March
2001
Getting
Our Acts Together
By Norm Phelps
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As readers of this magazine know, satya is the Sanskrit
word for “truth.” On the front cover of this magazine, directly
under Satya, appear the words “Vegetarianism, Environmentalism,
Animal Advocacy, Social Justice.” The implication is that these
four activities are all undertaken on behalf of a single truth, and
that they all stem from the same impulse and strive for the same goal.
I have long been convinced that Satya has got it exactly right.
The impulse, I believe, is compassion, and the goal the alleviation
of suffering. Others might phrase it differently—some, for example,
might identify both the impulse and the goal as “justice;” but
that is largely a matter of semantics. The critical point is that these
are not four separate and distinct endeavors, but four complementary
approaches to the same endeavor.
Unfortunately, many who are active in each of these areas behave as
if they are, in fact, unrelated to one another. We all know vegetarians
who are concerned about little beyond their own health; environmentalists
who hunt, fish, and eat meat; animal advocates who show little interest
in environmental or social issues, and workers for social justice who
are offended at the idea that precious resources are being expended
on animals when there is so much human suffering in the world.
I believe that this approach amounts to treating the symptom and ignoring
the disease. The justifications for oppression, economic inequality,
environmental rapacity, and animal exploitation are all the same: the
notion of a moral hierarchy, the idea that some are inherently more
worthy than others. According to this theory, there is a hierarchy of
moral value, and (by an amazing coincidence!) it is identical to the
hierarchy of power. It just so happens that those with the most power
are also those with the greatest entitlement to moral consideration.
This is a lucky happenstance, indeed, because if it were otherwise,
we would have to undertake an extremely inconvenient (for those near
the top of the hierarchy) reorganization of society. In reality, of
course, moral hierarchies are rationalizations for unequal power, constructed
to protect the benefits that the powerful derive from exploiting the
weak. Historically, such paradigms have been used to defend every known
form of unjust power, including the power of men over women, whites
over people of color, Europeans over indigenous peoples, the wealthy
over the poor, and of course, the most widespread, longest-lasting,
most brutal example of unjust power in all of history, the power of
humans over animals.
Far too many of us in the activist community still accept the basic
premise of the moral hierarchy. We just want to move the victims with
whom we are most concerned higher up so that they experience more of
the benefits and less of the suffering that the hierarchy causes. There
are, of course, exceptions. On the international stage Gandhi, Tolstoy,
Schweitzer, and the Dalai Lama come to mind. Closer to home, we have
Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, and comedian and activist
Dick Gregory; we can point to eco-feminist philosopher Carol Adams,
H. Jay Dinshah, founder of the American Vegan Society, and, of course,
to Satya itself. But these and others I could name remain a minority.
More than a decade ago, I received a painful lesson in this habit of
isolating one form of oppression from another when a friend who was
a longtime civil rights worker told me, “Animal rights is just
another way for white people to say that African Americans are no better
than animals.” I understood his feeling. But the fact that a feeling
is understandable does not make it either right or helpful. And I was
reminded that one of the most insidious effects of oppression is that
the victim often internalizes the values of the oppressor, the same
values that caused his or her own suffering. There is a line in the
movie The Russia House in which Sean Connery’s character says,
“All victims are equal, and none is more equal than others.” Until
we internalize that value, we will be working against ourselves.
For that is the “truth” which is referenced by the satya in
the term satyagraha, “truth force,” which Gandhi coined to
describe what he believed to be the only power that could overcome oppression:
All life is one, and therefore, all suffering is one. When we limit
our compassion to specific kinds of suffering or categories of victims,
we allow ourselves to become complicit in the moral hierarchy, and we
deny Gandhi’s truth. The terrible irony is that while we are working
to eliminate an injustice, we are also working—however unwittingly—to
perpetuate the system that causes all injustice. I am not suggesting
that we try to fight on all fronts at once. Constraints of time, energy,
and resources require most of us to focus our efforts in order to be
effective. But I am suggesting that we need to stop clinging to those
parts of the moral hierarchy that we may have become comfortable with.
There are encouraging signs that this may be starting to happen on
a significant scale. The WTO demonstrations in Seattle, Washington
D.C.,
and Prague brought together activists for social justice, environmentalism,
and animal protection in massive unified actions. Even more encouraging,
these demonstrations attracted a high proportion of young people, suggesting
that perhaps the generation just entering the struggle may not be content
with treating the symptoms, but will insist on eradicating the disease
that causes them. For strategic as well as philosophical reasons, this
is vital. In the post-Reagan/Thatcher world, the progressive movements
are smaller and less influential than at any time since the 1920s.
We
are more vulnerable than ever to the establishment’s time honored
tactic of divide and conquer. We need to get our acts together.
Norm Phelps is spiritual outreach director for The Fund
for Animals. Visit their website at www.fund.org.
