Book Review

The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
By Kwame Anthony Appiah

While The Honor Code makes some important points, it strains to fill out its slim 225 pages. The main point presented here would be more fittingly presented in a long essay rather than a short book. Mr. Appiah looks at three cases; dueling, footbinding and the Atlantic slave trade, to make his case that immoral practices rarely end because of overwhelming moral arguments. Instead, the deciding factor is whether an immoral practice, and its participants, is exposed to ridicule, contempt or shaming. If those who participate in a practice believe that they can do so with pride and dignity, and the practice benefits them, then it is unlikely to end. While the book could have been more well written, I believe the argument that is set forth is solid; shame and ridicule are usually more effective tools in changing behavior than moral or ethical arguments.
As activists, we should keep this point in mind. Very often we get caught up in making complicated moral arguments and forget that most people are more likely to be driven by what their neighbors think of them. When making arguments against various forms of animal abuse we should keep in mind that very the best argument is often that those engaged in the abuses should be ashamed.

Let's Work on Safe Cigarettes

I have a problem that I hope other readers can help me with. It seems that when giving small children cigarettes there is a good chance of them getting burned by the hot tip. Is there some way to have them smoke safely, or can cigarettes be redesigned to help eliminate this problem?

This may sound absurd, but it is no more absurd than the recent coverage over what to do about hot dogs. Processed meats have been linked to obesity, high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease and various other illnesses. Is it really better for a person to die in their forties from heart disease or colon cancer, rather than lung cancer? Here's a thought, instead of focusing on how we can get children started on a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits without having them choke to death immediately, let's focus on ways to bring healthy foods into their diets.

Many of the main stresses on our health care system today are chronic, lifelong diseases that are related to lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise. We need to start children on the path to healthy eating when they are young. Hopefully in the future we will see articles on how to feed children a healthy diet, and not the best ways to give them unhealthy food.

Reaching a Tipping Point: Moving from a Catch-22 to a Virtuous Cycle

The next few years are going to be important ones for those of us involved in vegan advocacy. Veganism is on the verge of a "tipping point" that we need to push past in order for our movement to be as successful as it can be. Too often we suffer from a "catch-22", in that it is hard to convince businesses to carry vegan products because there is not a large enough market, while at the same time it is difficult to convince people to adopt a vegan lifestyle because not enough businesses carry vegan products.

However, we are very close to the point where a virtuous cycle can be established; where more and more businesses begin to carry vegan products, and as a corollary, more and more people begin to adopt a vegan lifestyle. While most vegans know that adhering to a vegan lifestyle is not in any way difficult, it is not perceived that way among meat-eaters. While there are many psychological issues that play into an individuals decision to eat meat, the perceived difficulty of a vegan lifestyle is certainly a large factor.

However, we can not become complacent. As our side gains in adherents and momentum, we need to realize that the industries that rely on animal abuse for profit will not sit idly by. The rhetoric that they deploy will become more strident, and the measures they adopt to deal with vegan advocates will become more draconian. We know that the animal abuse industries have strong political ties, and are willing to spend millions to get their way. We need to establish ourselves in the political arena if we hope to have a future. They have the advantage in money, we need to use our advantage; the untiring desire that truth and justice will win out.

The Whys of Mainstreaming Veganism, pt. 1

For decades now the animal rights movement has been working on a single model of activism that essentially consists of using protest and pressure to convince those who run the animal exploitation industries to change the way they operate. It is now time for many in our movement to switch onto a new track, that of mainstreaming veganism. This new focus of activism will seem strange to many of those who are used to the old methods of protest, but if we want to move into the next stage of animal activism it is absolutely necessary that we have a large and growing vegan population that is fully integrated into our society. What I am talking about here is an ancillary to animal rights; vegan rights.

Vegan rights encompasses a plethora of issues; allowing students dissection choice, allowing vegan students and parents equal subsidies on school provided meals, providing the same government subsidies to vegan industries as are provided to the beef and dairy industries, forcing insurance companies to take account of the risks of meat eating as they do for smoking, making sure that concession stands in public venues have adequate vegan options, etc. In short, there is no reason that it should be harder to be vegan than to be a meat eater, and it is time for us to make a "vegan equal" world a reality.

I still think that protest and pressure tactics have a place in our movement, and will continue to be useful tools for the forseeable future, but there is no greater tool for the animal rights movement than convincing large numbers of people to become vegans. The greatest fear, and motivation for change, in any industry is that the public will stop buying their products. Industries that exploit animals will change their behavior if enough people say "I've had enough, I'm going to adopt a vegan lifestyle."

However, we can not hope to convince large numbers of people to adopt a vegan lifestyle when we have government entities all the way from federal agencies down to local school boards working to make the individual choice of veganism diffficult, if not imposssible, to implement.