The Revolution
by Marianne Verigin
December 2005

I can feel a swelling tide in the depths of my being.  A coming revolution will release us from the bondage we do not even realize has shackled us.  It is a revolution of the mind, with resulting behavioral shifts that will come as automatically and as naturally as breathing.  It will not be forced.  The freedom will be sweet. 

This coming revolution centers upon how humans view our relationship to the world and how we interact with all living beings.  Richard Ryder identified this revolution and how it has been evolving over history (1989).  However, to date, the revolution’s momentum has been stifled because most efforts to stimulate it lack a fundamental ingredient.  It does not adequately challenge the core reason that allows the uses and abuses we inflict on other species to continue.  Every single thing we do to animals is a direct result of our belief system and our perception of humans as the dominant species, with all others being subservient.

This essay presents a new approach, the driving force behind the emerging revolutionary paradigm.  It outlines the current flawed belief system we have towards all other-than-human species, identifies the forces that perpetuate it, then it provides a brief critique of current animal advocacy measures.  The essay concludes with a discussion of the two-pronged strategy necessary to induce the revolution’s full vigor.

Our current way of thinking and behaving places humans at the pinnacle of all life on earth, as the most intelligent, dominant and superior species.  We perceive all other beings as inferior to us in intelligence, ability and purpose.  We believe that they, as well as the earth itself, exist specifically and solely to serve our needs.  Therefore, we both separate and disconnect ourselves from them in order to feel justified in controlling, manipulating, and objectifying them however it suits us.  Their very life essence is ignored and we treat them as dispensable and replenishable commodities.

Based on that perception, we have created a world where we have convinced ourselves that it is normal and the right of humans to raise and kill animals to eat them, wear their skins and hair, capture them for experiments, hunt them for sport, imprison them for our amusement, and manipulate their populations.  We have convinced ourselves that we are better for doing this, that we are creating a safer, healthier life for us.  This paradigm has been building and carving itself deeper over many generations, even centuries.  The tradition of it now helps to keep it ingrained and largely keeps us from questioning its whole validity.  Also, as Joan Dunayer points out, our choice of language reflects the separation and exploitation and serves to further ingrain their hold (2001).  For example, using words like “it” and “stock” in reference to nonhuman animals implies they are inanimate objects (Dunayer, 2001).

Two major forces keep this status quo alive and thriving.  One is a societal and institutional force.  The other is our emotional disconnection from every other species.  These two forces fuel each other, making it all the more difficult to overcome.

We have concocted an elaborate web of excuses of why we must keep up the intensifying brutalization.  Over time we have come to accept these excuses as fact and they have become the foundation and proof of our worldview.  We then surrender it all to the societal force to perpetuate and institutionalize the web of excuses.  We give our power away to governments, corporations and scientists and trust them to tell us what we want, need, think, and feel.

On an individual level, we contribute to the web’s intricacies by raising each successive generation to shut down our innate emotional connections to any other-than-human species.  From a young age, each person is slowly indoctrinated into this belief system and effectually needs to resign themselves to the excuses as being the facts.  This must occur in order for each person to grow up to be a functioning member of society.  The current regime relies on the stability of this interaction and reinforcement between society and individuals. 

There are those who advocate for animals, challenging their exploitation.  They look into the eyes of those who suffer and can clearly see their pleas for help and enduring misery.  So they lobby, stage protests, shock the public with the gory truth.  They try anything they can to shake people and shake the system.

Their intentions are honorable and on some levels their efforts make a difference.  They appeal to people’s compassion and their guilt.  The public does feel some sympathy for the animals, especially when their species has reached the perilous position of being endangered of extinction.  They donate money to organizations that work diligently for change.  These funds are often used to pressure governments and corporations until they appease them with the tiniest bit of so-called improvements for the animals’ lives while we continue to use them for our gain.  Examples are requiring slightly bigger cages for chickens, or waiting to kill seals until they are at least 12 days old.

I agree with Gary Francione that this approach will not abolish our entrenched exploitation of other species (1996).  This is because the shortcoming of this approach is that the public goes on to live their daily lives just the same.  They continue to gawk at animals imprisoned in zoos and aquariums, bet on horse races, abandon animals in their care when they do not suit their lifestyle anymore, and they continue to consume the bodies of animals’ daily.  Ultimately, all that effort does little for inducing real, meaningful and lasting change.  People fail to make the connection between themselves and all other species.  The immense divide between us remains.

The time has come where we can no longer allow the dual societal and individual energies to control our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.  It is also evident that we need to overhaul the current advocacy approach.  It is not as insurmountable an endeavour as it appears.  To counter the dual forces at work, and to turn the tide, we must also have a two-pronged strategy.  We must focus our energies on dismantling the excuses one by one.  At the same time, it is critical to challenge the existing paradigm and narrow the perceived gap between us and other species.

The excuses that uphold the current system are inconsistent and incongruent.  We use different sets of criteria for how well, or how horribly, we allow ourselves to treat animals.  It all depends on which species they are and what role we have assigned them to play in our system.   They seem to make sense on the surface.  But with deeper, more critical attention, it is easy to discredit each and every one of them.

For example, we believe that cows continually produce milk in excess of their babies’ needs.  So we think we are doing them a favor by taking that excess and consuming it ourselves.  However, we can dispel this idea’s credibility by countering it with pure fact.  Cows, like any other mammal, only lactate to feed their young.  Humans have intervened in this natural process by keeping the cows in a perpetual cycle of pregnancy and lactation until their bodies cannot stand the strain anymore.  Also, the calves are taken away from their mothers so that the milk can instead be taken for human consumption.

Once we unravel the intricate web of such excuses in much the same fashion, the foundation of our belief system will become less and less stable.  It is imperative that these stripped-down theories be revealed to everyone through education.  Then, our current perceptions of the place of other species in the world will no longer have a solid basis to exist and will systematically disintegrate.  Our belief system will no longer be believable.  We will be set free of its hold over us.  Only then when our perceptions shift will we be able to finally secure freedom for other species and, as Gary Francione advocates, remove their status as property (1996).

A revolution is upon us.  The door is about to open to our true and natural state of being in harmony with every other living being.  We will finally be able to reconnect with our deepest sense of kinship and protectiveness of others.  We will no longer have the need to fragment our feelings and emotional connection to other species, and can allow the love we have for all species from childhood to stay with us throughout our lives.  Our chance is here to reclaim our connection to the world around us that is so desperately lacking, freeing every species and ourselves.  By challenging the root cause of our worldview from both angles at the same time, we have real hope that meaningful and lasting change will occur. 

References
Dunayer, Joan.  Animal Equality: Language and Liberation.  Derwood, MD: Ryce Publishing, 2001.

Francione, Gary L.  Rain without Thunder: the Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement.  Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996.

Ryder, Richard D.  Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism.  Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1989.