Cultured Meat = Animal Liberation?

Why is cultured meat so controversial in the animal rights movement? This document will shed some light as to why anyone who genuinely cares about animal rights should support cultured meat wholeheartedly.

Will cultured meat involve animal products?

First of all, it’s important to note that at the end of the research process – assuming the research lives up to its full potential, which we are sure it will, cultured meat will require NO USE of ANIMALS WHATSOEVER. Some form of stem-cell bank will be created and used, basically, until the end of time, and the initial cells need to be taken from animals only once. Also, the method by which cells will be grown WILL NOT utilize or require serum (an animal-derived substance), since there will be a plant based alternative.

Is cultured meat animal liberation?

Cultured meat is animal liberation, just as veganism is animal liberation. In fact, it might even prove to be more liberating for animals than veganism or any other plant-based alternative to meat. We must remember that even a vegan world is a world filled with horrific abuse for animals. In order for us to eat plant food, countless animals (rodents, birds, insects and so on) must be killed. Bees, for example, are being produced and used for pollination, and predator insects are produced for biological pesticide. The animal rights ideal – to live without killing nonhuman animals – is not sustainable, not compatible with our existence on earth (that is why the best way to eliminate the damage we cause animals is to not have children). Having said that, we still have an obligation to minimize the damage we cause as much as possible. In this regard, cultured meat might be a solution not only for meat eaters, but also for vegans who want to reduce their destructive impact on animal life even further.

The potential to abolish the meat industry in 50 years

We think the animal rights movement should fully support cultured meat, as it has the potential to abolish, within fifty years, a global industry responsible for annual the murder of 275 billion animals. It is our opinion that cultured meat is the most realistic as well as fastest solution for the animal holocaust taking place on a global scale. A vegan world is just something that, in our opinion, cannot and will not ever materialize, considering the egotism, selfishness and speciesism of human character and culture.

Can we win?

A question every sincere animal rights activist should ask themselves is, “is it possible to bring an end to the global animal holocaust?” In all honesty, we believe the answer is no. We are fighting an impossible war, with no chance of winning. Here’s a brief quote from a 269 interview which might help illustrate how we arrived at this conclusion:

“I’m very pessimistic about the chances of the animal rights movement to succeed. If you take into account even just a few of the characteristics of both the animal rights struggle as well as its enemy (the vast majority of the human race), you are left with no choice but to be pessimistic about it.

People are inherently selfish. The number of animals abused and killed is infinite. The Animal Holocaust is taking place worldwide, in every culture, in every country. There are 7 billion people in the world right now, and over the next few decades this number will rise to around 9 billion. 80 percent of earth’s population is from developing countries, and in a few more decades this will rise to 87 percent. These populations are not open to the notion of animal rights at all. In fact, even the other 20 percent of earth population are not open to it, save a miniscule percentage. 97 out of every 100 people born today are born in developing countries. The life expectancy in developing countries will rise in the future and their mortality rates will drop. Numerous developing countries will be industrialized in the next few decades, meaning that the animal holocaust is going to double or triple in size.

If we look at this reality with open, objective eyes, we must conclude that the situation is worse than ever in global terms, and is continually worsening – despite what animal rights activists may witness in their immediate surroundings. We cannot win, especially not following the path we are currently on.”

Once we understand the impossibility of convincing 7 billion people to go vegan, the following question must be, “what do we do now?” In our opinion we should approach this crucial question wearing two different hats, which we will refer to as the “animal rights outreach” hat and the “effectiveness for animals” hat:

I. The Animal Rights Outreach Hat. As people who wish to end the animal holocaust, we should base our arguments (and actions) exclusively on animal liberation ideological grounds. Neither ecological nor health arguments should be used, as this tendency is weakening our movement. We again want to quote a previous 269 text in relation to that:

“In order to win the struggle for animal rights we need people willing to fight, and we need to be stronger than the murderers. Today, we cannot force humanity to liberate its nonhuman slaves. There are too few of us, with very little resources, and too many of them, with incomparably superior resources and capabilities. Hence, we need to convince them one way or another to stop exploiting animals. However, we obviously can’t convince 7 billion people to stop consuming and enslaving animals out of the goodness of their heart, which makes the outreach path a dead-end for us.

What we have is merely a handful of people scattered around the (predominantly western) world, who care for animals, and who are in dire need of figuring out what they can do. Educational efforts are nothing more than a safe and positive way to expand this small group of caring people, but it is not a solution to the global Animal Holocaust. In order to beat our ruthless enemy, we have no choice but to think outside the box.

The use of ecological, health or any other human-centered (i.e. selfish) argumentation removes the focal point from the ethical core of our movement’s message, and has two significant effects. Firstly, a growing number of people embrace veganism out of reasons which have nothing to do with a firm antispeciesist stance. Second, the animal rights movement appears to grow in terms of numbers, but the percentage of antispeciesist and committed vegans within it diminishes. And of course, this tendency feeds itself in the manner of a vicious cycle, because more speciesist vegans means more health/ecology campaigns initiated by the animal rights movement, which in turn attract more speciesist people, and so on.

The main problem with all of the above is that many of the new vegans (perhaps even a majority) give up on veganism after a few years. The ones who stay vegan are at their core speciesist and motivated by the wrong reasons, which means they are not very active or willing to fully commit to the struggle for animal liberation, even in terms of spending the necessary amount of time and energy analyzing, discussing, evaluating or coming up with new revolutionary critiques or ideas, etc. What we are left with is a movement that downplays its radical message to win over more people, and in the process becomes so feeble and unthreatening that it ceases to be a meaningful tool in the fight for animal liberation: a lifestyle movement. This is what happens when you think short-term rather than long-term, when you are willing to convert a few more vegans at any cost.

Practically anyone has the potential to come up with more effective – and faster – ways to bring about animal liberation than carrying on with the current mindset of appealing to human kindness. If your strategy is predicated on people’s openness and receptiveness to ethical arguments, you won’t convince many people to go vegan. Every animal rights group around the world incorporates arguments and campaigns about health, ecology, etc., alongside its ethical argumentation, which actually proves that deep down those groups (whether they have the courage to admit it or not) work within the assumption that humans don’t care enough about animals to go vegan. Personally, I would have no qualms about ushering in a vegan world solely through health-centered arguments, if that could indeed succeed. But most people don’t really care that much about health either, certainly not enough to turn 95 percent of the world into vegans; and even might not be enough to turn 1% into vegans.

II. The Effectiveness for Animals Hat. As activists who wish to eliminate as much suffering as possible, as people who take part in this fight solely for the animals’ sake, rather than just to feel good about ourselves, we should always remain open to new and creative ideas with the potential to end the animal holocaust as fast as possible (and if possible, by its root causes). We should furthermore always be prepared to embrace and promote them with all our might, even if they fall outside the scope of a traditional “animal rights activism” frame (for example if the idea in question is not ethically-based). We believe the animal rights movement should not endorse cultured meat, but at the same time should not attack or disparage it. The animal rights movement should lend it help “behind the scenes,” as it were, either by donating money to the cause (like Peta), or through individuals willing to make the effort to join the studies and research currently taking place, as well as volunteer in The Modern Agriculture Foundation (an organization outside the animal rights movement which promotes cultured meat). The same goes for all the aforementioned health or ecology-centered vegan campaigns – they mustn’t be carried out by our movement, since they basically promote naked human self-interests rather than animal liberation. Initiating environmental or nutrition-centered vegan campaigns is similar to promoting cultured meat: both should not be done under the animal rights umbrella; and yet, since cultured meat has a realistic chance of abolishing the global meat industry, it seems to us one should choose it over publishing vegan recipes or health-related internet memes.

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We have encountered several arguments against cultured meat (some of them made by Gary Francione) which we would like to

specifically address:

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In conclusion, as people who care about animals, we should not remain stuck in old paradigms, and should not reject new, creative ideas with lots of potential for benefitting nonhuman animals. We are not opposed to meat simply because it’s meat, but because its production necessitates the abuse and murder of innocent animals. If meat can be produced without abusing and using animals (and that is indeed it can), in a manner which has the potential to replace the world’s consumption of traditional meat, we are obligated to support and promote it with all our energy. The animal rights movement has a single agenda: to stop the animal holocaust. That’s it. Those who reject the concept of cultured meat are proof of the damage we have talked about earlier regarding the state of our movement, they don’t really care about nonhuman animals. They don’t care about ideas that might actually stop animal suffering. We are here to free the animals, and should always think in terms of what’s most effective for the animals, not whether the idea stirs us in a direction we might feel uncomfortable with. How might we end the animal holocaust, and what are the fastest ways to do so – those are questions which should haunt every single one of us, as every minute passed means millions more murdered.