Why Progressives Should Care About Animal Rights

By Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich, Lantern Books. Posted June 23, 2009.

Even though U.S. society is composed mainly of professed Christians, most ignore Christ's words to the rich man: "Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor" (Matthew 19:21). In an attempt to update the principal for our often selfish society, Singer makes the case that a reasonable standard for most of us would be to give away 20 percent of our income.

Will that hurt, given that we've grown accustomed to our current level of income? For most of us, it will. At the very least, it will require an adjustment. But can we do it without actual physical harm coming to us? For most of us, yes, we can. Organizations dedicated to reducing as much suffering as possible can use that money to make the world better -- far more so than whatever we might otherwise spend it on. Singer sums up this concept in "How Are We To Live?":

In a society in which the narrow pursuit of material self-interest is the norm, the shift to an ethical stance is more radical than many people realize. In comparison with the needs of people starving in Somalia, the desire to sample the wines of the leading French vineyards pales into insignificance. Judged against the suffering of immobilized rabbits having shampoos dripped into their eyes, a better shampoo becomes an unworthy goal.

An ethical approach to life does not forbid having fun or enjoying food and wine, but it changes our sense of priorities. The effort and expense put into buying fashionable clothes, the endless search for more and more refined gastronomic pleasures, the astonishing additional expense that marks out the prestige car market in cars from the market in cars for people who just want a reliable means to getting from A to B, all these become disproportionate to people who can shift perspective long enough to take themselves, at least for a time, out of the spotlight. If a higher ethical consciousness spreads, it will utterly change the society in which we live.

We Can Do It

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. -- Elie Wiesel

Consider this: The people we admire are not those who went along with the crowd, who did whatever was allowed by the norms of their times. Rather, the people we rightly respect are those who stood up to the prejudices of their society. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Mohandas Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, and so many other individuals changed their world. We are all called to do no less.

In the face of so much suffering, it can become easy to become despondent and to think that we can't change the world. But if we break our work into chunks, celebrate the "small" victories for what they really mean (e.g., turning one person vegetarian changes their entire life forever and makes a massive, positive impact in the world), and keep ourselves focused on our goals, we can realize what significant progress we're making.

After decades of experience as activists, we're deeply and profoundly optimistic. Every day, we take inspiration in a review of the progress that has been won for social justice and animal protection (as we discuss at greater length in Chapter Five).

There are, of course, many potential targets for our activism: 2 billion people live without access to clean water; 800 million don't have enough calories to sustain themselves; women in many parts of the world suffer unjust treatment and violence; our fellow creatures are abused and slaughtered.

These are a few of our society's current practices that, we're convinced, future generations will look back on with the same sense of incredulity we reserve for past atrocities, like slavery and witch burnings. We are called to be like those we admire for standing up against the prejudices of their day.

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Matt Ball, along with Jack Norris, co-founded Vegan Outreach in 1993. Before working full time as the executive director of Vegan Outreach, he was a Department of Energy Global Change fellow, and earned degrees in the Department of Forest Ecology at the University of Illinois, and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

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