Part II: The History of Animal Rights

Continued from Part I: The History of Animal Rights…

With the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment in the 16th to 18th centuries, the influence of the church waned as reason and modern science began to ascend, but unfortunately, this was not good news for animals, and signaled the beginning of a much more ferocious exploitation of them for scientific experimentation, as well as for entertainment, clothing, products, and, of course, food. While there had been some modicum of respect for and protection of animals as God’s creatures under the old order, under the new materialism, they were reduced to mere resources and commodities in the clutches of a surging industrialism and population expansion of omnivorous humans that continues unabated to this day, and is threatening all animals, and indeed all of nature and even humanity itself, with destruction and perhaps complete annihilation.

The cross-currents of intercultural dialog have always served to help people question the official story of their culture, and in the 19th and 20th centuries, we saw this happen in the striking rebirth of vegetarianism and animal protection, inspired to a great degree by the rediscovery of Eastern thought in Europe and North America. With the translation of ancient Buddhist and Jain sutras, as well as the Upanishads, Vedas, Tao Te Ching, and other Indian and Chinese texts, as well as the discovery of vast populations thriving on essentially plant-based diets, more people in the West began to question the routine violence toward animals that characterized their culture. The word vegetarian was coined in 1850 to replace the old word Pythagorean, and experimenting with and promoting vegetarianism became popular with many influential writers such as Shelley, Byron, Shaw, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Alcott, Besant, Blavatsky, Tolstoy, and Gandhi, among others. There was also a Christian strand as well, with several church leaders such as William Cowherd in England and his protégé in America, William Metcalfe, advocating compassion for animals, with some, like Ellen White of the Seventh Day Adventists and Charles and Myrtle Fillmore of Unity School of Christianity advocating a the main tenets of veganism forty years before the word was invented. They were aided in this by the pioneering work of early vegetarian proponents like Graham, Post, and Kellogg who raised consciousness about the health benefits of plant-based eating, as well as the animal cruelty involved, and also by the efforts of the first animal protection societies such as the RSPCA, ASPCA, and the Humane Society.

In 1944 Donald Watson in England strengthened the foundation for the modern animal rights movement by coining the word vegan and founding the Vegan Society in London, directly challenging the official story and the underlying core of our culture. He defined veganism as “a philosophy and way of life which seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.” Thus the vegan movement was born as a continuing manifestation of the ancient and universal wisdom teaching of ahimsa, and is at the heart of today’s animal rights movement.

In the decades since, there have been many books and studies written, many organizations and periodicals founded, many documentaries filmed and websites created as part of humanity’s effort to reduce our violence toward animals. Veganism and animal rights issues are becoming increasingly mainstream as a result of all these efforts, and the momentum continues to build in spite of enormous resistance by all the institutions in our culture, and in spite of the difficulties in responding to pervasive cultural hostility and the complexity of the issues involved. For example, it is increasingly clear today that our violence toward animals is a primary driving force behind environmental devastation, physical and psychological illness, war, hunger, inequity, and social violence, besides being ethically wrong. Groups and individuals align themselves with and promote the animal rights agenda for varying combinations of these factors, depending on their predilections, and so there are a number of competing perspectives.

We live at a time of immense and growing crisis that gives us unprecedented opportunities. The old complacency is being stripped away by the multidimensional crisis facing our culture. More and more people are realizing that the only viable future for humanity is a vegan future. Rather than negotiating with the suppliers of animal cruelty, we can see from the wisdom of those who have gone before us that the real power we have is in reducing the demand for animal foods and products by raising consciousness and educating and encouraging people to reduce and eliminate animal-sourced foods and products. Thankfully, we see this happening today with the proliferation of both secular national, international, regional, and grass-roots groups and efforts to spread vegan ideals and practices, and also, increasingly, religious and spiritual groups and efforts that are similarly doing this.

This is the way forward. The idea of ahimsa and the idea of veganism are so powerful because they resonate with the core of our true nature as beings of love, awareness, creativity, sensitivity, and compassion. Donald Watson and the other sages that have gone before us have planted a seed deep into the core of the obsolete story that has mired and encrusted our culture and that threatens to destroy all life on this planet. As we each water that seed and plant our own seeds, a new garden of compassion will grow that will inevitably break the bonds of violence that enslave all of us. People will realize that as we have enslaved animals, we have enslaved ourselves.