http://www.gary-francione.com/francione-marcus-debate.html

From Kip I learned of this brief essay by Michael Dorf. Here are the first two of its three paragraphs:In my FindLaw column yesterday, I argued that Al Gore undermines his ability to act as a spokesman for combating global……

Excellent. This is my exact problem with debates like this—in-fighting isn’t going to accomplish anything.

As much as I respect Erik Marcus, having an author and activist debate a philosophy professor is a doomed experiment. Further, I know most people don’t have degrees in philosophy, but Francione’s work is riddled with fallacious reasoning. A much better debate would be to pit Francione against Peter Singer, who could more effectively rebut Francione’s rhetoric and circular reasoning.

I too have been struggling with this same issue for the past several months. At times I have wondered if I was being too rigid in my abolitionist beliefs, especially when I have been viewed by people in my life as inflexible and too argumentative. But I can’t deny that I simply don’t see “improvements” such as slightly larger battery cages and the banning of gestation crates as successes. This is especially because I fear that such so-called successes create complacency amongst some people and corporations who think these “changes” mean that is all they have to do to get AR activists off their backs. As well, I worry that these “improvements” are used by others to placate their consciences with the idea that exploitation is acceptable as long as they can somehow feel good about continuing to torture and mutilate other beings.

It has been a belief of mine that individuals and organizations (welfarists) that support “improvements” in the factory farming of animals are supporting measures that make the movement to abolish all animal exploitation a more difficult and drawn-out process. I believe this because while these baby steps, as some like to refer to them, might seem like positive accomplishments, they actually delay the process of the abolition of exploitation by encouraging the view that it is okay to exploit animals.

At the same time, I believe that as long as we all continue to fight amongst ourselves about who is right, pitting welfarist and abolitionist arguments against each other to determine whose argument is more valid, our focus has less to do with the plight of the creatures we claim to care about and more to do with our egos. For those of us who truly want an end to all animal exploitation, it is time to put aside the the egos and really come together by creating dialogues that result in a happy end to our means. It might take a little time, but if we believe animals have a right to live their own existences free of harm, we need to look past our hangups, share our experiences and views and take effective action that results in real, complete successes in the abolishment of exploitation. We can’t create peace if we can’t have peace amongst ourselves.