Abolitionist value Life isnt simple. Reality isnt black & white.

In most cases, most of the time there are more than two simple opposite options, and more often than not quantity becomes quality with just a gradual increment of degree. You can be alive or dead, but also in many stages in between (in a comma, in a cryogenic state, under a cardiac arrest, watching daytime television). You can be an animal or a mineral but also a vegetableor a fungus, a bacterium, a virus or even a prion (a simple replicating protein that can infect organisms as a virus does). It may be sunny or it may be rainingor it may be mistyor it may be smoggy. However, reality isnt coloured either. Most galaxies appear read because we see them moving away from us, but they would appear blue if looked from the other side. Some animals see colours like us, others see different colours than us, and others dont seem to see any colour at all, and yet all have their perfectly functioning realities to interact with, based on the same Universe. Most plants are green to photosynthesize food, but then some are red or yellow and can still do it. Most animals blood is red because of the oxygen grabbing haemoglobin, but then in some is actually blue or green. The sky seems blue, but thats just an illusion. The setting sun seems orange, but thats just an impression. Some skins seem pink, but are they really? And what is the colour of a mongrel dog running very fast in a car park in a cloudy afternoon? In fact, reality is beige. Its black, white, grey, red, blue, green, yellow, pinkall colours fighting with each other. Yes, beige, that colour we all despite. We dont like the fact that is so universal, so indefinable, so indescribable. We know the Universe is complex, but we like it simple, and this is why we have Science to make a manageable edited version of it. We polarise everything, because our brains are very primitive organs with a relative small computational power and if we keep the beige on all the time they may easily fry up. Think about watching an analogue colour TV set. Using the right knob or button, if we gradually remove the colour we still can follow any reality broadcasted in it, even if there is no colour left. However, if we gradually remove any contrast (the difference between black and white) eventually such reality seems to disappear, despite the fact the same image is still received by the set. We do have brains operating in an analogue black & white architecture that forces us to simplify reality. This is why we prefer to see a couple as marry or divorced, a student as a pupil or a teacher, a parent as a father or a mother, or a government as fascist or communist. This is why we prefer to see an animalist campaign as abolitionist or reformist. But we know there is more than that. There are unengageable boyfriends, beneficial friends, unemployed post-graduates, legal guardians, experimental bisexuals, enemy combatants, liberal democrats, and voting teenagers. They are, too, reformist abolitionists, and Im actually one of them. Dont rush to judgement now. By having declared myself a reformist abolitionist, dont brand me as new-welfarist, or as pseudo-abolitionist. I am not a reformist that uses occasionally abolitionism. I am not a reformist that

disguises his discourse with an abolitionist tone, or vice versa. I am an abolitionist that sometimes uses reformist tactics to achieve abolitionist goals, and I can do that thanks to what I call abolitionist value. This is how this concept works. The world is beige, but our brains work better in black & white, so we devise clear principles or goals to use them as flags, so people can identify them, gather around them, and march in socio-political journeys being lead by them, as standards in ancient military campaigns. So, when facing a social struggle aimed to change the status quo, the best course of action is to choose a distinguishable enough flag, keep it high as a standard to help guide people wishing to join you in your journey, but at the same time negotiate the terrain down below while holding it. In such a beige foggy status quo, we need those flags to stand up and shine as beacons to illuminate our journey towards our destination, but we also need to pay close attention to where we put our feet to avoid tripping over and to negotiate successfully any obstacle we may encounter in our way. Constantly assessing the relative value of the terrain we walk on in relation to our final objective is how we pay attention to it. For me, in animal protection the flag has to be abolition: stop forever the abuses and exploitation of animals. This is what lights the way in the animal protection struggle. Stopping abuse forever is not as a matter of opinion, a matter of style, or a matter of convenience, but is a matter of rights, a matter of law. We need that flag to know where we are going, to find our way when we get lost, and to rally our troops towards the right direction. But we often need to march on a very uneven terrain with many obstacles, and this may call for the skill and experience of seasoned activists, campaigners and lobbyists, who may need to read the grounds to choose the best possible routes. Sometimes we need to walk exhaustingly on uphill mountains, sometimes through painstakingly slow water-locked marshes, sometimes over dangerous quick-sandy pits, sometimes through frustrating impenetrable thickets. In doing so, we may need to stop waving the flag for a moment or two, and perhaps carry it for a while in our backpacks, if we dont want to lose it and we want to free our hands to help us to overcome the most difficult and challenging obstacles. But we should never abandon it, we should never forget about it, because without the flag, we may become just flaky wanderers aimlessly doodling through life like a balloon that is no longer hold. The problem is that, so rare are the flat smooth paths in our journey that we spend a lot of time crawling rather than marching, so we do often forget about the flag we needed to wave every now and then. But if we remember it all the time, if we always try to read the abolitionist value of each step we take and each crevice of the terrain we pass by, we will be able to chose the path that carries the most abolitionist value of all, and still find our way without having to wave ceremoniously the flag all the time. The method works, but the devil is in the detail.

How can we measure abolitionist value of an action? Well, we need to project into the future the long term consequences of the action we are assessing, to see if something that is bad (what we are trying to abolish) has then stopped foreveror its closer to stop forever thanks to such action. We may need to deconstruct the bad thing into its components and see if the action will stop any of the important ones. We may need to analyse the genesis of the bad thing and see if the action will stop one of its main causes. We may need to identify the actors performing the bad thing and see if the action will make them stop doing it. And then we judge: if in all probability we believe, in accordance of what we know about the subject, that the action in question will not stop the bad thing happening, will not substantially reduce its occurrence or frequency, or if it does it only does it temporarily and in a very low degree, then such action has a very small abolitionist value. If, on the contrary, eventually the action will definitively stop the bad thing completely everywhere and forever, then it has a very high abolitionist value. However, unfortunately most actions will fall in between, so a great deal of good judging will be required. It seems then that we need three things to make such judgement properly: good imagination to be able to project actions into the future and see their likely consequences, deep knowledge about the bad thing to be able to understand its causes, constituents and actors, and, most importantly, good understanding of what really means abolishing something. The latter seems obvious, but its not. Nothing that has been abolished has disappeared completely from the face of the Earth. There are residuals of slavery in the world, as there are residuals of Apartheid in South Africa, or of monarchy in republics, but as long as the activity rarely occurs, its rejected by the immense majority of the population for generations, and laws have been passed and enforced which drives it underground, we can say that abolition is being achieved. However, if the activity in question is made illegal but bans remain unenforced and the activity remains mainstream and acceptable by considerable sections of society, then there is much work to do. Lets use an example: Bad thing= slavery. Action = lobby for a ban of the trade of slaves. Is the abolitionist value of such action high? Well, lets project it into the future. If people cannot trade slaves, will slavery end? Well, lets see what we know about slavery. We know that there are several types of slaves, the ones taken after conquest of foreign land, the ones born from other slaves, and the ones bought from slave traders. If we ban the trade we stop the creation of the third group straight away. Is this significant enough? If they represent the most important groups it will be, but one would expect that captive born slaves would be the majority. However, if you cannot trade between slave owners, the stock of your own captive born slaves will weaken over time, and eventually it will be significantly depleted. Also, if you obtain new slaves from a conquest, you will not be able to sell them when you come back home, so it may turn out that they become an economic burden to you since they were very expensive to obtain, are more difficult to manage for being born in their native land, so they are less tamed and they may be less productive still set in their old ways. It does seem thattrading is the key verb to maintain slavery. Since slavery is

an economic practice, trading seems more important to its subsistence than owning is, which is what defines the theoretical concept of slavery (see how understanding the bad thing may give you a completely different perspective of it?). Therefore, abolishing the trade of slavery will, most probably, reduce considerably the practice of slavery, if not stopping it altogether. Lobbying for a ban (a legal instrument to stop something and punish those that want to continue practicing it) of the slave trade is, then, an action with high abolitionist value. This was an historical example. But, was it? In no moment I specified that I was talking about human salves. If I had, I could have been talking about the historical case of William Wilberforce MPs successful campaign to ban the human slave trade in the British Empire, which did play a very significant role in the abolition of slavery and he was someone that never lost his grip of the abolitionist flag. But I hadnt. I was thinking in the contemporary zoo world, and the slaving of wild animals for the entertainment, conservation, educational and research industries. Would lobby for a ban of the trade of wild animals have a high abolitionist value regarding the abolition of zoos? It would. Has this ban already been in place anywhere? Not quite. We do have bans of obtaining fresh new slaves from the wild, but only if they belong to endangered species. However, zoos are allowed to capture specimens of non-endangered species in the wild, trade with them (for profit or not), and actually trade with any captive born wild animal, regardless of the species. Was the banning of the trade of wildcaught endangered species a bad thing, then? No, it wasnt, because it does have some abolitionist value. It does reduce the frequency and occurrence of captive wild animal exhibits, so it does have some value. But banning the trade of any wild-caught animal would have more abolitionist value, and banning the trade of any wild animals even more. All these actions, then, have certain abolitionist value, and therefore they are all genuine options to choose in our abolitionist journey. But some have more abolitionist value than others, so, if we can manage in other words, if it is practical, which is not the same than convenient we should always chose those with the most abolitionist value possible. Practical? Is this not one of those caveats that really mean but we dont really mean it? No, its not. We should not confuse practical with pragmatism. The former is just an attribute of something that can possible happen since the logistics required for its happening are in place. The latter is a completely new flag. A pragmatist is someone that advocates pragmatism, not someone that is practical. Everyone that does things is practical, and any event already done was practical because it happened (the opposite would be theoretical or hypothetical). A pragmatist, on the other hand, is an advocate of a particular way to resolve conflicts. A pragmatist chooses always the middle way of the conflict, never one extreme. He/she avoids the conflict by always choosing the option that will require the minimum effort, and will satisfy most of the parties. A pragmatist is not driven by high morals or principles shining in the horizon. A pragmatist is driven by the nuances and cracks felt through the soles of his/her feet, and simply bends with the wind and roles with the punches. A pragmatist

verb of choice is always compromise. They dont push through. They dont drive across. They adapt, they resign, they allow. Pragmatists dont usually change the status quo; they normally work for it when revolution knocks. However, when the animals wellbeing (and their lives) is at stake, there isnt an acceptable middle way. There shouldnt be compromise between exploitionists and abolitionists, as there shouldnt be any between rapists and their victims, or slave owners and their slaves, because this is a situation between abusers and abusees (or their representatives), and this completely changes the paradigm of the rules of engagement in conflict resolution. There is a role for pragmatists in many areas of human enterprise, or even in human conflict when both parties are equal and no abuse takes place of one by the other, but there is no room for pragmatists as such in the animalist side of the animal protection debate, although there is plenty for practical and realistic animalists that chose real short term solutions rather than only endless theoretical discussions. One can be pragmatist because of a weakness of character (or strength if you are looking it from a trader or diplomat point of view), and I suppose that can be corrected with moral guidance and perhaps a change of profession. But in abolitionism those that consider themselves advocates of Pragmatism they have gone too far, since they have transferred such relative principled weakness into a flag, which may recruit others naively enough to believe that its another just cause driven flag, as many others. It isnt, since an advocate of Pragmatism with capital P cannot have a moral compass. The wind will tell him/her in which direction to go, in which direction to bend. One day may be in one direction, and the next in the opposite. An advocate of Pragmatism is, in fact, that air loosing balloon we let go it will move in all directions and eventually will fall dead on the floor. Some animalist abolitionists never let go of their abolitionist flag and they keep it high even in the middle of a hurricane, even if that makes them advance more slowly and trip more often. That is OK and also admirable. Other abolitionist shift continuously the position of their flag depending on the terrain and on the weather during their journey, and this also OK since they never abandon the flag and simply use the abolitionist value of the terrain to navigate towards the right direction, but its also intelligent since they can advance even faster in the right circumstances if they are skilful enough. Others, however, may have decided to leave the flag behind, and take the Pragmatism flag instead. For me, thats not OK. So, yes; there are lines that I wouldnt cross. I wouldnt like to leave the readers of this blog with a parochial Kumbayahn feeling induced by my constant attempts to find reconciliation between apparent opposite animalists positions. I do fell that most of us are indeed going in the same journey and it doesnt matter that much how we decide to go along with it, and how fast we intend to travel; we should tolerate this diversity, and welcome it. But for me, those that consistently go backwards despite warnings or that only go where the wind takes them and they do that by choice are abandoning the journey, and should

no longer be considered part of our travelling party. They may not be fully fletched explitiationists yet who deliberately chose actions with a negative abolitionist value but they may be getting awfully close to become one of them if they are not careful, since the abolition value of their steps is most of the time close to zero. I can put some concrete examples on the table since I feel I may have overused a little my favourite abstractions and analogies. One clear case would be an organization or group that, for convenience or to attract more members, changes from advocating veganism to advocate only vegetarianism and then describes vegan groups as extremist. This for me would be a definitive step backwards; there is very little abolitionist value in this step. However, I wouldnt include in this those groups that always have advocated vegetarianism, since I consider them as having started the journey a bit late, and at some point in the future they may mature enough so they can begin to advocate for veganism as the rest of us. I have personally boycotted the attendance of international animal protection congresses that suddenly changed their meals policy from vegan to vegetarian-with-vegan-options, while I would gladly attend a meeting of the International Vegetarian Society (not to be confused with the Vegan society) even if they served vegetarian food rather than only vegan, and more now since I was made aware recently that they acquired an all-vegan meal policy a few years back, definitively a step in the right direction. Another example would be charities with campaigns that seem to aim to solve a particular animal issue, but in reality these are purely marketing driven campaigns aimed to get donations or names to be added to a database used to ask for donations in the future. If the funds such actions gathered do end up contributing to some actual campaigns that have certain abolitionist value (not just regulatory reforms), that would be acceptable to me, but if they only are used to viciously pay the salaries of the same marketers of the organization in question, then the abolitionist value is close to zero. In the past I have personally resigned my employment from big animal protection organizations I have work with when I felt that the balance between marketing and campaigning had been broken in favour of the former, but I wouldnt hesitate to work with them again if such balance would be corrected. Even when I worked for such organizations which had always defined themselves as animal welfare organizations I only worked on their campaigns that had the biggest abolitionist value among all those they run, and when I did I tried to use the most abolitionist tactics I could devise. Examples of animal actions of negative abolitionist values could be conservation campaigns for the regulation of hunting or fishing made by organizations representing hunters/fishermens interests in recovering the populations of their disappearing quarry, or the culling of individuals of invading wild species to protect the autochthonous ones (the case of the hedgehogs cull in the Scottish Western Islands springs to mind).

I am a reformist abolitionist but not a pragmatist. This means that I never abandon my abolitionist goals, but on occasions (not very often) I use reformist tactics if they have sufficient abolitionist value and I cannot see any more practical alternative option (meaning possible, not convenient). I avoid participating in reforms that are just regulations. I only participate in reforms that can change the practice of the bad thing reducing its occurrence and frequency, or increasing the chances that it will be stopped altogether by reducing the number of actors or putting more obstacles in their way. And when I do, more than ever I wave the abolitionist flag, so nobody gets confused about my intentions. What I never do it to wave the Pragmatism flag, or hide the abolitionist flag as a pirate who disguises himself under the Navys colours to sneak in towards his booty. I am practical, but uncompromising. I am realistic, but ethical. I am tactical, but consistent. I welcome everyone that travels in the abolitionist journey no matter how slowly and how late they joined us, but I dont join those that go consistently backwards or have deliberately abandoned the abolitionist principles when they should know better. In this beige world, this is how I find my own abolitionist reconciliation.

Jaysee Costa http://abolitionistreconciliation.blogspot.com/