It’s Not About You Or Me. It’s About This Guy.
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

James McWilliams
June 2014

I think in terms of broader trends, trends that shape human mentalities and moralities, integrating ethics into culture in a subtle and effective ways.

The long duration of human history creates a slow burn effect on repetitive human behavior, habituating our thoughts and actions in ways we easily underestimate or forget. When I recently highlighted one bittersweet manifestation of this slow burn—the hard won and long-tested omnivorous knowledge about what was or wasn’t safe to eat—several readers countered that the weight of the past was in fact easily shucked off because, to paraphrase, “I did it with no problem.” But here’s the thing: when you talk about the history of human history, you don’t matter. We’re talking large patterns not small blips in time, such as your existence.

Other readers didn’t necessarily contend with my argument so much as wonder why I would offer ammunition to “the carnivores.” I need to be clear on this: I don’t think that way. I don’t see animal advocacy in such dichotomized terms. It’s not a zero-sum game, one in which information is deployed to save souls from carnivorous damnation. Instead, I think in terms of broader trends, trends that shape human mentalities and moralities, integrating ethics into culture in a subtle and effective ways. I’m all for protesting a Chipotle or marching in the streets for animal liberation. But I see the impact of those actions in the framework of how they shape broader cultural mentalities. If you write about the love of your pet, that’s lovely. But I’m only concerned with how it shapes our transcendent understanding of the human-animal relationship.

This perspective can lead to some counterintuitive ideas. For example, I’m much less concerned with whether or not an individual is vegan than with how the ideological substrate that supports basic human behavior is shifting. So, the reason why I bring up issues such as our million years of inherited meat-eating choices is that they comprise the substrate that I want to see changed. We need to grasp that reality before we work to change it. It is also for this reason that my veganism inadvertently slips, I don’t lose a moment of stress. Just as it’s not about you, it’s not about me. If I hid in a closet and and choked down a burger, it wouldn’t matter in the least.

Change will take time. Not another million years—revolutions in communications have changed the game. But we’re unlikely to see systemic changes with respect to eating animals in the course of our lifetimes (or at least mine). I make this claim not to extinguish our activist fire, but to acknowledge how deeply the act of eating animals has shaped human identity, one that’s as pre-programmed as it is adaptable. Rage on, people. But know the depth of the history we confront.

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