Starcie słowne Schonfeld - Newkirk (PETA)
Zwierzęta mają głęboko w dupie nasze Super Ważne opinie, bo tak się składa, że one nic im nie pomagają. Działanie pomaga, a nie gadanie (i nie mówię o gadaniu, które służy zorganizowaniu działania, tylko o udowadnianiu swojego punktu widzenia za wszelką cenę). Każde działanie, które niesie pomoc dla zwierząt jest dobre. Czy nie można by przyjąć takiego "kompromisowego punktu widzenia", który umożliwiłoby skupienie się na działaniu, a czcze dyskusje pozostawić sobie na długie zimowe wieczory?
Zostawiam ten smutny przykład z elementami tautologii i kultu działania (będę to nazywał kultem ruchawki) i przechodzę do tego, co w tytule postu. Na łamach The Guardian ukazały się dwa teksty polemiczne autorstwa Victora Schonfelda (autora The Animals Film) i Ingrid Newkirk (szefowej PETA):
Five fatal flaws of animal activism (Schonfeld) i A pragmatic fight for animal rights (Newkirk).
Schonfeld pisze m.in.:
The organised activism is sorely in need of fresh perspectives. Thus I submit here for scrutiny five fatal flaws of animal activism:
1. Instead of promoting animal rights goals as a major plank within broader social change movements, animal organisations insist on going it alone. Yet the Green party's animal rights goals are as radical as any animal rights organisation's.
2. One of the world's largest animal rights organisations routinely employs naked young women, including porn stars, to chase mass media attention. Would a human rights organisation stoop so low?
3. Animal rights organisations have been handing out awards and lavishing praise on slaughterhouse designers and burger restaurant chains after "negotiations" for small changes that leave the systems of exploitation intact.
4. Instead of animal rights organisations promoting a clear "moral baseline" that individuals should become vegans to curb their own demands for animal exploitation, groups have given their stamp of approval to deeply compromised marketing concepts such as "happy meat", "freedom foods", "sustainable meat", and "conscientious omnivores".
5. Tactics of violence and personal intimidation have at long last fallen out of favour, but activists now pour energy and resources into organisations that lack any real strategy for bringing an end to animal exploitation, whether for food or science.
Newkirk odpowiada m.in.:
In recent years, there has been a controversy swirling in animal rights circles, as some people such as Victor Schonfeld object to the work of groups such as Peta, which, while abolitionist and determined to get animals off the dinner plate and out of the fur farms, circuses and laboratories, have nevertheless been working with corporations to achieve animal welfare reforms within their industries. A few outspoken critics of such "half measures" or "baby steps" have gone so far as to argue against Peta's campaigns for improved slaughter practices for chickens, better living conditions for hens and larger cages for animals in laboratories. We find this attitude unhelpful to the goal of animal liberation.
Całość warta przeczytania.