The Crocodile Tears Of New Welfarism

[Guest guest]

The Crocodile Tears Of New Welfarism

 

*By Claudette Vaughan*

 

**

 

It should be the raging topic of our time yet it is treated as a tired old

construct from seasoned activists who should know better. Can animal welfare

measures ultimately lead to liberation for non-human animals or is this

simply a logistical impossibility? Has the movement sold animal rights down

the drain for the perceived quicker 'successes' that new welfarism offers?

And if indeed welfarism offers quicker successes, where are they? Is this

just another example of 'The Emperor is wearing no Clothes'? (again) Why

isn't this all-important subject worthy of discussion with any degree of

seriousness among seasoned activists?

 

The industry of animal welfarism has created a slave class.

 

The question that is rarely asked by welfarists is this: If nonhuman

animals are 'persons' with family life, emotional range and community, and

we reject that, then what kind illusion do we normally live under? What is

this propensity in the human psyche for forming unrealistic fantasy

relationships with other animals if we cannot act in a way consistent with a

nonhuman animal's true value?

 

A great many people concerned about animals also eat the dead bodies of

those same animals, and partake of the by-products of that same suffering.

People in the movement supporting welfarist measures and who aren't vegan

send out the message that intensive farming practices don't disturb them

because the animal will eventually be killed and eaten anyway. They don't

necessarily object to the slaughter of animals, but they do want it to be

'humane'.

 

If we purport to be non-speciesists the idea of humane slaughter of a human

being is unacceptable. Processing the sick, the weak and the injured

human-being, like the Nazis did in WW11, is morally out of the question.

Killing human beings is regarded as unacceptable to most people, even if

it's to put them out of their misery. Eating people – cannibalism – is even

worse. But killing nonhuman animals for food is usually regarded as

preferable to keeping them alive and in pain. Where is the logic in saying

on one hand that we care about the suffering of animals and then turn around

and concurrently say, but we don't care if that same animal is alive or

dead?

 

And let's be very clear on the meaning of welfarism. To some people it means

the physical and mental wellbeing of nonhumans while they are alive. They

might still want to eat a pig's flesh, cow's flesh or a chicken's body but

they equally want to be sure those animals lived lives free of suffering. A

Rightist's concern for nonhuman animals does not involve any such mental

toil. The Rightist sees that being eaten or calling for " humane slaughter "

practices from a movement that purports to work for their liberation, is an

insurmountable obstacle to any individual animal's true welfare.

 

And here's where the parting of the way lies for the modern-day animal

rights movement. There is simply no non-speciesistic way of differentiating

humans worthy of a life from a nonhuman animal worthy of a life. The

problem that arises is these two fundamental differences in attitudes to

killing nonhuman animals means that those concerned with only welfarist

issues have a very different aim to the rightist. One cannot build an

animal rights movement off the back of welfarism because its aims, its

motives and its ideas have different consequences in the real world. Back

in 1964 Ruth Harrison wrote the first book on factory-farming called 'Animal

Machines.' On page 97 she said,

 

* " The pigs are kept in semi-darkness. A 15-watt red bulb gives enough light

for the pigs to see where to eat but not enough for them to allow fighting.

Temperature and ventilation control coupled with the semi-darkness ensures

that the meal is not wasted in unnecessary energy. " *

 

In this terrain called welfarism nothing changes. All is sameness,

revolving and repeating itself. Endlessly consuming. Pigs on today's

factory-farms live in identical conditions to those back in 1964. In fact

it's worse. Over the years welfarist farmers have devised sow stalls not

only to stop pigs from fighting, but to stop them from turning around,

tending their young, scratching themselves, being themselves. The slave

class has no rights in welfare land.

 

The issue of animal rights and how to fight for animal rights is not a

minority concern. The Animal Rights Movement is a grassroots movement and

it's potentially here we should be at our strongest. People will

always be drawn to our movement so long as they are able to understand our

truth and not a multitude of opinions mixed and matched according to whose

interpretation is placed on the meaning of 'rights'. We should be striving

for animal rights outright, the same as we should be striving for the

abolition of vivisection outright.

 

That other animals are alive and capable of sentiency forces us to

re-examine any self-validating rights which we fail to see in other animals

yet we see them in ourselves. Charles Darwin was the first rightist.

Darwin's theory undermined the traditional values of the day. In

particular, the idea that human life has a special, unique worth while

nonhuman life has relatively little value still holds true today. Our mode

of living might be different to nonhuman animals but difference does not

entitle us to take life.

 

Sydney City is often referred to as the gay centre of the international gay

liberation movement. Living here affords us a close up view of the politics

of 'difference'. Queer culture embraces difference rather than simply

supposing that everybody is identical. Gay liberation seeks equality and

recognition within the law and other social institutions. Queer culture

seeks to destabalise cultural ideas of 'normality'. It is our most urgent

task in the animal liberation movement to learn from queer culture and

perhaps even, yes, for a time, privilege diversity over equality so to

loosen some of our most fundamental flawed ideas about identity, rights, and

hence, the constructs of anthropocentrism.

 

Traditional morality depends on the idea that human beings are in a special

moral class all on their own. In the past, this has been supported in two

ways: first, by religion and second, by the notion that humankind is a

uniquely rational being.

 

The movement for animals in place at the moment is for the most part

welfarist. It's sufficiently rational to perceive that they are not giving

any equal consideration to the interests of nonhuman animals, if they kill

them for food, cause suffering through recreational hunting and rodeos, or

use them as office supplies in laboratories, intensive farming and other

commercial activities.

 

Yet many people who associate themselves with animal rights, support a

homegrown carcass trade against the live export trade or support the eating

of organic pork over sow stalls or support larger cages for the battery hen.

 

If the animal rights movement is retrograde, as I imply it is, why then

hasn't the mainstream Left taken up the political cause for animal rights en

mass as it has done so in other liberation movements? Their modus operandi

is renown for breaking down redundant modes of thinking but on this subject,

on the whole, they remain awkwardly silent.

 

Animal rights activism has forged a praxis for challenging the old guard.

If the movement has lost it's vitality and effectiveness it's because this

praxis has been severely shaken by errors in having embraced its weakest

link in political struggle i.e., welfarism. Being able to buy a veggie

burger at MacDonalds is not something to be applauded.

 

Welfarists are the real utopianists if they think that the industry of

welfarism will grant non-human animal's their rights.

 

It will be crucial for the Rights Movement in the next few years to move

away from the one-off makeshift protest and the odd individual act of

resistance to evolve into a fully-fledged progressive political movement by

first learning how power structures operate in the world today.

 

In *'Power/Knowledge:* Selected* Interviews and Other Writings,*' Michel

Foucault states:

 

* " It seems to me that this whole intimidation with the bogy of reform is

linked to the lack of a strategic analysis appropriate to political

struggle, to struggle in the field of political power. " *

 

and again,

 

* " The phobia of the adversary's reformist riposte is the privilege accorded

to what is solemnly termed the 'theory' of the weakest link. A local

attack is considered to have sense and legitimacy only when directed at the

element which, if broken, will allow the total breach of the chain. That

is, it must be a local action but one which, through the choice of its site,

will act radically on the whole. " *

 

To survive, the animal rights movement needs to shift its allegiance back to

its original premise and re-capture the attention of a group of diverse

human rights campaigners whose task is animal emancipation. The

quintessential nature of welfarism works to enlarge, make more efficient,

and make 'respectable' animal usage. We can see this happening in China at

the moment. An animal rights activist is detrimentally opposed to this

viewpoint. They seek total non-usage of nonhuman animals under any and all

circumstances and they work in a way that is consistent with that ideology.

 

Where's the difference between an animal exploiter, a welfarist, a farmer

and a 'animal rights' person calling for 'compassionate slaughter'? They

are all asking for the same thing which is to further normalise a commodity

driven goods-for-services commercial enterprise where the power play in

operation actually discourages any aggressive pursuit of animal rights, nay,

it works towards its demise.

 

The human agency of the animal rights movement is largely unaware of the

effects that a middle class value system has caused it in its refusal to

work towards a larger vision outside of the current political system. Those

that firmly believe change can be accomplished from within the system are

the one's that don't share the abolitionist view that nothing is possible

under the current system. What keeps these groups going is they have been

shaped and defined by easy welfarist " victories " or simplified outlooks that

cannot recognise and fight the entirety of the system.

 

The so-called pragmatic people of the movement ultimately manifest

themselves as the opportunists. They get invited to the vivisectors

conferences and are respected in the community as a reasonable, moderate

force. They no longer work for justice but they want to be able to say to

others that the system works. What is worse is they no longer like the

radicals of the movement and seek to distance themselves from them.

 

They are attracted to the money rolling in for their welfarist campaigns

based upon animals. They have inflicted their own *petit bourgeois* value

system onto the movement and have found they are being rewarded for not

rocking the boat.

 

Serious animal rights work offers resistance. Rights have never before been

handed to anybody on a plate and the rights of animals won't happen by

default either. Our duty, as I see it, is to penetrate the clouds of

deception and learn how power operates in the world. Then, reflect upon

the strategic, structural, or organisational mistakes from the past. The

cycle of pragmatists and opportunists working in our movement has not yet

been recognised, let alone broken. Without realising the weak,

compromised, and infiltrated parts, they will always be retained and

ultimately will weaken the movement from within. Before it can go forward

one question needs to be asked: Was the litmus test for the continuance of

the animal rights movement a choice between rights or welfarism, and, more

importantly, did the movement failed it?

 

An undiluted animal rights message rejects all exploitation of animals and

realises the world of welfarism does not work and is, in the long run,

counter productive to animal rights interests.

 

Those that think the system can be reformed from within are fooling

themselves. The powers that be are impervious to any fundamental reform.

The animal rights movement must grow up, challenge the system, and keep

building to make its voice stronger. It's never been easy, but it's not

impossible.

 

Old and new welfarism has not the power, the ability, nor the inclination to

take the Rights Movement where it has to go. It must go.

 

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