{"id":699,"date":"2008-05-05T05:36:17","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T09:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/?p=699"},"modified":"2008-05-05T05:36:17","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T09:36:17","slug":"699","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/05\/699\/","title":{"rendered":"Thought for the Day\u2013The Death of Animal Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Avoid Premature Demise <\/p>\n

Borrowing again from Shellenberger and Nordhaus: <\/p>\n

If environmentalists hope to become more than a special interest we must start framing our proposals around core American values. We must start seeing our own values as central to what motivates and guides our politics.<\/em><\/p>\n

During the past 40 years, animal advocates have mostly emphasized our reasons when trying to persuade people, governments, and corporations to eliminate (or at least mitigate) animal cruelty. Appeals to personal compassion and “doing the right thing” can certainly work for some people and institutions, but don’t think that compassion is a panacea. It is just one of the many core values held by people in the U.S., as well as other countries throughout the world. Per the quote above, animal advocates (like environmentalists) would be well-served to meet people halfway, by framing our messages and policy goals around these shared values.<\/p>\n

For a fascinating treatise on core values in the U.S. as they relate to perceptions of ecology, see “Road Map for an Ecological Majority”<\/a>, by American Environics (a company started by Shellenberger and Nordhaus). In that report, the following are identified as “core values” of the ecological base, a constituency that I believe would overlap significantly with the animal protection base.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Ecological Concern
\n\u2022 Personal Control
\n\u2022 Civic Engagement
\n\u2022 Religion \u00e0 la Carte
\n\u2022 Introspection & Empathy
\n\u2022 Flexible Families
\n\u2022 Skepticism Towards Advertising
\n\u2022 Culture Sampling
\n\u2022 Global Consciousness
\n\u2022 Brand Apathy
\n\u2022 Ethical Consumerism
\n\u2022 Rejection of Authority
\n\u2022 More Power for Media
\n \u2022 Importance of Spontaneity
\n\u2022 Personal Creativity
\n\u2022 Everyday Ethics
\n\u2022 Discriminating Consumerism
\n\u2022 Meaningful Moments
\n\u2022 Flexible Gender Identity
\n\u2022 Deconsumption
\n\u2022 Rejection of Order
\n\u2022 Strategic Consumption
\n\u2022 Racial Fusion
\n\u2022 Largesse Oblige
\n\u2022 Social Responsibility <\/p>\n

Each of these values has a specific meaning according to the American Environics taxonomy, but one thing that is immediately evident from the list above is that modern value systems are complex. People hold very diverse worldviews and they arrive at those beliefs in various ways, which makes understanding human nature a difficult task. But understand it we must, if we intend to effect real change for non-human animals. Moreover, advocates should realize that it’s neither wise nor tenable to try to change human nature. Rather, our goal should be to create messages and policies that appeal to the values most deeply held by our target audiences. <\/p>\n

“Target audience” is a phrase that comes up frequently in these posts. Depending on what animal issues you work on, your target audience might be very narrow, but more likely it’s fairly broad (e.g., pet owners, meat consumers, etc.). Whichever the case, advocates must work hard to understand their audience and tailor their appeals based on the audience’s current values and behavior. If the audience is very large, segment it into smaller groups based on shared values, current behavior, and\/or the means by which you plan to reach them. Remember: it’s not a “one size fits all” kind of world and your messages don’t have the same appeal for everyone. <\/p>\n

One final thought: The animal advocacy community will always have its pragmatists, purists, and pundits (myself included, most likely), and in general the diversity is probably a good thing. But let’s try to limit the internal dialogue to what’s most effective and, more importantly, stay focused on our target audiences. I’m sure we can all agree that our foremost obligation is to animals, which means our energy is better spent understanding and persuading the population at large (our “target audience”) rather than debating each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The final part in a five-part of serialization of The Death of Animal Rights<\/a> published by the Humane Research Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Avoid Premature Demise Borrowing again from Shellenberger and Nordhaus: If environmentalists hope to become more than a special interest we must start framing our proposals around core American values. We must start seeing our own values as central … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[11,33],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organising","category-thinking","tag-animal-protection-movement","tag-thought-for-the-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grumpyvegan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}