Should Vegans Compare Human & Nonhuman Exploitation?

Apr 05, 2021

"In the animal world, predators are born. However, a man chooses to be a predator."
-Colleen Houck,
Tiger's Voyage

To Produce a Predator

Rosemary's Baby is a phenomenal film that happened to be made by a despicable director. House of Cards was one of Netflix's most popular original series until the Oscar-winning main actor was revealed to be a predator, similar to the star of The Cosby Show. The Weinstein Company produced blockbusters for years until one of its founders was finally confronted with the actions of his past. Knowing all this, is it ok to watch, even admire, these shows and films, given their history?

Until recently, my response would've been a swift "yes," but I've come to have a different perspective, though ultimately my answer won't change. Perhaps it's more of a "yes, but. . . ." In order to answer the titular question at hand here, let's explore the differences between one singular human abusing another human (or several humans) and everyone abusing nonhumans.

Animal Exploitation

The anti-speciesist in me who wants to answer that it's acceptable to enjoy movies or shows regardless of the real-world exploitation involved in their creation is a bit of a nihilist. Because there will always be some exploitation (at least for now), then it would be hypocritical of me to claim that certain kinds of exploitation are worse than others.

After all, humans and nonhumans experience pain in similar ways, and the suffering of even dozens of human victims of one oppressor is but a drop in the bucket when compared to the suffering of nonhumans perpetuated by the hundreds of other humans involved in a media project. There is non-vegan and non-cruelty-free makeup used; animal skins and furs on costumes; non-plant-based food served behind the scenes; animal corpses and body parts used as set decor, to create practical effects, and even in post-production sound design; live, trained animals forced to become "actors"; camera film, on the rare occurrences that it's used instead of digital cameras; the lifestyles and spending practices of every non-vegan person working behind the scenes; and probably many other things of which I'm unaware.

These were all the things that went through my head to justify my belief that nonhuman exploitation is far worse than any human exploitation, and I used these excuses as a barrier against the gray that threatened to break into my black-and-white, anti-speciesist bubble. After all, if everything is wrong, then I couldn't possibly take a stand against it all, against the entire world, and therefore I don't have to do anything about any of it.

But here's the thing: Human exploitation is different from nonhuman exploitation and, in some ways, it actually is worse. Let me explain. . .

Human Exploitation

Let me reiterate that all forms of exploitation are wrong, but the intent -- particularly the intent to cause pain -- behind each act of exploitation is important to consider. The crux of this issue for me is that sexual predators are intentionally seeking to abuse others, to conquer them, to gain power over them; that's what (human) predators enjoy. It's not normal behavior, and it's not acceptable.

When it comes to the exploitation of nonhuman animals, that is very much normalized, so much so that it's not even seen as exploitation. To be clear, that doesn't make it any less barbaric -- accidentally running over an animal in the road has the same result as intentionally hitting them with your car -- but because most people are unaware of the violence in which they participate, the types of exploitation are quite different.

From my perspective, going out of your way to cause another person harm is far worse, on a personal level, than unintentionally participating in the systemic oppression of an entire species. For example, capturing a spider so you can rip off each of her legs is, morally, much worse than putting honey in your tea every morning, even though the latter results in the suffering and deaths of far more individuals.

Address the Discomfort

As I said above, there's nothing wrong with finding enjoyment or enlightenment in pieces of filmed media, or from anything else, that may have sinister stories from behind the scenes, but we also must acknowledge the dark parts of their history. Doing so may make us uncomfortable, may turn us off from things we mindlessly enjoyed before, but that's real life. And if they disturb us enough, it's perfectly fine to leave them in the past; or perhaps our sense of unease will be strong enough to try to prevent these things from happening in the future, to become an activist.

Should Exploitation be Compared?

Ideally, no human would ever hurt any other creature, but that could only ever occur in a fictional world. Similarly, human and nonhuman exploitation shouldn't have to be compared because that connotes that there's something fundamentally different in the victims' experiences, which I don't believe to be the case. However, we live in an imperfect world with an unfortunately large number of cruel and/or non-vegan people, so we are forced into a position of comparing different forms of exploitation out of necessity. Overall, I believe the answer to this question largely depends on the context of the kinds of exploitation involved and the prevalence of speciesism surrounding the victims in these situations.

be conscious, be kind, be vegan