Lori Gruen is the author of Ethics and Animals and co-editor of Ecofeminism.

♪ (music) ♪

(rooster crowing)

(pattrice jones) Welcome to In Context, coming to you from VINE sanctuary,

an LGBTQ-led farmed animal refuge in Vermont.

We bring you conversations with authors and organizers,

exploring the connections between animal advocacy,

race, gender and social justice,

to help put today's big questions in context.

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Welcome to In Context.

I'm Pattrice Jones, and I'm here with philosopher Lori Gruen.

In Context comes to you from the grounds of VINE Sanctuary in Vermont,

and Lori has frequently visited the sanctuary.

Like many people, when she first visited the sanctuary,

Lori was a little bit afraid of the cows.

Most people don't realize how big cows are.

They can be really scary,

especially if they're trying to play with you,

like a cow called Milkshake was trying to do with Lori.

But after several visits,

Lori was able to become friendly with cows,

mostly because a cow called Rosie came up to her

and reached out to her in a kind of friendship.

Rosie came to the sanctuary from a dairy

where she had lived for many years, having many calves taken from her.

And when she first came to the sanctuary,

we thought that she was shy, because she was very, very quiet,

especially in comparison to her companion, Autumn,

who was very bold.

But then, about six months later,

she... Rose burst out of her shell,

walking up to a visitor to ask for a greeting.

And then, her personality emerged,

and she turned out to be a practical joker.

So, it wasn't that she was shy,

it was that she was depressed from all of her experiences at the dairy.

And then, only after she had been in the safety of Sanctuary for a while

was her real personality able to come out.

Rose is now one of the elder members of the sanctuary

where she helps everybody to feel better.

It's a real leadership role with an emotional component,

particularly when new cows come to the sanctuary

and they just don't know what to do.

Rose is the one who goes up to them, who lets them know: "You're safe here."

And who sort of provides a guide to the sanctuary for them.

So Rose is who's going to be on my mind

as I'm talking with our guest today, Lori Gruen,

who is a professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University.

Also a professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies

at Wesleyan University

and the coordinator of the Animal Studies program

at Wesleyan University,

which she co-founded.

Lori, welcome.

So great to be here, thanks for having me.

I'm so excited that you're here.

You have two of your many, many books, are coming out--

have just come out in a second edition,

and I want to talk to you about that today.

But before I do that,

I think people could hear professor of this, professor of that,

and think that you're just somebody who's like in an ivory tower,

thinking about things in the abstract.

But I know that I've seen a photo of you

maybe in your early twenties,

being carried out physically by police from a university building

where, I don't know, I guess you were protesting something.

Can you tell me about that

and tell us about when did you become vegan,

were you always an academic or were you an activist?

Yeah, thanks for asking that question.

The picture that you're referring to is a picture of a protest

that I organized at the Medical Center at the University of Arizona,

where they were doing experiments on Greyhound dogs.

And there were five of us who were protesting

and we were arrested

because we wouldn't leave when they asked us to leave.

It was a pretty typical kind of direct action protest,

that was happening around the time; it was the early 1980s.

And I became vegan, actually, earlier than that, late 70s,

and it was a really difficult time to be vegan

because there weren't any vegan products to really purchase.

I had to make my own soy milk, for example,

but I became very active while I was in graduate school,

and I ended up leaving graduate school to do activist work

for about six years in Washington DC

with a number of different organizations,

including organizations that were working for women

and their companion animals who are homeless.

But I was also doing a lot of activism with animal organizations at that time,

before I went back to graduate school

and decided to bring my activist sensibilities to my scholarship.

Do you remember what it was initially that led you to go vegan

and drew you into animal advocacy?

Yeah, actually, interestingly, it was philosophy classes.

It was my philosophy class in undergraduate.

And so, I had no idea...

I was always somebody who was drawn to animals,

drawn to the kinds of people who were dispossessed

or others just kept at the margins.

And so, I was always interested in thinking about:

"Why is it that some people have privilege and entitlement

and so many others, including other animals,

are on the outside?"

But it was-- I had really no idea how animals were treated.

And it was actually in a philosophy class that I learned,

and that's what got me excited about philosophy.

And as I said, I pursued philosophy for a while,

then I went and did activism for a while, and then I went back to philosophy.

And now, I teach students

and get them excited about animal activism,

and animal studies, and animal ethics, more generally.

Wow, and speaking of animal ethics, one of your many books,

if we were to try to talk about all your books,

then we would just use up all of our time, listing their titles and summarizing them.

But one of your many books, Ethics and Animals,

has just been re-released in a second edition,

and it's called Ethics and Animals,

and it's published by Cambridge University Press, yes?

Yes. That's right. That's right.

What makes that...

Why would people want to read that particular book on animal ethics?

What makes it different?

I think that one of the things that I do in Ethics and Animals

is provide very grounded ways

of thinking about our relationships with other animals.

I do provide an overview of the variety of different ways

that people have thought about our relationships with animals

and I provide, what I hope, is opinionated but also balanced look

at the various ways that people have tried to theorize about how to act

and how to be in our relationships with animals.

But in that book, what I really try to do is bring readers into particular problems

and help them think through how to solve those problems.

I noticed that as you're talking about this, you keep saying:

"our relationships with animals, our relationships with animals,"

and it seems like that's a central component

of your way of thinking about ethics; it's through relationships.

Exactly. So ultimately, most people get involved in thinking about animals

by thinking about minimizing suffering.

And I also think about minimizing suffering

and animals are suffering horrendously,

and so much violence is perpetuated on animals.

So I'm not suggesting that the focus on suffering should not be a focus,

but there's a difference between questions, in my mind,

between how we "treat animals"

versus how we see ourselves in relationships with animals.

When we see ourselves in relationships with animals,

the kinds of obligations

and perspective-taking that we can engage in

is much more grounded

than it is when we think in abstract terms about how we should treat these others.

So, one of the things that I said earlier, and I think is so important,

is thinking about how it is that some people remain at the center

and some people who tend to be humans remain at the center,

and all the rest of us end up on some margin.

And if we think instead

about our complicated relationships with one another,

that includes both insiderness, outsiderness,

privileges, disadvantages...

All of those things, we can come to get a richer picture

of what it is that we're doing and how we can act ethically.

That makes total sense.

And I know that hearing you talk about this,

talking about our relationships with animals

and the ways that people are in complicated relationships with animals,

even if they're not consciously aware of that

has actually influenced my animal advocacy

in terms of giving me language to talk a different way,

to talk about veganism, to talk about animal rights

with people who might not be open to that.

And that is to just point out

that you're already in relationship with animals,

especially to people who say:

"Well, I'm too busy working on this problem or that problem.

I can't really think about animals at all."

But to be able to then say:

"But you're already in relationship with other animals."

If there's "me" on your plate, that's a relationship with that animal.

It's a relationship of dominance and control,

- but it's a relation-- - It's violent.

It's a violent relationship.

And most people don't want to be in violent relationships.

And the people with whom I'm speaking tend to be people who are against violence

and who want to be in good relationships

and are against relationships that are marked by power and control.

And so, I found it really useful, Lori,

to use your way of framing the question

within an acknowledgment of our relationships with other animals.

Even if it's just to remind people of those relationships

and to encourage them to think about

whether those are the kinds of relationships they want to be in.

Exactly. I think that's exactly right.

And I think that these relationships

aren't necessarily immediate relationships,

they can be distant relationships.

I often talk about, as you know, palm oil,

and the problem with orangutans

and other animals that are being decimated and wiped off the planet

because of our ubiquitous use of palm oil.

And even though I'm not in direct relation

to the orangutans that are losing their homes,

when I purchase products,

and so many vegan products have palm oil in them,

when I purchased products

I'm in a bad relationship with the animals whose habitat we just destroyed.

The other thing I think is really important

in thinking about these things relationally

is that when we think about, as you were saying,

when we think about being in bad relationships,

we're already motivated to make them better.

There's a motivation that's built-in.

I can't be too busy to think about my engaging in violence.

I have to think about it

and I'm motivated to try to make my relationships near and far better.

This... is so thought-provoking for me,

and I think also relates perfectly

to the other book I wanted to talk about today,

which is the second issue of the book called Ecofeminism.

I think it's called... what's the subtitle?

It's Feminist intersections with other animals and the earth.

- (Pattrice) Right... it is. - (Lori) It's a long subtitle! (laughs)

It is, and it's a long book, but it's not a book that you wrote,

it's a book that you co-edited with Carol J. Adams,

and it includes, I guess at least a dozen or more chapters

by different people.

I'm not-- I suppose I should disclose that I'm one of those people.

You are one of those, a very popular chapter.

(both laugh)

The second edition, which just came out from Bloomsbury

has a whole new section.

So there's a whole-- seven new essays in that-- in the volume.

And the older essay is one of your chapters,

you wrote for the first edition, and it's there still.

And there's also a new introduction to the volume.

It is quite hefty these days, but it's really a rich volume.

There's three sections.

There's a section on affect or feeling, there's a section on context,

and now, there's a section on climate.

And the section on climate isn't just about the environment,

the climate crisis and the environment,

but it's also dealing with the climate of thinking

about human relations with animals,

feminist relations with animals,

particularly black feminist relations with animals...

So it's an inte-- and the environment, more broadly.

And so, it's an interesting section

that deals with both the larger climate issue

and the climate of thinking about feminism and other areas

in the context of animal liberation and environmentalism.

One of the things I really love about the book

is the introduction that you wrote with Carol Adams,

which also includes a timeline,

and the timeline actually runs along the edges of the pages

and what kinds of things are included in the timeline?

So, the timeline runs throughout the whole book,

and so, now that the book is even longer,

we could include more things in the timeline.

So, what we include, for example, is one of the first protests

against the use of animals in laboratories in the 1800s,

one of the very first feminist protests against animal use in the US

and the March on Washington...

So, there's all these different books that have been published,

protests and histories that have happened.

So, it's a really rich idea,

and you can just sort of flip through the edge of the book

and you can see all these different things that have happened

from the invention of tofu (laughs)

to the publication of Oxen at the intersection.

So, there's all sorts of...

The founding of Vine Sanctuary, the sort of...

The very first conference for animal rights,

the very first ecofeminism conference...

So, there's a lot of exciting information in that timeline.

I love it because then, you can--

When you're reading the book,

when you're reading the different ideas of the different contributors to the book,

you're reading them in the context

of this whole timeline of things that have happened,

and of feminists thinking about animals and trying to do whatever we can

to improve our relationships with animals.

And I know that context is a super important factor

or idea within ecofeminism.

It's an absolutely central idea.

And one of the things that I think is so important,

not just about contextualizing oneself and one's activities historically,

looking at the foremothers or the forebearers of those ideas,

but also, importantly,

the kinds of issues that arise in particular spaces,

make it so that we can't actually abstract away.

And when we're paying attention to particular,

not just problems or issues, but particular animals

and particular people who are involved in these kinds of, let's say, dilemmas

or issues, problems, that occur,

we can come to the problems with a framework,

and I think of it as an ethical framework, but it's also a political framework

that allows us to take in what's special,

what's specific about this particular situation.

And I think that one way that ecofeminism is fundamentally different

from other ways of approaching ethical problems

or our relationships with animals, more broadly,

is that we really are concerned about the context.

And by that, I also wanted to just say

that what that means is you have to ask questions

about the very specific other that you're talking about.

You can't make a generalization about what do cows want?

Well, which cows?

Who? Who are you talking about?

Are you talking about Rose? Are you talking about Scotty?

Are you talking about Mouton?

So there's a whole important sense

in which when you contextualize the problems

to use a phrase that the late ecofeminist Marti Kheel said,

you're not truncating the narrative,

you're not cutting off all of the important factors

that need to be attended to in any given situation.

That's what it means to pay attention to context in ecofeminist terms.

And I just have to say, when I asked you that question,

I totally had forgotten that the name of this show is In Context!

You did! (both laugh)

Yes. I love that the name of the show is In Context.

So, you were talking about your book, Ethics and animals,

and we're talking about your book...

your edited book, Ecofeminism,

both of which have come out in a second edition this year 2022.

And so, I take it then that eco--

You would think eco-feminist ethics then

would be ethics that attend to relationships

and that are in context?

Right. And I think also,

it's important to keep in mind that not all ecofeminists

have the same perspective.

Ecofeminist are in different contexts, of course,

so they're going to have different ways of thinking.

And so, there's not an overarching, abstract ecofeminist principle

that is going to tell you how to act, and how to think and how to be.

That's not what ecofeminism is about.

Ecofeminism is not saying that we--

that women are essentially closer to nature.

This is not what ecofeminism is saying.

Ecofeminism is not saying that there's one way to act or one way to be.

This is not what ecofeminism is saying.

Ecofeminism is to a large extent much very concerned

about avoiding abstraction, paying attention to context,

that's another way of putting that, and fundamentally, it's about care.

It's about focusing on both the ethical,

and political and collective sense of care.

And so, Vine Sanctuary, of course, is an eco-feminist sanctuary,

which means it's a sanctuary, in part,

that is really focused on that capacity to care.

Thank you for the shout-out to Vine Sanctuary.

And I know that we don't have a lot of time left,

but I know that there's another book of yours

that I think you wrote specifically

with the hope that activists would read it,

that also seems to be related to these topics

we've been talking about, and that's called Entangled Empathy,

- Mm-hmm, and t-- - published by Lantern?

Lantern published it back in 2015,

and Entangled Empathy is a book that tries to articulate in various ways

some of the ideas that I've been talking about.

Now, Entangled Empathy isn't really just about empathy

and being empathetic.

It's-- Entangled Empathy articulates

a particular set of perspective-taking skills, if you will,

that involve our bodies, our minds, our feelings, our hearts

all working together to try to sort out and take the perspective of another

and figure out how we might bring about their flourishing

and a more flourishing world.

So, Entangled Empathy is a book that describes that process

and it describes some problems and pitfalls

that one has when one's trying to hone those skills.

But it's something that I think has not been talked about

in quite the same way that I talked about it before,

and I did hope that activists would be interested in the book.

I wrote the book in part because in giving a number of talks in different contexts,

I was so surprised and excited

that so many people were interested in hearing more

about what I was talking about when I was talking about empathy.

So I decided to write it up in a book called Entangled Empathy.

It's a short book.

Yeah, it is.

So, how does it feel for you...

At the beginning of the show,

we talked about how you started out as a student of philosophy

who was so moved by what you began to think about

with regard to our relationships with other animals that you went vegan,

got involved in animal activism...

Actually, got so involved in animal activism

that you delayed your schooling for a number of years.

But now, you're this fancy pants professor of philosophy

who is in a position to teach others,

and spark that kind of thinking for others.

Do you have some, I don't know, reflect--

That's quite a journey,

do you have any reflections for us about that?

Well, I know that when I first was exposed

to the idea of how we were treating animals,

and what relationships we were in with animals,

I was really sad, I was shocked, I was angry,

I was politicized and I wanted to do something,

and that's what ultimately led me to do after this work,

and I realized that maybe I would do...

I could do a certain kind of activism

by taking up the ideas with other people and my students.

And so, one of the things that's been really rewarding

is having the students who also, like I did,

"Wait, what?"

And they have their lives changed

and they want to do things to help animals.

And building the animal studies program at Wesleyan

has been really terrific

because we've just had so many students come through

who are so interested in making the world a better place for humans

and other animals.

And that's pretty motivating and enlivening for me.

It gives me a lot of energy.

I know a lot of the students go on to do various kinds of work,

some go on to be veterinarians, some go on to work in sanctuaries,

some go on to work in animal organizations,

some go on to be animal lawyers, some go on to do sort of arts and media.

So it's just an exciting kind of way of informing, and inspiring,

and engaging these students to go out and try to make things better for animals.

Oh, I-- I'm so impressed, always,

by your body of work for...

Again, this is Lori Gruen,

philosophy professor at Wesleyan University.

We've been talking about two of her books,

Ethics and Animals, which just came out in a second edition,

and Ecofeminism, co-edited with Carl J. Adams.

We also mentioned Entangled Empathy.

And there are other books, so many other books.

So, I really encourage people to check out those books.

In the meantime, Lori, I want to thank you,

not only for making time to talk with us today,

but also for all of your decades of labor,

and thought and deeply felt effort on behalf of our non-human kin.

I know that it may not always feel like it's adding up,

but I think that your work, for sure,

has added up to a substantial benefit for other animals and the planet.

So I want to thank you for that as well, for what it's worth.

Thank you so much.

It's worth a lot to me, I really do appreciate that.

It's sometimes a bit lonely, writing books,

it's not less lonely teaching.

It's obviously less lonely working with those who work with animals

and the animals themselves,

but I really do appreciate your appreciation

and I'm really glad I got to be here.

Yay! So again, check out Lori Gruen's books.

If you want to learn more about In Context,

you can go to the Vine Sanctuary website,

vinesanctuary.org,

and look at the In Context page where you can see show notes from today,

in case you missed any of the book titles that we've mentioned,

as well as recordings of past shows and upcoming episodes.

This has been Pattrice Jones at Vine Sanctuary for In Context,