vegetarian is not to wash ones hands of misery and murder. Karen Davis, UPC

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A Mere Personal Choice

The decision to eat or not to eat animal products should not be regarded as a mere personal food choice.


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This perpetuates the view of animals as material objects, rather than as fellow creatures with precious lives of

their own. It hides the fact that in choosing to consume animal products one chooses a life based on slavery

and violence. Karen Davis, UPC

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Manipulating the Female Animal

Colleen Patrick Goudreau explains the inherent exploitation of the female reproductive system in the dairyand egg industries.

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July 2, 2010

What Permeates Our Culture


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By viewing the experiences of animals such as dogs and milk cows through the lens of human slavery,

we come to realize that master/slave relationships permeate our culture. Marjorie Spiegel

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