Animal Rights: Forcing myself to care

Animal rights - the one moral issue to which I've responded to for years with a kind of theraptutic apathy. It's like a soothing balm on my over-used moral indignation.

It's not entirely true, I do care a bit - I wouldn't actively condone the beating of puppies. And I'd say I was against cruel farming methods, don't buy eggs from caged hens etc. etc. But I would say I've never engaged with the issue in the same way that someone who is against the wanton torture of old ladies couldn't be said, on that merit, to be engaged with civil liberties. It's the kind of apathy where you end up holding populist moral views that are absorbed by osmosis in lieu of any active engagement - no caged eggs etc etc. Your basic animal welfare position.

Back to what set me thinking about all of this. Today, I saw an advert for so called Peace Silk- this is Silk that lets the pupae (yes, pupae) live out its natural life, fall in love, witness a sunset, laugh, cry and so on. As opposed to the conventional silk making method in which it is 'boiled to death'. And, lets be honest, that phrase sits comfortably with no one. But - really - should I care? What are the consequences for my moral code if being anti cruelty to pupae becomes integrated within it? I've actively condoned the mass slaughter of an entire community of maggots before now, using a similar death-by-boiling method. Should I now reproach myself? It's a moral maze!

Maybe I'm being facetious. Making these distinctions maybe I risk neutering with technicality an argument that's essentially about respect for life. Though Singers argument hinges on the thing in question having an 'interest' or being capable of suffering, which is questionable I think, when it comes to Pupae. Maybe Peace Silk would gain more truck if it took PETA's fish/sea kittens approach and re-branded them baby butterflies.

I think this confused attitude is largely reflected in the state of left leaning politics - animal rights are an issue which have become dislocated from the main body of lefty activism, despite, or even because of the fact that animal rights have been discussed and worried over since the 1600's. Yes, far left publications like Schnews and Indymedia still give radical animal activism a lot of space. But the New Internationalist has not really mentioned any of God's little creatures since the early nineties. This neglect by the fringe may be because the issue of animal welfare (rather than the more radical and marginalized animal liberation) has plenty of support from the mainstream - Jamie Oliver and his pigs, Hugh Fernly-Wittingstall and his chickens - and so the whole animal thing seems like a non issue in terms of raising awareness.

It's more noteworthy that the radical animal liberation movement, as well it knows, has been abandoned by much of the Guardian-reading left, in a way that conservative speculation has somehow missed, still lumping 'greenies, animal rights nuts and climate change fascists' together in a sentence. Ugly headlines have left their mark, and it seems like a good idea for any one taking direct action to distance their cause from animal activism, lest it be smeared with granny defilement. The most recent edition of Schnews bemoans this fact, accusing the 'moderate' left of taking up the fight for civil liberties only when their own are threatened. They claim that animal rights activists have been single handedly defending themselves against authoritarian measures to suppress them for years. In fact, there's actually an awful lot of bitterness in the far left publication on the alienation of animal rights activists from other forms of left wing activism. Stage an anti war march, and every single person with a complaint against the government turns up. Animal rights rallies tend to be given a wide berth. Schnews also claims that animal libbers receive harsher treatment by the law. It's this sentiment that has lead to mistrust of Guardian Blogger Henry Porters Convention for Modern Liberty Coalition, not least because of the involvement of the hated Countryside Alliance.

Animal libbers' difficult relationship with feminism over the years might also go a small way to explaining their isolation. Women were the primary target of the anti fur campaign, and the phrase 'rich bitch! poor bitch' adorning a poster was a source of contention. Even today, one of the first things you witness on PETA's website is a pro-veggie advert featuring provocatively dressed women caressing themselves with vegetables*. Yes, its clearly meant to be funny, but there's also some Uncle Tom-ing going on in the way of the what-are-we-supposed-to-do-sex-gets-attention attitude, which has long been the excuse of the advertising industry for saturating cultural space with rigid and unhelpful sexual images of women. Veggie feminists may well be frustrated at their being forced to choose between their ethics and their dignity on this one.

So we have ourselves an outpost, whose members grow more and more resentful of the 'moderate left', whilst further becoming demonised by the mainstream. Is there any hope we might all pull together? Is there any reason to?

Having somehow brought up feminism, it seems neatly fitting at this point to come full circle and mention the arguments of feminists such as Josephine Donavan. In her view, 'theorizing animals is inevitable for feminism' because their 'oppression' is symptomatic of the kind of patriarchy that renders other creatures subservient to it. Feminists and defenders of civil liberties campaigners should by this argument promote animal rights in their quest to overthrow the arbitrary dominance over and the instrumental use of other creatures by the status quo.

To bring this entry back to me personally. In explaining my apathy, I believe I've chosen other battles**. And this is a common attitude - where these orphan issues lie so close to the boundaries of your interests that you feel obliged to explain why they've not been taken on board and cared for as one of your own - often its felt that there's no time, there's limited resources and they must ruthlessly be directed where they are needed the most. Also, giving time to animal rights might be seen as avoiding the larger problem, and treating a symptom rather than the illness as a whole.

But I think it merits examining exactly what your political beliefs entail. For instance, a large section of contemporary feminism increasingly disavows the antiporn movement, and the kind of politics that involves itself in condemning the beauty industry. Certain feminist voices will say that this kind of campaigning detracts from the 'real issue' of the glass ceiling and the pay gap. I would argue that you cannot be concerned with one without recognising the other, particularly with the recent study linking the observation of sexfully dressed women with activity in the part of the male brain that deals with 'use of tools'. And possibly it's the same attitude that campaigns for civil liberties but sneers at animal rights activism (or vice versa). Maybe civil rights campaigners should be paying more attention to what they have in common with their shovel-wielding, puppy-humping pals. They could certainly do with the legitimacy.

Oblique, fun-times-with-postmodernism post colonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak coined the term 'strategic essentialism' to try to untangle this very mess. Simplistically it describes a the uniting disparate minority groups against a common enemy. Though she emphasised this must be brief, political and strategic, without buying into the follies of philosophical essentialism. But then, she didn't give a shit about animals either.

So what's the lesson? Maybe I should learn to be more nuanced at recognising who is actually engaged in the same battles as me, who actually shares the same root attitude, despite expressing it in an unfamiliar way. I certainly didn't mean to write about feminism, but up it cropped. I've learned something today.

I still don't know what I think about animal rights though, but maybe gazing at these pictures of a bowl of delicious deep fried silkworm pupae, and collection of equally delicious kittens will help shed some light on the matter.

















*the list of reasons it was denied airtime during the Superbowl is actually quite funny - see 'touching her breast with her hand while eating broccoli'

**By 'battles' I obviously mean 'things to sit around and complain about'

Broken Britain And Other Stories

Broken Britain - a reality that many Daily Mail Columnists wake up to every day. In the last few weeks, Karen Matthews, no longer a woman but a symbol, has been packaged up and sold back to us by the tabloids as supremely indicative of this dramatic overview of British life.

And not only do we find the story here being ruthlessly exploited to sell sensational headlines, but glance around and it's there being used to promote myths about a particular underclass - single mothers and benefits claimants - in order to soften the reception of certain harsh welfare reforms

In the last fortnight, James Purnell unbelievably held her story aloft in support of his initiative to force single mothers on benefits into work. Simultaneously, we read Cameron using her to vent his black tory heart in the secure, sensationalist conservative womb of the Daily Mail. It's okay now Dave, you're safe here. Say what you like. Here's some choice prose:

'if only this were a one-off story' - translates as 'if this doesn't merit an excuse to make crude generalizations, what does?'

'Children whose toys are dad’s discarded drink bottles; whose role models are criminals, liars and layabouts; whose innocence is lost before their first milk tooth' My god, it's like the beginning of a fairy tale. When will a smug Eaton tory twat arrive on his shining horse to save us all?

The phrase 'broken Britain' (or variant 'broken society') has appeared, at a glance, around 20 times in the mail in the last few months. A good solid handful of those references can be attributed to Cameron, as he busily casts himself as the saviour of this engulfing dystopian fantasy. To quote one columnist in the full heat of moralistic self righteous ecstasy 'if this isn't a broken society, what is?' And what exactly is a broken society? Other than a vague, one size fits all term parodied by Chris Morris in the Brass Eye episode 'moral decline', designed ease confusion by doing away with detail.

It's tempting, only too tempting, whilst skimming through such manipulative gutter journalism to spend a couple of seconds making dismissive noises and have done with. Particularly when the neon-blindingly cynical wooing of a convenient symbol of the popular masses such as the mail by a slimy toff seems too open and shut even to bother with. But the persistent murmur of broken Britain isn't just a top down imposed narrative. It more cloyingly rises up the social ladder like damp in a way that's much harder to pin down or critique, emanating from such a confusing multitude. Certain obscured hand- wringers occasionally crop up and warn liberals that by ignoring the real and valid concerns of the working class, they're forcing them to join the BNP. While this remains a distasteful ploy for the forcing of the anti immigration agenda into the mainstream, and an unrealistic reduction of a vast and nebulous social group (the 'working class') a central point can be extracted. We can't dismiss popular unease - we can reject it's colonisation by the conservatives.

It isn't just the generalization of certain characters that gives rise to murky neurotic worlds of fiction such as the world of 'Broken Britain', it's the construction of the characters themselves. The face of Karen Matthews hasn't just been copied and pasted onto the face of every single mother in the country - it's also been read, distanced and de-humanized. And that's the dark centre of the broken Britain myth - a process of Othering that demonises and divides, and gives people something to struggle and define their morally superior selves against. An alien underclass, among us, but not like us. There's a parallel to be made with the character assassination of women who report being raped, particularly if the claim happens to be made against, plucking a random example from the very air, a footballer. In an analysis of attitudes of authority figures to individuals reporting rape, feminist academic Liz Kelly contends that 'practitioners draw more on the safety of cliches and long held beliefs than on evidence'. The ghost of the lying harpy walks abroad, imposing herself on every single woman who dares to lodge an accusation. She's the Karen Matthews of the rape world. But does she exist? Does it matter? She embodies a certain distancing attitude of people towards people. It's not just that one woman is being generalized onto many - this in itself doesn't lead to unjust policy making. It's that, in terms of understanding, a superficial and un-nuanced portrait of a woman is being generalized onto many.

So how should we refute these crude fictions? As a starting point, we shouldn't confuse, as Polly Toynbee seems to when she contends that majority of single mothers are in employment, fact with ideology. A significant proportion of single mothers are unemployed. Just because this particular fact operates at the heart of an ideology designed to alienate and punish the less fortunate, doesn't mean it should be abandoned to the dark side. We can't ignore this just because it makes it easier for Purnell et al. to cut back on the carrots and get out the big stick. As satisfying as it is to be able to say, actually, most single mothers have one child and are over 35 (true), we risk getting into an endless cycle of trading and manipulating stats. We should not allow ourselves to become distracted from refuting the subtext of this mythological character construction, or its implicit contention that victims of social deprivation are somehow lesser beings.

why you shouldn't join the SWP

So recently I went to the Socialist Worker's Party initiative 'Marxism Festival', and was thus constantly canvassed by members of the SWP.

And I thought, well why don't I join? I'd put myself in the far left, I'm up for trade unionists immigrants and socialism. I'm pretty sure that there's more than a few problems with capatalism. I largely agree with everything that was said.

And for a while I could articulate what was wrong, aside from the blank stares I received from the kid hustling me to join as I answered his questions about my life and views. 'My dissertation? Oh, it was, er, salman rushdie...blah blah blah. I like the way he...erm, are you into this?'

No, he wasn't into it. He was into the socialist worker party, and getting me to join. And I know that this is how politics works, people talk to you, find out what you're looking for in a political party and try to convince you that they can provide it. it's a utilitarian situation. But the single-mindedness of the whole interaction strikes me as creepy. And the SWP mixer picnic - weird. I like my sandwiches free of over-my-head smarmy references to Trotsky.

But all of this is incidental, and doesn't make up the bulk of my reasons for not allying myself to the party. The eventual reasoning that formed itself from my initial discomfort is this: The belief in communism as the eventual end solution to the problems thrown up by capatalism and the perfect expression of a functional socialist society.

As a practical solution, the SWP is alienating. In terms of the left I will say you cannot fault it for diversity - it's not just for middle class students with too much time on thier hands and a head full of utopian images, as is often what lefty movements get branded with being. These people are old and young and from every walk of life, often with very direct experiences of being let down by the real world as it stands. But they have united under such a specific set of terms that it seems unlikely that they will ever influence mainstream society enough to bring everyone under thier banner. I may have this wrong, but the general impression I recieved was 'communism or bust'.

I think it's fair to say that people need to undergo change gradually, and for reasons that make sense to them. You cannot call for the dismantling of capatalism and expect a reaction from most people that isn't laden with an instinctive defensiveness and resistance. Every problem in society needs to be carefully and individually examined. If strict codes of ethics were enforced through social cues and norms in every area of life, which prioritised equality, community and support, we would end up with a society which reflected that.

The problem aspects of the system we currently have need to be isolated and individually dealt with, and if one of those aspects just so happens to be essential to capatalism as we currently define it, then so be it: down with capatalism. This change has to be slow, transparent and focus on aspects that make universal sense - socialism needs the popular and democratic support essential to progress.

Baby Capatalism

Discaimer: This is a work induced rant, and quite possibly just a rationalisation of my frustrations working in a yuppy baby shop.

Come into my place of employment. Push past the pink things, the £50 Ralph Lauren romper suits, the £30 Dior plastic baby bottles. Step over the high tech £85 baby carriers and wipe the baby sick from your shoe. See it? The new 'Vibe' Travel System (read Buggy). It's the very latest model by the trendiest manafacturer. It's fire apple red. Its £500. It looks like a space ship. You have to book one six months in advance. It's the perfect thing to offset the way society makes you feel now that you are pregnant: ugly and useless, because it oozes the opposite. It says beauty and praticality.

You are now wittnessing one of the most wearying and jaded manifestations of consumerism. The vulnerability experienced by pregnant women, the lack of support they recieve, thier bordem and isolation is exploited to the extreme by the rapidly swelling designer baby products industry (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2008/03/15/fababyconcie.xml.) As with all consumption of goods, we are taught that we can buy our way out of our anxieties, and the wheels of the economy don't go rusty. I write this because, aside from the fact that I have to face this appallingness on a daily basis, I do think that focusing in on this particular industry is useful in realising how consumer culture works primarily by exploiting insecurity.

Moreover, a lot of first time parents are fairly clueless about how to proceed, and seem to lack a direct and accessible source of advice and support. Here, baby shops step gleefully into the breach - one person's emotional needs are another person's financial opportunities.

If I can address new parents directly: If you've just given birth, well done. If you come into my shop, or any 'top end of the market' baby shop you're pretty silly. If you buy something, you're an idiot. If you were the people who came in yesterday and bought an £800 designer pushchair made entirely of leather, you WILL be the first against the wall when the reveloution comes.