[Please note that this version of this text has been recovered from an early draft due to a server crash. There may be a few typos and even mistakes in the following]
Far more crucial than
what we know or do not know
is what we do not want to know.
Eric Hoffer,
The Passionate State of Mind
It is possible to live in a twilight between
knowing and not knowing,
W.A. Visser’t Hooft, theologian on knowledge of the
Holocaust, 1973.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Saturday
March 24, 2001 , the Welsh edition of the Liverpool Daily Post featured a single large picture on its front
page. Under the headline ‘HEARTBREAK’ a
man is pictured standing in front of a cow.
The man’s hand is raised, the cow’s head is raised too, as if she is
trying to smell what the man holds in his hand.
The smell is likely to be metallic because the man holds a primed
captive bolt pistol. The gun is pointed
at the head of the cow who is locked into a large red restraining device. The subtitle under the headline reads: ‘The
chilling moment which graphically illustrates the horrific reality of the farm
outbreak’. The caption under the
photograph reads: ‘GRIM TRUTH: A slaughterman shoots a cow in Lamonby , Cumbria
Apart from the newspaper’s masthead, two adverts for
the content of other pages and an advert at the bottom of the page for mobility
scooters, the picture and the words above take up the whole of the
tabloid-sized front page.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Albert Bandura (1990) has argued that ‘euphemistic labelling’ is commonly
used to ‘mask’ objectionable activities.
Something thoroughly ‘objectionable’ occurred regularly during the
aforementioned British foot and mouth disease outbreak of 2001. The public saw, or at least had the
opportunity to see - often several times daily - on both national and regional
television and in all the nation’s press and every radio news bulletin - the
mass media version of the killing and destruction of animals they normally
encounter only as ‘meat’, or ‘hamburgers’ or ‘pork’ (see Agnew 1998: 184), or
perhaps as ‘cute’ lambs or ‘contented’ grazing cows. Ted Benton (1993: 72, and see Plous 1993)
points out, most people in the Western world usually purchase meat already commodified, packaged and often renamed.
As alluded to earlier,
many people do not overtly recognise themselves as purchasers of parts of the
carcasses of dead animals. Apart from
the case of some fishes, care is generally taken to remove eyes and heads or
other parts that would result in ‘meat’ being seen as a piece of an animal
(when does a pig end and a pork chop begin? - see Singer 1983: 165-66).[1] However, despite, or because of these points,
one question posed in this section is a relatively blunt one: why should people
take active steps to know any of the
details of the deaths of the animals they intend and wish to consume?
In fact, since even a
moment’s thought on the subject might be expected to lead many individuals to
make a guess that the deaths of ‘food animals’ may not be particularly pleasant
to witness, regardless of how ‘regulated’ the process may be, the question is
rather: why shouldn’t people go out of
their way to avoid knowing all there is to know about the animal-derived foods on their tables? Furthermore, what is more sensible than
attempting to ‘mask’ known or suspected objectionable activities by euphemistic
labelling or by other means? After all, is it not commonsensically assumed that
the consumer of, say, pornography will likely avoid focusing on the potential
suffering or harm involved in the ‘product’ they consume, and concentrate
instead on the personal pleasure that derives from the consumption? Is it not at least appreciated that such
consumers are liable to put any ‘known details’ of such harm and suffering to
the backs of their minds, or interpret matters in such a way that serves to
reduce the harm done? Philosophical
appeals that informed adult human beings should regard themselves and act as
reflexive moral agents are apparently not sufficiently powerful to prevent the
purchasing and mass consumption of many products that cause harm. Complex social forces and understandings are
in play here.
In relation to meat consumption,
Singer (1983) notes that people, perhaps quite reasonably, do not want to know
the details about the lives and
deaths of the animals they are prepared to eat: for one thing, they do not want
to spoil their dinner. After all, why should anyone want to spoil their
dinner? Adams
(1990) begins The Sexual Politics of Meat
with a dedication: ‘In memory of 31.1 billion each year, 85.2 million each
day, 3.5 million each hour, 59,170 each minute’. Apart from perhaps placing ‘9-11’ into
something of a controversial context, these huge figures might easily spoil
someone’s dinner, since the figures refer to the deaths of ‘food animals’
(current numbers require that at least another 12 billion should be added to
the total amount cited by Adams, and that figure should be doubled if fishes
and shellfishes are to be included). Why
would anyone willingly put themselves ‘in the way’ of such statistics? Why would any meat eater know these things? Vegan and
vegetarian animal advocates know more of these numbers than meat eaters know:
and ironically the former are also the ones who have seen all the videos
showing commercial animal slaughter.
You never know
You never know who’s for lunch today.
Who’s for Lunch Today?
Albert Hammond, 1973,
Mums Records.
Toward the end of 2001, there was a lengthy discussion on a nonhuman advocacy
email network about issues arising from the annual North American ‘Thanksgiving’
celebration. A non meat-eater had
written in saying she was negotiating with family members about how the day
should go; particularly, what was to be done about the traditional ‘Thanksgiving
turkey’. Not wanting to spoil the
occasion for others, the animal advocate was considering allowing her mother to
have her way and visit brandishing a specially pre-cooked turkey. Her email was an apparent reflection of her
anxiety about compromising her principles; but it also seemed to reveal her
recognition, and even partial acceptance, of the cultural importance of a
turkey dinner on this particular social occasion.
There is the suggestion
that ‘animal rights’ views in this case had the clear potential to disrupt and
upset a hitherto not-especially-thought-about aspect of Thanksgiving: that is, the
plight of the millions of turkeys killed for it. This appears to be a case in which some
awareness truly had the ability to ‘spoil’ a dinner: and an awareness of the
emailer’s views had made her relatives, perhaps for the first time, think about
turkeys at Thanksgiving, rather than simply think about Thanksgiving
Turkey. When Groves Groves
Having seen Degrazia’s
(1996) suggestion that negating early socialised lessons may take a certain
independence of mind, it is further appreciated sociologically that any
development of such independence of thinking is subject to, mediated, and
controlled by forces of social interactions conditioned by social
understandings surrounding any given issue.
Sociologists Berger & Berger provide an interesting perspective on
this sort of social experience as part of their ‘biographical approach’ to
sociology. For example, they state that,
“society is our experience with other people around us” (Berger & Berger
1976: 13) and that means that other people constantly mediate and modify human
understanding of the social world, systematically imposing and reinforcing many
of the norms and values of prevailing society.
There may have been
sufficient media coverage, especially in recent years, of various views about
human-nonhuman relations for most people to know that continual claims are made
about animal agricultural practices.
Therefore, even some of the more radical positions have recently had at
least the potential to make up part of the social understanding of such
relations.[2] However, there is absolutely no reason, apart
from appeals for the evolution of ethical thinking, to suggest to people that
they must actively engage with, or would want to evaluate, any such potentially
disruptive claims. It may be further
understood - and it seems essential that animal advocates fully understand this
point - that even a vague awareness of claims about the human treatment of
other animals is likely to contribute to the belief, and the suspicion, that
even a superficial enquiry about the ins and outs of animal farming (or animal
experimentation or any other human usage of animals) is at least likely to be psychically painful as well as socially disruptive.
There is growing evidence, to be reviewed in the
following pages, that it is extremely common for the vast majority of people to
attempt, again ostensibly quite reasonably, to avoid such pain; perhaps
especially if new claims may disturb long-held views about the appropriate
treatment of other animals by humans.
Much of the following section is based on Stanley Cohen’s (2001)
intensely disturbing book, States of
Denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering, and the work of Kevin
Robins (1994). However, initially, an
account of a social phenomenon Tester (1997: 32) calls humanity’s ‘learning
curve of indifference’ is offered.
Tester suggests that modern ‘knowledge denial’ can be understood, at
least in part, as the result of developments in information technology and the
immediacy of ‘knowing while not knowing’.
Humanity’s ‘Learning Curve
of Indifference’,
or Knowing While Not
Knowing.
Tester notes that, regardless of where and when they take place, it is
now virtually impossible not to be almost instantaneously aware of the
occurrence of horror and suffering, and the minute details of many of the modern
world’s wars and calamities. At least it
is true to say that the technology exists which makes this awareness possible
on an increasingly global scale.[3] Of course, sociologists take a great interest
in social change and many have been keen to understand the societal effects of
new developments in communications technology.
Numerous studies have focused on technological change and the resulting
transformations in work patterns and political attitudes (Goldthorpe, et al, 1968; 1969; Blauner 1972; Gallie 1988),
while other sociologists have attempted to place such change on a continuum
between conceptualisations of technological and social determinism (Clark, et al, 1988; Zuboff 1988; Grint 1991;
Kling 1991).
Tester (1997: 22) partly
concentrates on the moral implications of technological developments. He cites the existential experience of Max
Weber’s brother, Alfred, who was acutely discomforted when (in 1947), he found
wars that had previously taken, say, six months to be reported were now
immediately broadcast on his new radio: ‘served up to us piping hot’, as he put
it. Modern warfare, Weber continued, seemed
to be ‘going on in the same town, almost in the same room’ (cited in
ibid.) Although such experiences are
almost routine for twenty-first century citizens, Alfred Weber was rather
shaken up by this ‘conquest of space’ and time.
For him, the world had dramatically become much smaller. It is one thing to know of far away
countries; it is quite another to suddenly become emotionally and morally
involved in their day-to-day dealings.
For Weber, the conquest of space and time meant that individuals could
hardly be alone again.
The consequence of this is
twofold, he thought. On the one hand, an
individual becomes transformed into a knowledgeable ‘citizen of the world’ but,
on the other, and more terribly, knowledge can result in individuals suffering
from what Tester characterises as ‘a surfeit of consciousness about the world’
(ibid.: 23). Thus, Weber is far from
welcoming his new form of knowledge. On
the contrary, he would feel far more
comfortable remaining ignorant of the (Turkish) war in question. Weber suffers personally due to what Giddens
calls the ‘intrusion of distant events into everyday consciousness’
(Giddens 1991: 27, emphasis in original).
Tester, following the analysis of the mass media provided by both
Giddens (1991; 1994) and Roger Silverstone (1994), argues that it is possible
to view Weber’s experience as common to many, indeed most, individuals. Anthony Giddens’ view, as developed by
Silverstone, places Weber as a subject of ‘late modernity’, experiencing a
process of ‘detraditionalisation’; listening to news on his radio, and
suffering from ontological insecurity.
Feeling the sensation of ‘disembeddedness’ due to new knowledge, Weber
is trying desperately to make sense of it all.
However, Tester is keen to
suggest that Weber is not ‘one of us’ at all (1997: 26). Acknowledging the problems in lumping whole
groups of people into one category, Tester nevertheless argues that ‘we’ are
currently further down the ‘learning curve of indifference’ to the horrors of
the world than Weber was in the 1940’s.
As a result, we generally do not respond to knowledge of wars and
horrors in the manner that Alfred Weber did.
Of course, there are spectacular exceptions to this, even in modern
times, and now the ‘Events of September 11th’ stands as the most immediate
example. It is noteworthy that the
attacks on the USA
Thus, in the contemporary
world of increasing and immediate access to a vast amount of ‘information’,
Tester suggests that a strategy of ‘moral indifference’ has become an essential
coping mechanism to enable individuals to deal with their new and rapidly
increasing store of potentially painful and disturbing knowledge about the
world. Therefore, what makes ‘us’
different from Alfred Weber is that we - unlike him - know exactly what to do
with potentially painful knowledge: absolutely
nothing (ibid.)
Of course, the point
Tester makes here would absolutely outrage many of those people who are
campaigning daily to close down vivisection laboratories and/or stop road
developments, and perhaps even those who managed to plunge their hands into
their pockets during events such as Live Aid and ‘Red Nose Day’, precisely
because it is ‘knowledge’ relating to these issues and events which they claim
spurred them to act. The point would
also likely get a cool response from those participants in the current wave of
‘anti-capitalist’ demonstrations who follow ‘world leaders’ around the globe to
make their protests, or those demonstrating to stop the current ‘war on
terrorism’. However, Tester could
conceivably reply (as pessimistic Frankfurt School-inspired critical theorists
may) with the suggestion that the overall numbers of people who attend such protests
and demonstrations, drawn as they often are from several countries, are
relatively very small.
In many - perhaps most -
sociological accounts, the tension of generalising from the particular are
evident. It is unlikely that any
so-called metanarrative captures the experience of all, as no individual case
can ever be seen as precisely the same as others. Tester seeks to generalise about humanity’s indifference, contrasting
that with Weber’s response as an individual, and presumable with many currently
engaged in social movement activism; and wisely he acknowledges the difficulties
involved. However, he suggests that the
generalised modern ‘we’ of today largely do not share Weber’s emotional
response to new knowledge. For ‘we’ are
used to living in a world ‘stimulated by the mediated surfeit of consciousness’
(ibid.: 26). If Weber’s reaction can be
regarded as the result of hearing the piping-hot details of war and human suffering,
Tester argues that modern responses to similar details are distinctly blasé and
even akin to boredom. Any moral imperative incorporated into what
is heard within systems of ‘global, 24-hour knowledge’ may now be entirely
negated by notions of ‘compassion fatigue’.
Unlike Weber, therefore, ‘we’ have ‘heard it all before’.[4]
Overcoming
Animal Pity.
Bauman focuses on societywide sentiments when he investigates the social
construction of ‘moral distance’, and the availability of societal ‘moral
sleeping pills’ (Bauman 1989: 26). He
states that moral distance may be available for many people at different levels
of involvement and awareness of harm-causing issues.
Against the proposition
that human beings are ‘naturally aggressive’ and violent animals (see Yates
1962; Lorenz 1977; Charny 1982), Bauman starts with the suggestion that human
individuals have a strong and innate aversion to seeing the suffering of
others. Attempts to ‘overcome’ these
innate feelings require an efficient, powerful, and sustained program of
socialisation. Hannah Arendt (cited in
Bauman 1989: 19-20), argues that humanity has a natural and almost instinctive
‘animal pity’ by which ‘all normal men are affected in the presence of physical
suffering’. Philosopher Clark (1984: 42) says this sentiment of basic human
solidarity can be also found in the work of Schopenhauer and Ruland, the
latter’s 1936 book being called, Foundations
of Morality. However, as briefly
outlined below, Bauman shows throughout his forceful sociological treatment of
the Nazi Holocaust that effectively-utilised social forces and processes have
the ability to shape, influence and eventually overcome this ‘naturally-present’ pity.
Taking such ideas, and
following Levinas’ Ethics and Infinity,
Bauman explores - and reverses - a
traditional sociological orthodoxy which suggests that society itself is a
‘morality-producing factory’. In
contrast, he suggests, ‘Morality is not a
product of society. Morality is
something society manipulates - exploits, redirects, jams’ (Bauman 1989:
183, emphasis in the original).
Exploring the notion of
‘overcoming animal pity’, Bauman (ibid.: 24) notes that it involves socially
producing conduct ‘contrary to innate moral inhibitions’. In other words, against everything that this
fundamental pity implies in relation to attitudes and behaviour, people can
become the murderers of others in certain social circumstances. However, there are other factors involved,
including the connivance of those Bauman calls ‘conscious collaborators in the
murdering process’. Earlier sections of
the present thesis sought to demonstrate that socially constructed stories, not
least that ‘enemies are other’, and especially that ‘enemies are animals’, can
produce a sufficiency of moral distance that, in turn, enables the serious harm
or death of chosen victims. If social
mechanisms exist to allow people to involve themselves in harm, Bauman states
that other mechanisms exist to deliberately distance the majority from knowledgeable involvement. For this large group, they are effectively
freed by this process from having to make difficult moral choices and freed
from the need to directly ‘stifle’ animal pity for victims of harm: morally,
they sleep or doze.
Bauman notes that other
writers, such as Hilberg, have argued that the vast majority play no direct
role in the holocausts conducted in their name.
Furthermore, even those who ‘administer death’ can be kept at some
distance from the moral, physical and psychic discomfort of ‘direct’
knowledge. Thus, even the bureaucrats of
the Nazi holocaust, apparently innocently, busied themselves composing memoranda,
talking on the telephone and attended conferences. All this rather than being involved in firing
rifles at Jewish children or pouring gas into gas chambers.
Bauman’s suggestion is
that even were such individuals to make all the difficult and necessary
connections between what they did and
the existence of an organised genocide, such knowledge would remain
(deliberately) ‘in the remote recesses of their minds’ (ibid.) Moreover, when connections between actions
and outcomes are difficult to spot, who is going to criticise those who engage
in a little ‘moral blindness’? After
all, ‘Little moral opprobrium was attached to the natural human proclivity to
avoid worrying more than necessity required’ (ibid.) Who is going to examine ‘the whole length of
the causal chain up to its furthest links’?
In sum, Bauman forcefully argues that societies can be other than
morality-producing. Rather, social
systems have the ability to be efficient manufacturers of those seemingly vital
moral sleeping pills, with
equally powerful social mechanisms for the production of ‘moral distance’,
‘moral invisibility’ and ‘moral blindness’.
In a State of Denial
It is likely that Stanley Cohen’s States
of Denial (2001) will become essential reading for anyone wanting to know about
the social psychology of knowledge evasion, issue denial, forms of moral
blindness, or the social manufacture of the ‘moral sleeping pills’ referred to
above. Although Cohen presents a great
deal of psychological and sociological evidence about many various forms of
denial, he wisely comments that ‘this is neither a fixed psychological
‘mechanism’ nor a universal social process’ (ibid.: 3). However, forms of denial have been
extensively researched by cognitive psychologists who ‘use the language of information
processing, monitoring, selective perception, filtering and attention span to
understand how we notice and simultaneously don’t notice’ (ibid.: 6). There
are also theories based on a concept known as ‘blindsight’ which suggests that
parts of the human mind can ‘not know’ what
is known in other parts. Cohen is
keen not to lose the wider picture about denial, noting, for example, that,
although data suggests that family members can become engaged in ‘vital lies’
about a range of abuse issues, it should also be recognised that reliance of
forms of denial effect more than just individuals and families: ‘Government bureaucracies, political parties,
professional associations, religions, armies and police have their own forms of
cover-up and lying’ (ibid.) Current
political events in Britain and the United States in relation to the fallout
after the ‘successful’ war in Iraq may have served to highlight the validity of
these words.
Accounts,
Justifications and Excuses.
It is when Cohen turns to the sociology of denial that his work is most
directly relevant to the present work.
That said, when it comes to understanding forms of denial, psychological
and sociological factors must be interwoven for the fullest picture to be
drawn. In a chapter entitled ‘Denial at
work: mechanisms and rhetorical devices’, Cohen (ibid.: 51- 75) gives a
comprehensive account of sociological denial theory; ranging from C. Wright
Mills’ observation in the 1940’s that motives cannot merely be regarded as
‘mysterious internal states’ that ignore social situations, to 1990’s feminist
analysis of abusive situations, and other investigations of ‘bystander’
politics.
Cohen (ibid.: 58) points
out that denial operates before and after the fact (and see Sykes & Matza
[1957] on this), so some verbal motivational statements become guides to future
behaviour. Again, it would represent a
serious error to regard any ‘internal soliloquies’ as entirely private matters:
‘On the contrary: accounts are learnt by ordinary
cultural transmission, and are drawn from a well-established, collectively
available pool’ (ibid.: 59, my emphasis).
Moreover, ‘an account is adopted because of its public acceptability’, which seems to support
subcultural notions that alternative - that is, generally unacceptable -
accounts may be adopted for ‘shock value’.
Cohen says that it is socialisation processes that ‘teaches us which
motives are acceptable for which actions’ (ibid.) As children, individuals learn that ‘accounts are needed’, and are frequently ‘required’,
to explain behaviour. Commonsensically,
it is those accounts that are likely to be accepted that are the least
problematic. Cohen follows Mills in
noting that different audiences may require different accounts, yet this, ‘far
from undermining the theory, confirms the radically sociological character of
motivation’ (ibid.) Some accounts can be
said to be in the form of justifications, others can be regarded as
excuses. Drawing on the work of Scott
and Lyman and Sykes and Matza from the 1950’s and 1960’s, Cohen notes that:
Justifications are ‘accounts in which one accepts responsibility for the act in question, but denies the pejorative quality associated with it’, whereas excuses are ‘accounts in which one admits that the act in question is bad, wrong or inappropriate, but denies full responsibility’ (ibid.)
Therefore:
A soldier kills, but denies that this is immoral: those he killed were enemies who deserved their fate. He is justifying his action. Another soldier admits the immorality of his killing, but denies full volition for his action: this was a case of involuntary obedience to orders. He is excusing his action (ibid,: emphasis in the original).
Cohen’s in-depth exploration of forms of denial, mechanisms of
rationalisation, vocabulary of motivations, and justifications and excuses,
means that it is apparently clear beyond much doubt that ‘turning a blind eye’
does not have to mean ‘not looking’.
Rather, it is more about not
registering or actively avoiding
what has been seen or what is known.
Denial is often about ‘deflecting’, ‘redirecting’, ‘turning aside’,
‘dodging’, and ‘escaping’ from what is essentially ‘known knowledge’.
It would not be surprising
to discover that the grim details of human harm contained in States of Denial could potentially spoil
someone’s dinner, although it is interesting that Cohen openly admits that he
himself is ‘in total denial’ about animal rights issues (ibid.: 289). He states that he is in denial about environmental
issues as well, which is a little ironic in that environmentalists such as
George Marshall (2001) have begun to use States
of Denial as a substantive source in accounts of the psychology of denial
about issues such as climate change and global warming.
Cohen’s thesis is that denial
can be common, and indeed a normal
state of affairs, and he provides an account of his own denial about these two
issues. Moreover, and this is something
making Cohen’s position even more interesting and particularly relevant to this
thesis, he admits that it is not the
case that he cannot see the coherence of the arguments presented by
environmentalists and animal advocates.
In fact he reports that he ‘cannot find strong rational arguments
against either set of claims’ (2001: 289).
Yet, emotionally, he remains largely unmoved and ‘particularly oblivious’
about animal issues. For example, while accepting that animal experimentation
and animal agriculture may involve the treatment of other animals that can be
difficult to defend, he resorts to putting his ‘filters’ on. He therefore tells himself that some issues
are not really anything to do with him; that there are ‘worse problems’ in a
suffering world; that ‘there are plenty of other people looking after this’
(ibid.) In fact, he employs many of the
rationalisations and techniques of neutralisation that constitute the substance
of his own book. Finally, and animal
activists will especially recognise this stratagem, he relies on attack as a
form of defence, stating: ‘What do you mean, I’m in denial every time I eat a
hamburger?’ (ibid.)
Cohen suggests that there
is what he calls a ‘meta-rule’ in operation here, involving all the elements of
his thesis, and many seen in Bauman’s work on the sociology of morality. This ‘meta-rule’ is obviously quite
speciesist, but it is a rule that also seriously threatens the well-being of
any human ‘stranger’.
Can it be any surprise to
discover that the meta-rule states that ‘own people’ should always come
first? Can it be a shock that the
meta-rule suggests that ‘extensions’ of moral concern beyond families, friends
and our ‘intimate circle’ are uncertain?
Humanity draws a moral line; establishes an ethical threshold and, on a
pessimistic note for all social movement activists, ‘we cannot be confident
that more information (or more dreadful information?) will change the
threshold’ (ibid., brackets in original).
Cohen suggests that the problem may not be the absolute lack of concern,
suggesting that people tend to think that human
suffering is not normal or tolerable; the difficulty may be a ‘gap’ between
concern and action; a gap that regrettably does not show great signs of
closing.
Searching for some
understanding of the lack of action against deliberately caused human suffering
within Western democracies, Cohen notes that many individuals may indicate
their moral concern (their ‘moral investment’) by supporting a portfolio of social movements, or events
such as Live Aid; yet, in the case of Britain, future prospects for action may
be ‘unpromising’ given that ‘new sectors of the population are born-again
free-market individualists and chronically infected by the selfishness of the
Thatcher years’ (ibid.) People of ‘the
Left’ have a range of new social movements which have effectively ‘fragmented’
concern, he claims, and they are engaged in a trend that encourages competition
‘about which group has suffered the most’ (ibid.: 290). Cohen does attempt to be optimistic, or at
least he says that a ‘more hopeful’ narrative of the recent ‘evolution of a
more universal, compassionate and inclusive consciousness’ is possible
(ibid.) This latter point may tend to
resonate with activists ‘known’ and ‘met’ on email networks. Many, just like Henry Salt and many others
before them, insist on keeping the interwoven nature of oppression at the front
of their minds.
Returning to knowledge
denial, Kevin Robins’ (1994) analysis significantly adds to the themes
developed here by similarly examining the interplay between individual
psychology and social factors. Robins
notes that recent work in media and culture studies have identified a
‘postmodern’ ‘active audience’ who consume products in ways that seemingly
‘empowers’ them. This relatively new
view of media consumption - the notion of
the consumer self - is seen in opposition to the 1960’s and 1970’s
positions outlined by critical theorists such as Stuart Ewen and Herbert
Marcuse who ‘saw consumerism as a ‘Corrupting Other’’. Robins cites Alan Tomlinson’s (1990) acidic
comment on this ‘older generation’ of theorists, whose position Tomlinson
characterises as ‘elitist’, ‘sad’ and even ‘menopausal’.
However, if it is really
the case that modern consumer culture should be regarded as ‘fun’, ‘exciting’,
‘novel’, ‘convenient’ and a ‘marvellously subversive space’ then, Robins asks,
what happens when people consume ‘media products’ depicting, for example, the
Bosnian war? In other words, what does
the putative ‘empowered’ and fun-oriented ‘active audience’ make of something
that ‘anguish, despair or compassion might be more appropriate responses?’
(Robins, 1994: 452).
Avoiding
‘Unpleasure’.
Robins’ analysis appears to provide an interesting additional
psychological and social psychological component to Tester’s and Bauman’s
sociology. Bauman (1989) himself introduces
this dimension through the work of the controversial social psychological
experimentalist, Stanley Milgram (see Milgram 1965; 1974). However, Robins’ account begins with Freud’s
notion that human beings are purposely and deliberately involved in carefully
avoiding the experience of ‘unpleasure’.
After all, human beings have historically been quite sensibly interested
in self-protection. This protection has
been achieved throughout the ages with the use of physical measures, but often
what is equally important is psychic protection from fear and anxiety and
protection from knowledge. On the physical level, Canetti (1973: 266-7)
acknowledges the ‘care’ and ‘cunning’ human beings have historically employed
to protect their ‘naked and vulnerable’ bodies.
They ‘fend off’ the things that they perceived to be harmful. They invented shields and amour, and built
‘walls and whole fortresses’, in order to try to feel invulnerable.
Robins claims that
defensive cultural barriers can also be constructed in which ‘forms of cultural
organisation and expression have been mobilised to sustain the sense of
invulnerable existence’ (1994: 454).
When the going gets tough, it is not so much that humanity gets going;
rather humans have a tendency to block out or hide from what they believe may
be harmful, including knowledge of pain, death and that staggeringly elusive
thing, ‘reality’. Robins cites Don
DeLillo’s 1985 novel, White Noise, in
which the author notes that ‘reality’ is something humans often try to get away
from: and when it comes to pain and death, we think these are unnatural: ‘We
can’t bear these things as they are’.
Humans can also ‘know too much’, Delillo suggests using Freudian
language, ‘So we resort to repression, compromise and disguise’ (quoted in ibid). Humans do this in order to be able to
‘survive in the universe’. Delillo
argues that repression, compromise and disguise make up part of ‘the natural
language of the species’ (ibid.) Indeed,
Freud (1972) - who uses the term ‘repression interchangeably with ‘defence’
(Madison 1961: 15) - does state that the human need to avoid unpleasure may be
regarded as even more important than the want of obtaining pleasure. Therefore, with regard to what they might
come to ‘know’, human beings, just like Stan Cohen, are likely to employ
essential and apparently effective ‘knowledge filters’ to help to screen out
painful realities.[1] An alternative to this strategy, Freud
suggests, is to attempt to transform reality with a substitute version. These strategies are able to diminish the
impact of painful knowledge, as individuals find adequate methods of containing and controlling the ‘pain of reality’ (Freud, 1972: 15). A significant way of doing just this,
recalling Bauman’s thesis, involves distancing:
keeping what is perceived as ‘suffering’ at a distance, or perhaps placing
illusion before ‘reality’. Thus, human
beings appear able to recreate the world, and ‘recast’ unbearable features as something else, thereby able to
essentially ‘remould reality’. Freud further
argues that this process can apply to both the individual or social
collectives.
Robins, however, feels he
is still left with something of a puzzle.
After all, apparently ‘post-modern’ consuming is not based on hiding away from cultural products - or based on the
requirement to block them out. On the
contrary, go-getting contemporary consumerism is commonly regarded as
‘liberating’, ‘self-affirming’ and ‘fun’: even ‘therapeutic’ (perhaps it is just as well that Marcuse died when he
did: at least he heard little of this stuff).
However, like Tester, Robins says (of television consumption), that
there is little doubt that watching T.V. ‘in our culture is to be exposed to
violence, suffering and death’ (Robins, 1994: 457; compare this with Ignatieff’s
[1998] optimistic account of the potential of television to increase the moral
imagination). The conundrum for Robins
involves working out what motivates consumption of, say, the ‘pain of war’ -
when this particular consuming does not, on the face of it, appear to be
‘liberating’ or ‘fun’, while it does not initially seem to involve hiding away
from the existence of painful knowledge.
Noting that modern society is actually rather keen to sequester ‘the
real experience of death’, he questions the motivations (and the effects of the
medium) of this consumption and wants to know what ‘uses’ or ‘gratifications’
can the active audience gain from this watching. He cites Slavenka Drakulic’s disturbing
account of death in Sarajevo
Much can be said at this
point, of course. For example, the
number of ‘active consumers’ whose ‘activity’ would be to reach for the ‘off’
switch is not at all clear. Whatever
their number, perhaps is it just as likely that they never switched on, say, a ‘serious
documentary’ in the first place. Again,
why should they? There is bound to be a whole series of ‘soaps’ or
‘postmodern’, ‘ironic’ (read sexist) comedies on another television
channel. If not, the video acts as a safe
standby.
Robins notes that it has
been suggested that people have watched war to genuinely gain knowledge to
drive their active concern (Debray 1992, cited in Robins 1994: 460). This is the way Keith Tester characterises
Giddens’ and Silverstone’s perspectives on the experience of media consumption
(1997: 28). Alternatively, it has been
suggested that watching war is an example of ‘living through the deaths of
others’ (Bauman 1992: 34), or perhaps an example of being glad that someone else has died (Canetti 1973:
265). In these senses, perhaps this ‘consumption’
can be seen to have elements of therapeutic value after all.
Evading
Knowledge.
Regardless of whether these views adequately supply information about
‘what’s going on’, Robins notes (1994: 458) that those who do willingly engage
with this violent war material appear not
be overly damaged by it. Perhaps
surprisingly, audiences appear ‘relatively unscathed’ by their television wars
and their encounters with screen violence, he says. Robins argues that this is something that
still needs further explanation:
If it is difficult to fully understand why viewers choose exposure to pain and dying, perhaps we can say a little more about how, having once exposed themselves, they are able to escape the emotional and moral consequences of seeing and knowing (ibid.)
He says there is a need to ‘reorientate’ theory in relation to
commonsensical view (and the view advanced by Giddens and Silverstone) of the
rationalistic nature and motivations of information gathering. For example, ‘We take it for granted the
desire to know’, Robins asserts.
However, ‘We generally do not take account of, or even recognise the
existence of, the equally strong desire to not
know, to evade knowledge’.
Human beings are thus
sometimes in a situation in which they seemingly have to watch in order to know
that this is the particular knowledge that
they do not want to know. ‘In this context, consumption activity may be
driven by the desire to create defensive barriers and to avoid or minimise
anxiety. Such resistance will serve to
screen out the reality of what is seen and known’ (ibid.: 466). Robins takes care to note at this point that
he is not describing purely a phenomenon of individual psychopathology, ‘but
rather a collective experience which is institutionalised as the social
norm’. An informed critical theoretical
mind would perhaps also inquire as to who
benefits from this social norm.
Robins simply argues for a
theoretical level that moves beyond ‘the too simple choice between ‘passive’ or
‘active’ notions of consumers and viewers’ toward an analytical complexity that
understands the hedonistic ideas of ‘consumption freedom’ within the
constraints of social and historical structures (ibid.: 465-6). It may be taken from Robins’ analysis that
even the open display of ‘knowledge consumption’ does not necessarily mean that
knowledge is actually ‘consumed’.
Moreover, while
understanding the desire - and the apparent practical benefits - of evading
knowledge, it is something else to recognise that there may also be a perceived
hopelessness of knowing. In this regard Robins states that, ‘to know
some awful truth without the possibility of changing it can lead to utter
despair’ (ibid.: 459). In her Bosnian
research, for example, Drakulic notes that watching the war in all its macabre
details only seems to make sense if,
by watching, ‘something can change for the better’. If the possibility of change is absent, then
surely there is something obscene about the knowing? However, reintroducing the practicalities of
knowledge evasion, there is an alternative interpretation to consider. Suppose that it seems that ‘changes for the
better’ may realistically come about from gained knowledge but then, bringing
about this change would necessarily involve some important lifestyle or
political change? If this were the case,
Robins suggests, such a change may appear to be very painful for individuals or
for groups. For example, the BBC 2’s Newsnight programme reported (17/4/2001 ) that the global
market in chocolate was intrinsically linked with modern child slavery. Presenter, ‘hard man’ Jeremy Paxman suggested
to a representative of chocolate manufacturers and retailers that they could,
and indeed should, take action to break this link, with a nod toward the
chocolate-buying public that they too
were implicated as the consumers of unethically-produced goods.
For determined ‘chocoholics’, then, knowledge
evasion may definitely be called for in relation to this matter, perhaps
requiring the formation of ‘defensive organisations’ designed to resist and refuse the knowledge that their ostensibly innocent enjoyment of a
chocolate bar can result in serious human harm.
However, as Bauman suggests (1993: 127, and see Varcoe and Kilminster
1996: 238-39), moral responsibility is subject to a high degree of ambivalence
and ‘floatation’. Thus, how can an
individual work out what is morally right when she is just one in a whole chain
of people involved in any human enterprise?
The actually chocolate bar held in the hand of the chocolate lover is
hardly inscribed with suffering: how is she to know if the reports of child
slavery are true? Out of date? Grossly exaggerated? In any case, who says her preferred bar is
implicated? Why oh why should she even begin to try to find out?
Moreover, what point is
there in even attempting to work out morally correct conduct when we know in
the ‘vanity of human efforts’ that whatever is done by one counts for little in
the overall scheme of things. Even if
one person decides to ethically ‘opt out’ (if she can work out what that
actually entails), she knows full well that ‘another person would promptly fill
the gap’ (ibid.: 19). There is surely
some moral relief and a deal of certainty in a belief that ‘somebody else’ will
do whatever another has decided not to: in such a complex and unsure situation,
why make such a decision? When knowledge
may be evaded, or its ‘disruptive possibilities’ may be contained, Robins argues that, ‘the known may be withheld from the
process of thinking; it may exist as the ‘unthought known’’ (Robins 1994:
459). He also notes that Bion (1963) has
suggested that humans can do other things with thoughts than think them!
Nonhuman
Animals.
The intention at this point of the thesis is to fairly briefly outline
the perspectives of one or two writers who have attempted to shift analyses,
such as those above, to the experiential situation of billions of nonhuman
animals and the consumers of their ‘products’.
This is something some humanistic positions (such as that of Clare Fox)
may regard as inappropriate, and more likely downright insulting. This chapter began with Tester and Bauman:
John Robbins’ (1987) position, which essentially advocates an animal-free diet,
contains some interesting parallels to their analyses. Robbins’ work is about the harm caused by the
human consumption of the flesh of other animals and products such as the milk
of cows (calf food) and the eggs of chickens.
In a section concerned with ‘knowledge denial’ and the effects of
advertising campaigns, Robbins starts with the concentration camp experience of
German pacifist Edgar Kupfer whose secret Dachau
Diaries, the writing of which could have cost him his life, are now
preserved in a special collection in the library of the University of Chicago
(Robbins 1987: 122-3).
Kupfer was apparently sent
to Dachau
Therefore, often voices
such as Kupfer’s, who had risked so much to record his experiences on scraps of
paper, were not as much silenced as simply not listened to. Robbins describes ‘a web of knowledge
repression’ that can permeate such times.
As seen above, however, this is an understandable and even entirely
sensible situation designed to serve ‘a collective determination to avoid the
immense pain that would have come from really seeing what was happening’
(ibid.) In language similar to Bauman’s,
Robbins describes a ‘psychic numbing’, and a ‘narrowed awareness’ which the
majority embraced:
While there were always some people who resisted, who did what they could to save the lives of those hunted by the Nazis, often risking their own lives in so doing, most others tried to ignore the horrors, tried to keep a stiff upper lip and pretend nothing amiss was happening. Though it was hard to avoid knowing at least part of the horrid truth, they found ways of blocking the impact. They busied themselves with other matters, conjuring up rationalisations, narrowing their awareness, and looking the other way (ibid.)
Of course Robbins’ intention is to draw parallels with what he calls the
‘process of denial’ in Germany Dachau
Such a plea can be found in just about every
pro-animal advocacy book since Singer’s Animal
Liberation first published in 1975.
Indeed, it is possible to trace such pleading as far back as Henry
Shakespear Salt,[2]
or to Rachel Carson (1963) and Ruth Harrison (1964). All contain similar calls to action. Robbins (1987: 125) asks his audience to
‘move beyond denial’, yet he immediately recognises the difficulties in doing
just that. He says he has had to fight
hard against his own tendency to ‘withdraw’ and ‘go numb’. How can someone struggle against something so
large, something so immense?
(ibid.) Recalling points made by both
Bauman and DeGrazia, Robbins explicitly acknowledges that a supreme effort on
his part was required to resolve to go on campaigning against intensive farming
for the hurt it caused to humans and other animals.
Devices of the
Heathen.
The content of the previous section will likely provide little optimism
for campaigning animal advocates, yet Hammersley & Atkinson (1995) would
probably approve of the stance: simply trying to provide ‘just knowledge’? Whatever the information in this section
amounts to, regardless of the earlier rejection of the possibility of providing
‘just knowledge’, it regrettably will not fill animal rightists with the
greatest hope for the immediate future.
Unfortunately things improve little in the light of philosopher Stephen
Clark’s perspective on human-nonhuman relations. In The
Moral Status of Animals, Clark (1984:
47-50; 52-84) outlines in detail what he calls eight ‘devices of the heathen’
or eight sophisms (clever but deceitful reasons) relating to human attitudes
about nonhuman animals.[3]
These devices amount to reasons, justifications and excuses,
and are (or have been) a handy resource for factory farmers, meat eaters,
vivisectors, bloodsports enthusiasts, animal circus proprietors and customers,
and a host of others wanting to make some usage of animals and their living and
dead bodies. Furthermore, even when
apparently successfully and fundamentally challenged, Clark
maintains that such excuses have the ability to simply ‘give birth’ to further
justifications about the matter in question.
The basics of Clark ’s account of the
device of the heathen follow; frequently reliant on the ideology of
conventional animal welfarism in their construction. Although Clark
rebuts the basis of each device in turn, it is not necessary here to reproduce
all the fine details of each argument.
In the light of the above, it is perhaps more important in terms of the
direction of the thesis that the institutionalised existence of these devices
is acknowledged. Furthermore, their
apparent functionality in justifying exploitative practices might also be
recognised. In other words, these
devices might be assessed on the basis of the extent to which they serve to
rationalise conventional attitudes about how humans treat other animals.
The first device (there is
a growing amount of literature on this [see Dawkins 1985: 27-40; Gold 1988:
3-18]) involves speaking ‘not of suffering nor distress, but only of painful
sensations’ (Clark 1984: 54). In a
tradition of thought that suggests that the presence of ‘a mind’ is necessary
to transform ‘mere sensations’ into suffering - understood as being aware that
one is suffering - nonhuman animals are alleged to possess no ‘mind’. They experience sensations, this view admits,
but do not have the ability to suffer. It clearly does not matter if it does not hurt. This view might seem initially to be a
potentially important constituent of the sort of attitude Midgley (1985) labels
‘absolute dismissal’, however Clark suggests it can apply to the ‘relative
dismissal’ positions as well. Thus, Clark argues, in the practices of animal usage, regulated
by animal welfare legislation, it seems it does not matter ‘if it doesn’t hurt
quite a lot’ (1984: 54).[4]
The second device imagines
that nonhuman animals ‘do not miss what they have not got, or what they never
had’ (ibid.: 47). This position appears
to be based, not so much on the notion of ‘you’ve never had it so good’, but on
something like, ‘you’ve never had it at all, so what’s the problem?’ What millions of nonhumans have never had, in
the case of hens in battery units, for example, are experiences like the
ability to sit down comfortably, stretch their limbs, scratch around in the
earth, or even turn around. Imprisoners
of hens in battery cages[5] sometimes respond to
animal welfare or rights criticisms by saying battery hens have known no other
condition - and anyway, farmers claim, they might not be able to flap their
wings in the ‘normal’ sense, but they can stretch their limbs one at a time for
the purpose of exercise.
The third device puts ‘the
victims of our attention’ in the assumed position of being rather grateful that
humans have so kindly ‘made use’ of them.
Experienced campaigners for nonhuman protection will recognise this
position immediately in the ‘what will happen to all the cows if we don’t eat
them?’ questions they get on their information stalls and web sites (see Gold
1995: 82; Francione 2000: 167-8).
According to Gold (1998: 7), Henry Salt, in a 1897 Humanitarian League
publication entitled, The Humanities of
Diet, responded to the ‘what-would-become-of-the-animals?’ point with a
vision of ‘the grievous wanderings of homeless herds who can find no kind
protector to eat them’. However, it is
perhaps technically true to claim that ‘market demand’ creates the birth of
‘food animals’ - nevertheless, Clark notes
that this is an odd excuse for murder (1984: 48).
The fourth device is
simply based on a customary conservationist habit of concentrating on ‘species’
survival rather than on individual welfare or rights. Therefore, in such a view, provided that a
species remains ‘viable’ and is not threatened with extinction, exploitation of
individual members is permissible. Of
course, from a dominionistic perspective, what better way is there to ensure
the survival of a species than to deliberately breed its individual members and
closely control its population and movements?
The fifth heathen’s device is to attempt to balance nonhuman pains against the pleasures humans get from it, an
approach adopted by Scruton who argues that just about any form of human use of
other animals will inconvenience or harm them but this price is often worth
paying (not, note, by himself) for the amount of human pleasure accrued. Animal welfare ideology is central here, precisely
because non-cruel exploitation is generally posited as a practical everyday
feasibility. Furthermore, Clark suggests
that this device is aided by the earlier suggestion that nonhuman animals
‘don’t feel things like we do’ (ibid.)
Criticism of this notion of ‘balancing’ pains and pleasures is, of
course, central to some rights theorists’ attack on utilitarianism (Regan 1983;
2001; Francione 1996b, 2000).
The sixth device, as
explained by Clark , is a little more
complicated than those that have gone before.
Furthermore, this one is primarily involved with thoughts about animal
experimentation, although the point does seemingly widen out to also cover some
other forms of ‘animal use’. The device
is based on C.W. Hume’s position that animal experimenters should wonder, ‘how
would I feel about suffering this?’ They
ought also to ask themselves, ‘should I myself be willing to endure that degree
of pain or stress in order to attain the object in view?’ If, theoretically, this notion may logically
be assumed to rule out animal experimentation - if the experimenter herself
would not submit to this or that procedure, then it should not be done. In
practice something else occurs.
Clark suggests (1984: 71-2), that animal experimenters take a ‘fantastic
heroic view’ which says on an ideological level that they surely would be prepared to suffer forms of
distress for the benefit of others.
Therefore, by this rather warped thinking they are allowed to cause
suffering to nonhuman animals for the benefit of humans. It is noteworthy that this device appears to
create a potential human benefit and yet is another ‘price worth paying’ which
nonhuman rather than human animals end up paying. This mind-set of vivisectors, Clark suggests (ibid.: 72) leads them to think of their
position as logically coherent, whereas the logic they claim does not really
follow at all.
The seventh device is pure
animal welfarism, firmly based on the orthodox view that it is wrong to make
animals suffer but it is not wrong in principle to kill them (this point
regularly creates problems for Singer’s utilitarian perspective). Clark
suggests (ibid.: 74) that this device, like the sixth, ‘does not do what the
orthodox would have it do’. Although
this particular notion may be a major driving force of animal welfarism, Clark
thinks its odd logic may suggest that all sentient life should be ended, since
‘all life involves some pain’. The
eighth a final device posits that ‘there is a great deal of suffering in the
world’ and, recalling points made above in the outline of Robins’ analysis,
wonders ‘will what I do really make much difference?’
As Clark notes
(ibid.: 50), all life involves some pain and it is impossible to stop it
all. Clearly, human beings cannot
completely extract themselves from all harm-causing in the many everyday things
that they do. Opponents of animal rights
views often delight in pointing out that the planting of vegetables will cause
the deaths of at least some insects and other small animals.[6] Clark notes
that this device is premised upon what might be regarded as something of a Milgramian
question: ‘Where all is anguish, how can we cavil at a little more?’ (ibid.)
If I may be permitted
to very briefly direct my attention towards members of the animal protection movement:
here we have ‘it’ before us. Here is a
serious campaigning ‘problem’ - something that must be overcome, and certainly
must if anything like the achievement of the basic nonhuman right not to be treated as a thing that
Francione calls for is ever to come about.
Here are the reasons, the social psychology, the social forces and the
contexts which will quite probably prevent millions of people from taking a
blind bit of notice of what you or I tell them about animal abuse or rights
violations. If this section amounts to
anything at all, it may represent many of the great and somewhat daunting
challenges that ‘animal rights’ advocates face at the present time. Perhaps one can only fervently hope that
these factors do not represent absolutely overwhelming odds against the
changing of those Adams (2001b) is currently
labelling ‘blocked vegetarians’.
Cohen’s (2001) work suggests that the portents are not good in relation
to the aspirations of many social movement mobilisations. In three devastating pages, Cohen’s account
of denial supplements points already made.
For example, he suggests that ‘humanitarian organisations’ represent
‘living relics of Enlightenment faith in the power of knowledge: if only people knew, they would act’ (ibid.:
185). And yet, paradoxically, are not
these very same organisations in possession of evidence that this faith is, at
best, ‘misplaced’? Is it not the case
that such a faith is undermined by their daily work? (ibid.)
Living in an age dominated
by the visual image, cannot these organisations take solace in the fact that
new technologies provide the opportunity of recording, and thus exposing, suffering and
exploitation? After all, visual images
have a ‘visceral public impact’, meaning that written information - ‘if only
they knew’ - may be replaced by ‘now they can see’ (ibid,: 185-86). Cohen reports that human rights advocate and
‘rock star’, Peter Gabriel, has suggested that because campaigners ‘now have
pictures’, they also ‘have the truth’.
‘We are serving notice on governments’, Gabriel states. ‘We are watching that they can no longer keep
their deeds hidden, we are watching’ (cited in ibid.: 86).
Cohen suggests that the
‘campaigning value’ of the dramatic visual image can be evaluated by
considering the ‘Rodney King effect’.
Recalling the 1991 video recording of Los Angeles police officers
beating the passive black ‘suspect’ Rodney King, Cohen suggest that such
‘visceral’ material could only result in the interpretation that what occurred
was an “assault’, ‘abuse of power’, ‘violation of civil liberties’, ‘police
violence’ or ‘racism” (ibid.) The animal protection movement has been
particularly skilled at using written and visual exposes of animal
exploitation. In fact, Francione praises
Singer’s Animal Liberation because, more than a book about ethics, it includes
illuminating chapters on animal experimentation, factory farming and the
vegetarian diet. Ever since the 1980s,
the advent of certain organisations such as the Northern Animal Liberation League
(NALL) and its Central (CALL) and South Eastern (SEALL) versions, ensured a
constant supply of material for the animal protection movement to use and
disseminate. Some of the more
spectacular raids mounted and filmed by the Animal Liberation Front have
resulted in the production of dramatic footage illustrating the negative impact
that humans have on nonhuman life. Now
and again, footage filmed by animal experimenters themselves have been
‘recovered’ by animal activists and used to dramatic effect. The classic example of this is a video distributed
by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) of vivisectors filming
their own head injury experiments on baboons entitled Unnecessary Fuss.
Cohen’s analysis of such
developments as social movements’ production of filmed material is once again
instructive to the animal advocate.
Cohen suggests that a great deal of information is now transmitted by
‘electronic witnesses’ (ibid.: 187) and such information appears largely
accepted by many as authentic in nature.
Often, then, social movements are not always burdened with their
material not being believed.[7] But then Cohen says this:
Aside from a few thousand
academics who take post-modernist epistemology literally, no sane person
seriously ‘interrogates’ truth-claims about, say, infant mortality in Bangladesh
Thus, social movements are not only subject to the ‘gap’ that exists
between concern and action, they must content with the possibility that their
potential audience(s) are ‘tired of the truth’.
So many issues demand a caring person’s attention that she is
‘saturated’ and subject to information overload (the development of the
internet hardly helped in this, despite its usefulness).
Cohen develops Simmel’s concept of ‘urban trace’ to explore such
ideas. He notes that, ‘Denial theory and
common sense recognise that the obvious solution to stimulus overload is selective oblivion’ (ibid.: 188,
emphasis in original). This suggestion
may go some way to explain the frequency that people claim that the ‘animal
issue’ should not be dealt with until humans are free from oppressive exploitation:
recall that Greer implies that the animal rights movement jumps some sort of
‘concerns queue’. Many of these denial
theories tap into the notion of ‘bystander politics’ which so frustrates cause
advocates. If any are perturbed by other
people’s lack of action and apparently apathy, Cohen supplies them with an
account of a great deal of the social psychological study on the issue, as have
a number of Critical Theories over the years.
Before the present thesis
is involved in a presentation of a summary of the issues under review in the
conclusion, the following chapter gives an account of much of the academic work
that is inspired by thoughts and campaigns about human-nonhuman relations.
[1] Freud himself has been accused of screening
out painful realities, such as his alleged knowledge of the sexual abuse of
children (Rush 1996).
[2] Clark
(1984: 209-10) provides one of the most detailed lists of Salt’s major
writings. They are, 1896 (ed.), The New Charter, (London London London London London
[3] Apparently Henry Salt had a similar notion
to Clark ’s ‘devices’ which he called ‘those
dear old Fallacies’ (quoted in Gold 1998: 7).
[4] This sort
of argument has had animal advocates such as Singer acknowledging that a slap
administered to a human baby may be far more damaging than a slap of the same
order of strength given to a horse or an elephant.
[5] Current EU legislation allows up to 6 birds
in one cage providing that they have 450 square centimetres of space each,
which is an area less than that of an A4 piece of paper (Penman 1996: 82)
[6] Professor
of ‘animal science’ at Oregon
State University Davis Davis
[7] However,
there is some evidence that pro-use advocates (such as the National Animal
Interest Alliance in North America ) monitor
and contribute to ‘animal rights’ discussion boards, often apparently in order
to dispute the validity of video footage released by animal activists.
[1] Keith Thomas (1983) notes a move away from
presenting meat on the table complete with heads and in a similar form as when
a living animal. Modern meat products
are very carefully packaged, using colouring, gas and chemicals to increase
‘attractiveness’, all of which means that the finished product on the shelf
seems to bear no relation to the animals it came from (see Walsh 1986; Gold
1988, chap three: ‘Meat & Drugs’).
[2] There is little doubt, however, that such
coverage (measured in column inches or TV time) will be much less than the
amount of ‘pro-meat’ advertising, straightforwardly in advertisements and in
cookery programmes.
[3] Given this statement, it is incumbent to
acknowledge the sociological research that points out the reality that the
information which is potentially available is ultimately controlled by media
gatekeepers, regardless of technological developments (e.g., see Elliot 1972).
[4] Tester’s view does not provide a great deal
of encouragement for ‘animal rights’ activists engaged in ‘public education’,
especially in the light of Jasper & Poulsen’s (1995) suggestion that
recruitment often relies on ‘morally shocking’ potential advocates for nonhuman
animals with literature rather than, say, recruiting them through contact with
social networks.
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