GAIA - "Let's think about ways of consuming that reflect more empathy towards animals"

August 30, 2021 Ludmilla Intravaia

Michel Vandenbosch, president of Gaia, August 6, 2021, in Brussels (© Lionel Samain for Le Boudoir Numérique)

2/2 - And let's act accordingly. Second and last part of Le Boudoir Numérique interview with Michel Vandenbosch, in which the president of the Belgian association for animals rights Gaia explains how innovative technology could bridge the gap between the pleasure of consuming and the need to treat animals without cruelty.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

Le Boudoir Numérique: In the first part of your interview (read here), you mentioned the role to be played by innovative technology in the fight against animal suffering, in particular in fashion and luxury. But also the role of science and empathy. Can you enlighten us on this last point?

Michel Vandenbosch, President of Gaia: We all have a certain conception of what an animal, a mammal, a primate, a fish, etc. is. Because we have been educated, conditioned, brought up in a society which conveys an ideology based on certain knowledge, biases or misconceptions. But today, because of recent scientific discoveries, we are witnessing a change in outlook on what it means to be a non-human animal. Science and animal psychology have mainly focused on primates, especially great apes. Scientists have highlighted the cognitive abilities of mammals, endowed with a consciousness that gives them a certain value in the ethical balance. That's true, but it can't be limited to great apes and mammals because we would only go from an anthropocentric stage to a mammocentric or primatocentric stage. This view of animals is far too limited because vertebrates, fishes, birds, etc. also have their own intelligence. They are not humans but they have their own nature, their own specificities, as sentient beings. It is really important to put aside this hierarchy of animals, if we want to stop considering them as objects. And the more people feel this empathy for all non-human animals, the more impossible it will be to kill them for the satisfaction of trivial needs.

What would you advise to people, aware of animal suffering, to make things change?

You have to start with yourself. And think about your ways of consuming, so that they reflect more humanity, more empathy towards animals. But do not mistake yourself. I am an idealistic pragmatist. Which means that I have my dreams, I have my goals, I believe that animals should be respected. But respecting animals is easy to say. Respect is a concept with which we can say everything but do nothing. When you are listening to people, it seems that everyone loves animals and respects them. Treating animals less cruelly is a value that can be found everywhere, in all cultures. But on the other hand, people rarely live in accordance with their values and thoughts, which are largely divorced from their actual actions.

How to bridge this gap?

To achieve concrete change, I am coming back to the fundamental role to be played by innovative technology. Especially in the field of food. The vegan approach, I am all for it. But how many vegans and vegetarians are there in the world? Only a few percent. Certainly, I lived through the time when we were just a handful. So the situation is improving, the shelves of supermarkets are opening up to vegan food, vegetarian cuisine is more and more popular. But let's face it, people are hedonistic, they want to take pleasure in doing things. The power of this hedonism in their eating habits should therefore not be underestimated.

What do you mean by that?

To change the habit that people have of eating meat, we must offer them an alternative that will provide them with as much pleasure as food of animal origin, which is also valued in our culture by a certain idea that we have of gastronomy. This is not easy. That's why, at Gaia, we are fervent supporters of the development of cultured meat, from animal stem cells. Because if the percentage of vegans and vegetarians in society will increase in the future, the majority of people will want to continue, for whatever reason, to consume meat. It will thus be necessary to innovate with products likely to combine the pleasure that people have while eating with the need not to make animals suffer.

Besides the new innovative materials of fashion and luxury, which we talked about in the first part of our discussion (read here), cultured meat therefore appears to you as an effective tool in the fight against the exploitation of animals?

I am convinced that cultured meat will find its place, sooner than we think, on our supermarket shelves. Economic players are already investing millions of euros in this area. When cultured meat will have become an economic interest in itself and people will have realize that it is real meat, with the same taste and texture as meat of animal origin but obtained without cruelty to animals, the value of animal life will increase and mass killings of animals will begin to pose real ethical problems for the general public.

In the end, it may not be about convincing everyone to get things done. If we reached a critical mass of people sensitized to the animal cause, whose actions align with the values they defend, shouldn't a virtuous circle of change set in motion?

Yes. From the moment this critical threshold is reached, the changes will take place more and more quickly. And it is upstream that we work on it. To get there, it's hard, you have to put in effort, put a lot of energy into it, so much so that it is almost unbearable at times. But it must be done. So that the animal is no longer devalued as a raw material to be exploited but understood as a full subject that must be respected, in concrete terms, in the actions we take.

Are you hopeful that we will get there, to this empathy for all non-human animals?

Even if we have won the hearts of the people, we will always be confronted, as reformers, with actors who will resist the changes of the antispeciesist animal revolution, economic and political powers which will continue to slow down this movement opposed to their conservative interests. All the more so since the strength of received ideas and of this ideology which tends to consider animals as objects has been passed on from generation to generation, for hundreds of years, in the culture of our societies. So, changing culture takes time and it is done step by step. In some areas it can happen very quickly, in others it will take longer. It is a transition that is happening. I am not saying that it is already done but it is being done more and more. For my part, I tell myself that as long as the swallows are back, there is hope.

* Read the first part of Michel Vandenbosch’s interview in this Boudoir Numérique article : "Innovative technology helps change mentalities about animals".

* Discover the campaign “Poule de luxe, sérieusement ?” here.

* More info on Gaia on the website of the Belgian association for animal defense, here.

Michel Vandenbosch, president of Gaia, August 6, 2021, in Brussels (© Lionel Samain for Le Boudoir Numérique)

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