Charles Danten, former veterinarian
***
 |
| Ingrid Newkirk, CEO of PETA |
The well-intentioned animal
activist is born through his ability to identify with suffering animals; he
recognizes himself in them. His efforts to change their condition, although
sincere, are also an indirect attempt to put an end to his own
suffering. (1) But, as he loses himself in action, as he forges
friendships with other militants, as he obtains certain results in terms of
sympathy capital, as he climbs the ranks of power, his self-love increases to
the detriment of his cause.
To better understand the
phenomenon, let’s take a close look at the journey of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA), the most in-vogue “animalitary” group in the
world, with 2 million members and 30 million dollars in donations each year.
PETA
was founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and her associate Alex Pacheco.
Originally, this organization was pure, hard-core abolitionist, radically
opposing any and all forms of animal exploitation, without exception. As the
following citations show, they would have been the first to denounce the
exploitation of animals as pets, without compromise:
Let us allow the dog to disappear from our brick and concrete jungles – from our firesides, from the leather nooses and chains by which we enslave it. (3)
The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship they should seek it with their own kind. (4)
All forms of exploitation and abuse are wrong. (5)
From
the beginning, PETA focused on high-profile interventions. Its leaders
especially targeted research laboratories in which vivisection was practiced.
With the help of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which it fully endorsed at
the time, PETA succeeded in infiltrating a number of research centers operating
in atrocious conditions and then in forcing them to temporarily close. These
results won them considerable media coverage, which translated to a substantial
increase in new supporters and, of course, donations.
Little
by little, as they gained visibility and power, the heads of PETA relied more
and more on their member support. Although in the beginning PETA refused to
negotiate on their principles, as they gained notoriety, their dependence on
members required making compromises. When they realized that their most
faithful supporters were dog and cat owners, Pacheco and Newkirk stopped
recognizing pet ownership as exploitation and abuse. To save their image, they
also cut ties with ALF. Thanks to these political adjustments, they managed to
attract many new fans.
Ingrid
Newkirk, the highly visible CEO of this multinational non-profit, has since
tirelessly traveled the globe, staging sensational demonstrations and campaigns
but without any genuine, worthwhile results. No one in the media would organize
a debate on the unfortunate animal condition without inviting Newkirk, who
plays her role marvelously. Well-articulated like any committed militant, she
has an answer to every question, and her opinion is always sought out by the
right-thinking currents of society. She has acquired enormous notoriety and
sympathy capital. This represents a spectacular turnaround, further rewarded by
juicy corporate donations and a heap of marginal benefits that cannot be
measured solely in monetary terms.
One
thing has led to another, and PETA has adopted reformism, or small-steps
politics. Their objective has become sitting down with authorities to find
solutions that will relieve animals of some misery within the framework of
continued exploitation. For example, following long negotiations, PETA
succeeded in obtaining a promise from the poultry industry – yes, a “promise” –
that the perimeter of battery cages would be increased…by two inches! Or was it
two centimeters? It doesn’t really matter!
In
this way, PETA mutated from its original abolitionist stance into a movement
for the defense of animal welfare. Behind a more muscular rhetoric, they share
the objectives of welfarists: to improve the animal condition within the status
quo. So when you hear the words “animal liberation” or “abolition,” you should
understand “slight improvement of the animal condition”; “putting an end to
suffering” means “reducing suffering,” which is vague terminology with no
substance, and which could be taken to mean anything; and “animal rights” has
come to mean “animal welfare.” (6)
What
is less recognized, however, is the fact that PETA has meanwhile become the
most ultra-sophisticated promoter possible of the pet industry. Its alibi: the
very loud and self-righteous war on the more obvious forms of animal abuse like
bullfighting, seal hunting and so on. Go to their website, if you are curious,
and you will find a host of accessories for pet lovers: t-shirts, instructional
manuals, food, cups, buttons, jewelry. These products serve one sole purpose:
to touch the hearts of members and thus attract donations. Never mind that in
doing so, PETA is promoting the consumption of pets. They have even stooped so
low as to sell advertising space to PETCO, one of the biggest pet stores in the
world. By a strange twist of fate, Ingrid Newkirk becomes a notorious dog
lover: “I don’t have the luxury of having a dog myself because I travel too
much, but I love walking and cuddling somebody else’s dog.”
Caught
up in their own game, such predatory groups have four major concerns: keeping
the secret of their real activities, hiding their multiple collusions with the
corporate world that exploits animals on a large scale, finding ways to draw
money from their sympathizers, and controlling the information given to
journalists to better manipulate public opinion. In order to accomplish all
this, says investigative journalist Olivier Vermont, author of the book The Hidden Face of Greenpeace:
[…] these organizations must conserve their façade of efficiency at any price. They do so by orienting their activities towards the sensational and short-term, in order to bluff not only their own militants, but also those who support them financially. Operating mostly in secret, they can go so far as to fool the public regarding the actual results of their campaigns by awarding themselves fictitious crowns of laurel. (7)
Thus,
creating an illusion of rigor and demonstrating a certain panache, even
insolence, is a primary tactic used to convince the public that an
organization’s function is authentic and legitimate. But for all their show,
these groups fail to question some of the sacrosanct dogmas that underlie the
battles they fight. To sum up their philosophy: We have to be outraged enough to be credible; after all, people aren’t
total idiots. We have to give them their money’s worth, but without bringing up
the underlying causes of the problem that even we do not want to look at!
As a general rule, because our attention
is naturally drawn to the obvious, the true issues escape the radar. This
renders them far more persuasive than if they were explicitly stated. Herein
lies the most demoniacal aspect of this logic: when we react strictly downhill
to consequences without bothering to go uphill and question the legitimacy of
their root causes, the founding credo, we only condone and reinforce the source
of the problem. (8)
Consider
the message behind this slogan, whose aim is to promote “responsible” pet
ownership: “Adopting an animal is for life!” On the surface, it caters to the
desire to make society kinder towards animals. However, by silently buying into
the fallacies of zootherapy*, it
does more to nullify the wanted effect of saving animals and to amplify the
dreaded effect of consumerism, with all its inseparable atrocities.
This
is how people who aim to protect animals end up instead smilingly contributing
to the heinousness of the industry. Their involvement within the accepted
confines of the present system only gives strength to its basic building
blocks. Thus, paradoxically, those who defend animals PETA-style only worsen
the problem they are trying to solve precisely because they do so with the
exact same frame of mind that created the problem in the first place. This
explains, in a nutshell, why the animal condition has deteriorated over the
past 300 years and why it will continue to do so.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,” says Henry David Thoreau in Walden, “and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
* Zootherapy is a term “that can refer to
institutionalized therapy sessions led by health professionals or another such
intermediary as well as simply having an animal at home. The word ‘zootherapy’
is thus a generic term designating the positive impact of animals on people,”
(9) and to give you the full story, I will add the impact of people on animals,
since it is generally agreed that this form of affection is as good for them as
it is for us.
** Cognitive dissonance: When confronted
with a truth that goes against our beliefs, the result is psychological
discomfort arising from the contradiction. There are three ways to resolve it:
1) We can change our perception of things to accommodate the new information
received; 2) We can change the opinion of the person who shared the
contradictory information, so that he agrees with us; 3) We can simply reject
the information by attributing it to beliefs, experiences, frustrations, or
another personal motive of the other.)
References
1.
Bernardina, Sergio Dalla (2006). L’éloquence
des bêtes. Métailié; Boltanski, Luc (1993). La souffrance à distance: morale humanitaire, médias et politique.
Métailié; West, Patrick (2002).
Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes It Really Is Cruel to Be Kind.
Civitas; Digby, Anderson and Mullen, Roger editors (1998). Faking it: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society. Social Affairs
Unit; Hoffer, Eric (1952). The true
believer: Thoughts on the nature of mass movements. Perennial Classics.
2.
Greenberg, Jeff et al (1996). “Why Do People Need Self-esteem? Converging
Evidence That Self-Esteem serves an Anxiety-Buffering Function.” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology; 63 (6): 913.
3.
Bryant, John (1983). Fettered Kingdoms:
An Examination of a Changing Ethic. PETA.
4.
Newkirk, Ingrid. PETA.
5.
Newkirk, Ingrid. Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia. Newkirk quotes are all over the
Internet.
6.
Francione, Gary (1996). Rain without
Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. Temple University
Press: a cogent demystification of the animal right’s movement. Too bad Francione, a declared abolitionist, has
5 pets! Herscovici, Alan (1991). Second
Nature. The Animal-rights Controversy. Toronto: Stoddart; Boltanski, Luc.
“L’opacité du désir.” Work. cited.
7.
Vermont, Olivier (1997). La face cachée
de Greenpeace: infiltration au sein de l’internationale écologiste. Albin
Michel.
8.
Reboul, Olivier (1984). Langages et
idéologies. Presses Universitaires Françaises.
9.
Faure, Gaëlle (2004). “La représentation de l’animal de compagnie dans la vie
psycho-affective de l’Homme adulte. Rapport de recherche bibliographique.”
École nationale supérieure des sciences de l’information et des bibliothèques,
France: 47.