By now, you have probably heard about the controversy concerning the impending slaughter of de facto campus mascots, Bill and Lou, 11 year-old oxen who have been denied the chance to live out their retirement at a sanctuary. What you may not know is that the process by which the decision to kill Bill and Lou was made in a manner that endangered student well-being at Green Mountain College and has diminished the value of a Green Mountain College degree.
There’s a reason that the drinking age is 21. The frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex—the part of the brain responsible for assessing the consequences of actions—hasn’t finished growing until then. Teen-agers are literally unable to accurately estimate the consequences of drinking several shots of liquor in succession. Why would we ask them to accurately estimate the consequences of killing two animals? No responsible parent would ask a teen-ager to determine whether to euthanize a family pet, leaving them with the emotional burden of a life-or-death decision. And, certainly, no responsible parent would ask a teen-ager to make such a decision while withholding vital information relevant to that decision.
But that’s exactly what has happened at Green Mountain College. Immature students have been asked to decide the fate of these animals and to live with the emotional burden of so doing. Furthermore, students have been unwittingly steered toward the “kill” decision. Now that a small subset of students have made the decision to kill, all students have been subjected to heavy peer, faculty, and even administrative pressure to support that decision.
The consequences will be significant. Of course, the oxen themselves will pay the highest price, losing out on years of peace, ease, and friendship at an animal sanctuary. But the school and the students also will suffer.
Animal Welfare at Green Mountain College
All of the school’s students—not just the small sub-set who made the decision to kill and have since claimed that they speak for the entire student body—will have to live with the emotional reverberations of killing two beloved animals who did not want to die, deliberately depriving them of the free retirement home in defiance of a literally worldwide cry for mercy.
All students—including students who cared for Bill and Lou and did not want them to die—will have to grapple with the emotions of seeing “Bill and Lou burgers” on the menu at the school cafeteria.
Those students who do eat hamburgers will be expected—for several months—to consume 11 year-old oxen meat, which will be technically edible, but not at all palatable. Meat is muscle. As they age, muscles become more striated. They become even more so if the muscles are used strenuously, as those of work oxen have been. This will be stringy, grisly meat of the kind usually used in pet food.
All of which is to say, we expect significant crying and retching in the cafeteria on the first day that those burgers are served. And then what? The students who made the decision should be ethically obligated to consume that one ton of barely edible meat. But will they? If not, what then?
Students did not anticipate that likely outcome not only because of their age but also because they were provided with biased “information” in the deliberation process. The faculty member who conceived of the idea of killing the oxen slanted the information given to students in order to favor that decision. After the original decision was protested, other faculty members stepped in to protect students from information from outside sources, thereby steering them toward confirming the original decision.
The actions of these faculty members, and the shoddy reasoning in the rationales they have put forward for the slaughter, have significantly lowered Green Mountain College’s reputation within academia. This will lower the value of your child’s degree. Both publicly and privately, prestigious scholars in relevant fields have urged the Provost and President to reconsider the decision, or at least stop claiming that it is in any way consistent with environmental ethics or respect for animal welfare.
Pictures of animal cruelty at Green Mountain College are circulating online, further lowering the reputation of the school. National media stories and an online video feature Green Mountain College students making callous comments and offering illogical rationales for the killing. All of these are evidence that Green Mountain College teaches callousness toward animals while failing to teach students basic skills such as how to construct a rational argument without falling into fallacy.
Grave concerns about animal welfare at the college have emerged in the course of this controversy. Concerns about the academic credibility of the school’s farm program—which is managed by a faculty member with scant experience and no relevant degrees—also have arisen. All of this evidence will be brought up to challenge the accreditation of the college if it does not act immediately and affirmatively to review and improve its animal welfare policies.
If your student is in the farm program, you should know: She or he is not receiving instruction consistent with 21st century animal welfare policies. She or he is being instructed by a farm manager who lacks academic credentials in the area of agriculture, animal science, or any other related field. She or he is learning out-dated techniques and stereotyped ideas rather than the innovative ideas and practices endorsed by actual experts in the field of sustainable agriculture.
Use your voice as a tuition-paying parent. Tell the President of Green Mountain College to issue an immediate reprieve for Bill and Lou, allowing them to retire to VINE Sanctuary. Demand a thorough review of the farm program, with particular attention to the credentials of staff members charged with the responsibility of teaching students how to care for animals. Whatever your son or daughter might believe, ask that the school respect the rights of all students, protecting those with minority views from bullying and refraining from subjecting minors to the stress of making life-or-death decisions.
Sincerely,
pattrice jones
Cofounder, VINE Sanctuary
p.s. If your child is a vegan or simply feels sympathy for animals, you should know: She or he may have been bullied or subjected to intense peer pressure at Green Mountain College. You may want to check in about that. If your child is one of the many former vegetarians now saying that they will be happy to eat Bill and Lou, you may want to inquire about the process by which she has been led to set her previous ideals and ideas aside in favor of those of the farm manager and his crew.
I notice a recurring assertion of we discussed it and put it to a vote, as if that is the end of the discussion. Majorities and justice are not identical of course, but we may be dealing with a more pernicious assumption of local control. They belong to us, they serve us and we decide what to do with our resources. More decadent libertarianism. The problem is that ethics cannot be determined with a vote and the students seem to be too poorly educated to have a sustained ethical discussion and thus to make important ethical decisions. The program’s ethics seem limited to carbon and eating good stuff but do not include obligation to another (irrespective of species), fair compensation and even kindness to those who labor for us, self-abnegation, paying your debts, compassion and generosity. Ethics without values and defined locally to boot.
Echo chambers share characteristics and dynamics. People speak in shorthand and affirm each other in contrast to a common enemy (in this case factory farms). They lose the ability to think in a sustained manner and become smug in claiming superiority to their common foe (a low bar with factory farms but not easy if the point of comparison is a vegan who would consider the program carbon belching cruelty). Confrontation outside the chamber reveals the shallowness of the thinking and the inability to lay out premises over and above bald assertion, repetition and new age or eco claptrap to cover the absence of serious ethical grounding. We hear sustainability, symbiosis, closing the loop, honoring the animal you eat etc. but there is nothing behind these platitudes. The more they talk the deeper the hole becomes. There seems to be a degree of shock that GMC is becoming an object of national contempt and that is indicative of living in a bubble as well.
Best to let GMC speak for itself. They serve us! They serve me! This is agriculture! Work em till you can’t work em any more. Me Me Me.
http://www.causes.com/causes/644857-let-s-turn-facebook-orange-for-animal-cruelty-awareness/actions/1696966
Will animal slaughter and consumption ever stop? Probably not. That isn’t the issue here, but the reason for slaughtering Bill and Lou. Bill and Lou it appears weren’t raised and kept for human consumption but for teaching how to use oxen as work animals. The question is why is slaughtering Lou and Bill become the only option chosen? One of the original letters I read in the beginning as a response from a GMC faculty member stated that it would cost too much to continue feeding and caring for Bill and Lou, aside from providing meals for their students. I imagine the age of Bill and Lou hadn’t been thought of as palatable meat to consume, let alone by retiring them to a sanctuary GMC would no longer have to pay for their care.
I will state again, this could be a win-win situation for GMC and Bill and Lou, instead of the opposite. If the win-win position of GMC is that it will attract more students who from testimony here represent what candidates they accept, teach and graduate, I encourage the Faculty of GMC as Jo, Patttice and many other scholars have stated, review their policies. I presume again, more money has been offered for sending Bill and Lou to VINE, $100K+ than GMC would raise by itself.
http://blip.tv/for-the-animals/99-green-mt-college-animal-abuse-6420752
(The producer chose the name for the episode, so please don’t blame us for that.)
http://climatehealers.ning.com/profiles/blogs/superstorm-bill-and-lou
Secondly, in response to your original letter, I feel comfortable responding from my own perspective, I wouldn’t presume to answer for the President of GMC (or anyone else for that matter).
1. What about the scholarly principle of reconsidering new data? Certainly, this is the basis of the scientific method. But this isn’t strictly applicable here as new information doesn’t overturn existing information, but simply allows for additional discussion. Even still, if the decision regarding Bill and Lou was framed around sustainability and what would be appropriate for the farm, then this new information would have little bearing and need not be considered. If the question was what is best for Bill and Lou (assuming we know with high certainty what they want), then perhaps the VINE offer could be considered along with the other options.
2. What about confirmation bias? I personally find this one difficult to respond to because it assumes that confirmation bias is only practiced by one faction who some believe are wrong. I think you can see the irony here.
3. Should public opinion be ignored? I don’t think this is the right way to go about many decisions like this. Who amongst us as parents would like our authority over how to rear our children determined by anonymous democratic rule. Closer to this issue, we certainly wouldn’t want the majority of meat eaters on the planet to vote an end to veganism. More, I believe that we fundamentally disagree on what constitutes cruelty to animals in this example.
4. Have the students been well-served in this process? I believe that they absolutely have been. Implying that the opinions of women students on campus (who are a majority by the way) are run roughshod over demands some evidence on your part. Drive by accusations such as this do little to advance civil discourse.
5. What about callousness? Yes, farm animals such as Bill and Lou are work animals, there is no escaping this fact. Were they abused or mistreated? I suppose that this depends upon your definitions of abuse and mistreatment. I posted elsewhere that I think you would be hard pressed to find a more bucolic and peaceful place for any farm animal to live. The tool referred to is a crop not a whip, which may not mean much in this discussion, but there is a difference.
6. What about authority? Multiple “authorities” have weighed in on this decision. I’ll trade you one ecocentric perspective for two animal welfare arguments…
7. What is wrong with mercy? Nothing at all. And it is indeed a wonderful capability that humans have. I suppose the question is should mercy trump all else in this instance? I’m sure we can imagine scenarios in which mercy should not trump, but we can reasonably disagree on what those cases are.
8. Are Lou and Bill objects? This probably gets at the core of most of the discussions. Are Bill and Lou entitled to either 1) special treatment because they served GMC for 10 years, or 2)the same treatment as humans being fellow sentient creatures? Personally, I don’t believe they are morally entitled to either. I don’t think it is accurate to say that Bill and Lou are being killed “just to make a point”. Bill and Lou are being slaughtered because among the range of options, this was considered to be the best choice among many different considerations: Lou’s welfare, Bill’s welfare, role of the farm, principles of sustainability, etc.
9. Is this good for the college? I suppose time will tell on this one. But it certainly wasn’t publicity seeking as some posters have suggested. I have been proud and encouraged by the thoughtful discourse expressed by many of our students. I have likewise been appreciative of the respectful dialogue from folks not affiliated with GMC. My hope is that when enough time has passed, those who opposed the decision regarding Bill and Lou will join GMC and focus our collective energies on what I believe are more worthy targets.
You have the patience of a saint and iron tenacity to put up with this tidal wave of rubbish. So far I have run into two thoughtful GMC posts but nowhere is found the distinction between food animals and work animals which, as you say, are often (and traditionally) retired to pasture. That is basic and historical.
GMC, you have only yourself to blame if you are not showing to advantage. You are studying ideology not farming. And, BTW, I do not have to choose which manifestations of waste, ignorance, illogic or fraud to oppose. I am not limited to one choice. I can oppose all of them.
Ban the word “sustainable” from your vocabulary for 6 months. Instead of using mental and linguistic shorthand (Newspeak) lay out the moral necessity that you are alluding to. Then it will be open to discussion.
In all this outrage I have seen 1) we provided them with good lives, 2) not eating them would be a waste for the farm and 3) if we do not eat them we will have to buy meat from a CAFO.
All three can be answered by surplus labor value because this is a matter of labor and ethics. Food is irrelevant. If you do not recognize the value of their work you are merely capital exploiting labor.
1) We provided them with good lives. No, you do not provide life and they earned in excess of their keep working for you. Quit describing this as a one way street and then invoke interrelationships to justify eating them.
2) Not eating them would be waste to the farm. No, you owe them surplus value of labor. Pay your tab.
3) We either eat Bill and Lou or get meat from a CAFO. That is your problem not Bill and Lou’s. You owe them surplus value of labor so pay up and figure out your meat dilemma at your own expense.
If this sounds Marxist it is. Because using a resource until it is infirm and eating it and only thinking about the good of “the farm” (the company, myself)is Capitalism. At least CAFOs do not drape themselves in the ideological clap trap of ethics and sustainability. They are what they are.
People outside your affirmation bubble are up in arms because this reeks of ideological rigidity, pedantry, tokenism and ritualized murder. Instead of screaming, up your intellectual and ethical game. And realize that justice and majority rule are not identical. You made a decision and the world is free to criticize it. Meat may be local but ethical principles are not. You claim to be morally superior to CAFOs and practicing sustainable agriculture but this is academic hobby farming.
An interesting argument, this: “You have no right to make claims about our practices and our animals until you have labored along side us, until you have become intamently and inextricably connected with the farm here at gmc.”
Under this reasoning, laws concerning humane treatment of animals, whether state or federal, should not apply to GMC because they were passed by lawmakers who have not labored alongside you and are not part of the farm community.
Under this line of reasoning, nobody who is not part of your community has any right to critique the behaviors of your community. Can you see, maybe, when I express it so barely, that this is not a tenable position? Do I really have to draw the relevant analogies? If I do, you’ll accuse me of being mean to GMC. So, think for yourself: Are tight-knit communities inherently exempt from outside critique? Should they be allowed to do whatever they like to the beings under their control without outside interference or even criticism? Can you think of any times when it might be dangerous to say, “OK, since you’re all so close to each other, I guess whatever you decide to do to other beings is fine”?
This reply has been back-dated so that it will appear directly below the comment to which it responds.
First, in regards to this letter. If you are so genuinely concerned about the well being of students, did you report bullying allegations to campus security? Also, while I do believe that Lou and Bill should be the focus of this argument, why were your concerns about the legitimacy of Green Mountain left out of initial arguments? It seems like there was a bit of tact lacking there. Marrying the two arguments could have been a lot more effective.
Second, (and this is something that I have brought up with opposers before, however I haven’t been able to keep track of any responses) I feel there is a great deal of humility missing from the vegan side (I understand that this is generalizing but I don’t know how else to define in an eloquent way) of this debate. Simply refraining from eating animals and making use of animal based products does not remove anyone from the incredibly enmeshed lives human and non human animals live in together. Where does the wood in your (this is not to you directly, but to the collective opposers, however I would be interested in what you have to say personally to these questions) home come from? Was it harvested sustainably? By purchasing products made from unsustainably harvested wood, the purchaser is supporting the degradation of animal environments which leads in many cases to extinction. What about the rubber in your car’s tires or the materials that comprise the computer you use to respond to the numerous comments? Harvest/processing for these materials (and many many others) is also environmentally degrading, which leads to animals dying. Are those deaths forgotten because cars, furniture, and computers are thought of as necessary objects? I do recognize that it is a bit of an assumption on my part to suggest you may not have addressed these concerns personally, but I would be very interested to hear how you justify these decisions in your own life.
In my opinion, the lack of humility adds to defensive responses in any situation. I am incredibly frustrated by people’s inability to accept responsibility and take ownership of their decisions. In more than one occasion, when voicing my opinion, it has been automatically assumed that I am a heartless, bloody mouthed meat eater when in reality I have not revealed the depths to which this controversy has made me reevaluate my food choices. I guess what I’m trying to get across is that students being told their school is incompetent is not going to leave them ready and willing to hear what you have to say. If your agenda is honestly to help Bill and Lou and promote a plant based diet, I imagine you would have better luck showing some humility yourself (again, the collective “you”, I apologize if my yous get messy).
Let me respond as thoughtfully as I can to this thoughtful letter, given my own exhaustion at this stage.
As for bullying: In one case, we heard from the parent, who already had the situation well in hand. The other instance was not at the level requiring a call to security, but we did take the steps that were in our power to make relevant authorities aware and also to ensure that the student has support. We’ve also heard, from vegan students, that while the school did used to be vegan-friendly, there has been an escalating climate of hostility toward veganism and vegans in the context of this controversy, That is why suggested, and continue to suggest, that the parents of veg*n students just check in with their child. How could that be a bad thing to do?
As for the attitudes of vegans, we’re a diverse bunch, but certainly no more self-righteous as a group than GMC students, who you must admit (at least in the context of this controversy) have tended to stick to saying something along the lines of “we’re so great! how dare anybody criticize us about anything?” This is echoed by professors, or maybe it’s the other way around — maybe the students get the idea that the school, and therefore they, are inherently beyond reproach from their teachers.
But let me get to the gist of your paragraph about vegans: You seem to assume that vegans do not also practice other forms of sustainability, such as buying local or bicycling instead of driving. It’s as if you –and not only you, I have heard this alot from folks at GMC– seem to think that there are vegans (people who don’t eat animals but are otherwise environmentally profligate) and environmentalists (who do eat meat but otherwise conserve resources). But, the vast majority of ethical vegans (by which I mean people who are vegan for ethical reasons rather than, like Bill Clinton, for health reasons) understand that, as a VINE Sanctuary slogan says, “green means vegan, and vegan means green.”
In other words, we understand that to be fully “green” you must be vegan and that to be fully vegan, you must be as “green” as possible. We also explicitly state on our website that nobody is ever fully vegan. We see “going vegan” as a perpetual process of always trying to do the least possible harm to animals (a category that includes humans), which of course means doing the least harm possible to the environment.
I think why you may be seeing more than usual eye-rolling from vegans about this issue is that –to everybody outside of the closed circle of Green Mountain College– the college’s behavior is ludicrous. I just spoke to my sister (who is not a vegan or even vegetarian and who does not share my views on animal rights), and was telling her what’s been going on in my life this past month. As I listed each of the college’s decisions and rationales, she kept exclaiming, “What?! Incredible! Who does that?! Incredible!” That, I am sorry to inform you, is how most of the world now sees Green Mountain College. None of the rationales for the slaughter hold up to even basic logical scrutiny. As one well-known philosopher just wrote in a lengthy essay about the controversy, “William Throop, the college Provost, for example, who has a background in environmental ethics, has made such logically fallacious arguments to the press that they would make even an undergraduate philosophy major cringe.” A much more famous scholar, this time an ethologist, calls the college’s reasoning “daft” and “ludicrous.”
Lizzie, that’s just one example of what other scholars are saying, on blogs and in online publications, about your school. Do you see now why I am trying to warn you and your parents that the value of your degree has been diminished? And it’s not VINE or vegans who have done it. It’s professors and administrators. They have failed you. Don’t believe me. Do the research for yourself. Stand up for your right to a good education. You and other Green Mountain College students came to that school because you believe in environmental ethics. Many are animal lovers. You have been led astray. I don’t know what they have been teaching you, but it isn’t how to logically work out an environmentally ethical decision.
Wow, I have been typing this reply for a long time. I don’t know if I answered your concerns. I hope I did, and please feel free to leave a follow-up comment. And I am sorry it took so long for me to get to this one.
This reply has been back-dated so that it will appear directly below the comment to which it responds.
This is excellent. You have stated perfectly the value for labor. Using a living thing until it can’t be used anymore and discarding it – we see that with peoole turning senior pets in to shelters because they can’t be bothered to care for the pet in it’s dotage- is ceretainly Capitalism AND a sign of the society we have developed. “I gotta have the latest, greatest, newest……”.
A very thoughtful blog indeed.
Please try to hear what we are saying about the value of your degree in the spirit in which it was truly intended: a helpful warning. You may not understand how hurtful it is to the reputation of a school when its faculty refuses to engage their colleagues at other institutions in a respectful manner. (In academia, other professors are considered your colleagues, even if they teach at other schools.) Right now, an illustrious professor at a Vermont law school is on your school’s Facebook page, outraged that he has been so disrespected by his colleagues at your school and stating that he will be using GMC as a case study in faulty reasoning in his classes. That will not raise the value of your degree. Your professors do you no service by publishing essays that trot out arguments that are not considered valid by other scholars. Look around, not just on this blog! Do your own research. Can you find any environmental ethicists speaking up to say, “yes, Green Mountain College is right. They must kill Bill and Lou to be sustainable.” No. You will, however find a host of scholars writing essays, commenting on essays, and signing petitions saying that the arguments made by GMC in this case just do not hold water. That is what diminishes the value of your degree, not anything I say here.
The school’s reputation also has been diminished by the actions of the administration throughout this controversy. Instead of responding rationally when a local animal sanctuary offered refuge to Lou and Bill, they have gone on a campaign of vilification, somehow convincing students that the sanctuary is the cause of all of the controversy. In fact, they caused the controversy by, first, trumpeting the decision to kill Bill and Lou on Facebook, evidently not realizing that this would upset many, many alumni.
GMC’s own Facebook posting–not ours! we hadn’t even heard of Bill and Lou yet!– alerted alumni, who then alerted Green Mountain Animal Defenders. Once that organization (which includes many GMC alumni) put out the call for help in saving Bill and Lou, some sanctuary was bound to answer. That sanctuary happened to be us, but the outcome would have been exactly the same no matter which sanctuary it was, because the college administration not only refused to reconsider the decision in light of a new option but also proceeded to publicly offer an ever-changing, sometimes contradictory, and sometimes counter-factual series of rationalizations why Lou and Bill must be killed –all the while withholding vital information from the very students to whom it was attributing the decision.
Of course, the national animal welfare and animal rights organizations noticed, and of course they further publicized the controversy. Environmental activists and scholars also got involved, because they were outraged that GMC would use “sustainability” as an excuse for killing rather than retiring elderly work animals.
I believe you when you say that most students enter GMC as animal lovers. But, think: How could it possibly be that animal lovers are so determined to kill two animals that they shut their ears and refuse to listen when animal advocates from around the corner and around the world beg them to reconsider? How did you get to that place? Could I possibly be right when I say that the farm program –as it is presently constituted under the leadership of a farm manager with no training in animal welfare but a demonstrated fondness for public displays of control over or slaughter of animals –might be teaching callous attitudes towards animals, leading students to become less compassionate than they were when they entered the program? Farm program alums tell us it didn’t used to be that way and that they are alarmed by the turn that this program has taken under the direction of the man who came up with the idea to make Bill and Lou into burgers.
Speaking of Bill and Lou, you and I have a deep disagreement on whether they were treated well during their tenure at GNMC. I’m not speaking of the reports of the neighbor who has written to the newspapers about what she has witnessed over the years. No, I am talking about students like you who –somehow– were tricked into thinking that working Lou and Bill was treating them well. Students who were taught to use the whip or crop as sparingly as possible, but to use it if necessary to obtain compliance. Students who evidently were not taught that the crop or whip only worked as a cue because, early in the process of breaking Bill and Lou to accept the yoke, it had been used much more often. That’s how it works! Show an unbroken ox a crop and he will just look at you. It doesn’t mean anything. It only means something if it has been used.
So, you think that you know Bill and Lou’s personalities, but in fact none of us have seen those personalities. We’ve only seen the compliant behavior of animals who have been broken to obey, who certainly do enjoy scratches and treats but who know –always know– “this person might hurt me if I don’t do what they say.” Only if Bill and Lou are allowed to go to sanctuary, where no one will force them to work or show them anything that even resembles a whip or crop again, will they –over time– feel free enough to express whatever their real personalities might be. Don’t you want that for them? I do.
This reply has been back-dated so that it appears directly below the comment to which it responds.
If I understand the surplus labor position it is that because Bill and Lou worked on the farm, they have earned something. I suppose I would need to buy into the notion that there was such a contractual arrangement between Bill/Lou and the farm. And I’d also wonder what sort of calculus is involved in determining how much work is required to allow for a range of different scenarios. Does ten years of work = retirement to a sanctuary? How about ten years of very light work compared to other working oxen? I guess I’m just not clear on the relationship between the amount of work and how much of a tab we owe.
I disagree with the statement that “food is irrelevant” in this discussion. From the farm and college perspective, food is of paramount importance and this is the case with Bill and Lou. To not consider them as a source of food would to turn a blind towards the way the farm operates.
I know you feel the word sustainability has taken on some cultish connotation, but I, and many others, see it as a moral compass. Is this compass perfectly calibrated and without potential for error? Probably not, but I’m not sure that there exists a moral compass that is. Rather, the college strives very hard to live its mission.
Finally, the statement, “People outside your affirmation bubble are up in arms because this reeks of ideological rigidity, pedantry, tokenism and ritualized murder” could quite easily be redirected to those who oppose GMC’s position, excepting the unfortunate phrase of ritualized murder. And I think we are quite keenly aware that justice does not equal majority rule, which seems to be a curious position to defend when we’re presented with X-thousand signatures across multiple positions calling for GMC to reconsider its decision.
I think one of the reasons that there seems to be so much screaming into the night on both sides is that we assume certain axioms that are either held or dismissed by the other side. For instance, I don’t think that I have a hard time considering the interests of Bill and Lou. However, I don’t believe that those interests are the only, or even the most, important moral criterion. We probably differ on this point.
The human population question is a tough one for a few reasons. Is there a human population population problem? That is to say are there too many humans on the planet? I don’t have a firm answer to this, mainly because the question needs some refining. My field is Natural Resources Management and I don’t think we can really hope to answer questions about human population unless we’re equally willing to engage in answering questions about consumption. Seven billion is a mighty big number, but the number is largely meaningless until we tether it to how many resources are used/are needed/are wanted. I caution my students against focusing solely on the number of people because I think that only can hope to give us half of the story. Further, if the assumption is left at the level of “there are just too many people”, then it becomes easy to indict countries like India, China, and Indonesia with high populations/population densities while excusing many wealthy, highly consumptive countries with fewer people.
The debate about Bill and Lou illustrates this. The choice is simply whether to kill them or to let them live. The latter is obviously the moral choice (nobody else’s lives are threatened or face being diminished in any way). Every analysis to justify killing them is against morality.
I will do my best to do some more comment moderation this evening. Again, we have to moderate comments coming from first-time posters to avoid spam and also avoid incivility on all sides. I have, by the way, approved every comment that I have seen and read on this thread so far –except one that I thought was too rude to GMC– so quit accusing me of censorship. It is our right to only use our website to promote views endorsed by our membership, but I have not invoked that right here. If your comment hasn’t been approved, that means (a) I haven’t seen it yet [most likely], (b) it requires a reply and I am holding it until I have time to reply, or (c) you posted an extremely rude or abusive comment at some time in the past and your comments are now blocked.
Meantime, have a look at our latest post.
It is my privilege to know you through your writings…
Well, either that, or they want to urge the student body towards veganism by forcing it to eat 11-year old tough beef. I sincerely hope none of Bill and Lou ends up in the cafeteria garbage cans.
Then again, perhaps this is all a hoax in order to get material for their Animal Ethics course, as a real life demonstration of “the tension between animal rights and environmental ethics.” If so, they should have years worth of course material!
It is a pity that at a school like this, full of so many great ideas and avenues of learning, that the one thing that doesn’t seem to be taught is mercy and compassion.
I believe that the decision regarding Bill and Lou is rooted in ethical priciples beyond their individual welfares. And this leads to the second area where we likely disagree. Your ethic requires a certain level of moral considerability be given to Bill and Lou. I do not share that ethic. So to say that to not kill them is obviously the moral choice and that every analysis to justify killing them is against morality presumes that there is a single, universally agreed upon morality. We know that this isn’t the case though.
Animal rights advocates differ from animal liberation advocates on basic moral principles. Although both groups may agree that non-human animals are rightful members of the moral community, it isn’t clear which moral principles should be followed. Indeed, this disagreement can lead to differing outcomes regarding the health and welfare of individual animals.
One thing that strikes me as appropriate to this discussion is the notion that Bill and Lou have moral importance beyond their own lives. A consequentialist, theologian James Burtness wrote of “degrees of moral density” which suggests that many (perhaps all) of our decisions have moral components, in some cases multiple moral dimensions and we are obligated to at least consider as many of those moral components as we can. In this vein, I try to recognize the multiple degrees of moral density in my decisions/actions and this is the approach used by GMC in weighing what should be done with our oxen.
I personally have received threats of some kind any time that I have been involved in any sort of high-profile controversy in which feelings run high. I know what that feels like, especially the first time it happens to you. I and everyone at VINE are devoted to non-violence not only in theory but in everyday practice. If anyone was threatened and feels afraid, I and we have deep sympathy.
At the same time, I know that claims of threats made by animal advocates are a very common response when an institution has lost public sympathy and wants to regain it.
This controversy started when the college proudly publicized its decision to kill Bill and Lou. I can only surmise that nobody considered that making such a proud proclamation would catch the eyes of alumni who loved Lou and Bill and that they might mount some sort of protest. They did, by contacting Green Mountain Animal Defenders, which both asked VINE to offer sanctuary and then, when that offer was refused, created an online petition. We sent out an action alert to our fairly small mailing list, and also posted it on this blog (which, in normal times, is visited by only 30 people per day).
The issue caught the attention of national animal advocacy organizations, which notified their much larger memberships and also wrote about the issue on their blogs and websites. Meanwhile, three or four other people created online petitions– one on Facebook that we didn’t even see until after it had 26,000 signatures! Then the media took notice, and here we are.
Notwithstanding the fact that (a) Green Mountain College got the publicity ball rolling by its own proud proclamation, and (b) that VINE neither originated the movement to save Bill and Lou nor is responsible for the preponderance of publicity the issue has gotten, students and faculty on the campus roundly blame VINE for their public relations nightmare. I have seen Facebook posts demanding that I in particular take personal responsibility for the alleged threats that people have received.
Obviously, I cannot take responsibility for alleged acts perpetrated by unknown persons who might have heard about Bill and Lou in any of a hundred different ways. But I and we can make sure that GMC hostility to VINE doesn’t get in the way of Bill and Lou going to a good home. So… Check out our latest memo to the President and Board of Trustees of Green Mountain College.
First, I want to thank Vine Sanctuary and all other sanctuaries that stepped up to offer Bill and Lou refuge for their kindness to these animals for which they have no obligation beyond a human obligation to be kind to those with whom we share the planet.
Second, I want to say that I am not a extremist of any kind. I do tend to lean towards the ideal as I think we find the best of ourselves in the ideal. I am a teacher and I have taught preschool through graduate school and know something about the development of human beings over time. I see a lot of ugly behavior in the world that saddens me and makes me wonder if our species has not outlived its usefulness. This feeling is particularly strong when I see college students call for the killing of animals that they know intimately to make into uneatable hamburgers. I see no kindness in this behavior and I wonder at the world they will create to reflect their values.
Now to Bill and Lou. There is no defendable argument to justify their slaughter. They are not useful for human consumption. At best they could be made into dog food. But why? Why not let them live out their years in a sanctuary? Why not repay their work with the gift of life without human expectation attached to it? It is bad enough that human beings are destroying the natural habitats of every creature on this planet and bringing most non-domesticated animals to extinction. What is really sad is that we think we have the right to do it because we are in control.
The bottom line for me is that there are consequences to every choice in life. Sometimes these consequences are unforeseen. In the case of Bill and Lou I predict the consequences to be the further erosion of human kindness. It is just kinder to let Bill and Lou live out their lives in peace and this decision is one that makes everyone feel better about themselves. All the rest of it is just doublespeak to cover man’s need to feel he is in control. I live in the Pacific NW and we have sustainable farms everywhere and some use oxen to work the fields. I asked a local San Juan Island farmer if he would slaughter his oxen once they could no longer work the fields. He said, “No. I put them out to pasture.” I only euthanize animals that are suffering and cannot be helped. Is it any wonder that his oxen, seeing him across the fields, quicken their pace and move out of their neatly plowed row to get by his side because they “love” him (Forgive my anthropomorphizing these oxen, but I cannot think of a better way to describe their behavior.). This is the kind of farmer/human being I want my schools and universities to produce. If not, I think there really is no hope or worthwhile future for any of us.
Judging by the tweets, posts on Vermont tourism boards, and all the other media attention-both U.S. and Internationally, the State of Vermont will also have a PR problem on their hands.
Reports are indicating GMC is calling slaughterhouses from all over the country to get this evil act completed; it appears they are in a hurry. The students are looking forward to this “blowing over” so they can host a community BBQ.
Thank you again VINE for your gracious responses in the face of threats and insults; GMC wants to be protrayed as “victims” – the only “victims” here are Bill & Lou.
Thanks to all who have voiced support. To those who have posted challenging comments in the spirit of true dialogue, I promise a response as soon as humanely possible, given our workload over here. To those posting insults or rants, I make no promises.
And, again, as per this memo, we are imploring GMC to seize the opportunity to allow Bill and Lou to retire to Farm Sanctuary. So, rants against me or VINE are beside the point anyway.
-marji