Know Thy Enemy Week #3: Anti-AR Activists
The last couple of days, we’ve focused on large companies or organizations with significant financial resources that are using their money to denounce comparatively pauper-like animal rights groups. Today, though, we go to the other end of the spectrum and look at individuals who hold some sort of grudge against animal rights advocates, people that feel strongly enough that they start a web site to attack AR groups and activists.
Let’s take a moment to consider what could drive an individual to take the time out of their life to specifically work against animals and activities meant to protect them. The way I figure it, there are a few forces that could be at play:
- They feel threatened by the work of animal rights advocates and feel that their own “rights” (the right to eat meat, the right to wear fur, the right to hunt) are being infringed upon. I wonder if these people start sites of a way to justify their own beliefs even more than to further a cause.
- They’ve been personally attacked by strong-armed AR tactics in the past. Maybe back in the 90s they were walking out of Saks Fifth Avenue wearing a fur coat and someone with PETA threw red paint on them. This type of person harbors a resentment at being singled out and physically attacked for something they believe or wear and they want to fight back.
- They genuinely hate animals. I suspect that this group is quite small. Most people can feel at least some sort of compassion and see the importance that groups like PETA and HSUS play in animal welfare.
From what I’ve seen on anti-AR sites, members of the first group (or at least people who I think fit that profile) are the most prevalent. They get members of the second group on their side by focusing less on the actual cause of animal protection and more on the “outrageous” things that advocates may do in the name of the cause. They won’t acknowledge the work that PETA does to help homeless companion animals but they’ll jump all over the PETA Kills Puppies bandwagon. They’ll attack any comparisons to factory farms and the Holocaust, but won’t think for a second that it’s not the victims that are being compared, but the act of victimization.
Looking at this list shows that there are a pretty significant number of these sites out there. Not all sites on that list are still alive and some of them are meat industry sites, but a good chunk are maintained by individuals that just hate animal rights activists and, in some cases, the actual animal rights cause.
The sites with discussion forums can be particularly frustrating to read because a lot of times, a lack of compassion and understanding is masked by a facade of logic. Often, the tone is more of “look, the wackos are at it again” rather than “I can understand their reasons, but disagree with their methods and here’s why.” Thankfully, I’ve seen a number of AR folks participate in discussions on the forums, so every so often there is an actual exchange of ideas.
I’d like to think that even if the people that run and participate in these sites are on the other side of the fence, they’re still in the same pasture. The fact they go through so much effort shows that they’re at least thinking about the issue. Perhaps if there are enough thoughtful arguments presented, enough positive action being taken, then people that are vehemently anti-AR can begin to understand where we’re coming from.
Change isn’t likely to come by trying to convert everyone into a hemp-loving soy-eating vegan. Real change will come when it becomes impossible for the average person to deny the underlying importance of animal liberation and can no longer put their own pleasures and desires ahead of those that suffer as a result.
Oh for that day to arrive… please let it be soon…
My main problem with PETA is that they have no respect for personal property and how come there is no outrage with the millions of babies aborted each year? I will sit here at the computer eating a burger and going on ebay to order my wife another fur coat just because of what I read in this article. Thanks.
Personal property? You mean like the fur that belongs to the animals that died to make your wife’s fur coat? It don’t get much more personal than that…
In response to Bruce’s comment, there *is* a huge amount of outrage about human abortion – one only has to read the newspapers to see that!
People can be outraged and express moral dissent about more than just one issue. I express moral concern not only about the high rate of teenage pregnancy in our country and the resultant high abortion rate, but also the millions of unnecessary animal murders (and I *will* use the word ‘murder’ as it is entirely appropriate), and animal suffering around the world.
Being an ethical person means fighting injustice and suffering wherever and whenever we see it – not just picking and choosing whenever it is convenient for us.
Bruce seems to be looking the other way regarding animal rights simply because he prefers not to deal with reality. The delivery of his professed outrage about abortion loses strength because he portrays himself here as someone who is unwilling to fight injustice when it infringes on his own petty comforts.
my comments to all the cruel minded people out there who cant see the suffering that goes on every minute of the day to poor inocent animals is simple, can you imagine somebody torturing you?can you imagine being born just to die a slow and painfull death. its hell on earth for the animals bread in labatories and pain is probably their only feeling. why do we hurt those with no voice it makes me so mad inside. i am totally against animal cruilty i feel so strongly against it i would do anything and i really want to get into some kind of campaign i want to meet people with the same views as me and who want to make a differance but how do i get into these campains
I recently read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It takes place in an alternate reality, but is not primarily a sci-fi novel. I’m not sure if I can word this how I wish to… But I will try: What struck me about this novel is the underlying situation that the characters are stuck in is so reminiscent of how our society not only exploits animals, but also how it can do so because it denies them personal rights to such an extent that the mass majority refuse to believe animal’s can think or feel anymore than a machine. It becomes easy to dismiss the need to feel compassion once people can view animals, or even people (this seems to be how racial prejudices flourish), as different and lesser. And once the compassion leaves, so does any hope of feeling the need to care.
I have also just finished reading “never let me go”, and another parallel that struck me is the clone “welfareists”, who go to a lot of trouble to ensure the donors are well looked after until they are finally “sacrificed”, but make no attempt to speak out against the system itself whereby one set of human beings are used as mere tools for another.