Animal Rites

You know what PETA, Veganism and the Animal Rights movement strike me as? Ideological one-upsmanship among Progressives. People join them and espouse their rhetoric because it raises their status among the NPR crowd.

Think about it: All good, progressive-thinking men - excuse me, PEOPLE - already embrace the "struggle" against sexism, racism and whatnot. Nothing special there. So why not take it to the next level and extend your Liberation Politics beyond humanity? NOW we're talking.

Why settle for White Guilt when you can lament your entire species?

Anyone can march at some protest for equal rights for gay people, but you're well beyond that. You march for equal rights for NON-people!

Why confine yourself to discussions of Privilege and Patriarchy when you can make deep statements about the oppression caused by most animals not having opposable thumbs?

Also, since the production of cheap and plentiful food - like pretty much everything in the modern world - operates on the vast economies of scale and technological efficiencies made possible by modern industry... you get to be mad at Big Evil Corporations for yet another reason!

Finally - and this is really sweet - animals are the ideal "victims" against whose "oppression" you can "struggle." It's the Liberation Politics version of job security - like a college professor getting tenure. Unlike those Eastern European proletarian ingrates who finally told the international Left to stick Marxism up its collective ass, dolphins and factory-farm chickens will never tell you to go screw yourself.

(Side note: I'd be interested to know how many hardcore PETA-types have ever refused critical medical treatment on the grounds that the drugs and/or surgical procedures to be used had been developed with animal testing. I'd bet you could fit them all in my car.)

I suspect that many liberationists - not ALL, mind you, but many - really don't give a rat's ass about those on whose behalf they are supposedly fighting. Like all moral crusaders, they're out to feel better about themselves.

There is also a heavy element of self-aggrandizement and the sense of being part of some kind of Consciousness Elite. This leads them to ever-more-extreme positions, in order to remain in the avant-garde.

For these folks, it's just no fun anymore to focus on human suffering. There's a "been there, done that" feel to the whole thing.

Anti-racism, for example, has succeeded to a degree where it is the dominant thought-mode - more people agree than disagree - and therefore it no longer distinguishes one as a member of the Consciousness Elite.

Which does not for a moment mean that the fight for racial equality is over, only that it's just not as politically sexy as it once was. How, as a good revolutionary, can you epater les bourgeoisie when they hate the Klan as much as you do?

So you move onward and outward to animals or "the Earth," adopting lifestyle politics and nutritional practices which most people will never be able to follow. Presto! Romantic marginalization and revolutionary purity is yours again! You're a rebel, maaan!