Movement angst

I don’t do movements. Let me explain:

You may have picked up, perhaps from reading the handy About page, that I’m a vegan. Let me qualify that — I’m a sorta vegan. To wit: once in a great while, some dairy finds its way into my body. I also could give a bee’s ass about the whole honey thing. You might wonder why I’m a vegan/vegetarian — the short answer, which I won’t expand on here because that isn’t This Post, is environmental and ethical concerns, mostly centered on modern factory farming.

As part of all this, I do have some interest in the idea of Animal Rights. I definitely agree with the idea of expanding our circle of ethical concern. But I’m also a skeptic, and like to pass all claims, especially the ones I hold dear, under the light of reason. That means there’s a lot of nuance in my thinking on the issue. I like to say that I’m of the Henry Salt school when it comes to this stuff — Salt was imminently practical about social change, seeing it as a process of reform and evolution brought about by education and rational persuasion. Writing in the 19th century, he could say that the way that animals used for labor were treated was horrid, but that society was dependent on that labor. His solution was simple — push for humane treatment, and look towards alternatives for the long term. His views on leather were the same (leather, remember, was a necessity in many ways, not a mere luxury like it is now). That’s how, for instance, I feel about animals being used in medical research — I look for the day when we can do such research without animals, but realize that the sudden derailing of scientific research now could have huge, negative impacts on human and animal welfare now. (I should note that there Salt and I disagree — he was a dedicated anti-vivisectionist, though in the climate of the time that may have made more sense than now).

Needless to say, I’m not likely to find many compatriots in the animal rights movement, and I have no desire to be part of it. The anti-science crowd has too large a voice, as does the snarling, angry crowd; the movement, as a whole, suffers from, well, Movementitis.

Movementitis, you ask? Yes, my friends. It’s a dread disease that strikes when a movement for social change becomes wrapped up in itself. Sadly, it seems to happen to almost every movement. The big warning sign is the Purity Test. You have to adhere to a whole host of Standard Stances and Beliefs, or ELSE. Anger replaces true dialog. People against the movement are evil and nasty.

Like, take the scientists testing on animals issue. There are AR people who automatically write them off as evil, as butchers, as uncaring cads. That kind of talk from the more moderate factions helps create the environment in which things like the recent attacks take place. It’s a nice worldview, I guess, if you’re looking for the simple Good vs. Evil scenario to make you feel important and heroic. Only it’s not true. Most of those scientists are good, decent people, trying to do amazing things like save lives. There may well be grounds to argue that we should find a better, more ethical way to do that. But the idea that they are evil is absurd. Worse still, that kind of rhetorical attack cuts communication dead, which is a good way of making sure that things don’t change.

Sure, there’s some ugly shit out there, and AR organizations have often done great work uncovering examples of horrendous abuse. But we humans have to beware — we have a tendency to judge the things we like by their best examples, and the things we don’t like by the worst. AR folks do that all the time. To be fair, scientists and others do that a lot too, in relation to the Animal Rights movement.

But back to the Purity Test. Here’s what bugs me about it — it becomes about you. It’s you proving your street cred. You see some of this in a few, loud quarters of the atheist community, too. You’ve probably met them, the loud blowhards who want to prove that their atheism is more atheisty than yours. It’s pathetic. And it’s rife in the animal rights movement, which seems more concerned with the purity of its message and stance than with the actual animals.

All of this is a direct result of groupthink. Members of the group are pushed, mostly quite unconsciously, to conform to a rigid set of principles. It’s everything I stand against as a skeptic, because the whole idea of skepticism is that everything should be questioned. There shall be no Sacred Cows. Or Tofu, for that matter.

So I care about issues surrounding our treatment of animals, and find very little in the AR movement that gives me hope that it can be a catalyst for good dialog and change. Among vegans, I find a bit more reason to hope, mostly because vegan does not automatically equal AR nut. But the people who give me hope are the ones that mostly have nothing to do with the AR movement.

In the end, I just don’t do movements well. They scare me, even when their aims are noble. And yes, I know many movements have done Good Things. I’m ambivalent as all hell on this one. I admit it. Maybe, though, that’s the proper stance. Maybe ambivalence is a defense against groupthink.

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Tags: Atheism, science, Skepticism, veganism, vegetarianism