A Matter of Choice: We Can't Just Legislate Each Other to a Better World

I was at an animal protection conference recently, in which one of the speakers, director of a grassroots group in his community, mentioned that his group had ceased to lobby restaurants to stop serving foie gras. One restaurant (usually after months of campaigning), would agree to stop serving it, only to quietly put it back on the menu a few months later. It was too much work for little or no positive progress. In 2008, the Chicago city council announced that the ban on foie gras that had been enacted in 2006 was overturned. Animal protection advocates banged their heads against the wall in frustration, while foie gras fans cheered and happily renewed serving the “delicacy.” Why did the restaurants go back on their word? Why didn’t the Chicago ban stick? Simply, because people don’t like to be told what to do.

One of the first phrases we learn to utter at the top of our voices as kids (after “No!”) is “You can’t tell me what to do!” Especially in the U.S., our culture cultivates an almost-religious fervor for individualism and the freedom to believe and do and choose pretty much as we want. Go diversity! Go freedom!

People want to feel like they have a choice, and they don’t want that freedom of choice (whether illusion or reality) to be taken away. That’s one reason laws are so complicated and tricky. As nice as it would be to just legislate everyone into making humane choices, you can’t create a humane world by forcing people to comply with something they haven’t freely chosen. We have daily evidence that compelled obedience doesn’t work: murder, rape, pollution, discrimination, child abuse, slave labor, drug use, corruption, speeding in a school zone –- we have laws in the U.S. that prohibit all of these actions, yet they are still daily occurrences. If we ask everyone whether these behaviors are wrong, most people will say yes; that hasn’t stopped them from committing these acts anyway.

There is definitely a place for legislation. Legislation has brought about the Clean Air and Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act, the right for people who are gay to marry in certain states, the banning of some of the cruelest farmed animal confinement practices in a few states, and more. But laws can also lull people into a false sense of security (Oh, that’s against the law now. Good. Nothing more needs to be done. I don’t need to take any action.). And, they don’t stop the actions of those who don’t care about the law.

Creating a humane world can only happen by increasing the number of people who choose to live humanely of their own free will. So, yes, let’s continue to work on legislation for a more humane world. But, more importantly, let’s work to educate, inspire and empower people to make daily choices that do the most good and least harm for all people, animals and the planet.

If a critical mass of people believe that slavery is wrong and take positive action, no more slavery. If enough people speak out against cruelty to animals and take positive action, no more cruelty. If enough people truly want a humane world and make choices every day to help manifest that vision, then we’ll have that humane world.

~ Marsha

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