As a professor of philosophy and environmental studies at Vermont’s Green Mountain College — and something of an authority on animal ethics — Prof. Steven Fesmire found himself at the epicenter of the recent activist-driven flap over the college’s plans to slaughter and serve the meat from two working oxen that toiled on the college’s on-site farm.
The idea was to align the school’s farming operations with a robust concept of sustainability. The result of what seemed to many as a pragmatic—if somewhat controversial—decision was an outcry ginned up by members of VINE, a local animal activist group that operates a sanctuary its members lobbied for the college to consider as an alternative destination for the pair of aging work animals.
Both Fesmire and William Throop, the college’s provost who also specializes in environmental ethics, were caught up in an aggressive campaign to demonize the college and threaten the owners of a local packing plant where school officials had planned to send the oxen. The plant owner balked after receiving numerous threats, and due to an injury, one of the oxen eventually had to be euthanized.
That was hardly the end of the controversy, however, which continues to reverberate across the rural campus, as students, activists and Green Mountain’s leadership grapple with the fallout of a highly charged, media-driven food fight.
To set the record straight about “Oxengate”, and to discuss the larger issue animal agriculture, Prof. Fesmire spoke with Contributing Editor Dan Murphy.
Q. Let’s start at the obvious place: What happened with the protests against the college’s plans to turn its oxen into meat, and what’s the situation there currently?
Fesmire: It’s become a serious dispute. What we’re dealing with here are vegan abolitionists, the folks who think that animal agriculture itself has to be abolished. The vitriol and the harassment against us on this issue is coming from these people, diehard animal rights abolitionists. From their perspective, any aspect of animal agriculture is analogous to human slavery. Thus, there’s no such thing as a “better master.” From their standpoint, even small-scale animal operations, such as we have at Green Mountain College, are no better than the concentrated feeding operations you find in the industry.
Q. You have gotten some very critical comments directed at you, as I have, despite Green Mountain’s attempts to be even-handed about this issue.
Fesmire: Yes. To these folks, any type of animal use is a violation of the fundamental rights of the animal, so it all has to go away. These folks are organized, and with social media, they have a big international network they can mobilize, so that’s where the heat’s coming from.
Q. And there’s been quite a lot of heat, as I understand.
Fesmire: Yes. It’s interesting. Most people—regardless of their diet—might agree or disagree about our decision about the oxen. But this [controversy] has almost nothing to do with Bill and Lou [the two oxen]. They’re merely props. However, the activists see them as mascots for the animal rights movement. This [dispute] isn’t about the vegetarian agenda; most vegetarians are used to living with the [meat] industry. Many of them eat dairy products. This controversy is about the vegan agenda.
Q. How is that different from being vegetarian?
Fesmire: Most people—even vegetarians—can accept that there is a plurality of different diets. For instance, a recent graduate of nearby Middlebury College, who is a vegan, emailed our president and said, “I’m so sick about what these [activists] are doing to you guys, I’m going to send you a contribution.” And he mailed a check for $250. That attitude is pretty prevalent at our college, and that’s what we’re used to.
Q. But that’s not where these protestors are coming from, eh?
Fesmire: No, not at all. The people who are protesting against our college believe there is only one right diet—a vegan diet—and it must be imperialistically forced upon everyone else. To them, that’s the only possible “ethical” diet. It’s not a matter of accepting there are lots of dietary choices out there. They believe in the PETA concept of meat is murder. They’re the ones who blocked off our slaughterhouses, they’re the ones who have threatened our local businesses, they’re the ones who are harassing us daily, and they should not be confused in any way with “typical” vegetarians or vegans.
Q. Let me ask you this: In your writings, you have raised concerns about industrial farming. How do you talk about that issue with your students, especially as it concerns ethics?
Fesmire: Well, that’s a semester-long discussion . . .
Q. Can you boil it down to 60 seconds?
Fesmire: [Laughs]. Okay, how about this? My goal is to take all the periods people want to put into their conversations, and turn them into question marks. Philosophy critiques the assumptions we hold about the world, from wherever we got them. It’s a threshing machine, separating wheat from the chaff. So the goal of ethics is really to make people feel uncomfortable, uncertain about their assumptions, because that’s when we can have a discussion. In doing so, however, there is a risk involved.
Q. The risk being that people’s fundamental viewpoint might change?
Fesmire: Yes, exactly: The fundamental beliefs, the basic assumptions we take for granted, might shift. That’s the risk of engaging in real thought, but that’s what we need to do culture-wide.
Q. Without condemning industrial agriculture, or exclusively touting small-scale farming, how do we get to a more balanced approach to food production?
Fesmire: Well, on the issue of animal agriculture, you have to get past thinking that the only choices are business as usual or abolition [of all livestock]. If you get past that, you can have an intelligent conversation and people have some flexibility to think about alternatives. But these pompous, sanctimonious abolitionists are utterly incapable of shining a spotlight that can lead us forward. They block the road on that kind of dialogue.
Yes, the industry does need to change, but right now, there’s not a lot of room to have the dialogue that we need to discuss how we might do that.
Dan Murphy is a food-industry journalist and commentator.
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