Rhetoric of Introductions
All Animals Are Equal
In recent years a number of oppressed groups have campaigned vigorously for equality. The classic instance is the Black Liberation movement, which demands an end to the prejudice and discrimination that has made blacks second-class citizens. The immediate appeal of the black liberation movement and its initial, if limited, success made it a model for other oppressed groups to follow. We became familiar with liberation movements for Spanish- Americans, gay people, and a variety of other minorities. When a majority group—women—began their campaign, some thought we had come to the end of the road. Discrimination on the basis of sex, it has been said, is the last universally accepted form of discrimination, practiced without secrecy or pretense even in those liberal circles that have long prided themselves on their freedom from prejudice against racial minorities.
One should always be wary of talking of "the last remaining form of discrimination." If we have learnt anything from the liberation movements, we should have learnt how difficult it is to be aware of latent prejudice in our attitudes to particular groups until this prejudice is forcefully pointed out.
A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons and an extension or reinterpretation of the basic moral principle of equality. Practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result of an unjustifiable prejudice. Who can say with confidence that all his or her attitudes and practices are beyond criticism? If we wish to avoid being numbered amongst the oppressors, we must be prepared to re-think even our most fundamental attitudes. We need to consider them from the point of view of those most disadvantaged by our attitudes, and the practices that follow from these attitudes. If we can make this unaccustomed mental switch we may discover a pattern in our attitudes and practices that consistently operates so as to benefit one group— usually the one to which we ourselves belong—at the expense of another. In this way we may come to see that there is a case for a new liberation movement. My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own—or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species.
Analysis:
In their four word title, Singer and Regan have already given us a lot to think about. But the title doesn’t pose a question. They’re not asking us to consider if all animals are equal, they are telling us all animals are equal. The title is definitive, and seeks to conquer. It asserts a rhetorical position which the subsequent paragraphs will seek to defend. In four words, it tells us not only what to expect, but also what the authors believe to be right. As readers we are already set in motion on the path of considering if we agree with this or not, and as Singer and Regan will contest, if we might apply to animals the same ethical norms we apply to ourselves.
Opinion pieces are everywhere on the web. And the bait of headlined questions rampant. It is rare to find such definitive positions in headline use in an era where the click is so closely associated with digital revenue. Singer and Regan’s brevity is the strength not only of their headline, but also of their position. No punctuation, and everything is said as crisply as possible. Every word here matters. Take one out and the argument becomes weaker. ‘Animals are equal’ is not nearly as powerful as ‘All animals are equal’ or the more open ‘All animals are equal?’ and ‘Are all animals equal?’ In effort to convince rather than persuade, the language is as sharp as their belief.
Singer and Regan open with real-world human examples of what they define as equality. And how the struggle of oppressed groups has become more broadly understood in recent years. They begin with simple, declarative sentences, and then support their statements with examples over time. Here they are doing the work of situating their argument within a cultural framework which already exists around us, and placing us within the familiar. They lean on aspects of gender, race and sexuality to open their argument against minority prejudice.
The more succinct second paragraph introduces some of the difficulties in the opening argument, and the challenges faced by thinking of discrimination as behavior with an end point. But in doing this, they continue to define prejudice as articulated by groups. Groups that will differ between reader and writer. What Singer and Regan are defining as minority will not be created equally by their audience. The key question remains equality for who.
The third paragraph opens with an appeal to expand our moral horizons as a conduit towards reinterpreting equality. They even ask, ‘who can say with confidence that all his or her attitudes and practices are beyond criticism?’ In doing so, they appeal to the reader to adjust the perspective of their existing attitudes, reframe our understanding of social hierarchy, and advocate for those who don’t have a voice. But in this they are not advocating for a minority as with their previous argument. They are advocating for a majority. A majority which they motivate is already mislabelled, animals. They are arguing against our use of naming itself. And how in our existing discrimination against species other than our own, we should seek to extend the same basic utilitarian systems of equality we already attempt to apply to ourselves.
Coupled with their introductory definition of equality, and their ethical hypothesis that it extends to animals, comes a set of assumptions about their reader. It makes the assumption that their audience is responsive to a liberal, western, perhaps even affluent perspective equipped to have a material conversation about discrimination. And it also makes the assumption that their readers have a choice when it comes to the treatment of animals. For many cultures neither capacity to affect discriminatory change nor one’s relationship towards animals is possible or tolerated. The speciesism Singer and Regan argue against is one deeply rooted in cultures able to even have such choices. Their rhetoric employs complex sentences and academic language, and is exclusionary from the start. If the authors are able go beyond their introductory use of conquering rhetoric toward a Platonic ‘ignorant multitude’, then we might expect the subsequent text to continue to detail out more instances which draw distinctions between how they argue between ethical rights and wrongs.
