I've been keeping the real circumstances of my birth and my mother's virginity a secret. No, but seriously, there's a lot of discussion in the blogosphere (vegan and nonvegan) about Michael Vick. I want to draw your attention to Gary L. Francione's piece in the Philadelphia Daily News, both because of the quality of the writing and the message: all animals have a right not to be used as property. Like many of my blog post titles, this one is tongue in cheek. Edited to add: Also be sure to read the piece on Vick over at My Face is on Fire.
Truth is, like many of you, I was raised to believe that I shouldn't harm (at least some) nonhuman animals. I was scolded if I chased the cats around too much. I was told to leave insects and other nonhumans alone if I was too curious about their doings. And although I don't recall with absolute certainly, I'd be surprised if I hadn't been spanked at least once for some idiotic childhood cruelty to a family companion animal. I was confused about what I owed nonhuman animals and I didn't have anyone to set me straight. Most of us don't.
But at breakfast, lunch and dinner, those rules were off. I could eat whatever I wanted, and it didn't matter how cruelly the nonhumans involved in our meals were treated, and it didn't matter how much they were individuals, who were sentient, who had a right not to be used as property, who called me to be vegan, etc. My family, like so many others, applied an irrational double standard: treat some nonhumans as persons, indeed, some as family, use others as resources; and don't really think about why that's the case.
Today, I live with six cats. Their names are Fred Hampton, Harriet Tubman, Julius Martov, Jasmine, Thor and Zella. Harriet bats at her own tail. Fred lost the tips of his ears to frostbite because someone let him out in a Montreal winter. Zella only lets me pet her when she's eating. Jasmine likes to bite my leg when I record podcasts. Thor likes to cuddle up with my shoes. Julius bites my toes in the kitchen every day when I make coffee
Each one of them in unique and the value of their lives is not a matter of calculating their worth as property. What rational person would disagree? But there is no meaningful moral difference between any of them and a pig, a cow, a dog, a sheep, a chicken, a fish, or other animals. If what Michael Vick has done troubles you, you can start by looking at your own dinner plate.
In that sense, as Francione says, we're all Michael Vick. Why does the comparison bother us so much? First, it's based on a misconception of who Vick is. I hate to impugn others, but I have to call it like I see it. As an African American, people read Vick's behaviour as not just violent or wrong, but as intentionally cruel, as 'savage', because he fits a stereotype. I'm not saying everyone who has expressed any outrage about Michael Vick is a racist. I'm saying it would be a mistake to misunderstand the thinly veiled racism and fear that is being channeled into a lot of the hatred for Michael Vick for anything like appropriate moral outrage. He was doing what most people do everyday: he was using animals for his own pleasure. In this case, he was being entertained by a bloodsport that, although very, very, very wrong, was not more or less wrong than all the hamburgers I ate growing up in the corn belt.
But it's different, isn't it? How can we strain reality until it gives and figure out a way for Michael Vick to be our villain so that we don't have to look at our own behaviour? Let's get nuanced for a second. What Vick was doing with dogfighting was not the norm. But is that really all anyone has to argue for singling him out? He was doing something deplorable in a way that's slightly different from all of the deplorable things we do to nonhuman animals, all of which are just fine with us because we do them, and we're the majority? Of course the way Vick was using nonhuman animals was different from the norm, but what significant difference does that make in terms of our moral censure? Sad. Irrational. Morally bankrupt.
For the record, I'm not a lawyer, and what I know about the law is best expressed as �I watched a lot of L .A. Law!� However, if I murder someone for spare change, or if I murder someone out of passion, or if I murder someone out of a cold calculation for revenge, murder's still murder. There are minor legal differences between these actions (usually shorthanded on TV as Murder 1 and Murder 2). There are a lot of other different ways of understanding 'killing' under the law, including manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, self-defense and so on. But murder's still murder. We all pretty much know murder when we see it. As a society, we define ourselves as being close-minded about who was murdered and why insofar as we believe that all human beings have a right not to be murdered.
Regardless of the type of murder, the exact circumstances of the crime, it's motivations, etc., we know that each and every murder poses us with a very serious moral problem and we have to decide how as a society we'll respond to that harm. But whether I murder someone with a blow torch or I euthanize them makes no significant moral difference. Whether I laughed the whole time or if I felt really terrible while I did it makes no significant moral difference. Whether the victim was a stranger or a friend makes no significant moral difference. And whether I killed an African American or a Caucasian makes no real moral difference. Murder is still murder.
Depending on the exact nature of the act, the responses may be very slightly different. We may issue very slightly different punishments in terms of the length or nature of the sentence. We may take different actions in terms of how to rehabilitate the perpetrator, with counseling, anger management, job training, education or other programs. But the fact remains, we still respond morally, and always generally in the same way: with a trial, and assuming a guilty verdict, with correction. That's what makes us a society of laws, governed by justice and mercy (when we're on our good behaviour), not a clique governed by a cult of personality with a fetish for retribution.
As as a society, if we fail to respond morally in similar ways to every murder, regardless of who the victim is, regardless of who the perpetrator is, then we fail morally. To be clear, I believe that what Michael Vick was wrong. Not because it was dog fighting, but because all animals have a right not to be used as property. All animals are sentient. They all have an interest in continuing their lives. They all have a right not to be used as property. They all can experience and respond to the world. They are all individuals. We fail morally when we give ourselves a pass and condemn Michael Vick with outrage that is equal parts shrill, irrational and hypcritical.
You can be pissed off by the comparison all you like, but when the swelling goes down, I hope you'll think about your own behaviour with respect to nonhuman animals and how you have a unique opportunity to change it. Do we need that cheeseburger, that milk shake, that honey on our toast, that leather jacket, that trip to the zoo? If we don't, then what's the difference between one morally unjustified use of a nonhuman animal and another? There is no difference. Michael Vick wanted some entertainment; we wanted some new boots. Michael Vick wanted to show off with his friends and act tough; we have to go stuff ourselves full of sliders and high-five each other because of how many we can cram down. Nonhuman animals die for all of those things or they live in slavery until they die.
Whether we kill them horribly or "peacefully" makes no difference. Whether we know them or we are strangers, whether we use them because they taste good, look good or it just entertains us to do so makes no meaningful moral difference. Whether we pay someone to kill them for us or we do it ourselves, it makes no meaningful moral difference. Whether we enjoy the process of their harm as we watch them, ride them or otherwise use their labor for slavery, or we merely enjoy the result or their slavery in our boots, our burgers or perfurmes, it makes no difference. Their species makes no meaningful moral difference. Each and every animal use presents us with a moral problem, a victim and a perpetrator. And the facts of the matter are that we all need to get our own houses in order with respect to our relationship with nonhuman animals. Most of all, we should treat similar cases similarly, and to do otherwise is a moral failure on our part.
Michael Vick troubles us all so deeply because we all know that, deep down as a society, the way we use nonhuman animals is morally wrong. We know that it doesn't matter how nicely we treat them. We know they all want their lives to continue on their own terms. We know that there are ready alternatives available to us, and we still don't choose them. We feel bad that we deliberately take their lives away from them, even if we can't admit it to ourselves or others. We should. Vick made the mistake of reminding us too much of what we don't like about our own behaviours. He cuts too close to home. He reminds us of something uncanny that we don't want to have to face about our own personal histories: our own morally indefensible use of nonhuman animals.
We're ashamed.
We should be.
I'm not here to look solemn, shake my head wistfully, pat you on the back, forgive you and then have a kumbaya jamfest while we toke a little doobie. I am far from being in any position to forgive or to be outraged, but I can help you to change. I am here to tell you that if you're troubled by what Michael Vick has done, then you should think about why you're troubled. And if you want to take nonhuman animals seriously, cast off your past, and pay nonhuman animals what you owe them, then you'll stop making excuses, stop trying to see difference where there is none, put the stone back in your pocket and, most important, go forth and sin no more (and that includes you, Michael, on the infinitesimally small chance that you read my blog). In each of us there is vice and virtue, and I believe that there is not one among us who cannot choose virtue.
You all have a unique opportunity to change yourselves and to make today the day that you begin to take the rights of animals not to be used as property seriously. Not some animals, all animals; not some of the time, all of the time. Today is the day you can go from being passive, irrational, subjective and amoral in your relationship to nonhuman animals to being rational, active, objective and moral. If you're not vegan already, go vegan today. I believe in you.
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