The analysis does not include the influence on a person to person basis. I know I've influenced my friends if not to go vegan to at least lessen their intake of meat and consider vegan options. They're much more sensitive to my being a vegan and more frequently will calculate that into our meetups at restaurants. It may seem subtle but when it never was that way before, this feels like progress.
We need a lot more vegan restaurants though! My non-vegan friend said she ate out at vegan restaurant and it was fantastic and she recommended it to ME.
There has to be a lot more people like her out there listening to us.
In the US, I'll blame our president and his partisans for fueling the outrageous behavior on social media that is grabbing everyone's attention in the name of entertainment and license to act out. Animal rights posts tend to show cute animals frolicking in green pastures with soothing music playing in the background. Something one would watch like reading a bedtime story.
If you ask someone if they are in favor of improving the conditions animals are forced to live in, the vast majority of people will say "yes". But that in itself doesn't mean they are willing to make major changes in their behavior. It would mean changing aspects of their everyday lives that impact long-upheld traditions and beliefs. I think children are more likely to align with the need to change our treatment of animals. The upcoming generations may be key to the future of animal rights and personhood.
yes, we need a larger coalition of individuals and organizations. The largest movement I see with which we have much in common is the environmental movement. We have failed to expand upon these ties and it works both ways. How many environmental groups have publicly endorsed our initiatives or appeared in support at our trials? Have our groups rallied in support of legislation regarding carbon emissions? They need to show up in support of our issues and we to show up in support of theirs. Environmentalists have a larger, more mainstream movement than ours. Most people, if you ask them, will say they believe in the value of environmentalism even if they don't entirely embody it. So far they do not say the same thing about animal rights. We need to create that.
Thanks, Wayne. Yes, things may seem grim but societies evolve, and I believe that evolution is generally guided by a Force for Good. With the decline in religious belief will come a search for new ethical standards, with Compassion as one overarching value.
I've taken to watching this youtube of a Sex Pistols concert at Brixton Hall, London from 18 years ago, pretty much when I have lunch-- https://youtube.com/watch?v=o_SQI9kgqIc . Johnny Rotten opens with "Pretty Vacant" at the age of fifty, and he gets a rather involved response from his audience throughout the show, who all seem fine with hanging out together and letting go of their frustrations. Now I get news that doesn't strike me as strange as technics and business management evince an increasingly predatory nature-- https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-23/us-pedestrian-study-we-re-walking-faster-hanging-out-less . We're at a stand-off in human relations. We hold off in uncertainty concerning one anothers' motives and respond apprehensively when directly addressed, unless if by someone with whom we've established a connection of trust, in a particular context. Otherwise we're down a rabbit hole on a day-to-day basis that can go on for as long as since Johnny last won over his crowd. What to my mind hangs in the balance is whether we don't somehow manage together to cancel out "Apocalyptic AI: religion and the promise of artificial intelligence," 2008-- https://knox.academia.edu/RobertGeraci .
Thanks for the article Wayne and thanks for all the wonderful time and effort you put into fighting on behalf of oppressed beings. You are an inspiration.
One aspect I would like to raise with you if you don't mind, is your use of 'tribalism' (x2) in your above article, as a moral and political pejorative. To me, this use plays into the hands of the corporatized world by demeaning and dismissing as inferior the great tribal, animist legacy that dominates the human past, a legacy that nurtured and oversaw the abundance of life the current human civilization so wantonly exploits and destroys The throat-slitting culture, or the 'herdism' culture as Dr. Will Tuttle more politely refers to it, arose around 10 000 years ago and has only really spread globally in the last 30 years with the push of the Western death diet and the political corruption that death diet is reliant on, into previously ahimsic, animist Asia. What existed prior to this Western corporate expansion was the extraordinary ahimsic, animist cultures including the eastern traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. These cultures were deeply tribal in their social organisation. These localized, egalitarian tribes shared universal beliefs in reincarnation and in the intimate spiritual connection across all life forms, which promoted a perennial morality structured around avoidance of any suffering to another living being. This global tribal/animist tradition dominates our past, going back at least 80 000 years. Much longer if you explore the timelines of the Vedas. But apart from a few (Graeber & Wengrow, Cremo and Huval are examples of the few) this legacy that constitutes the greater part of our history, is either ignored or blithely dismissed as an absurd neanderthal irrelevance. Worse still, the term tribalism has been successfully groomed as a symbol of xenophobic squabbling, something we need to wipe out before 'civil' society can commence and we can begin to move toward a decent system of morality. The complete opposite of this loaded narrative presents as far closer to the truth. Tribal communities, interlinked in a sophisticated marital web based on the abiding law of exogamy, not only offered stability, but nurtured a true universal, global morality that included animals and plants into its spiritual, social and legal frameworks. The squabbling and the fighting comes later, during dispossession, enslavement and loss of ancestral histories that are inevitable outcomes of being invaded by the plundering throat-slitting beefeater imperial cults of Europe.
By employing 'tribalism' as a euphemism for conflict, you align with the hegemonic undermining of the stable, peaceful, ahimsic animist cultures that dominate the timelines of our past and have suffered directly the outrageous crimes of colonialism. You empower that which you oppose. You add credence to a distorted historical narrative written by the warring, plundering throat-slitting cultures that have driven Western corporate expansion to its current frightening position of world dominance. Tribal/animist social organisation should not be dismissed as a meaningless blur of confusion that we need to transcend. We have much to learn from our global tribal/animist history, particularly the inclusion of animals into moral systems, and the granting of personhood to each and every seemingly innocuous life form.
Wayne, you said there's a lack of innovation in the movement since the 2010s. You're a leader in the movement who has done it all. Between everybody involved in the vegan movement, from cardiologists, nutritionists, documentary film makers, animal rights activists, biologists, ethicists, athletes, celebrities, organizations, publications, books, court cases, what more can be done that hasn't already been done? From what I'm seeing, especially in the past 13 years, it's been an outstanding effort by everybody involved and I don't see what more anybody can do, how much more information can be put out to the world? How many more rescues and court cases are needed? How many more documentaries and books written? How much more research, civil disobedience or education is needed? How much more social media, outreaching or podcasting and films?
Mmm kinda differ with you strongly here. Meat eating, more broadly predation, is unthinkably ancient IN – meaning WITHIN THE STREAM OF – life on earth. The intentional avoidance of it among humans seems a true threshhold being crossed. Busy working people are forced into lots of nasty compromises, which they compensate for by barely rationalized personal activities. Veganism as you are evaluating it, as the instantaneous spearhead of the will to make the president shut down macdonalds etc, is not winning on that front YET. But think what actually DXE has promoted as DXE's project . . . : 'change the world in one generation'. I do think huger things like this take a few generational pendulum swings!!!
Also however tasty or successful alt meat might become, the industrialism, marketing, packaging, advertizing involved in them all oppress life generally to such an extent that they are no match for benefits of actual vegetable diets. Turning to veg diets brings with it the entire picture of life lived with the surrounding matrix of life. This is such an urgent choice the world must make now, for reasons of that matrix, far beyond shopper morality, Nero's fetishes, Musk's 1000 12- piston Jaguars etc.
Our past as predators was accidental entrenchment, and it looks like our departure also need not come as a fully formed self determined ethical triumph, for absolutely all recipients.
If we’re going to name this age after this Judeo-Christian industrialized culture–“the Anthropocene”-- we must be honest, and call it The Age of the Sociopath. The Sociopocene. ---Derrick Jensen
I think humanity is rotten to the core and I will not whitewash it.
All sentient beings a/k/a animals (other than human) are living at a time when Emperor Humanity has dominated a/k/a infested the planet for its own benefit and indulgence, causing climate change and zoonotic pandemics, and "managing" Earth (like some novice). Unfortunately, true carnivores and apex predators--sharks, wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes--fail when it comes to regulating human populations, which get away breeding unchecked without being culled ever because of irrational beliefs like "the sanctity of human life" ALONE, and which get away devouring grazing animals wild and enslaved a/k/a "livestock," and which get away consuming Earth's finite resources and generating waste and garbage and ceaselessly demanding more entitlements, comforts, and luxuries at the expense of all other sentient beings. Pray, what in God's name keeps humans under control?!?! God granting humans "free will" is like Her Majesty's Secret Service giving James Bond 007 a license to kill!!!!
"The point is, human civilization has arisen so fast in comparison to the rhythms of the natural world that it cannot be measured in geological time. It is like a subatomic flash. An alien race arriving in seventy million years would conclude that we had arrived instantly, perhaps from another planet. The critical question is, how do you control a flash? A greenhouse effect caused in the last hundred years; a hole in the ozone layer in the past thirty years; three billion people added to the population since 1950—the rapidity of these trends is out of all proportion with the ecological/geological change, and we are currently engaged in one of the planet’s greatest and fastest extinctions. It will be indistinguishable from the impact of an asteroid. We are, in other words, the instruments of extinction" --- William Jordan, "Divorce Among the Gulls: An Uncommon Look at Human Nature" (1991) - - -
The analysis does not include the influence on a person to person basis. I know I've influenced my friends if not to go vegan to at least lessen their intake of meat and consider vegan options. They're much more sensitive to my being a vegan and more frequently will calculate that into our meetups at restaurants. It may seem subtle but when it never was that way before, this feels like progress.
We need a lot more vegan restaurants though! My non-vegan friend said she ate out at vegan restaurant and it was fantastic and she recommended it to ME.
There has to be a lot more people like her out there listening to us.
Agreed. There are lots of little wins for veganism that aren't reflected in larger trends.
In the US, I'll blame our president and his partisans for fueling the outrageous behavior on social media that is grabbing everyone's attention in the name of entertainment and license to act out. Animal rights posts tend to show cute animals frolicking in green pastures with soothing music playing in the background. Something one would watch like reading a bedtime story.
If you ask someone if they are in favor of improving the conditions animals are forced to live in, the vast majority of people will say "yes". But that in itself doesn't mean they are willing to make major changes in their behavior. It would mean changing aspects of their everyday lives that impact long-upheld traditions and beliefs. I think children are more likely to align with the need to change our treatment of animals. The upcoming generations may be key to the future of animal rights and personhood.
I love reading your intelligent well considered words, I think about things in a different way afterwards, fresh perspectives thank you
Thanks Catherine!
I hope so 🤞🤞🤞
We must never give up on the goal of ending animal cruelty and suffering.
“And the lion shall lie down with the lamb” when we achieve the Peaceable Kingdom.
Isaiah 11!
yes, we need a larger coalition of individuals and organizations. The largest movement I see with which we have much in common is the environmental movement. We have failed to expand upon these ties and it works both ways. How many environmental groups have publicly endorsed our initiatives or appeared in support at our trials? Have our groups rallied in support of legislation regarding carbon emissions? They need to show up in support of our issues and we to show up in support of theirs. Environmentalists have a larger, more mainstream movement than ours. Most people, if you ask them, will say they believe in the value of environmentalism even if they don't entirely embody it. So far they do not say the same thing about animal rights. We need to create that.
Thanks, Wayne. Yes, things may seem grim but societies evolve, and I believe that evolution is generally guided by a Force for Good. With the decline in religious belief will come a search for new ethical standards, with Compassion as one overarching value.
Why isn't the 6th Extinction, which we're currently part of, legitimately able to be considered a Threat in your analysis?
I've taken to watching this youtube of a Sex Pistols concert at Brixton Hall, London from 18 years ago, pretty much when I have lunch-- https://youtube.com/watch?v=o_SQI9kgqIc . Johnny Rotten opens with "Pretty Vacant" at the age of fifty, and he gets a rather involved response from his audience throughout the show, who all seem fine with hanging out together and letting go of their frustrations. Now I get news that doesn't strike me as strange as technics and business management evince an increasingly predatory nature-- https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-23/us-pedestrian-study-we-re-walking-faster-hanging-out-less . We're at a stand-off in human relations. We hold off in uncertainty concerning one anothers' motives and respond apprehensively when directly addressed, unless if by someone with whom we've established a connection of trust, in a particular context. Otherwise we're down a rabbit hole on a day-to-day basis that can go on for as long as since Johnny last won over his crowd. What to my mind hangs in the balance is whether we don't somehow manage together to cancel out "Apocalyptic AI: religion and the promise of artificial intelligence," 2008-- https://knox.academia.edu/RobertGeraci .
Thanks for the article Wayne and thanks for all the wonderful time and effort you put into fighting on behalf of oppressed beings. You are an inspiration.
One aspect I would like to raise with you if you don't mind, is your use of 'tribalism' (x2) in your above article, as a moral and political pejorative. To me, this use plays into the hands of the corporatized world by demeaning and dismissing as inferior the great tribal, animist legacy that dominates the human past, a legacy that nurtured and oversaw the abundance of life the current human civilization so wantonly exploits and destroys The throat-slitting culture, or the 'herdism' culture as Dr. Will Tuttle more politely refers to it, arose around 10 000 years ago and has only really spread globally in the last 30 years with the push of the Western death diet and the political corruption that death diet is reliant on, into previously ahimsic, animist Asia. What existed prior to this Western corporate expansion was the extraordinary ahimsic, animist cultures including the eastern traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. These cultures were deeply tribal in their social organisation. These localized, egalitarian tribes shared universal beliefs in reincarnation and in the intimate spiritual connection across all life forms, which promoted a perennial morality structured around avoidance of any suffering to another living being. This global tribal/animist tradition dominates our past, going back at least 80 000 years. Much longer if you explore the timelines of the Vedas. But apart from a few (Graeber & Wengrow, Cremo and Huval are examples of the few) this legacy that constitutes the greater part of our history, is either ignored or blithely dismissed as an absurd neanderthal irrelevance. Worse still, the term tribalism has been successfully groomed as a symbol of xenophobic squabbling, something we need to wipe out before 'civil' society can commence and we can begin to move toward a decent system of morality. The complete opposite of this loaded narrative presents as far closer to the truth. Tribal communities, interlinked in a sophisticated marital web based on the abiding law of exogamy, not only offered stability, but nurtured a true universal, global morality that included animals and plants into its spiritual, social and legal frameworks. The squabbling and the fighting comes later, during dispossession, enslavement and loss of ancestral histories that are inevitable outcomes of being invaded by the plundering throat-slitting beefeater imperial cults of Europe.
By employing 'tribalism' as a euphemism for conflict, you align with the hegemonic undermining of the stable, peaceful, ahimsic animist cultures that dominate the timelines of our past and have suffered directly the outrageous crimes of colonialism. You empower that which you oppose. You add credence to a distorted historical narrative written by the warring, plundering throat-slitting cultures that have driven Western corporate expansion to its current frightening position of world dominance. Tribal/animist social organisation should not be dismissed as a meaningless blur of confusion that we need to transcend. We have much to learn from our global tribal/animist history, particularly the inclusion of animals into moral systems, and the granting of personhood to each and every seemingly innocuous life form.
This is opened my mind to see tribalism in a different light. Thank you.
Wayne, you said there's a lack of innovation in the movement since the 2010s. You're a leader in the movement who has done it all. Between everybody involved in the vegan movement, from cardiologists, nutritionists, documentary film makers, animal rights activists, biologists, ethicists, athletes, celebrities, organizations, publications, books, court cases, what more can be done that hasn't already been done? From what I'm seeing, especially in the past 13 years, it's been an outstanding effort by everybody involved and I don't see what more anybody can do, how much more information can be put out to the world? How many more rescues and court cases are needed? How many more documentaries and books written? How much more research, civil disobedience or education is needed? How much more social media, outreaching or podcasting and films?
Mmm kinda differ with you strongly here. Meat eating, more broadly predation, is unthinkably ancient IN – meaning WITHIN THE STREAM OF – life on earth. The intentional avoidance of it among humans seems a true threshhold being crossed. Busy working people are forced into lots of nasty compromises, which they compensate for by barely rationalized personal activities. Veganism as you are evaluating it, as the instantaneous spearhead of the will to make the president shut down macdonalds etc, is not winning on that front YET. But think what actually DXE has promoted as DXE's project . . . : 'change the world in one generation'. I do think huger things like this take a few generational pendulum swings!!!
Also however tasty or successful alt meat might become, the industrialism, marketing, packaging, advertizing involved in them all oppress life generally to such an extent that they are no match for benefits of actual vegetable diets. Turning to veg diets brings with it the entire picture of life lived with the surrounding matrix of life. This is such an urgent choice the world must make now, for reasons of that matrix, far beyond shopper morality, Nero's fetishes, Musk's 1000 12- piston Jaguars etc.
Our past as predators was accidental entrenchment, and it looks like our departure also need not come as a fully formed self determined ethical triumph, for absolutely all recipients.
If we’re going to name this age after this Judeo-Christian industrialized culture–“the Anthropocene”-- we must be honest, and call it The Age of the Sociopath. The Sociopocene. ---Derrick Jensen
I think humanity is rotten to the core and I will not whitewash it.
All sentient beings a/k/a animals (other than human) are living at a time when Emperor Humanity has dominated a/k/a infested the planet for its own benefit and indulgence, causing climate change and zoonotic pandemics, and "managing" Earth (like some novice). Unfortunately, true carnivores and apex predators--sharks, wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes--fail when it comes to regulating human populations, which get away breeding unchecked without being culled ever because of irrational beliefs like "the sanctity of human life" ALONE, and which get away devouring grazing animals wild and enslaved a/k/a "livestock," and which get away consuming Earth's finite resources and generating waste and garbage and ceaselessly demanding more entitlements, comforts, and luxuries at the expense of all other sentient beings. Pray, what in God's name keeps humans under control?!?! God granting humans "free will" is like Her Majesty's Secret Service giving James Bond 007 a license to kill!!!!
"The point is, human civilization has arisen so fast in comparison to the rhythms of the natural world that it cannot be measured in geological time. It is like a subatomic flash. An alien race arriving in seventy million years would conclude that we had arrived instantly, perhaps from another planet. The critical question is, how do you control a flash? A greenhouse effect caused in the last hundred years; a hole in the ozone layer in the past thirty years; three billion people added to the population since 1950—the rapidity of these trends is out of all proportion with the ecological/geological change, and we are currently engaged in one of the planet’s greatest and fastest extinctions. It will be indistinguishable from the impact of an asteroid. We are, in other words, the instruments of extinction" --- William Jordan, "Divorce Among the Gulls: An Uncommon Look at Human Nature" (1991) - - -