�We�ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water.� �Fred Hampton, Sr.Goya captions his 43 etching of his collection The Caprichos: �The sleep of reason produces monsters�. For those who don't know art history, Goya painted in Spain around the turn of the nineteenth century. The Caprichos dates from 1799. I'm not an art historian (for those who are wondering). But I do like some paintings, and Goya's work has always reminded me that humility and critical thinking are the cornerstones of morality.
You're probably already wondering how I'm going to tie Fred Hampton. Sr. (the twentieth century Black Panther and community organizer) with Goya (the eighteenth/nineteenth century Spanish painter). Separated by hundreds of years, by social class, by the nature of their work, by their geography, by their �race� and by more than all of those powerful things, what both men understood nevertheless is that when we fail to reason, and we only react emotionally, it leads us to ineffectiveness and it leads us to reproduce the paradigms of the oppression we're supposed to be combating.
Goya's Caprichos are a series of etchings, mostly depicting human beings at their most 'monstrous'. Driven by their own inclinations, Goya's caricatures draw out the worst in us. Petty jealousy. Greed. Vanity. Rage. Pessimism. Loneliness. All of what limits and shackles us as human beings, what deforms us and lowers our thinking and misguides our actions. His work reminds us that when we fail to reason, we engage in monstrous behaviours. What Goya criticizes is not just the inclinations of nameless and faceless social forces beyond our control: the state, economic exploitation, sexism, racism, and so on. He is criticizing primarily our own refusal to change ourselves, to act outside of our own inclinations and to be guided by reason and to act on what is right.
There is, of course, a lot of debate about why we reason, how we reason, what reason's relationship is to morality and to our motivations, and how these all reinforce (or critically engage) one another. Nietzsche, for example, argues that we reason instrumentally, and that we use reason to reinforce what we already believe. In contrast, Adorno and Horkheimer, however, remind us that we do not have to limit our reason only to what we are inclined to do. Instead, we can reason critically, we can use reason to engage ourselves and others in a moral dialogue about how to be better individuals and how we can build better societies. But to think critically is not only to subject what others tell us to scrutiny, it is also to subject our own thoughts and inclinations to a similar moral and intellectual rigour.
For an example of the first kind of reasoning, many people rationalize their behaviour because it serves an emotional need they don't fully understand. Some people rationalize eating animal products for environmental or for health reasons. Some people rationalize using animals for clothing or for entertainment. All of this animal use is unnecessary, but many people rationalize it anyhow because they are inclined to do so.
But as an example of the second kind of reasoning, we can refuse our own inclinations. We can challenge ourselves to think about the moral consideration we owe to other animals (human and non). We can imagine a world that goes past the nameless and faceless forces of domination, whether classism, racism, sexism, speciesism, or other expressions of authoritarianism. And we can start to build communities in which these nameless and faceless forces no longer hold us in their grip right now today. In short, two things are true: any of us can change our lives at any time, and to paraphrase Gary Francione, none of us is walking forward if we're walking backwards.
As an activist, Fred Hampton didn't repeat the paradigms of the oppressor in his work. He didn't just respond emotionally, he thought. When African-American children weren't getting the food they needed, he didn't go and take food out of the mouths of white children. He started a breakfast program. When African-Americans were unsafe in their homes, he didn't go out and make white people unsafe in theirs; he organized his communities for self-protection instead. He didn't promote racist violence in order to fight racist violence, he promoted nonviolent solidarity and organization. He didn't fight authoritarianism by behaving in authoritarian ways himself. He didn't walk backwards, he walked forwards. He reasoned; and he didn't just use reason to rationalize his own inclinations, he reasoned critically and accordingly.
Fred understood that equality iss not a race to the bottom of the elevator shaft, everyone at everyone else's throat, it is a slow and arduous walk to the top of the stairs, each of us helping each of us along the way. Those who propose that we should only react, or that we should only act within our own inclinations are not thinking critically or acting radically. Those who propose that we should substitute nonviolent dialogue, education, critical thinking and hard work with violence, that we should swap water for fire to fight fire, are engaged in a refusal to reason, a refusal of radicalism and are contenting themselves, regardless of their intentions, with walking backwards.
As an abolitionist, I believe unequivocally (and act on) the view that all animals have a right not to be used as property. That includes the rights of the human child not to be forced to pick coffee. That includes the rights of the cow not to be forced to produce milk, the chicken not to make eggs and the bee not to produce honey. That includes the rights of the horse not to be ridden and the elephant not to be forced to entertain us. That includes the rights of human beings not to be harassed, threatened or harmed to advance any political view of any kind. That includes the rights of nonhuman animals not to be someone else's �educational opportunity�, a "tool to smite the oppressor economically" or any other use. The prospect that all animals have a right not to be used as property includes everything I have come to understand as �using another as property� and it probably includes things I have not yet come to understand. No one is perfect; what is important is that we're committed to continuing the struggle, within ourselves first and foremost.
The rights of animals not to be used as property, and veganism as the baseline for taking that right seriously, are not a checklist of rules per se. They are a framework and praxis by which I can engage myself and others in a critical but meaningful dialogue that raises us up together as a community and calls us to be better than we were there day before. We either respect the rights of all animals not to be used as our property, or we simply reproduce the existing paradigms of oppression.
As an abolitionist vegan, I'm nonviolent. Any abolitionist who claims that acting violently is the way to achieve the abolition of violent social relations is telling you a story. I'm nonviolent, not because it always suits my inclinations to be nonviolent, but because that's what I owe other animals: my most careful, my most thoughtful, and my least harmful behaviour: my best. I am not interested in reacting against society, I am interested in transforming it. I am not interested in smiting the oppressor; I am interested in helping other animals. Reason guides my work, but it is love, not hate, that animates it, and I do my best to never sleep on reason.
Every day we fail to question our own motivations and inclinations and engage in violent behaviour (whether the person in question is the object of our rage or our gain, whether the person is human or non) is a day that we lose the opportunity to take a step towards the sunlight of the future. As an abolitionist vegan, I want nonhumans to go free, unequivocally, immediately and unconditionally. I promote the abolition, not the regulation of, animal use. I also oppose speciesism, racism, sexism and other forms of irrational prejudices. And although I won't end the system of animal slavery overnight, I only promote an end to the system by promoting veganism, not half-measures and reform, and not hysteria and violence. Nonviolence, careful reasoning, critical thinking, patience, and education are all guiding principles of my work.
If you're not vegan, you can end the sleep of your reason and go vegan today. If you are already vegan (or even if you're not) and you want to learn more putting the fire of slavery out with abolitionist water, please read through my other articles or visit www.abolitionistapproach.com.
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