Animal liberation and welfare — you can have both, dammit!

A comparison of Direct Action Everywhere and The Humane League.

Animal rights in-fighting

Some people hate Direct Action Everywhere, the animal liberation group that I belong to. They say that we’re too extreme. We’re too militant. We make vegans look bad.

Some people hate The Humane League, an animal welfare organization. They say that they’re hurting animals by not doing enough. They bring up The Humane League’s campaigns for cage-free eggs, an incrementalist tactic that is somehow a disservice to animals because it’s not moving towards total animal liberation fast enough.

Now people hate Direct Action Everywhere because the Philadelphia chapter (the one I’m a part of) likes The Humane League. It’s not like we’re freaking financing them, our members just like their members. Could this movement become any more petty and ridiculous? When are we going to start taking animal liberation seriously?

The Humane League

First off, let me clear something up about the misunderstood Humane League. Based on the people I’ve met within it, they are an animal liberation group at their core, just like DxE is. They’ve chosen a different set of tactics than us (incrementalism) because they believe a different theory about what is going to work. But their ultimate goal is exactly the same as DxE’s: for every animal to be free from harm. They are conservative and they move slowly, but they achieve measurable results. The same cannot be said for DxE, who bets everything on our theories about social change and the epoch of animal liberation that we have not yet seen.

“We are working relentlessly to reduce animal suffering through grassroots education to change eating habits and corporate campaigns to reform farm animal treatment.”

—The Humane League

The quote above shows that their goal is to reduce animal suffering. Well, 0% is a reduction from 100%. Do you think they’re going to go from 100% to 10% and then just stop? No. This is how incrementalist tactics work: you start at 100%, and then slowly chisel it down until it’s gone. By demanding less of people you are able to see more consistent progress, all the while making animals’ lives suck less today instead of tomorrow.

It would be wrong to assume that The Humane League advocates harm towards animals. They are all vegans, which shows they do not believe cage-free eggs are enough. Their campaign for cage-free eggs is a nuanced strategy with a background of theory behind it. It is as equally nuanced as DxE’s theory for protests. So if any of you DxEers use the powers of empathy, you will remember a time someone attacked you for doing protests because they were oversimplifying your tactics, and understand that The Humane League receives the other side of that coin.

In a general sense, I agree with The Humane League’s tactics (incrementalism). They also do a lot supplemental activism, such as leafletting, education, and community events which are extremely valuable to the animal rights movement.

But their cage-free egg campaign hurts chickens!

Direct Action Everywhere has done investigations of cage-free facilities and found that cage-free is, surprisingly, worse for chickens. So the claim is that The Humane League is campaigning to make animal’s lives worse.

The Humane Society has also released a report on this topic, where they say that cage-free has the potential to be better for chickens, granted the animals are given enough space (or have their beaks clipped…), and the floor is routinely swept of debris.

I have researched this topic extensively, and I think that DxE presents a far more compelling argument. But, here’s the kicker: making a mistake does not make you a bad person. I say this fully aware that the cage-free issue is controversial and may be disputed, so if you have a counter-argument please drop me a line. But that is beside the point; regardless of who is correct, we are all susceptible to making mistakes and that should not be held over our heads as a reflection of bad character. Attacking other people because you think they’re wrong is not going to solve anything. I suggest reaching out and engaging in a civil discussion about these issues. You may change someone’s mind, or learn something you didn’t know before. This is the correct way to resolve conflicts and strengthen the movement. People don’t get into animal rights because they’re evil, so give them the benefit of the doubt goddammit.

In defense of Direct Action Everywhere

Now onto our favorite “militant” vegans. Since when did we start driving tanks, carrying guns, and wearing army berets? Are we really so extreme that we deserve to be called terrorists? Our tactics are pretty similar to Black Lives Matter, which people petitioned to have recognized as a terrorist organization, so I guess it’s no surprise. Apparently if there’s a social justice group you disagree with they are automatically terrorists.

But that’s just it: Direct Action Everywhere is a social justice group. This is what sets DxE apart from other animal organizations; we start with the assumption that animals are people — because they are. Imagine us protesting at Whole Foods in front of the butchered bodies of human beings. This is the way we view the meat section of every grocery store. We do not make the arrogant assumption that human lives are more valuable than animal lives, so what society does to animals is an irreconcilable injustice that we must decry from every street corner and grocery store until people are forced to wake up and confront this issue. We subscribe to the belief that non-violent social change is made through dramatizing the issue, not by being nice.

You may not agree with us; confrontation must be bad, right? But non-violent civil disobedience can and has been effective, most notably during the Indian Independence Movement and the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Our goal is to create massive social tension and to force this issue into the public domain. We think it’s worth it, since animals are people and we’re killing 25.2 million of them daily for no good reason. People will think we are crazy, just as every social justice activist before us was deemed crazy. It is worth being called crazy to accelerate this issue. Our behavior as activists is justified: anger and resistance is the correct response to injustice. Animals have done nothing to deserve our abuse of them, and they deserve to be given justice. You cannot say that our tactics are wrong if you would not object to human rights protests of a similar fashion. If you do, then we have a fundamental disagreement about the value of animal lives.

But really, both tactics are fine

I’m not sure a concrete argument against incrementalism or animal liberation protests can actually be made. Animal liberation has never happened before, so I think we have to accept that members of this movement are working largely based on intuition rather than hard knowledge. As a member of DxE, my intuition says that protesting for justice is the way to go, but I have had a completely different set of life experiences than other people in the movement. Both cases can be argued, but not with self-evident irrefutable facts, so at the end of the day it really is a matter of opinion. I want to stress this: it is an opinion. Stop acting like it’s not unless you’re a goddamn fortune teller. Do try to learn from, teach, and discuss ideas with people. Try to empathize with them. But accept that we may not agree on every strategy, and that’s okay. We should still be friends. We share the same idyllic vision of the future even though we’re taking different routes towards it. It’s worth having an open, civil discussion about things instead of getting caught in our echo-chambers and creating unnecessary conflicts.

Of all the animal rights strategies people criticize, there is only one thing I know for certain won’t help the animals: our inability as activists to empathize with one-another and be able to unite when needed.

Shout out to everyone who believes in animal liberation, no matter how you want to get there.