Livestock producers have let themselves be put on the losing side of the argument, an American expert on the animal rights movement says, and they are making it worse by not arguing back.
If farmers don’t find a way to convince the public that raising, confining and slaughtering animals is morally acceptable, the public won’t allow it any more.
“These are deeply held beliefs,” said Wes Jamison of Dordt College in Iowa about the general population’s heightened concerns over the treatment of animals.
“If those beliefs are in conflict with your practices, you’ve got to do something to either resolve that debate or address that,” he said. “Animal agriculture hasn’t been thinking in those terms.”
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Jamison said animal activists have adopted the language, world view and central hymn of the 19th century anti-slavery movement and are finding many supporters in the general population.
Just like the anti-slavery movement, the animal rights movement paints the issue as one of morality, which could be deadly to the livestock industry if it is not successfully countered.
Economic and practical arguments about animal treatment will not win an argument about moral values.
“The classic analogy would be slavery. It was economically central to the economy of the south. You could trot out scientists who said they’re better off in captivity than they are in the wild … but it was fundamentally a moral argument,” Jamison told reporters after a speech at a Manitoba Pork Council meeting.
“They could have poured all their money into trying to justify it economically or scientifically – as they did in the U.S. Congress – but ultimately the moral argument won out.”
If farmers are to avoid the fate of slave owners, he said, they need to find a moral argument to justify animal husbandry.
However, Jamison offered no concrete arguments that producers could make to morally justify modern confinement agriculture.
“That’s a hotly debated topic,” he said. “I have some ideas but they’re not well developed or tested, so I wouldn’t want to say them in public.”
Jamison denied that farmers who loudly proclaim their moral righteousness would be self-righteous.
“If you are morally convinced that it is correct, can you elaborate that, elucidate that and speak it in public in a coherent sense?” he said.
“I don’t mean self-righteous, but why are you doing it if you can’t morally justify it to yourself? Why are you doing what you’re doing as a farming population unless you’re morally convinced that it is correct?”
Jamison said the shrinking tobacco industry is an example of what happens when the moral argument is lost.
“If you can’t answer the moral argument, you will be penalized,” he said.
While he refused to suggest an argument that producers could make to morally justify raising and slaughtering animals, he argued that a strong defence could work.
Referring to the book Will to Power by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Jamison said “mere assertion coupled with power can win. Just saying you’re right coupled with a sophisticated public relations campaign can convince people.”
It’s a lesson learned decades ago by the animal rights activists and until farmers learn it, they will be on the losing side of the argument, he said.
