Glenn's little ugly blog

I've been having trouble organizing my thoughts around Adam Kahane's new book, Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change. It could be because it is more subtle of a topic than his first book, Solving Tough Problems. Or, it could be because I have not been working and thinking in terms of growth. Instead I think in terms of change, of getting other people to see and think like I do. Of protecting animals and defending their rights against people who harm and exploit them.

But can radical social change happen like this? What does growth mean in this context? If a society where all sentient beings are free to live free from human exploitation is the goal, how do we grow to reach it?

Solving Tough Problems, Kahane's first book, dealt with openness, listening and talking openly. By opening ourselves up to others we can connect and work together, generatively.

Power and Love outlines what Kahane found lacking in the first book: growth. He writes:

Power and Love picks up where Solving Tough Problems left off and reports the second discovery. In order to address our toughest challenges, we must indeed connect, but this is not enough: we must also grow. In other words, we must exercise both love (the drive to unity) and power (the drive to self-realization). If we choose either love or power, we will get stuck in re-creating existing realities, or worse. If we want to create new and better realities—at home, at work, in our communities, in the world—we need to learn how to integrate our love and our power.

Love and power aren't opposites. Instead, they are two fundamental drives that complement each other. Without love, our power changes from liberation to oppression. Without power, our love changes from nurturing to stifling.

Kahane uses the metaphor of walking to illustrate how we balance power and love. If we choose one or the other, we fall. If we manage to uneasily balance the two, we stumble. If we get it right, we walk. He refers to this as "dynamic balance."

When we stumble or walk we move forward. And only by moving forward can we grow. We need to move forward together in order to solve the tough challenges that face us.

Animal rights is one such challenge, a tough challenge that is dynamically complex, socially complex, and generatively complex.

A challenge is tough when it is complex in three ways. A challenge is dynamically complex when cause and effect are interdependent and far apart in space and time; such challenges cannot successfully be addressed piece by piece, but only by seeing the system as a whole. A challenge is socially complex when the actors involved have different perspectives and interests; such challenges cannot be successfully addressed by experts or authorities, but only with the engagement of the actors themselves. And a challenge is generatively complex when its future is fundamentally unfamiliar and undetermined; such challenges cannot successfully be addressed by applying "best practice" solutions from the past, but only by growing new, "next practice" solutions.

There is no easy solution to the problem of animal rights, and thinking about it in terms of these three forms of complexity is daunting. I mean, how can we involve all actors in solving the problem? What would it even look like to bring people together who are so deeply opposed to each other and find ways to work together to succeed, together?

But, we can certainly start to cooperate with allies and partial allies. One of the ideas in Solving Tough Problems was that open listening and open talking can create generative dialogue, where new ideas are generated not by any one person, but by the group. It is groupthink in the most positive sense possible, where the group is greater than the proverbial sum of its parts.

Cooperation doesn't mean that we relinquish our own interests and ideals. We can't give up our power in the service of unity, or else we will fall. But fighting for our own interests with no concern for unity will also cause us to fall.

This is where the idea of generative dialogue intersects with love and power: we can be creative in finding solutions that balance unity and interests, solutions that each of us may not have thought of before, solutions that come out of the collective working together.

Having these varied perspectives and ideas is what makes us strong, and the more varied our perspectives the more chance we have of finding truly novel and viable solutions.

So I have come to understand that—contrary to my training in answering, controlling, and solving—social change work never produces final, ticked-off failure or success. Some social change efforts I thought were making progress later stalled, and some stalled efforts later made great advances.

How can we build collaboration and dialogue into our social change movement? Can we employ our differences together to find new solutions and new ideas? in other words, can we balance power and love?

Kahane writes: "We must step forward."

If we hope to succeed, we have no choice but to step forward, together.

Reading books like Solving Tough Problems challenges me. Can we solve the problem of animal exploitation through extreme opposition (even if we are right)? Alternatively, what would an open way look like? Can we listen to our opponents and work with people who disagree with us to find solutions? Does listening and respecting others weaken our position, or does it make it more likely that we can succeed?

Sometimes it just feels right to keep, defend, and hold a position. Animals are not ours to use, in any way. My instinct is that this is unquestionably correct — and I am compelled to stand up against those who use or abuse (or endorse the use and abuse of) animal.

Adam Kahane has worked with disparate groups in some of the tensest and toughest situations of our time. After facilitating groundbreaking dialogues between a spectrum of blacks and whites in barely-post-apartheid South Africa, he has worked to explore (and advocate for) the potential of dialogue as an alternative to unilateral or violent solutions to problems.

This book is essentially about listening. He looks at what makes for successful dialogue, and the kinds of listening and speaking that happen in meetings, conversations, and dialogues.

Kinds of listening

The first is downloading, which is speaking without listening to others. Each participant knows what she thinks already and only waits to present her position. She only listens to herself, and only hears whatever supports her own position. The possibility of different factions coming to any sort of agreement is essentially zero. Positions are set and likely only become more hardened. Kahane writes:

The first is “downloading,” or listening from within our own story, but without being conscious that what we are saying and hearing is no more than a story. When we download we are deaf to other stories; we only hear that which confirms our own story. This is the kind of nonlistening exhibited by fundamentalists, dictators, experts, and people who are arrogant or angry.

The second kind opens up to some listening, but this takes the form of debate. Kahane describes this as “listen[ing] to each other and to ideas (including our own ideas) from the outside, objectively, like a judge in a debate or courtroom.”

Neither of these ways of listening and talking opens up the possibility of creation of anything new. We evaluate and choose from the ideas presented.

Both of these kinds of interaction are very common. This is what we see everyday in our lives. Just watching my own conversations through the day, I see many examples of downloading and debating. And very little else.

It feels to me that most vegan outreach and animal rights/protection (or whatever term you want to use) work involves these 2 kinds of communication. There is a lot of talk about empathy and compassion, but how often to we really try to see what our opponents see and feel how they feel? Do we try to know and understand them?

Do we even need to?

When we open up our listening we are receptive to new ideas. Kahane calls this “reflective dialogue.” Speaking of his South African project, Kahane writes:

The members of the Mont Fleur team had listened, not only openly, but also reflectively. When they listened, they were not just reloading their old tapes. They were receptive to new ideas. More than that, they were willing to be influenced and changed. They held their ideas lightly; they noticed and questioned their own thinking; they separated themselves from their ideas (“I am not my ideas, and so you and I can reject them without rejecting me”). They “suspended” their ideas, as if on strings from the ceiling, and walked around and looked at these ideas from different perspectives.

This reflective openness is an openness not only to new ideas, but to new ideas about yourself.

We cannot develop creative solutions to complex human problems unless we can see, hear, open up to, and include the humanity of all of the stakeholders and of ourselves.... This kind of listening is not sympathy, participating in someone else’s feeling from alongside them. It is empathy, participating from within them. This is the kind of listening that enables us not only to consider alternative existing ideas but to generate new ones.”

New understanding and new ideas can come out of this sort of dialogue. When we listen to others and ourselves in this way we gain a greater understanding of why we think the way we do. Opening up ourselves to feel what others are feeling, to really knowing and understanding them, can create new ideas and new solutions.

There is a 4th stage called “generative dialogue.” Kahane describes this as “listen[ing] not only from within ourselves or from within others, but from the whole of the system.” This is dialogue where the group begins to think as a group, instead of a collection of individuals. In generative dialogue, we not only “listen and be, but we also need to talk and act.” This is “open speaking” and “open talking.”

How can this apply to anyone working towards animal rights? Can it be applied to that struggle?

What we can do

In the conclusion of the book, Kahane asks:

How can we solve our tough problems without resorting to force? How can we overcome the apartheid syndrome in our homes, workplaces, communities and countries, and globally? How can we heal our world’s gaping wounds?

The way we treat animals and the rest of the natural world is very definitely on of our world’s gaping wounds. It is a huge and chronic problem for which we present a vegan lifestyle as a solution. Do we too often resort to force to push this solution? Force is not always physical force, but can be enforcement through laws or peer pressure.

What would it even look like to involve representatives of every group that has a stake in the question to dialogue about it? Chances are some would not even recognize that there is a problem. I can’t really even imagine what it would look like to have animal rights activists, animal welfare organizations, veterinarians, farmers, scientists, pet store owners, and more in one room trying to dialogue. That it would even be possible for all of these people to talk to each other openly, to reflectively dialogue, seems almost completely impossible.

But what we can do is try to at least speak to each other and listen to each other within the animal protection movement in this way. I can imagine representatives from across the whole range of groups working to protect animals, welfare to abolition, rights to humane use, sitting down to talk and create new solutions to the problem. In this way positive ways of interacting and working together can be modeled, which may spread across the entire movement.

Then, when we’re on the street talking to people, we may end up being as open to everyone’s perspective as we are dedicated to promoting our own perspective.

Kahane sees the solution to the difficult questions we face as coming out of dialogue:

We have to shift from downloading and debating to reflective and generative dialogue. We have to choose an open way over a closed way.

He presents 10 simple but not easy suggestions for getting started in this shift:

1. Pay attention to your state of being and to how you are talking and listening.
2. Speak up. Notice and say what you are thinking, feeling, and wanting.
3. Remember that you don’t know the truth about anything.
   Engage with and listen to others who have a stake in the system.
4. Reflect on your own role in the system.
5. Listen with empathy.
6. Listen to what is being said not just by yourself and others but through all of you.
7. Stop talking.
8. Relax and be fully present.
9. Try out these suggestions and notice what happens.

In closing, he writes:

Every one of us gets to choose, in every encounter every day, which world we will contribute to bringing into reality. When we choose the closed way, we participate in creating a world filled with force and fear. When we choose an open way, we participate in creating another, better world.

If we truly want to see a compassionate world where people respect and try to empathically understand all of the beings who live with us on this planet, we need to start living that world in ourselves.

I just took a 3-day course with Charles Dobson, who wrote a fantastic book called The Troublemaker's Teaparty. The book is a distillation of his years of experience doing activism and public interest organizing.

There are chapters on choosing and running campaigns, running a group, media advocacy, and pretty much any area of grassroots work that you can think of. If you are doing any work in this area, this book needs to be on your bookshelf. It's almost impossible to underline the important parts, because almost every sentence is important!

If you'd like to check out what he has to say before buying the book, have a look at The Citizen's Handbook. The Troublemaker's Teaparty is essentially the revised and updated edition of the older Citizen's Handbook.

Either book will likely be of value to Americans, but it is focused on grassroots activism in Canada, so there are some significant cultural differences. Any US organizations that are trying to work across the border in Canada should probably pick up a copy if only to be aware of the different tactics that are effective in Canada.

I'm in the middle of Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Years ago I read Everything is Illuminated and was impressed by Foer's substantial writing talent – and his latest book doesn't disappoint.

One of my favorite passages from the book is a little thought experiment about battery cages (those cages where hens are confined for their entire lives - about 98% of eggs sold in Canada come from hens confined in batter cages).

Step your mind into a crowded elevator, an elevator so crowded you cannot turn around without bumping into (and aggravating) your neighbor. The elevator is so crowded you are often held aloft. This is a kind of blessing, as the slanted floor is made of wire, which cuts into your feet.

After some time, those in the elevator will lose their ability to work in the interest of the group. Some will become violent; others will go mad. A few, deprived of food and hope, will become cannibalistic.

There is no respite, no relief. No elevator repairman is coming. The doors will open once, at the end of your life, for your journey to the only place worse (see: PROCESSING).

I've never read a better description of what a battery cage would be like for me to be in. Foer writes that "the typical cage for egg-laying hens allows each sixty-seven square inches of floor space – somewhere between the size of this page and a sheet of printer paper."

Are cheap eggs worth subjecting chickens to cruelty like this?

Last night I finished reading The Age of Empathy by Frans de Waal. The book is an evolutionary examination of empathy, which de Waal finds examples of in many animals as well as humans. He breaks apart the idea that only humans feel emotions, of which empathy is one. He also argues that humans are not only linked to animals through our "negative" traits (violence, competition, etc) but also through our "nobler" traits (empathy, consolation, fairness).

To be honest, I think it's really a no-brainer to see that animals have emotions and share commonalities with humans. Humans add some complexity to these traits, but working together, communication, or politics appear in other animals as well. Really, anyone who lives with animals and tries to see them for what they are begins to see this. Being open to what animals can communicate to us helps us understand them better.

There's this idea that science teaches that animals are not like us at all, that they do not have emotions like us. de Waal attempts to turn this idea around and show that emotions have evolved through a long process, a process which began millions of years ago and well before even primates existed. To read a book by an eminent scientist talking about the emotional lives of animals is delightful, even if only because it confirms my own ideas about animals.

de Waal's comfortable and straightforward style, combined with stories, both anecdotal and drawn from his research, make the book a pleasurable read. He explains evolutionary theory in such a way that even I can sort of understand it, and he made me aware of some parts of the theory that I hadn't previously known about.

For instance, I learned that there are 2 messages of evolutionary theory. The first is "that all plants and animals, including ourselves, are the product of a single process." This is basically what I was taught in school. The second, though, is more controversial: "We are continuous with all other life forms, not only in body but also in mind." This doesn't mean that there is some transcendent connection between all life, but rather that evolution pertains to physical characteristics as well as mental or psychological. Our brains have evolved along with our bodies, and many of the mental characteristics that we like to think are unique to humans really have their roots in a much earlier evolutionary period.

de Waal puts this nicely:

For the Darwinist, there is nothing more logical than the assumption of emotional continuity. Ultimately, I believe that the reluctance to talk about animal emotions has less to do with science than religion. And not just any religion, but particularly religions that arose in total isolation form animals that look like us.... Only the Judeo-Christian religions place humans on a pedestal, making them the only species with a soul.

Later he writes:

When it comes to characteristics we don't like about ourselves, continuity is rarely an issue. As soon as people kill, abandon, rape, or otherwise mistreat one another we are quick to blame it on our genes. Warfare and aggression are widely recognized as biological traits, and no one thinks twice about pointing at ants or chimps for parallels. It's one with regard to noble characteristics that continuity is an issue, and empathy is a case in point.

He ends the book with a call to us all to build on our empathic nature: "To call upon this inborn capacity can only be to any society's advantage." I completely agree, but I would draw it out even further with a wish to extend our empathy to other animals. We are similar in many ways, and we should be very able to empathize with even animals that are quite unlike us.

This brings me to think about how humans relate to animals. I think that whether we like it or not, whether we realize it or not, we know at a deep level that animals are like us and feel similarly in many ways. People who kill or mistreat animals, even if they don't realize that this is the case, suffer psychological stress - or else are deeply psychopathic. Psychopathic people are not affected by the suffering of others – they are completely lacking in empathy.

I think that our empathy for animals (and our empathy for other humans as well in many cases) is repressed, but it does still affect us. There have been books written about the links between abuse of animals and spousal abuse later in life, and quite likely animal abuse leads to other violent acts. I don't mean that violence towards animals is simply an indicator of violent tendencies, but rather that we know, at a prehensile level, that animals suffer like we do.

Most of the time most people don't do anything that directly harms animals. But as a society we harm billions of animals every year. It's reasonable to expect that we feel this harm on a deep level, a level that none of us will acknowledge.

At some point I'll try to clarify my thoughts on this, but for now I'd just like to suggest that you pick up a copy of this book and read it. It is an excellent introduction to the blossoming field of study of animal emotions. It provides useful evidence and background for any arguments against charges of "anthropomorphism" which are really so much bunk in the face of real science.

I just sat down to think about the books that I have on my to-read list.

Here's the list:

• The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
• Imperial by William Vollmann
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I think that's the list. To be honest, I've never really made a list of books I'm planning to read.

You may notice that the list is entirely composed of books written by men. I don't know if it's accidental or if I simply gravitate towards male authors. Looking at my bookshelf it is very heavily male, with a major exception of my Kathy Acker books (which take up half of a shelf).

If I ever make a list of favorite authors, it tends to be heavily male as well: Pynchon, Vollmann, Acker, Burroughs, Murakami Ryu, Murakami Haruki, Tolstoy, Cormac McCarthy, and so on. I wonder why this is? Is there just something about the writing of men that resonates with me? Or is it that there are more men writing literary and more experimental fiction? I like Jeanette Winterson but wouldn't call her a favorite. The same with Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates. I loved Cat's Eye but was never moved to read much more of Atwood.

Even my taste in poetry shifts towards male poets. Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are particular favorites of mine. I can't even really name a woman poet other than Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. At university I took a 20th Century American poetry class and the professor was an expert on Marianne Moore, but I never really got into her writing.

No other female novelist, poet, or writer in general has become someone who I need to read, except for Kathy Acker. Her books occupy a special part of my soul, and I like her work so much that I seldom speak of it to anyone. There would be too much to explain.

I'll have to think about why I read men so much and seldom read anything written by women. It could possibly be a cultural issue – that I was raised to listen more to men than women, especially in terms of knowledge and information. This may still be the atmosphere in the world around us, which could contribute to the continued dominance of men in the literary world.

Looking at the New York Times Bestseller list today, out of the 45 books listed in 9 different categories, 14 of them are written by women. In the top 5 hardcover nonfiction, none of them are written by women. 4 out of the 5 children's books are written by women. In the top 15 hardcover business books 2 are written by women (one as a co-author).

Is my imbalance a reflection of a societal imbalance?

I'd be happy to hear if you have similar experiences and if you have any recommendations for great books written by female authors.

I just sat down to think about the books that I have on my to-read list.

Here's the list:

• The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
• Imperial by William Vollmann
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I think that's the list. To be honest, I've never really made a list of books I'm planning to read.

You may notice that the list is entirely composed of books written by men. I don't know if it's accidental or if I simply gravitate towards male authors. Looking at my bookshelf it is very heavily male, with a major exception of my Kathy Acker books (which take up half of a shelf).

If I ever make a list of favorite authors, it tends to be heavily male as well: Pynchon, Vollmann, Acker, Burroughs, Murakami Ryu, Murakami Haruki, Tolstoy, Cormac McCarthy, and so on. I wonder why this is? Is there just something about the writing of men that resonates with me? Or is it that there are more men writing literary and more experimental fiction? I like Jeanette Winterson but wouldn't call her a favorite. The same with Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates. I loved Cat's Eye but was never moved to read much more of Atwood.

Even my taste in poetry shifts towards male poets. Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are particular favorites of mine. I can't even really name a woman poet other than Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. At university I took a 20th Century American poetry class and the professor was an expert on Marianne Moore, but I never really got into her writing.

No other female novelist, poet, or writer in general has become someone who I need to read, except for Kathy Acker. Her books occupy a special part of my soul, and I like her work so much that I seldom speak of it to anyone. There would be too much to explain.

I'll have to think about why I read men so much and seldom read anything written by women. It could possibly be a cultural issue – that I was raised to listen more to men than women, especially in terms of knowledge and information. This may still be the atmosphere in the world around us, which could contribute to the continued dominance of men in the literary world.

Looking at the New York Times Bestseller list today, out of the 45 books listed in 9 different categories, 14 of them are written by women. In the top 5 hardcover nonfiction, none of them are written by women. 4 out of the 5 children's books are written by women. In the top 15 hardcover business books 2 are written by women (one as a co-author).

Is my imbalance a reflection of a societal imbalance?

I'd be happy to hear if you have similar experiences and if you have any recommendations for great books written by female authors.

Right now I'm in the middle of three books, one of which is Europe Central by William Vollmann. I've read most of his books, except for a couple of his latest non-fiction works.

Above and beyond his literary ability, I'm most drawn to Vollmann because of his openness to other people. He has traveled a lot and written about some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world, but he lives with them and observes them with compassion and an understanding that is very rare.

His book, Poor People, collects some of his best journalism about time spent with poor people around the world.

But it is his novels that I appreciate the most. He travels to research his novels, and the strands of reality and fiction blend together, giving the novels a feeling of truth, but giving the truth a feeling of transcendence or greater meaning. Everything is a means to telling a story, and the story is most often people living on edges, in cracks, outside of the margins, in the dark, in the cold, or lost.

His unfinished series of seven novels, Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes, is a retelling of European interactions with native North Americans. I liked The Rifles and
Fathers and Crows the best and am hoping that he someday finished the last 3 books in the series. They are only loosely a series; no characters appear throughout the books. They are simply a thematic series.

Vollmann's work can often be somewhat conceptual. For instance, his collection of stories, Rainbow Stories is a thematic palindrome. His style ranges from straightforward, journalistic to somewhat magical realism.

I think that he is one of the best writers writing in English alive today. He assembles powerful sentences that bring people, situations, and ideas to life, and is equally comfortable writing about prostitutes, war, nature, violence, ethics, and art.

Check him out and let me know what you think.

I'm in the middle of reading The Age of Empathy by Frans de Waal. So far it's really good, even though I'm somewhat struck that it takes scientific experiments to verify what many animal activists have taken as a given for so long.

I'll likely write up a more comprehensive review of the book when I finish, since I'm enjoying it so much, but for now I thought I would just offer some quotes from the book that I have found important or meaningful.

Our nobler strivings come into play only once the baser ones have been fulfilled. If attachment and empathy are as fundamental as proposed, we had better pay close attention to them in any discussion of human nature. There is also no reason to expect these capacities only in humans. They should manifest themselves in any warm-blooded creature with hair, nipples, and sweat glands, which is part of what defines a mammal.

This obviously includes those pesky little rodents.

(p. 69)

...Animal studies are now seriously lagging behind what we know about human empathy. This may be changing though, thanks to a new study by Canadian scientists, titled "Social Modulation of Pain as Evidence for Empathy in Mice." This time, the word empathy is free of quotation marks, reflecting the growing consensus that emotional linkage between individuals has the same biological basis in humans and other animals.

(p. 70)

With preconcern in place, learning and intelligence can begin to add layers of complexity, making the response ever more discerning until full-blown sympathy emerges. Sympathy implies actual concern for the other and an attempt to understand what happened.... Since this is the level of sympathy that we, human adults, are familiar with, we think of it as a single process, as something you either have or lack. But in fact, it consists of many different layers added by evolution over millions of years. Most mammals show some of these – only a few show them all.

(p. 96)

...Taking someone else's perspective is not limited to human adults. It is best developed in animals with large brains, but those with smaller brains don't necessarily lack the capacity.

(p.98)

Commitment to others, emotional sensitivity to their situation, and understanding what kind of help might be effective is such a human combination that we often refer to is as being humane. I do believe that our species is special in the degree to which it puts itself into another's shoes. We grasp how others feel and what they might need more fully than any other animal. Yet our species is not the first or only one to help others insightfully. Behaviorally speaking, the difference between a human and an ape jumping into the water to save another isn't that great. Motivationally speaking, the difference can't be that great either.

(p. 107)

Have a look at this photo and story about chimpanzees gathering to mourn the death of one of their own. A timely example of animals exhibiting emotions.