Geshay dissertation

Institute for Clinical Social Work

The Animal in the Mirror

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Partial Fulfillment For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

By Susan Geshay

Chicago, Illinois March 2022

Abstract

This qualitative study is an exploration of the processes involved in becoming an animal rights activist within a group of six animal rights activist. Participants were interviewed to explore their experience of being born into a life of animal rights activism.

The study incorporated the lens of psychoanalytic theory to potentially deepen the understanding of their perspective.

ii

For Jay – my beloved husband and friend

iii

An activist is someone who cannot help but fight for something. That person is

not usually motivated by a need for power or money or fame, but in fact is driven slightly mad by some injustice, some cruelty, some unfairness, so much so that he or she is compelled by some internal moral engine to act to make it better.

–Eve Ensler (2013, ix)

iv

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the guidance and support of my dissertation committee: Brenda Solomon, PhD, Jennifer Tolleson, PhD, Geoffrey Rees, PhD, Karen Daiter, PhD, and Judith Aronson, PhD. And to my chairperson, Brenda Solomon, PhD, a special thanks for her intelligence, generosity of spirit, encouragement, and humor when I needed it most. Lastly, to my professors at ICSW and cohort. You have helped expand my thinking and enriched my world. Thank you.

SMG

v

Table of Contents

Page Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………...…………….....v List of Tables.....................................................................................................................ix Chapter I.

Introduction............................................................................................................1 General Statement of Purpose Theoretical & Operational Definitions of Major Concepts Statement of Assumptions Foregrounding

II. Literature Review................................................................................................20 Research on the Animal Activist Rationality, Emotion, & Altruism Object Relations Theory

vi

Table of Contents –Continued Chapter III.

Page

Methodology.........................................................................................................44 Research Strategy Rationale for Qualitative Research Design Rationale for Specific Methodology Data Collection Methods and Materials Data Analysis Ethical Considerations Validation Strategies/Issues of Trustworthiness

IV. Results...................................................................................................................55 Demographic Overview of Paticipants Introducing Study Participants Theme I: Call to Action Theme II: Empathy and Suffering Theme III: Emotional and Rational Elements Theme IV: Value Alignment Theme V: Changing and Compartmentalizing Theme VI: Human Justice Conclusion

vii

Table of Contents –Continued Chapter

Page

V. Discussion.............................................................................................................92 Introduction Witnessing The Animal Child The Farm Animal Connecting the Parts Wholeness Summary Clinical Implications Research Implications Conclusion Appendices

Page

A. Study Flyer.........................................................................................................117 B. Recruitment Letter............................................................................................119 C. Initial Phone Interview Script..........................................................................121 D. Initial In-Person or Zoom Interview Script....................................................123 E. Formal Consent Document...............................................................................125 F. Sample Interview Questions/Prompts..............................................................129 References..................................................................................................................131

viii

List of Tables

Table

Page

1. Research Participants......................................................................................57

ix

1

Chapter I

Introduction General Statement of Purpose This study is about the lived experience of the animal rights activist with particular interest in the lived experience of the farm animal rights activist. This qualitative research utilizes Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as the methodology and is grounded in a social constructivist epistemological framework. The social constructivist approach is built upon the supposition that “the terms by which the world is understood are social artifacts, products of historically situated interchanges among people” (Gergen, 1985, p. 267). In essence it is the meaning making of the individual mind as well as the individual’s relationships among persons that account for how the world is understood. Similar to other forms of phenomenology, IPA seeks to understand the lived experience of the participant. IPA is a hermeneutic phenomenology designed to dialogue with mainstream psychology (Finlay, 2011, p. 139). IPA is suitable for this research project as it focuses on the personal experience of the individual as well as the individuals’ sense-making.

Engaging in a reflective focus on personal experience, IPA assumes a model of a person as a sense-making creature. Many IPA projects tap into this by asking about individuals’ views and engaging in their reflections on life decisions and choices. However, it is not sufficient to operate at just a cognitive level focusing

2 on people’s attitudes. Instead, IPA seeks the meanings of experience which include embodied, cognitive-affective, and existential domains. (p. 140) IPA has an inherent double hermeneutic process as the participant makes sense of their birth into animal rights activism and I try to interpret what is being said while remaining grounded in their narrative content. Additionally, this methodology appropriately allows for theoretical perspectives to enhance further understanding of the text which, in this case, will be aspects of psychoanalytic theory.

In keeping with IPA recommendations for a small sample size I interviewed 6 participants allowing for a full and rich account of their experience. With each participant I explored how they were born into animal rights activism and their specific call to farm animal rights activism. While I noted the process of becoming an animal rights activist, I specifically listened for information around their birth. By exploring the term “birth,” I sought answers to the following: is there a thrust into a new world? A spark, an awakening? A moment in time when all that is in front of the individual is seen (differently) for the first time? Specifically this research explored the psychological components of “awakenings,” what one sees that, originally, one was blind to prior to the “awakening,” and what––for those who have always “seen”––gave life to the consideration of the rights of the animal.

The investigation of the birth of the farm animal activist is of primary interest.

The farm animal is the forgotten of the forgotten. The long-legged calf taking his first steps in a hay filled barn, baby chicks pecking in the spring grass, and pigs wallowing in the mud are mythical images of the past. And yet these depictions remain the images we prefer to portray to our infants and toddlers in their coloring books, puzzles, and toys. In

3 contrast, today’s American farm animal, with the exception of the day they are transported to slaughter, will never see the light of day or set foot in a field. The contemporary farm animal lives in a windowless industrialized building housed row after row by the thousands with little or no room to flap their wings stand or turn. Living conditions, transportation methods and slaughtering techniques are often deplorable. The dissenting voices are few and far between.

Andrew Johnson notes, “For the majority, it seems, out of sight really is out of mind, and when people are challenged about this, a typical reply is, ‘Please don’t tell me about it; I’d rather not hear’” (Cooper and Palmer, 1995, p. 175). The farm animal enters the life of the average American in the shape of a shoe, a purse, a wallet, or meal. Their parts renamed as leather, steak, or ham. The connection to the living animal is obscured both visually and linguistically, and the animals themselves are rarely engaged in American society. Johnson addresses the euphemisms used to distance ourselves and obscure the realities of killing and eating animals: Farmed fish, absurdly, are ‘harvested’ rather than ‘slaughtered’; and in America, slaughterhouses are described at ‘meat factories’. Even dining on ‘pork’ or ‘beef’ seem somehow less offensive that eating ‘pig’ or ‘cow.’ And we frequently refer to an animal as ‘it’, while always using he or she for humans. (p. 172) Likewise, slaughterhouse workers resort to euphemisms such as “slunk,” used to refer to a cow’s calf born on the kill line. “It is nothing to have a cow hanging up in front of you and see the calf inside kicking, trying to get out” (Foer, 2009, p. 232). These euphemisms, along with others, help the average citizen and society at large distance themselves from the realities of industrialized farming.

4 Philosopher and social psychologist Erich Fromm addresses alienation as it relates to social character in his 1955 publication, The Sane Society. Fromm’s description of the alienated individual is one who is not at the center of his or her experience and lacks a sense of self (Fromm, 1955, p. 124). Fromm’s concept of alienation was the result of his observation and concern for the social character of the individual. Although more than sixty years have passed since this publication, his observations in relationship to alienation are worth noting. Fromm writes: Alienation as we find it in modern society is almost total; it pervades the relationship of man to his work, to the things he consumes, to the state, to his fellow man, and to himself. Man has created a world of man-made things as it never existed before. He has constructed a complicated social machine to administer the technical machine he built. (Fromm, 1955, p. 124) In Eating Animals (2009), Jonathan Safran Foer reports that in 1967 there were one million hog farmers in the United States. In the past ten years the number of hog farms has decreased by two thirds. In 2009, four companies produced 60 percent of all hogs in the United States. Subsequently the farming operation of today is almost entirely automated. This automation includes feeding, water, light, heat, ventilation, and slaughter (Foer, 2009, p. 162-163). Paid farming positions include desk jobs or poorly paying unskilled positions. Even the “farmer” on the industrialized farm is essentially nonexistent.

Factory Farm Nation (2015) accounts that between 1997 and 2012 the number of dairy cows on industrialized farms doubled and the average sized dairy operation increased by half. The number of pigs on factory farms increased by one-third, and the

5 average hog farm expanded nearly 70 percent (page 2). Broiler chickens on industrialized farming operations rose nearly 80 percent to more than 1 billion. Despite the 2012 drought there was a remarkable 5% increase of beef cattle on feedlots between 20022012 (page 3). These reported statistics point to an increase in industrialized farming methods with a departure from traditional farming practices.

Today, “less than 1% of the animals killed for meat in America come from family farms” (Foer, 2009, p. 201). The increase in industrial animal production points to a decrease in the tradition of animal husbandry. In traditional cultures it was often understood that the life of the animal be taken reverently.

Throughout the history of animal husbandry, most farmers have felt a weighty obligation to treat animals well. The problem today is that husbandry is being replaced––or has been replaced––with industrial methods coming out of what are now called ‘animal science’ departments. The individualized familiarity that a traditional farmer had with every animal on his farm has been abandoned in favor of large, impersonal systems. It’s literally impossible to know each animal in a confinement operation or industrial feedlot that contains thousands or tens of thousands of animals. Instead, the operators are dealing with problems relating to sewage and automation. The animals have become almost incidental. (p. 206) The traditional farming practices of the past have been almost entirely consumed by industrial farming methods. The increase in industrial farming methods has increasingly distanced the relationship between the human and the animal.

Despite the societal tendency to distance physically, linguistically, and otherwise from the harshness of contemporary farming methods, there remains the individual who

6 works on behalf of the farm animal. This dissertation seeks to investigate the activists who are drawn to know what most of us would prefer to not know or to forget. The birth of the farm animal rights activist is of particular interest because the link to their activism appears less obvious. Farm animal rights activists take on the plight of animals not recognizably seen in everyday society, nor are they family members of the average household. How then does the farm animal rights activist become interested and aware of the experience of the farm animal? For that matter, why do they care enough to change the course of their life to advocate for animals rarely seen or heard? It is with these questions in hand, as well as others, which motivate this inquiry into the lived experience of the farm animal rights activist.

Significance of the Study for Clinical Social Work As a student at the Institute of Clinical Social Work, I have an innate curiosity and concern about social issues and how these issues influence modern society. As a moral and ethical society, it is important to notice the way society at large considers others and what it says or does not say about who we are as a society.

In American culture, animals play a significant role in the day-to-day lives of humans. They are our companions, our food, our clothing, our entertainment, and more.

One would have difficulty living a day without the influence of animals in some shape or form. They are overtly and covertly woven into our culture, and we are free to consciously take note or figuratively see them as merely a part of the fabric of our lives.

The contemporary animal rights social movement is propelled by the individual who sees or knows in a different way. Despite animal advocacy’s long and complex

7 history, there is a lack of research around the individuals who drive this movement forward. The few studies that do exist illustrate the actions of an animal rights activist, but “studies of embodied subjectivity and activist experience are scarce” (Hansson & Jacobsson, 2014, p. 264). My goal for this dissertation is to illuminate the lived experience of the animal rights activist.

Statement of the Problem and Specific Objectives to Be Achieved In Western culture, after the wave of new social movements in the 1960s, activism was identified as a socially acceptable way to promote change. Activism was understood as the democratic way to appeal or protest what was often a societal norm.

Through public speaking, publications, group protest, and economic influence, activists challenge what is culturally mainstream.

Evangelicals and abolitionists fueled animal protection laws (1822) and societies (1824) in Great Britain, which became the template for numerous anticruelty laws in America. It was during the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840) when attention significantly turned to the status of animals (Davis, 2015, p. 2). Social reformers and ministers turned their attention to the animal kingdom via their theology of free moral agency and human perfectibility. An upright Christian was to include mercy towards animals. The abolition of slavery and the misery of the Civil War, which was documented in thousands of pictures, brought suffering and human rights to the forefront of American society. A new social movement was at hand and animal protectionists held the belief that the advancement of civilization was dependent on kindness to all who inhabit the earth (Davis, p. 2). The animal protection movement was being fueled by ethics.

8 Additionally, Darwin’s implication that humankind was linked to the animal kingdom had society rethinking its responsibility to the animal. Darwin’s theory of evolution challenged the constructions of human superiority. His research changed the discourse of Descartes’s declaration that animals were incapable of pleasure or pain and inferior to humans (Patterson, 2002, p. 23). Descartes pronounced animals as living machines designed to serve the dominant human. In The Decent of Man, Darwin caused an uncomfortable uproar with his declaration that “man bears in his bodily structure clear traces of his decent from some lower form” (Beers, 2006, p. 29-30). It was the most widely circulated, debated, and adopted research of its kind linking humans to animals.

A pivotal moment in the animal protection movement took place on April 10, 1866, as New York Legislation empowered an animal protection society with policing powers to prosecute animal abuse. These anticruelty laws drafted by Henry Bergh, a prominent shipping heir, incorporated the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) the right to protect and prosecute (Beers, 2006, p. 44). As a result of this legislation, Henry Bergh and his officers policed the streets of New York advocating for the humane treatment of animals.

The profile of the animal protectionist has changed significantly since the days of Henry Bergh. The early advocates justified their use of animals reporting that the Bible gives humans domain over animals. They often ate meat and believed in euthanasia as an end to creaturely suffering. Puritan animal advocates accepted dominion as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (Davis, p. 1). In today’s modern society, there are varying viewpoints on how animals should be treated. These viewpoints often correlate with the perceived status of the animal in society.

9 The work of activists has helped bring about shifts in societal attitudes and treatment towards animals; however, as a society, we are inconsistent in our views of animals. James Serpell notes in his 2009 article Having Our Dogs and Eating Them Too: Why Animals are a Social Issue, “We wear leather but won’t eat veal; oppose animal experiments but use shampoos tested on animals; become animal activists but continue to consume the objects of our activism. The truth is that we want to have our dogs (and cats) and eat them too” (p. 642). In the dilemma of how other sentient beings are perceived, inconsistency reigns. There is a moral responsibility for some but not for others.

In the American culture, the concern for the quality of life of companion animals is reflected in the increased pet-sitting industry, pet day care facilities, and legislation, to name just a few. In sharp contrast, concerns over the quality of life of the farm animal remains largely ignored. They are faceless commodities housed in rural communities, transported at night and slaughtered in a faraway land.

In American culture there is a response to the personalities of the family dog or cat, and as a result these animals are seen as individuals. The farm animal, however, is thought of as a representative of its species who lacks in individuality and personality.

Having little exposure to animals makes it much easier to push aside questions about how our actions might influence their treatment. The problem posed by meat has become an abstract one: there is not an individual animal, no single look of joy or suffering, no wagging tail and no scream. The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that ‘beauty always takes place in the particular.’ Cruelty on the other hand prefers abstraction. (Foer, 2009, p. 102)

10 Today’s abstraction of the industrialized farming system is disturbingly near perfection.

The factory farm, located in rural America, was once the setting of rolling crops and family farms. For many American citizens these large metal industrial buildings are a mystery. Windowless and stark they show little signs of life or movement and the movement inside consist of the unnatural back and forth swaying of heads and gnashing teeth against the constraining metal bars. These animals, who live and die anonymously, are destined to become a part of the good life of the American consumer.

While these comparisons are often controversial; writers such as Jewish Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer draws a comparison between the industrialized treatment of animals and the Holocaust. In his storytelling, he likens humanity’s treatment of farm animals as “an eternal Treblinka” (Patterson, 2002, p. 118). The animal rights activist cannot be complacent to what they believe is a nightmarish societal injustice.

Activism is historically on behalf of those who cannot advocate and/or have difficulty advocating for themselves. Often, however, when space is made these individuals rally for themselves and create initiative where none existed before. In the case of animal rights activism, non-human beings will never be able to take up their cause; they are dependent upon the human animal to advocate for them, to consider their state, notice their plight, and expand their love.

In her article Love and Other Injustices: On Indifference to Difference (2016), Nasargi Dave highlights the complications of loving and its potential dark side: Animal activists are often referred to as “animal lovers,” which, on the face of it, scribes to these activists the key currency of human being: love for another. But

11 this deliberate conflation of love and ethics, I argue, has two main problems. One, love is an unjust ethic. Two, the love ascribed to activists is a failed affect, a form of madness.

(2016, para. 1) Dave is suggesting that when we love, we exclude that which we do not love. In today’s American culture, especially when it comes to the protection of dogs and cats––domestic pets––there is perceived protection of family; i.e. the ones we love. As the domesticated dog and cat have become an increasing part of the American family, the focus on their protection has increased. We feverishly protect our children, our land, our country, our rights, and our companion animals. Likewise, this “madness” Dave refers to has been culturally attributed to the “animal lover.” This results in the phrase losing its meaning, and the ethics that lie within the term “animal lover” has been dismissed and infantilized.

There are activist who vigorously reject that love has anything to do with their politics, who see the wild-haired neighborhood aunties, and the hoarders, and cow devotees, as a terrible contagion that must be kept at bay with clear headed rationality, or with cultivated spiritual indifference. But those rejections only fall flat for they forget that the capacity to have love and receive it (when not failed), remains the key humanist currency, the very ground for mutual recognition.

(Dave, 2016, para.17) Emotion and rationality are a prominent discourse in the animal rights movement. As Dave suggests, the “animal lover” is far from accepted in the culture of animal rights activism.

12 Animal welfare advocate Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher inducted into the United States Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2012 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for “eminent service to philosophy and bioethics as a leader of public debate and communicator of ideas in the areas of global poverty, animal welfare, and the human condition” (2012, p. 8). Singer is most widely known for his 1975 book Animal Liberation, one of the most widely read books by a moral philosopher.

He distances himself from the emotional in favor of reason when speaking of animal interests. Singer defends reason over emotion by stating that “the portrayal of those who protest against cruelty to animals as sentimental, emotional ‘animal lovers’ has had the effect of excluding the entire issue of our treatment of nonhumans from serious political and moral discussion” (Singer, 2009, p. 10). Similarly, philosopher Thomas Regan, an American who wrote The Case for Animal Rights (1983), adds: Since all who work on behalf of the interests of animals are more than a little familiar with the tired charges of being ‘irrational,’ ‘sentimental,’ ‘emotional,’ or worse, we can give the lie to these accusations only by making a concentrated effort not to indulge our emotions or parade our sentiments. And that requires making a sustained commitment to rational inquiry. (2004, iii) Animal advocates Peter Singer and Thomas Regan claim that emotions have little value in the animal rights activist movement.

Diane Beers writes in her 2006 text For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States that one of the largest and strenuous campaigns taken up by the animal welfare movement was the antivivisection

13 campaign in 1883 (p. 120). This campaign challenged doctors, researchers, and scientists––all male dominated professions––to consider the research animal as a sentient being. Scientists, in the name of modernization, had increasingly taken to procedures measuring pain responses, including lobotomizing dogs, amputating monkeys, and irritating rabbits’ sensory nerves after long exposure (Beers, p. 123). These procedures were done without anesthesia and protocol. Beers indicates that the antivivisection campaign consisted primarily of women who participated in this activism as a result of their own cultural experience of abuse and voicelessness.

In modern, male dominated medicine, women exerted little power over their own bodies, not unlike the rabbits in Flint’s laboratory. For some, vivisection was about cultural domination over certain of society’s most powerless: animals, the indigent, and women. The accusation may contain some truth. As a number of historians have demonstrated, men’s gender beliefs impacted the social construction of Victorian medicine and imbued it with a misogynistic attitude about women’s health. Many doctors believed, for instance, that a woman’s health was inextricably bound to her reproductive organs and they commonly prescribed ovariectomies and hysterectomies for such vague maladies as female ‘hysteria’ and ‘melancholia.’ (p. 124) Herein the paths of emotion and science theoretically cross: the male-dominated field of science and female-dominated antivivisection campaign.

In 1909, the male-dominated medical community, who notoriously tried to squelch the antivivisectionist movement, sought the help of respected Cornell neurologist Charles L. Dana. Dana sought to pathologize the female-led campaign and diagnosed

14 members with a form of mental illness he called “zoophilist,” meaning animal lovers (p.

3). He reported that the symptoms were a psychotic love of animals, which was a result of not being able to adjust to the complexities of urban/modern life. Men, he reported, were less likely to succumb to the malady, but those who were affected by the disease were treatable. Women, because of their lesser constitution, were more likely to succumb to the disease and, if not treated, likely to deteriorate to a more psychopathic disease (p.

129). The template had been set for the hysterical animal lover. Though time has passed, the paring of emotion and animal activism continues to lead to discredit.

The American animal welfare movement did not begin with an individual claiming a love for animals. Henry Bergh reports being led by his moral compass. Bergh, a native of New York and a Russian diplomat, witnessed a bullfight while visiting Spain and the beating of a street donkey while in Russia, which solidified his call to activism.

The bullfight, where 25 horses and eight bulls died in the name of sport, appalled Bergh.

Then he stepped in to stop a driver who was severely beating an exhausted and overworked donkey in the streets. This moment remained monumental because the driver stopped beating the animal after Bergh intervened. Bergh’s revelation was that he could influence the abuse.

Bergh returned to the States and founded The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. Bergh never had any companion animals, nor did he show affection for the animals he championed. Sentimentality was not a motivator.

For Bergh, “the ethical recognition of nonhumans involved no emotion, no complex theories, and no extraordinary intellect. It was a simple moral struggle between right and

15 wrong” (Beers, 2006, p. 44). Bergh devoted his life to animal advocacy as a result of his belief that humans have an ethical responsibility to animals.

Similarly, Crystal Rogers, one of India’s first welfare activists, writes of her conversion to activism in her 2000 memoir Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman: I was on my way to New Zealand when I saw a horse which caused me to remain in India. It was standing at the side of a very busy road, with the crows tearing the flesh off its back. As I ran towards it, it turned its head towards me and to my horror I saw that it had bleeding sockets from which the crows had already pecked out its eyes. I rang up the SPCA [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] but there was little that could be done and the horse had to be shot. If any passerby had done something earlier the horse might have been saved. I cancelled my journey to New Zealand and stayed in India to see what I could do for animal suffering. We need to fight on every front. If we run away and hide our heads to avoid seeing the sight which horrifies us, we are unworthy of the compassion that has been granted us by the Almighty. (42-43) Rogers witness of the horrific sight and suffering of an animal sharply changed the course of her day and her life. Rogers and Bergh witnessed ill treatment and neglect of animals, which moved them to change the animals’ plight. The ethical and moral responsibility to all creatures were their motivations to begin a life of animal activism.

Moral philosophers such as Peter Singer and Thomas Regan provided groundbreaking work contributing to the human-animal relationship, yet this topic has been relatively ignored by the psychology and sociology circles. This research will dive into the subjective experience of the farm animal rights activist. The intent will be to

16 investigate the individual who sees the animal in a different way and dedicates their life to animal rights.

Theoretical & Operational Definitions of Major Concepts For the purpose of this study, terms will be defined as followed: Animal rights: Rights (as fair and humane treatment) regarded as belonging fundamentally to all animals (merriam-webster.com).

Hermeneutics: The theory of interpretation; from the Greek word to interpret or to make clear (Smith et al., 2009).

Object Relations Theory: Referring to individuals’ interactions with external and internal (real or imagined) other people, and to the relationship between their internal and external object worlds (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983, p. 13).

Vegan: In the broadest and most commonly understood sense, veganism extends concern for, animals beyond a meat free diet to a purposeful way of life that opposes and avoids the exploitation of animals in any form (including the use of animals for clothing entertainment, transport, sport, in vivisection, and so on) (Gruen, 2018, p.

395).

Vegetarian: A person who does not eat meat: someone whose diet consists wholly of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, and sometimes eggs or dairy products (merriamwebster.com).

17 Statement of Assumptions This study was informed by the researcher’s assumptions that: 1. The animal rights activists’ view that animals should have rights goes against societal norms.

2. The animal rights activist is called to live out their ethics through their actions.

3. The animal rights activist movement has been propelled by the female gender.

4. Society at large cares about animals and does not want them to suffer.

Foregrounding It has been about ten years since my change of heart regarding my personal use of animals and my curiosity around society and animal use. Before this time, my endearment of animals felt mainstream. I grew up with an appreciation for domestic animals and wildlife. What I viewed as acceptable at that time has changed. I thought little of the animal that was the fur lining on my coat, the feathers in my pillow, the leather in my car or the steak on my plate. If the connection was made, however briefly, it did not occur to me that there might be something ethical to think about.

I remember the time and place when my awareness was impacted, and my perception changed. As I sat in my living room, a documentary on healthy eating and food processing highlighted the “disposal” of baby male chicks. These day-old chicks were plucked from the conveyor belt after being identified as male. These males were of little value to the egg laying industry and tossed into a grinder. I found this purposeful dismissal of these living chicks heartbreaking and disturbing on many levels. Since that day, I have never looked at my use, or society’s use, of animals in the same way.

18 While sitting in my living room that day my consciousness shifted. My everyday surroundings began to look different. I now paused when climbing into my car with leather interior. Sitting on my leather sofa felt different. A Thanksgiving turkey, Easter ham, and Christmas tenderloin no longer brought the feelings of celebration. These things that had once added to the quality of my life were now tinged with a sadness. In addition, I was mad, really mad. I did not want to carry these unpleasant feelings or change my life. I liked my leather car interior and leather sofa, as well as my leather shoes and purses. Family barbecues, Fourth of July ribs, the Thanksgiving turkey, Easter ham, and Christmas tenderloin were a part of my culture that I enjoyed.

As I explored my own feelings around the societal use of animals, I became curious about the animal rights activist. What psychological processes led these individuals to such a challenging and countercultural commitment? This research begins by using my own experience as a springboard in which to investigate the animal rights activist. I was brought into an awareness that changed the look of my everyday landscape. I have changed in my consideration of the animal. I do this by not eating meat and I avoid buying animal-made products for my family and myself. However, I do not consider myself an animal rights activist––at most, I am an advocate.

The animal rights activist theoretically rejects mainstream American life. As a result of the ethics integrated into being an animal rights activist, these individuals change the very nature of their lives. Animal rights activists reject the use and exploitation of animals on all levels and, as a whole, their lifestyle does not consume or use animal products. This refusal to use animals for personal benefit is a commitment that challenges the details of their day to day life. The ordinary American’s socialization

19 process incorporates acceptance around the way animals are used for human consumption, entertainment and science. The animal rights activist, based upon their principles, becomes countercultural. The vegetarian, who abstains from eating meat, while kin to the vegan can integrate into mainstream culture. Their choice is made at mealtime. The animal rights activist has a different story. Their culture changes. It effects their friends, food, family dynamics, holidays, household products, and clothing choices.

Because of their advocacy, every aspect of their life is influenced. “Animal rights ideology intrudes at the most basic level of lived experience, where consciousness is fused with taken-for-granted social reality” (Pallotta, 2005, p. 9). Animal rights activists are born into a new way of living.

The terminology used in this research of being born is not to indicate a religious experience, but to highlight the transformation of the individual. The animal rights activist, despite being surrounded by a society consuming and using animals for personal use, rejects this cultural norm. This research will investigate the transformation process or processes of how one is born into a life of animal rights activism with specific focus on the farm animal rights activist.

20

Chapter II

Literature Review What is the lived experience of one who is born into a life of animal rights activism? In this study, I will investigate the formation processes of becoming an animal rights activist through the individual’s subjective lived experience. This research will examine psychosocial and psychodynamic aspects of experience as they relate to the individual’s transformation to an animal rights activist. In chapter one, I provided a historical account of animal activism while citing authors who were themselves leaders in the movement and authors of significant texts on the subject. In this chapter, I will introduce modern research applicable to the topic of the animal rights activist.

This literature review commences first by reviewing historical and current research pertaining to the psychological and sociological aspects of becoming and being an animal rights activist. This literature represents actual studies that made the movement or the activist the subject of inquiry. Secondly, emotion, rationality, and altruism will be introduced and discussed with the intent to increase the reader’s understanding of what may potentially serve as an aspect of or motivation for a life of animal rights activism. In the final segment, object relations theory will be presented to deepen the conceptualization of the lived experience of the animal rights activist.

21 Research on the Animal Activist The publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975) and Thomas Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights (1983) provided groundbreaking thought on the societal treatment of the animal. These two foundational texts can be traced to the ideology and formation of the movement, but provide little insight into individuals who propel the movement forward. While there is significant research on animal rights in general, as well as the actions of and theories about who they are, I found research addressing the subjective experience of the animal rights activist to be limited. The following five contributions exemplify the effort of researchers to identify the experience of the animal rights activist as well as the processes of becoming an animal rights activist. These wellcited publications represent modern research and how the animal rights activist is being investigated.

Yon Soo Park, a Ph.D. candidate in government at Harvard University, and Benjamin Valentino, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, wanted to know more about those who supported animal rights both at the individual level and across the United States. Park and Valentino note that advocates often analogize the plight of animals to human rights issues of the past. They acknowledge the views of activists who believe animal protection is the next step while others view animal rights as a cause for animal lovers driven by sentimental concerns. Park and Valentino sought out to study why some individuals support animal rights in addition to investigating the potential correlation between animal rights and human rights.

Park and Valentino investigated these two concerns in their 2019 publication Animals Are People Too: Explaining Variation in Respect for Animal Rights. To help

22 explain the individuals’ variation in respect for animal rights, they used General Social Survey data to see if those who directly supported animal rights were likelier to support a variety of human rights. They then contrasted animal treatment laws and laws protecting human beings in each state. Park and Valentino found that in both cases compassion for one was compassion for the other. For the individual it seemed that concern for human suffering correlated with concern for animal suffering. It is the suffering that matters, not the species. In correlation with these findings, the states that did the most to protect animal rights also did the most to protect human rights. Findings suggested views between human rights and animal rights are strongly linked. Park and Valentino write: These results suggest that individuals may possess underlying, likely unconscious, views about the expansiveness of rights that influence their beliefs about both humans and animals. For people who embrace a more expansive view of rights, being human does not appear to be a critical requirement for deserving at least some rights. For them, animals are people too. This finding has important implications for the way we understand the historical evolution of attitudes about human rights. Perhaps the most important progress in human rights over the last 200 years has come not from the expansion of the number of different rights to which humans are entitled, but from the expansion in the categories of humans who have been accepted as worthy of enjoying the same set of rights as socially dominant groups. (p. 63) Their findings suggest that the underlying belief of animal rights may correlate with underlying conceptions of rights for themselves.

23 The authors of the second text, Hansson and Jacobsson, identify three processes that contribute to the animal rights activists’ experience of the world. These three processes, namely the body, the psyche, and culture, intertwine and inform the call to animal rights advocacy.

Hansson and Jacobsson’s 2014 case study, Learning to Be Affected: Subjectivity, Sense, and Sensibility in Animal Rights Activism, questions the processes at work when one “becomes” an animal rights activist. Confirming the roles of identity change and resocialization, they also proposed that one’s sensibilities towards animals are “reengineered.” The culmination of affections and sensibilities provide the individual with a disposition that has a valency for advocacy. They suggest animal rights activists have gone through a process in which they translate feelings, knowledge, and logic into a motivation that enacts change.

According to Hansson and Jacobsson, three empirical processes intertwine to inform the activists’ subjectivity in relation to animals. These processes include microshocking, embodied simulation, and affective meat experiences. Micro-shocking is the bodily response to videos or pictures of slaughterhouse footage (p. 265). These memorable experiences represent the shock that the researchers’ reference. These shocking experiences are a key motivator for the involvement in animal rights activism.

Embodied simulation is a type of empathy in which the person assumes the role of the other perceiving how the other feels (p. 276). This visceral experience imprints into one’s memory. Embodied simulation equates how animal activist affirm their commitment to animals. Thirdly, affective meat encounters are the feelings of disgust when one realizes, as one interviewee reported, that the chicken on your plate is really a chicken.

24 Subsequently the exposure to meat brings a moral and bodily disgust. The process of affective meat encounters mobilizes emotional sensibilities towards animals and the outcome of animals as food. Hansson and Jacobsson discuss the important role of meat encounters as individuals develop an “ethical rejection and the cultivation of disgust for understanding the subjectivity of animal rights activism” (p. 279). These experiences internally challenged the cultural norm of meat eating for the individual.

Hansson and Jacobsson suggest that there are three areas that contribute to the response of micro-shocking, embodied simulation, and affective meat experiences. The three areas include psyche (what is thought), the corporal body (what is physically felt) and the culture (context) (p. 276). It is the psyche, the corporal body, and the culture that inform how animal rights activist process their experiences. Hansson and Jacobsson write: Animal rights activist not only re-engineer an explicit discursive-normative relationship with animals, but also re-dispose themselves feelingly. We have suggested that activist undergo a continuous “sensibilization,” a fine tuning through deeper associations between experiences, whereby they learn to focus and isolate sensations (disgust, outrage, empathy) and emotions through modification, modulation and self-monitoring. (p. 285) The life of an animal rights activist is reflected in how they think, feel, and act. To be an animal rights activist is to live their ethics in everyday life.

Nicole Pallotta examines animal rights activists and their challenges with dominant cultural belief around human-animal relationships in her 2005 study Becoming an Animal Rights Activist: An Exploration of Culture, Socialization, and Identity

25 Transformation. Pallotta provides an analysis of the narratives of 32 vegan animal rights activists and their resocialization process as they become an animal rights activist (p. 42).

A major finding in Pallotta’s study was the young age that many animal rights activists first felt an impulse that aligned with animal rights ideology (p. 196). Excluding the early support of parental figures, it takes years to align with these impulses as a result of intense societal influence to eat meat and use animal products. It is often not until adulthood that these individuals act upon an animal rights ideology.

Perhaps most importantly, however, Pallotta identified a process of identity change and re-socialization in the transformation to an animal rights activist (Pallotta, 2005). This process involves reformulating and evaluating cultural and societal norms as they relate to the treatment of animals. Noting a variation in re-socialization patterns, Pallotta identified three main areas: predisposing factors, situational contingencies, and turning points (p. 97). Childhood experiences or personality traits were identified as predisposing factors. Situational contingencies refer to what brought the individual into the social movement and turning points relate to the point and time when the course of life changes to animal rights activism (p. 97). In each variation the destination is a life of animal rights activism.

Harold Herzog’s 1993 qualitative research, “The Movement is My Life”: The Psychology of Animal Rights Activism, investigates the psychological aspects of involvement in the animal rights movement. Herzog interviewed 23 animal rights activists with a focus on cognitive and emotional aspects of involvement in the movement. The interviews revealed three themes: a diversity in behavior and attitudes of the activist, animal rights activism involved major lifestyle changes, and parallels with

26 the animal rights movement and religious conversion (p. 117). Herzog noted the areas of consensus and the diversity in behavior and attitude of the activist.

Variations included activists who came to the movement through philosophical arguments or emotion, and activists who supported civil disobedience while others did not. In addition, there were those that felt they had found a truth that others had not yet realized. Another finding was the degree to which animal rights activism became the focus of their lives. Herzog writes, “This finding was typified by Phyllis when I asked how important the animal rights movement was in her life. She gave me a somewhat puzzled look, as though the answer was self-evident, and replied simply, ‘it is my life’” (p. 116). Another finding included the way in which animal rights activism entails an alternated lifestyle. “Most people are not compelled to make fundamental changes in behavior because of their belief. Animal rights activists are. Almost all of the participants were striving to achieve consistency between their ideals and their actions” (p. 116).

Finally, Herzog notes the difficult process of reaching a resolution of how society treats animals and believes it can only evolve in an atmosphere of respect. He even directly states, “Animal rights activists and scientists alike have been guilty of disseminating propaganda and stereotypes” (p. 118). It is his hope that psychological studies of animal rights activism might facilitate this process of respect between activist and scientist.

In Kenneth Shapiro’s 1996 analytic qualitative research The Caring Sleuth: Portrait of an Animal Rights Activist, Shapiro used a set of questionnaire protocols filled out by 21 animal rights activists and 14 autobiographies from animal rights leaders.

Shapiro uncovered three thematic descriptives of the animal rights activist: an attitude of caring, suffering as habitual object of perception, and the aggressive as well as skillful

27 uncovering and investigation of instances of suffering (p. 147). The caring attitude identified in Shapiro’s findings is more than a passing curiosity or interest in animals and their wellbeing. Shapiro found it is a “positive inclining or leaning toward them, a sympathy for them and their needs. A caring attitude is one of continuous sensitivity and responsiveness, not a transitory awareness or momentary concern” (p. 149). Suffering as habitual object of perception is represented in Shapiro’s research with the example of a leader in animal rights activism, Manny Bernstein. Bernstein, a clinical psychologist who edits and produces a journal offering alternatives to animal-based research and testing, reports that even at the young age of four or five he noticed the suffering of animals.

Shapiro notes this is a common feature in the animal rights activist.

As a group, animal rights activists see suffering in a more robust and appropriative way: they register suffering. While not radically or grossly disavowing it, most other people are conscious of it somewhat vaguely, as they were aware of the nightly body count of famine victims in a far off land, as reports of events remaining always at a distance. Even people interested in animals – the casual horseback rider, the owner, of a purebred dog, the birdwatcher – are usually cognizant only of the problems of animals that are objects of their special interest. (p. 154) Institutions support this inability to recognize animal suffering by using linguistic terminology, which is distant from the actual identification of the animal and by keeping factory farms, fur ranches, and laboratories that experiment on animals in remote areas hidden from sight. Shapiro’s third finding refers to the activists’ aggressive as well as skillful uncovering and investigation of instances of suffering. In reference to this

28 finding, Shapiro refers to the activist who seeks suffering as “the caring sleuth” (p. 158).

Societal modernization has brought with it increased ways of obscuring animal suffering adding to the desensitization of society. The visibility of suffering is no longer in plain sight. The animal rights activist of today must seek the suffering in and out of democratic and bureaucratic processes. The animals are nowhere in sight and linguistic sophistication neglects to reference the animal. The contemporary animal rights activist learns how to decode biomedical research proposals and look beyond the smokescreens of agricultural production. The animal rights activist is dedicated to seeking out the suffering and finding out what goes on behind closed and locked doors.

As a result of these three themes, animal rights activism can often lead to tension on interpersonal and internal levels. Resolution to these tensions are personally addressed through three avenues: by finding other animal rights activists for a sense of community, by suppressing emotion, and by righteous indignation (p. 163). Shapiro noted these resolutions are inherent in the movement and seem to have a relation to the individual’s stage within their activism while changing throughout their life of an animal rights activist. In the early stage, the enthusiasm propels the activist to seek out caring likeminded individuals. In the later stages of activism, the activist, in response to deep societal resistance, suppresses their caring and converts their responses into rigid right and wrong responses.

These articles each individually contribute to the knowledge of the animal rights activist in their own right. Park and Valentino (2019) gave thought to the link between the animal rights activist’s concern for animal rights and the concern for human rights.

Hansson and Jacobsson (2014) identified the aspects of psyche, body, and culture

29 involved in becoming an animal rights activist. In depth, Nicole Paollata (2005) researched the various aspects of the socialization and resocialization of the animal rights activist. Harold Hertzog’s (1993) qualitative research focused on the cognitive and emotional aspects of being an animal rights activist. Likewise, Kenneth Shapiro (1996) identified three thematic descriptions of the animal rights activist and the external and internal challenges associated with these themes.

While each of these researchers’ undertakings address various aspects of becoming an animal rights activist, there is little, if any, mention of psychoanalytic interpretation. As a part of this investigation, psychoanalytic theory will be introduced to provide perspective and potentially deepen the understanding of the text. Furthermore, as the curiosities of how one is born into a life of animal activism is explored the human aspects of emotion and rationality will be kept in mind. What is the argument for rationality and the part it plays in animal rights activism? What is the argument for emotion and the part it plays in animal rights activism? In addition to thinking about the interplay of emotion and rationality, the practice of altruism will be introduced. Object relations theory will be discussed as a prospective avenue in which to think about the developmental aspects of the farm animal rights activist.

Rationality, Emotion, & Altruism Rationality and logic have traditionally been the underpinnings of respectability.

The ability to think sensibly and logically ground one’s perspective. Rationality excludes passion and is objective. A claim to this type of reasoning can be given to the late 18th century German Philosopher Immanuel Kant. For Kant, duty justifies morality and duty

30 can only be discerned through reason. Emotions, however, are considered to be biological states and have historically been distinguished from reason or knowledge. Emotions are traditionally considered mutually exclusive from rationality and considered prejudiced, uncontrolled, and subjective.

Most animal rights theorists propose a rational and objective basis as a ground for granting animal rights. As previously discussed in Chapter I, philosophers Peter Singer and Thomas Regan are referred to as the “fathers of animal rights” following the publications of Singer’s 1975 Animal Liberation and Regan’s 1983 The Case for Animal Rights (Blazina, Boyras, & Shen-Miller, 2011, p. 309). In their support of animal rights, both Singer and Regan intentionally move away from emotion and frame their arguments around reason and the rational. Singer relies on the utilitarian approach to animal rights theory promoting happiness and well-being for all for all involved. On the other hand, Regan supports a natural rights doctrine, meaning life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 278). Despite their differences in theory, Singer and Regan both suggest that emotion has little value in the animal rights movement. Feminist political philosopher Josephine Donovan contends that the male bias towards rationality is reflected in contemporary ethics.

Like many other feminists I contend that the dominant strain in contemporary ethics reflects a male bias towards rationality, defined as the construction of abstract universals that elide not just the personal, the contextual, and emotional, but also the political components of an ethical issue. (p. 278) The rational rights-based ethic that has dominated the movement is a tradition formulated

by Immanuel Kant, who remains a central figure in today’s modern philosophy.

31 According to Kant, it is a sense of duty that merits ethical action “an action done from duty must wholly exclude the influence of inclination” (Kant, 1999, p. 26). Kant deems inclination or feelings as unworthy of ethical or moral action. Donovan surmises Kant’s rejection of moral decision making based on sentiment entertains three concerns. She writes: One is that emotions are volatile (what one feels today one may not feel tomorrow); two, the capacity for sentiment is not evenly distributed (and those who exhibit sympathy may act more morally by inclination than those who do not); three, for these reasons a sentimental ethic is not universalizable—one cannot establish thereby universal laws. (Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 279) Kant’s rational based theory has been a primary source for much influential political and ethical theory and practice.

Most recently there has been an increased interest around the influence of emotions such as compassion, empathy, sympathy, love and guilt as they relate to decision making. Philosophers and researchers have begun to question rationality and cool deliberation as the vehicles necessary to arrive at a destination of ethical truth, David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, was one who challenged the notion of pure rationality.

Hume believed that morality could not be attained through reason. Hume claimed an innate moral sense that determines perceptions of what is beneficial and what is harmful (Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 279). Hume viewed morality as something felt and not judged.

In today’s American culture, there is a modern discourse among philosophers, researchers, and academics involving the relationships between emotion, a knowing sensation and action. In western thought, the tendency to keep the rational and the

32 emotional dichotomous is culturally acceptable. We are proud when we seemingly know the answer to something and have a tendency to leave the room when emotions overwhelm us in public.

The animal rights activist seeks to be legitimate and has historically disavowed emotion. The animal rights activist, however, knows and/or feels something about the non-human other, which propels them in almost every way to change the course of their life. Philosopher and animal advocate Lori Gruen suggests this knowing to be found in a form of an embodied response through empathy (Gruen, 2015, p. 23-24). Gruen is among those who challenge the notion of pure rationality. Acknowledging the hazards as well as the constructive effects of empathy on both feeling and acting, she departs from the traditional definition of putting oneself in the suffering other’s shoes. This traditional definition supports an inequality between the other and the self. There is the one who is suffering and there is the one who is empathizing.

Iris Marion Young (1997) warns in her paper Asymmetrical Reciprocity: On Moral Respect, Wonder, and Enlarged Thought of the potential forceful influence over the other, resulting in a falsification of projection in which the self projects its own truths and values into what they believe is the other’s experience (p. 41). Gruen avoids this error by defining empathy as something we are not attached to nor something we inhabit.

Gruen’s suggestion of using empathy includes a surrender of what we know without sentimentality or commitment to a moral code. She suggests we return to the prelinguistic place where there is mutual inhabitation and reciprocity foregoing the need for human comparison (Gruen, 2015, pp. 36-37). Gruen defines this process as entangled empathy, and its utilization is applicable to both humans and animals. She proposes that entangled

33 empathy is not based on love nor friendship, but on what is unknowable. Attentiveness to the individual before us has the potential to inform without total reliance on reason.

Gruen emphasizes that entangled empathy is not a displacement of reason but a reformation (p. 94). She likens it to an embodied response to another that does not require conceptualization or reflection.

Studies show that infants exhibit distress and cry louder and longer in response to the cry of other babies than of equally intensive noises, signifying innate empathy as a starting point to morality separate from discipline and conflict (Galatzer-Levy & Cohler, 1993, p. 84). This example, along with a growing body of literature, suggests that the infant possesses an innate sense of interest in the other in early development. Likewise, sympathy theorists argue that feelings of sympathy are rooted in early childhood, maintaining that one can have no morality or justice without first having compassion and sympathy, as “a certain amount of sympathy is required if anyone is even to notice that someone else is in need of help” (Sanbonnatsu, 2011, p. 283). Early signs of sympathy indicate a kinship with others and an inborn moral sensibility. This indicates that feeling and a sense of kinship are potential originations of moral action.

Max Scheler’s 1913 publication The Nature of Sympathy continues to be one of the most developed analyses of sympathy (Sanbonnatsu, 2011, p. 280). Scheler maintains that one’s first feelings are the instinctive assimilation of mother-love. In the later stages of childhood this is gradually replaced by vicarious feeling, which remains as the foundation feeling for the consideration of others (p. 283). In his introduction to Scheler’s work, Werner Stark, the noteworthy sociologist and economist, highlights this idea:

34 Originally, the experience of self and the experience of others is in no way differentiated: the child feels the feelings and thinks the thoughts of those who form [her] social environment. It takes a long time before [perceptions are sorted out] as ‘mine’ and ‘others.’ Others, thus, ‘live in us,' which forms the basis of sympathetic identification, preceding the emergence of egocentricity. (p. 283) In American society these “others” are ultimately not limited to our primary care takers, siblings, or grandparents. According to the annual 2018 Simmons National Consumer Study, 77 million dogs and 54 million cats are a part of today’s American family, not to mention birds, reptiles, and amphibians that have also been incorporated into the family unit (Brulliard & Clement, 2019, para. 6). The American Pet Products Association reports that in 2018 Americans spent $72.56 billion on their pets. That number is a sharp increase to the $21 billion Americans spent on their pets in 1996 (McReynolds, 2019, para. 3).

Our pets, and their wellbeing, has become increasingly important. With that importance, laws and consideration of animals and their treatment are shifting.

More recently, in 2019, the president of the United States signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT). This bipartisan initiative makes it a felony to implement serious harm to living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians.

PACT was endorsed by various law enforcement groups such as the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Fraternal Order of Police. These law enforcement agencies supported the law based on the belief there is a link between animal cruelty and violence against people. Additional support came from Kitty Block, president and CEO of the American Humane Society of the United States. “PACT makes a statement about American values.

Animals are deserving of protection at the highest level” (Gonzales, 2019, para. 7). There

35 are some animals, however, exempt from the protection of this law. They include animals slaughtered for food, hunting, and laboratory experimentation.

Brian Luke, author of Justice, Caring and Animal Liberation, asserts that sympathy for animals is a central part of the human animals’ disposition. Intense social conditioning obscures and represses our individual sympathy for the animals we use for slaughter, hunting, and laboratory experimentation. Luke notes the desire for the expiation of guilt within cultures who use animals in killing ceremonies and other social practices. He identifies the feeling of guilt as a result of these practices as an identifier to “the depth of the human-animal connection” (p. 106). Luke connects these feelings of guilt with the societal practice of keeping slaughterhouses and animal experimentation out of public awareness (p. 107). Luke suggests this social energy of keeping this cruelty out of the public eye helps to undermine our sympathy for these animals so that vivisection (operating on live animals) and animal farming can continue.

Fair Oaks Farm is a large dairy production company located in northern Indiana.

It promotes itself as a family friendly place where children can learn about the production of cheese, milk, and yogurt. It is a common destination for school field trips and family outings. One of the highlights of the day is the experience of seeing the birth of a baby calf. The auditorium style room with the signage of “Shhhh a baby is being born” adds to the excitement of the event. What is hidden from parents, children, and teachers is the separation of the calf from her mother just hours after birth.

Dairy cows usually give birth about three times in their lives, and every one of their calves is taken away within 48 hours of birth. I think the trauma caused by these separations is one reason why some cows are sent to slaughter early […] I

36 believe that it’s the forcible separation of mother and newborn that causes a substantial number of dairy cows to attack their handlers. (Hoult-Saros, 2016, p.

56) The seemingly respectful reminder to keep quiet because a new life is being born adds to the mythology of the life of a farm animal.

Zipporah Weisberg’s Animal Repression: Speciesism as Pathology (2011) addresses the challenges to the psyche when feelings of the human kinship to animals are repressed or ignored. She suggests that ambivalence is the response of the repression of human animality. “Animal repression can result in or is even constitutive of an unconscious sense of loss, melancholia, ambivalence, guilt, and a host of other neuroses on both an individual and a societal level” (Gruen & Probyn-Rapsey, 2019, p. 105).

Weisberg believes that this is not simply apathy, but a neurotic ambivalence. There is a sense of love and hate, as well as yearning and contempt––thus an uncomfortable guilt arises. Weisberg argues societal enactment of this ambivalence represents itself in modern industrialized farming (slaughter) and “hysterical indifference” to animal exploitation (p. 181-183). The cultural norm of slaughtering animals for food and clothing, as well as animal experimentation, seems to put one at odds with the inborn sensibility of concern for the other and, as Weisberg suggests, the animal within us.

There are those individuals, however, that take action when confronted with the inhumane treatment of the other. Researchers indicate a relationship between a person’s altruistic nature and their propensity to take action. Kirsten Monroe studied individuals who intervened during the Nazi’s deportation of Jews in her 1996 study The Heart of Altruism (Hoggett, 2009, p. 122). As reflected in their interviews, these individuals felt

37 they did nothing extraordinary although the risk to themselves and their family was enormous. Monroe acknowledges being struck by the universal generosity of the responders. Their generosity expanded beyond their own group and seemed universal. A rescuer named John, who was on the Gestapo’s most wanted list, stated, “I think it came as a natural reaction from the inside. Like a mother. Normally you don’t teach a mother how to love her baby. She has that naturally…[a]nd so your instinct that you develop in yourself is to react that way” (p. 122). Monroe noted that these responders seemed to have a particular way of seeing the world. She calls it the altruistic perspective. This perspective connects all individuals and entitles them to humane treatment by virtue of being alive (p. 123). Monroe’s respondents lacked an idealized view of themselves and saw themselves as ordinary people with a mixture of vice and virtue.

This review of contemporary research on the animal rights activist indicates that both emotions and cognitions construct the animal rights activist’s world view. This world view departs from the dominant culture’s view of the animal’s place and purpose in society, which views animals primarily as a product. The animal rights activist relates to the animal in a different way. Object relations theory is a dynamic way to explore and deepen understanding of the processes of becoming an animal rights activist.

Object Relations Theory Melanie Klein’s theory of object relations was found to be the most useful theory in providing a theoretical framework for this study of the animal rights activist. Klein’s theory addresses the importance of early object relations and the importance of the “other” both in early development and throughout our lives.

38 Klein makes it very clear that the child’s concern for others does not consist simply of a reaction formation against his destructiveness, nor is it simply anxiety deriving from dependence on the object. The concern for the fate of the object is an expression of genuine love and regret, which develops, as Klein later suggested, along with a deep gratitude for the goodness the child has received from the mother. (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983, p. 126) In Melanie Klein’s theory of object relations, the infant is born with an aggressive drive giving way to annihilation anxiety. For Klein, this aggressiveness is the equal to the death instinct, meaning a drive to destruct. This internal experience is attributed in part to the trauma of birth and early experiences of hunger and frustration. Although the infant is also born with libido, or the life instinct, it cannot entirely dissipate annihilation anxiety (Summers, 1994, p. 74). The infant experiences a variety of defenses, anxieties, and internal and external object relations. Klein refers to the constellation of these experiences as the “paranoid-schizoid position.”

Paranoid-schizoid position.

In the paranoid-schizoid position, the infant, with an unintegrated ego, incorporates splitting, projection, and introjection in an attempt to manage anxiety and aggression. One of the characteristics of the paranoid-schizoid position is the splitting of both self and others into good and bad. The ‘bad’ mother (breast) is the mother who frustrates and is ungratifying. The ‘good’ mother (breast) is one who loves and is gratifying.

39 The infant’s desire to dissipate anxiety and aggression initiates the infant’s early use of projection (projecting one’s powerful affects, beliefs, and/or fears onto other people). This process relieves annihilation anxiety, but another anxiety develops. The infant is now faced with persecutory anxiety. In an attempt to control the outside threat, the infant interjects the bad (Summers, 1994, p. 76). The infant’s attempt to reduce anxiety is successful; however, ultimate success is dependent on the balance of both good and bad object experience (p.78).

Melanie Klein maintains the most important development in human relations is the “capacity for identification with another person…and is also a condition for real and strong feelings of love” (Klein, 1937, p. 311). This ability to identify with others is directly related to the complex interactions of the infant and mother relationship.

The unconscious dynamic processes of introjection (the subjective taking in, at the intrapsychic level, of specific relationships with important others) and projection (projecting one’s powerful affects, beliefs, and/or fears onto other people) develops the infants’ intrapsychic representation of others and core internal world of objects. These representations of others directly influence the relationship with real others in the environment. In addition to the paranoid-schizoid position, Klein identifies another aspect of development which takes place towards the middle of the first year of life (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983, p. 125). This mental constellation, termed the ‘depressive position,’ is central to the child’s healthy mental development.

40 Depressive position.

The depressive position is revisited and repeated throughout childhood and refined through life. Primary to the depressive position is the realization of hate towards the loved object. In earlier psychic development, the paranoid-schizoid position, there were two separate objects. One which was loved and one which was hated. In this stage of development, the primary anxiety was survival of the self.

In the depressive position, there is a new realm of awareness and that is on behalf of the object (other). If the awareness of both the love and hate for the object, prototypically the mother, can be tolerated the anxiety then centers on the welfare and survival of the whole other. This awareness marks a central milestone in development (p.

127). This realization of the whole other gives rise to remorseful guilt and sadness, which Klein links to the deepening of love.

My psycho-analytic work has convinced me that when in a baby’s mind the conflicts between love and hate arise and the fears of losing the loved one become active, a very important step is made in development. These feelings of guilt and distress now enter as a new element into the emotion of love. They become an inherent part of love, and influence it profoundly both in quality and quantity.

(Klein, 1937, p. 311) With the ability to see the object as more real and whole, feelings of omnipotent control relinquish. For Klein, emerging maturity is connected to guilt and mourning and the desire to repair is an integral part of the depressive position. Depressive anxiety, however, is never overpowered and conflictual feelings around our relationships with others and ourselves remain a concern throughout life. Throughout the life experience

41 loss is thought to be a result of our destructiveness and experiences of love a reminder of hope and possibilities.

Guilt & reparation.

According to Klein there exists a generous amount of love from the onset, which finds expression in the part object of the mother’s breast, which develops into love for her as a person. The infant both loves and hates the mother with vigor. Klein writes that the “baby’s first object of love and hate – his mother – is both desired and hated with all the intensity and strength that is characterized of the early urges of the baby” (Klein, 1937, p.

306). This experience ultimately fosters a sense of guilt, giving way to fantasies of reparation. Reparation, according to Klein, is a central part of development and essential to the ability to love. Its essence is the acknowledgement of the other and grounded in love, hope, and concern.

Reparation may be expressed in concrete acts, but much reparation takes place in an internal form. The child who has limited control over his environment and the adult, although regretful, is often unable to repair past offenses. The blending of love and hate promotes the desire to repair what has been done to the loved object.

Side by side with the destructive impulses in the unconscious mind both of the child and of the adult, there exists a profound urge to make sacrifices in order to help and to put right loved people who, in phantasy [unconscious fantasy], have been harmed or destroyed” (Klein, 1937, p. 311).

42 The participants in the original relationship were not necessarily involved in the work of reparation but in expressions of love. However, they have become a pragmatic position from which a template has been provided to handle all other relationships.

There is an all-encompassing experience when it comes to being an animal rights activist. The underlying belief of animal rights may correlate with underlying conceptions of rights for themselves as human animals, as indicated in Park and Valentino’s 2019 publication. Hansson and Jacobsson’s 2014 case study further identified the processes, namely the body, the psyche, and culture that intertwine and inform the call to animal rights advocacy. An animal rights activist undergoes an identity change and resocialization, as studied and identified in Pallotta’s 2005 examination. Meanwhile Herzog’s 1993 study notes that “Most people are not compelled to make fundamental changes in behavior because of their belief. Animal rights activists are. Almost all of the participants were striving to achieve consistency between their ideals and their actions” (p. 116). And the caring attitude identified in Shapiro’s findings (1996) is reported as more than a passing curiosity or interest in animals and their wellbeing.

These studies indicate the good research involving transformational moments as well as information on the becoming of an animal rights activist. And while these studies and ideas contribute to the knowledge of the animal rights activist there is need for further investigation. As a researcher grounded in IPA, the idiographic focus supported by this methodology has the potential to provide powerful and informative additions to the knowledge of the animal rights activist. IPA’s focus on the particular allows for an examination of each case with cautious movement to the similarities and differences of each case.

43 This concern with the particular, with nuance and with variation means IPA is working at quite an early stage in relation to Husserl’s ambitious programme for phenomenology. For Husserl it was important to move from individual instances to establish the eidetic structure or essence of experience. This of course a noble aim. For IPA, however, the prior task of detailed analysis of particular cases of actual life and lived experience remains the priority at this time. Of course, we do not see this as the end of the story. It will be possible with time to establish larger corpuses of cases and this may lead to the ability to consider the essential features of particular phenomena. (Smith et al., 2011, p. 38) It is the goal of this study to provide detailed descriptions of the participants’ experiences to contribute, in part, to the further understanding of the farm animal rights activist.

44

Chapter III

Methodology Research Strategy Reintroduction of major approach.

The aim of this phenomenological study is to explore the animal rights activist’s lived experience to better understand the interplay of cognitive rationality and emotions as they relate to the individual’s experience of becoming an animal activist. The subjective experience of the animal rights activist will be explored utilizing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), as outlined by Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009).

Grounded in principles of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and ideography, researchers using IPA explore individual’s meaning making related to particular experiences (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014, p. 8). This research, subscribing to a social constructivist approach, offers potential for interpreting and generating new ways of making sense.

Transforming ourselves, our relationships, or our culture need not await the intervention of some expert, a set of laws, force of arms, bold leaders, public policies or the like. As we speak together right now, we participate in creating the future – for good or ill. (Gergen, 2009, p. 12) This dialectical process will explore the ways in which the participants understand their subjective and complex way of understanding their experience and the world around them.

45 In this chapter, these fundamental principles will be introduced as well as the methodological criteria of IPA research. The chapter begins by presenting the rationale for this qualitative research design followed by a statement of epistemology, rationale for methodology, research sample criteria, research design, data collection and analysis, followed by ethical considerations, and issues of trustworthiness.

Rationale for qualitative research design.

Qualitative research ultimately provides a credible and dependable detailed description of the participants’ lived experience (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2016, p. 56). Of all the ways to collect data on the animal rights activist, the qualitative method is best suited. The qualitative method assists in uncovering trends in participants’ thoughts and opinions. The deep dive into the participants’ way of understanding themselves gains access to underlying reasons, opinions and motivations for becoming an animal rights activist. The qualitative research method gives opportunity for depth of understanding around the emotions, actions, and rationale of the participant.

Traditionally, mainstream experimental psychology has turned to quantitative methods of research. This methodology tests the hypothesis based on experimentation or observation. Quantitative research generally focuses on volumes and sizes of occurrences for statistical analysis (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014, p. 7). On the other hand, qualitative research dives deep into an event or a person’s experience and provides rich and descriptive account of the phenomena being investigated.

In particular, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is an approach to qualitative analysis that focuses on how individuals make psychological sense of their

46 experiences. The origins of IPA are credited to Jonathan Smith, a health psychologist from the United Kingdom (Smith et al., 2009, p. 4). Smith desired to develop an experiential qualitative approach that could dialogue with the psychological components of an experience. The IPA research model is concerned with everyday experiences and how these experiences become important or significant to the individual (Smith et al., 2009 p. 33).

IPA integrates the traditions of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Martin Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is a philosophical approach to qualitative research. Husserl was primarily concerned with individual psychological processes such as consciousness, awareness, and perception (Smith et al., 2009 p. 16). Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned with existence itself and what is possible and meaningful (p. 17). Integrating these two broad phenomenological categories results in “a method which is descriptive because it is concerned with how things appear and letting things speak for themselves, and interpretative because it recognizes there is no such thing as an uninterpreted phenomenon” (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014, p. 8). In addition, IPA integrates various aspects of Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Schleiermacher, and Gadmer. The tenets of these philosophers add the considerations of existential meaning, unending interaction between the participant and context, and historical and political influences to IPA design (Smith et al., 2009, p. 2). Notably, IPA is distinctively committed to idiography, meaning a concern with the particular versus the general (Smith et al., 2009, p. 29). Traditional phenomenological approaches have focused on the experience of a group of people versus the individual. IPA gives depth to the individual experience while

47 examining convergence and divergence across and within participant cases (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014, p. 8). Therefore, IPA research is a dynamic process including participants and the researcher, wherein the participants are trying to make sense of their world and the researcher is trying to make sense of the participants making sense of their world.

IPA has an interpretative or hermeneutic phenomenological epistemology. The focus is on understanding how an individual relates to what is important to them in the world and how they make meaning. According to Larkin and Thompson (2012), the following epistemological assumptions are a part of the IPA approach: •

An understanding of the world requires an understanding of experience.

•

IPA researchers elicit and engage with the personal accounts of other people who are ‘always-already’ immersed in a linguistic, relational, cultural, and physical world.

•

We therefore need to take an idiographic approach to our work, in order to facilitate a detailed focus on the particular.

•

Researchers do not access experience directly from these accounts, but through a process of intersubjective meaning-making.

•

In order to engage with other people’s experience, researchers need to identify and reflect upon their own experiences and assumptions.

•

We cannot escape interpretation at any stage, but we can reflect upon our role in producing these interpretations, and we can maintain a commitment to grounding them in our participant’s views. (p. 102)

The social constructivist epistemological framework of this research will be reflected in the open ended and exploratory research questions. Finlay (2011) observes that the

48 questions used in IPA research are often ones that encourage reflection on the entire experience including behavioral, bodily, affective, and cognitive components (p. 140).

IPA takes into account the mind and body when researching the participants’ experience.

IPA parts from other forms of hermeneutic approaches with its focus on the individual and the individual’s process of sense making. IPA research is identifiable by its commitment to a hermeneutic approach, idiographic sensibility, and reflective focus on subjective accounts of personal experience (p. 140). IPA seeks to understand the individual and the particulars of the individual’s experience.

Rationale for specific methodology.

IPA, as with other qualitative approaches, is concerned with processes and meaning. IPA methodology differs from other approaches by focusing on the experience and its meaning for that particular individual. This is represented by IPA’s commitment to idiographic inquiry, meaning a focus on the particular rather than what is common or everyday (p. 140). This is reflected by recognizing that participants, though they have shared a similar experience, may have vastly different ways of interpreting that (same) experience. The IPA researcher takes a ‘double hermeneutic’ stance, meaning the researcher is trying to “make sense of the participant trying to make sense of what is happening to them” (Smith & Osborn, 2003, p. 53). IPA research aims at providing evidence of the participant making sense of the phenomena as the researcher documents their sense making.

49 Research sample.

In alignment with IPA logic, the sample size was small with a total of 6 participants. A small sample size encourages the sought-out depth of understanding central to IPA research. Inclusionary criteria for this study consisted of individuals who were 18 years or older and self-identified as animal rights activists. These individuals were those who have made significant lifestyle changes to align with their belief system that animals have rights. Individuals were excluded from this study if they expressed concern for animals but had not made committed changes in their lifestyle to support animal rights.

Data Collection Methods and Materials I used a variety of purposeful sampling strategies to find participants. I networked with colleagues and associates about my study and to see if they were interested in either participating in my study or if they knew of people who would be a good fit for my study.

In turn, these individuals helped me to make additional contacts who were suitable for my study. I emailed potential participants with a flyer (appendix A) as well as a recruitment letter (appendix B). The flyer allowed for a more visual snapshot of the research study while the recruitment letter allowed for more specific information regarding the study. If the potential participant was interested in the study I asked that they contact me and I would email a consent form. After the consent form was signed a time was set up for the interviews.

I began Phase I of this research process with a 60-minute pilot interview with a local animal rights activist. This test interview helped me gain familiarity with the

50 interview process and interviewing equipment. Due to the circumstances around Covid19, the pilot interview and both the first and second interviews of each research participant were done through teleconferencing. Phase II and III consisted of an initial 60-minute interview followed by a second 60-minute interview. These interviews were used to collect a detailed, first-person account of the phenomena of becoming an animal rights activist. Each interview was audio-recorded and then transcribed. The evolution of this process is numerically listed below in the form of phases.

Phase I: Pilot interview.

The first phase of the research consisted of a 60-minute pilot interview with a local animal activist who met criteria as a research participant. The pilot interview was used to attain a level of comfort with the interview process, assess research bias, and allow testing and further development of research instruments (Smith et al., 2009, p.60).

Phase II: First interviews.

The first 60-minute interview began with an acknowledgment and permission by the participant that the interview was being recorded. The second step to the first interview for all participants consisted of a verbal demographic survey. Each participant was asked the same five questions (table 1.) with the option to pass if they did not want to answer. Participants were also offered an opportunity to choose a pseudonym for the sake of this study. From that point the participants were all asked the same question, “How were you born into a life of animal rights activism?” Each participant, after a brief pause, answered without hesitation. The interview was semi-structured with an interview guide

51 as a prompt. I used this guide if I felt the participant needed a more specific question. The following questions served as prompts: 1. What compels you to be an animal rights activist?

2. How is it that you recognize that animal rights are a social movement worth preserving?

3. Can you describe your personal process of becoming an animal rights activist?

4. Did animals play a role in your life as a child?

5. What are your reasons for being an animal rights activist?

6. What emotions motivated you to be an animal rights activist?

7. Are there aspects of the animal physically or emotionally that you significantly relate to?

8. Did some life event or experience trigger your involvement?

Phase III: Second interviews.

The second 60-minute interviews were also done via teleconferencing and with the questions as prompts if needed. In addition, for the opportunity to gather further information the second interview allowed participants to add to their thoughts about particular questions from the first interview.

Data Analysis IPA offers a structured hermeneutic phenomenology, which centers on the individual’s sense-making (Finlay, 2011, p. 36). I began with a focus on individual meanings per their recorded and transcribed narratives and subsequently looked for

52 patterns across the range of participants. To aid in this interpretative process I followed the suggested guidelines in Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith et al., 2009, p. 79-107). These suggested steps support the desire to understand the particular as well as the shared experiences of participants.

1. Reading and re-reading.

This initial stage included the close reading of the transcript multiple times. This stage of the data analysis involved immersing myself into the participants’ experience by reviewing the interviews and allowing my focus to remain on the data at hand.

2. Initial noting.

In this step I investigated the language and semantic content on an exploratory level. This is a process of free engagement with the transcript. I pasted each page of the transcript on a large poster sized sheet of paper and used the side margin of the board to make note of words, ideas, phrases, and convergent patterns as I kept the phenomena in mind.

3. Developing emergent themes.

At this stage I used the produced comprehensive notes to explore emerging themes within the transcript. Identifying themes involved the attempt to identify what was important in the various comments. Noting comments in the side margin of the first transcript I noticed emerging themes and patterns that captured the essence of the phenomenon.

53 4. Searching for connections across emergent themes.

This stage involved the charting of how emerging themes connected or fit together. At this stage, some of the themes were discarded. Themes that were applicable to the research question were represented with short verbatim extracts from the interview transcript.

5. Moving to the next case.

This step involved moving to the next case/transcript and repeating the process.

As far as possible, I suspended ideas that had emerged from the previous case in order to treat the next case on its own terms.

6. Looking for patterns across cases.

This stage of research included looking for patterns across cases and identifying the most potent themes. Unique idiosyncratic as well as shared themes.

Ethical Considerations The ethical treatment of participants has been a priority in this study. Research methods have been compliant with the standards, policies, and procedures of the Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Institutes Internal Review Board, as well as the Ethical Standards for Human Research. Each participant was given the informed consent document and given time to review the document before signing. The document outlined my duties as a researcher and the procedures put in place to protect the participant.

54 Validation Strategies/Issues of Trustworthiness Throughout this project, I implemented a mixture of validation strategies. I encouraged the participants to talk open and freely while purposefully using my clinical training by reflecting and summarizing. These reflecting and summarizing techniques assured the participants that I was understanding their perspective and allowed for corrections when necessary.

55

Chapter IV

Results Six conceptual categories formed in this study, reflecting the predominate themes that developed out of the interview process. The themes in this chapter indicate the commonalities of the participants, and the narratives give shape to the individuality of each activist. Six animal rights activists’ narratives give insight into the dynamics of how each participant was born into a life of animal rights activism.

This chapter begins with a demographic overview of the six participants along with a visual table (table 1.). Following the demographic information there is a brief snapshot of the participants and foundational information as it relates to their life as an animal rights activist. After the participants are introduced, the six themes will be presented and supported with quotes taken from the unedited transcripts of the participant interviews.

A total of six animal rights activists participated in this study. It was the initial intent to interview participants in person––however, with the concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic, all 12 one-hour interviews were conducted through the videoconferencing platform Zoom. Each participant was interviewed for a total of two hours.

56 Demographic Overview of Participants Participants resided in Ontario, Maryland, Florida, Indiana, and Georgia. The gender mix of participants was equal with three being female and three being male.

Participants’ personal relationship status ranged from married, single, divorced, separated, and in a long-term committed relationship. The median age range of participants was 40.5 with ages ranging from 33 to 44. Three participants identified as Caucasian while one participant identified as Caucasian and Native American, one participant identified as Caucasian and Hispanic, and one individual identified as Latino.

All individuals self-identified as animal rights activists.

57 Table 1. Research Participants Keith

Sandy

Joe

Rico

Erica

Ronda

Gender

male

female

male

male

female

female

Age

41

40

44

36

41

33 Native

Hispanic Race

and

Caucasian

Caucasian

Latino

Caucasian

Caucasian Residence

Ontario, Canada

Education

Marital Status

Master’s

American and Caucasian

Indiana

Maryland

Florida

Bachelor’s Bachelor’s Bachelor’s

Indiana

Georgia

Juris

Master’s

Degree

Degree

Degree

Degree

Doctor

Degree

Married

Divorced

Single

Separated

Married

Single

100,000

56,000

120,000

75,000

--

60,000

11

10

25

11

20

15

Approximate Annual Income Years involved in Animal Rights Activism

58 Introducing Study Participants Keith.

Keith is a 41-year-old Caucasian and Hispanic male who currently resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with his wife and eight-year-old daughter. Keith has been involved in animal rights activism for approximately 11 years. Keith was first introduced to a different way of thinking about the non-human animal after enrolling in an undergraduate philosophy class in college. In this class Keith first began to explore the ethics and morals around the societal treatment of animals. As a result, Keith went on to study philosophy at the graduate level and received a master’s degree in philosophy with a concentration on morality and ethics and animal rights. Keith indicates that his relationship with his dog, Rex, had a profound influence on how he came to know the animal. His avenues of animal rights activism include podcasts and public speaking as well previous work as an undercover investigator in the Korean dog meat industry and the United States industrial farming industry.

Sandy.

Sandy is a 40-year-old Caucasian single female who currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has been involved in animal rights activism for approximately 10 years. Sandy’s advocacy initiated with local shelters and spay and neuter campaigns, and have included fur and circus protesting along with transit advocacy and fundraising.

It was Gene Baur’s book Farm Sanctuary that “helped turn the switch on for a variety of what I could do as an activist.” Sandy is now employed full time by a 501c3 organization working to motivate individuals to make lifestyle changes through their food choices.

59

Joe. Joe is a 44-year-old Caucasian male who lives with his long-term partner, Samantha, in University Park, Maryland. He has been involved in animal rights activism for 25 years. After college Joe became an intern at Farm Sanctuary, in Watkins Glen, New York. Following his internship, wanting to do more, he spent the next 10 years traveling throughout the country visiting college campuses leafleting for a vegan outreach program. In 2002 Joe was a part of the initiative in the state of Florida to get gestation crates for pregnant pigs banned. For the last several years Joe has worked full time for an international organization presenting to groups and working on donor relations in order to influence the policies of corporations and legislation to end the abuse of animals raised for consumption.

Rico.

Rico is a 36-year-old Latino male of Venezuelan and Spanish decent. He currently lives in Florida where he is raising his six-year-old daughter. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and in 1995 at the age of 10, Rico and his family emigrated to the United States. It was during his junior and senior year in college that he studied abroad in Korea. Fluent in the Korean language, Rico graduated from college and returned to Korea to teach English. It was in Korea where Rico was first introduced to the dog meat industry, and began working undercover to expose illegality or cruelty to animals within the dog meat industry. As an animal rights activist Rico has done numerous undercover

60 investigations including the dog meat industry, industrial farming, backyard slaughterhouses, rooster fighting, illegal wildlife trade, and dog fighting. Rico is currently employed by an organization dedicated to cutting the global consumption of animal products by 50%.

Erica.

Erica is a 41-year-old Caucasian female living in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her husband and children. Erica has been involved in animal rights activism for 20 years.

Erica, an attorney, has specific interest in policy-making on behalf of animals. Erica worked tirelessly for years against camp hunting in Indiana alongside conservation groups and hunting groups on a national and statewide level. Her professional activism has included the title of prosecuting attorney for animal cruelty cases and director of a local chapter of a national animal protection society. Currently Erica is teaching animal law at a local college.

Ronda.

Ronda is a 33-year-old single Caucasian and Native American female currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Ronda has been involved in animal rights activism for 15 years. Ronda has been a caretaker for her mother who has had cancer for about seven years. Since the pandemic Ronda has been mindful about socializing and groups. Today Ronda practices her activism by organizing and participating in Vegan Ladyboss groups.

These groups empower vegan women and their careers while supporting animal welfare.

61 Today Ronda works for an organization providing financial assistance to undocumented families who have been impacted by the pandemic.

Theme I: Call to Action The participants in this study have characteristic traits in common. All are intensely curious individuals who express a desire to be in a relationship with others,

while at the same time prove to be independent thinkers without necessarily needing the approval of others. In his first interview Keith speaks of a rebirth. In his rebirth, Keith’s activism is moved to another level. His activism changes from a strictly personal level to a societal level.

Then in 2010, you could say I was reborn again with another video that I watched.

I was living in Korea at the time, and I watched a video of a dog being slaughtered for food, and it threw a giant heap of gasoline on that already existing fire. And I said I have to do something. Not eating animals is not enough. To me that's just not participating in the violence. I need to actively try to stop this violence from occurring. So I had been sitting on the sidelines up until that point in time, and once I watched that video, I decided to become active. That's when I started doing protests.

Participants who participated in this project experienced a variety of processes before taking action. Like many of the participants in this study the process was gradual, however, there is a saturation point when each individual is ready. For Sandy, there was a gradual building process. Additional information led her to the next step. She gained enough information until she was ready.

62 It wasn't overnight. Like I said, it started because of health reasons over, I would say, a two-year period where I started slowly eliminating different animal products. And every step I eliminated, it was because I learned something else. I learned about the egg industry, and then I began to see chickens differently. Then I eliminated chicken, and, I think, dairy was probably the last thing to go. By that point I just, I was ready. With that, I became a full-on activist.

For most participants, the process of becoming an animal rights activist is both an unconscious and conscious process over time. The influences of family pets growing up is significant. In almost every instance participants recall being influenced by family pets or the wildlife that surrounded their home as children. Joe reflects on his keen awareness of his dogs as a child and relates it to the ability to recognize the sensitivity of animals.

I would say for starters, I was primed by having a dog in our lives, our first standard poodle named Sadie, second standard poodle named Mandy. We got Mandy when I was maybe six years old, and I thought the world of Mandy.

Joe reports questioning his parents as he got older around the discrepancies around how they “pampered” Mandy but ate meat. Joe’s father grew up on a small farm in rural Iowa in the 1930s and 1940s where they raised animals for food. His father, whom Joe viewed as a good, caring, and loving man, who also loved Mandy, explained to Joe that the animals on his farm led decent lives until the unfortunate day they were taken to slaughter. Joe states that for some time after this he did not think about the treatment of farm animals until college.

It ultimately stemmed from that ethics course. I went on, and I, in college, studied music. That was my key focus. I think at some point -- and then after college for a

63 few years, I made a living teaching guitar lessons. I think during that time I just felt like there's nothing more important than reducing this suffering, that music's great, but there's this total suffering, and there are very few, relatively speaking, individuals doing anything about it. So, I just felt like I absolutely have to be a part of this and to the fullest degree.

Joe pairs his awareness gained from his pets as a child with his knowledge gained

through his college ethics class and as a result begins to explore the subject of animal rights further. It is when he views the 2000 documentary A Cow at my Table that he is compelled to move to Watkins Glen, New York for an internship at Gene Baur’s Farm Sanctuary.

The participants in this study had stories of endeared, well-treated family pets they recalled having as children. It was often the realization that other animals who were “like” or “similar” to the pets they had known as children, but who were suffering and in much different situations, that increased their awareness. Like Joe, Rico reports of growing up with dogs all his life. It was when he became an undercover investigator in the dog meat industry that Rico had difficulty piecing together what he witnessed.

We had met some dog meat restaurant owners, and then the dog meat restaurant owner had agreed to show us his slaughterhouse operation the next day. So, October 18, 2011, I saw, for the first time, a living being killed and slaughtered in front of me. The animal happened to be a dog, and it happened to be slaughtered for food. And then after that, that day I went home and reviewed the footage, and then I told my friend, my best friend, it was like, "I need to read something

64 because I'm feeling really strange." And he said, "Here, read Animal Liberation

by Peter Singer." And the next day I just went vegan.

As a result of Rico’s experience his shift to different food choices is less gradual and more immediate. Like others, however, his first form of action is to change his food choices. Erica similarly describes coming from a family with pets, and endearingly remembers as a child watching her grandfather hand feeding squirrels. These childhood

experiences, in a combination with education as well as a documentary, helped influenced her views on animals and their treatment.

There was this documentary I saw. I think it was on PBS, and it was documenting the life of dairy cows or something like that. It was showing how they were raised and how they were living and their confinement and treatment and then also how much water and how many resources were consumed by these farms. I remember just watching that and being like I just don't know if I knew all this. This is shocking to me to actually see it with my eyes, and I have to do something. So, I think that's about the time I became vegetarian. I thought I'm not going to contribute to this anymore. I think that was a light switch for me.

During the interview I asked Erica, “What did you see with your eyes?”

Just the conditions, the conditions that they were living in. I think maybe that I had heard things and heard about factory farms, but I don't feel like at that point in time we talked that much about it as a culture and as a society. Then when I actually saw what a factory farm looked like on the inside -- and it was through a documentary—I was just appalled. So that was a big turning point.

65 The participants in this study can often point to what they call “turning points,” starting points or influential events that add to the momentum of their call to activism. Ronda remembers as a teenager watching Oprah’s special on mad cow disease. She reports becoming aware of what she was actually consuming when she was eating meat. For Ronda, she describes the process of connecting what she was eating to the animal. As she began to bridge the animal to her food she became aware of the living conditions of the

animals she was eating.

They did touch on the conditions of the animals because the reason that the cows were getting mad cow disease was that they were being fed the remnants of other cows that had deceased. So, I wasn't aware that anyone would ever treat an animal like that or feed them something that they didn't think was appropriate. So that was disturbing. And then just the notion that we were eating animals -- I don't know. It just hadn't clicked up until that date.

What builds upon Ronda’s call to activism is a relationship with a high school vegetarian teacher. At this point in her life, while she had played with the idea of not eating meat she was unaware that there was food designed for people who did not eat meat. The teacher, whom Ronda respected and liked, introduced food to the classroom that was good and nutritious. In addition, like Keith and Joe, it was an ethics class in college that fueled her thoughts around the ethics of the meat industry and the treatment of farm animals. With thoughts and information taken from her ethics class, Ronda traveled to Argentina.

And I was on the verge of deciding to be vegetarian, but it wasn’t until I traveled to Argentina -- and Argentina's a big steak and meat place. A lot of the shops and restaurants would cater to their clientele by stretching an animal out in the shop

66 window so you'd see it's innards. You'd see the skin stretch. It was just very gruesome and hard for me to look at. So after that experience, I came back home, and that's when I decided I was done with meat, and I was vegetarian.

For participants in this study, the ability to see animals as individual subjects began in childhood and developed over time. Knowledge gained through education and educational experiences heightened their awareness of the animal other. The coupling of

knowledge and the feeling evoked as a result of witnessing suffering brought about a sense of responsibility. This sense of responsibility promoted their call to action.

Theme II: Empathy and Suffering The participants in this study have a valency for consideration and attention to the others around them. What was noticeable during the interviews was their concern for the suffering of others and their desire to do something about it. Keith shared his thoughts on suffering: Suffering is what creates -- in an unjust situation, it tips the scales in one way versus the other. Then if there's a lot of suffering on one side of the scales, there better be a whole bunch of happiness or alleviation of suffering on the other side of the scales in order to justify the suffering on the other side. In our current state of affairs, it's not even close. It's like a little tiny bit of pleasure that people claim to have when they eat a chicken sandwich versus a veggie chicken sandwich, and then a lifelong amount of misery and suffering for essentially an animal. It's just not even close. It's not even close. Oftentimes I ask people, "How was your sandwich?" And they're like, "Eh. [laughs].” Now it's like more suffering there

67 and more suffering there. It's not justifiable, so why are we doing it? It seems very clear that we can alleviate that suffering if we just chose a different way.

In the interviews, Keith’s language reflected his way of approaching the world. He considers himself to be “a part of.” This stance is represented when he uses language that includes himself. He speaks of humanity using the all-encompassing we, and refrains from blame when he wonders why “we” as humans are causing suffering and how “we

can alleviate that suffering if we just chose a different way.” While sitting with Keith, there was a sense of an individual seeking better solutions for all of us.

Like Keith, Sandy is keenly aware of the other. In the following account, Sandy exemplifies the innate sensitivity and relatability to other individuals. At the time of her youth she is clear that there is a dislike for seeing animals in captivity, but she was not consciously aware of what she dislikes.

But even before I was vegan, I hated rodeos. I hated circuses. I remember going to the zoo in grade school on a field trip and hating being at the zoo. So maybe it's always been inherent for me?

Sandy, like Joe reflected on her childhood feelings and recalled her ability to empathize at a young age. Joe recognizes his attunement to the suffering of others and it remains a significant part of him today.

I think I've always had -- the empathy in me is maybe dialed further up than others. I think I feel the suffering of others. Even since I was a little kid, my dad said he worried about me just being more attuned to the suffering of others and being more sensitive. I think in some ways that I was just maybe more of a sensitive kid.

68 In the following quote Rico shares of his relatability to dogs, an animal he has been around all his life, and the difficulty of watching them go through the slaughter process.

I just felt really bad for the animal. I have a really high level of empathy generally, and I could cry pretty easily just from thinking about stuff and thinking about others suffering. Because the dogs are the animals that I most related to, that I most relate to because I've had dogs for my whole life, and I was never

really around farm animals. So just watching an animal that is so familiar to me, watching a non-human animal that is so familiar to me go through that experience and suffer and then watching the animal die -- I've never seen anything die in front of me, so that was the first thing. It wasn't something that I've ever seen. So I just felt so much pain. Yeah, I felt pain, and I was sad. And then I was angry that this was happening.

As Rico became more involved in activism he increased the scope of the animals he shared a concern for. The participants in this research often noticed the suffering of the animal they were familiar with, such as the dog, but their concern eventually expanded to include other animals. And for Erica it only made sense that the empathy shared for the human animal be extended to the non-human animal. She acknowledges that the extension to a cat or dog may be an easier leap for some, but maintains that all species deserve empathy.

Yes, of course. That ability to have empathy not just with other humans but with animals as well, like a totally different species. So, I do think -- and I do think most people have that really, but like we said, it's kind of being able to switch over from having that tenderness just towards cats and dogs and moving that over

69 and recognizing that pigs and cows and chickens and deer and fox, they have the same attributes that our dogs and cats have. So, I think it's there in most people. I think it's just making that jump and that realization and making yourself uncomfortable, I guess.

At the end of Erica’s statement she mentions, “making that jump and that realization and making yourself uncomfortable.” Erica is making the connection that there is a certain

comfortable societal disconnect. There is a cultural choice to know that our cats and dogs are sentient. When it comes to pigs, cows, chickens, deer, and fox there is a discomfort in thinking of them as sentient due to their societal ranking. As far as pigs, cows, and chickens there is a conscious raising element involved in thinking of our food as having the ability to suffer.

In each case there is an essence of inclusivity when these activists speak. Their desire is that as individuals and a society we respond to the suffering of others regardless of the species. Ronda identifies the harm the individual and societal lack of empathy has on the human-animal as well as the non-human animal.

Our humanity, part of our humanity is to have empathy for other living beings, and think we've been squashing it at the expense of our own full experience of life. I don't think it does us any good to have that disconnect. I think it more than likely manifests itself in other really ugly ways. I think I mentioned this before, but I think our attitudes towards animals then enable us to dehumanize humans and treat them in the same way or with the same attitudes. None of that, that projection outward that's dehumanizing or harming others, is good for the human spirit or the human soul, so I don't think that we're doing ourselves any favors by

70 the way that we are just squashing that. I really do believe it is an inherent human quality to have an empathetic response to suffering.

The psychological event of being moved by the suffering of the other is evident in each of these participants. In each case these activists exhibit an empathetic response to suffering. The participants in this study exhibited an uncanny ability to notice and consider their surroundings and the conditions of others.

Theme III: Emotional and Rational Elements Throughout the interviews, the participants expressed their awareness of their own thoughts and feelings. Participant sometimes spoke of the emotional and rational as separate entities yet with an awareness that these two poles worked together to create their call to activism. In the following quote, Keith speaks of having to constrain his emotions at times with his rationality.

Well, I feel like emotion is gasoline. It's fuel. Whether it be anxiety or fear or excitement, glory, whatever emotion we want to -- it's irrational emotion. I see that as fuel for the fire. The rational side of me constrains it to become positive. It could very easily go the other way. It's just raw emotion as it is. And then the rational side of me says, okay, what's the best thing I can do to focus my energy, my efforts, and how can I help others? How can I make a difference? And so I use that motivation and try -- obviously I’m not always -- I'm not perfect. No one is.

But I try to be as rational as possible and use that emotion for good to do the right thing. So yeah, it's certainly a part of the picture. If I had no emotion, I guess I would have no fire, and I would just be a rational robot. I don’t know. Would I

71 still be an activist? That would be hard to picture. I guess I still would be because it would still be the most rational thing to do. I guess I would be less enthused or excited about it.

As Keith reflects, and if having to pick, regardless of having the guide of rationality or emotion, each would lead him to a life as an animal rights activist. One, however, would be a less enthusiastic version of himself.

As these activists spoke about the roles of rationality and emotion it was clear that the emotions they experienced, as Keith stated, “fueled” their activism and yet had the ability to inhibit them. Sandy speaks of a sort of “toughening up” and using her logical brain to help navigate her through difficult feelings evoked when faced with aspects of industrial farming and it’s systems in place. For Sandy, she has learned how to comfortably navigate her feelings and reason.

Yeah. I think it's part of the -- maybe the armor that I've developed in order to exist in this world where I'm such a small percentage of the people that knows and accepts what the reality of what happens in animal agriculture. And so finding a way to pull that emotion out so every time I see a transport truck, it doesn't send me into tears, so just ended up strengthening that muscle over time. It took a while to get to this point, but maybe that's where my logic brain kicks in, just knowing that to exist in this world that I've got to find a way to know what I know and for my own self-care and to survive and to still be able to be an advocate for change, just learning how to compartmentalize those emotions and not let them overtake me.

72 Sandy values her logic and relates it to a part of how she cares for herself. For these participants rationality has become an appreciated and valued component of their activism. Jon reflects on the use of an increasingly rational side as he has gotten older.

But then there's also the side of rationality. I think especially as I've gotten older, I've liked to also consider myself to be a rational being who bases my decisions on some kind of rational consistency. And I think that a society where we think

that these beings they're suffering doesn't matter just because they're of a species - they have the same capacity to suffer as we do -- I think is irrational. So I would say my thoughts on animals are both based on emotion, but there's also a key rational component to it as well. I think as I've gone on, rationality has played a role into the type of activism I do. So, for example, farm animals, I focus on them specifically because I think that the math is there that I could do the most good for them. I used to do a lot of individual outreach, like leafletting on college campuses, and now I focus more in institutional campaigns because I think I can impact more beings. And then I've also shifted into believing a little more in pragmatism and an incremental approach to creating social change. I think that's also just from more rationality than emotion.

Joe, the most seasoned activist in the participant group, notes the importance of emotion, but acknowledges the key component of rationalism.

The participants in this study often recall experiencing waves of emotion and in some cases not understanding what they are experiencing. Rico describes feeling emotion and then being able to make sense of things.

73 I didn't know it at the time because when you're undercover, at least for me, you don't really get to feel the feelings that you are feeling until you get home and you review your footage. So, there was so much adrenaline. There's always adrenaline when you're doing undercover work, but this time, especially, it was the first time, and so I didn't really understand, I guess, what I was witnessing firsthand. And then when I went to review the footage, I was so angry, and I was so upset, and I

cried a little bit, and I just asked myself, "Why am I feeling this way about a dog being slaughtered?" And then that's what brought me to ask my friend to give me some information, and then I read Animal Liberation. And I was like, "Okay, this makes very good sense." I shouldn't feel this way only about dogs, for example.

All sentient beings feel pain, and they all have wants and needs and desires. For me, I don't know. I guess I just made that connection, but yeah.

This example illustrates Rico working through why he feels what he feels. He knows he is feeling something and has seemingly approached this in a practical and rational way.

Hired as an undercover investigator he was able to obtain the footage and upon review of his recording is flooded with emotion. Rico reports using knowledge to make sense of his feelings.

The activists in this study experience a complexity of emotions when it comes to their activism. In the following account, Erica mentions the feelings of despair, anger and surprise.

I could say despair. I've been dealing with it a lot lately too because we've been talking about factory farm or female farm animals with my animal law class and their conditions and the laws, or lack thereof, protecting them. It makes me so sad.

74 Every time we discuss it, it just rips my heart out. Every single year, I read through this one particular chapter, this one particular case, and it just -- every time it gets me again. You'd think at some point you would become desensitized to hearing it all and seeing it all, but you don't, and like with the puppy mill stuff.

And so I would say despair is number one and then maybe anger at just the human depravity in at all, really, and perhaps surprise because I feel like overall we can

be a compassionate society, but to disregard these sentient, living beings just is surprising Erica illustrates the ability of these activists to be able to hold their despair while at the same time maintaining an optimism that as a society we remain compassionate.

The participants in this study describe a desire to gracefully integrate their feelings with their rationality. Ronda’s comments summarize the balancing act between emotions and rationality that these activists have learned how to do.

Well, I think that even though I feel a lot of passion about this is wrong that this is happening, and this is a much more compassionate way to live, and I feel like I have to just approach my interactions around veganism with less emotion, I guess because other people don't feel those things. And so to start, if I'm coming at the interactions with all of this emotion, it doesn’t allow the space to have judgment - or perceivingly judgment-free interactions with questions that maybe I think are really fucked up, like how could you ask that. But I don't -- it doesn't need to come across as though I'm going to judge someone for asking a genuine question.

And so I think the more we can just have a conversation in an emotion-free

75 environment, it will give people the freedom to ask their questions and start the dialogue and start the thinking.

It all feels urgent because one second passes and then all these animals have just been tortured, and it's like the numbers are staggering. So there's a sense of urgency around everything that you do. You have to kind of—you have to force a disconnect on yourself to be able to do the activism because having that

sense of urgency, there's an emotion tied to it, but you can't approach this work with emotion because it's off putting to people.

Yeah. I think you have to have your heart in it, for sure, so that people feel that, but the anger and the resentment and the frustrations that you have to have checked at the door.

The activists interviewed in this study navigate their logic and passion as a way to guide their activism. The participants exhibit an understanding of emotion and reason noting that feelings are essential to the capacity for thought and a route to reason. For each activist the process and ability to integrate, balance, and navigate reason and emotion are as unique as each individual in this study.

Theme IV: Value Alignment The individuals who participated in this study expressed a sense of being right with the world around them as well as aligned with their internal world as a result of their involvement in animal rights. For these participants, compassion for animals aligns with who they are and what they believe. For Keith his sense of alignment came with a sense of responsibility to share his knowledge. As Keith spoke he mentioned there being a

76 “North Star” in his mind. This star being something he was going to follow with a trust he would find a way. At this point in the interview I asked him, “What does the North Star represent?”

Well, there's the utopian dream, and then there's the practical dream. I think the utopian dream would be to explain to everyone on the planet what's actually happening and not necessarily get everyone to switch because that's something

that each individual has to take into his or her own accord. But at least, I think it's at least my responsibility to inform as many people as possible. And so that's the North Star for me, and that's why I became an investigator. To me that was very appealing. As a philosopher, I was in love with truth, and I really needed to know what was actually happening on these farms and slaughterhouses. Were the videos I watched doctored? Were they anomalies? Were they extreme, graphic footage that is very, very, very rare? Those are the kinds of questions that I asked before I became an investigator. And I didn't know the answer until I actually became an investigator and started working on these farms and slaughterhouses and taking footage. I called myself an investigative journalist because I was committed to truth. I was committed to finding out what was happening and relaying that truth to others. I wanted to spread the awareness as much as possible and just tell as many people as I could possibly tell, "This is what's happening, and here's the footage to prove it.”

Keith speaks of finding the truth through undercover footage and sharing it with others.

In a like manner other participants in this study account an experience of “finding”

77 something or metaphorically arriving at a place that felt right to them. Sandy describes her experience: To me, it just meant—it was a liberation. It wasn't a restriction. I think, again, for the first time I felt like I was making a choice for myself and not something that I was directed by my parents. I was raised Catholic. I no longer affiliate with the Church, but a very structured this is what you do. So this was the first time that I

did the research on my own, made decisions, and took a step away from my family. And so it felt really—it felt so right to me because I felt that I'd never—I knew something was always off, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was, and a lot of growing up and in your 20s and that sort of thing. Yeah, it just felt liberating to not be a part of that system that I just accepted and didn't question. The shift to be vegan, it was just—yeah, it felt—I’m being very repetitive, but it was just very liberating at the time. For as much as it was slightly difficult in terms of just the going out, the social element, the potlucks, birthday parties with friends, being the person that's objecting to the birthday cake or passing, that stuff is minor. It didn't really phase me because it felt internally so right for my moral compass.

The participants describe feelings of liberation and joy and yet note the social difficulties of being in a culture that views animals in a contrary manner to what they believe. For Joe, and other participants, the ability to be a part of the animal rights movement, brings joy and a sense of satisfaction to their lives.

Well, first I feel like the struggle -- I would say, if anything, advocacy gives me more joy than struggle, that I think it's a really uplifting feeling to feel like I am -to feel like this is one of the more important social movements, in my humble

78 opinion, and that I can be a part of this, and that it's a pretty joyous feeling to see change happen. That certainly gives me a lot more joy than getting some new possession or something. And I also live a pretty simple life. I don't need a lot.

As Rico states, activism is ingrained in him and a part of his everyday life.

So I consider myself an activist and advocate for change. Sure, I do. That's something that's ingrained in me, and it's part of my everyday life. So it's not just

in my day-to-day work, it's just part of my life. When you go to the supermarket, I take my own bag. I do that, and I think about it as a form of advocacy. When I share something online about plant-based diets. I do that knowing that it's a form of advocacy. So I'm very aware that the things that I choose to do are related to advocacy, pushing for a change in these broken systems that we have.

Much like Keith, Rico expressed his ability to hold his idealism alongside his expectations.

My end result, my hope, my goal is to end exploitation of all, of everything.

That's what I want in my heart. But that's very different from what I think we can actually achieve. It's very different from what is reality versus what is just wishful thinking.

Erica’s sentiment placed within a religious context that everyone and everything belongs, is a similar sentiment described by others in the study. For Erica, her Christian values inherently include the non-human animals of the earth.

Well, yes. Of course, we're to love God, which is the most important commandment, and then love others which is the second most important commandment. I think we all struggle with that second one a lot. And that, I

79 think, goes back to the surprise. In that to me -- and reasoning -- it makes sense for us to care for animals and creation and the environment that God gave us. It's beautiful. Our world is beautiful, and animals are amazing, and they all have these very distinct purposes. While we may not realize what they all are yet, they have these purposes, and we know that if we take one out of the population, like when they took out wolves from Yellowstone, it has huge consequences. So there's this

place for everything. And to me, that speaks to the beauty of the design of it all and the genius of the design of it all.

The participants in this study are independent thinkers who also value their culture, family and friends. However valuing their upbringing and community does not deter them from making decisions that may alienate them from their cultural norms. Aligning themselves with internal values is most significant. In the following narration, Ronda speaks to the importance of value alignment.

Well, I think it's the one choice that I've made more recently in my life that makes me feel aligned with my values. I think for a long time, I was on the verge of making -- I couldn’t quite take the leap because I didn't want to be perceived as extreme. I already felt extreme in a lot of the ways that I thought, and I felt like that extra step was going to alienate me more from the people that I was surrounded by and my family. But making that leap has been the most rewarding thing because I feel right with myself. I'm making choices that are consistent with my values, and maybe it's going to alienate everyone that is in my network, but at least I can say I feel right about the choices that I'm making, and there's a

80 beautiful freedom and joy that comes with that. So, I feel really happy with the choice that I've made, and it sits well with me.

The activists interviewed in this study talk of heartfelt feelings of liberation and joy as they align their everyday life with their values. They have a settled and integrated sense of self. These individuals honor who they believe themselves to be through the way they treat themselves and the others around them. The importance of others became activated

early in life and continues to be a guiding principal in their life.

Theme V: Changing and Compartmentalizing The participants in this study are dedicated to a life of animal rights activism, and as they have matured the look of their activism has changed. It is a dynamic process, one of birth and rebirth. Keith is now married and raising a daughter while working full time.

His life as an animal rights activist looks much different than the years of undercover investigation.

I feel like I had a point in my life where it was -- somebody passed the torch to me, and then I passed the torch to them. I'll explain what I mean, if you don't mind. There was a time when I was working on the Obama campaign, and I went to a house in New Mexico. I knocked on the door, and I spoke to this man who was -- he was like my equal in so many ways. We were the same age. We even looked alike. He had a house. He had a wife. He had kids. He had a dog and a job, full time job. We talked about Obama and politics, and he was already pretty much sold on voting for Obama at the time. He was really, really passionate about what I was doing, but he said, "Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing.

81 Thank you for --," because I told him, "I'm single. I'm traveling. I'm originally from New York. I'm out of my home state. I'm just traveling trying to convince people to vote for Obama." And he said, "Thank you for what you're doing. I wish that I could do what you're doing right now, but I can't because of all these obligations I have. I have a wife. I have kids. I have a job. I have this house, and I can't just pick up and go to a different city or go to a battle ground state like you

did and try to fight the good fight and help the world. So, thank you, and please go out there and do it for me," he said. Yeah. I don't know why. That conversation really stuck with me. I think it gives me hope, though. It gives me hope because humans are good. We would help if we could, if it was easy, convenient to help. If it wasn't such a burden to help, we would. That's not a lie that I tell myself. That's the truth. I was not alone. He was with me, as were many others. Yeah. It reminds me that we can beat whatever problem comes to us and that we're not inherently evil despite the consequences of our actions, despite what we may see in the world, at any given point in time. We're not evil. We're lazy. We're complacent.

Oftentimes we're greedy, and we take the easier path, and we like to procrastinate until things get really bad before we do something about it. But in the end, we're good, and we all care about the same things. We just want -- nobody wants more suffering in the world. I'll say it that way. Maybe a few psychos, but the vast majority of humans want suffering to be alleviated, and if they could just flip a switch, sure, obviously, they would do it. They would do it. So yeah, I felt a sense of obligation to do what I could at the time, not just for the animals, but for the other people who wanted to do something but couldn’t.

82 At this point in the interview, I sensed a wave of emotion from Keith and asked him, “Tell me what’s going on right now, if you care to.” He responded: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's the sense of not being alone, not being crazy. What I chose to do was not extreme or crazy. It was the right thing to do, and many people would have done it if they could. And there were lots of people who were thankful for what I did and would have liked to have helped me in some

way. And that's how I feel about activists now. The tables have turned, so to speak, where I'm now the man in the house. So, I try to support all the activists in the same way that he supported me by saying what he said and showing them that they're not alone. This is a worthy endeavor. It's real. Their suffering is real. The animals' suffering is real, and the work that you're doing actually helps and is actually meaningful.

In this segment of the interview, Keith noted the cyclical nature of life. In sync with his changing life his activism had changed. The activism of his 20s looks different from his activism today.

In a similar manner, Sandy has come to recognize that there are limits to her emotional evolvement in the animal rights movement. In each case, these individuals have grown in wisdom and understanding of what it takes to maintain their lives as an animal rights activist.

So, in terms of being able to regulate my emotions and realizing I don't have to be an activist out in the streets seven days a week, I think that just comes with that emotional maturity, too, and realizing how I can best be a change agent by not making it as emotional, just knowing where I can draw the line. Because it's still

83 going to be a part of my heart, but if I’m watching the videos every day or if I'm in a Facebook group and it's just negativity and they're just showing terrible pictures, that doesn't do any good for me. I've seen it, and I know it exists. So yeah, I just try to be more of the positive activist in terms of where it can fit in for my own mental health too.

Sandy emphasizes the importance of not getting burned out.

But just knowing that on a global scale, that's what is the only downside to this.

And it's taking off blinders. I lived in my little bubble even before this, just recognizing, oh, there's just so much inherent suffering and that it will be my life's work to take care of myself, to not get burnt out, so I can stay really active with this cause and make as much progress as possible. To advocate for animals and to do that, I need to make sure that I'm taking care of myself, so I don't let the dark side of the reality of the uphill battle, the mountain that we have to climb, get the best of me.

Sandy mentions desensitizing herself to the smell of bacon and meat and like occurrences in everyday American culture in order to maintain her activism.

I've desensitized myself to it a little bit in order to make sure that I can manage in this world. But I think one of the repercussions is just the reality of how many animals every second -- it's still happening. It's happening right now. Just having that truth, knowing the truth and having to cohabitate, having to coexist and collaborate with people that it's not even on their radar, and just recognizing that I was in the same position that they were and to not hold it against them.

84 The activists in this study are thoughtful in their approach to their activism. There is focus on their own sustainability in the movement. They have learned to lean into what they believe is helpful to their own sustainability and to lean away from that which hinders their effectiveness and passion for the movement. Joe speaks of his ability to compartmentalize animal issues in order to be an effective activist: Well, first I only watch animal investigations if I think it's useful. These days, I

only watch them if I think it's useful to my work. I try to first minimize the amount of that that I see. I think, for whatever reason, I've built up a good wall around that where I can say, "It's awful that beings have suffered like this. It's awful that as we're talking right now, there's beings being slaughtered second by second." But I think if I want to exist, I guess I just rationally built this wall around it that if I want to exist in the world and be an effective activist, I have to keep this in this little box and not regularly open that door.

The ability to see things in a complex and intricate manner is reflected in the narrative of these participants. These activists narrate the ability to hold things idealistically and realistically at the same time. The animal rights activists in this study have developed ways of self-preservation in order to maintain their involvement in the animal rights movement.

In addition, the concept of time has influenced their activism. They realize the urgency of their activism and yet respect the time it takes for change. Rico discusses his desire for immediate change while acknowledging how black and white thinking can detour progress.

85 In terms of [laughs] -- everything is intersectional. And people want to look at things through this black and white lens, which is very, very impractical, and it's not a pragmatic way to look at things because that's not reality. Animal rights, unfortunately, falls into that category. I think animal rights, especially when you're on the righter side of animal rights, like the extreme side of animal rights, everything is kind of black and white, and there's this way of thinking that if you

don't go vegan now, then don't talk to me. If you don't want animal rights now, don't talk to me. If you are supporting anything that has to do with progress, because anything that has to do with progress means that it takes time, and they don't want it to take time. Animal rights activists -- and I was like this for a while.

I don't want it to take time either. If it was up to me, the world would be vegan now, not tomorrow. But through my advocacy -- my advocacy has evolved a lot -I've come to realize, and I realized this fairly quickly -- that any social justice movement is about progress, and it's about baby steps. Sometimes you have really big steps, but most of the times you don't. You take baby steps.

Much like Rico, Erica describes how time and awareness have made a difference to her perspective. For Erica, digging into political and legal systems have become an increased focus as a part of the potential for effective change.

I think I'm a much different person than I was 15 years ago or 10 years ago or 5 years ago, really even. Just the way that I see things now, I think the desire to dig into systems, political issues, just the laws and how they treat people and the disparate impact that it has, I just don't think I was quite as awake and aware to those types of things that I am now.

86 Each activist in this study is able to identify the areas of change that have internally taken place since becoming an animal rights activist. Some changes have been subtle while others have been significant. Ronda speaks of the liberation of embracing herself and her beliefs and the peace that comes with this embrace.

I think that animal rights activism just fits in nicely. I didn't feel resistance to it. It just felt like, yeah, this feels right with me. And maybe if there was resistance, it

was fear to being perceived as more radical because I already feel like the way that I approach things is different, and I'm -- I think we all, at least at a younger age, we want to fit in. And so fearing exclusion was already on my radar because I felt so different in the way that I thought and approached life. And so any resistance that I had to animal rights activism was fear of being perceived as extreme or radical and potentially risking further exclusion. Once I embraced myself and embraced whatever was going to come as a result of making that choice, it was just liberating, and it just all settled into place. And any resistance has just dissolved.

The ability to change with time and to compartmentalize enables these individuals to feel deeply, but to not become overwhelmed by their desires for a better world. In order to maintain their activism one of the challenges is to modulate their feelings and efforts in order to avoid burnout. For these activist avoiding burnout is essential for their ability to be an effective animal rights activist, which for them, includes changing and compartmentalizing.

87 Theme VI: Human Justice The participants in this study have a remarkable ability to appreciate the perspective of others while maintaining their own. Their compassion is not just limited to the non-human animal. They include all sentient beings as having the right to live and thrive to their full potential. For some of these activists, the animal became their first focus of social moral concern and for others it was an expansion of concern. Keith reflects on his thoughts of moral responsibility and how he sees the human other.

I think everyone is morally culpable to whatever extent. But I don't think any of them and this is interesting to say out loud -- I don't think any of them are necessarily, maybe some of them are -- I did meet a few that I would call -- evil. I think the vast majority of them are not evil. They're just doing what they think is okay, what they think is right, what they think is tradition, habit, custom, what they think is exciting, what they think is actually, good for the world. They've convinced themselves that they're feeding the world. They're helping the world.

They're doing a good deed for the world and so happily. How do we label someone as evil when they have that intention and take that position? I don't know that we really can because I think intention is very important. Consequences of course are bad, but -- these consequences are bad, but the intention should matter. I think that mostly their intentions are good.

The participants in this study consider the intentions of others as well as the complexities of the systems involved. Sandy exemplifies the ability to identify the complex layers involved in the systems she, and the other participants in this study, would like to change.

88 It's one of -- again, you can notice how I compartmentalize the way that I think about a lot of these things or don't think about them anymore so I can focus my energy on other types of -- on my work and other types of activism. When I just think about the layers upon layers of the system, all the way down to the factory farm worker and just that they're not bad people. They just have no other choice, and they're doing this god-awful work. The layers that we have to deconstruct the

system and so many systems of oppression makes me sigh.

Joe, as well as the other animal rights activists in this study, does not restrict himself to advocating for the animal alone. These activists are involved in a variety of social justice issues.

I think as I've gotten older, I've realized that animal advocacy still matters a lot, but I can also lend my hand to these other issues. I can have a life outside of animal advocacy. I can see the good in others who don't believe everything I believe in about animals. So, I don't know. I guess I've just maybe -- my view has been -- I've become a little more nuanced of an activist over time.

The participants in this study have compassion for not only the individual animals who finds themselves caught up in the industrialized farming system, but they can––and have– –put themselves in the shoes of the factory farm worker. As a result of his undercover investigative work Rico relates to the factory farm worker.

I think that PTSD is a very common thing after doing investigative work given the nature of the work, which is why I advocate so much for the factory farm worker because I've only done that months at a time. I could just not imagine what a life of that kind of work does to somebody, not just physically and mentally, like

89 emotionally. It just must be so draining. It must be -- it must destroy your soul.

The sounds and the smells and the sights and just the physical pain that you endure doing that kind of work for little or no pay, it's horrible. It's horrible. And yes, of course, the animals, everyone knows the animals suffer. I don't want to not talk about the animals, but that's a given. But the way that every -- it's a destructive system. It's a destructive system.

The experience in this group of activists is weighty. They have put their bodies in places and put their minds in places that has given them immeasurable experience in the animal rights movement. As Erica states, however, her passion for animal rights does not deter her from pursuing other social justice issues.

Well, in that I decided to just dedicate my entire professional life to animal welfare, and I don't think that I will ever -- never say never, but I don't see myself ever going back from that. Recently, I've learned a lot more about housing rights, as well, and evictions and things like that, so I've become pretty passionate about that, so I can maybe see myself working on those issues as well, but I'll never leave behind animal welfare. That is just something that I'm going to always work on until I have no more breath. And not everybody's on that path.

Throughout the discussion and again in this instance the term intersectional is used.

Ronda speaks of her awareness that nothing stands alone.

Oh my gosh, veganism is kind of like an offshoot of intersectional justice issues in general. So I can't really talk about it in isolation because I don't -- to me, it's not a stand alone thing. It has layers to it, and it crosses over other things that I am

90 really passionate about whether it be feminism or racial justice or environmental justice, all these different issues.

Ronda discusses her sense of responsibility to give back to her family’s tribe: I think one of the things that's driven me the most is a sense of responsibility to give back to the people that made my life existence a little bit easier. Like when I think about my dad's side of the family and everything they've endured, I'm

incredibly fortunate to be able to have gotten an education, and so I feel a responsibility to then try and craft a world where the next generation will also have access to that and more. And the work that I do with my family's tribe, a lot of it is talking to elders, and so I hear a lot about their stories and what they endured. Just my dad's generation, they weren't allowed to go to White school.

There was an Indian school on the bayou, and they had to go to that school. They were also -- their first language was French, so interestingly enough, they almost had an immigrant experience in that they were excluded because of the color of their skin, because of the language that they spoke. They were an outside culture even though it was their home. And so they endured a lot of abuse because of that and were denied a lot of opportunities whether it be getting a loan at a bank or ever thinking about going past just basic education. So, because I hear those stories and I understand one generation what a difference it's been, I also understand that things can revert. Things can return. It doesn't necessarily have to always be what we perceive as progress. So, I feel a duty to continue the work so that no one ever has to endure what they had to endure and experience what they

91 did. Again, I feel a sense of responsibility because what they fought for, I'm able to enjoy now.

Ronda speaks of her sense of responsibility to maintain what has been gained and to give back. The activists in this study have a sense of care and wellbeing, and this has become an organizing aspect of their lives. They seek a life of living both independently and in cohabitation with others in an atmosphere of consideration. The participants in this study

have an inherit sense of reciprocity and desire for the other, both human and non-human, what they desire for themselves: the ability to live freely and thrive within their surrounding environment.

Conclusion The interview content discussed in this chapter acknowledges participants’ lived experience of being born into a life of animal rights activism. Participants spoke in an honest and straightforward way about their process of becoming and sustaining their lives as an animal rights activist.

92

Chapter V

Discussion

That was actually – once I joined the world of activism that was the first thing I was shocked by – I was suprised by – that no one was discussing these moral principles and whether we’re right or we’re wrong and whether we should rethink our positions. We were all just talking about how to be effective and how to get things done. It was refreshing. I was like, ‘Oh, Okay. These people have moved beyond the world of discussion. They just know.’ For whatever reasons, they think they know. It’s already in the cards for them. This is the right path, and now we’re just talking about what we can do to help. ~Keith – animal right activist, undercover investigator

Introduction This project sought to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experience of the animal rights activist and to investigate how one becomes an animal rights activist. The previous chapter introduced six individuals who identified as animal rights activists.

Categories of meaning relating to their life as animal rights activists that arose from their unedited interview narrations were presented in the previous chapter. The following chapter will give consideration to the process of becoming an animal rights activist with

93 the aim of building higher conceptualization. The following series of topics–– Witnessing, the Animal Child, the Farm Animal, Connecting the Parts, and Wholeness–– are garnered from the findings in the previous chapter. These topics will be discussed and utilized to explicate findings that arose from the interview process in Chapter IV. The final section of this chapter will indicate how findings from this study can inform psychoanalytic clinical social work as it engages with the animal rights activist on

clinical and research implications.

Witnessing As noted by Oliver in her 2001 text Witnessing Beyond Recognition, the term witnessing has a powerful double meaning. Witnessing can be based on first hand testimony, as in an eyewitness, while also referring to the subjectivity of bearing witness.

It is this double meaning that makes witnessing such a powerful alternative to recognition in reconceiving subjectivity and therefore ethical relations. The double meaning of witnessing—eyewitness testimony based on first hand knowledge, on the one hand, and bearing witness to something beyond recognition that can’t be seen on the other—is the heart of subjectivity. The tension between eyewitness testimony and bearing witness both positions the subject in finite history and necessitates the infinite response-ability of subjectivity. (p. 16) Participants in this study witnessed the treatment of a domesticated animal commodified for food that sparked a conscious awareness of what they believed to be a moral injustice.

94 This consciousness activated a sense of responsibility and strong desire to take action on behalf of the non-human animal.

To witness atrocity – to see those wielding total power annihilate those who have no power at all – is to see ontologized or made real a relation which, until that moment, could only be expressed ideologically – namely, the idea of the worthlessness of the other, the other’s lack of right to exist. It was this ideology that defined the relation of the fascist state to its enemies in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and it is this ideology, this relation, which today lies at the deepest core of our relations with the other beings-in the-world, those ‘others’ who we reduce by that singular and utterly fraudulent sign ‘the animal.’ (Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 4) For the participants in this study, the desire to take action became activated with increased knowledge and seeing in person or through social media the suffering of domestic animals used for food. The need to take action was often coupled with feelings of shock and disbelief.

Ronda reflects on her thoughts when she realized the cows were getting mad cow disease after being fed the remnants of other diseased cows. “So, I wasn’t aware that anyone would ever treat an animal like that or feed them something that they didn’t think was appropriate. So that was disturbing.” In a similar manner, Erica expresses disbelief after watching a documentary on the life of a dairy cow. “I remember just watching that and being like I just don't know if I knew all this. This is shocking to me to actually see it with my eyes, and I have to do something.” In accordance with their felt sense of responsibility the first form of action after witnessing the suffering of the animal

95 commodified for food was to stop eating the animal. Keith speaks to this change of behavior: The first change was probably the harder one which was to stop eating animals because that’s when I really sort of separated myself from everyone I knew, like all my—I don’t mean physically separated, just I sort of drew a line in the sand, and everyone felt it. I would no longer participate in the ritual, the habitual custom, of eating dead animals together as a family or as a friend. I just stopped.

And I lost some friends because of it. I don’t think they were really good friends to begin with now that I think back about it, And some of my family members, mostly extended, my immediate family was quite supportive, although my mother was tougher on me than anyone else. My father was more supportive, although he did think it was odd and weird. I think he appreciated the mental willpower that it took for me to sit at a table and watch everyone else eat chicken wings – which was my favorite food up until that point—I loved buffalo chicken wings—and not touch one. He was quite impressed with the strength that it took for me to stick to my principles, and so he made that aware to me many times in conversation. He said, “You know, that’s—I’m actually impressed that you’re still going.” I think he thought it was going to be a one or two week fad [laughs] or maybe a couple months at most. But here I am almost 20 years later, and I still won’t eat a chicken wing.

Following participants’ first response to stop eating the animal, the second response was often to inform and educate others. What proved to be disappointing for the participants

96 in this study was adjusting to the realization that others did not respond in a like manner or, as Ronda states, they were unaffected or unattached: It’s definitely disappointing when you see people presented with the facts and then feel unaffected or unattached to the suffering that they were just made aware of. And then when that happens, I just try to remember how long it took me to ever wake up for just in the tiniest, minute way. So I try to find understanding and compassion there as well. I think sometimes it’s easy to just focus your compassion on the animals and forget the people you are trying to change and persuade.

In a study exploring the nature of denial and diffusion of responsibility, Cohen (2001) found that more often than not, following a disturbing event, others disconnect themselves by telling themselves that they do not have the responsibility to do something because others will. Referring to Steiner (1993), Cohen includes psychoanalytic thinking when discussing the workings of denial, stating “Recent psychoanalytic investigations suggest that denial is a paradoxical state of mind in which we know and yet don’t know at the same time” (Hoggett, 2009, p. 86). Similarly, the term disavowal is the refusal to avow, to deny the knowledge of something that causes anxiety and guilt. Likewise, John Steiner (1993) refers to the mechanism of turning a blind eye by keeping facts and the emotions created by such facts out of sight, thus allowing one to both know and to not know. Keeping the facts out of sight is a direct reflection of both the fear and respect of the truth, which leads to the cover up and misrepresentations of the truth (Steiner, 1993, p. 129). As reflected by the responsiveness of the participants in this study, once suffering of the non-human animal is witnessed, there are those individuals who become

97 activated from within, to act in an effort to ease and stop the suffering of the non-human animal.

In Western culture, for the sake of enterprise, suffering and the actual aliveness of the animals used for entertainment, clothing, experimentation, or consumption is kept primarily undercover and out of sight. The animal rights activist threatens to interrupt everyday life as we know it and the animals’ lives as we would like to imagine it.

The vast machine of propaganda, the advertising and window dressing, ensures that the general public is not faced with the consequences of their meat-eating habits, their shopping choices, their way of life. A typical response, if you try to tell someone what really goes on behind the scenes on a factory farm, in an abattoir, in a medical research lab, or in some other place of animal suffering is, “I really don’t want to hear about it. I hate cruelty” or “I love animals. I am too sensitive to listen to this.” And, too, they are afraid of being made to feel guilty.

(Goodall & Bekoff, 2003, p. 50) In contrast to those who adopt denial, disavowal, or the mechanism of turning a blind eye, those who engage often do so as a result of guilt. While denial and its cohorts diffuse responsibility, feelings of guilt initiate action. In her 1937 work Love, Guilt and Reparation, Klein writes of the relationship between love and guilt: I said before that feelings of love and gratitude arise directly and spontaneously in the baby in response to the love and care of his mother. The power of love – which is the manifestation of the forces which tend to preserve life – is there in the baby as well as the destructive impulses and finds its first fundamental expression in the baby’s attachment to his mother’s breast, which develops into

98 love for her as a person. My psycho-analytic work has convinced me that when in the baby’s mind the conflicts between love and hate arise and the fears of losing the loved one become active, a very important step is made in development.

These feelings of guilt and distress now enter as a new element into the emotion of love. They become an inherent part of love, and influence it profoundly both in quality and quantity. (Klein, 1937, p. 311) Klein emphasizes the powerful forces of guilt and distress on the influence of ones feelings of love. For some of the participants in this study, feelings of guilt are easily recalled. During the interview process, Joe spoke to his sense of guilt when he talked about his sensitivity as a child and stated, “I think I also maybe had more guilt about – yeah, maybe more guilt about the suffering of others.” Joe’s capacity for love and concern played a fundamental part in his desire to make things better for the non-human animal.

True reparation is, for Klein, integral to the depressive position. It is grounded in love and respect for the separate other, and involves facing loss and damage and making efforts to repair and restore one’s objects. Effective reparation involves a type and degree of guilt that is not so overwhelming as to induce despair, but can engender concern and hope. Reparation itself provides a way out of despair, by promoting virtuous rather than vicious cycles in states of depression. (Spillius, Milton, Garvey, Couve, & Steiner, 2011, p. 470) The participants in this study have witnessed the suffering of the domesticated animal used for food and express their care and concern, originating from the depth of their

99 original experience, through their life of activism. They are witnesses to a moral injustice largely denied, disavowed, or kept of sight by the majority of Western culture.

The Animal Child During the interview process, the majority of participants often affectionately recalled, by name, significant non-human others with whom they shared their childhood, predominantly family pets. Joe reflects on his ability to notice his family’s inconsistent treatment of animals as a youth: “So I think of our treatment of animals, there was definitely an inconsistency that I self-identified as thinking the world of this creature. I inhabited the world with [family pet] Mandy, but yet at the same time I was taking some actions that were, based on what I had learned, were causing clear suffering to others.”

Participants in this study exhibit concern for the other regardless of species or level of domestication.

Throughout history children and pets both figuratively and literally have shared the same spaces. The term “pet” was first used to describe the spoiled and overindulged child. The term eventually migrated to other small childlike beings such as dogs, cats, and young farm animals (Melson, 2001, p. 35). In contemporary culture, children and domesticated pets comfortably bridge the gap between what is human and nonhuman.

“Pets are the humanized animals, the tame ones bracketed off from the wild, bred over generations to exist only in a human milieu. Children are the animal human, the instinctual, untamed substrate that humanity shares with other species” (p. 35). Childhood pets proved to be a significant relationship in the lives of the participants in this study. In

100 almost every case participants referred to childhood animal friends, particular animals who were included as family in their childhood home.

In his first interview, Keith reflects on his relationship with his childhood dog, Rex, and emphasized, “I loved him.” Keith spent a noteworthy part of his childhood with Rex who died when Keith was 13 years old. “I remember considering him my best friend.” Like Keith, Rico reflects on growing up with family pets and feeling a strong connection to his childhood companions. In their early years as animal rights activists, both Keith and Rico became undercover investigators in the Korean dog meat industry.

For Keith and Rico, who were raised in an atmosphere that included dogs as family, seeing a dog raised and slaughtered for food was unfamiliar and distressing. For Rico the experience was difficult on various levels, but the ability to cognitively distance himself from the animal as food was especially painful and difficult.

Because the dogs are the animals that I most related to, that I most relate to because I’ve had dogs for my whole life, and I was never really around farm animals. So just watching an animal that is so familiar to me, watching a nonhuman animal that is so familiar to me go through that experience and suffer and then watching the animal die – I’ve never seen anything die in front of me, so that was the first thing. It wasn’t something that I’ve ever seen. So, I just felt so much pain. Yeah, I felt pain, and I was sad. And then I was angry that this was happening.

Like Rico and Keith, Joe remembers, in particular, his dogs Sadie and Mandy. In his first interview Joe speaks of Mandy, Joe says, “I got that she had likes and dislikes and felt joy when I would come home and felt sadness when I would leave.” In contrast to seeing

101 the other as a conglomeration of projections as in object relating, which is a one-sided affair, Winnicott (1969) uses the term object usage to describe the achievement of appreciating the other as separate.

This thing that there is between relating and use is the subject’s place of the object Outside the area of the subject’s omnipotent control; that is, the subject’s perception of the object as an external phenomenon, not as a projective entity, in fact recognition of it as an entity in its own right. (Winnicott, 1969, p. 89) The majority of the participants in this study spoke of their childhood memories and connection with the family non-human animal members. In contrast to popular culture, as the participants in this study matured, they maintained their connection and concern for the non-human animal and the ability to see them as individuals.

In most cases young children have a natural affinity for animals and seem to be interested and curious from the beginning. Children and animals have been historically bulked together because of their perceived unrefined and primitive nature. Freud paralleled children’s responses to animals to the totemistic adoration of primitive man: There is a great deal of resemblance between the relations of children and primitive men towards animals. Children show no trace of the arrogance which urges adult civilized men to draw a hard-and-fast line between their own nature and that of all other animals. Children have no scruples over allowing animals to rank as their full equals. Uninhibited as they are in the avowal of their bodily needs, they no doubt feel themselves more akin to animals than to their elders, who may be a puzzle to them. (Freud, 1913, p. 126)

102 It is the child who most often takes great delight in the companionship and connection with the non-human animal. Western culture comfortably builds on the rapport children have with animals. Fables and fairytales such as The Velveteen Rabbit, Charlotte’s Web, and Black Beauty line the bookshelves of the young child’s room. However, as the child matures, the playful, lovable, and fierce aspects associated with the animal in childhood is distanced for the sake of maturity and adulthood. In Western society, as we mature and grow older, there is a culture which encourages the ideology that to be human is to be superior to the animal.

Psychologist and social theorist Wilhelm Reich wrote in his 1933 publication The Mass Psychology of Fascism, the “‘highest task of human existence’ is held to be the ‘slaying of his animal side’ and the cultivation of ‘values.”’

Man is fundamentally an animal…[Yet] man developed the particular idea that he was not an animal; he was a “man,” and he had long since divested himself of the ‘vicious’ and ‘brutal.’ Man takes great pains to disassociate himself from the vicious animal to prove that he ‘is better’ by pointing to his culture and his civilization, which distinguishes him from the animal, that he has incomparably more in common with ‘the animal’ than he has with that which he thinks and dreams himself to be…His viciousness, his inability to live peacefully with his own kind, his wars, bear witness to the fact that man is distinguished from the other animals only by a boundless sadism and the mechanical trinity of an authoritarian view of life, mechanistic science, and the machine. If one looks back over long stretches of the result of human civilization, one finds that man’s claims

103 are not only false, but are peculiarly contrived to make him forget he is an animal.

(Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 9) Mankind has established a distinction between human and non-human animal and identified the human as superior and the non-human animal as inferior. Throughout civilization some of the most horrific actions on behalf of mankind have been rationalized and justified by deeming other humans as animal-like and therefore inferior and void of consideration. Referring to the animality in the victim has served as justification for discrimination, colonization, oppression, and genocide.

Recall the Abu Ghraib photographs of private First Class Lynndie England with a leash around the neck of an Iraqi prisoner. Reportedly, the guards were ordered to treat the prisoners like “dogs,” even making them bark like dogs. It seems that we cannot talk about recognizing the humanity of others or about conferring human rights on them without relying on, or at some level presupposing, an opposition between humans and animals. The histories of the suffering of humans at the hands of other humans and the suffering of animals at the hands of humans are intimately connected. (Oliver, 2009, p. 45) Both the direct and indirect ways humankind seeks to separate, disconnect, detach, and split from the animal is remarkable. Grotstein (1985) denotes splitting to be a common phenomenon and a fundamental defense mechanism in the life of the individual, “while in the defensive sense splitting implies an unconscious phantasy by which the ego can split itself off from the perception of an unwanted aspects of itself, or can split an object into two or more objects in order to locate polarized, immiscible qualities separately” (p. 3).

In Western culture, maturity is seemingly achieved by separating from unwanted animal

104 aspects of oneself in addition to distancing from the actual animal. Beginning with their family pet, the concern of these six animal rights activists crossed over boundaries of species or sameness allowing the inclusion of different others, which ultimately included the farm animal.

The Farm Animal Western society generally depicts the life of the farm animal as pleasantly domesticated, fortunate, generous, and happy, without a care in the world. In his 2007 publication Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, Bob Torres writes of his previous distorted notions of “farm life.”

Prior to my classes in production agriculture, I’d had some pleasant notion of animals living lives of bucolic bliss, frolicking in fields, chewing their cud, and sauntering over to a milking station twice a day to happily share their bounty. This notion was rapidly shattered by my training in animal exploitation and the maximization of profit – profit made literally on the backs of animals…I learned that animals were simultaneously producing commodities (as in the case of milk, eggs, leather, wool and such) and serving as commodities themselves (as they were slaughtered for meat). Moreover, this was happening to them in ways that were remarkably similar to what we would normally think of as slavery. (p. 19) Torres’s imaginings of farm animals living “bucolic bliss and frolicking in fields” is evidence of the reminisced and unchanged storybook tales from childhood. Modern society offers little, if any, bridge from the frolicking farm animal of childhood storybooks to the actual confined life of misery lived by the factory farm animal of today.

105 The individuality and actual life of today’s farm animal is reduced and fabricated to fit the psychological comfort of contemporary culture.

In The Mythology of the Animal Farm in Children’s Literature, Stacy Hoult-Saros writes that in nearly all children’s tales of farm animals the animals are given a choice between the farm and freedom. The tale of the farm animal holds the myth of willing submission with nearly every time choosing the life of the farm. Hoult-Saros writes: An eagerness to please humans, to be acknowledged, observed and valued by them, characterizes nearly all animals in these narratives. An individual animal may act out his or her desire to be tamed, dominated and possessed by humans through offering goods and services, performing tricks, or pointing out characteristics that set him or her apart from other candidates. The reward for being selected by humans is the opportunity to live safely and happily in a farm (or zoo, or circus troupe) where the creature’s attributes can be properly appreciated by those whose approval he or she tries so desperately to earn.

Paradoxically, the attainment of this favored status must necessarily lead to the destruction of animals who, after sacrificing their freedoms to become utterly dependent on humans for the fulfillment of their needs, ultimately give up their lives for human consumption (a final step that is never depicted and rarely alluded to in children’s stories). (2016, p. xiv) The farm animal depicted in children’s literature as described by Hoult-Saros is eager to please the dominating culture and willing to give up their freedom. The final outcome is total depencence without freedom.

106 As a young child Sandy identifies with the explotation of the non-human animal.

Sandy speaks of how she “hated” seeing animals in captivity as a young child.

I didn't fully know and understand, but I hated seeing animals in captivity. And I was a long way from being vegan at the time. So something was there in me in terms of being able to recognize animal suffering. I just didn't have the recognition or the full capacity, again, as how it related to my plate and animals

raised for food, what they were feeling. But in me I can empathize with animals in zoos, hated rodeos, hated the circus. I could see that exploitation. I don't know where that lens developed, honestly.

At a young age Sandy was actely aware of the environmental conditions of the nonhuman animal in captivity.

As Sandy and other participants matured in their animal rights activism the focus of their activism would be on the industrialized farm animal. The contemporary farm animal lives out his or her life on what is universally called a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) or in other terms a factory farm. A most predominant image of the industrialized farming system is the “concentrated” area in which these animals live their life.

First, I would say that they’re perhaps the most vulnerable creatures on earth, probably the least able to defend themselves. And then I think, primarily, it’s also just the numbers and the extent of suffering. Just like farm animals in the United States, we’re looking at about 10 billion land animals raised and killed every year and just the extreme—the acuteness of their suffering of just being kept in cages for—I think of a battery cage for egg laying hens where they’re trapped with

107 multiple birds on a wire mesh cage where they’re unable to spread their wings or move around. I just think if I were to try to pinpoint what beings suffer the most—there’s certainly a lot of humans who suffer. But if I were to think of one being I would not want to be brought into the world as, it might be a hen in a battery cage or a farm animal.

As reflected by Joe’s comment above, the animal rights activists in this study repeatedly articulated the degree to which these non-human animals suffered as a result of their harsh confinement. It is without exception that the participants in this study were drawn to activism on behalf of the farm animal as a result of their desire to have a maximum impact on suffering.

Connecting the Parts Participants in this research study go against the grain of culture. They desire acceptance, but their actions are not based upon the approval of others, but by the moral code in which they live. It is perceived that the origin of their moral code resides in their family of origin and has been reinforced with education and knowledge.

Interviews revealed that four out of the six participants were raised Catholic but no longer practicing, one participant was atheist, and one participant was a practicing Protestant Christian. Despite the lack of participation in organized religion by five out of the six participants, these activists frequently used verbiage associated with religious terminology such as “better angels of their nature,” “awakening,” “north star,” and by thanking God. While this terminology may not represent anything in and of itself, it seems to indicate a residue of a religious culture within the participants’ experiences.

108 Additionally, three out of the six activists referred to an ethics course taken in college noting its profound influence in the way they perceived the societal treatment of animals. Participant interviews revealed individuals who are committed to a high moral code, which expanded to include the animal despite boundaries historically cultivated and kept in place by society and religion. For the animal rights activists in this study, the domestication and “use” of the farm animal is a dated representation of civility. For these six animal rights activists, the civilized man is not a virtuous goal as he is a source of violence and misery for those others mankind anxiously tries to transcend. In mankind’s pursuit to harness his anxiety around his own beastliness he unknowingly highlights and enacts the very thing he fears.

Just as humans regulated animal savagery in the ascent to domestication, so did man become (what said to be) civilized by raising himself above his own primal urges. He was released from the grip of instinct, from his own animal nature. He was never entirely free, however, and by the 18th century in England and elsewhere, the prevailing conception of human identity depicted a self split between animal and human sides. Here was foreshadowed the notion of “the beast within” – that metaphorical site that to this day, in western cultures, signifies all the contradictory fears and desires surrounding uninhibited behavior including sex and violence. (Anderson, 1998, p. 128) Mankind literally and metaphorically takes the life out of the domesticated farm animal taking them from freedom to captivity to death, a process he himself anxiously tries to avoid.

109 The animal rights activists in this study have differentiated themselves from their families of origin and society at large. Armed with the eyes of inclusion from childhood––where the species-boundary is thin or non-existent––and a high moral code, the participants in this study lean into what they know to be true, which for them means leaving behind, what society would call, aspects of civility.

Wholeness Each participant in this study described their birth into animal rights activism.

Some described a lengthier process over time while others described a more immediate event. In all, their new life of being an animal rights activist brought with it a new way of being and a sense of wholeness. Ronda talks about her process: Yeah. I don’t know why I did not do it sooner. I feel like when you get on the other side of things, yeah, I think – this is again why I want this for everyone else.

It’s like your life is so much harder when you are resisting who you are. You inflict a lot of unnecessary suffering on yourself, and that fear does you—it prevents you from perhaps connecting with people who are better aligned with you, denies yourself experiences that could enrich your existence on this planet.

Once you settle into who you are and embrace that, it welcomes you to align with people who are also on your wavelength. They can see you.

The inclusion of the non-human animal as a consideration of moral concern situated these individuals as a minority in their way of thinking, feeling, and living. In fact, to consider the farm animal as a subjective being is counter-cultural in the United States and in many areas of the world. As each participant narrated their life as an animal rights activist, they

110 spoke of their anger and sorrow but also liberation and a sense of being at home and right with themselves. According to Winnicott, this is a reflection, in part, of a healthy individual: The life of a healthy individual is characterized by fears, conflicting feelings, doubts, frustrations, as much as by the positive feature. The main thing is that the man or woman feels he or she is living his or her own life, taking responsibility for action or inaction, and able to take credit for success and blame for failure. In one language it can be said that the individual has emerged from dependence to independence, or to autonomy. (Winnicott, 1986, p. 27) The individuals in this study had a sense of claiming what they knew to be true.

Participants expressed confidence in living the life that was in line with their moral compass, which meant treating themselves and others with respect and dignity.

Libido, in Klein’s usage, is likewise directed, organized, personal, and complex.

The child’s love of his parents and siblings, she goes to considerable lengths to explain, is not limited to desire, but entails deep caring. This caring is an inherent feature of the earliest relationship to objects: ‘feelings of love and gratitude arise directly and spontaneously in the baby in response to the love and care of his mother.’ Caring is not motivated merely by the child’s dependence on his objects for drive gratification but involves a ‘profound urge to make sacrifices’ to make other’s happy, out of genuine sympathy for them. (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983, p. 139) The majority of participants spoke of being raised in an atmosphere which encouraged the consideration of others. In various ways the participants in this study applied their

111 family-of-origin values and made them their own. Ronda reflects on her Catholic upbringing: I think I was raised in a way that was meant to make me religious and Catholic and extremely moral and ethical. And what I took away from that was not that I need to be a good Catholic. It was more like I need to be consistent with my moral compass. My actions need to be consistent with what I'm explicitly saying are my

beliefs. And so that was my takeaway from my very Catholic upbringing. So, I think I've always felt like I didn't want to be a hypocrite. I wanted to actually do the things that I say I was going to do, and that's in very practical ways.

Participants felt themselves driven to make things better for the animal that ultimately aligned, despite the cultural disparity, with their feelings of moral responsibility. For some participants, life as an animal right activist was the gateway to other social justice causes––and for others it was an extension of their concern for others. Regardless, participants in this study exhibited concern for both the human and non-human other.

Rico states: And I will say that animal rights was the gateway into every other social justice issue for me. I know a lot of people come at it the other way. They start into general social justice, and they get into animal rights afterwards. For me it was the other way around.

This concern, according to Winnicott (2002), can be inversely interpreted as guilt in social life––but has key distinctions to express growth and empathy.

A sense of guilt is anxiety linked with the concept of ambivalence, and implies a degree of integration in the individual ego that allows for the retention of good

112 object imago along with the idea of a destruction of it. Concern implies further integration, and further growth, and relates in a positive way to the individual’s sense of responsibility, especially in respect of relationships into which the instinctual drives have entered. Concern refers to the fact that the individual cares, or minds, and both feels and accepts responsibility. (p. 215) This concern for all creatures, animal and human, is succinctly put in Ronda’s second interview. She notes the correlation of how we treat each other, animals, and ourselves: I think that the way we treat others is the way that we treat ourselves, and so it’s reciprocal in nature. Also, I didn’t mention this before, but I think our attitudes towards animals are replicated in our attitudes towards humans. They reinforce certain potentially harmful attitudes, and by de-humanizing people, we then throw them into the category of animal which we’ve already put at the lowest rung. And so those things have parallels, and so the way that we – the attitudes that we have towards one another are mirrored in the attitudes that we have towards animals.

And then the way that we treat others, I think, is a reflection of the way that we treat ourselves. So I’ve just made it all one big web of connectivity.

For Ronda, and others in this study, love and concern for oneself and others is a part of being fully human and whole. In Kelly Oliver’s 2010 essay Animal Ethics: Towards an Ethics of Responsiveness she writes, “The man-animal binary is not just any opposition; it is the one used most often to justify violence, not only man’s to animals but also man’s violence to other people deemed like animals” (p. 271). Kelly’s investigations into animals throughout more than three centuries of philosophical history reveals how the practices of oppression are in direct relation to the animal.

113 Until we interrogate the history of the opposition between animals and humans with its exclusionary values, considering animals (or particular animals) to be like us or recognizing that we are also a species of animal does very little to change ‘how we eat the other’ as Derrida might say. Even if moving people or animals from one side of the man-animal divide to the other may change our attitudes toward them, it does not necessarily transform the oppositional logic that pits us verses them and justifies our enslaving, imprisoning, or torturing (not to mention eating) them. Perhaps if we quit treating animal like animals, we can quit treating people like animals. (p. 272) The animal rights activists who participated in this project were born into a life of activism motivated to close the gap between what is considered human and what is considered animal––or in other words, between who is considered significant and who is considered insignificant. The six activists who participated in this study act on behalf of the animal, which ultimately, includes all of us.

Summary The six animal rights activists who participated in this study described their birth into animal rights activism. Based on findings, it is the witnessing of suffering coupled with a capacity for love and concern, the relationship with a non-human family member in childhood, a desire to have maximum impact to reduce suffering, and a high moral code, which all contributed to becoming an animal rights activist.

While the activist identify human and non-human others as individual and worthwhile others, it is surmised, based on narratives, that it is the plight of the billions of

114 farm animals; most specifically the harsh confinement and intense suffering that leads these individuals to activism on behalf of the farm animal. Through this process of becoming an animal rights activist these activists differentiate themselves from their family of origin and Western culture, and arrive at feelings of integraton and wholeness as they seek to reduce the suffering of the industrialized farm animal.

Clinical Implications The animal rights activist challenges the powerful cultural norm of human exceptionalism. It would seem essential for clinicians working with the animal rights activist to suspend or perhaps expand their tendencies to place the non-human animal within the social construct as a resource to mankind. In the following statement Ronda describes her experience within the therapeutic setting: I’ve gone through a lot of different people [therapists]. And one now is not vegan, and I wish that I could find one that was because I’ll talk about these things and these frustrations, and I don’t think that there’s a point of reference on the other end that’s really understanding where I’m coming from.

The views of the animal rights activists are a minority in today’s Western culture––thus, as clinicians, questioning our own biases and norms is significant when working with the animal rights activist.

Questioning our own thoughts on human exceptionalism and the comfortable cultural norms is in stride with our profession and the values of psychoanalytic social work. As stated by AAPCSW, the goal of the psychoanalytic social worker is “to integrate concerns for social justice within clinical practice, promote inclusivity and

115 affirm the diverse identities of our colleagues and of those with whom we work, and to cultivate a community of professionals that advocate for open inquiry and respect for difference.” As clinical social workers we are continually encouraged to act with concern and curiosity. Clinicians, working with the animal rights activist, are encouraged to consider the complex dynamics and countercultural stance inherent in being an animal rights activist.

Research Implications Suggestions for future research include investigating trauma in relation to being an animal rights activist. Often shocking and disturbing descriptions of what activists have witnessed in person or on screen––such as, “seeing a dog boiled alive” or military experiments where “they took a blow torch and burnt the skin off the pig with the pig still living and gasping for water”––is indication of the need to investigate trauma in the lives of the animal rights activists. While these depictions are difficult to hear and to write about, for the majority of us these scenes are few and far between. For the animal rights activist, these atrocities are an inherent part of what calls them to action. Research into the effects of witnessing trauma on screen and in person––and for that matter, everyday life––would potentially provide insight into the lived experience of the animal rights activist.

Conclusion This study was an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis that investigated the lived experience of six animal rights activists through twelve 60-minute semi-structured

116 interviews. The first interview, with the exception of a brief moment to collect demographic information, began with the direct question of, “How were you born into a life of animal rights activism?” This question was based on the conceptualization that to live a life of animal rights activism is to be born into a new way of being. While there are limited examples in texts and few discussions in texts, other activists’ anecdotal accounts suggested that being born into activism best described an activist’s experience. The inclusionary requirements for this study incorporated the criteria that these individuals were self-described animal rights activists and, because of their activism, had made significant changes in their lifestyle. As a phenomenological study, the researcher is an integral part of the study and, as a result, the analyses of the data is formed by my own interpretive process. This process is in alignment with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with “the end result always an account of how the analyst thinks the participant is thinking” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 80). This research is not intended to be comprehensive but to fill in some of the many unaccounted aspects of becoming an activist to further the understanding of the animal rights activist.

117

Appendix A Study Flyer

118

ARE YOU AN ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST?

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR A STUDY ON THE EXPERIENCES OF BECOMING AN ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY: This study will investigate in depth the becoming of an animal rights activist with particular interest in the Farm Animal Rights Activist.

Participation in this study will include two 60-minute interviews. The interviews will take place in person or via zoom at your convenience.

TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS STUDY: You must be a self-described animal rights activist who has made significant life changes as a result of your life as an animal rights activist.

BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATING: Your participation will contribute to an in-depth study understanding the experience of becoming an animal rights activist.

RISKS OF PARTICIPATION: There are minimal risks in participating in this study.

This research is being conducted by PhD candidate, Susan Geshay, supervised by Dr. Brenda Solomon and under the auspices of the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW) at St. Augustine College, 1345 West Argyle Street, Chicago, IL 60640 773-935-6500. This research has been approved by the ICSW Institutional Review Board. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Geshay at 317-514-1017 or sgeshay@centerpointcounseling.org You may also contact Dr. Brenda Solomon at bsolomon@icsw.edu TO VOLUNTEER PLEASE CONTACT SUSAN GESHAY: 317-514-1017 sgeshay@centerpointcounseling.org

119

Appendix B Recruitment Letter

120

SUSAN GESHAY 1502 East 80th Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46240 | 317-514-1017 | sgeshay@centerpointcounseling.org

January 28, 2021

Dear Recipient Your name was given to me by [----------]. I am writing to ask for your help with a project I am doing. I am working on my PhD in clinical social work and my dissertation research is on the Animal Rights Activist.

My name is Susan Geshay and I am a PhD candidate at the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW) in Chicago, Illinois. I am conducting research on the Animal Rights Activist with particular interest in the Farm Animal Rights Activist. I am looking for individuals who are selfdescribed animal rights activist who have made significant changes in their diet, lifestyle, and social venues as a result of becoming an Animal Rights Activist.

The purpose of this research is to gain an in depth understanding of the Animal Rights Activist.

The aim is to locate the transformative moment or identifying the processes that brought to consciousness that animals should be treated differently than what is acceptable to mainstream culture. I am interested in what brought the Animal Rights Activist to this way of identifying with the (non-human) animal in a society that often sees the animal in a much different light. Interest lies in how this alternative way of seeing the animal is cultivated and why they consider the (nonhuman) animal worthy of their time and advocacy.

There will be two in-person or zoom interviews that will be scheduled at a convenient time and location. Complete confidentiality will be maintained at all times, protecting the activists’ identities in all data and reports.

I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in Indianapolis, Indiana. I am conducting this research for my doctoral dissertation at ICSW and my proposed research has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board. I hope you will take this opportunity to pass along my information to activists’ who may be interested in participating in this study. I can be reached at 317-514-1017 or sgeshay@centerpointcounseling.org to learn more about the study.

Sincerely, Susan Geshay

121

Appendix C Initial Phone Interview Script

122 “Hello, my name is Susan Geshay, and I am a PhD candidate at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago. I am conducting a research study about the experiences of an animal rights activist with particular interest in the farm animal rights activist. I have a brief survey that will take about 5 minutes to complete. This is a voluntary survey, and you may skip any of the questions that you do not want to answer. I am not collecting any identifying information. The following questions will help clarify if you are a good match to participate in this study.” a. Do you self-identify as an animal rights activist? (If yes, go on to b; if no; thank them for taking the time to call) b. Have you made changes in your lifestyle as a result of being an animal rights activist? (If yes, go on to c; if no; thank them for taking the time to call) c. Would you be willing to participate in two interviews in person or via zoom and a follow-up phone interview? (If yes, go on to d, if no, thank them for taking the time to call). d. Would you be willing to participate in two interviews in person or via zoom and a follow up phone interview? (If the individual is willing to participate, ask for additional contact information to mail a PDF packet of information. The packet will include the Formal Consent Document.

This document will be signed before the initial interview. If the interview is in person the document will be signed at that time. If the interview is through zoom the document will be emailed or mailed prior to the interview.

123

Appendix D Initial In-Person or Zoom Interview Script

124 “Hello and thank you for meeting with me today. As we discussed in our phone conversation, I am conducting a research study about the lived experience of the animal rights activist. During the interview process I will ask you specific questions about your experiences, thoughts, and feelings about your experience of becoming an animal rights activist. Participation is voluntary, and you may skip any question you do not want to answer. Personal identifying information is not being used, and you can choose a false name that will be used during the write up. Any personal or identifiable information collected during the survey will be strictly confidential. After recording the interview, I will type up the interview in writing, using your false name of choice.

The audio recording and write ups will be destroyed when the final paper is complete.

You are free to stop the interview at any time and we can resume when you are ready.”

“At this time the participant will be asked to describe their understanding of the consent form and asked if they have any questions regarding the study. If the participant has questions, they will be answered. If the participant does not have questions the interview will begin. If the individual decides not to participate in the interview they will be thanked for their time.”

125

Appendix E Formal Consent Document

Leave box empty - For office use only

DO NOT DELETE BOX

126

Institute for Clinical Social Work Research Information and Consent for Participation is Social Behavioral Research The lived experiences of the animal rights activist I, _____________________________________, acting for myself, agree to take part in the research entitled: The animal in the mirror: A psychoanalytic perspective of the farm animal rights activist.

This work will be carried out by Susan Geshay, LMFT, LMHC (Principal Researcher) under the supervision of Brenda Solomon, PhD (Dissertation Chair).

This work is being conducted under the auspices of the Institute for Clinical Social Work; At St. Augustine College, 1345 W. Argyle St., Chicago, IL 60640; (773)935-6500.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore and discover experiences of the animal rights activist with specific inquiry into the life of the farm animal rights activist. To date the pathway of the animal rights activist is largely obscure and unknown. To advocate for a (non-human) animal is often seen as an unlikely pathway and often indecipherable to peers, family, and society in general. This research seeks to understand the lens of the animal rights activist and how did the activist come to know the animal is worth their advocacy, time, and concern.

Procedures used in the study and duration You will receive two 60-minute, in person or zoom interviews at a private and convenient location of your choosing. A third 30-minute interview via phone may be added (if needed) to ask follow up questions. The interviews will be audiotaped and transcribed. A false name of your choosing will be used with your transcript. Transcripts of your interviews will be shared between my dissertation committee and myself.

Benefits Your participation in this study will contribute to a better understanding of the experiences of the animal rights activist. The results of this research study aim to develop a clearer understanding of the individual who becomes an animal rights activist.

Costs There are no costs associated with participation in this study.

127

Possible Risks and/or Side Effects There are potential side effects as a result of participating in this study. The participant may experience emotional discomfort as a result of discussing personal information. The participant is encouraged to share what is comfortable to share and relevant to the research. The participant reserves the right to decline answering any question that is overly uncomfortable or upsetting. Following the interview, a list of resources will be made available to offer emotional support.

Privacy and Confidentiality Participants in this study will be identified using a false name to identify themselves.

Data from the interviews will be stored on a personal computer and transferred to the committee chairperson’s secured e-mail. Upon completion of the research study all audio files will be deleted.

Subject Assurances By signing this consent form, you agree to take part in this study. You have not given up any of your rights or released this institution from responsibility for carelessness.

You may cancel my consent and refuse to continue in this study at any time without penalty or loss of benefits. Your relationship with the staff of ICSW will not be affected in any way, now or in the future, if you refuse to take part, or if you begin the study and then withdraw.

If you have any questions about the research methods, you can contact Susan Geshay at 317-514-1017; sgeshay@centerpointcounseling.org or Dr. Brenda Solomon at 312-7295179; bsolomon@icsw.edu If you have any questions about your rights as a research subject, you may contact Dr. John Ridings, Chair of Institutional Review Board; the Institute for Clinical Social Work; At St. Augustine College, 1345 W. Argyle St., Chicago, IL 60640; (773)935-6500.; irbchair@icsw.edu.

Signatures For the Participant I have read this consent form and I agree to take part in this study as it is explained in this consent form: Participant Name (please print): ___________________________________ Participant Signature:____________________________________ Date: _____________ 1. Would you like a summary of the results of this study?

128 Yes: ____ For the Primary Researcher

No: ____

I certify that I have explained the research to _________________________ and believe that they understand and that they have agreed to participate freely. I agree to answer any additional questions when they arise during the research or afterward.

Researcher Name (please print): ___________________________________ Researcher Signature:____________________________________ Date: _____________

Version 6.0: 7/18/2020

129

Appendix F Sample Interview Questions/Prompts

130 The following are questions that may or may not be used during the interviews.

•

Please tell me about yourself. (Where do you live? Where do you work? What is your day-to-day life like? What do you do for entertainment?)

•

What compels you to be an animal rights activist? If applicable, why a farm animal rights activist?

•

How is it that you recognize that animal rights are a social movement worth preserving?

•

Can you describe your personal process of becoming and animal rights activist?

•

What emotions motivated you to become an animal rights activist?

•

Are there aspects of the animal physically or emotionally that you significantly relate to?

•

Did some life event or experience trigger your involvement in animal rights?

131

References

Anderson, Kay. (1998). Animal domestication in geographic perspective. Society and Animals 6 (2). Cambridge, UK: The White Horse Press. pp. 119-135.

Beers, D. (2006). For the prevention of cruelty: The history and legacy of animal rights activism in the United States. Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press.

Blazina, C., Boyraz, G., & Shen-Miller, D. (Eds.). (2011). The psychology of the human animal bond: A resource for clinicians and researchers. New York: Springer Science + Business Media.

Bloomberg, D., & Volpe, M. (2016). Completing your qualitative dissertation: A road map from beginning to end (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bruillard, K., & Clement, S. (2019, January 31). How many Americans have pets? An investigation of fuzzy statistics. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/01/31/ how-many-americanshave-pets-an-investigation-into-fuzzy-statistics/.

Bollas, C. (1987). The shadow of the object. New York: Columbia University Press.

Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia – The Queen’s Birthday 2012 Honours Lists Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia. 16 June 2012. P. 8. Retrieved 15 December 2019, from https://www.abc.net.au.

132 Cooper, David. E. & Palmer, Joy. E. (1995). Barriers to fair treatment of non-human life.

In Just Environments. (pp. 165-179). New York: Routledge.

Czech, Kenneth P. (1994, April). “Ancient history: Spartacus and the Slave Rebellion.”

HistoryNet. Retrieved November 12, 2019, from https://www.historynet.com/spartacus-the-grecian-slave-warrior-who-threatenedrome.htm.

Dave, N. N. (2016). Love and other injustices: On indifference to difference. Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University. https://humanitiesfutures.org/papers/loveand-other-injustices/.

Davis, J.M. (2015). The history of animal protection in the United States. The American Historian, https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2015/november/the-history-of-animalprotection-in-the-united-states/.

Ensler, E. (2013), “Forward,” in J. Williams (ed.), My name is Jody Williams: A Vermont girl’s winding path to the Nobel Peace Prize, i-Xi, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Factory farm nation: 2015 Edition. (2015). http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for therapist: Researching the lived world. West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell.

Foer, Jonathan Safran. (2009). Eating animals. New York City: Little, Brown and Company.

Freud, Sigmund. (1913). Totem and taboo. James Strachey. New York: Norton.

Fromm, Erich. (1955). The sane society. New York City: Holt and Company.

133 Galatzer-Levy, R.M., & Cohler, B. J. (1993). The essential other: A developmental psychology of the self. New York: BasicBooks.

Gergen, K.J. (1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology, American Psychologist, 40, 266-275.

Gergen, K.J. (2009). An invitation to social construction (2nd ed.). Sage Publications Ltd. Gentile, K. (2020). Transcorporeal becoming: the temporalities of Searles and the nonhuman. Subjectivity 13, 179-199. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-020-000986 Gentile, K. (2018). Animals as the symptom of psychoanalysis, or, The potential for interspecies co-emergence in psychoanalysis. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 19:1, 7-13, DOI: 10.1080/15240657.2018.1419687 Goodall, J., & Bekoff, M. (2003). The ten trusts: What we must do to to care for the animals we love. New York: Harper Collins.

Gonzales, R. (2019, November 25). Trump signs law making cruelty to animals a federal crime.National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782842651/trumpsigns-law-making-cruelty-to-animals-a-federal-crime.

Greenberg, J. R., & Mitchell, S.A. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory.

Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Grotstein, J.S.(1993) Splitting and Projective Identification. New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc. Gruen, L. (Ed.) (2018) Critical terms for animal studies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

134 Gruen, L. (2011). Entangled empathy: An alternative ethic for our relationships with animals. New York: Lantern Books.

Gruen, L., & Probyn-Rapsey, F. (Ed.). (2019). Animaladies: Gender, animals, and madness. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. Hansson, N., & Jacobsson, K. (2014). Learning to be affected: Subjectivity, sense, and sensibility in animal rights activism. Society & Animals,22 (3), 262-288.

Herzog, H. A., Jr. (1993). “The movement is my life”: The psychology of animal rights activism. Journal of Social Issues, 49(1), 103-119.

Hoggett, P. (2009). Politics identity and emotion. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Books.

Hoult-Saros, S., (2016). The mythology of the animal farm in children’s literature: Over the fence. Lanham, MD: Lexington.

Kant, Immanuel. 1999.” The fundamental principles of the metaphysic of morals.” In Morality and moral controversies, edited by John Arthur, 24-33. 5th edition. N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Klein, M. (1937). Love, guilt, and reparation. In Love, guilt, and reparation and other works 1921-1945 (pp.306-343). New York: The Free Press,1975.

Krims, M., (2005) Correspondence between an Elizabethan woman and her psychoanalyst: Beatrice on the couch Psychoanalytic Review,92(1): pp. 68-102.

Larkin, M. & Thompson, A. (2012). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In A. Thompson & D. Harper (eds), Qualitative research methods in mental health and psychotherapy: A guide for students and practitioners. John Wiley & Sons, Oxford, pp. 99-116.

135 Luke, B. (1992) Justice, caring, and animal liberation. In Between the species: Vol. 8: Iss. 2, Article 13.

Marcus, Erik. Meat market: Animal, ethics, & money. Boston: Brio, 2005.

McReynolds, T. (2019, March 27) Americans spent $72 billion on their pets in 2018.

American Animal Hospital Association. https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2019-03/americans-spent-72billion-on-their-pets-in-2018.

Melson, G. (2001). Why the wild things are: Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.

Mitchell, S. (1981). The origin and nature of the “object.” in the theories of Klein and Fairbairn. Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 17:474-398 Oliver, K. (2009). Animal lessons: How they teach us to be human. New York: Columbia University Press Oliver, K. (2010). Animal ethics: Toward an ethics of responsiveness. Research in Phenomenology 40: 267-280.

Park, Y. Valentino, B., (2019). Animals are people too: Explaining variation in respect for animal rights. Human Rights Quarterly 41(1): 39-65.

Pallotta, N. (2005). Becoming an animal rights activist: An exploration of culture, socialization and identity transformation. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation).

University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.

Patterson, Charles (2002). Eternal Treblinka: Our treatment of animals and the holocaust. New York: Lantern Books.

136 Pietkiewicz, I. & Smith, J. A. (2014). A practical guide to using interpretative phenomenological analysis in qualitative research psychology. Psychological Journal, 20 (1), 7-14. DOI: 10.14691/CPPJ.20.1.7.

Regan, T. (2004). The case for animal rights. Updated. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rogers, C. (2008). Mad dogs and an Englishwoman. New York: Bantam Dell.

Sanbonmatsu, J. (Ed.). (2011). Critical theory and animal liberation. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Scheler, Max. (1970). The Nature of Sympathy (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1970: originally published 1913).

Segal, Hanna, Introduction to the work of Melanie Klein, (1973) London: Hogarth Press Ltd. Serpell, J.A. (2009). Having our dogs and eating them too: Why animals are a social issue. Journal of Social Issues, 65, 633-644.

Shapiro, K. (1994). The caring sleuth: Portrait of an animal rights activist. Society & Animals, 2 (2), 145-165.

Shengold, L. (2011). Trauma, Sould Murder, and Change. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 53 (1) pp. 121-138.

Singer, P. (2009). Animal Liberation. Updated. New York: Harper Perennial.

Smith, J. A., Flowers, P. & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretive phenomenological analysis.

Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Smith, J. A. & Osborn, M. (2003). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In J.A. Smith (Ed.) Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to methods. London: Sage.

137 Spillius, E. B., Milton, J., Garvey, P., Couve, C., & Steiner, D. (Eds.). (2011). The new dictionary of Kleinian thought. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

Steiner, J. 1993. Psychic retreats. London: Routledge.

Steiner, John, Turning a blind eye: The cover-up Oedipus. International Review of Psychoanalysis 12, 1985, pp. 161-172. Reprinted in his Psychic retreats: Pathological organizations in psychotic, neurotic and borderline patients, London, 1993.

Summers, F., (1994). Object relations theories and psychopathology. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Analytic Press, Inc. Torres, Bob. Making a killing: The political economy of animal rights. Oakland, CA: AK, 2007.

Winnicott, D. W. (2002) Winnicott on the Child.Cambridge, MA.: Perseus Publishing.

Winnicott, D. W. 1971b. “The use of an object and relating through identifications.”

In Playing and Reality 86–94. London: Tavistock.

Winnicott, D. W., Winnicott, C., Shepherd, R., & Davis, M. (1986). Home is where we start from: Essays by a psychoanalyst. New York, N.Y: Norton Young, I. M. (1997). Intersecting voices: Dilemmas of gender, political philosophy, and policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.