Friday, December 30, 2011

Langlois' Apology and My Partial Forgiveness

David Langlois participated in severe abuses of my person and views in the Abolitionist Approach Forum run by Gary Francione. I have documented all of this in the last two blog entries. It was public abuse, to a certain extent, and I will continue my work here as a citizen-journalist and whistle-blower, exposing further and ongoing back-alley abuses. I would like to announce to my readers that David has apologized for calling me "creepy" and for using the term "putz" with respect to myself--or rather, with lack of respect to myself. Langlois explains that he was in a bad mood, lazy, or exercising poor judgment. Thank you for the apology and indeed the explanation, David.

Well, bad judgment, sure. But given that people whom I trust--and who are in an excellent position to know the facts--report that you often act in this manner, that amounts to a lot of work, and so cannot be altogether lazy. However, seriously, if you have such a mood that so extensively causes you to be abusive, then with all due respect, you need to re-examine yourself as 2011 draws to a close. Perhaps make a commitment to at least consider finding someone who can genuinely assist you with this issue.

(Please note that I would not ordinarily cite e-mails in a public blog unless it were a case of abuse. Abusers thrive in secrecy. How many billions of abusers have threatened their victims if they dare to speak out, lay charges, and so forth? Abusers deserve to be exposed, and that moral imperative sometimes overrides certain other norms. Or at least the case can respectably be made. Those in favour of keeping abuse hidden, thus being pro-abuser and con-the-abused are free to do so, although that would not be a non-violent stance to take in my book. Well, abuse is ongoing as I will document in this blog entry.)

As I myself reflect, I find that you really liked Yates' style when he became insulting and "held my feet to the fire," as you so poetically prosed it. I suspect this is a long-term style that you like, not a sudden, "Yay, Yates!" on an off day. History speaks for itself, if it is known. You have said that my arguments have been produced before, although in other terms. That is just short of accusing me of plagiarism. I offer several arguments in my peer-reviewed journal article which are not referenced to anyone else because they originate from me. Are you suggesting that I am not giving one or several individuals credit for my ideas? Are you calling me an intellectual thief? You had better be able to back up these implications that you are making, Mr. Langlois.

You motion to get together with me and offer me the chance to prove why I "think [my arguments] deserve more attention" than you currently think they do, and how they are after all original. I guess you would like that, me coming to you, pleading for attention and recognition. You might be shocked, but that is not actually what I would most prefer. Let me educate you just a little bit about what is considered normal in such academic affairs. I am the one with the established reputation in animal ethics from many well-respected quarters. I published a peer-reviewed journal article on the debate in question. Now I heard you give a presentation on Rain without Thunder that strictly followed the text, without any evidence of original thinking whatsoever. (I was listening and took notes, waiting for any genuine contributions to the debate you might make. I keep an open mind and document my sources, as anyone competent can see. But my note-pad remained tellingly blank aside from my own insights that were being generated solely by the issues.) The peer review process implies that academic editors and expert referees judge my work to be both original and worthy of publicizing to various audiences.

If you are disputing this implicit state of affairs, the burden is fully on your shoulders to show that these academic experts are mistaken: that I am really a plagiarist in effect, or that my arguments are not worthy of serious attention as you parrot after Gary. Recall that he said my work "cannot possibly be interpreted as serious remarks." I guess that sunk in with you. If you think I am going to come crawling to you, a certifiable bully--who continues even in your letter of apology to devalue me and to trivialize my work--for respect and recognition, well then, you must have mistaken me for somebody else. And I guess it is implied by your remarks that Francione's arguments, unlike mine, deserve both attention and respect. Yet I showed that your intellectual sugar-daddy's three critiques of my views do not even amount to half a hill of beans in my blog entry for December 17th, 2011.

But then, let's examine your assertion for a moment that my animal law views are not worthy of serious attention. First quantitatively and then qualitatively.

Quantitatively, my website (last time I checked) nets about 84,000 visits per year. A decade, extrapolating, would mean probably more than 840,000 visits. Some people would round that up to a cool million visits. Although I am hoping to ramp up my readership in the years to come. Are you going to let a whole decade or more slip by even as you have passed some four or more years indicating that you will write a rebuttal but never doing so? (As a check-and-balance remark though: most people browse through web sites quite quickly, and not all of them will read my academic articles; some are repeat-visitors, and so on.) Why won't all these people heed your own and Gary's call to ignore me? Well, I know pretty much why you and Francione ignore me, and it is not what you think, Dave. Anyway, so far, you are just a "talker," to use informal parlance. Now if you decide to go into politics, or seek a job as an academic which does well with some honest political savvy, you can impress everyone with your history that you think it is not wise to correct allegedly extensive "misrepresentations" and bad arguments for a view you passionately disagree with that is reaching thousands of people. Just tell the world--or even just imply--that thousands of people do not matter, or are really insignificant, or brush them aside as virtually non-existent. There would not be many political parties or savvy people who would want you in their strategy rooms, apart from the Francionists, I can guarantee you. Not if you stay on this track, David.

Now we will consider qualitatively (albeit only too briefly) whether my views are "worthy" of your attention. Just to help you with the analysis a tiny bit, since you have not shown any skill in reflecting what I have actually written thus far, I have been arguing for years that we should secure what is really (not just conceptually) best for animals in the legislative short-term. You seem to agree with the discussion thread in which you partook when Gary said the AR Zone should not give me a platform or "create controversy," to use Gary's phrase, by treating my views seriously. Yet even Gary admits: "it would be better for 'food' animals" if we adopted free-range farming and discontinued factory farming." (This is in the essay that you deem unworthy of your attention, p. 15, a direct quote from Francione, Introduction to Animal Rights, p. 145.) Anyone with the scarcest grasp of logic can see there is a serious problem with Francione's thinking here, unless he can extricate himself--which neither he nor anyone else has even begun to do.

You see, David, by your saying that my argument is not worthy of serious attention--and I think you have Harvard snootiness down pretty pat in stating matters thusly--you are really saying in effect that what is best for animals in the legislative short-term is not deserving of sober respect. If what is best--or at least "better" as Gary says--for animals in the short-term does not matter to you, then your views do not amount to anything in the court of public opinion on animal law. You at least need to account for this important concern, as you continue not to do. Ask anyone but the types of cronies who appeared on that thread with you. Yes, if you can show that such considerations--and this is merely one--are not "worthy" of anyone's serious attention, then by all means I will concede the point that you do not even bother to argue--as seems typical by now. I will concede that you need not listen to my academic voice. Strictly speaking, you have no such requirement in terms of survival. But arguing well? That is another matter, if you profess to consider what is better for animals but take actions ostensibly contrary to that principle. You owe an explanation that I well believe that you cannot in principle provide.

Disrespecting the other side in a debate carries a real cost. First-rate scholars do so well by respecting their ideological opposites, taking arguments seriously, ably engaging people about matters of fact and argument after paying their dues of real analysis and direct critique. (Also: Sticking to the issues and abstaining from personal attacks, which I acknowledge you apologized for.) People, by contrast, who try to deliver silly sucker-punches eventually risk detection as to precisely what they are up to. If my argument is "old hat," why does it not appear in the book whose contents you presented so dearly? Why has there been no effective, specific rebuttal to this argument, EVER in any public forum that is accessible to the players in this debate? Why, Langlois? Surely you owe people an explanation on this point. You certainly owe it to me and our readers before you pretend academically to "assess" my theories as you do.

Indeed, by expressing a half-baked intent to rebut my essay years ago, you were hypocritically belying your own claim that I am "not a serious entity in the debate," as you phrased it. You could not possibly believe that, deep down, since you already acted as I recount. Unless of course you suddenly changed your opinion--did you, Dave? But that would not square with your offering to look at an essay of mine now, in your most recent letter. But it is not the first time I have exposed your being duplicitous, now, is it? You seem to evidence a talent for seeking ever thinner ice upon which to skate.

Oh, and thank you for your renewed offer of friendship, David. I will duly consider it in the years to come if you show serious evidence of making much better choices. For now, your track record has not yet earned my trust nor special affection--for some reason. You would need unquestionably to establish another, altogether better track of freely chosen actions. It would have to take a long time too, as anyone who is competent in gauging trust will agree.

You plead that in effect you were having a bad day. From the reports of friends whom I do trust and regard affectionately, you must have been having an awful lot of bad days over the years. But I wish you only good days in the New Year. If you resolve to make different kinds of choices, then you will, in a sense anyway, become a different kind of person. I will forgive the offences for which you apologized, but I will not forget them. You and your colleagues have been abusing me severely in public forums, and your apology does not yet have the effect of undoing the abusive harms that you helped to cause without any good justification. Nor your fresh insights that in effect I am a plagiarist who is not even worth attending to, contrary to scholarly norms the world over of respecting peer-reviewed work enough to engage in what is termed "fair comment." You are beneath those norms, David Langlois. In refusing to dish out academic dignity, you undermine your own.

But now that you are "forgiven," I, still unlike you, will give respectful attention to what you have to say as a scholar, and treat you cordially enough. Impersonally, you deserve no less according to any non-violence ethics that honours academic dignity, apologies, forgiveness, and the importance of building and maintaining positive relationships. Let me also sincerely thank you, publicly, for the kindness of giving me your apologies. Believe it or not, I do appreciate it and regard it in a positive manner, although you will have already surmised that I must maintain serious reservations. I have been in highly educational relationships with abusive people before whom I could not avoid. They apologized for their actions, and then carried on in the same way, as though they regretted nothing but just used such words. Like in November 2007, when I documented in my blog how you supposedly apologized the first time for the "creepy" appellation, but readily explained that although you are sorry your charge is true. And although you "apologized," you explicitly stated that you would not mind if you offended me because it was the truth. What kind of apology involves not minding the creation of offence? Honestly now!

Seriously, though, I think that I owe you some benefit of the doubt that you are doing a better job at apologizing on this occasion, David. Yes, even in spite of your offering up of weak excuses for your conduct at the very same time. You requested in your reply to my public posting that you wish to be on civil terms again. Fair enough. And granted. Only not as friends. No, not yet by any means. You have not earned that, Mister. You did me violence, sir. I forgive you in my way, but I also caution you and like-minded individuals: Trifle with me at your own risk.

P.S. Langlois has signalled by way of reply to this posting that he will not change his conduct. Or so I interpret from, and I quote: "If you plan to wait for me to 'make different choices', as you put it, then I'm afraid that you'll be waiting a long time." Obviously the choices include the offensiveness that I allege. He also disclaims that he is "looking down" upon me. Whatever; he won't condescend to dialogue, despite his offer of meeting with me or commenting if I am working on a paper. He deserves some real credit for that. But I have faith that he will compulsively avoid the core issues just as he did in this recent exchange, keeping with the complete set of his fellows who cannot and so do not address the issue of what is best for animals in the shorter-term legislatively. He knows he can avoid it, and will continue do so. And I believe that I know why. One day I will elaborate the reasons for my hypothesis, that I know many people will find to be of interest.

Switching topics, he seems to have a case of "Harvard Head Syndrome" (H.H.S.--yes, I made that one up, but I'll bet my readers who are intelligent enough to have made it this far know precisely what I mean). Once again he has apologized but continues to carry on offensively. Langlois has iterated his choice consistently to appear in many peoples' bad books. And to show the lack of rational accountability that he offers pretensions of expecting from others. He will still trifle with me and therefore will pay the largely invisible--to him--price. It's pathetic really. Langlois is one of Francione's "elite" favorites, actually getting a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard. He should show such promise in contributing to these debates as he claims to do in a reading group although not so much with internet postings anymore. Such wasted potential really. And I do not see any other Francionist scholars truly stepping up to the plate, as it were, either. Too bad--for them.

With this record of nonsense Langlois himself proposes that we take him seriously? Does that not imply that we view him as:

  1. genuinely apologetic for flagrant abuse?
  2. being a person of integrity, rather than a hypocrite?
  3. directly engaging in academic debate without always finding excuses for avoiding it?
  4. showing understanding of the other side of the debate through analysis?
  5. going further than that and actually having plausible responses to critiques and telling critiques of his own (in short: effective critical thinking)?
  6. having original things to add to the debate, rather than just echoing Francione?
  7. having contributed even unoriginal scholarship in a significant piece of writing or research?
  8. taking animals' suffering seriously rather than dismissively as is the common case with his lot?
  9. not inspiring chuckles at his hypocrisy, which often appears almost clown-like, as in his 2007 stab at so-called apology?

Take your pick of considerations that prevent some people from taking Langlois altogether seriously, and render him an often poorly regarded, minor player in this whole discussion. Yes, his doing a doctorate at Harvard University does give him at least some initial credibility. But this he fritters away fruitlessly. Hmmm... Gee, not one of these criteria tells against my own work. Actually, he is generating some impressive academica qualifications in general, but as for meeting up? Honestly, especially given his "affrimation" that he will not choose differently, I view Langlois as suffering from--but also inappropriately enjoying--a characterologically delayed ascension to manhood. That is, he is something of a "bully-boy." So much for Langlois' latest serving of garbage, folks. Although I was well justified in exposing the abuse on that transcript, here is one of Gary's Gang who is exercising the freedom to talk back. Yet he remains almost as offensive and certainly as intellectually flat-lining (for all he's shown) as the bunch on that forum for Francionist thinkers--or at least talkers. It should add to our amusement that although I am supposedly insignificant to Langlois and the other so-called "Abolitionists," he got back to me about my blog before I even finished writing the final version of my entry! I tend to fuss with it that way. But clearly, the blog was hardly worth fussing about for Langlois and his buddies...ha!


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Thursday, December 29, 2011

"Dave" Revealed To Be David Langlois

Someone informs me that "Dave" in my last post's "D-Day" transcript from the Abolitionist Approach Forum has a public profile on the forum in question which reveals to a certainty that he is none other than David Langlois, who is studying philosophy for a doctorate at Harvard. That was unknown to me, not being a part of that forum--thank goodness. It would also have been unknown to a great number of my readers. "Dave" the scholar tells us, to recount:

  1. my [Sztybel's] arguments are "bad" [stunningly articulate!--DS; my comments appear below in square brackets; he said he would rebut my "Animal Rights Law" years ago but never did]
  2. I only wrote handful of pieces in which I do not attack and mischaracterize Gary [no examples; plus I personally wrote to Langlois in 2006 to tell me if I misrepresent Gary in "AR Law" before it was published; he told me I got wrong Francione's absurd theory of property status and what it means but did not "enlighten" further; I corrected what I could given Langlois' single point, which he actually made well enough; he said any further comments should probably be post-publication; in other words, he thinks he can correct my interpretations further, but wants to grand-stand after the essay is out rather than help me get it right before it is published; that reveals something about Langlois: he is a poser, unhelpful in spirit to other animal rights scholars, not sincerely concerned to correct things at every turn, an opportunist, among other unflattering things; meanwhile, at that time, another Francionist, also with a Master's degree in philosophy, confirmed that I interpreted Francione correctly aside from the single correction Langlois made]
  3. ignorantly says my arguments have been around for two decades [again, my dilemma arguments, and so on, no one has seen before; the argument that we cannot act for mere things but only sentient beings; my projections about suffering and death, and so on and on; there are other original arguments too, only some of which I catalogue in "D-Day," the last blog entry]
  4. I am "not a serious entity in the debate" [although I have won over Francionists, had my paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, which was officially adopted by the Northwestern Animal Rights Network (a large and extremely active AR group); had another Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics member, Carlos Naconecy, publicly defend "Animal Rights Law" at a conference (I am no longer a Fellow with the Centre by choice as I discussed earlier); Bruce Friedrich who debates people over veganism nationwide at the top universities and beyond praised my historical essay on incrementalist animal law as "essential reading" for this debate; I had my short-form of "AR Law" translated into Spanish and Portugese by enthusiasts, the former by a former Francionist lawyer and scholar; of course none of this and much more is "serious" to Langlois, who is starting to sound exactly like a Harvard snob]
  5. this is "much too personal for an academic blog" [which I never said I was doing; as though bloggers make no reference to themselves]
  6. complains about my insulting and then says I act "like a putz" [how's that for hypocrisy?; speaking of which, you should have seen the emails Langlois wrote to me trying to court my friendship before he baselessly called me "creepy" in an internet forum; see my November 21, 2007 blog entry for a treatment of this]
  7. "sad" only Yates put my "feet to the fire" [Langlois evidently loves viciousness, choosing a torture technique as a fond metaphor for what he prefers]
  8. "one moment of near sanity" when Yates attacked me [this is obviously what Langlois goes in for: mud-slinging]
  9. claims it was a "shame" I was not called on my misrepresentations [Langlois was free to do so and indeed was a member of AR Zone at the time; perhaps he was afraid to participate because Francione suggested his followers abstain from the discussion, and excommunicated Yates for daring to have a discussion with me? More hypocrisy: if it is a "shame" to allow misrepresentation then Langlois refusing to correct my alleged misrepresentations until after my essay was published is downright shameful, which in a way it is, and not how first-rate scholars conduct themselves; he may have much more potential than this, but his passing up the chance to lend learned commentary is something a hack out to score cheap points to impress people would do]
  10. Gary didn't say I was "insane," only that I had done "insane things" [right--like the Red Carpet entry! A rigorous argument defeating Langlois' claims above]

I recall that right after my first appearance on AR Zone, Langlois joined the chat box under his full name, asking people how they liked the chat with me and whether it was their favorite? He was just trying to seem "chatty"? Funny he should go to the bother if I am not a serious entity in the debate. I guess he figured that Gary's "suggestion" of non-participation might not apply immediately after the chat. But then Langlois and Francione lamented what a "shame" it was that no one corrected my supposed misrepresentations. By the way, they were free to do so at any time, even now, after the chat. Instead they choose to contribute to this "shame." But then, maybe they see the regular AR Zone people as fit to communicate with me, but view themselves as "above" all that. After all, the intelligent people on the Zone largely agree with Francione, only they increasingly are rejecting his insulting and censorious tactics, among other things. Anyone who goes in for insulting would be psychologically liable to view themselves as "above" others, although they place themselves so close to the mud on the ground that they sling about. People such as Langlois are most probably insecure: they feel "up" when they put others down.

Harvard admitted this guy, and he states that I have no new arguments? May his ignorance be blissful... Meanwhile, if he does ever choose to rebut my arguments, I will show that his case is as poorly defended as when Langlois presented on the question of animal welfare laws at the Toronto Animal Rights Society in 2006 and parroted Francione in Rain without Thunder, p. 191, who said his own approach to animal rights and the law is "uncontroversial." Langlois actually repeated this declaration without specifically citing Francione's statement. It came across as nauseatingly smug. I mean: really sickening. Meanwhile, we get a good laugh because Francione himself has now recanted this "uncontroversial" reading of animal rights law that he provided in Rain. Has Langlois rushed to follow, renouncing what he once declared to be "uncontroversial" with such reasoning as Langlois himself had at the time? If he did not follow he might have been censored by Francione, as we have been learning for some time about the type of "forum" Francione runs. We need no more than the mere questioning by "Leanne" in the transcript I provided in the last blog entry.

"Hello, Dave! Nice to know ya. Well, maybe not so nice..."


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Sunday, December 25, 2011

D-Day for Francionists

Several people are concerned that both myself and my work are being abused in “The Abolitionist Online” forum for discussion. As a consequence, these individuals, who will remain anonymous, leaked to me a discussion of my work, and even of myself as a person. The timing was immediately following my first appearance on AR Zone, which is dominated by anti-incrementalists who oppose anti-cruelty laws, unlike me. So the word is out. I have the right to defend myself against abuse by brave talkers who imagine it is all behind my back. You can judge for yourself by seeing the discussion for your own eyes:

LINK

Sometimes whistle-blowers need to sound the alert about their own abuse, although others have already been alarmed and sounded a whistle to me as I say. I would like to thank these good people. Abuse should be reported and exposed, especially if, potentially, it can spread damagingly to a lot of people. What I write here is as a citizen-journalist and to defend myself against various attacks made initially behind my back. I have sometimes been curious about how my work is being discussed on Francionist internet groups. What would it be like to be a “fly on the wall”? Now I am getting some idea. Sadly, it is just about what I expected. And that is not a good thing. I will start by focusing on comments by Francione’s followers, and then the words of Professor Francione himself. After reading his words, it becomes clear that his followers are largely parroting what he himself states, although sometimes with rhetorical variations.

Academic Grading

I have taught 13 university courses in philosophy and sociology, all very well received. I have also served as a teaching assistant/grader in 6 other university courses. Students in my most recent courses have often graded me as excellent in every category on their evaluations. I call those evals. “solid bars.” Many of my readers will have had a university education, so this section may repeat your knowledge. But I find it helps to be explicit so as to be better understood. My thoughts on the animal rights incrementalist versus anti-incrementalist debate are discussed in a scholarly article, “Animal Rights Law.” I also discuss issues more informally in this blog. However, when I argue anything on the blog, the arguments can be reconstructed with logical rigour as I will illustrate below. Even then I will use the one example that my detractors insist demonstrates my “insanity” or “insane actions.”

However, my arguments appear lost on these Francionists, including Francione himself, as I duly show. I propose to grade those thoughts in the transcript that assess my academic arguments. Is it unfair, since they are only having a chat? On the other hand, you would expect a forum for seriously discussing this debate, featuring no less than a professor of law and Nicholas Katzenbach Scholar, would have some things to say that are of academic merit. Certainly the discussants make gestures in that direction, pinning my work with logical fallacies and otherwise assessing my argumentation. Inasmuch as that is the case, I will use the grading system. Take it with a grain of salt, however. These people did not know that their remarks would be academically evaluated, although Francione anyway is a scholar in this field and they are making academic claims. But in a full and fair grading situation, they should be offered the chance to clarify their views, provide supporting evidence, and so on. As long as this is understood, we can reflect on grading the thoughts they have offered so far in response to my academic theory, focused on philosophically defending animal rights incrementalism. (A historical defence occurs in my recent informal paper, “Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World.”)

In Canada anyway, here are what academic grades mean (which I recite from my own understanding of the process):

  1. A Level. Evidence of original thought, a solid grasp in terms of analysis and criticism. An A- may be lacking in some respects though, and only have faint original thought. An A is really solid excellence. The A+ can fittingly be applied to material that is worthy of academic publication.
  2. B Level. Good work. A B+ means truly superior grasp of the arguments under examination, but no original thought. Well organized and well-articulated. Any B will have some reservations, but is still overall good analysis and critique. A B- will reflect some serious deficiencies though, as will the C-range in general. But if overall good, then in the B-range the paper stays.
  3. C Level Academically adequate. Some evidence of engaging with the material in a serious way. May suffer from problems of interpretation, accuracy, organization and argument, but still OK. A C- is semi-marginal though and borders on inadequate. It may lack a cohesive sense of theories and just offer a mash of ideas instead. It may be very one-sided in its consideration of ideas.
  4. D Level Inadequate. This category displays serious errors of interpretation and analysis. No solid, critical grasp of the material. May contain numerous statements offered without any evidence. It is this grade level that inspired the name for today's title, which includes D-Day.
  5. F Academic failure.

In all of the hundreds of university papers that I have graded, students have very rarely come to me for an explication of the evaluations that I have produced. But they always go away more or less satisfied, and I have never had to change a grade on any essay. Nor has any student ever appealed my marks to anyone else. All of this means that I have a pretty firm hold on academic grading, the research on which it is based, and so forth. Let’s start with the Francionists in this multi-logue, and then we will see what their Chief has to say.

"Substantive" Criticisms without any Substance

A person self-identifying as “goiken” claims that I am not to be taken seriously because I wrote the following in a blog entry, as he/she quotes:

Francione is waiting for the carpet to be rolled out by fellow animal rightists in the legislature, or wannabes...The red carpet he is waiting for would be red with the blood of animals whose lives would be that much more hellish because he is 'waiting for the day' with his cronies.

Needless to say this is quoted out of context. It also does not reflect the revised and updated version for my entry of January 16, 2008. The actual article contains a logical argument preceding this statement. Francione claims he wants to stay out of legislatures for fear that his position will be “watered down” by speciesists. I make the point that PETA advocates legal changes without changing their call for animal rights law in the long-term. I also argue that Francione’s logic, spelled out, would persist even if there is a strong minority of animal rights people in the legislatures. For the majority would still threaten to “water down” his position, supposedly—and erroneously as I have just shown. We can rigorously spell this out as an argument expressed in standard form with premises and conclusions:

  1. Animal rights people, according to Gary Francione, should stay out of contemporary legislatures because their radicalism will be watered down by a majority of speciesists.
  2. Therefore animal rights people should stay out of any legislatures in which they would need to deal with a majority of speciesists.
  3. Therefore Francionist animal rights people should stay out of legislatures even when a third of the law-makers are animal rights supporters.
  4. Therefore Gary Francione, based on the above principles, will stay out of legislatures until he is welcomed by an animal rights majority. (And if people follow him, there would not be that majority since they would avoid the legislature.)

Now Francione never states the above conclusions, but they are logically implied by the principle he is using, expressed in 2. The conclusion follows with airtight logical validity. Now of course animal rights people in the legislature are actually free not to compromise their long-term vision. But Francione fears he will compromise. Maybe he fears his own weakness? Perhaps he is only referring to laws in the short-term which are the concern of legislators. One topic I did not address would be his stance if he NEARLY had a majority in the house. He might not fear watering down then. But I never pretended to cover all angles. It was a blog entry. It was not an academic paper. Anyway, I concluded this blog entry, entitled “The Red Carpet” with the metaphor quoted above. I do not think it is gratuitous. He does indeed seem to be waiting for a majority or near-majority of animal rightists to welcome him in. Of course the incrementalist animal rights legislators would have already been doing lots of hard work there without him. I have argued elsewhere that in the long-term, Francionist approaches result in more suffering and death for animals. We are talking about murdered animals here, so a red carpet is an apt image. I say their lives would be more hellish because he proposes to leave factory farming, for example, legally intact. Sounds like hell to me.

So, even though “evidence” is introduced to support a claim that I am not to be taken seriously, the ripped-out-of-context citation does not validate the inference that is drawn. This is indeed an argument to be taken seriously. In fact, Dani Dorado, a lawyer in Spain who once followed Francione's idea that animal "welfare" laws are immoral (but changed his mind thanks to my "Animal Rights Law"), translated this blog essay into Spanish for internet display because it was one of his favorites. (He also put up a translation of a shortened version of "Animal Rights Law.") The problem here is not that I have written something that is not to be taken seriously. It is that “goiken,” whoever this person really is, did not take my essay seriously and therefore missed the point of the apt metaphor, and evidently all of the argumentation as well. He has not shown any inaccuracy or inapplicability of a red carpet image to comment on murder, with victims far more cruelly and wrongly treated if the Francionists get their way. Indeed, my argument, and even my use of poetic rhetoric, stand unrefuted by this commentator. Or is “goiken” proclaiming, like the Pope of literature, that there is a new rule that murder cannot be associated with blood or blood-red? The answer is self-evident. I warn the reader that this instance is THE ONLY academic claim these people—including Francione—make with any supporting evidence whatsoever. The rest are merely baseless accusations as you can see for yourself from the complete leaked document, which has not been altered in any way.

This “goiken” person also says that I beg the question in my writing. This is a name for a logical fallacy, as I explicate on the fallacies sheet on my website. It means arguing in logical circles, or merely assuming what needs to be proved. I prefer to say assuming what one needs to justify, since proofs are fairly hard to come by in philosophy. Ironically, “goiken” is begging the question against me here. He is assuming what he needs to justify, or in this case, prove (I find that you CAN prove genuine begging the question through logical analysis). But he provides no evidence whatsoever, and so his claim must be discarded, or put in abeyance unless and until he comes up with any sort of substantiation.

Rob Johnson chimes in. Keep in mind that this Briton wrote a blog essay attacking my work. I refuted him in my blog entry for August 30, 2010, and he posted another response which I have not yet found the time to attend to. His first response resulted in a commentary, fully HALF of which needed to be devoted to showing how he misrepresents my views so extensively. Straw man arguments. Some day I’d perhaps like to get back to his rejoinder, but his work is not very compelling. He has some interesting points, including a claim about animal consumption going up after anti-cruelty legislation. That is a fair argument, but his piece is so filled with inaccuracy, and the argument itself is so unoriginal, that it probably merits more of C-level grade at most. Probably a C-, or worse, since a paper is borderline “marginal” or “inadequate” academically if it is overbrimming with so very many errors as I proved Johnson’s essay was. Not only misinterpretation and misrepresentation, but logically spurious arguments. I provide a multi-layered response to his key objection, comparing all three general scenarios and showing that incrementalism actually leads to less suffering and death, thus turning the tables on Johnson. Do you think I had any burning desire to respond at length to C- papers by students? You guessed it. That is, a C- at best. That is probably too kind. His essay could be a perfect sample paper of a D because it is almost unbelievably ridden by so many errors.

Anyway, Johnson comes up with a new straw man argument, which seems to be his academic specialty. This time, he implies (since he is commenting on my work in general and my appearance on AR Zone in particular) that he disapproves of the “Why can’t we all get along?” approach. I never said any such thing anywhere, in any work, or at any time. So it’s another straw man, not reflective of my true view. I do urge that anti-incrementalists ideally will cooperate with incrementalists doing vegan education, for example, which is something they can agree on. That furthers anti-incrementalist interests too. But I do not expect to “get along” with anti-incrementalists or to cooperate with them on matters legislative because we are at odds. Johnson ends his “critique” with a slur, that the “get along” position is “tantamount to a white supremacist challenging a rights activist with the same…,” i.e., “get along” idea. He is comparing me to a white supremacist. Someone who really believes that so-called “whites” are superior to, as it is termed, “blacks,” and so “whites” have the right to harm “blacks” in various ways. The analogous belief would be that I am a human supremacist, advocating harmful domination of animals. As anyone who is lucid knows, I advocate just the opposite. See now why I have trouble taking Johnson quite seriously? Normally, people know that I approve of macroincremental animal law (making as large increments of progress as possible, e.g., abolishing factory farming). However, approving of something legislatively is different from approving something morally. And everyone knows that I disapprove of the speciesist aspects of speciesist laws, but I will tolerate such laws if that is now the best that can be achieved for animals. The alternative is tolerating absolute cruelty, which is far more intolerable. On the contrary, Johnson and his cronies support more speciesism than I do, indeed, they tolerate no less major a part of animal oppression than the cruelty aspects.

Johnson throws in for good measure that I have “nonsensical ideas” but without him providing any evidence (as applies to ALL subsequent claims as I have already stated). So my ideas do not make any intelligible sense to Johnson? Funny, other people seem to comprehend them even if they do not always agree with my views. This claim gets an F, a failure to engage with my material in any academically constructive way whatsoever. If my ideas do not make sense to Johnson that is his deficiency, not one pertaining to my writing, which others have understood and agreed with perfectly well. It should be easy to cite material that is truly nonsensical. But it would be too difficult for Johnson, because doing the impossible is always rather difficult. His later claim that I have an “immoral” stance again begs the question, which fallacy, we can recall, “goiken” applied ironically to my arguments above. Lots of people think I am morally right based on my arguments, and Johnson and all the rest have done nothing to show the contrary.

Now what about “Dave,” whoever this happens to be? He tells us: “Sztybel’s arguments are bad.” Johnson begs the question here. He seeks to inform his readers that I “forgo logic.” Anyone familiar with my work knows I make logical arguments that stand in need of affirmation or refutation, like the argument I recounted from “The Red Carpet” which they show no evidence of understanding, let alone defeating. I also use logical fallacies as I have done already in this entry. Is that “foregoing” logic?

Everly iterates his utter astonishment: “I can’t believe anyone is giving this guy any credence or attention at all. He’s a coat-tailer and not a good one, at that. ‘Best caring’…bah. Ridiculous.” Well, ridiculed by Everly, to be sure. But he refutes his own case because a “coat-tailer” rides on the coat-tails of other people, and he cites my own original ethical theory, thus undoing his own claim in the same breath. He may dismiss best caring, but Michael Allen Fox went on record affirming, in effect, that it is the best ethical theory to date. Fox is an emeritus professor from one of Canada’s top research institutions, Queen’s University, at which I have taught on a Post-Doctoral Fellowship for a full academic year, and where students need an “A” average just to get enrolled. For some reason, I give Fox more credence than “Everly.”

False Claims

“Dave” tells us that there is merely a “handful of pieces of writing in which Sztybel doesn’t mischaracterize and attack Gary.” Perhaps he is referring to my blog. I explicitly started the blog in response to Francione’s merely and unrepentantly insulting the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, and also to counter his anti-incrementalism and its destructive effects, which I have done more than any other writer, as even Johnson concedes on that other occasion I referred to. He wrote in his original response to my blog that if I can’t refute anti-incrementalism, he doubts anyone can. So I would expect there could be a majority of entries on Francionism and the like in my blog. After all, Francione is the chief representative of the view that I consider so destructive that it needs to be strongly challenged. So these people are odd, to say the least. They grieve that no one discusses their issues in the mainstream, and then when someone does, they literally call me “obsessed” and the like, or think there is something odd about having many blog entries on Francionism. That’s just weird. And more, less flattering labels also apply, which I will not enter into.

Anyway, of the 79 entries prior to this essay (which was published earlier and then withdrawn for revision purposes), 47 are not focused on Francionism. That’s almost 60% not about Francione, etc. Yet it would be understandable if even a majority of my essays were about anti-incrementalism and the like, although that is not the case. As for my 19 peer-reviewed academic articles, how many of them are focused on that debate? Only one. His theory is barely mentioned in passing in “The Rights of Animal Persons,” without even mentioning the anti-incrementalism debate, so I do not count that one. So that’s about 5% of my academic work seriously focusing on Francione. These people flatter themselves to think that most of the remaining 95% are “obsessed” with Francione.

Yates repeatedly echoed this "obsessed" line from Francione, and clearly implied I should be "over" Francione and not writing about him any more, just because in the blog I said I was changing directions for a while, although I still indicated an interest in "clearing my desk" of thoughts on this fascinating and socially important debate. He repeated it even after I disproved I could possibly be obsessed with Gary during AR Zone follow-up discussion. How can you be "obsessed" with someone if you do not keep up with his writing? Yates' lines make no rational sense from a scholarly point of view since of course academics will continue to explore avenues of inquiry as much as they like. So what is the real explanation for Yates' needling? It is sinister and relates to the bullying and censorship tendencies of these people. You see, Francione and Yates cannot always censor me directly. So instead, they try to practice "psychological warfare," trying to discourage me from writing criticisms of their views. They want me to think, "Yeah, I must be obsessing. Well, I'd better stop writing about Francione then." That would accomplish the aims of censorship through another means. THAT is the explanation for their otherwise inexplicable behaviour. Behold the ugly, sometimes hidden face of censorship tendencies. Trying to instigate self-censorship must appear better than sliced bread to these people. They are trying to censor alternative views at their source, in effect.

Not that it works on me. My academic freedom is still more or less fully operational, thank you very much. That would discourage them, you see, to know that they have not discouraged me, since that is their aim. Actually, Yates' discouragement only encourages me further, because I can see right through his shoddy tactics. True, he agreed to invite me to AR Zone, which is ostensibly contrary to censorship. But it seems he wanted to ambush me publicly with his misguided idea that I insult people, and to berate me that I should not be writing anymore about Gary Francione, even though, crazily enough, most of the questions from AR Zone to me pertained to Francionism and the like. He was trying to pressure me publicly to relent in my critiques of his sort of position. Or to get me to self-censor. Like that was going to work! Anyway, Yates was far less censorious than Francione, and look what a price Yates paid for it: "excommunication" by Francione.

It is completely false to say that only a handful of my pieces of writing are not concerned with Francione. But “Dave,” recall, goes further and says I “mischaracterize” Francione and “attack Gary” in all but a handful of writings. There are NO pieces of writing where I attack Gary as a person, even if I criticize his claims and methods as I do in this entry. They do not return the favour as we will see, and neither does Francione himself, who basically calls me a liar in what he tells people in his forum.

As for “mischaracterization,” (Kerry also says, “the misrepresentation of Gary’s position was so complete and pervasive.”), I went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure I was getting Francione’s arguments right in “Animal Rights Law.” I challenged him to an internet debate on the Toronto Animal Rights Society (TARS) List Serve, as I have recounted before. He showed up as promised. Then, after quoting himself and I asked the first tough question, he literally fled. He offered the lame excuse that he did not know this would be so much about my paper, even though the paper only addresses the incrementalist question, and I explicitly told him that my paper would be up for discussion as part of it. (Obviously, Francione subsequently thought it would be easier to try to censor my work rather than debate me, and that he is somehow specially entitled to censor people.) Two Francionist academics advised me that my work was interpretationally accurate. Every claim I make about Francionism in "Animal Rights Law" is cited material from his own works. Roger Yates on AR Zone told me Francione changed his view and repudiates much of his book, Rain without Thunder (which I have also repudiated!). Yates insultingly said I was “underhanded” not to account for the changed view. But I have no obligation to keep up reading Francione. He is not part of any course I am taking. Most of my work on his theories is former stuff. If Francione and the Francionists are concerned that I am inaccurate, or no longer up-to-date, then they should correct me. I only want the truth, in spite of Francione stating that I lie. That personal attack itself is a lie, or else a statement made in ignorance, because it is not true, as fair-minded people must conclude. Yates’ own attack is virtually paranoid, assuming that my not reflecting the disavowal of Rain is some kind of sinister, deliberate ploy. What reason could I possibly have to write pretending ignorance? His silly surmise does him no credit.

“Dave” continues his back-alley assault, stating that my arguments are ones Francione has attributed to new welfarists for the better part of two decades. Then why do my arguments never appear in Rain without Thunder? Or Francione’s blog? Where is there mention of dilemma theory? Seeking what is best for animals? Not acting for nonsentient beings? My material on increased suffering and death? And on and on. This person gets an F for making blanket statements that are entirely untrue. Many people acknowledge I have the most highly developed arguments for the incrementalists, and that they are different than those of others. Perhaps “Dave” is totally unaware of them although he pretends to be familiar with my work. I do not wait for credit from Francionists though. That is irrelevant; these people make themselves personally irrelevant to me through their baleful attacks and poor reasoning. “Dave” also says I “insult” Francionists without any evidence. Roger Yates tried to ambush me with that claim on AR Zone. I proved that none of the cases that he cited were genuine insults, and Yates had nothing to prove in reply. Indeed, I proved he called me “the Francione stalker” on his blog, a terrible insult that is also entirely unwarranted. Ah, the ironies with these Francionist cronies! Indeed, much of what I am recounting here is merely insults from the Francionists, and yet they baselessly complain about me insulting them!

Dismissals

“Dave” brushes off my work, saying I am not a “serious entity in the debate,” that I am not a “genuinely relevant” guest for AR Zone. My work is obviously relevant for the anti-incrementalist question. I have written more on my side than anyone else and using a high standard of argument and accuracy, as most people are capable of seeing. Even when they try to show the opposite using textual evidence they fail miserably. Perhaps “Dave” does not understand my arguments like Johnson did not in his long critique I cited earlier. “Dave” tells us though: “Sztybel’s arguments are bad. Not all bad arguments deserve public counter-arguments.” Dave does not have a bad argument here, but no argument at all. No evidence. So it amounts to just another dismissal, which I dismiss forthwith.

Then there is what amounts to a dismissal, partly because the gratuitous criticism is so poorly thought out. “Dave” informs us that much of what I write “is much too personal for an academic blog.” How silly. I am an academic, but I never said I was writing an “academic blog.” I am not writing on behalf of any institution. And the essays I post are largely not academic essays with full citations, and the like. They are not peer-reviewed. Many entries are geared towards activists and others. Lots of people have blogs on the internet and refer to their own lives. Many people have told me they find that interesting. I guess “Dave” has something to learn about the blogosphere. Or have I neglected a new rule that “Dave” has set for the whole world regarding the world wide web, that academics are not allowed to mention themselves as persons in their blogs? Stuff and nonsense. But on a par with his peers.

Outright Insults

Recall that “Dave” like Yates complains that I “insult” Francione, even though neither has been able to prove a darn thing along those lines. Yates did not even bother to substantiate in a public discussion. So our anti-insulting “Dave,” like Yates with his “stalker” comment, shows us all how he thinks we should act by saying that I, David Sztybel, act “like a putz.” Nice. “Dave” was sad that only Yates “put [Sztybel’s] feet to the fire, as it were.” So burning people with insults is the way to go after all? Interesting that Dave, so full of concern for others, uses a torture technique as a metaphor for what he prefers. “Dave” says that when Yates attacked me, “it was the one moment of near sanity.” So I guess everyone on the AR Zone that day was “insane” and indeed there was only one moment of “near sanity,” when Yates took to insulting? Well, “Dave” may have missed his calling. Maybe he should be a psychiatrist. Then again, maybe not. To him, “sanity” = public muck-raking + accusing his opponents of being publicly insulting. Just brilliant.

Johnson, not to be outdone, likens his people to Martin Luther King, Jr. (whom I cannot help picturing as well above the muck-raking, academically challenged fray that these people are creating), and myself as one of the “opponents” of black rights. So Dr. King would not have favoured laws curbing cruelty against black people? King was perhaps the greatest single progenitor of INCREMENTALIST rights for blacks as I have amply documented in "Incrementalist Animal Law." He was not some anti-incrementalist, lost in fantasy, waiting for some all-encompassing, nonincremental human rights legislation was possible before advocating the genesis of new law. I’ve already commented on Johnson’s “white supremacist” insult above though. Enough said on that score. And below I show again that these people uphold fewer animal rights than I do, bypassing the right not to be treated cruelly. Johnson states that my writing on incrementalism is an “ongoing attempt to make a career out of opposing good ideas.” Make a career? A key Francionist tried to get me fired from Brock University. I knew in advance that Francionists are insulting attackers by and large. They are inconvenient to say the least. Some allege they deliberately low-rated Joan Dunayer's book, Speciesism, and I was already aware of this allegation, which might well be based in fact. I did not embark on this path for my own gratification. People do not generally enjoy interacting with people who personally disgust them, as all the insulters are naturally viewed. I knew that Gary and his lot meant potentially serious trouble for anyone who would take him on as I proposed to do, so it took no small amount of courage on my part. And I was right about the trouble. My essays are focused on the issues, and that is exactly what these people should stick to. But no, Mylene calls me a “nutter” and a “phony.” What exactly is it I am supposed to be “faking” she never says. This brings us to our next section.

Insulting Allegations of Mental Illness

When people cannot handle an honest debate or discussion, they start insulting the other party if they are immature, saying things like, “You’re just crazy.” We find the like of that here. Everly, again keeping to the Francionists’ honour-standard in their forum of providing NO genuine evidence, speculates that I, David Sztybel, might be “insane” or “mentally ill,” and that my writing is “disturbingly close to word salad or can even be characterized as such (the quote about the carpet of blood is a good example).” Kerry also writes: “What a nutter.” Everly rejoins: “Sztybel may have some mental health issues to address. The rambling, the world salad (and the near-word-salad), the undertone of seething anger, the seeming ownership of Gary’s positions [whatever’s THAT’S supposed to mean—DS]…all that and a real sense of confabulation on his part. Cripes, someone opened the nutbag and this guy fell out.” Again an innuendo about dishonesty which Francione himself has imputed to me without the slightest trace of evidence. Not surprising. Falsehoods are never truly evident. And again they do not even clarify what it is I am supposedly “confabulating.”

Anyway, I have recounted my actual argument which Everly must have somehow missed. Insane people do not make genuinely academic arguments—at least not while insane! Word salad, if you happen not to know, refers to the talk of schizophrenics and others which is rambling, disjointed, scarcely intelligible and the like. It’s funny he should say that. An expert on essay writing at the University of Toronto made a presentation on essay-writing at the Robarts Library. She said that most students are more or less in the C-range, and it basically amounts to a “salad” of ideas. The ideas are from the readings or discussion or whatever, but there is no solid grasp of the arguments or theories. She literally used the analogy of “salad.” When students choose to reflect on my theories in essays, which often occurs, part of their grade is for offering an analysis of my theories, and part of the grade is based on critical reflections. They often get in the A-range even if they disagree with me. Looks like Everly can’t even pull off an analysis, planting himself/herself firmly in the D-range. Inadequate. If all that my ideas are to this person is “word salad” then this person needs help in comprehending material, quite clearly. So does Francione, as my last blog entry proves. As for anger, yes it makes me a little bit mad to be insulted. It makes me very angry though when people actively seek to prolong cruel conditions for animals as Everly and his ilk do. And I am not alone in my rightful anger. If cruelty does not make someone mad, maybe THAT person has issues.

Conrad’s Scary “Encounter”

This fellow “Conrad” tells the group:

Ok, this is weird. I actually met David about a month ago... i had no idea who he was. It was at a fundraiser and we had vegan chili [sic: chilli]. I have been reading this post for the last few days and only now realized (after seeing his picture) that ive met him. Wow. creepy.

Yes, imagine actually meeting me face to face! Of course I was gracious with everyone at the fund-raiser and helped out as I could. This “creepy” label seems common in Francionist circles. Recall that David Langlois publicly and baselessly said my conduct was “creepy” too, as I recount in “Insults and Illusions,” November 21, 2007. Well, Conrad will be interested to know that I am holding an essay contest. Francionists alone can participate, because in the interests of justice, everyone else will be duly censored. I will give a million dollars to the Francionist who proves, in keeping with the high standards of academic rigour that they profess, that bullies are never the ones who are "creepy," it is really all those other people, that is, the ones who deserve to be censored. Good luck, man. You'll need it. In any case, it is heart-warming that the Francionists are keen to avoid "creepiness," just as they keep undying, holy vigilance against anyone who dares to use insults.

Conrad further reflects, with a failing grasp of grammar and the like: “Its [sic]weird that i sat at the same table with David, and talked to him. Im glad i didnt tell him im an abolitionist vegan. That would have ruined the evening...” Actually he could have had a civilized dialogue, so long as he could keep up his side of the bargain. But then, perhaps he would become bullying (like so many of these people are) if I mentioned I am an abolitionist vegan too. Oh, I relish meeting this “Conrad” person now! I am sure I can be courteous to him, and my thoughts about him will most likely remain private. But at this moment, it is time to turn to Francione’s own comments in this forum.

Francione’s Character Assassination

Francione claims of me: “he lies outright.” That comment which he is spreading to many other people, doing damage to my reputation, is purely libelous. If I have uttered anything inaccurate, that must have been a mistake, not dishonesty. He could not possibly find any genuine evidence for such an accusation. No one can, for any falsehood. And this is a man who supposedly adheres to an ethic of ahimsa, or abstaining from any kind of avoidable harm. That is all I have to say about this particular comment of his at this juncture.

We also find out where the mental illness garbage comes from as Francione calls me “disturbed,” claiming that: “he…says and does things that are, quite frankly, insane (and I am using that term literally).” Again, no evidence. Francione calls me “obsessed” with him, rather than just treating him as the principal author, unfortunately, among the anti-incrementalists. Calling me a crazy man is really just another feeble try at smearing my reputation as a scholar. Unfortunately, this kind of tossing of excrement tends to backfire, at least among the people who most matter. I don’t really care if fellow insulters get their kicks. That is simply not relevant to me. For my part, I say that no one should call anti-incrementalists who are mud-slingers “excrementalists.” True, “ex” is opposite to “in” as in extroverted/introverted, extrinsic/intrinsic, and “anti-in” can playfully be paired with “ex”. But insults are beneath my dignity, and even if they are fun for one party, they are almost invariably not for the other.

Francione’s Criticisms without Any Evidence To Back Them Up

Francione regales us with his thoughts: “Sztybel produces largely incoherent and confused ramblings…” It is simple to prove incoherence. All he has to do is catch me in a self-contradiction. Saying one thing, and then saying the logical contrary. And yet he offers no evidence, not even a one piece. By contrast, I show how he often contradicts himself, more than forty times as I recall, with my essay, “Francione’s Mighty Boomerang,” July 15, 2008 in my blog. There are other occasions too. I show that his own thinking seems to be logically faulty on too many occasions to count. It’s funny. Just as I pointed out the Francionists use the same tactics as the speciesists of insulting, evasion, lack of logic, libelous remarks, and all the rest of it there is another parallel too. Many have noticed that speciesist philosophers hold themselves to a very low standard of rigour for their indefensible views, but hold animal rights people to an utmost standard of rigour. The Francionists similarly keep to a very low standard of academic argumentation, but purportedly hold people like me to a high standard. I have pointed out so many logical problems with their claims. They either do not seem to notice, or not to care even if they do notice. It is like they suddenly go cross-eyed whenever they read a telling point against their position, and then they obliviously just “buzz on” with their “reading.” Is that not weird, for people with pretensions of being intellectually superior to other animal rights people? If I had really ever contradicted myself, believe me, these guys would have been all over it and we would never hear the end of it.

You can rightly derive great amusement from the fact that after years of my writing, the only passage they pick on, from “The Red Carpet,” is argued rock-solid, as I demonstrated above. So frankly, I read this incoherence or confusion “finding” of Francione as just a lot of hot air. Oh, and my thought not “cohering” with Francione’s thinking does not count here, but that is likely what he really means—probably without even realizing it. Conrad asks for Francione’s thoughts, and the latter replies: “Apart from the fact that he misrepresents my view and he rambles on in absolute incoherency, no.” Misrepresents? About as much as last blog entry, in which I directly quote Francione and provide the transcript to back it up. Dr. Ray Greek debates vivisectors and finds that one of their favorite tactics is to claim their views are being taken "out of context" and the like. Greek finds this is just an easy catch-all phrase that they cannot back up. I suspect something similar is going on here. Francione does not have very much to say, considering all the many things I have written. But then he does not truly grasp what I have written as he himself proves in the leaked transcript. Francione might think I “misrepresent” his view when I show untoward logical implications of his way of thinking. For example, he states that anti-cruelty laws create complacency. The unstated implication: keeping conditions cruel will be effective for preventing complacency. A lot of people wrongly try to ignore those sorts of things, sweeping them under the rug and such. If he thinks that my work is all “incoherent,” that just means he has no coherent grasp of what I am stating and arguing. He is unwittingly putting himself down, here, not me.

Misrepresentation

The claims about misrepresentation stem from Francione too. He writes that I mischaracterize his views without any evidence. Even though ALL of my claims about him in my academic writing is cited from his own work. And I use citations elsewhere too. He continues without evidence: “Sztybel…ignores what I say in favor of the mischaracterization and misrepresentations.” Of course, I did not know he disavowed much of his peer-reviewed book, published by Temple University Press, Rain without Thunder. But otherwise, probably every claim that I misrepresent his views on the AR Zone transcript can be countered with the citations of his own texts that I make in my original essay, including the material from Rain which I was wholly justified in criticizing at an earlier date. He offers: “You can make up your own mind up about the quality of Sztybel’s analysis and whether Sztybel’s descriptions of my position bears any relationship to reality.” He had his chance to clarify his views and he blew it by fleeing the TARS debate. I told him that was one of my reasons for holding the debate. It is purely contemptuous to imply that my representations do not have ANY relationship to reality. Just a crazy man, eh? Crazy like a fox…

Francione’s Misrepresentation of My Views

It is ironic that Francione and Johnson cry about misrepresentation, when both do that so extensively in relation to my own work. Recall that the three critiques mentioned last blog entry are misrepresentations in two-thirds of them. Also, if a light bulb happened to switch on in his head about economics, he would see that what he is saying is just plain wrong. Mathematically so. He got Singer wrong too but never retracted or apologized. The damage can never be fully reversed though, and the same is true of Francione’s above-reproduced libel against myself. Do apologies not accord with Francione’s profession of a philosophy of ahimsa? His baselessly calling me dishonest is also not consistent with ahimsa, now, is it? He could not possibly find any real evidence that I am untruthful because there can never be any real evidence for a falsehood.

What does blatantly misinterpreting others’ work come to on an academic grading scale? It is either a D for marginal or an F for a fail, for failing to do even the basic thing of understanding others and presenting credible analysis of their position. And how would his “economic” points be graded? Well, he would get a C at most because he has not produced any evidence. But his actual writing on these issues would also get a B at most because he has some interesting ideas, but they are illogically conceived, e.g., that “welfarism” always makes animal exploitation more profitable, which can be disproved as I did last blog entry. Also, you cannot get into the B range without accounting for arguments that your opponent makes, and in critiquing me, he should account for my actual arguments. Basically, Francione here is being a mostly a D, F (for the misrepresentations he does) or C (for his "Francionomics") student of my work in this forum (I guess the two Ds drag the C- down into the D+ range perhaps on average), leading a bunch of D to F students who only make points without evidence. Essentially, we have a D student leading a bunch of D or F students. Not very inspiring. Except of my title, "D-Day."

Would a professional scholar care about what bad students of his or her work say about it, or whether they are in favour? Why? Only if and insofar these unimpressive thinkers have an effect on others. This is not insulting, by the way, but merely how academic work gets graded in the real world, and how someone such as myself views lower-level academic work. It has nothing to do with snobbery, or "elitism," or people flattering themselves that they know what they are doing, or whether some individuals think they are “brilliant,” and so on. It all comes down to the quality of the arguments, and the cold, hard facts that feed into such assessments.

I would add that a lot of Francione’s other work is probably A-level by academic standards. At least according to me. You see, I have the democratic belief that members of all major schools should be given the chance to have A-rated work, and we need all lines of thought represented to think well. Even if I think Francione’s work is a tissue of errors. Not all scholars are this generous, however. Bad professors give their students a bad grade if their pupils express any disagreement with the teacher.

So I am not talking about the grade-level of his work in general. What I am pointing out here is that his engagement with my ideas, as an opposing viewpoint, is very far from A-level indeed, and that affects the credibility of his writing which I refute as well. So what does this person whom many believe to be a “great leader” recommend, based on his purportedly “professional” assessment of my work?

Francione’s Recommendations Regarding My Work

Francione says: “People should do what they want” about engaging me, Dr. Sztybel, in debate. In practice, though, Roger Yates did just that on AR Zone and Gary ostracized Yates for that, and also for calling me an animal rights supporter. I only support animal rights after all, so how dare anyone call me an animal rights supporter! Yes, he is a professor, folks. Then Francione complains: “Yates is familiar enough with my work to know that Sztybe [sic] was misrepresenting me and he said nothing. I am now convinced that Yates is not concerned about education.” This is laughable. Yates is a professor, who is not concerned with education? And Francione is whining that no one corrected my views. He and his followers should have joined the dialogue and done that themselves. I cordially invited them to participate. Many of these vicious Francionists say that I should not be given a platform to speak, ergo, we should do away with rational discussion, democracy, open-mindedness, respect for other views, and censor Sztybel. But the fact is, I was already given a platform to speak on AR Zone. Too late. Given this, Francione’s failure to correct people’s potential misunderstanding is his own fault. Recall that my website gets more than 84,000 page views a year at the present rate. They are asleep at the switch.

He seems to be genuinely afraid to engage with me, for some reason, just as when he fled from the TARS discussion when the going got tough. It is intellectual or moral cowardice to fail to act against perceived disinformation when given the easy opportunity to do so. They have uniformly failed in their supposed mission of “education.” But then, censorship also fails in that respect too, does it not? Mylene and Johnson agree that I should not be given a platform, since, according to Mylene such a move “risks giving [Dr. Sztybel] the appearance of credibility in the eyes of the small handful of advocates who show up for chats.” I denounce this statement as intellectual cowardice. If I lack any credibility, these people should be able to show it through open and honest debate. I guess they fear that for some reason though. Perhaps they ought to.

Conrad in the dialogue says he thought Yates was “on the same page as with us and Gary…” and is puzzled as to why there is no longer an “amicable” relationship. The explanation is simple, although Francione never even directly answers Conrad. He does not really favour people doing what they want about engaging with me in debate, contrary to what he said. If that were true, he never would have “excommunicated” Yates. He is censoring and cutting off Yates because the latter did not censor me, and because Yates did not uphold Francione’s censoring of the idea that I am an animal rights supporter. It is that simple. Francione is a control-freak. He wants to hold all the cards. The trouble is, he is theorizing in a collapsing house of cards. His objection to Yates calling me an animal rights person is also censoring Yates himself for daring to disagree with his “Master.”

“Dave” also chimes in that it is “a shame” that I, Dr. Sztybel, am not called on my “misrepresentations.” If it is such a shame, then why did they themselves contribute to this supposed “shame”? Not that I am necessarily conceding that I misrepresented anyone. But if they sincerely believe that, then they acted inappropriately, and are whiningly blaming others for not doing what they themselves were entirely free to do.

Francione predicts, by way of further recommendations, that debate with me “will not be productive.” True, so long as Francione engages in ignoring, insults, evasions, and logically spurious argumentation. At least, that will not be productive for him. It suits me OK. He debated me in effect with his three moves in the transcript. I am confident that anyone who is unbiased would say that he lost. Badly. He also adds: “…there is probably nothing we can learn from his comments and…they cannot possibly be taken as serious remarks.” Well, perhaps Gary does have trouble learning and taking my ideas seriously, as has already been pointed out. He attributes views to me that plainly contradict what I have written. Most of what he said (67% of his three claims) is actually wholly inaccurate or the opposite of what I say. Other people show it is not only possible to take my work seriously, but they actually do so.

Also, think about how narrow-minded it was to excommunicate Yates just for calling me an animal rights person and for actually facilitating an intelligent discussion with me. Surely, then, there could not be room enough in such a mind for tolerating my theory itself. Gary adds: “I am not sure that much else needs to be said about this. In any event, I have nothing further to say.” After all these years. I wrote “Animal Rights Law” which was published in 2007 and contains many relevant arguments that continue to go unaddressed. In four years, Francione’s response, all he has to say, are two cases of analyzing my statements wrongly and another case of begging the question against what I have already argued. Wow. I am not surprised these people have a low opinion of my writing. It reflect badly on themselves. A writing only seems as good in someone’s mind as the reading itself is credible. And the Francionists are apparently illiterate regarding what I argue. They fail in understanding and to take what I say seriously, thus mocking themselves in effect. They never, ever have taken on my central arguments about what is best for animals in the short- and long-terms, among other key considerations.

The Abuse of Leanne

There was one person who appeared in the forum whose name was “Leanne.” She questioned what was stated by all of the others:

I'm really bothered….I'm a new member here and maybe I don't know the rules of the road, but it seems odd that Gary Francione would talk about another person the way he has. I don't know anything about David Sztybel, except for what I can read about him online, but it doesn't seem possible to me that a guy who has a Masters and Ph.D. in Philosophy, who is a teacher and published author could be "insane". But, as I said, I don't know him.

She continues:

Anyway, I don't know what everyone is so afraid of. If Sztybel's ideas are that bad, it ought to be easy to point out how and why. I don't understand why the tone here has to be so mean.

Funny, I have the same concerns. All the insults. And why are they so afraid to engage me, given their supposed dedication to “education”? And the supposed ease of refuting my work? It makes no rational sense except as part of a censorship or vicious attack campaign.

Good old “Dave” tries to explain that “Gary didn’t say that Sztybel is insane. He said that Sztybel has said and done things are insane.” Like the Red Carpet example as a prime instance? Such laughable nonsense. Anyway, Francione is much less kind to this person who dared to question the foul goings-on on this “forum.” The law professor, who has gone to trial defending students’ right to freedom not to dissect animals, speaks:

It is either the case that: (1) you have not read Sztybel's posts or (2) you agree with the substance of what Sztybel says.

If (1) is true, don't you think that you have an obligation to read what he says before you decide that it is in any way inaccurate or inappropriate to characterize what he says as disturbingly bizarre?

If (2) is true, then why are you here?

More of Francione’s logical “brilliance.” He will not tolerate anyone who might agree with me in the slightest, even if they just concede that I am an animal rights supporter, as Yates did. Leanne could not question the meanness of outright insults, apparently, unless she was an expert on my work or was a "Sztybelian." You have to do a lot of reading on Sztybel or be "one of those" before you know if that is appropriate. This according to people who whine that I insult! Oh, and she needs to read my work or be an actual Sztybel fanatic before she asks why they do not bother to correct what I say. If only she reads my work or is a true believer regarding Sztybel, she would understand exactly why they are so afraid! And the nerve of Leanne, asking implicitly for EVIDENCE that I am insane or have done mad things. She either agrees with me or has not read my work if she dares to ask for such evidence. Surely “The Red Carpet” example is overwhelming evidence! (Actually it is, and so is the Francionists’ responses to it, but not warrant for what the Francionists say.) But no one supplies any reason except the quote from “The Red Carpet,” which involves a literary finale to a tightly argued critique. It is entirely rational, and anyone who claims it is “insane,” let alone lacking in reasoning, is, himself or herself, irrational.

Leanne persisted though:

It also seems that you're saying that only those people who already agree with you are welcome here. My purpose here is to learn.

If I'm not welcome here, please tell me and I'll be happy to leave.

I was informed that Francione ejected Leanne from his “forum” without further ado for daring to question “the leader.” Censorship again. She was right. There was no concern with learning, no appeal to evidence which is normal in such matters. Either follow Gary or be censored, just like in a cult. Francione did not even bother to reply to her apparently. He just axed her. Everly tried to reassure that he has seen “nothing even remotely resembling an attack in this thread or even in this forum.” So calling me a putz, a liar, a madman, and all the rest are not attacks? Then what is? Francione comments that it is “illegitimate” for AR Zone to “create controversy” by featuring my views. Censorship after all precludes controversy very easily, does it not? Of course there already IS a controversy. I have been actively engaged in it for years now. A “forum” implies dialogue and rational discussion. Their calling their threads of inaneness "The Abolitionist Approach Forum" is a mockery, therefore, in being called a "forum" and also in claiming to represent "the" abolitionist approach, as though people who agree with me are any less keen to abolish speciesism.

The Whining about Grades Objection

It is predictable that the Francionists will plead that it is not fair to “grade” their performance as I have. However, a chief scholar in the field on the anti-incrementalist question was asked for a learned opinion about my work, and of course this can be assessed for its scholarly value. We can provisionally assess the comments in this forum. It is not a final assessment. That would depend on further developments. One can grade anything: a research proposal, rough notes, sketches of thoughts, and so on. These days, with the electronic classroom, forum discussion is often graded too as happened to me in 2006 at teacher’s college. (I got an A+ in that and every other course except one, which was an A...English, you know; I know the grading system from that end too, and I wonder how many incoherent madmen--as they are painting me--can manage that?) I am not truly grading anybody’s work as in a school setting. Nobody is going to get a report card. I am making a rhetorical point rather than actually grading anybody as part of any institution. I am illustrating how their remarks could be graded by conventional academic standards. A true grade would require an assignment, time to complete the assignment demarcated by a deadline, and so forth. They set themselves the task of assessing my arguments, and it is this critical review that is being graded in all fairness. Anyone not interested in the grading part can ignore it. Just please: NO WHINING.

Conclusion: Enjoy Your D-Day

So Francione scores a few Ds for a total misreading of my work. A proper grader’s comment might read in part: “Inadequate. Analysis does not apply to what Sztybel actually writes and so is a straw man argument.” , and a C- for just gesturing at economic theory. I have generously supplied his arguments on economics and refuted them. Students like this C- effort would often get comments such as: “Nice effort, but inadequate. You need to consider the other side which you do not allow for at all.” Any student routinely scores in the C range if they fail to account for the other side. Tidy grammar and lots of footnotes will not save the effort. The overall argument needs to be graded, and it is assumed that it is merely part of what is adequate to provide citations (by the way, we cannot expect an informal discussion in his "forum" to have formal citations, so that is not so relevant here; having reasons would be nice, though). It is not “good” to fail to account for the other side, which is the B-range, but at most adequate, and hence the C-range. It is not "good" to put forward nonsensical mathematical claims in economics either, which drags the thing down to a C- (if not another D, frankly; I am again being generous here because a lot of people would grade such costing beyond the pale of reason in such a fashion). Proper academics do well at accounting for "the other side(s)." This leaves him with a D+ average, or perhaps a solid D average, depending how you are prepared to accommodate "Francionomics."

Consider that in Rain without Thunder, p. 191, he declared his interpretation of animal rights as never accepting compromised forms of animal interests as "uncontroversial." It could only seem so to him if dissenting voices are silenced in his own consciousness. Then he went on to not only controvert but to reject the incrementalist theory that he once considered so "uncontroversial."

Francionists trying to get people fired, libel, insults, and calling opponents “insane” and totally out of touch with reality is all attempting anyway to be cruel like a bully. That is why Yates told me to “get a life,” in a public forum, just like the speciesists do at animal rights protests. Offering to be cruel may work against helpless animals, but not against those who can stand up for themselves. Indeed, cruelty backfires in this case. As for cruelty to the animals, all the Francionists would be screaming out for relief, be it legislative or any other form, if even one of the torturous factory farming measures were inflicted on themselves. I have yet to see a single Francionist express much concern at all about legally allowed cruelty to animals; usually they brush that aside as though it is simply irrelevant to their animal activism.

Look at the rebellion occurring on AR Zone, where Francione is in many ways viewed as he deserves. Even the Francionists there no longer want to be associated much with Francione. It is a grand irony that just as he offers too little too late to help animals legislatively, so he is giving only too little too late to refute my claims. People who become smug with overconfidence, and think they are entitled to censor their opponents…it all catches up with them eventually. If I was into insults, well, after the way these people abused me in their little "forum," I could pretty much have my pick of different types of mud. But I leave the mud-slinging to these Francionists. Anyway, D-Day is here. The Francionists, for all their bravado, could not escape the D-range, even while ridiculously accusing me of being de-ranged!


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Francione’s Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Professor Gary L. Francione has three key substantive points to make about my work (albeit without any evidence provided), in an excerpt from The Abolitionist Approach Forum. I assert the right to defend myself against these back-room attacks. It is in response to my essay, “Animal Rights Law,” my blog entries on the incrementalist question, and especially my first appearance as a “chat guest” on AR Zone on January 16, 2011. I will lay aside for now his gratuitous comments about my alleged incoherence, misrepresentation, insultingly "diagnosing" me as mentally ill, and the like. And his libel that I tell outright lies. Here are his three points, which I suppose are meant to be devastating findings against my position after years of confident consideration:

  1. “Sztybel simply does not understand the economics behind welfare reform.”
  2. “[Sztybel] maintains that welfare reform is a morally [sic—should say “moral”] and practical way of achieving abolition. That is new welfarism.”
  3. “This [ergo: Sztybel’s work]…is part of the effort to reduce abolition/animal rights to new welfarism.”

Let’s address these concerns one at a time. Just as I refuted, one by one, all of his points that he made about Ingrid Newkirk’s opinion column in my blog entries for January 24th and 25th, 2010. So I do not “understand” the economics behind welfare reform? Francione apparently believes that people do not “understand” reality when they do not agree with his own views. He assumes that his views reflect an “understanding” of reality. Let us carefully consider, however, Francione’s dogmas about economics. First, he puts forward a misnomer of a phrase: legal welfarism. This conception maintains that welfare reforms just make the exploitation of animals more efficient and more profitable for the exploiters. This dogma has long been refuted by me. I have proved that Sweden has abolished factory farming, and that we can prove that this does not make exploitation more efficient and profitable for exploiters. Let us consider the phenomenon of factory farming from an economic point of view. It is rather intensive “agriculture” itself that makes exploitation as efficient as possible, and that is the main reason why the perversely cruel technology and techniques of factory farming were invented in the first place.

To quote my recent essay on hog exploitation for Toronto Pig Save:

It is usually thought that there is more money to be made in confining animals by cramming them into minimal indoor spaces (less rent, building, or land costs), in feeding them awful food (which is cheaper), keeping them in filth (rather than paying for cleaning), letting them suffer stifling, toxic air and extremes of hot or cold (rather than pay for adequate regulation of the atmosphere in factory farms, transport vehicles, or slaughter facilities), failing to attend to their medical needs (to offset veterinary costs), and transporting and killing them forcefully and hurriedly (because workers are paid by the hour and meat is sold by the pound).

In other words, all of the measures of factory farming save “farmers” money. Therefore abolishing factory farming costs more money to exploiters. Indeed, if they refuse to pay these expenses, they would be fined, which costs more money too. Therefore Francione’s thesis is utterly refuted. Either direct exploiters pay the extra expenses, or else some government(s) pays. Government is unlikely to cover all of industry’s legally incurred costs. But anyway, if government pays then indirect exploiters still pay more because it is consumers or taxpayers who pay, and the bulk of them are indirect exploiters of animals too, not just the “animal industrialists,” as they might like to be called. Animal rightists pay taxes too, as a tiny minority, but this in no way undermines the fact that factory farming saves big money in the process and proceeds of animal exploitation. In short, this last fact about animal rights people is totally irrelevant as a saving grace for the Francionist position here, but I consider it just to be thorough enough. These reflections totally refute Francione’s ill-considered idea. Also, speciesist customers typically pay more if really costly "welfare" measures are instituted, since farmers normally pass on higher costs to consumers. This totally refutes Francione’s ill considered idea as a mathematical and economical certainty. Perhaps though in "Francionomics" more is less and less is more.

With all due respect, he never seems to have gotten the idea that people have to pay for things in this society. He used to embrace an incrementalist program to the effect that if all of an animal’s interest were respected, he would accept it ethically, because it would be almost like a whole animal right were secured, a proto-right as he called it. His example was that a reform could mean complete liberty of movement for birds. What he failed to consider then shows his parallel basic lack of insight into the money system. Full recognition of liberty of movement would need to be equivalent to what we would find on an animal rights sanctuary. That would be a generous amount of space. Keep in mind that this would be needed for animal agriculture to practice. Under speciesist rule, private industry would never provide animal rights conditions of sheltering, and neither would government. Animal rights people could not afford to shelter all of these animals. So his former “proposal” for animal is so unrealistic as to be untenable due to a lack of even the most basic sort of economic insight. (A Francionist with a graduate degree enthused to me in correspondence once that such expensive measures would be great because they would put the "farmers" of animals out of business. A government would pass a law killing animal agriculture in a speciesist society? I do not know if this person was repeating Francione's thoughts, but the level of thinking examined here is also poor.) But now he has reportedly abandoned his former incrementalism. Anyway, his incoherent claim that welfare reforms make economic exploitation more efficient show again a lack of insight into the simple proposition that they generally cost more.

Another economic dogma of Francione is that if we make animal industries less cruel, animal consumption will go up, contributing to greater profits, and more animal suffering and death. I address this misconception in considerable detail at:

LINK

No need to repeat myself here.

What truly matters is what affects the animals: less suffering and death. I show, with reasoning for every move, that on every scenario, Francione’s approach results in more suffering and death. He at most delays a spike in animal consumption since incrementalism is historically inevitable as I document in “Incrementalist Animal Law.” Unless animals will be treated better than blacks, which is improbable to the point of absurdity. Blacks have had to endure a painfully slow and highly insulting administration of incrementalist legislative relief dragging over more than two centuries.

Francione thinks that it is self-evident, as well, that we should never adopt any anti-cruelty measures that are more profitable for industry. He is not taking an animal-centred view of the situation, but rather a Francione-centred view. Professor Francione does not like exploiters to make money. Nor do I, but what chiefly matters is less suffering and death for animals. Now the animals literally do not care how they get relief plainly from torture. If anything, the chance to make more profit is a useful incentive for exploiters to be more certain to make things better or less cruel for animals (although again: welfare reforms cost money; we are just conceding his ill-considered idea of anti-cruelty measures that are profitable to industry for the sake of argument--it would apply to precious few measures, since again most factory farming cruelties are installed to save money; removing them costs money). Torture is far more important than someone getting richer off of exploitation from the point of view of the animals. In considering oppression, the standpoint of the oppressed should be paramount, not that of oppressors or witnesses. In other words, it is true that I do not “understand” economic realities of animal “welfarism” in the way that Francione does. That is because he consistently misunderstands and so misevaluates reality. He does this so consistently and pervasively that I am not surprised that he continues in his great clockwork of erroneous thinking, on and on, seemingly without end.

What about his second statement: “[Sztybel] maintains that welfare reform is a morally [sic] and practical way of achieving abolition. That is new welfarism.” Again, more and more errors on Francione’s part. He will never tire, evidently, of this particular straw man argument. I always say that anti-cruelty laws do not achieve abolition. It is worth quoting “Animal Rights Law,” pp. 9-10, to address this total misrepresentation of my view (not that I expect him to “get” it since I have said this so many times before but it never “takes” in his mind evidently). I make it clear that welfare reform is NOT a way of achieving abolition. Abolitionist campaigns do that. But welfarism can be CONDUCIVE towards abolition. I do not say that it is a “moral” or “practical” way of achieving abolition if it itself is not such a way at all! He will apparently never tire of misrepresenting not just me, but also so many other incrementalists who agree with me on this point. Humorously, without at all meaning to be, Francione concludes that I am a “new welfarist” because I maintain that welfare reforms are a moral and practical way of achieving abolition. But since I never say that, and in fact deny it, how can that make me a new welfarist? Also, I repeatedly trot out Francione’s five characteristics of “new welfarists” from Rain without Thunder (e.g., Sztybel, "Animal Rights Law," pp. 22-24) and prove that I do not even fulfill a sole one of his conditions. Pitiably, Francione does not even know what he is talking about.

The following quotes prove that I have stated this all along, only Francione likes to talk but not quite as much to listen:

To be clear, animal “welfarist” laws do not play a “causal role” in abolition as Francione claims supporters of such laws believe. I do not know anyone who thinks that just creating “welfarist” legal reforms will somehow magically bring about abolition all by itself. Indeed, “welfarist” reforms do not even contain in them anything directly related to abolition, and therefore such laws are obviously insufficient causes to bring about the destruction of speciesism. Fundamentalists tend to consider causation in black and white terms. So if “welfarist” laws do not “cause” abolition, they are prepared to reject such proposals as doing more harm than good.

Here I make a relevant distinction between causation and what I call “conduciveness.” In causation, if A causes B, then A being present ensures that B will come about. In conduciveness, if A conduces to B, then A may make it more likely that B will occur, in conjunction with other factors, but does not guarantee its occurrence and in many cases one can have A without B occurring, or A at first leading to an improvement in the form of B and then a regressing even to a state worse than A. I am not saying that so-called “welfarism” causes abolition, then, but that “welfarist” norms favorably influence abolition to grow as I have argued above, like good conditions for growing a plant. Sunshine, water, air and soil do not cause a plant to be—these conditions can exist without any plants—but are part of what favorably conduces towards growth. A plant could still suddenly die of drought, but this does not change the fact that the conditions aforenamed are generally favorable to plant growth. The plant can only come to be in a place by appropriate seeding or transplanting. Radical abolition can only be caused by abolitionist tactics, not only by the “sunshine” of kindness to animals.

According to the principle of sufficient reason, a politically distinctive demand for abolition must eventually move the body politic to abolitionism for the cause to succeed. Abolition needs to grow in people’s minds using the seeds of education and to be transplanted into the minds of others. Conduciveness is admittedly a bit of a hit and miss matter. Still, it is not blind faith but what tends to work pragmatically that makes one put stock in what is conducive. Textbooks do not “cause” learning but often conduce towards it in concert with other factors. I have clearly argued above how “kind culture” is more conducive to animal rights and how unkind culture is conducive to the absence of animal rights in the long term.

In other words, Francione’s reading of my work is dead wrong.

His third critique, recall, is as follows: “This [Sztybel’s work]…is part of the effort to reduce abolition/animal rights to new welfarism.” Let us make sure that everyone understands what “reducing” means here. It is not as in reducing prices, that is, causing a decrease in some manner of quantity. Usually, reductionism means that you have two ostensibly different things, but that you can account for one thoroughly in terms of the other. That is, they are in effect the same. For example, in philosophy, reductionists concerning the mind say that the mind is reducible to matter, such as the brain, or neuron firings (or some say that it is reducible to the functioning of the brain). Thus really we are only talking about material realities whenever we are discussing mental entities. These particular reductionists are called materialists or physicalists.

Now Francione’s claim that I reduce animal rights to new welfarism is holding that in effect, they are the same. First of all, again, I do not match a single defining characteristic of new welfarism that Francione himself lays down. So how could I say that animal rights is reducible to new welfarism when I do not even advocate the latter? Let us suppose instead, for the sake of argument, that he would agree that I supposedly am advocating the view that anti-cruelty laws are really the same as animal rights laws. He is alleging that I am confusing animal rights and animal “welfare.” That is completely false. I have always distinguished between animal rights/abolition for the long-term, and mere anti-cruelty laws in the short-term. So one does not “reduce” to the other. If animals’ interests are fully enough respected in concert with each other, then of course that is virtually equivalent to animals rights even apparently on his own view. But not otherwise. I do say that increments of animals’ interests can be respected, but that is merely a truism. He presupposed the same idea when he insisted ALL of an animal’s interest needed to be protected in Rain, a previous view which he has now partly garbaged. The following quotation from “Animal Rights Law” proves that I have always distinguished things in this way, as anyone even superficially familiar with my work knows for a fact (indeed, I have on occasion praised how Francione insists that we not confuse anti-cruelty laws with animal rights):

…[a new welfarist, according to Francione,] claims that animal rightists’ campaigns are “identical” to traditional “welfarism.” However, animal rightists only temporarily and conditionally recognize possible progressive merit in “welfarist” legislation, whereas traditional “welfarists” permanently and unconditionally support such laws. Animal rights advocates see such laws as prima facie morally wrong, unlike traditionalists who tend to see them as absolutely morally right. Animal rightists are not unconditionally “welfarist” or “anti-welfarist.” It depends on the meaning of “welfare” and the context of political action. It is not “identical” to traditional “welfarism” that PETA says animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, etc. I even deny that the laws in question are truly welfarist and instead dub them illfare-reducing, which is hardly the same as traditional “welfarism.”

Enough said. All of Francione’s substantive points against my work fail entirely, and show that he himself does not even comprehend what I am saying. This time, however, in what I write, we have claims not only with evidence, but quite likely conclusive evidence. Just like he failed to get what Professor Peter Singer was saying when Francione repeatedly misrepresented Singer as holding that animals are not self-aware nor aware of the future (actually these should be distinguished better than Francione allows), and therefore they have no right to life. I proved in my blog entry of January 27, 2010, that Singer maintains that farmed animals CAN anticipate the future and DO have a right to life, as Singer plainly states in Practical Ethics which Francione has “studied” and cited. Unfortunately, though, Francione supplies his readers with a totally inadequate interpretation on this point. Francione might say that it is I who misunderstand Singer after all. But that does not square with Professor Singer publicly thanking me for countering Francione's misrepresentation via my blog entry of February 5, 2010.

Francione gets my philosophy wrong with the second and third points that he makes, and then he neglects my work on his “economic” theses. First, he ignores how I disprove his point about legal welfarism (which could only be wrong on my part if factory farming is more expensive for exploiters—good luck trying to prove that!). Second, he needs to show that the spike in consumption of meat which can be predicted would not result in more suffering and death, but I show this conclusion is unwarranted, using a far more sophisticated analysis than any he has brought to bear. He would have to disprove my comparative analysis to claim otherwise, and each component of it is carefully justified in the document I link to above. And then there is his wrong assumption, in effect, that animals would rather exploiters not make a profit than those animals being relieved from torture. But then, sorry: I am presuming that he is primarily interested in the interests of animals here. We cannot assume too much.

After all of the some four years that he has had to consider my work, this is what it comes to: a bunch of insults, two obvious misreadings of my views, and several obvious misreadings of economic reality. He goes on repeating untenable dogmas about economics like a broken record. Indeed, his claim that I do not understand economics distorts as well, because many of my writings display an understanding of economics, only my construals are justifiably different from his own musings. In the years to come, expect more boring talk that I am mentally ill, misrepresent his views, etc. He will use the same tactics as the speciesists: insulting, selectively ignoring points, never conceding that he is mistaken even when it is clear, and so on. Being stubbornly prejudicial. Expect that he will not learn anything from this refutation. Never admit or apologize for his errors, such as the damage he did to Singer. The best scholars accurately reflect their opponents’ beliefs through careful analysis. Then they show how statements of one’s opponents are false, or how they have illogically leaped to a conclusion. Those are the two main routes for criticism. Francione, at least in this case and also in his particular "critique" of Singer, does neither. I however use both routes in critiquing Francione's own and indeed Singer's work.

Here we have an event of sorts: Francione deigns to criticize my work on the incrementalist question for the very first time. Three critiques. The result?

Sztybel: 3

Francione: 0

Actually, I believe I have established a great many more points over the years pertaining to this particular issue, including points against his own (type of) stance. Presumably he was offering reservations or criticisms that are meant to defeat my sort of view. Actually, if you look closely, all of the critiques seem to pertain to seeking anti-cruelty legislation in general: economic theory, evaluating animal welfare laws as a "means" to abolition, and concerns about conflating animal rights with speciesist animal welfare. He has yet even to consider my own particular arguments. But his critiques, regardless, were all defeated. Thus my side of the debate appears to be more potent than ever.

I will have a demolition crew of other arguments waiting for any Francionist who tries to mount academic criticisms of my position which, after all, only accords with common sense: actually supporting anti-cruelty at the legislative—as well as every other—level. What we have here is a dialectical breakdown. "Dialectic" can mean back-and-forth between two positions, as in a dialogue. (Although Hegel and Marx have had embarrassingly far-flung interpretations of "dialectic," which need not detain us here. Plato's dialogues, though, provide rich examples of dialectic in action.) Our dialectic could have been more direct, although Francione lit out of the Toronto Animal Rights Society debate I was to have with him. He agreed to debate, and his excuse for leaving was he did not think it would concern my essay so much (a draft of "Animal Rights Law" before it was published), although that was only about the incrementalist question we were disputing. As soon as I put challenging queries to him in that forum, he fled.

Regardless, this is what I mean about the breakdown in this dialectic. Francione has asserted many points, a lot of them dated many years back, and I have laid telling critiques against them. Those critiques have never been refuted because, I suspect, they cannot be. And Francione has applied a few counter-critiques, reproduced in this blog, which have been fully refuted. I predict that he will not do any better in time, although he may well do worse by compounding this patently erroneous thinking. This pattern of poor thinking will inevitably continue unless he changes sides, because you cannot make a falsehood true, nor a mistaken inference logical. I originally was going to entitle this entry, "Francione's Three Lame Critiques of My Views," but then, a very astute observer brought to my attention that "lame" can have ableist connotations. Feeble, though? If the shoe fits...


FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang


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