Who Needs a Soul, Anyway?
A look at the Animal Rights Movement

Last year, I wrote an article for this site about PETA and the Animal Rights movement in general. I think I only scratched the surface of what needs to be said about it, and of course, the issue has come up again with regards to the Olympics. I think we should all take a closer look at the Animal Rights movement and what its goals are.

In the past year or so, I have read countless pages of articles, books, manifestos, public forums, treatises, and propaganda in which the issue of Animal Rights (AR) has been a theme. I quickly came to the conclusion that Animal Rights Fanatics (ARF's) are proselytizing at such a pace that I can't read fast enough to keep up. On the web alone, a Google search for the phrase "animal rights" turns up 376,000 results - the 5 to 1 majority of which are pro-AR (a guess… it may be closer to 10 to 1) The volume of pro-AR literature out there is mind-boggling. Some of it is pure propaganda, and some is relatively rational philosophy. All of it is out there on the fringe.

It's not my intention to offend anyone's religious beliefs, but it is necessary in examining the issue to also look at some of the history of religion and philosophy -- two subjects that invariably cause arguments. I think the real issue is that the animal rights groups are much more than they appear to be, and that there is a method to their madness that we all need to recognize.

Why do people buy into this movement?

Personally, I find the ARF's more than a little disturbing. I didn't grow up on a farm, but when I was a kid our family had at one time or another; several dogs, cats, who knows how many litters of kittens, a pet squirrel, a pet raccoon, a pet bobcat (not for long), a pet possum, some snakes, lizards, turtles, rabbits, a blackbird, some fish, and so on. Our house was a zoo. We took in sick or orphaned baby critters that turned up around our place, and I guess word got around. My dad and I also hunted, owned a hunting dog or two, and we fished as well. I still hunt and fish regularly.

PETA's Bruce Friedrich has compared hunters to Nazi doctors or slave traders (1). That's ME he's talking about! I saw Friedrich on a Fox News channel talk show recently, and he got so incensed that his chin was quivering. Full of hate, that guy.

How do you understand people like that? I like to try to see things from the other guy's perspective, but the ARF's we hear from are SO whacked that they may as well be from another planet. If you listen to their rhetoric, they don't want to talk things over - they're ready to march us off to the gas chambers A.S.A.P. for the good of all the animals on earth. You can start to understand what makes them tick (and blow up…) by looking at other mass movements and the tendencies of those who follow them. Eric Hoffer, in his excellent book The True Believer, points out many characteristics of mass movements that also apply to the AR movement. I think it's a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the mentality of a movement bent on revolution.

"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. This minding of other people's business manifests itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves, we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat."

"One of the most potent attractions of a mass movement is its offering of a substitute for individual hope." (2)

Hoffer's book offers some brilliant insight as to how people can become slaves to a questionable cause. He makes another important point -- the more impossible their goal, the more commited to the cause they become. All they value is their communal hope and they will not be willing to settle back into their own lives where they knew nothing but discontent. (3)

What's their beef and how do they cook it?

To get a grasp of what the AR movement really is, and to understand how they think, you have to back up and look at them from the perspective of history. The AR movement is essentially a philosophical theory. They have their own ideas about morality, ethics and virtue -- all of which are based on the idea of equality of all species of animals... including humans. Their goal is to redefine humankind as no better, no worse than any other animal. Every single thing they do and say fits this profile. How do they react when we offer to prove that rodeo animals are treated humanely? They don't care. They say we are missing the point, and we ARE missing their point. They mean for us to go MUCH further than simply treating animals humanely. They will not settle for less than a revolutionary change in the moral philosophy of everyone. They will not be satisfied until we are converted completely, and it's likely that not even that would satisfy them.

The common argument for AR goes something like this: Once we held certain races of humans as slaves, but we have seen the error in this and made all men equals. Once, women were persecuted, but we have seen the error in this and made them our equals. We should do the same for animals. The problem with this thinking is that all races and sexes of humans are the same kind of creature, and the animals are quite different. Take my dog, for example -- she seems pretty smart, but I think she would draw the line at going vegetarian. And her idea of fun is to catch a squirrel and kill it. I don't think she would want to join up.

Full implementation of the AR ideology would require a major reinterpretation of the moral principals that most of us live by. It would affect a great deal more than just our relationship with animals. It would affect every part of our lives. It would also be a major step towards the excommunication of God from the affairs of men.

At the root of the conflict over AR is an age old question: Do our ideas of morality and ethics come from a higher source (God e.g.) or have humans developed and refined them bit by bit since the beginning of time? Humans have struggled with this question as long as there have been humans. The question of the origin of morality is inextricably linked to the debate over whether God exists, and if so - what is his true nature? In the 17th century, Rene Descartes expressed the dilemma as such:

"Perhaps there may be some who would prefer to deny the existence of such a powerful God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain. Let us grant them - for purposes of argument - that there is no God, and theology is fiction. according to their supposition, then, I have arrived at my present state by fate or chance or a continuous chain of events, or by some other means. But the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time - because deception and error seem to be imperfections. Having no answer to these arguments, I am finally compelled to admit that there is not one of my former beliefs about which a doubt may not properly be raised; and this is not a flippant or ill-considered conclusion, but is based on powerful and well thought-out reasons." (4)

Descartes sought (among other things) to establish once and for all the indisputable existence of God by scientific method, and he concluded that:

"That is, when I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on something else, and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things; but I also understand at the same time that he on whom I depend has within him all those greater things, and hence that he is God. The core of the argument is this: I could not exist with the nature that I have - that is, containing within me the idea of God - if God did not really exist." (4)

But his conclusions were not indisputable, and for all of mankind's efforts, the nature and existence of God has never been established with evidence so compelling that no one could deny it. But God's existence has not been disproven with compelling evidence either. As far as mankind is concerned, God remains the ultimate enigma.(5) As a result, the inherent rightness or wrongness of ANYTHING is -- in the world we live in today-- debatable. To believe in God is to believe on faith, and if you do believe in God, and that moral principles are ultimately derived from God, you cannot sympathize with the AR movement, because it's ideas are incompatible with Christianity or any other monotheistic religion. The AR movement is not merely atheist in nature, it is very much anti-theist. What could be less Christian than a man made pseudo-religion that manufactures its own morality and assumes the role of God as it applies to nature?

Where lies the dilemma?

In America, right and wrong is much MORE debatable than in most other parts of the world. There is an old adage: "You can't legislate morality." But in America, that's exactly what we do. Morality is legislated every day here. There is no absolute right and wrong in this country, there is only what is socially acceptable. Some of the AR movement's attitudes have already found their way into the mainstream. Vegetarianism -- It's hip, it's politically correct, it's the earth-friendly thing to be these days. Look at how hard the Olympic committee is trying to appease the AR movement. The TV news presents the most radical ARF's as a legitimate "opposing viewpoint". They are being heard. Ideas, good or bad, creep into our collective conciousness over time. The AR doublethink has the same effect.

The ARF's are a serious enough threat to rodeo, hunting, fishing, the beef industry, etc. Behind the grandstanding nutcases at the helm of PETA, there are countless other, more moderate animal rights supporters. They attack from every angle. They lobby the federal, state and local governments, file lawsuits, write books, give lectures, mobilize college students, indoctrinate children, build web sites, publish magazines, organize public protests of everything imaginable, and -- like Islamic fundamentalists -- they sometimes resort to acts of terrorism. If this were a football game, they would be the offense and we would be the defense. They've got a thousand wide receivers downfield, and we can't cover them all. We can't get the ball back. And if we ever DID get the ball, all we would do with it is throw it into the stands, because we like things the way they are. We have no reason to fight except to defend our position. That's a bad position to be in, because history has shown us that if you are content, you are ripe to be overrun by the malcontents of the world.

What can we do?

It's impossible to fight the AR movement by dismissing the individual followers as foolish or refuting each and every claim they make. Yes, the ARF's are sometimes foolish, maybe hypocritical, and often present a far from rational argument, but they are slowly gaining ground. They are not so much out to save animals as they are to win the hearts of people. Their arguments are an appeal to popularity, and winning even a little social acceptance of their views helps them tremendously. In the increasing absence (in America) of moral absolutes, what today enjoys even the illusion of popularity -- tomorrow may be the law. If you look around, you will find that Americans today, are more "concerned" about animal issues than they were in 1975 when the radical AR movement was born. This is especially true in more urban areas.

American politics, in a nutshell, is a struggle over change. Generally speaking, "liberals" are the proponents of change -- the more liberal their views, the more rapidly they would prefer society to progress. "Conservatives" are relatively satisfied with the way things are, and the more conservative their views, the more likely it is that they would prefer society to regress, perhaps, to simpler times of the past. It's a battle that the conservatives are destined to lose. Change is inevitable. Whole societies have been crushed in its path. But the conservative plays a vital role in our country. By resisting progress, he allows it to stabilize and proceed slowly and in an more orderly fashion than if there was no resistance at all. The conservative essentially acts as a rudder. He cannot stop the ship, but he can help steer it.

In our own struggle, the AR movement has taken the helm and they will happily drag rodeo slowly to its death in their push for radical change if we do nothing. Humans have been involved in rodeo for less than 200 years, but have been eating meat since before recorded history. Which human habit do you think will be harder for them to break? We can only play the role of the conservative in this fight, and we need to do just that. We need to dig in rather than dismiss. Engage rather than ignore.

Progress has stamped out many better-established institutions than Rodeo. God, in fact, has already lost his battle with the progress of man -- according to some estimates.(6) And with God in the bag, so to speak, the only battle left is for the soul of man and the most direct and logical way to devalue the soul would be to upset the sovereignty of man over animal.

From Tocqueville's Democracy in America:

"Whence is it, then that the animals can provide only for their first and lowest wants, whereas we can infinitely vary and endlessly increase our enjoyments? We are superior to the beasts in this, that we use our souls to find out those material benefits to which they are only led by instinct. In man the angel teaches the brute the art of satisfying its desires. It is because man is capable of rising above the things of the body, and of scorning life itself, of which the beasts have not the least notion, that he can multiply these same goods of the body to a degree of which the inferior races cannot conceive.

Whatever elevates, enlarges, and expands the soul renders it more capable of succeeding in those very undertakings which do not concern it. Whatever, on the other hand, enervates or lowers it weakens it for all purposes, the chief as well as the least, and threatens to render it almost equally impotent for both. Hence the soul must remain great and strong, though it were only to devote its strength and greatness from time to time to the service of the body. If men were ever to content themselves with material objects, it is probable that they would lose by degrees the art of producing them; and they would enjoy them in the end, like the brutes, without discernment and without improvement."(7)

 

Slade Long
Copyright © 2001 Probullstats.com

Footnotes

(1) "I have no doubt that society will one day look back of [sic] Mr. Bass and his ilk with the same revulsion we presently reserve for Nazi doctors and slave traders." (PETA's Bruce Friedrich, in a letter to Sierra Magazine, published by the Sierra Club, responding to a July 2001 article, "Why I hunt", by Montanan hunter Rick Bass.)

(2) Eric Hoffer, The True Believer [New York: Harper & Row, 1951]

(3)How is this for discontent? --- "I am not a morose person but I would rather not be here. I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again, but at least I wouldn't be harming anything. All I can do -- all you can do -- while you are alive is try to reduce the amount of damage you do by being alive." (PETA President Ingrid Newkirk -- Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983)

(4) Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy [1641]

(5) Which is as good an argument as there is that he actually DOES exist.

(6) "God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown" --- Nietzsche, The Gay Science [1882] translation by Walter Kaufmann

(7) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America [1840] Vol. II