The fundamentalist pacifism that Francione and Hall are promulgating is a distorted outlook that is the product of the Jesus-Gandhi tradition of turn-the-other-cheek (although Jesus turned over some tables in his day), the Socratic-Enlightenment fallacy of humanity as a rational species that does the Good once it knows the Good, and the Rousseauian myth of an inherently sympathetic and benevolent humanity. This ideological concoction is mixed with the biases of white elite professionals who are products of the legal system and statist ideology and blended into a seductively sweet product distributed for mass consumption.
If we are to avert an ecological China Syndrome and liberate nonhuman animals, we must strike at the roots of the capitalist-anthropocentric paradigm with every tool at our disposal, including vegan education, MDA, and a host of others. The ecocrisis renders fundamentalist pacifism obsolete. While the kind of abolitionism championed by Francione and Hall is a sharp advance over welfarism, its lack of social politics and its deafening silence on the explosive growth of the global animal-industrial complex relegates it to a historical cul-de-sac and tactical dead-end that we must maneuver around and beyond.
Dr. Steve Best is TPC’s senior editor of total liberation and animal rights. Associate professor of philosophy at UTEP, award-winning writer, noted speaker, public intellectual, and seasoned activist, Steven Best engages the issues of the day such as animal rights, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media, globalization, and capitalist domination. Best has published 10 books, over 100 articles and reviews, spoken in over a dozen countries, interviewed with media throughout the world, appeared in numerous documentaries, and was voted by VegNews as one of the nations “25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians.” He has come under fire for his uncompromising advocacy of “total liberation” (humans, animals, and the earth) and has been banned from the UK for the power of his thoughts. From the US to Norway, from Sweden to France, from Germany to South Africa, Best shows what philosophy means in a world in crisis.
Jason Miller, Senior Editor and Founder of TPC, is a tenacious forty something straight edge vegan activist who lives in Kansas and who has a boundless passion for animal liberation and anti-capitalism. Addicted to reading and learning, he is mostly an autodidact, but he studied liberal arts and philosophy at the University of Missouri Kansas City . In early 2005, he founded the radical blog Thomas Paine’s Corner and is now the Senior Blog Editor and Blog Director for the Transformative Studies Institute. An accomplished, prolific essayist on social and political issues, his writings have appeared on hundreds of alternative media websites over the last few years. You can reach him at
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Notes
1. The essay is online at: http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/pacifism-or-animals-which-do-you-love-more/.
2. By “militant direct action” we mean legal and illegal actions taken against animal exploiters by animal liberationists. We contrast this to the “direct action” vegan approach of Francione, Hall, and their followers. We agree veganism is a powerful form of direct action, but we eschew their efforts to make it the only form of direct action, and we argue for the need to take a wide range of actions against animal oppressors, including the sabotage tactics of the ALF and ELF and the high-pressure and confrontational approach of SHAC.
3. For the historical record on the salaries of the FoA executive elite, see http://bartlett.oag.state.ny.us/Char_Forms/search_charities.jsp. To access the information, type “Friends of Animals” in the name category, go to the 2008 Form 990: Feral’s salary is listed on page 8, and Hall and Orabona’s salaries are provided on page 13.
4. They are both, for instance, adamantly attached to an extreme pacifism. In an interview with Lee Hall, for example, Francione says: “I am absolutely and unequivocally opposed to any sort of violence directed toward humans or nonhuman. I am firmly committed to the principle of non-violence. The revolution I seek is one from the heart.” “An Interview with Professor Gary L. Francione on the State of the U.S. Animal Rights Movement,” September 2002, Actionline, http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/animal-rights/interview-with-gary-francione.html.
5. Of course we are specifically talking about the type of pacifism Francione and Hall promote in contrast to the MDA outlook we ourselves champion, and there will be different understandings of each general orientation. We note here, however, that in their strict emphasis on legal forms of activism and change through vegan education, Francione and Hall are considerably more conservative than Gandhi and King who consistently advocated civil disobedience and ways of non-cooperation that could challenge or throttle an entire social system.
6. Francione cited at the Animal Rights Community Online forum, at http://www.animalsuffering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6258.
7. In paternalistic and patronizing tones, Shishkoff scolds us: “Finally, do not call yourselves vegans. You’re not vegans. If you took the time to read what Donald Watson (who coined the term vegan in 1944) had to say, you’d know that what you’re doing is in direct opposition to what he envisioned. He was a dedicated peace activist and promoted ideas of peace and respect, and this was embodied in the vegan philosophy. The notion of blowing things up, militarism, or threatening people personally is anathema to veganism. Do not call yourselves vegans until you agree with the principles behind it. Anything less would be…well…hypocritical.”
8. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), p. 158.
9. “Barack changes everything,” interview with Spike Lee, January 4, 2009, The Observer, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/04/spike-lee-interview-john-colapinto
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