If we are ever going to see a paradigm shift, we have to be clear about how we want the present paradigm to shift.We must be clear that veganism is the unequivocal baseline of anything that deserves to be called an animal rights movement. If animal rights means anything, it means that we cannot morally justify any animal exploitation; we cannot justify creating animals as human resources, however humane that treatment may be.We must stop thinking that people will find veganism daunting and that we have to promote something less than veganism. If we explain the moral ideas and the arguments in favor of veganism clearly, people will understand. They may not all go vegan immediately; in fact, most wont. But we should always be clear about the moral baseline. If someone wants to do less as an incremental matter, let that be her/his decision, and not something that we advise to do. The baseline should always be clear. We should never be promoting happy or humane exploitation as morally acceptable.
ableist abolition abolitionist ahimsa animals classism climate-change education exploitation extinction francione global-warming health heterosexism inspirational-quotes justice life moral-imperative moral-obligation nonviolence nonviolence-jainism paradigm-shift peace-making peace-movement peace-on-earth racism rights sentience sexism slavery speciesism veganism vulnerable wisdom
Download Image Share on X Share on Facebook

About This Quote

About Gary L. Francione

Gary L. Francione was a contemporary American legal scholar. Gary Lawrence Francione is an American academic in the fields of law and philosophy. He is Board of Governors Professor of Law and Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Education — The importance of teaching, learning, and intellectual curiosity
  • Health — Well-being of mind and body, and the pursuit of vitality
  • Life — Reflections on the meaning, challenges, and beauty of life
  • Wisdom — Timeless insights drawn from experience and reflection

More quotes by Gary L. Francione

“All sentient beings should have at least one rightthe right not to be treated as property”
— Gary L. Francione
abolition abolitionist ahimsa ethical

“Veganism is about nonviolence. It is about not engaging in harm to other sentient beings; to oneself; and to the environment upon which all beings depend for life. In my view, the animal rights mov...”
— Gary L. Francione
abolition abolitionist ahimsa animals

“Welfare reforms and the whole happy exploitation movement are not baby steps. They are big stepsin a seriously backward direction.”
— Gary L. Francione
abolition abolitionist ahimsa animal-products

“We cannot justify treating any sentient nonhuman as our property, as a resource, as a thing that we an use and kill for our purposes.”
— Gary L. Francione
abolition ahimsa animal-exploitation anti-discrimination

“We should not be surprised that more and more people feel comfortable about consuming animal products. After all, they are being assured by the experts that suffering is being decreased and they ca...”
— Gary L. Francione
ahimsa animal-products animal-use animals

“Being vegan is easy. Are there social pressures that encourage you to continue to eat, wear, and use animal products? Of course there are. But in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and ableist soci...”
— Gary L. Francione
ableist abolition abolitionist ahimsa
View all quotes by Gary L. Francione →

Related Quotes

“Being vegan is easy. Are there social pressures that encourage you to continue to eat, wear, and use animal products? Of course there are. But in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and ableist soci...”
— Gary L. Francione
ableist abolition abolitionist ahimsa

“Ethical veganism results in a profound revolution within the individual; a complete rejection of the paradigm of oppression and violence that she has been taught from childhood to accept as the nat...”
— Gary L. Francione
ableist abolition abolitionist ahimsa

“We should always be clear that animal exploitation is wrong because it involves speciesism. And speciesism is wrong because, like racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, classism, and all other ...”
— Gary L. Francione
ableist abolition abolitionist ahimsa

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
abolition accomplish christian great-britain

“All sentient beings should have at least one rightthe right not to be treated as property”
— Gary L. Francione
abolition abolitionist ahimsa ethical

“Veganism is about nonviolence. It is about not engaging in harm to other sentient beings; to oneself; and to the environment upon which all beings depend for life. In my view, the animal rights mov...”
— Gary L. Francione
abolition abolitionist ahimsa animals

“This is central to the development of feminist abolitionist theories and practices: we have to learn how to think and act and struggle against that which is ideologically constituted as "normal".”
— Angela Y. Davis
abolitionist feminism prison prison-industrial-complex

“Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan.”
— Gary L. Francione
abolitionist animal-products dairy exploitation

“That was when I realized we werent born to beslaves. It was ignorant for any man to think he could be the master of another. We were all meant to be free, and somewhere there were good people helpi...”
— Jay Grewal, A Slave to Want
abolitionist american-history black-history civil-war