Talk:Animal rights movement

Ritual slaughter

Why is there a whole section on ritual slaughter? This seems to be a small and pretty insignificant campaign in the history of animal rights. It seems strange to have a section on this with none on factory farming or vivisection. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.70.50.220 (talk • contribs).

Forecasted Additions

I will be making a substantive content addition including information about factionalization, strategy and tactical repertoires, success, origin/history, role of information communication technologies, and countermovement. I may not get to all of these; I may add yet more.Vincentjrankin (talk) 21:38, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 4 May 2017

Animal rights movement → Animal Rights Movement – Wikipedia naming conventions and article titling guidelines dictate that article titles should be in sentence case. In sentence case, only certain words are capitalized. Proper names are among these, and the Animal Rights Movement is a proper name; it should therefore be capitalized. The conventions and guidelines I have based my reasoning off of are WP:TITLEFORMAT and WP:NCCAPS Vincentjrankin (talk) 14:44, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

It's not a proper name. The animal rights movement is disparate, divided and split among numerous groups; it's not a "unique entity", as would be required for a proper name. Rwenonah (talk) 15:39, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose, strongly. I agree with what Rwenonah says about it not being a proper name because it is not a subject that boils down to a single "unique entity". Making it a proper name is not only inaccurate, but has the potential to violate WP:NPOV by making disparate groups appear to be in agreement and in unified force, when in fact they are not. It's also worth comparing with our pages on Human rights movement and Human rights movement in the Soviet Union. The latter is much closer to being a "unique entity" than the animal rights movement is. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per MOS:CAPS in light of n-grams. Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that google resource is very useful! I suppose the Civil Rights Movement page ought to be moved then, huh?Vincentjrankin (talk) 11:42, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose, there has never been a nationally-unified easily-definable goal-specific tactics-based strategically-correct constitutionally-conscious and ultimately successful animal rights movement. Randy Kryn 11:04, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

How do you objectively determine "strategic-correctness" or "ultimate success" in a factionalized, ongoing movement?Vincentjrankin (talk) 11:36, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

By comparing results and public acceptance with stated goals. Because it is factionalized, without central nonviolent oriented movement strategists and organizers nor a set of constitutionally-conscious and pre-stated and then accomplished set of goals, the movement cannot or should not have a capitalized name. Randy Kryn

The Movement is overwhelmingly composed of nonviolent tactical repertoires. Again, a lack of centralization does not preclude a movement from being a single entity. Centralized movements are in decline, and grassroots movements are rising in popularity. Black Lives Matter, for example, is decentralized and split into factions. Furthermore, by virtue of it being an ongoing social movement, it has not achieved success. There are important differences between decentralized and centralized movements, certainly. Similarly, movement success is a crucial area to analyze--but social movements are typically social movements insofar as there is still something to achieve, viz., insofar as they have not been successful.Vincentjrankin (talk) 12:17, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I can see your point, but my comments come from my point of view of movements and what they actually accomplish. Years ago one of the "big" animal-rights "wins" was gaining bred-chickens a few more measly inches of moving-around room in their ultra-cramped death rows. Some animal rights folks celebrated that as if it were the third crossing of the Edmund Pettus bridge. Since it has yet to achieve major sustained national dialogue nor major success, it really should not be a capitalized proper noun describing a fixed set of goals and achievements during a specific time period. In other words, although the animal rights movement has been ongoing for a long time with a lot of nice things happening and much more respect for all animals being discussed by more and more people, the Animal Rights Movement you imply with an upper-case title change has not happened as yet, and likely has not even begun. Randy Kryn 19:32

I feel this comment does a great dis-service to the work of other groups (animal welfare scientists, animal welfare advocates) in this area. Many scientists (e.g. Marian Dawkins) have spent over 20 years looking at the welfare of hens (in all types of housing). Your comment "a few measly inches" is also rather rather US-centric. Furnished cages are sometimes several metres long, allowing a much greater opportunity for exercise. In relation to this thread, I think this goes to show improvements have been gained by several groups/organisations, further indicating that the animal rights movement is more disparate than we might think. DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:46, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Then my sincere apologies, to you and to Marian Dawkins and others. I'll read up on the current advances in that cause. I was speaking from my memory of when I was semi-active in aspects of the all-species movement, and that few inches to a cage celebrated as a major advance stands out as ridiculous to me at the time. If there have been greater advances I was not aware of them, my own fault for lack of keeping up with current events. The point of this discussion, however, is if the name 'animal rights movement' should be capitalized to 'Animal Rights Movement'. I, and sources, just don't think they've earned it yet. The cage enlargements (per bird? per dozen birds?) are to be applauded. Long way to go before even catching sight of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but hopefully the movement is walking its way, both on YouTube and in the real world, towards it. Randy Kryn 19:04, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Chrissy, this area is where the principal split is in the Movement--it is a disagreement on tactics, akin to factionalized human rights movements that are divided over, say, the use of violence. People who take an abolitionist orientation to animal rights are not very concerned with paying respect to the work of those who take a reformist orientation. They often see welfare improvements as contributing to the animal agricultural industrial complex and being counterproductive to a non-speciesist recognition of nonhuman beings as persons (as opposed to resources or commodities) and abolishing their exploitation. The point you raised indicates that you sympathize with the mainstream faction of the Movement, not that the Movement isn't really "a" social movementVincentjrankin (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your response, but you did not address any of my points about factionalization and success or the comparison to other factionalized and unsuccessful movements. It seems like you are just personally against calling it the Animal Rights Movement, and that's fine. I sympathize with your criticism of the Movement, and would probably go so far as to say that the majority of powerful movement actors are more concerned with welfare than rights. Nonetheless, insofar as movement actors say that they are animal rights adocates and activists, they occupy space in the Animal Rights Movement. Personally, I think the professional AR orgs behind welfare reform like "enriched" cages are making it less likely for people to come to see nonhuman animals as having personhood. I sympathize with people who call it the "so-called" Animal Rights Movement, but such criticism only represents rival factions within a single social movement.Vincentjrankin (talk) 11:26, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

In fairness, I think that editors are, in fact, engaging with the questions that you raise, but simply have not been giving you the answers that you want. WP:1AM, WP:Consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:45, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Cool beans; however, I'm asking questions to people in order to understand their reasoning, simply because I'd like to know why we disagree.Vincentjrankin (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

@Vincentjrankin regarding your previous comment. I have worked in animal welfare science for over 20 years on broad subjects relating to the welfare of farm, laboratory and zoo animals. It is a little bit galling to see animal-rights factions claiming "victory" when much scientific research has been conducted to produce evidence-based arguments indicating the negative effects a housing or husbandry system can have on an animal. And I think this is the crux of differences of opinion. "Animal rights" is an ideology. Animal welfare science is about collecting empirical data relating to animal welfare. Animal welfare scientists quickly realised it is insufficient to simply present dataless arguments when making submissions to politicians who must then commit £millions to support affected industries. DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:27, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Chrissy, I hope that by calling animal rights an ideology you don't mean to say that animal rights is not a legitimate philosophical enterprise. I hope also that I am wrong in seeing your last sentence as implying that the insufficiency thus far of rational argumentation, a tactic relied on by abolitionists, to secure legal protection of nonhuman animals as persons delegitimizes abolitionism and leaves only welfare-based approaches intellectually sophisticated and worthy of consideration. Both positions, though widely subscribed to, are contested thoroughly in animal rights theory and literature and tend to be speciesist at root.Vincentjrankin (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

@Vincentjrankin I am afraid you are reading way too much into my posting. Of course I do not dismiss animal rights as a non legitimate philosophy. But, there are aspects of it which I do not find convincing. Secondly, you accuse me of being an abolitionist - I am not. DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:47, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Your observation that animal rights is an ideology is a good one, and goes to the question of whether it is also a "unique entity" kind of movement (and further, whether there is such a thing as a distinct "animal welfare movement"). The main issue here, of course, is whether the "animal rights movement" should be treated as a proper noun and capitalized in the page name. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I feel that the word "movement" in both these circumstances means an up-swelling in their activities, members, etc. Therefore, IMHO there is both an animal rights movement and animal welfare movement, although these sometimes overlap considerably. Having said this, neither movement is a proper noun and therefore neither should be capitalised. DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:58, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree entirely. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose It is not a proper noun and therefore should not be capitalised. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:45, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose to repeat what has been said above, it is not a proper noun. Lepricavark (talk) 14:21, 10 May 2017 (UTC)