When you try and think outside the cage, defenders of the status quo have a few, choice words for you.
The last couple of days on my Facebook page have been, let’s just say, heady. On Thursday, I posted about a Virginia legislator violating the constitutional rights of citizens in order to pass legislation that would allow PETA to kill thousands of animals every year with impunity. Friday, I posted about the betrayal of a blind bull named Oatmeal. And Saturday, I posted about New York City comptroller Scott Stringer’s suggestion that animals are not worthy of moral consideration by dismissing concerns about horses used by the carriage industry.
In a series of comments (removed) and emails (deleted), the defenders of PETA, the defenders of programs to desensitize children to animals raised and killed for food, and those who defend the carriage horse industry have accused me of being:
- A “fat pig” (though meant to be terribly unkind, it is not, literally speaking, the attack they think it is given my deep adoration for pigs);
- A “homosexual” (a tragedy only in the sense that anyone is still so bigoted, cruel and small-minded as to consider it insulting to call another human being gay. Those who have not read the beautifully written majority opinion by the Supreme Court in Obergefell vs. Hodges in favor of human dignity are missing out);
- A shill for PETA (surely, you jest);
- A shill for the ASPCA (wrong);
- A shill for HSUS (wrong, again);
- A “nob” (literally translated it means “a person of wealth or high social position.” Ah man, if only!);
- A lobbyist to reclaim the “real estate where the stables stand” in New York (I am a writer and Executive Director of a non-profit organization based in California, so huh?);
- A few choice epithets (which speak for themselves); and,
- An “animal rights extremist” (“extremist” is the label used to malign the adherents of every historical movement that has made our world a kinder, gentler place).
The central mistake the folks who made the above comments committed besides failing to understand the difference between shooting the message and shooting the messenger, is how I view their apoplectic response – as a sign of progress, as a sign of success, as evidence that I am doing precisely what I joined Facebook to do: question the status quo and engender discussion.
When it comes to our treatment of non-human animals, we have inherited a world in the West that is deeply at odds with our professed values of universal love, compassion and tolerance. It is simply impossible to realign our culture to better reflect what is best in our species, rather than what is worst, without questioning the status quo and championing change. Yet change is threatening for many people, putting them outside of their comfort zone and causing them to lash out from a place of fear and anger, as the above comments illustrate. And none of us are our best selves when we react from the part of our brain that privileges self-preservation – of our world view or our own narrow economic interests – above empathy and consideration for the rights and needs of others.
The other key mistake made by those who made the above comments is to misunderstand the value of Facebook. For animals, it does not lie in staying safely within the confines of white noise about how “people should spay and neuter their pets” or deifying the so-called “leaders” of the movement; the value of Facebook lies in truly talking: about what works, what doesn’t work, what needs reevaluation, and what we should be doing today to build a better world for animals tomorrow. So to the naysayers who feel it is their mission to fill my email inbox or my Facebook comments section with hate, I quote the character Rod Tidwell in the film Jerry Maguire:
“See, man, that’s the difference between us. You think we’re fighting, I think we’re finally talking!”
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