Here is the second letter relating to Carl Phillips' resignation from
the
"popular veg advocacy" movement (though he will still moderate the
Sci-Veg
list in a new low-volume, research-only format), called "parting
advice."
Reproduced by permission.

******************************************************************

Carl Phillips, founder/moderator of the Sci-Veg email list, and a
long-time vegetarian activist/advocate, has recently withdrawn from
what he calls "popular vegetarian advocacy," as explained in a
separate
"resignation letter." This letter of "parting advice" for veg advocacy
is reproduced with permission. The original PDF file can be located
at:

http://www.sci-veg.org/phillips/partingrecommendations.pdf

His accompanying "resignation letter" can be found at:

http://www.sci-veg.org/phillips/resignationletter.pdf

Some parting advice for vegetarian advocacy

Carl V. Phillips
September, 1999

Here are what I think are the most critical observations/suggestions
for
vegetarian advocates to act upon. I know that some people will
disregard my
advice because they only listen to what they want to hear, and will
come up
with some rationalization. But ask yourself what motive could I
possibly
have for taking the time to write this? Unless you believe that I have
some
hidden anti-vegetarian agenda (something that no one with half a brain
could possibly believe), I cannot think of any explanation other than
I
think the advice is critically important for the promotion of
vegetarianism
-- important enough that I took the time to write it even after
"resigning". Since I am pretty good at analyzing things like this, you
might want to take it seriously.

Outward Appearance

One of the most telling things about vegetarian advocacy is that I
find it
much more pleasant to deal with supporters of animal agriculture than
advocates of vegetarianism. That is, I find the people that I deal
with
because of something we disagree about much more pleasant than the
people I
deal with because we agree about it. The illiterate crowd will no
doubt
start declaring that Phillips is saying "meat producers are better
than
vegetarians" or some such nonsense. But I hope that a few people
involved
in the cause will recognize the deep importance of my observation, as
well
as finding it a bit familiar.

I suspect that most of the advocates who make demonizing statements
about
meat producers and their associates have never sat down with these
individuals. If the veg advocates slowed down to try to observe rather
than
just reenforce their prejudices, they would see that the people in our
society who support omnivory come across a *lot* better -- more
honest,
more reasonable, more sensible, more in tune with the views of the
public
-- than the vegetarian advocates. Dedicated vegetarians etc. are often
characterized as being cult-like, a bunch of malcontented kids and
aged
hippies, or simply as out of touch with reality as people pursuing any
other diet fad. The advocacy community's usual reaction to this
attitude is
to direct anger toward some outside actor -- either the press that
delivered the news or the hidden conspiracy that must exist. But the
sensible response would be "gee, we had better figure out what we are
doing
that makes us look so bad and try to change it."

If you set aside all the people that I met because they are
vegetarian,
most of my other best friends just happen to be vegetarian or
near-vegetarian. None of them want anything to do with the vegetarian
community. They would show up for an event that I am speaking at or
look at
one of the veg publications when I am published in it. But they always
walked away saying that they appreciated what I said, but absolutely
did
not want to have anything to do with what they have seen of the
vegetarian
community in general. Furthermore, because of the spectacle that is
the
vegetarian community, they report that they avoid calling attention to
their vegetarianism, no matter how strongly they believe it in.
(Indeed, I
will seldom call attention to the fact that I am vegan, and when I do
I
will almost always use the word "vegetarian" rather than "vegan"
because
the latter calls up stronger associations with the negative side of
the
community.)

I recently talked to a friend who is a big supporter of vegetarianism
(though one of the many who have walked away from having anything to
do
with the popular advocacy), and a parent of grade school kids. Even at
their age, those kids have expressed a desire to have nothing to do
with
the people who are the public face of veg advocacy. The kids would
object
to going to veg gatherings back which my friend was speaking at. The
kids
explicitly say that they don't want to have to go be around "the
vegans."
Never mind that the kids themselves live in a vegan household and are
vegan
or near-vegan themselves. It is not their own family that they think
of
when they hear the V-word, it those people that they want nothing to
do
with. Since the people in these stories -- those who eat vegetarian
but
don't want it to dominate their identity -- represent the vast
majority of
the potential vegetarians out there much better than do the few
thousand
people who read internet vegetarian discussions, I think the advocacy
community might want to give a bit of thought to why you are turning
them
off so badly. I am sure the temptation of vegetarian advocates reading
this
is to dismiss it as wrong or irrelevant. But I challenge you to open
your
eyes and mind and look for evidence of these phenomena yourself. If
you are
sure my observations are wrong, then you should find nothing but good
news.
If, on the other hand, I happen to be at least somewhat right, you
will do
the cause a lot more good if you summon up the strength to recognize
and
address it rather than burying your heads in the sand.

Outcomes Research

This leads to my second point, the need for a bit of outcomes
research. The
failure to do this is nothing unique to the vegetarian community.
Policy
analysts are constantly trying to get governments and other actors to
spend
a few percent of their budgets (time, money, energy) to try to figure
out
if the other 98% of expenditures is actually doing any good.
Successful
businesses tend to be pretty good at this. Other organizations are
notoriously bad. But just because it is a common mistake does not mean
that
vegetarian advocates ought to consider it an acceptable mistake.

Vegetarian advocates basically have no clue as to whether their
efforts are
doing anything to increase the appeal of vegetarianism. When
confronted
with the question of whether they are actually accomplishing anything,
they
stumble around for a few minutes and come up with a list of things
that
really don't tell us anything. (A couple of helpful hints on those:
You
meet more vegetarians now than you did before because you are looking
for
them and doing things that make you more likely to run into them.
There are
ten times as many packaged meat items in the grocery stores as there
were a
few decades ago, just like there are ten times as many vegan items;
the new
vegan items are not evidence of changes in vegetarianism, they are
evidence
of marketers getting better at segmenting.) Meanwhile, the only
reliable
statistics that give us any insight on the point show that the number
of
people saying they are vegetarian in response to well-phrased poll
questions is remaining steady, as is the per capita animal food
consumption
in the West (elsewhere it is skyrocketing).

Despite the complete lack of evidence, it might be that all this
effort
toward promoting vegetarianism is doing some good. I would like this
to be
true. But lacking a credible story that does not contradict the clear
evidence (or, better still, some actual evidence of effectiveness), I
find
it to just be wishful thinking. My personal conclusion is that
advocating
vegetarianism beyond your circle of closest friends is not worth the
effort, for reasons that may include the poor public face of the
advocacy
community. Thus, IMO, anyone who wants to have any real effect should
focus
their efforts in reducing ecosystem damage from animal agriculture and
improving the treatment of the animals. (As an added bonus, as someone
formerly involved with popular veg advocacy said to me lately, the
people
involved with those projects "are real grown-ups.") There are going to
be
just as many (or more) agricultural animals for the foreseeable future
and
pretending otherwise is not going to help their well-being or the
affected
ecosystems.

Anyway, regardless of my own conclusion, we are basically ignorant.
You
would think that people who wanted to really accomplish something,
rather
than just paying their dues to their cult, would really want to know
if all
their effort was actually doing any good. They would be most
interested in
evidence that what they are currently doing is useless or downright
detrimental. Someone who tries to avoid such evidence is obviously not
primarily interested in the cause they are ostensibly promoting.

There is no shortage of outcomes research methods. It is a bargain
compared
to squandering resources on an effort that turns out to be
ineffective. And
yet no one in vegetarian advocacy seems to much care. Indeed, when I
dare
bring up the possibility that the efforts of vegetarian advocacy have
no
substantial effect and are in many cases a net negative, people jump
all
over me. No one ever produces any evidence that my speculation is
wrong,
but the advocacy community puts their collective fingers in their ears
and
refuses to even listen to such heresy. This is not my fight anymore,
but I
strongly suggest that anyone who really cares whether they are
squandering
their time and energy put some effort into it.

Overall, I hold out little hope that the people who set the tone of
vegetarian advocacy in the U.S. and elsewhere are going to take this
advice, or my core advice about getting the facts straight. But I am
sure
many of them are believers in the lefty anthem, "if the people lead,
the
so-called-leaders will follow." It is up to the hundreds of thousands
of
people who would like to promote vegetarianism to make a change in the
embarrassing public face that a thousand self-styled advocates have
created
for them. Perhaps a changing of the guard over the next five or ten
years
can replace the ineffective advocacy we have now.

END