Find our Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and on the Sentientism podcast here.
Robert Grillo is an activist, author and speaker for all species. He is also the founder and director of Free from Harm, a non profit dedicated to helping end animal exploitation. He founded Slaughter Free Chicago in 2018 which has now grown into the Slaughter Free Network. As a communications professional for over 25 years, Robert once worked on large food industry accounts where he acquired a behind-the-scenes perspective on food branding and marketing. His book, Farm to Fable: The Fictions of Our Animal-Consuming Culture, explores the powerful narratives driving our culture of mass animal consumption. Robert’s other published works include contributions to The Humane Hoax, Caged: Top Activists Share Their Wisdom on Effective Animal Advocacy and Circles of Compassion: Connecting Issues of Justice.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how can we make a better future?”
Sentientism answers those questions with “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” In addition to the YouTube and Spotify above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.
00:00 Clips!
00:55 Welcome
– Free from Harm’s “Humane Farmer” transfarmation stories: https://freefromharm.org/humane-farmer/
03:25 Robert’s Intro
– Author, speaker, activist
– Free from Harm’s mission: “advance a #plantbased food system and challenge the dominance of animal agriculture through bold and innovative grass-roots action.”
– Evolving from an on-line resource to “on the ground activism”
05:16 What’s Real?
– At 10 yrs old father passed away. Creative, jazz, painting, architecture
– Exploring dad’s library… ways of thinking, ethics
– “He was a non-believer – not a spiritual person”
– Mother also non-religious
– Ordinary middle-class upbringing
– “I was definitely an outsider… I didn’t really fit in… now I embrace it… causes me to question… being open to new ideas and scepticism… I feel like it’s a strength”
– The risks of scepticism spilling over into conspiracism
– “Sometimes it’s a small group of people that sense an injustice… that mainstream society doesn’t… that’s the role of activism… awakening and triggering of popular support to bring justice.”
– JW: Why epistemology matters “it’s not just a popularity contest…” it’s the weight of evidence
– Spirituality / supernatural / transcendent?: “We have so much to deal with here that I don’t have time for that stuff… I’m not seeking it out at this point in my life”
12:56 What Matters?
– Experiencing father’s suffering and death as a child. “I developed a sense of empathy”
– “I didn’t really come into an understanding of the suffering of other animals… until much later in life”
– Emotional (e.g. empathy, care) vs. intellectual (utility, justice, rights) moral influences
– Sympathy, empathy and compassion
17:28 Who Matters?
– The risks of care/empathy in narrowing our moral scope
– “I came to realise what the real conditions were for the animals that suffer in our food system… their suffering was like our suffering.”
– Watching documentaries and @mercyforanimals investigative footage
– “A process of questioning… humane, sustainable farming as the way to go?… Those were empty marketing promises.”
– Working on food industry marketing: “I got to see behind the scenes… how that industry… manipulates our minds to create these fantasies”
– Sentio/bio/ecocentrism?
– “I think there’s a conflation out there between someone being a moral patient and having respect for… beautiful rocks… rivers… mountains… nature”
– “That’s very different… want to protect nature… [from] the qualities of a sentient being”
– “There’s obviously a broad spectrum of sentience”
– “We don’t necessarily have to know where to draw the line… we can certainly protect and not harm those that we know… are highly sentient”
– “Where do we draw the line? To me that’s an indulgence… let’s not ignore the ones that are already known to be very sentient”
– “Let’s not creat a huge false equivalency”
28:44 A Better Future?
– The moral burden of moral consideration for maybe quadrillions of sentient beings
– Robert’s book “Farm to Fable”… figuring out society’s resistances to a plant-based agriculture transition: Naturalistic fallacies, appeals to humane treatment, false dilemmas…
– “It doesn’t fascinate me now – I feel like I did that… I’m really not interested in those 1 on 1 conversations anymore… the important work is how are we going to shift the power structure… that’s really how social change happens.”
– Street activism e.g. Earthling Ed “There’s a fascination for it”
– “It’s of value to learn how to have these 1 on 1 [conversations]… if we’re going to look at the big picture then how are we going to change systems and institutions?”
– “That requires an analysis of power and politics – I’m not sure we’re there yet”
– “This is the glaring void in our movement”
– Eva Hamer from Pax Fauna’s Sentientism episode 141
– Aiden from Pax Fauna: “Wanting to move people from a consumer frame to a civic frame”
– “…Veganism being a word squarely framed in consumerism and my personal identity as a vegan or not”
– “When we start talking to people about veganism it immediately becomes framed as one of personal transformation… The person’s defenses and posture is going to be very different”
– A civic frame “public health & safety… environmental…animal ethics…pandemics… don’t you think we should be transitioning to a plant-based food system?… and it’s also tied to other social justice struggles”
– “It’s quite striking… how many people will buy into that idea”
– “We’re shifting the focus off of them personally… we give them the opportunity to take action… while they’re doing whatever personal work they need to be doing… they can actually get involved in the democratic process…”
– “The shift is in giving people the hope that they have a voice in a process that they can understand vs. saying well ‘we really just want to focus on you and your life and how you’re going to change’”
– Objections to personal change “it’s really not going to make that much of a difference!”
– “But if I’m engaged in this campaign where we’re really putting pressure on this Farm Bill Congressperson… who’s going to make a huge decision… there’s quite a lot on the line there… people will rise up to the challenge… rather than just having it be focused on their own dietary choices”
– The Farm Bill “it’s timely… it’s in the news… an opportunity for us to insert our message into what is already a lively discussion… media attention… could build public support from that”
– “There are many provisions… that we would support… protection for workers & consumers… environmental protections… forestry protections… tree-planting programmes”
– “The overwhelming emphasis is on bailing out animal agriculture… it’s corrupted, it’s spoiled, it’s rotten… that’s what we want to focus on”
– “You don’t have to be an expert… anyone… should have a voice in this important bill that will affect the food we eat”
– “We’re not lobbyists. We’re not playing that inside game… that’s extremely valuable”
– “An outside game approach – we put pressure on the system from the outside. We represent the grass-roots… We are not the professional class… attorneys… veterinarians… nutritionists… scientists… lobbyists”
– “We know we’re not going to get in by invitation… how we are going to physically insert ourselves in these spaces of power to have a voice?”
– “Calls and emails will be a good baseline… but then beyond that… how are we willing to escalate to make sure that our voice does get heard?”
– Engaging with power-holders “get in front of them face to face… if we’re not willing to do that we can’t expect to see any significant change”
– Washington DC culture
– Protesting at Senator Debbie Stebanow’s press conference “we confront her directly… the only people in that room are people that are going to write favourably… on her policy or on animal agriculture in particular… it was a big surprise for them… the last thing that they were expecting”
– “The dark money that the meat, egg and dairy industry is using to buy our elected officials to shape the Farm Bill… into a multi-billion dollar bail-out”
– A journalist and chicken-farmer asked for an interview “one of the staffers for one of the congresspeople… was guarding the door… with a huge stick… and said that we couldn’t come in… it was quite threatening.”
– “We just used our voice… we were non-threatening… even in our language… the response to that was like a fight or flight… ‘oh my god we’re being attacked… this cosy situation is kind of being blown up’”
– “The kind of things you find when you start confronting this power structure”
– JW: we might expect the left to be angry about corporate capture of democracy and the right to be outraged at the massive government subsidies… but that’s not how it plays out when it comes to animal agriculture
– “The establishment is the establishment under the Democrat or the Republican side… it’s still going to protect the vested interests… overwhelmingly the meat, dairy and egg industries, their lobbyists, their trade groups, they’re analysts”
– “we don’t have transparency… it’s very likely they are pretty much writing the Farm Bill… saying this is what we want… and strong-arming them… without much resistance. The public has no idea.”
– “As daunting and intimidating as this whole situation is – I’ve seen a handful of activists… really have a major impact… If our numbers grew I know that could become even stronger.”
– “People say ‘we’re such a small movement’… I don’t argue with that… but so were the suffragettes… there were only a handful of people willing to do direct action – to go into the parliament, to confront police, to get the kind of attention that the news wanted to cover…”
– “For a long time I thought ‘the media’s not coming to our events’… What you have to do is go to their events… find opportunities to get in front of their cameras… a better chance of getting our point of view covered”
– “Places the media might show up… press conferences… world dog day… ‘Hey Lisa [Vanderpump] extend your compassion to all animals… you’re calling the global meat trade an atrocity and we agree with that… you could do something very meaningful”
– “By polarising people in that way you’re asking them to take a side… that’s how people start feeling strongly about an issue”
– “Most people will side with justice and democracy and the victims”
– “Isn’t morality about consistency?” vs. arbitrary exclusions or “might makes right”
– JW: The amazing success of lobbyists in building a political consensus in favour of massive subsidies for animal agriculture in countries where only 1-2% of people work in that industry and around half of people think factory farming should be banned. In a democracy!
– “They’re mostly big corporations that are going to be recipients of this bail-out money… they don’t represent the vast majority of Americans and consumers at all… but of course they have to frame it as ‘this is going to benefit consumers’… but guess what, none of this trickles down.”
– “The bail out money that the industry gets goes right back into investing in growth – it doesn’t benefit consumers”
– “Every generation before us has had to fight for basic rights”
– JW: “The people who most want us to adopt a defeatist stance are those who don’t want anything to change”
– “It’s really permeated our own movement too – you have lots of people thinking they can’t make a difference… the system is too entrenched and too powerful.”
– “It’s actually quite vulnerable to change… to being exposed… because of just how corrupt it is”
– “Hard working Americans are paying the price for problems [e.g. mass-culling responses to disease outbreaks] that the industry largely created on its own by virtue of how it confines and keeps animals… Across the political spectrum most people think that’s crazy – that’s outrageous”
– “These industry lobbyists are buying up our elected officials to get us to pay for the messes that they created”
– “We need a trigger event… perhaps that will be bird-flu”
– Facing a panel (USDA, FDA, CDC) “there’s no cause for concern [about bird-flu]…” Asking “The CDC can’t even get into these farms to do the proper type of investigations”
– “The USDA is asking permission to test workers… they say ‘no you can’t – that could be a PR nightmare for us… that could be bad for business!’”
– “It’s the wild west out there… it’s a situation… that begs to be exposed”
01:07:30 Follow Robert
– https://freefromharm.org/ (e.g. getting active with your own congressional representatives… “get them primed now that you don’t support this current system”
& much more… (https://sentientism.info/ for full notes)
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info.
Join our “I’m a Sentientist” wall using this simple form (scroll down a little!)
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on Facebook.
Thanks to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella and Denise for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon.