PETA Gets Fishy
PETA and Joaquin Phoenix have recently conspired to draw attention to fish sentience. Fish, like the cows and pigs and chickens that we unthinkingly eat, matter. They deserve moral consideration. The video driving this point home shows Phoenix sinking into a body of water, panicking, and downing. Phoenix’s 40-second demise into the aqueous depths is hard to forget. So much so that last night I had a dream/nightmare in which I caught a salmon off a bridge and was unable to get the hook out of the fish’s mouth. I guess you could say the message left an impression. Here’s the video.
Such PETA ads are common. They tend, moreover, to evoke a great deal of chatter within vegan circles. Do they work? Who do they intend to reach? Why focus only on fish? Why does PETA have such a celebrity fetish? How does Phoenix’s hair manage to look so good even under water? You know, big and important questions.
When I first became involved in vegan activism I found myself spending a lot of time, and doing a great deal of reading, trying to figure out ways to deconstruct (slam) PETA. I did this even though, in my wallet, there sat a PETA membership card. As many readers are likely aware, there’s sort of a cottage industry within the “vegan movement” that trades in PETA bashing. For a while I found it a useful industry. For the record, I’ve written some pretty harsh stuff about PETA (and, when warranted, will continue to do so).
Over time, though, I’m coming to a conclusion that’s becoming part of my foundation as an activist. I’m reaching the conclusion that, while every organization dedicated to helping animals is bound to have serious flaws, our time as activists can be better spent than condemning those organizations. I realize that many activists will look at (for example) PETA’s record of slaughtering unwanted sheltered animals and, then and there, deem the organization the essence of evil. This, as I have come to see it, is the easy, black-and-white response. A far more difficult emotional and intellectual task is to balance that dismissive response with the potential number of people Joaquin Phoenix’s fake drowning may have convinced to start thinking about fish suffering. Who else is out there doing that kind of work with such a high-profiled reach? Such tradeoffs are what activism, not to mention life, is all about.
I’m neither supporting nor condemning PETA. Mainly because I don’t see the point. A far more productive approach, in my humble and admittedly inexperienced opinion, is to acknowledge that institutions qua institutions are always going to disappoint and, with that in mind, criticize PETA when it does something rankly stupid and praise PETA when it does something nobly effective, like having a famous movie star fake a drowning in order to draw attention to a cause that very few omnivores ever considered to consider.
tomorrow: what Marxism can teach veganism
I abhor peta, and: they’re probably 80% of the reason I became vegan. Like many things in life, I live with that contradiction. Plus, I agree that it’s pretty much a waste of time even thinking about them. But, they’re still kinda dumb, a little evil and not harmless/benign. But all the hatred in the world doesn’t change them, it just brings them more attention and in doing so, keeps them alive.
Thanks for raising this issue James.
And thanks as well for your choice of the word “slaughter” because that is what it in fact is. You also might have mentioned PETA’s virulent misogyny which is almost as disturbing as the “killing animals to spare them suffering” fetish. Both point to a disturbing hermeticism that reeks of cultism at the higher echelons of the organization.
On the other hand the contribution that Ingrid Newkirk has made to wide spread growing awareness of the suffering we inflict on our fellow sentients could hardly be overstated. And I personally found two of her most controversial campaigns (the holocaust and the human slavery analogies) to be stunningly spot-on.
Hanging around criticizing PETA doesn’t seem particularly productive. People will come away with different opinions based on the video — some of those opinions may sway people to reduce or perhaps even discontinue their fish consumption.
A friend of mine has a saying: People are like dogs, some get along and some don’t. Possibly it’s the same with organizations, but at least PETA is trying. That’s what we’re told in school (and just about any other facet of life) just keep trying.
Mixed feelings about PETA aside, this is not that bad unless the viewer resents reductive attempts to manipulate him or her.
My read of this vid shows an attempt to convey the meaning of alterity (if not the term) to the audience by analogy. The dramatic crisis — will Joaquin drown? — forces the audience to decide if they have empathy for Joaquin whose identity and Umwelt has now been interchanged with a fish out of water. The media construct involved and implicated here follows essentially the same structure as the famous “Daisy” commercial used by Lyndon Johnson. The ad asks us to accept the analogy in terms of how humans perceive the world — and so from an HAS standpoint I argue this is of limited value other than a 30 second agitprop ad. I will spare everyone a discussion of similarities and differences between humans and fish-ees in cognitive ethology and under a Wittgenstein-based analysis.
Alterity is not the same as empathy, nor is empathy the only means to consider alterity. So why the hell does everyone think empathy is so important? Humans destroy nature without feeling, can’t they care about nature without feeling?
John wrote, “So why the hell does everyone think empathy is so important? Humans destroy nature without feeling, can’t they care about nature without feeling?”
I think feeling, in one form or another, is inherent in even the most callous acts. But, as one example of the care/empathy relationship, most federal and state wildlife departments care about population numbers, they care about habitat preservation, they care about curbing development. Without the empathy portion, however, the “care” is easily translated to cull or control when species violate pre-ordained parameters. I think empathy is important to transcend the sometimes drastic and cold limitations of reason. Marti Kheel talks about this in her book, Nature Ethics.
Some people love PETA, some people hate PETA. Others, like, me have mixed feelings about PETA. They must be doing something right.
As for this type of media as an activist technique: at the very least, it puts the question in people’s minds. And yes, that is important. Most people haven’t even bothered to think about it.
It reminds me a bit of when people ask me why I don’t eat dairy or eggs. (They “get” on a visceral level why I don’t eat meat.) I explain to worldly, college-educated (sometimes so educated they are professors themselves) people the reality that a dairy cow and her calf goes through to produce that milk. To my astonishment, they didn’t understand that a cow has to be impregnated time-after-time to get that milk and that her calf, if male, is useless. This is always astonishing to me that they didn’t know this, however, if I think back, I didn’t understand it either for all those years that I was a vegetarian.
The point is, after I have told them, it is in their minds. It hasn’t convinced anyone, that I am aware of, to go vegan or stop eating dairy to my knowledge. I see these very same people happily downing their yogurt and cheese, however, who knows if someday the reality of their actions may sink in. At least I’ve put it in a mind where it wasn’t before.
That’s how I feel about this PETA video.
so everything in activism is affect?
Perhaps. I suppose, as you stated in you post, one could come to a decision about their behavior without empathy, but as humans, I think we find it very hard to make life altering decisions without emotion coming into play. Even if we intellectually say, “It is in my self interest to try and do something about global warming,” I can’t imagine there isn’t some emotion about it at play. It may not be empathy, but our emotions and our intellect are so intertwined, one would have to be a Vulcan, or perhaps on the Autism scale, not to have emotions about things they intellectualize about.
Everything in everything is affect; why else live, love, act, mate, eat, run, play scrabble, drink beer, read, write, raise children, or look at trees? Even avoiding affect is affect.
That is certainly the current dogma on affect theory. But my comments were within the context of activist attempts to change minds. Do we always make a visceral appeal to the emotions of the audience or is it possible to reason with them? I take it you think/feel/believe it all comes down to emotion?
Lori – I agree with you. It doesn’t seem to matter what someone’s intellectual capacity is as far as vegan activism. The ability to reason does not compute when someone is delusional, under the spell of lifelong social mores. If it were a factor then most vegans and vegan activists would be the smartest people we know. But are they? The singular distinction that they seem to have in common an awareness, a waking up (as it has often been described) combined with empathy (for staying power and further awareness).
A few years ago, sitting at a sushi bar as a non-vegan, I listened to the sushi chef describe how he had killed the fish that we were eating. It got very uncomfortable to hear how this fish contained in the small glass box in the center of the kitchen watched everyone with its large eyes. The chef explained that after spending nearly a day with this fish that he began to feel very uncomfortable with the idea of killing him because he had sort of begun to bond with him (this sushi bar was close to closing down and the chef was there day and night to keep it alive). He was reluctant to describe it as bonding but he was obviously uncomfortable talking about it.
Maybe the larger the fish’s eyes, whereby they watch and respond to movements visually, allows humans to empathize more with them? Remember those paintings of waifs with big eyes?
So true, Jennifer. Your story touched me. I am convinced of the power of story!
I’ve never considered them as even possibly independent of each other.
Quite right.
While PETA continues to do the “State of the Union Undress” (porn videos) and other similar things,
I don’t pay attention to their other messages, or pass them on to others. My time is better spent elsewhere.
I’ve always thought of PETA as the crazy uncle or aunt that you always invite for the mandatory holiday family dinner. You’re never quite sure what they’ll say at the table after the wine’s been consumed–whether what they say or do will be insulting or absolutely brilliant–but you wouldn’t want to miss it because everyone will talk (and argue) about it no matter which outcome occurs. For better or worse, they’re a part of this struggle we all belong to and crazy ideas or no, they do get the attention of young people and plant the seeds for activism, something some of the groups with a more mature nuance fail to do.