On the Efficacy of Vegan Marches

I wonder if these marches manage to convince enough people to reduce their meat consumption to offset the ill will that they possibly sow.

While wandering around in London’s Piccadilly Circus neighborhood, I stumbled upon what I later learned to be the National Animal Rights March. A sizable gathering of colorful and impassioned people, young and old, were marching down the street with signs and banners, advocating greater sensibilities for the treatment of animals and a wholesale prohibition on the consumption of animal meat.

Standing on the sidewalk as a spectator, I wondered how this scene would be received by the average passerby, and then again by the vaguely politically centrist Western adult whose value system is vulnerable to rational argument, but who also enjoys a juicy hamburger every now and then. The goals of such marches are noble and straightforward enough: an increased concern for animal well-being, cashed out by a reduction in the consumption of animal meat and improved conditions for animals raised for slaughter. But in that moment, I felt that the spirit of these goals was lost amidst the thunderous pounding of drums and the clamor of their chants and rallying cries.

Having tried to give up or at least greatly reduce my intake of meat, I am sympathetic to the vegan cause, but this style of advocacy makes one hesitate. Bombast taken to the street in this way seems to place the otherwise blameless onlooker on the receiving end of disproportionately severe moral reproof, with the signs and placards carried by these protesters covered in images of blood-letting and strongly-worded accusations leveled at society of moral degeneracy. It seems far-fetched to imagine that the average person witnessing this display digests these judgments willingly for the sake of their own incrimination. The more likely reaction is indignation, fueled by the sourness of being judged harshly for a crime one didn’t commit or at least intend to commit. Even if I’m wrong on this account, I imagine there are still a lot of people who look upon such spectacle with disgust, if merely for its unsightliness and fanaticism.

One wonders whether there is more harm being done here than good. Is there not a style of activism with the gravitas to make one pause and consider the real issue with animal welfare? The link between consciousness and suffering is not difficult to intuit. From there, it’s a small jump to establish that most animal farming practices visit a world of suffering on anything more neurologically complex than a mouse. Surely, there must be a way to strike the tone of a measured plea, and to calmly appeal to reason and compassion without drumming up (literally) so much agitation.

These marches manage to bring awareness to the very real atrocities in our factory farms, and admittedly, many of the slogans seem to make honest attempts to appeal to one’s sense of compassion. One must also acknowledge that many hard-fought battles in the realm of civil discourse could not have been won without a little boisterous public protest. However, if we’ve learned anything from our experiment running social media on society at large, terse, pithy slogans and witty pseudo-aphorisms delivered with incensed fervor tend to send our adversaries deeper into their nests. And so it seems the project of turning society’s attention on animal well-being risks muddying its message, all the while blocking downtown traffic and visiting a cacophony upon everyone in its path.

For now, I will continue to donate to Giving What We Can’s animal welfare fund.