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Rating: 
- A 'Must Read' About Animal Rights
A timely book, Capers is an overview of the last couple decades of animal advocacy, and examines methods and activities that have proven to be positive, questionable, or even negative towards the goals of animal rights.
It questions tactics such as using threats and intimidation. It reflects deeply on various outlooks, from abolitionist and animal rights, through to husbandry reform and militant welfarists and back to veganism. It interrogates the outcome and net result of these efforts.
It questions how many of these actions can actually be considered 'animal rights' and if these results are truly benefiting animals or simply playing into the very hands of the industries that exploit them.
Lee Hall digs deeply into these issues, and clarifies the definition of animal rights, hopefully allowing more of us to focus on a common goal, rather than the 'anything goes' approach we've seen over the last two decades. An approach which one must agree has had limited results and severely confused the issues.
Rating:
- A reasonable one sided critique
This book successfully critiques the welfare movement for it's collusion with government and industry that abuses animals, this collusion it seems is not a valuable use of time and effort, instead it undermines the well being of animals by condemning them to marginal improvements in their state of suffering, whilst perpetuating the system of abuse, and not radically challenging the roots of this oppression.
As far as criticising 'violent' animal rights activists, the point was clearly missed in this book. I believe there is ample space to be critical of the animal rights movement (and this should be the case in any healthy movement), and there are many aspects that should be critiqued in order to look for improvement. But, if a serious minded individual were to read this book, that is not a pacifist, they would find that there is little substance in this book, beyond the odd anecdote that the mainstream media have jumped up and down upon. It remains to be seen under what definition the animal rights movement is violent. What is certain is that the abusers of animals are violent, and they will use violence in order to stop peaceful activists from succeeding in their campaign, either personally or through government.
This critique is naieve, and it is difficult to see that the moral pacifist approach will achieve anything substantial, indeed it has not so far. Excusing themselves by suggesting 'violent' activists set the movement back is ridiculous. Pacifists have not successfully brought the agenda forward, because if they were making ground, there would be no consideration of 'violence' it would be completely unnecessary. It seems that if everyone behaved within boundaries of law then there would be some other equally ridiculous excuse made in order to justify the continuation of the animal industry.
If you want to criticise the animal liberation movement, you're better off reading Keith Manns book 'From Dusk 'til dawn' and then drawing your own conclusions.
Rating: - A must read for any serious animal advocate!
Lee Hall has written a tremendously important work in Capers in the Churchyard - a must-read for any serious animal advocate. Those interested in the animal rights movement or any other ethical social movements will also find this book to be an asset.
Taking us beyond slogans and one-line chants we've become accustomed to associating with animal advocacy, Hall leads us through the complex issues at hand of animal use in all forms -- not missing the uses within social movements themselves. Using up-to-date information and real-world examples, Hall leads the reader through a maze of animal industry practices and activists' reactions. Basing its conclusions on well documented and researched examples, the book distinguishes ethical conduct from that which distracts from it. Sorting through the amazing variety of mindsets within one movement, Hall brings to light a conclusion which may be startling for many to see in print, but which once prompted, we realize we always knew.
The book stands firm on its belief that animal rights is a legitimate goal, while exploring the possibility that some prominent speakers may be leading the movement towards its own extinction by missing the point that the use of violence is domination, and thus contradicts a movement based on a claim of respect for others. While acknowledging that animal-rights theory is indeed considered a radical thought and extreme for the mainstream of humans as it would require an upheaval of human society as we know it, Hall correctly claims that extreme and violent need not be synonymous, nor should they be.
Hall uses wit and superb writing skills to provide an entertaining experience on subjects that are normally dry reads, keeping the pages turning while advancing the argument that it is time for the movement to begin an introspective analysis of itself. This book offers all of the tools needed to lead the readers to their own conclusions.
In an age when violence is so very common, here comes forth an individual willing to offer an alternative. It's a simple request - to create a more compassionate world with our own actions and conscientious decisions, and to accept the empowerment through which we can create true revolutionary change.
Hall is a freethinker who brings a fresh view of personal responsibility into a movement that has for too long pointed ethical fingers away instead of into the mirror of morality. This book is something for activists to welcome, for it changes the terrain of activism into a much more beautiful place.
- A 'Must Read' About Animal RightsA timely book, Capers is an overview of the last couple decades of animal advocacy, and examines methods and activities that have proven to be positive, questionable, or even negative towards the goals of animal rights.
It questions tactics such as using threats and intimidation. It reflects deeply on various outlooks, from abolitionist and animal rights, through to husbandry reform and militant welfarists and back to veganism. It interrogates the outcome and net result of these efforts.
It questions how many of these actions can actually be considered 'animal rights' and if these results are truly benefiting animals or simply playing into the very hands of the industries that exploit them.
Lee Hall digs deeply into these issues, and clarifies the definition of animal rights, hopefully allowing more of us to focus on a common goal, rather than the 'anything goes' approach we've seen over the last two decades. An approach which one must agree has had limited results and severely confused the issues.
Rating:
- A reasonable one sided critiqueThis book successfully critiques the welfare movement for it's collusion with government and industry that abuses animals, this collusion it seems is not a valuable use of time and effort, instead it undermines the well being of animals by condemning them to marginal improvements in their state of suffering, whilst perpetuating the system of abuse, and not radically challenging the roots of this oppression.
As far as criticising 'violent' animal rights activists, the point was clearly missed in this book. I believe there is ample space to be critical of the animal rights movement (and this should be the case in any healthy movement), and there are many aspects that should be critiqued in order to look for improvement. But, if a serious minded individual were to read this book, that is not a pacifist, they would find that there is little substance in this book, beyond the odd anecdote that the mainstream media have jumped up and down upon. It remains to be seen under what definition the animal rights movement is violent. What is certain is that the abusers of animals are violent, and they will use violence in order to stop peaceful activists from succeeding in their campaign, either personally or through government.
This critique is naieve, and it is difficult to see that the moral pacifist approach will achieve anything substantial, indeed it has not so far. Excusing themselves by suggesting 'violent' activists set the movement back is ridiculous. Pacifists have not successfully brought the agenda forward, because if they were making ground, there would be no consideration of 'violence' it would be completely unnecessary. It seems that if everyone behaved within boundaries of law then there would be some other equally ridiculous excuse made in order to justify the continuation of the animal industry.
If you want to criticise the animal liberation movement, you're better off reading Keith Manns book 'From Dusk 'til dawn' and then drawing your own conclusions.
Rating:
- A must read for any serious animal advocate!Lee Hall has written a tremendously important work in Capers in the Churchyard - a must-read for any serious animal advocate. Those interested in the animal rights movement or any other ethical social movements will also find this book to be an asset.
Taking us beyond slogans and one-line chants we've become accustomed to associating with animal advocacy, Hall leads us through the complex issues at hand of animal use in all forms -- not missing the uses within social movements themselves. Using up-to-date information and real-world examples, Hall leads the reader through a maze of animal industry practices and activists' reactions. Basing its conclusions on well documented and researched examples, the book distinguishes ethical conduct from that which distracts from it. Sorting through the amazing variety of mindsets within one movement, Hall brings to light a conclusion which may be startling for many to see in print, but which once prompted, we realize we always knew.
The book stands firm on its belief that animal rights is a legitimate goal, while exploring the possibility that some prominent speakers may be leading the movement towards its own extinction by missing the point that the use of violence is domination, and thus contradicts a movement based on a claim of respect for others. While acknowledging that animal-rights theory is indeed considered a radical thought and extreme for the mainstream of humans as it would require an upheaval of human society as we know it, Hall correctly claims that extreme and violent need not be synonymous, nor should they be.
Hall uses wit and superb writing skills to provide an entertaining experience on subjects that are normally dry reads, keeping the pages turning while advancing the argument that it is time for the movement to begin an introspective analysis of itself. This book offers all of the tools needed to lead the readers to their own conclusions.
In an age when violence is so very common, here comes forth an individual willing to offer an alternative. It's a simple request - to create a more compassionate world with our own actions and conscientious decisions, and to accept the empowerment through which we can create true revolutionary change.
Hall is a freethinker who brings a fresh view of personal responsibility into a movement that has for too long pointed ethical fingers away instead of into the mirror of morality. This book is something for activists to welcome, for it changes the terrain of activism into a much more beautiful place.
