I wrote this post in May 2010. I have since reconsidered my views. Please read this post, written in Jan 2012.
UPDATE below
There is a video circulating across the web, filmed by the group Mercy for Animals, which depicts brutal and senseless violence committed against calves and cows at a dairy facility in Ohio. I haven’t watched it myself, except for the first 10 seconds or so. I can’t watch depictions of gratuitous violence. But, I tweeted a link to the film and I’m sorry that I did. I don’t delete tweets, but I do apologize for posting that one in the first place.
I’m sorry for two different reasons.
First, the video, as the news reports have described it, depicts gruesome violence. No-one should have to watch that, and although I included a warning in my tweet about the graphic nature of the video, since it was too much for me to watch, I shouldn’t have thought that anyone else would want to watch it either.
Second, and most importantly, the video sends the wrong message. Let me explain.
I mentioned the video this morning to my brother, who is non-vegan. His immediate and natural reaction was to say “That has nothing to do with animal rights – sick minds do sick things and no-one can condone this sort of viciousness” (or words to that effect). And of course he’s right.
No-one thinks that this kind of violence is acceptable. No-one thinks that this kind of violence is normal. Everyone condemns it. But in the same breath every meat and dairy eating person who sees the video will say: “Thank goodness this isn’t what typically happens at dairy farms – it’s an ugly aberration, and I abhor it, I would never buy milk from a dairy that does that.”
Thinking that large numbers of meat eaters and milk drinkers will change their behaviors because of a video like this is, I think, mistaken.
Consider this. Do reports of female genital mutilation cause the public to support broader gender equality generally? In other words, does the knowledge of what most Westerners consider to be unacceptable treatment of young girls raise the chances of “equal pay for equal work” legislation passing in Western countries? I doubt it.
What I think happens in cases such as these is that the extremes cause comparative analysis, and those behaviors which most people consider to be normal look even more benign when viewed alongside such obvious horrors.
In a strange way, exposing such terrible violence as seen in the Mercy for Animals video may reinforce the dichotomy that exists in most people’s minds with respect to their treatment of nonhuman animals. Can’t you imagine people saying: “Well it’s one thing to eat products from an animal that’s been treated humanely and killed without unnecessary pain, it’s another thing altogether to do what those sick bastards did.”
I’d like to see a video of the every day normal operations of egg hatcheries, dairy farms and slaughterhouses. I’d like to see it as an uncut, 8 hour long documentary that shows the mundane and usual use of nonhuman animals as it happens to the 27,000,000 of them that die each day in America alone.
I know that such a video wouldn’t generate web page views, and that it wouldn’t go viral, and that it couldn’t be fundraised on. But it would show the actual every day violence against nonhuman animals that 97% of the world’s population does condone. No-one would be able to watch that long video and say “At least I don’t do that.”
That is the violence that needs to be seen for what it is, because that is the violence that needs to stop.
UPDATE: Via @VeganCapitalist on twitter, here a news report about the sort of normalized, accepted & far-reaching abuse of dairy cows which won’t cause the public outrage as did the MFA/Ohio videos, but which is indicative of the pervasive problems with our “mundane” exploitation of other animals.
28 Comments
You make a great point. At the end of the movie Fast Food Nation, cattle slaughter is shown, the “good” kind that only happens when outsiders are looking. No abuse (not even the company-approved kind), the unconscious animals were just disassembled. At the time I wondered what the point of that was. That slaughter is gross? People already know animals are killed for meat. Why promote the fantasy that this is how it happens, nice and slow, workers taking their time, animals clearly unconscious?
But I’ve heard comments from many non-vegetarians saying that that ending really bothered them, and I’ve reconsidered. I think meat-eaters not only can’t take abuse, they can barely take the best possible slaughter. As you suggest by your idea for the video.
I know it took me a few years of reading about abuse cases (such as downers), tsk tsking at those bad workers, before it hit me that I was paying them, rewarding them, and that I had to accept responsibility, that the laws in place and the lack of enforcement did not meet my standards, so I needed to take up the slack and say no to the whole mess.
I stopped eating animals because I refused to participate in the abuse, even when I did not yet understand that it was systemic.
Hi Tim,
Great article, as always!
I too reposted this video, on Facebook, after only being able to bring myself to watch the first 30 secs or so. I’ve never reposted something anywhere I’ve not been able to watch myself, for the same reasons you mentioned above, it’s hypocritical to expect others to watch something I wasn’t able to watch.
The reason I reposted this video was to bring to the attention of vegetarians who may see it, or even hear about it, that being vegetarian really isn’t as cruelty free and honourable as they (some) believe it to be.
I posted it with the recommendation of talking to someone about going vegan, rather than complaining and threatening the abusers in the video. I tried to make my intentions on re-posting it clear.
Anyway, I agree with your comments, but I also think that if a video like this, or any video, can provoke discussion on becoming vegan and make people aware of the horrors of the dairy industry, who otherwise wouldn’t have been, my 30 secs of pain was nothing.
Thank you for your comments. I do think that depictions of the violence that is committed against nonhuman animals can be a starting place for a conversation about ending the systemic abuse of sentient creatures. And, we can all do as you suggest and “take up the slack and say no to the whole mess.”
Carolyn:
Thank you for your feedback. I read about the video before it was released. Later, a friend of mine who has been talking with me about becoming vegan sent me the link to the actual video, which I retweeted. He was moved by it, and it impacted him in such a way as to reaffirm some of the things he has been deciding about how he wants to live his life. So, yes, I agree with you that some good can come from even these sensational depictions of cruelty when they are used in the service of individual advocacy/outreach & one-on-one education. I should have made that point in the blog.
Tim
Well said, Tim.
Videos like this disgust me. It’s not so much that they are horrific images of violence against innocent living beings. They are indeed horrific. What disgusts me more is, by the time mass media and industry get through spinning it, the average consumer will literally be none the wiser as to the atrocity that is “the mundane and usual use of nonhuman animals”.
After all is said and done — regulatory wrists slapped (maybe), fines paid, and the scapegoat “perpetrator(s)” receive their token judgement of 60 days suspended sentence — to the average disconnected omnivore, the towering doors of complacency will once again slam shut on the endless screams of enslavement. And everything will again be normal… in this “morally schizophrenic” world.
Jeff:
Thank you for saying so succinctly exactly what I was thinking. You’ve captured the essence of the problem: “to the average disconnected omnivore, the towering doors of complacency will once again slam shut on the endless screams of enslavement.”
Tim
I’m at a loss when I read that it would supposedly nothing to do with animal rights. I watched it completely and showed it to a colleague who is not vegan but is sympathetic to the cause, and transfered the link to two other persons, including an elected official. It’s a good opportunity for educating and bring people to stop to deny. If those cows were humans, the pyschopaths who commit those crimes would get life sentence. Why here they will not? Because they are humans, and humans are thought to have every right on animals, who are not considered persons. It has everthing to do with animal rights.
I
I’m going to have to dissent from Gary Francione and some other abolitionists on this issue.
I reposted this video on FB with a strong abolitionist message. I did not and will not watch the video – I’ve seen enough of these videos. Also, I don’t think abolitionist vegans need to ever watch such videos, but non-vegans should watch them every morning before breakfast, lunch, and dinner (maybe it will help them decide what to eat and drink at that meal). This kind of violence is NOT unusual, but is a daily *routine* in slaughterhouses.
It is my view that if and only if you are very clear about an abolitionist message, cruelty footage has the emotional impact on people that dry argumentation simply does not and cannot have. That is a psychological fact. The problem is not with showing cruelty footage, the problem is that generally cruelty footage includes a regulationist message. If and only if you include a purely abolitionist message, then showing cruelty footage is fine.
In fact, not only is it morally permissible to show the truth of extreme torture and cruelty in all forms of animal exploitation, but to the extent such footage is available, it is morally obligatory in the sense that it is a relevant fact that cruelty is an inherent part of the institution of our use of other animals, regardless of whether they are raised in someone’s back yard or in a CAFO. I believe that to ignore or hide this fact is at least negligent, if not grossly negligent.
It is equally a relevant fact that this institution of animal use and this cruelty cannot be regulated, but must be abolished. We cannot regulate a holocaust; the holocaust must be abolished. To hide or ignore this fact is grossly negligent.
While we don’t need or want to make cruelty footage “front and center”, let’s not ignore or hide truth. People need to know that extreme cruelty and torture actually (and routinely) exists in every form of use, AND that it is an inherent part of the institution of animal use and animals as property that cruelty and torture will continue to increase as long as people are not vegan and this institution is not abolished.
I plan to publish a blog post on this issue in mid-June sometime.
Great article, Tim.
I think there was a point in time when all of us vegans, during our pre-aboolitionist days, focused on the most extreme forms of industrialized farming in order to grab the public’s attention. I know I certainly did! But as we know (and as you pointed out) such a form of activism only makes everything else seem better… And I suppose it is… But that doesn’t make it right. As far as I’m concerned, for this reason, we should never use factory farming (and the practices that are unique to it) as a primary tool for vegan education. I think that talking to people about the horrible farming practices used on all types and sizes of farms can be useful, but even still, I think that we should limit our discussion of small-scale farming as an educational tool, because such talk only reinforces the notion that our treatment of animals is the problem… when in fact it is our use.
P.S. — My view here is consistent with my essay entitled “PETA’s Undercover Investigations: Another Example of the Welfarist Business Cycle”. In that essay, I did not criticize PETA’s undercover investigation, per se, but their regulationist message that accompanied it (and they had absolutely NO abolitionist message). I have great difficulty in seeing what is wrong with exposing industry (including free-range, etc) for the horrid, cowardice, and disgusting holocaust that it is.
Ooops! I wanted to correct myself in the above post…
I said: “…we should never use factory farming (and the practices that are unique to it) as a primary tool for vegan education.” (Italics added)
I meant: We should never use them, period.
What we should call attention to is that there is no difference between this so-called “gratuitous cruelty” and “normal-process cruelty” in that all of it is extreme violence and completely gratuitous and unnecessary. We engage in all of it for utterly trivial reasons.
Amen to that.
Thank you, and thank you for sharing your views.
One of the things that I am realizing is how difficult it can be to always articulate the consistent abolitionist position. It is easy to fall back into old habits of talking about suffering, cruelty and mistreatment. And now that I’ve said that, it is easy to see why so many people don’t seem to understand the abolitionist position – by not wanting to talk only about suffering, we can seem to be uncaring or indifferent towards other creatures. It’s so much easier to talk about love, compassion and caring than it is to speak logically about sentience, rights and what obligations we owe and to whom we owe them. The benefit to the abolitionist message though, is that once someone gets it, they’ve really got it, and then they can never view the world in the same way as before.
As you’ve said, and as I’m learning, it is worth the effort to remained focused.
Tim
Dan:
Thanks very much for your input. I think that you and I agree substantively about this. I can see where, in the proper context, exposing people to the kind of horrors depicted in the MFA video would do some good. You took the time to do establish that context and I, on twitter, did not. So I can see where people finding the video through your link would get a different message from someone finding it through mine.
Having said all that, perhaps I am naive in thinking that the kinds of abject cruelty depicted in the MFA videos are not all that routine. I don’t know, but I would suspect that the routine mistreatment of nonhuman animals in large scale operations is not the result of the actions by disturbed individuals such as those in that video, but more the result of a complete indifference to the insidiousness of the commodification of nonhuman animals. That is the “mundane” kind of abuse that I was referring to – sentient creatures being used as things – normalized abuses that most people in the world today would not see as abuse.
I don’t know that the case can be made to the general public that the horrors in that video are widespread and commonplace. My point was that the accepted practices, even the best practices, in most well managed food-animal operations are unacceptable from the standpoint of the rights of sentient creatures. I think it wold be more difficult to produce a video that demonstrated that, but that such a video could be very instrumental in changing the minds of many people.
I’m looking forward to reading your upcoming blog post.
I think there could be some fundraising for filming…but what factory farm industry would allow it? when i post such videos i explain that ‘this is only the scenes that got caught on tape’, and that it happens EVERY day EVERY where!
great comments Dan C! I’m an ethcial vegan who is also against any type of animal use/exploitation. I try and explain the humane myth as well when showing factory farm videos…which is a bit harder to explain to the everyday person as being practically just as bad . however it would be huge progress if factory farms went extinct…then a new battle would consist of not having enough land for ‘humane’ farms. the world just couldn’t sustain it…so just go vegan already!!! ; ) not so easy…just gave non-vegans an argument to keep factory farms…’free-range’, ‘humane’ farms couldn’t supply the world with enough animal products…so no meat/dairy…oh no!!!! don’t know how we’re gonna get to a vegan world…but i’m gonna die trying!!!!
Tim,
I agree that we’re on the same page on this issue. I think we need to be very careful about the context in which we present such videos. I also think they should be used sparingly. I also completely agree that no matter how painlessly we use other animals, it is unacceptable.
Interestingly, Gary Francione devotes at least several pages in his “Introduction to AR” to describing the pain and suffering other animals endure (i.e. the treatment) in our various uses of them. I think it is appropriate that he does so. There is nothing inconsistent in saying that, yes, the treatment is horrific, the horrific treatment is inherent in use, and enslavement and killing are wrong *regardless* of treatment.
About the disturbed individuals in that video, sadly, I think that is a pervasive cultural attitude in slaughterhouses and other large-scale operations. (And mass-produced “free-range” nonhumans, etc go to the same slaughterhouses). The people hired for those jobs are generally the rural poor who often come from abusive families, have major drug and alcohol addictions, and are generally a mess. Many of them are mean and nasty from their environment, and the slaughterhouse culture is therefore one of violence, anger, and sadism, just like a prison. So, I think such behavior is routine, but middle and upper-middle class people would have a hard time believing it because they haven’t spent time in such an environment.
Dan,
You raise a good point about the kinds of people who do certain jobs – people who become police officers aren’t motivated to do the same kind of work that journalists are. So it stands to reason that people who take jobs in slaughterhouses are either the people who have the least qualms about killing nonhuman animals, or the fewest other options available to them. That would seem to foster an environment which is ripe for abuse.
Factory “farms” are the rule, with less-intensive confinement being the exception, so it’s understandable that this is a focus of the movement. That said, we need to always be clear that the solution is not regulation of atrocities, but abolition, for it is unjust for humans to breed, confine, and kill other animals for food given that we have no biological need to eat anything other than plants for survival. Don’t shy away from pictures and videos of cruelty and injustice because it may cause someone to focus solely on regulating treatment; use the emotional pull for rational arguments – the public need to see reality to break through the speciesist barrier and consider the plight of other animals.
I was introduced to veganism and animal rights through a no-compromise message. Even though I agreed that it was wrong to confine and kill other animals for food (and other purposes), my actions did not change until I saw a video of cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys kept in intensive confinement and killed in slaughterhouses. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to stop eating flesh and eventually become vegan had I not witnessed the violent reality with my own eyes and heard the cries with my own ears. It’s just too easy to mindlessly consume, with mass marketing, societal pressure, and convenience all telling us to not resist the status quo.
The key, in my opinion, is to combine images/video of reality which pull at the emotions while also making rational arguments as to why this is unjust and why other animals have rights that should be recognized by each individual (become vegan) and society (rights
protected by law). The reason that many humans simply think “let’s just make conditions better” is because they are thinking within the dominant speciesist paradigm of our human supremacist society. We must always be clear that it is wrong for humans to exploit other animals, for their lives and freedom are as important to them as ours are to us.
It was because of undercover videos such as the most recent one made by Mercy For Animals that turned me away from meat and dairy almost 3 years ago. I ate animals my whole life; I turned vegetarian overnight and vegan a week later and have never looked back. This is not just an isolated case…it is the norm of what happens to farmed animals. Maybe not to this degree but animals raised for food are almost all beaten and tortured. Many people I know have also turned away from eating animal products because of videos like this. It displays the shocking reality that many people choose to remain ignorant about.
Jessica:
Thanks for you comments. I am sure that some people do change their behaviors after viewing videos such as these. I just don’t think that these kinds of things are the best or most effective way to reach the largest number of people. Videos like these have been circulating for decades and vegetarians abd vegans still only make up 3% of the population.
As far as the treatment of other animals go, I don’t how you know that the viciousness seen in this video is the ‘norm’ – my guess is that most dairy farmers are not sadists.
Totally agree with your post Tim – there is a movie that I would definitely recommend to anyone, especially non-vegans: “Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home” (http://peceablekingdommovie.com/) produced by the non profit group Tribe of Heart (http://tribeofheart.org/).
Watching this movie pushed me (and at least 3 others I know at that screening) from lacto-vegetarian to vegan in one, definitive shift.
Was it the slaughterhouse videos of day-old calves with their umbilical cords still hanging? Yes. Was it the horrifyingly surreal – yet completely antiseptic – shot of a modern dairy, the most eloquent depiction of cows as production units I’ve ever seen? Yes. Was it the destruction of thousands of male chicks with a series of careless wrist flicks? Yes. These scenes, not overly gruesome – just daily operations, made me realize that NOTHING tastes good enough to justify me being a part of that. Not even dairy chocolate (my final bastion of animal consumption).
But it was also the look in the eyes of kids brought up in the agricultural industry, watching their prize heifer or sheep being sold at auction and realizing the fate of an animal they loved and had nurtured; the auction scenes themselves with all their confusion and fear…
It was the real stories of ranchers and dairy farmers who had experienced an epiphany about their daily practices, and the stand they then took to reclaim their souls.
And it was seeing irrefutable evidence of the emotional lives of animals, from a hen teaching her chick foraging, to the overwhelmingly apparent joy of a sheep reunited with her lamb after a farm rescue.
It’s my opinion that this movie is a more powerful call to veganism and non-voilence than “Earthlings”, “Food Inc” or any of the shock videos we see. It makes you realize that it’s not just the animals who are suffering, it’s the people who are chipping away at their own souls with every second in that industry. And it facilitates an emotional connection with farm animals that I have yet to see achieved with such finesse.
Many people in the industry aren’t sadists, they’ve just quashed their conscience long enough that it doesn’t talk to them any more. Every day they swallow sorrow and pain and an intuitive realization that what they’re doing isn’t right, and to survive they become inured to the violence they perpetrate; they create emotional compartments, much like the rest of society, that let them love their dog and kill a calf. People in these industries are all too human, unfortunately.
When the DVD comes out, GET IT. WATCH IT. SHARE IT. It’s compassionate but unequivocal in its message: GO VEGAN, it’s the only way to regain your humanity.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and your experience from watching “Pleasurable Kingdom.” I think that it is too easy to demonize those with whom we disagree – far better to try to understand their humanity and engage with them. It sounds as though the film allows for the space to do that. I will watch it as soon as it becomes available.
There’s this video on FB, in Spanish, called “for the pets” or something to that ilk, that has a video not showing any violence, but a cow in the chute, the next girl to die. She ‘s seen the girl before her go in. Clearly she’s terrified, as any and all sentient beings would be. I see that image, her trapped and terrified in a chute with no hope of escape, every time I enter the place where I must store my belongings and others “eat.” I cannot bear to eat there. The smells, the sights assault my senses. They drag my humanity into a dark abyss. As much as I hate frivolously spending precious oil, I drive home to eat in peace.
I cannot watch any more videos. I can only hope my presence in that horrible place where I must keep my belongings, where others eat, I hope against hope my being the voice for the non human persons is felt.
I agree with Dan: this kind of cruelty is not something vegans should feel compelled to watch. Witnessing suffering serves one worthwhile purpose: it inspires you to take action. If you are already acting (living vegan) then watching footage of cruelty is fruitlessly upsetting.
Non-vegans, on the other hand, are the people who are funding the cruelty. They are complicit, and seeing videos like the one from Conklin Dairy Farm may inspire them to change.
I forwarded the link without watching a second of it. I’m already vegan. It isn’t my cruelty. But there are dairy purchasers who need to know where there money is going and to think twice about the creatures who are enslaved and killed for their products.
I am uncomfortable with showing gruesome images or footage to people. But my discomfort, and that of the people who see it, is nothing compared to what the animals endure. I think every adult should watch precisely as much animal cruelty as it takes for them to become vegan. No more, and certainly no less.
Have you watched “The Witness” at the Tribe of Heart website? The subject of the video talks about how, when he was mugged and viciously beaten on the street in New York, that he had to stop screaming in order to conserve his energy so that he might survive. As he lay there being brutalized he wondered why there was no-one anywhere who could speak to save him. Years later, he realized that all the other animals in the world are in similar situations every day – brutalized, with no voice of their own, and with no-one to speak out for them. It was as powerful an abolitionist message as I have seen, and it was just a man, looking into the camera, telling his story.
Ditto what Dan said. (So eloquently I might add.) I don’t watch these videos anymore either. I stopped after Earthlings. But, it doesn’t stop me from showing such films to non vegans. I too feel that if people are going to choose to exploit non human animals, they should see exactly what their actions are supporting. And, like Dan said, abolitionist commentary should accompany these videos. This MFA video shows abuse outside of the normal abuse. (And yes, it’s all abuse. Exploiting a sentient being is abusive.) But, I think what happened at this particular farm is not unusual. Not at all. People need to know the whole ugly, horrible truth.
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