‘Big Ag’ feels cognitively automatic in terms of conveying a negative foundation and mechanism, however, perhaps more cognitive work is required to translate ‘empire’ into something negative, as there may be positive associations
I like "Big Ag" the most. "Big Animal Ag" is sort of a mouthful. "Big Meat" probably hits too close to home ("But I like eating meat?"). "Empire" connotes a tyrannical regime, which people may perceive as an exaggeration.
In addition to metaphors that capture the industry's evil, I also think we need to reflect hard on metaphors that capture the animals' worthiness. I know y'all have already done some work on this, but my intuition is that "relational" metaphors are strongest here. Terms like "fellow creatures" and "co-inhabitants" capture our shared experience. Likewise, terms like "stewards" and "caretakers" connote our aspirational relationship status, as contrasted with our current status as "abusers." We need to "mend," "heal," and "restore" this "broken relationship." We aren't meant to abuse animals; we are meant to care for them.
This is an important issue to discuss, given the recent efforts by the animal industrial complex in their futile attempt to stop the use of plant "milk" (use beverage instead) for financial self-interest.
I think "Big Ag" is a very effective, immediate name for the system actually in place, while "animal agriculture empire" is long and perhaps highbrow in the sense that many people have no idea of the horrors committed in the name of "empire," so it may be vague & tenuous. I like "f(h)armer" that makes people question the role of the person & their practices, but today there are few small-scale f(h)armers & Big Ag has mostly taken over.
Great to start this conversation! I think the term factory farming has been really beneficial for framing the issue, so it would be great to more narrative "hits" like that.
I like Big Ag: people across the political spectrum use "Big Thing" as a negative connotation, even some pro capitalist people have negative connotation (i.e. corruption and cronyism)
I don't think the term Empire carries negative connotations for most people. I think that the connotations you describe about unfair power only apply to people with a very specific brand of Western liberal social justice politics.
I would bet money that anyone with centrist or right-wing politics, or even people with left-leaning politics who don't follow social justice conversations, would see "empire" as a neutral term. Perhaps even positive in many situations. People glowingly talk about having built a business empire all the time. I don't even think most British people consider the British Empire to have been a universally bad thing!
A harmful metaphor that activists ought to avoid: voiceless. Because the animals are not voiceless.
The counterpart which comes to mind immediately is that big factory farming is ‘deaf’ to their screams. But then I’m cautious about ableism - in reality being literally deaf is not a choice or something negative.
Perhaps it would be useful to explore other metaphors which convey the idea.
I asked my non vegan partner (slowly moving him from the dark 😔) and he thought big ag was easier to understand. Great wealth concentrated in the hands of few. I asked what both implied about animals and he said that they were there to be used/exploited. Neither had positive connotations. Big better than empire.
This is a bit of a tangent on your post, but I think we're actually making two separate points here: one that I agree with and one that I am sceptical of:
1. Do the established terms that we use to refer to concepts in animal advocacy subtly reinforce the way we think about them? e.g. "animal husbandry"
2. If we can introduce new terms for describing concepts, will that affect how people perceive them?
I am sceptical that number one is actually true, even though I do see the value in number two. I'm not sure I believe that terms like "game hunting", "raising animals", "livestock" and so on have any meaningful impact on how we understand these issues.
What would you say is the best evidence from psychology that language affects how we think in this way?
I'm not disputing that when someone chooses a word *with intention*, that reflects how they think about a topic. If I am talking about corporate greed and I choose to talk about bankers as "scum" then obviously I am trying to link bankers to that gross stuff on top of a pond. I don't just want people think bankers are bad; I want people to see them as disgusting. If we start using the term "animal agriculture empire," then that does reflect a certain set of beliefs about animal agriculture. By encouraging other people to adopt that term, we are probably encouraging a cultural shift in how animal agriculture is perceived.
But I think that's fundamentally different to when a word has been part of the cultural lexicon for decades, I don't think the literal meaning of the words does affect people because I don't think it registers. When we hear someone say pigeon meat tastes "gamey" I don't think people consciously register the "game" reference and reinforce the notion that shooting pigeons is a game.
For example, English uses different words for the flesh of an animal and the animal itself (pig and pork, beef and cow etc). Almost no other languages do this, but English speakers are not outliers in their lack of empathy for animals, despite there being this linguistic distance.
More generally, the idea that the literal meaning of long-established words can influence our perceptions subtly gets put forward all the time as obviously true, but I rarely see good evidence for it
I'm happy to be wrong about this. Is there any research that you would point me to that makes this case strongly?
Thanks for taking the time to write this all out and share your thinking. I think it’s fair to be sceptical about the first claim.
Possibly the most direct evidence for our context is study 4 of Kunst & Hole (2016): Describing industrial meat production as "harvesting" versus "killing" or "slaughtering" indirectly reduced empathy
There is also the metaphor experiment discussed in the blog. However, it might be fair to argue that referring to crime as a beat or a virus aren’t everyday terms in the same way as ‘game’. It’s possible that once a metaphor becomes so ingrained that it loses its metaphorical meaning and just becomes another synonym for the word itself.
There has been a fair amount of research into conceptual metaphor theory. That is that the brain unconsciously uses metaphor to make sense of the world. The cognitive linguist George Lakoff has also written a lot about this, and that by using our opponents frame or metaphor, we are activating it, and inadvertently playing on their terms (His book “Don’t think of an elephant” is highly recommended).
As always with these sort of things, the research is messy to say the least.
I agree with you that people don’t consciously register the metaphor (e.g. that pigeons are ‘game’-ey). The theory is that this takes place unconsciously. In fact, in studies on the effect of metaphor, participants explicitly report that the metaphor had no effect on their responses.. Even when the metaphor objectively did.
That’s a good example about the euphemistic names for animal flesh in English, but I don’t think it works as a counterexample. Perhaps those euphemisms reduce empathy beyond an ever already very low baseline level of empathy? I don’t know of any studies that have directly tested this.
There is also the strategic element. Maybe the specific language we use has no-to-little effect on people’s perceptions. Because it’s still an open empirical question, we could approach it with the precautionary principle: If it doesn’t work, there’s no harm done. If it does work, let’s not wait to find out before we start doing it.
‘Big Ag’ feels cognitively automatic in terms of conveying a negative foundation and mechanism, however, perhaps more cognitive work is required to translate ‘empire’ into something negative, as there may be positive associations
with ‘empire’ for any given capitalist.
I like "Big Ag" the most. "Big Animal Ag" is sort of a mouthful. "Big Meat" probably hits too close to home ("But I like eating meat?"). "Empire" connotes a tyrannical regime, which people may perceive as an exaggeration.
In addition to metaphors that capture the industry's evil, I also think we need to reflect hard on metaphors that capture the animals' worthiness. I know y'all have already done some work on this, but my intuition is that "relational" metaphors are strongest here. Terms like "fellow creatures" and "co-inhabitants" capture our shared experience. Likewise, terms like "stewards" and "caretakers" connote our aspirational relationship status, as contrasted with our current status as "abusers." We need to "mend," "heal," and "restore" this "broken relationship." We aren't meant to abuse animals; we are meant to care for them.
This is an important issue to discuss, given the recent efforts by the animal industrial complex in their futile attempt to stop the use of plant "milk" (use beverage instead) for financial self-interest.
Agreed. The industry uses language as a convenience.
I think "Big Ag" is a very effective, immediate name for the system actually in place, while "animal agriculture empire" is long and perhaps highbrow in the sense that many people have no idea of the horrors committed in the name of "empire," so it may be vague & tenuous. I like "f(h)armer" that makes people question the role of the person & their practices, but today there are few small-scale f(h)armers & Big Ag has mostly taken over.
Great to start this conversation! I think the term factory farming has been really beneficial for framing the issue, so it would be great to more narrative "hits" like that.
I like Big Ag: people across the political spectrum use "Big Thing" as a negative connotation, even some pro capitalist people have negative connotation (i.e. corruption and cronyism)
I don't think the term Empire carries negative connotations for most people. I think that the connotations you describe about unfair power only apply to people with a very specific brand of Western liberal social justice politics.
I would bet money that anyone with centrist or right-wing politics, or even people with left-leaning politics who don't follow social justice conversations, would see "empire" as a neutral term. Perhaps even positive in many situations. People glowingly talk about having built a business empire all the time. I don't even think most British people consider the British Empire to have been a universally bad thing!
A harmful metaphor that activists ought to avoid: voiceless. Because the animals are not voiceless.
The counterpart which comes to mind immediately is that big factory farming is ‘deaf’ to their screams. But then I’m cautious about ableism - in reality being literally deaf is not a choice or something negative.
Perhaps it would be useful to explore other metaphors which convey the idea.
animal agriculture "silences" animals?
I think big is easier for people to understand.
I asked my non vegan partner (slowly moving him from the dark 😔) and he thought big ag was easier to understand. Great wealth concentrated in the hands of few. I asked what both implied about animals and he said that they were there to be used/exploited. Neither had positive connotations. Big better than empire.
Great article.
We might even reconsider the use of the word “agriculture,” which means “cultivation of fields,” for most of these animal-confinement operations.
The Babylon system is a vampire
Sucking the blood of the sufferer - Bob Marley.
The Babylon system is big ag. The sufferer is the poor animal being held captive.
This is a bit of a tangent on your post, but I think we're actually making two separate points here: one that I agree with and one that I am sceptical of:
1. Do the established terms that we use to refer to concepts in animal advocacy subtly reinforce the way we think about them? e.g. "animal husbandry"
2. If we can introduce new terms for describing concepts, will that affect how people perceive them?
I am sceptical that number one is actually true, even though I do see the value in number two. I'm not sure I believe that terms like "game hunting", "raising animals", "livestock" and so on have any meaningful impact on how we understand these issues.
What would you say is the best evidence from psychology that language affects how we think in this way?
I'm not disputing that when someone chooses a word *with intention*, that reflects how they think about a topic. If I am talking about corporate greed and I choose to talk about bankers as "scum" then obviously I am trying to link bankers to that gross stuff on top of a pond. I don't just want people think bankers are bad; I want people to see them as disgusting. If we start using the term "animal agriculture empire," then that does reflect a certain set of beliefs about animal agriculture. By encouraging other people to adopt that term, we are probably encouraging a cultural shift in how animal agriculture is perceived.
But I think that's fundamentally different to when a word has been part of the cultural lexicon for decades, I don't think the literal meaning of the words does affect people because I don't think it registers. When we hear someone say pigeon meat tastes "gamey" I don't think people consciously register the "game" reference and reinforce the notion that shooting pigeons is a game.
For example, English uses different words for the flesh of an animal and the animal itself (pig and pork, beef and cow etc). Almost no other languages do this, but English speakers are not outliers in their lack of empathy for animals, despite there being this linguistic distance.
More generally, the idea that the literal meaning of long-established words can influence our perceptions subtly gets put forward all the time as obviously true, but I rarely see good evidence for it
I'm happy to be wrong about this. Is there any research that you would point me to that makes this case strongly?
Hi Richie,
Thanks for taking the time to write this all out and share your thinking. I think it’s fair to be sceptical about the first claim.
Possibly the most direct evidence for our context is study 4 of Kunst & Hole (2016): Describing industrial meat production as "harvesting" versus "killing" or "slaughtering" indirectly reduced empathy
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27405101/
There is also the metaphor experiment discussed in the blog. However, it might be fair to argue that referring to crime as a beat or a virus aren’t everyday terms in the same way as ‘game’. It’s possible that once a metaphor becomes so ingrained that it loses its metaphorical meaning and just becomes another synonym for the word itself.
There has been a fair amount of research into conceptual metaphor theory. That is that the brain unconsciously uses metaphor to make sense of the world. The cognitive linguist George Lakoff has also written a lot about this, and that by using our opponents frame or metaphor, we are activating it, and inadvertently playing on their terms (His book “Don’t think of an elephant” is highly recommended).
As always with these sort of things, the research is messy to say the least.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0388000113000387
I agree with you that people don’t consciously register the metaphor (e.g. that pigeons are ‘game’-ey). The theory is that this takes place unconsciously. In fact, in studies on the effect of metaphor, participants explicitly report that the metaphor had no effect on their responses.. Even when the metaphor objectively did.
That’s a good example about the euphemistic names for animal flesh in English, but I don’t think it works as a counterexample. Perhaps those euphemisms reduce empathy beyond an ever already very low baseline level of empathy? I don’t know of any studies that have directly tested this.
There is also the strategic element. Maybe the specific language we use has no-to-little effect on people’s perceptions. Because it’s still an open empirical question, we could approach it with the precautionary principle: If it doesn’t work, there’s no harm done. If it does work, let’s not wait to find out before we start doing it.