Dr Jessica Groling

In 1954 Eric Hoffer famously stated that “[f]ar more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know”. In this paper I propose that contemporary human-animal relations provide the perfect example for understanding what Hoffer meant. The theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) relates to the perception of an inconsistency among an individual's cognitions, which generates a negative intrapersonal state of tension (dissonance). This state of psychological discomfort is alleviated through the implementation of a reduction strategy. Stemming from a recognition that this phenomenon is not merely about individual psychology but rather is an institutionalised and socially normalised collective experience, this paper interweves psychological and sociological factors (Cohen 2001, Robins 1994) to explore forms of knowledge evasion and denial (Robbins 1987, Tester 1997) and mechanisms of rationalisation through victim denigration and the manufacture of “moral sleeping pills” (Bauman 1989). I shed light on the ways in which humans evade knowledge of animal suffering and avoid the displeasure of encountering disturbing information about their ostensibly innocent ways of living through the construction of defensive cultural barriers. The paper briefly deconstructs the institutionalised nature of defensive devices and ideologies, embedded in the collective consciousness, that provide justifications and excuses for animal exploitation (Clark 1984). I conclude by drawing out some of the implications of the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance and ways of coping with it for advocacy campaigns and organisations trying to garner sympathy for an exploited group.

 

May 19th-22nd 2011
"Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Convergence or Incompatibility?" - paper presentation at the International Animal Rights Conference 2011 in Luxembourg.

Abstract:

Radical social movements are witnessing a degree of political convergence. Increasingly, anarchists are adopting environmentalist and animal-oriented praxis and a growing proportion of animal liberation activists are influenced by anarchist thought, as evidenced by grassroots campaigns as well as contemporary movement literature, which has contributed to a systemic analysis of oppression and argues for the intersectionality of struggles for human and animal liberation. What increasingly unites diverse social struggles therefore is an holistic appreciation of the need to address all forms of imposed hierarchy, though there remains considerable disagreement about what are defined as “necessary” (or “natural”) forms of hierarchy and discrimination, especially where the conflicting interests of the human and non-human worlds are concerned. In this presentation I will critically consider contemporary projects for animal liberation, including ethical veganism as a form of prefigurative politics, within the context of the prevailing state-based capitalist system, and examine what role the suffering of others plays in anarchist philosophy and practice. I will suggest possible reasons for the discord that remains between anarchist and animal liberation struggles, and propose that ethical and strategic debates within the animal liberation movement represent some of the critical fissures within anti-authoritarian thinking and practice in general.

October 15th-16th 2011
""When science speaks, let no dog bark": Moral disengagement in animal experimentation at British universities" - paper presentation at Reconfiguring the 'Human'/'Animal' Binary - Resisting Violence in Prague.
 

This paper will consider Albert Bandura's theory of moral disengagement (1999, 2002) in the context of university-based animal experimentation licensed under the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. It begins with the assumption that most scientists carrying out harm-inducing experimental procedures on nonhuman animals in laboratories do not enter the profession with a desire to deliberately inflict suffering on sentient beings but become socialised into an institutionalised practice that still necessitates such actions. Bandura's model builds on an interactionist perspective on morality and suggests that through a set of psychosocial mechanisms (moral justification, exonerative comparison, euphemistic language, diffusion and displacement of responsibility, attribution of blame, and dehumanisation, or deanimalisation), moral self-sanctions can be disengaged from harm-inducing conduct, a suggestion supported by much sociological and situationist social psychological literature on harm and violence (Zimbardo 2004, Doris 2002, Arendt 1964, Milgram 1974, Cohen 2001). This presentation will consider Bandura's mechanisms in turn and apply these, together with insights from well-known practice theorists Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, to a study of animal experimentation at UK universities, focussing particularly on the ethical review process with information gained partly through the Freedom of Information Act (2000). This paper shows how the conditions for mechanisms of moral disengagement are built into the infrastructure, regulatory practices and cultural tools of the industry. As activists lobby and target scientific institutions, medical charities, policy-makers and the public on the issue of animal experimentation, it is hoped that by unearthing how mechanisms of moral disengagement work to entrench and perpetuate the status quo and undermine ethical and lay scrutiny, a useful contribution can be made in the search for points of intervention that take into account that very often “moral argument is not enough” (Pleasants 2011).

 

March 10th 2012

"Workshop: Research and communication tools for activists and academics" at Critical Perspectives on Animals in Society conference, Exeter University

 

November 28th - 30th 2013

"Appropriating a moral panic: the British foxhunting lobby and the urban fox" at 3rd annual European conference for Critical Animal Studies, Karlsruhe, Germany 

 

May 2014

"The urban fox moral panic" at MA Anthrozoology Residential, Exeter, UK.