Our language is a window into the way we think.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
The way we think about nonhumans informs the way we speak about them, and the way we speak about them influences the way others think about them. And finally, that influences how they act towards them. So we can see that our language is vital in taking not just the first but many important steps towards ceasing to harm them.
Carefully choosing the words we use is incredibly important. If you’ve ever had someone make a completely inadvertently insensitive remark in your presence and you’ve been offended, or even if you’ve been blatantly insulted on purpose, you know exactly what I mean. And yet, pretty much every one of us has made a slip like the former at one time or another, and most of us have intentionally done the latter. The hallmark of a truly wise person is how they learn and grow from their mistakes. Criticism -the constructive kind, naturally- is a valuable tool in helping us learn and grow.
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Part 1: The Vocabulary Of Speciesism
Part 1a: Establishing Our Moral Agreement
The first part of this post is about how we refer to nonhuman animals in our daily language. But before I get into examples, I’d like to pose a question: Do you think animals matter morally? I’m going to assume -for the sake of argument- that you’ve already read at least one of my pieces on our moral obligation to live Vegan and stop our “physical” (as opposed to what we would call “verbal”) violence towards nonhumans. If not, please read something here, here or here and then come back to finish this essay. If you merely need a definition for speciesism, the gist is when a human animal places a different moral value on a member or group of members of one species than we do on another species, merely because of the morally irrelevant criteria of their species membership. This includes thinking that the human species is morally superior to any nonhuman species (“anthropo-centrism” aka “human supremacy”), and also that any nonhuman species is morally superior to any other nonhuman species. To understand why this is problematic from a moral perspective, go ahead and read one of the above-linked items.
If you do think that nonhumans have moral status of any kind, then you should want the intentional suffering and death inflicted on them by humans to decrease, shouldn’t you? And if you want that to happen -as a way of effecting that you- should want others to feel that way as well, shouldn’t you? And if you want that, then it only makes sense for you to think and talk as though nonhumans have moral status. Which is why using the correct words in referring to them only makes sense, right? In other words, we don’t want to give other people the wrong impression, and so cause them to get the wrong idea, which they would then logically act on by committing wrongs on sentient beings.
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Part 1b: Pronouns And Other Such Problems
I’ve seen a lot of people in our current speciesist, morally confused societal paradigm use extremely problematic words to refer to nonhumans. And I’m even talking about people who “rescue” animals and claim they have moral concern for animals; even some people who call themselves Vegans. Words like “it,” “that,” “thing,” “where,” etc. As in, “I saw a pig, it was running across the street,” “I saw a cute pig that was running across the street,” or “We should respect the rights of every living thing that feels pain, even pigs that are running across a busy street,” or “Where did this meat come from? Did it come from the pig that was killed while running across the street?” etc.
If we think that nonhumans matter morally (and so we want others to consider them as beings who are morally worthy of not having their rights violated) we should recognize that -in any discussion that refers to others who we consider worthy of moral concern (aka “moral discussion”)- beings who can feel pain (which is what we mean by “sentient beings“) are completely different from insentient objects, that can’t. Words like “it,” “that,” and “thing” are used to refer to insentient objects, such as rocks, metal, plastic, and trees. These are objects –whether they are “living” or not- that cannot be proven to feel pain and therefore are not owed any moral weight by us; as opposed to subjects, to whom we do owe our moral concern. Before anyone reading this is tempted to argue that plants are sentient beings, read this or this, and understand that I’m not interested in that debate at all.
In regards to moral discussions, nonhuman animals are considered sentient beings and so should be referred to as “she,” “he,” “her,” “him,” “they,” “them,” “who,” and “being,” etc. As in “I saw a pig, they were running across the street,” “I saw a cute pig who was running across the street,” “we should respect the rights of every living being who feels pain, even pigs who are running across a busy street” or “who did that oink come from? Did it come from the pig who was running across the street?”
The fact that we use the same pronouns for nonhuman animals as we do for inanimate objects and that we would not use for human animals under the same circumstances shows a profound lack of respect for nonhumans.
Note: Some people have criticized this word choice by claiming that it makes no sense to use the pronoun “they” when the singular subject’s gender is in doubt. Really, it makes all the sense in the world. It may be awkward in our mouths when unpracticed, but it works well enough for us to use it every day for humans who are oppressed -when their gender is in doubt- and so it should work for us. People have criticized this choice of wording by saying that using “they” is confusing because it implies plurality, as in more than one human or nonhuman. This is patently false in any case where it’s already been established how many beings are the subject of a sentence. When we’ve already established that we’re only talking about someone –and not more than one someones- there is no problem there.
Plus, we already do use it in that way. Think about it: If we were referring to humans, we wouldn’t say “I saw a cloaked and hooded person walk down the street, and then I lost sight of it when it turned into an alleyway.” No. We would say “I saw a cloaked and hooded person walk down the street, and then I lost sight of them when they turned into an alleyway” because the being in question is a “person,” but we have no idea which gender that person is.
Humans are sentient beings, so we usually consider it disrespectful to refer to a “human person” as “it.” But when it comes to nonhuman persons, our speciesist society refuses to grant them the same consideration. This is the way we frame things in our minds so we can turn sentient beings into objects, which is the only way we can reconcile what we know, if we really examine them, to be massive atrocities our society commits daily on those innocents.
Some further criticize our anti-speciesist word choice by giving the example that we commonly refer to human babies as “it.” As in “Mary just had a baby, I wonder which sex it is?” I don’t think this proves that the word “it” should also be used for humans, however. Rather it betrays a lack of respect for children on the part of the speaker. It should become common practice for us to say “I wonder which sex they are?” or even better “I wonder what their sex is?” instead (Notwithstanding theories about whether sex even exists or not). Consider the following section of this article (even though I would argue that the author has a wrong view of “the singular they”):
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in the posthumously published Anima Poetae, argued that ‘it’ was the right pronoun for referring to indefinite nouns like ‘everyone’ or ‘the person’, ‘in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently’. Thus: ‘Everyone misplaces its keys.’ Uncanniness results, but Coleridge was undeterred, insisting that ‘both the specific intention and general etymon of “Person” in such sentences, fully authorise the use of it and which instead of, he, she, him, her, who, whom.’ (He was not the first on record to promote the virtues of ‘it’. Someone called Molly Dolan wrote to the Ballyshannon Herald in 1843 that ‘ “IT” is the onely propper pronoun to be applied to an unknown correspondent – the name being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl.’)
Fully authorised by the general etymon or not, few have been taken with the idea of allowing ‘it’ to stand in for humans, at least adult ones. ‘It’ was once commonly used for babies, as in George Eliot’s Silas Marner, in which the baby Eppie is sometimes referred to as ‘it’. More recently, ‘it’ was used on Twitter for a newborn child by an Iraqi doctor who was documenting fatal birth defects caused by the allied forces’ use of depleted uranium during the 2003 invasion. The doctor, who was presumably tweeting in their non-native language, was lambasted by English-speaking Twitter users for ‘dehumanising’ the infant. It apparently didn’t occur to them that they were accusing a doctor of ‘dehumanising’ babies harmed in a war perpetrated by their own countries. They were correct, however, in sensing the power of the pronoun ‘it’ to mock, insult and demean, a use to which it has been put since at least the 16th century. For this reason, ‘it’ is no longer considered apt for babies – or, in the view of people with dogs or cats, for dogs or cats.
In 1792 the Scottish philosopher James Anderson noted that ‘it’ indicated ‘a high degree of contempt’, suggesting instead the gender-neutral pronoun ou, then common in Gloucestershire dialect. Kentucky’s 1850 Constitution declared: ‘The right of the owner of a slave to such slave, and its increase, is ... as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.’ In defence of the Kentucky legislature’s choice of pronoun to refer to slaves, the New York Evening Post wrote that ‘the objectors have forgotten to estimate the effect of colour upon gender’ – which is to say, enslaved women and men were neutered by their blackness. And, genderless, they were mere things.
It may feel strange when we try to retrain ourselves to use non-speciesist terminology in the matter, but that is purely a result of the speciesist conditioning that our society puts us through, not whether it’s “wrong” to use the non-speciesist term.
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Part 1c: The Euphemism, or “A Great Way To Distract You From The Truth”
The second point I’d like to make is about how we talk about the nonhumans who we humans use for our interests. Or more specifically, I’d like to talk about them as well as their flesh and secretions. If we’re going to talk about nonhumans and their rights, let’s be perfectly clear: The term “meat” is really a euphemism meant to divert attention from the real issue, which is that we’re talking about the flesh of a being who is easily provable, using only fact and logic, to be morally equal to any human. An innocent individual being who could feel pain, fear and other sensations, just as much as humans can. An individual who had an interest in their own survival and freedoms just as much as you and I do. The reality is that it’s impossible to obtain the flesh of those beings for us to consume without inflicting unnecessary suffering and death on them. Every land-dwelling nonhuman -as well as many sea-dwelling ones- whose flesh or secretions we consume was forced into existence; all nonhumans we use were exploited, and then slaughtered using violence, and it was completely unnecessary.
Using nonhuman animals for their flesh is also not morally distinguishable from using any sentient being as merely a replaceable resource for any other human purpose either. All forms of exploitation of any animal, nonhuman or human, are equally morally wrong. Furthermore, to distinguish morally between different kinds of exploitation ensures that the people observing our arguments will inflict even more unnecessary suffering and death on nonhumans (and humans) than before.
So we can understand that using the term “meat” to refer to an animal’s flesh is highly problematic from a rights perspective. It creates and reinforces the notion in others that who we’re consuming is merely an inanimate object, completely divorced from the breathing, sentient being who was unnecessarily harmed in order to obtain it. Similarly, words like “pork,” “beef,” “bacon,” “mutton,” “ivory,” “leather,” “wool,” “down,” etc. are equally problematic.
Coats are not made of “leather,” they’re made of the skin of sentient beings who were killed for completely unnecessary reasons. Sweaters are not “wool,” they’re the hair of sentient beings who have immense suffering inflicted on them and are then killed for their flesh when they can’t produce enough hair to be profitable anymore. Pillows aren’t filled with “down,” they’re filled with the feathers of sentient beings who are fully capable of desiring not to be used as resources or killed, and who have been proven to care about their families as much as we human animals care about ours.
When you think about it, the very existence of “cheese” is completely messed up, let alone the word itself. Do we see any other species enslaving other animals so that they can use the milk that rightfully belongs to them and their babies to make “cheese?” Using that word in reference to animal dairy is adding insult (and by extension, further injury) to an already grave injury. These are the lives and secretions of sentient beings; we have a responsibility to the nonhumans who lived and died in humans’ immoral quest for our own palate pleasure to use terms that reflect the truth about what these substances are in actual reality: animal flesh and animal secretions at the very least, products of suffering and death if we want to bring passion to our rhetoric. But never “meat,” “leather,” wool,” “down,” etc.
In addition, Varun Virlan presented this proposition in the Facebook group “Unlearning Speciesism” in the context of addressing the objections by speciesists that “nonhumans don’t care what you call them or what kind of language you use for them, they just want to not be eaten”:
“There are a few problems with this argument, so I will address them:
1. Just because someone does not understand how you are describing or talking about them does not mean you get a free pass to use oppressive language for them. There are humans who do not understand the English language, it does not mean that it is okay to use racist/xenophobic/oppressive language for them (in English).
2. Just focusing on getting humans to stop eating other animals does not end speciesism. Speciesism is taught through our language, our culture, our institutions, and our religions. Unless you do not challenge those oppressive institutions that enable speciesism, other animals won’t be fully liberated.
3. Language creates social norms. For instance, using “it” for other animals normalizes their objectification, and using “meat” for their bodies normalizes the idea that they are consumable.
The point of challenging oppressive & speciesist language is to create a society where objectifying other animals is unacceptable.“
Very wise words.
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Part 1d: Possession Is 9 Points Of The Very Speciesist Law
Also, very similarly to the above point, we should avoid using the term “my,” “mine,” “ours,” etc. when talking about nonhumans. Although they are most certainly our property -in the sense that the laws and conventions of our society render them thus- they are not objects, and thus not our possessions in the moral sense. That distinction is extremely important for us to make in our advocacy. Morally speaking, they are not ours to use; their lives, freedoms, family, and suffering are not ours to exploit; they belong to themselves. So, it’s not “my meat,” – it’s the flesh of an individual who was immorally exploited and caused to suffer and die for unnecessary reasons. To me, the nonhuman animals I rescue and keep in my home are not “my cats” in the sense of me thinking that that belong to me as my mere possessions, they are “my family” in the same way that other humans are my family. They certainly have a relationship to me -as does any human I interact with- and this latter usage is the version of the word “my” that we can use and still observe a sense of justice for them. It’s the only non-speciesist way in which we can refer to nonhumans as being “mine.”
Moreover, we don’t think that it’s necessary to use euphemisms when referring to circumstances where humans have been exploited, oppressed, or otherwise harmed. If a human is intentionally killed by another human merely for selfish reasons, we decry that as “murder.” If a nonhuman suffers the same fate, we call it “putting them down,” or even more divorced from the act, “harvesting.” If a human is used as a replaceable resource to perform unconsenting labor of any kind, we call them “a slave,” but if the victims in question are nonhumans, we call them “livestock,” “units” etc. Discourse about the fact that these terms are intentionally pushed onto the average person as a form of indoctrination -to keep us from thinking about nonhumans as moral persons- could take up an entire essay by itself, but the point is that this is purely speciesism in it’s most obvious form. In fact, these are only a small portion of the instances where speciesist language occurs. Pointing out every instance in just the English language alone could fill an entire book.
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Part 1e: A Little Pejorative Goes A Long Way
Another way in which we use speciesism to reinforce the idea that nonhumans are our moral inferiors is to use terms that pertain to them as pejoratives. To make but one example, we think absolutely nothing of using the terms “bullshit” or “horseshit” to describe something that we find objectionable or a lie. Let me ask the obvious question: why is a male bovine’s excrement morally worse than that of any other being? If it’s not, then why do we need to point out that the thing we find objectionable is like it? This is only the tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to this particular form of speciesist language.
We also use the very names for nonhuman species as pejoratives. This not only demonstrates that we think nonhumans -in general- are morally inferior to us, but also that we have some kind of strange, erroneous idea that all the individuals who make up one species are mentally identical parts of some sort of monolith. As if every animal in a species is part of a hive mind; they can’t act any differently than each other, and are not individuals who have different personalities from one another. This is extremely far from the truth.
When someone is disgusting to us, we call them “a pig.” Pigs are only doing what they need to do to be healthy, it’s not their fault that getting mud and other grime on their skin or having a lot of weight on their bodies is something humans find objectionable. Saying that we should judge them in that way would be like judging whether a jellyfish is sexually attractive by the standards of a giraffe.
To make matters worse, when a pig who is in captivity demonstrates a behavior that we may find disgusting, it’s almost always because we put them in the position to have no choice but to do that. For instance, keeping pigs inside an enclosure instead of letting them roam free forces them to wallow in their own excrement, which we then vilify them for. Pigs are morally innocent and trying to use their characteristics to vilify humans for something that pigs not only aren’t capable of changing but are usually our fault demonstrates our lack of respect for nonhumans in general.
Similarly, we say that someone who is shifty or treacherous is “a snake.” Just like all nonhumans, snakes are morally innocent. Humans are not able to prove that snakes are even capable of betrayal. When snakes harm other animals, they do so largely out of fear/self-defense, the need to eat, or other survival-related needs. Their actions have very little to no relation to our human motives to deceive or betray.
We also project many of the same human qualities onto rats that we do onto snakes. Rats are actually quite capable of strong social bonds, with each other but also with humans and even other species of animals. They have been shown to feel all the same emotions that most mammals do; they are quite caring about their own families as well as complete strangers. Rats have even been shown in (completely immoral) experiments to be willing to suffer in order to keep others from the same fate. Saying that someone who betrays us is “a rat” is ignoring the fact that rats are most likely the last animals who would betray anyone.
When we see humans who have a trait we find objectionable -in this case, a lack of awareness or other such reason that makes them refuse to question authority and merely follow the example of a large group- we call those humans “sheep.” Sheep don’t follow along with what other sheep do because they’re stupid: they’re easily tricked because they have immense trust in us, which is something that they have no choice but to do, since we control everything about their lives from their birth to the moment of their deaths; for our part, we betray them at every turn.
We’re the ones who do wrong to them, and then we blame their lack of ability to rebel on our erroneous idea that they’re not as intelligent as we are when the truth is that they’re actually more intelligent than many of the humans who violate their rights. For instance, most sheep would protect other sheep and even humans, even those very same humans who would torture and kill them.
In general, sheep are wonderful people who are morally blameless; we commit atrocities on them, and then -to pile insult on top of injury- we claim that they’re mentally inferior as well. Sheep are every bit as intelligent as they should be. There are many humans who are not capable of thinking as clearly as sheep can about a number of things. Yet in general, we show more respect for those humans than we do for sheep. That is our failing, not theirs.
When we want to claim that someone is easily frightened, we call them “a chicken.” Chickens are absolutely one of the most abused animals on the planet, right up there with fishes. Their ancestors, the Asian Red Jungle Fowl, are preyed upon by other nonhumans in their wild habitat homes, to begin with. Then, add on everything that we’ve done to them. And we think it’s not normal for them to be afraid of so many beings and things? On the contrary, not only is it perfectly normal from an evolutionary standpoint, but it’s completely understandable due to our own actions towards them as well. They would be well advised to be afraid of everything, most especially us. Talk about blaming others for our own shortcomings. And yet, when we demonstrate to a chicken that we should be trusted, just like most birds or mammals they’re quite capable of letting go of their fear of humans. They’re eminently capable of curiosity, affection and many other traits that we rarely -if ever- give them credit for.
There are a huge number of other examples of this particular kind of disrespect for nonhumans from us, especially when you start delving into the realm of languages other than English. I think you get the gist though.
Some other problematic phrases are “dumb as an ox” (this is both ableist, as it uses a word for not being able to speak as a pejorative, and speciesist, as it implies that all oxen are stupid), “the world is your oyster” (implies that we should own nonhumans and therefore use them as we see fit), “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” (both ableist and speciesist as it implies that all elderly humans or dogs are incapable of something that younger ones are capable of and also that we should be teaching dogs to do tricks for our amusement), “use ____ as a guinea pig” (implies that using nonhumans as unconsenting test subjects is justifiable), “hold your horses” (implies that we should own and use nonhumans as we see fit), “pick of the litter” (implies that we should use nonhumans like dogs and others as we see fit), “like shooting fish in a barrel” (should be obvious), “like a bull in a china shop” (implies that all bulls are clumsy and destructive when the reality is that all nonhumans are individuals who are significantly varying in their demeanors), and these are only a few. I’m adding a bunch of alternatives to phrases that normalize and trivialize violence and exploitation here:
Note: although I am vehemently opposed to using the concept of “compassion” as a behavior to base a rights movement on (and am similarly against promoting “vegetarianism”), this video by Colleen Patrick Boudreau is a good source for the following phrases (and quite a lot of other clear thinking on speciesism in our language as well):
- Instead of “kill two birds with one stone” we can say “cut two carrots with one knife.”
- Instead of “more than one way to skin a cat” we can say “more than one way to squeeze a lemon” or “more than one way to peel a potato.”
- Instead of “no use beating a dead horse” we can say “no use watering a dead flower” or “no use feeding a fed horse.”
- Instead of “take the bull by the horns” we can say “take the bicycle by the handlebars” or “take the rose by the thorns” meaning to “jump in with both feet” or to “take the plunge.”
- Instead of “open a can of worms” we can say “open a can of spaghetti” or “open Pandora’s box.”
- Instead of “don’t put the cart before the horse” we can say “don’t put your shoes on before your socks” or “don’t slice the bread before it’s baked.”
Again, there are quite a few more; some of which are also outlined in this excellent essay:
http://veganvine.blogspot.com/2016/06/speciesist-language-reinforces-animal.html
When we try to liken something we find problematic or objectionable (and it’s often some action that we humans engage in that we can be blamed for, but nonhumans can’t) to nonhuman characteristics or behavior, or just plain present nonhumans as things that are normal for us to own and use, we make obvious both our lack of respect for them and our confused logic.
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Part 1f: A Note On Miscellaneous Problematic Terms And Ideas
I’ve heard many Vegans say that nonhumans “should have rights.” Regarding pre-legal morality as a concept, nonhumans already do have rights. As a society, we’ve merely been violating their rights all along. We can’t give them moral rights nor take them away. Whether we are going to keep violating their rights -by living non-Vegan- or respect their rights by living Vegan does not change whether they have them or not. If we talk coherently about “giving them rights” this is only in regard to their legal status as property or persons. This is an important distinction to make (in those very words) in our speaking and writing.
Other speciesist phrases that our society sees as normal are ones such as “you’re an animal” in the context of vilifying someone for their negative actions. This is probably because most people are under the mistaken impression that any suffering and death inflicted by nonhumans on other nonhumans is somehow morally blame-worthy. So not only do we -often only subconsciously- excoriate ourselves for treating nonhumans in a way we -rightfully- know to be wrong, but we -often simultaneously- excoriate nonhumans for seemingly not being able to live up to some standard that we set for ourselves (confusedly, since most people don’t really understand morality from an academic standpoint and also aren’t following a consistent moral code in the first place). And throughout all of this, not only do we not realize the arbitrary and even contradictory nature of our mindset, we don’t even realize that all of this suffering we’re intentionally inflicting is completely unnecessary in the first place.
It’s only through Veganism (and by that I mean learning what Abolitionist Veganism means and thereafter practicing it) that we begin to untangle this ridiculous Gordian Knot of irrational, confused moral contradictions and myths that we’ve constructed about nonhumans. Only through recognizing what is unnecessary suffering; why sentient beings have rights and what rights those are, and how many different aspects of human and nonhuman behavior have been mythologized can we then fully realize just how deep our societal programming really extends; and thus, begin to reverse that programming. And one of the most effective tools for that reversal is in recognizing our problematic language and striving to choose our words more carefully at every opportunity.
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Part 2: The Vocabulary Of Human Oppressions
Part 2a: Identifying The Underlying Problem
“The vegan movement” is rife with not only speciesism but also racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, cis-sexism. and other oppressive positions of all kinds. The first rule in any human rights social justice movement is that you must listen to the members of a marginalized group and believe them when they tell you what is oppressive and offensive to them. When you are not a member of the group in question, you are not the person who decides what is oppressing them and what is not.
All forms of oppression reinforce and sustain every other form of oppression. This is why people who identify as vegan will never achieve the true end goal of the vegan movement as long as they are engaging in any of these forms of oppression. This is also why people who wish to end the injustice of “racism” or any other form of oppression will never achieve their goal while they are still engaging in speciesism or any other form of oppressive action. How can someone know how to help end oppression when they themselves are engaging in the worst forms of oppression? You can literally never eliminate violence being inflicted on one oppressed group by engaging in ableism, genderism, ethnic bigotry, or *any* other oppressive behavior.
When we engage in any form of oppression we are promoting the idea that it’s morally acceptable to dismiss others from our sphere of moral concern based on some sort of physical characteristic that they have that we don’t, or that we have that they lack. With speciesism, that characteristic is their species membership. It makes no sense to discriminate against others morally based on their species membership because if we do so, then that promotes the idea that others should be able to get away with discriminating against you based on your physical characteristics, such as your sex, gender, ethnic membership, sexual orientation, etc. This also works the opposite way; It makes no sense to say that it’s morally wrong to use nonhumans as mere replaceable resources for our interests but then turn around and show the same lack of moral concern for other humans based on some physical trait that they have and you don’t or that you have and they don’t.
And it isn’t just a case of men discriminating against women, white against black, etc. Promoting the use of animals is just as effective in encouraging P.O.C. to harm each other, white people, etc. and women to discriminate against others, and so on. Promoting violence encourages violence in all its forms.
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Part 2b: Identifying Each Problematic Term And Why It’s Wrong
When we use a word that was created to mean a disability -such as “dumb” means can’t speak, and “lame” means has trouble walking- as a pejorative (a negative connotation towards a thing or person we find morally wrong or objectionable) we cause the person with the disability to feel as if they are being vilified as a person. Even if the thing or person we’re using the term against has nothing to do with the disabled person. Just like saying “that’s gay” makes a gay person feel vilified. Or “that’s retarded” vilifies intellectually underdeveloped persons.
You may think that it’s not ableism to use “innocuous” terms like “dumb,” “lame,” “moron,” “idiot,” etc., but you are not the one with the disability being vilified! You using terms like “dumb” when *you* are not a speech-impaired person is ableism. You are not the oppressed, but you are being the oppressor. You have the privilege of being able to speak. Or being able to walk or get around without inconvenience or pain. Or you have a higher IQ than some people. You are not intellectually impaired.
Problematic terms to use as pejoratives include, but are not limited to: “retard” or “retarded,” “idiot” and “moron” (vilifies the intellectually underdeveloped), “dumb” (vilifies people who can’t speak), “lame” (vilifies those with mobility problems), “gay” (vilifies those who are of a different sexual orientation than “straight” people), “bitch” (this term is both sexist and speciesist, as it not only vilifies women -likening them to female dogs as a negative- but also vilifies female dogs as being somehow objectionable), “dick” (vilifies those who have a penis or who identify as male), and “pussy” or “cunt” (vilifies those who have a vagina or identify as female). It’s also problematic to use sex-negative terms like “cocksucker” as a pejorative because you’re vilifying both women and non-straight men.
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Part 2c: How We Defend Our Problematic Behavior
I constantly see those who are unwilling to consider the problematic nature of their speech making the claim “That term isn’t oppressive because _____ .”
If you’re not the one who is offended by the remarks, then chances are you’re not one of the people who have the trait that’s being vilified. Ergo, you have no standing to make any claim as to whether the remarks constitute oppression or not. Telling people who are being oppressed that they are not experiencing oppression is oppression! It’s marginalization through silencing dissent.
Also, the argument that “most people don’t use that term to mean _____ anymore, but now they use it to mean this non-oppressive thing instead” is not a valid argument. The argument I’m making has nothing to do with whether the person remarking is intentionally trying to hurt the person offended by the remark or “aiming” it at that person, it has to do with whether any observer is offended or not. If you’re unintentionally doing something that’s hurtful, you have the same moral obligation to moderate your behavior that you would if you were intending to hurt that person.
If I, as a “white” person, went up to someone and attempted to insult them by calling them a “nigger” and a P.O.C. was nearby and was offended, would it make sense for me to say to the P.O.C. “I wasn’t using that term to mean you, I was using it to mean this other thing or person I meant?” No. The term was created to mean something offensive. If we use it as a pejorative in regards to something not connected to the original pejorative it was coined to mean, we can’t expect the person who belongs to a group whose members were the target of the original pejorative to not be offended.
“That isn’t as bad as _____ (something someone else is doing) so it’s ok.”
“I’m doing a lot of good for _____ (whatever group) so you should overlook it when I do this much smaller wrong thing.”
Neither one of these arguments is valid when it pertains to any problematic behavior such as slavery, rape, torture or murder, and so it’s not valid in the case of any problematic behavior. For instance, we don’t expect a claim such as “There will always be people who murder other people, so, me beating my spouse or children is morally justifiable” to be taken seriously, likewise with a claim such as “I contribute a lot of money to/support organizations that fight child poverty and hunger, so it’s morally justifiable for me to kill other humans merely for my own interests occasionally.”
In the same way, it’s unreasonable to claim that just because someone else commits moral harms that you perceive as “worse” than merely using speciesist, racist, sexist, ableist, etc. terms, that it morally excuses us to do that. And the same can be said of claiming that just because we engage in some form of morally positive action that this excuses us from any blame for using various forms of problematic language either. In all cases, our moral responsibility is to not only refrain from committing the morally “worse” actions but all morally problematic actions that we can refrain from.
Yet another argument that I see people trying to use to justify their oppressive language is “I have a friend(s) who are ______ (insert characteristic the person just got through using as a pejorative) and they told me that they aren’t offended when I say ______ (insert oppressive term).” In other words, these are people who will claim that they have black friends who give them a pass for using racist terms, gay friends who give them a pass for using the term “that’s gay,” friends who are disabled who don’t care if they use terms like “lame” or “dumb,” etc.
This argument is not valid in this context, however. The argument against using oppressive terms hinges on the people who are offended by those terms, not the people who aren’t. Morality is about causing the least amount of harm, not seeing how much we can get away with before we’re called out on our behavior. In order to cause the least amount of harm, we need to live by the precautionary principle. Which means that if an action is unnecessary (meaning that it’s not something we need to do to thrive) and we know that there is a chance that any others could suffer because of that action, even if we don’t have direct knowledge of who those people are and where they are in relation to us, then we have a moral responsibility to err on the side of caution, which means not engaging in that action.
So if there are 100,000 people of a marginalized group in existence, and you only know 10 of them personally -and those 10 people tell you that it’s ok to use any term you want around them, regardless of what it is- that doesn’t mean that the other 99,990 people of that grouping would agree with that. Which means that you going out into public and openly using those terms is going to oppress someone from those groups, which is the only criterion necessary to make doing so morally wrong.
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Conclusions I’ve drawn from the last few years of Vegan advocacy
If we really want to insult others -although as someone who tries their best to follow a moral stance of non-violence in thought, word, and deed, I think that idea is really problematic (and just about the farthest thing from what we should be sticking to, which is peaceful Vegan education)- there are plenty of much more egalitarian insults we could use. I am not going to teach these to people since -as I stated- I think that insults are one thing we should be decreasing in our society.
In any moral discussion, the best way to react when someone brings up the idea that we’re doing something wrong is to carefully consider their words and ask ourselves if there is any way that we can make positive changes to our behavior. If we want to ask respectful questions to see if the person we’re talking to has any further information for us or suggestions as to how we can do this, that’s a great second step as well. The worst thing we can do is become defensive and angry at the messenger, as this keeps us from thinking clearly and hence, blocks us from any positive change.
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If you’re not already Vegan, and you think animals matter morally, then please go Vegan. It’s easy and great for you, incredible for the animals, and wonderful for the planet. If you’re already Vegan, please educate non-Vegans about why they should go Vegan. Please rescue, volunteer, adopt, foster, spay, and neuter the nonhuman refugees of domestication whenever you can. Please feed your nonhuman family Vegan where you can. These things are the most important, morally responsible things to do and are desperately needed by everyone.
To learn more about Abolitionist Veganism and the issues I’ve outlined in this post, check out The Master List Of Vegan Info:
https://legacyofpythagoras.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/master-list-of-vegan-info
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Disclaimer: My only goal with this list is to produce as comprehensive a resource for Vegan information as possible. I am 100% Abolitionist Vegan and 100% against exploitation of nonhuman or human animals, any type of violence against human or nonhuman persons or property, welfare regulation, any form of speciesism, ethnic bigotry, genderism, ableism, heterosexism, etc., any of the large governmental or non-governmental nonhuman animal organizations, “happy meat,” vegetarianism, veg*nism, Meat-Free Mondays, or other forms of reductionism and anything else that makes it seem like any form of violence or exploitation of animals is ok. If any of those positions are endorsed on any site in this list, or any language is used to imply that, it’s not that I included that link because I agree, but simply because I don’t control every bit of information on all of these sites.
The Legacy Of Pythagoras 