Book Review: How to Unite the Left on Animals

Image: the cover of the book is a collage of images, the background is a colorful image of outer space with a large crack going down the right side. Superimposed is a semi transparent veganarchist symbol (a circle around an A and upsidedown V) and on top of that in white letters is "how to unite the left on animals." Below that in small white letters is, "a handbook on total liberationist veganism and a shared reality." On the lower left is an image if a cow with lines dividing up his body into parts with commodity labels and a barcode is supermposed over his eyes. On the lower right in white letters is "John Tallent."

It might be odd to say that I often know how much I have in common with an author when I feel the urge to write reviews that are way too long and am able to come up with a lot of criticisms. Insert infighting among the left joke here. Seriously though, I was eagerly anticipating How to Unite the Left on Animals having followed the author's writing online and generally finding it refreshing. It is difficult to describe how absolutely isolating it can be as a collective liberationist vegan at a time when it's not as cool to be vegan and leftist anymore. It's even more isolating when so many vegan events are run by the minority who may be more privileged, health focused only, single issue, etc. Living with the reality that atrocities are occurring on a scale that is unfathomable on a daily basis towards other animals only becomes harder when many humans I respect in the struggle for human liberation and climate change refuse to even engage with the subject, or worse, spread tokenizing fallacies or strawmen to quell their cognitive dissonance about our own parts in the destruction of the lives of most of the species on this planet. The idea especially that we can fight climate change without fighting farmed animal exploitation is truly nonsensical. That said, I don't blame some of them.  

I'd say for every trashfire of disingenuous takes on veganism for viral clout or as a way to avoid responsibility, there's one with a valid point or simply non-malicious ignorance. Much like white feminism, single issue class war folks, or any other struggle where those at the greatest advantage within the sub group have the loudest voices, supremacy and misinformation spread. In addition, there is great diversity in belief systems across all kinds of struggles. This makes the best organizing efforts very messy. I can say from experience that it can be absolutely devastating to look at ones own fault rather than pointing the fingers at someone else. Having to look at oneself as the powerful one, in this case in relation to other than human animals, is very hard for leftists- especially those of us of marginalized groups. On top of all of that, being exposed to and truly engaging with the enormity and horrific details of what other animals are going through is traumatizing. It is even worse if you've been part of rescues hands-on like I have- vicarious trauma has actually messed up my life more than stuff that has happened directly to me. That sort of trauma can make you act like an asshole- I'm again speaking from experience. I have been that vegan and I've also been the person arguing with that vegan.  

Now that decades have passed and I've learned a lot, I still find myself irritated by both sides. I am annoyed by the health food vegans that say they can't believe I've had cancer 3 times, think weed and plant based diets will cure all diseases, and that sick/disabled/fat/etc vegans can't possibly exist. I abhor the white guy big brained racists named Gary who try to destroy the lives of bipoc vegans just as I am irritated by the nonvegans tokenizing and silencing the same people. I get angry as a unhealthy disabled, "very low income" vegan, who lives in public housing and on food donations, to have these realities tokenized by middle to owning class white people to talk about why veganism is oppressive and how their choice to exploit animals is somehow the same as indigenous subsistence hunting or my need to take life sustaining meds in gelatin capsules. Hell, I was at a food bank today and many of the people there were vegan or vegetarian for ethical or cultural reasons, to the point that the volunteers there all knew to tell us when things had meat in them. I have seen criticisms from vegans doing food justice work in low-income communities being told by nonvegan people who have never lived in one of those communities how classist veganism is. It's another example of how identity politics has become simple virtue signaling for a lot of people seeking to avoid engaging seriously with issues while still feeling good about their position on them. 

That brings me to one of the first advantages of Tallent's book- he acknowledges where he comes from, where he's been, where he is now, and where he wants to go. He includes a couple of stories in the beginning that I wish I had not read, but at the same time think can work well to disarm the reader. I think people sometimes see people like myself and the author as having been the way we are since birth. This creates the fallacy that we've been all knowing and therefore couldn't possibly know where the other person has come from when the reality is most of us caused deliberate harm to other animals for many years or decades before choosing to become vegans. Many of us had all of the same excuses and held many of the same ignorant beliefs. On the other side of the coin many of us forget where we come from which is also a problem. I'm glad that the author did not do that here. 

I must say that I was actually surprised by the quality of this book. I knew that the ideas would be there but given that it is self-published, I kind of expected it to be a mess. There are some things that could have been better with the editing, but it doesn't read like a self-published book. I can tell that the author thought and read a lot about everything that he discusses in the book. The bibliography is appropriately large. I think given Tallent's background and demographics that he did quite well to engage with a variety of ideas without resorting to cherry picking or tokenism. For instance, in his discussions of various arguments against veganism, I found the section on indigenous veganism and tokenism to be very well thought out. He doesn't fall into the trap of quoting a few indigenous vegans as tokens to make his argument. He genuinely engages with all of the discussions and lifts up voices that have led these struggles while also engaging with their words. He admits his own limitations and therefore looks to others for that wisdom. It's a complex discussion to have and I found it to be well done. I think his approach to that topic could be used on pretty much any topic regarding veganism in regards to marginalized populations. 

Another good thing about this book is that it's technically academic, but it is written in a way that is very readable and accessible. There are a few sections that get a little wordy, but overall it is written in a way that someone coming from a variety of places can grasp what he is talking about. The only assumption really is that the reader is coming from somewhere on or near the left political spectrum. As a result the reader gets exposed to a lot of the ideas of the more academic writers without all of the unnecessary and isolating jargon. 

I also want to point out where it goes in the other direction though. I did not know that the author was a former follower of Gary Francione. I don't fault him for this, all of us tend to have looked up to some of the bigger names in animal rights philosophy especially in the beginning of our journeys. For those who do not know, Gary Francione is one of the aforementioned racist vegans named Gary and is most well known for his "abolitionist approach" which is not without merit had he not chosen to mutate and weaponize it against others. He has spent years (maybe decades at this point?) trying to completely decimate the voices of BIPOC vegans including getting them removed from speaking events and basically orchestrating group harassment and cancellation- particularly of Black vegans who did the important work of uplifting the voices of a massive chunk of the vegan population throughout the world. He has recently turned his attention on trans people with the same sort of fervor. Tallent may not have known this entire history but he does know the recent events and nonetheless includes copious amounts of quotations and viewpoints from Francione in this book. Worse, he portrays Francione as someone who tries to engage with and support leftist causes, when he is in fact the prime example of a liberal who will use a human rights cause to make an animal rights argument, then promptly attack the same human cause when it's inconvenient. I was going to link to something for this, but there are so many examples that just googling Gar Francione racism will give you pages of examples of both. If I was a person who wasn't yet sold and knew about this man, I might have discounted this book early on seeing just how much he was quoted. There is one section where Tallent discusses the "fathers" of animal rights from this very white male centered point of view. He adds a paragraph listing a bunch of eco-feminist and bipoc vegan thinkers, with great diversity in their viewpoints, but doesn't engage with any of them like he did with the works of Singer and Francione. He also doesn't devote much time to highlighting the oppressive views of these men. Later in the book he does get around to engaging with the ideas of marginalized vegans. But, the way these initial sections are structured makes it seem like marginalized vegans are an afterthought and may cause people to give up early. That's a shame because the rest of the book is really good. 

My other big criticism of the book is how he uses the idea of personhood. He regularly refers to other animals as people, which is not something I necessarily disagree with. However I do not feel that he engaged enough with what the idea of personhood is in relation to other animals, especially given the fact that humans are one species and other animals are a multitude of species each of which has their own needs. If the reader is coming from a non-vegan, non-liberation lens, simply being told that animals are people is not something that's going to sway them. Even many vegans would not be swayed by this as the fallacy of other animals as a homogenized entity of innocent voiceless children is common among some vegans. 

I would say that the most important part of this book is how Tallent more specifically defines veganism as a flexible practice rather than a fixed and one dimensional identity. Technically veganism has always been a flexible practice. It is literally impossible to avoid every single instance of animal harm and use in any society whether it be from stepping on insects by accident to animal products involved in transportation structures of every kind. But, in most people's minds, veganism is just a plant based diet, not a practice of seeking to avoid exploiting others as far as is possible and practicable. The author really expands upon this, engaging with all of the legitimate criticisms of strict plant-based one-dimensional dietary veganism. Total liberationist veganism as defined in this book includes people of any ability, background, identity, location, and so forth who are seeking to avoid exploiting other animals in every way that they possibly can. This section and all of the other ways in which the author truly engages with the arguments from both sides are the biggest strengths of the book. The hardest part will be getting nonvegan people to read it in the first place, but once they do I think that their hackles will go down quite quickly when they realize that they are being addressed with respect and attention rather than dismissal.  

One thing I really would have liked more of in this book is something from the perspective of other than human animals. It falls into the trap sometimes that many of these sort of philosophy type texts do of describing what happens to other animals and the horrors they go through without really talking about things from the animal centered point of view. We of course can only know so much about that, but there is a known history of other animals resisting their oppression, working together against their captors, taking care of one another at sites of exploitation or at sanctuaries, or simply having experiences of suffering that extend past what we see on the outside. I would have liked animals to be present more in this book about uniting the left on animals. However, if you want to keep a book at a reasonable length that's focused on addressing human arguments, I guess it makes sense that you would devote the text more to humans than you would towards other animals.

 I do hope people will give this book a shot. Just like any book it's not perfect, but it's a pretty amazing feat for a self-published book. I hope leftists that are vegan and those who are not will consider picking it up and engaging with what's inside because I do think at the very least that it can help facilitate conversations between us that can help us better include everyone else on the planet outside of humans in our efforts. I think it can also aid in us working together between diverse and conflicting groups of humans when those struggles arise. This book also offers a lot of suggestions for further reading placing it in a lexicon of many voices that are equally important on this topic. Neither I nor the author are positioning this as some sort of singular Bible. It is another voice added to an important pile on a topic that we have to engage with before we absolutely destroy this entire planet and everyone else on it. I hope we still have time to change.  

This was also posted to my Goodreads.