Admiration for Ronnie Lee
The other day, I was listening to a recent interview with Ronnie Lee, founder of the Animal Liberation Front. For those who don’t know, I wrote a biography of the man in 2017. Hearing the interview I was reminded of one of the things I most admire about him. He’s immensely courageous — and not just in terms of his willingness to risk arrest and imprisonment. He’s willing to change his mind.
When Lee dies, the first line of his obituary will undoubtedly discuss the ALF. The underground group is his primary legacy. I imagine it would be very easy to rest on such laurels, assured of a place in animal-rights history. But Lee hasn’t done that. You see, his view of what constitutes effective activism has since changed. And he wants people to know that, even if it upsets those who lionize his earlier work.
Over the years, as he watched animal activists serve longer and longer prison sentences for illegal actions that garnered less and less public support, Lee began to pin his hope for the future on vegan education and electoral engagement. This is roughly where he was when I spent over 60 hours interviewing him for my book. But since then, it appears his critique of the ALF seems to have grown even clearer, with fewer reservations.
At the most basic level, animal liberation can only be achieved in democratic societies with support, or at least acceptance, of the majority of the population. The idea a vegan world can be built through the efforts of a sufficiently dedicated and militant minority is a fantasy. The compassionate vanguard will never be able to compete with the violence of the state, which, after all, has an air force, a navy and countless troops at its disposal.
The only hope for animal liberation is in building popular support for compassionate treatment of animals so increasingly anti-speciesist politicians control the government. This isn’t glamorous work. Generally, it’s tedious and frustrating. But being a serious animal activist requires a realistic view of both the present situation and how change happens. The more than a trillion creatures humanity kills every year for food deserve nothing less.
Up to this point, I believe Lee and I are in rough agreement. For him, though, building popular support for compassionate treatment of animals is best achieved through vegan education. I’m not opposed to this, but I think accelerating the development of cellular agriculture through the political process is the most promising means to rapidly change human attitudes toward members of other species. For those who don’t know, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter.
While it is currently sold in a few high-end restaurants, the product faces a number of technological hurdles. Perhaps most importantly, it’s very expensive. Increased government funding for cellular-agriculture research can help address this challenge and others. I’ve yet to get Lee on board with this. It might just be a bridge too far, seemingly too big of a compromise from his initial position. But I hold out hope he might come around.
Again, one of the things I most admire about Lee is his willingness to change his mind. To use an ALF-related metaphor, he’s proven himself willing to set fire to his legacy if he believes it’s the right thing to do. I can only hope that as I get older, circumstances change, and I’m presented with new information about how to help animals, I’ll be half as willing to abandon my long-held strategic assumptions. It reflects an admirable lack of pride.